inside, Captain,” she said briskly.
Richard made no attempt to move. Having noted the signature on the paper, he stated, “I’m looking for Mrs. Lindqvist. Mrs. Marina Lindqvist.”
“I’m Marina Lindqvist,” she answered, stepping aside while moving her arm in a graceful wave to indicate he should cross the threshold. “Your daughter is here. Please enter.”
An unusual chill rippled his spine. His daughter. Richard had acknowledged he had a daughter. A small infant the one and only time he’d laid eyes on her. Yet having this woman say it aloud made the child more real than his own thoughts ever had. “I’m here to collect her,” he said, not taking a step forward. “To take her back to Boston. If you’d be so kind as to call to her, we’ll be on our way.”
“That’s impossible. Do come in.”
Richard refused to take a step. “How can that be impossible? Your note said I was to collect her posthaste.”
“I’d prefer not to stand on the stoop and discuss this matter, sir. It requires more privacy than that.”
The sharpness of her tone couldn’t cover how her voice shook; nor did it hide the apprehension shimmering in her blue eyes. When she shot a nervous glance around his frame, he instantly recalled the sinister hillside and revolting tree. Anger rose, burning his throat as he growled, “What kind of trap have you set here? Where is my daughter?”
“There’s no trap,” she insisted. “Your daughter is here. Just, please, enter before you are seen.”
An uneven clip echoed inside the house, drawing his attention beyond the woman.
A short man with a wooden leg crossed the room. “She speaks the truth, Captain. Enter swiftly. I swear on my sailor’s oath there is no trap set in this house. However, I give no promise for what lies beyond my yard.”
The blood in his veins turned so cold Richard tightened his shoulders to ward off a shiver. He held no doubt the man was a sailor. His aged face was leathered from the sun and sea, and the lower part of his left leg, now a wooden stick, had been carved from a ship’s rail. Only a man of the ocean might recognize that, and only another would know the severity of swearing upon his sailor’s oath.
The woman moved farther to the side, giving him a wider entrance path. “Please, for your daughter’s sake, I beg you to enter.”
Her whisper sounded as if it could shatter as easily as glass at any moment. Richard crossed the threshold, and since the woman was no longer next to the door, he closed it behind him. “Where’s my daughter?” he demanded. Once he had the child in his arms, he’d mount up and whip that beast of a horse into a gallop the likes of which his kind had never known.
The old sailor stepped forward, his hand held out, not in courtesy but something that went deeper considering the sincerity of his gaze. “My name is William Birmingham, once the captain of the Golden Eagle. This is my niece, Miss Marina Lindqvist.”
“I’ve heard of you,” Richard acknowledged and shook the man’s hand. There was barely a ship or a captain that had sailed the oceans that he hadn’t heard of.
“As I have of you and your predecessor,” William said. “Captain Burrows and I sailed together years ago, on a Queen’s ship.”
Earl Burrows wasn’t remembered for his friendships or deeds of goodwill. However, Richard owed the man for everything he had, including his very life, and would forever remain devoted. At this point in time, he moved beyond whatever William might think of Earl and repeated, “Where is my daughter?”
William nodded toward the woman. “Marina, take the good captain up to see Gracie.”
Without a word, the woman turned about and headed toward the staircase on the far side of the room. Richard followed but eyed his surroundings. The furniture was sparse considering the size of the room. A long wooden bench and a couple of chairs with high backs and tapestry seat cushions, a desk with another chair. Several small tables were positioned throughout the area holding vases of wildflowers or candles. A Bible sat upon the table near the fireplace, pages open. The intricate carvings on the bulky furniture said it wasn’t homemade. Most likely the pieces had been hauled to the colonies on one of the ships William used to captain. If recollection served right, Birmingham had sailed passenger ships, people bound for the New World, but the holds would have been full of cargo, all the items those same passengers would need to start their new lives.
Richard glanced down a hallway as he started up the steps. A table surrounded by chairs suggested the kitchen was at the end of the hall. Again, the furniture wasn’t built of square wooden planks like that in the home he’d once visited in Salem Village. Briefly, for he really didn’t care, he wondered about all the furniture he’d had delivered to his wife’s family’s home. Expensive, solid pieces, for he’d never shied away from providing for his daughter.
The open-beam ceiling supporting the floor above grew near as he climbed the steps. The stairs turned a corner then, blocking the ground floor. Richard’s gaze landed on the skirt trailing each step ahead of him. The dull gray of homespun cloth went all the way up to her waist, where it was gathered and disappeared beneath the black formfitting sleeveless waistcoat over her white peasant shirt. The fashionable gowns worn elsewhere, including parts of America, were not welcome in this community. He’d discovered that on his last trip here. Just as he’d discovered he wasn’t welcome.
“I beg you to keep your voice soft,” the woman stated after they’d climbed the stairs and traversed a narrow hall with windows at both ends. She paused near a door, her hand on the knob. “Gracie frightens easily.”
He’d known the child had been given the name Grace upon birth but, until this moment, hadn’t thought of her as anything other than his daughter. Growing impatient with himself—and everything else, for that matter—Richard gestured for the door to be opened.
A beam of sunlight shone directly upon a bed of such a large size that the tiny child lying upon it was almost invisible. Her body was so small the blankets looked merely wrinkled. If not for the dark hair on the pillow, he’d have thought the bed empty.
The woman walked to the side of the bed. Richard followed, choosing the opposite side.
“Gracie,” the woman whispered, leaning down and brushing tendrils of hair off the child’s face. “Your papa’s here.”
There was a shift beneath the bedcovers as the child rolled onto her back. Her eyelids, which were edged by long, dark lashes, lifted, exposing big brown eyes. Other than her eyes and her hair, the child was as white as the pillow she rested upon. A tiny smile tugged at her lips as her sleepy gaze settled on him.
The twinge that crossed his chest momentarily stole his breath. This was his child. The life of his loins. A miniature person as real as he himself.
“I prayed you were real.”
Richard knelt down, questioning if he’d heard her weak whisper or if it had been his own thoughts repeating themselves. “What?”
The girl pulled an arm from beneath the cover and lifted it so her tiny fingertips brushed his cheek. “I prayed you were real,” she repeated.
Her fingertips were cool, her hand shaking. As he curled his much larger fingers around hers, something happened inside him. An opening, a warmth as unique and precious as a sunrise the morning after a hurricane. “Of course I’m real,” he answered, wanting to offer some sort of assurance to this tiny being. His throat burned, an unusual occurrence, and grew thick. Almost too thick for him to whisper, “I’m your papa.”
Her tiny smile disappeared as she closed her eyes again and the thin arm connected to the hand he held went limp. His heart thudded and he shot his attention toward the woman on the other side of the bed.
Marina Lindqvist closed