“Merciful days,” Lucy murmured in sympathy, poking at a gammon roasting on a spit. “How did her ladyship come by the pox?”
Alice’s slim shoulders lifted. “Lord Drysdale suspected a kitchen maid brought it into the house. Every morn we were all summoned to Lady Drysdale’s chamber to get our orders for the day, ye see. The poor maid was always there too, up till she sickened and died. But every house in Williamsburg seemed to have someone down with it, so who can say how it began?”
“We’re thankful to have you on the island if not in the townhouse,” Esmée reassured her. “And ’tis my job to make sure you’re eating bountifully and resting.”
Alice smiled a bit wearily. “My Alden doesn’t seem to mind sharing, though it’s a bit tricky minding two babes when both fuss to be fed.”
They traded infants. Alden was awake and active, Ruenna asleep, her rosebud mouth white with dried milk.
“Have you enough clouts?” Lucy asked, moving from hearth to table.
“Admiral Shaw brought as many things as the coach and then the sloop could hold.” Alice looked toward Esmée’s bedchamber, where two trunks rested. “A shame we couldn’t have carried away the babe’s beautiful cradle with its silk hangings. A humble drawer seems sorely lacking.”
“Thankfully, the babe doesn’t mind a whit.” Esmée settled back, wishing for a rocking chair. She was growing used to the feel of Ruenna in her arms, no longer on eggshells fearing she might drop her. That this was Eliza’s child hadn’t quite taken hold, not when she saw more of Quinn in her tiny features.
“She’s a quiet little miss,” Lucy remarked, reaching down to stroke Tibby’s back.
“Glad I am of it when Alden is nothing of the sort,” Alice mused, kissing him on the brow. “Right out of the womb he fussed. I do wonder though . . .”
Esmée looked up. Alice’s hazel eyes held a timid question.
“D’ye think Miss Ruenna may have a touch of the pox? I fear for both babes. The pox steals away the young and old especially.”
“I pray not.” Feeling Ruenna’s forehead, Esmée breathed another silent prayer. ’Twas trying enough worrying about Eliza and Quinn. And all of Virginia. What if one or both babies came down with the disease? She looked at Lucy quietly peeling potatoes. Had Lucy had the pox?
“I’m as like as the babies to come down with it.” With a little moan, Lucy continued her simple task. “I’ve had other distempers but not the pox.”
“You’ll likely be well here on the island,” Esmée sought to reassure her. “But if there’s the first touch of fever . . .”
Lucy gave a bob of her fair head and set the potatoes to boiling. The aroma of roasting meat filled the kitchen, following Esmée out to the parlor as she moved to a window, Ruenna still in her arms. The gray landscape turned the lighthouse a starker white. Beyond it were two merchant vessels, a weighty presence in the water but toy-sized at such a distance.
Ruenna stirred and made a face. Despite feeling overwhelmed, Esmée chuckled then wrinkled her nose as an unmistakable odor overcame the more palatable aroma from the kitchen.
“I see you’re going to cause me a great deal of fuss and bother during your stay,” she said softly, moving toward the bedchamber. “Your grandfather was wise to bring a great many clouts.”
Ruenna opened her eyes at the sound of Esmée’s soft voice. She smiled. Or was it only indigestion? Despite the odor, Esmée’s heart melted.
CHAPTER
fifty-four
29th January 1756. Cold day. Heavy NW gale toward night.
Esmée’s light was snuffed thrice as she took a tin lantern up to the waiting lamps. Back to the cottage she went to kindle it again at the hearth’s fire. Lucy and Alice, babies in arms, looked on, alarm in their eyes. The wind, steadily rising throughout the afternoon, had a particularly sharp, unfriendly feel. It moaned as it whipped round the cottage’s corners and gabled ends, pressing against the windowpanes with such force Esmée feared they might shatter.
“First fog and now this,” Lucy said before Esmée slipped back into the twilight.
Since early morn, passing ships had fired their cannons, and then the island’s fog cannon answered with a sulfurous blast. The noise woke the babies and fretted Alice and Lucy. Even Esmée wanted to cover her ears. But at least she didn’t have to man the cannon. Two of Henri’s ablest crew, kept from sailing by a recurrent malarial fever, took on the chore without complaint.
Now at dusk, another boom sounded as the wind whipped Esmée’s cape and petticoats, snatching off her hood as she made for the tower. With all her might, she slammed the door shut, preserving the lantern’s light. Up the spiraling stairs she climbed, thankful for five-foot-thick stone walls, though she still heard the wind’s wailing.
Was the wind worsening?
She hung the lantern from a hook and paused to look out on the surly Atlantic. A briny mist covered the glass, but it in no way dimmed her view of the blue-gray swells tipped a frothy white. The surf was encroaching where it had never been during her tenure as keeper, splashing over rocks and through sandy openings she’d thought impenetrable, closing in on the very foundation of the lighthouse.
Her stomach quavered as if pitched by the mounting waves. With a move so brisk it rattled her chatelaine, she began to light the lamps, praying they’d stay on, hoping they’d provide some sense of direction and bearing to any needy ship and keep them out of shoal waters. ’Twas her first storm as keeper. Would she weather it?
Where was Henri in this tempest?
She shut her eyes, caught between a prayer and a sigh. Oh, to have him by her side, capable and uncomplaining, not out on a vessel whose masts might be snapped by the wind’s force and founder.
“Captain Lennox is the same in rough weather as if the seas were standing still,” his quartermaster had once said in her hearing. “Dead calm.”
She didn’t doubt it. She wished for a mite of that composure. Her heart seemed to skip beats as she studied the waves, her breathing shallow. A motion below caught her eye, and she spied the two of Henri’s crew who’d been manning the cannon. One made his way to the lighthouse while the other stood on the rocks and faced the surf. His bald head was covered with a brown Monmouth cap, a button on top. His hoary hand clutched it to his head lest the wind snatch it like her cape hood. He faced the sea as if to stand down the storm.
Chary, she returned her attention to the waves. As she hadn’t heard any tread of steps on the stair, she started when Cosmos, one of Henri’s ablest Scotsmen, appeared.
“Pardon, Miss Shaw.” His gruff manner made his apology almost amusing. He came to stand beside her, his expression unreadable. Reaching for the brass spyglass, he grunted his dismay. “A league or so distant is a Guineaman with her foremast cut away. Likely heavy laden with Africans.”
“A slaver, then.” The very word was bitter on her tongue even as compassion rent her heart. Who knew how many men, women, and children were aboard that vessel, taken by force. She’d once seen a child’s shackles lying near the York wharves. Considered the most valuable cargo, children were stashed in a slaver’s smallest spaces.