Jerusa found the words, however faint, to answer him. “Thank you, Captain Barker. I’m most happy to meet you.”
“Under the weather, aren’t you?” Barker peered at her from beneath his hat, flat brimmed like a parson’s. He was a small, narrow man, too little for his great, thundering voice, and above his black coat his face was brown and wizened like a walnut. “Both of you look a bit peaked and green around the gills, I can see that now.”
“Have we that much the look of landsmen, Captain?” asked Michel, falling in with the explanation that Barker so conveniently offered. “As I told you, this is my wife’s first voyage.”
“From the look of you, Geary, you’ve had a rough night of it, too.” Taking in Michel’s disheveled appearance, Barker shook his head in sympathy. “But I warrant you’ll find your sea legs soon enough. If you’re headed back below, I’ll have the cook send you something directly to settle your bellies.”
“That won’t be necessary, Captain Barker,” said Jerusa quickly, managing a quick smile for him alone. The thought of returning to the tiny cabin with Michel was unbearable to her now, and she desperately needed time away from him to think. “I’m feeling much better here on deck. Your sea breezes are wonderfully refreshing, aren’t they?”
Cynically Michel watched as the older man seemed to preen and swell beneath the warmth of Jerusa’s charm. Mordieu, and he knew she wasn’t even trying. Delightful as the belle of Newport could be, it was the other, quieter side of her that had so devastated him.
And he’d stake his life that she didn’t love him any longer.
She fluttered beside him, lightly touching his arm but carefully avoiding meeting his eyes. “But you do wish to go back to the cabin, don’t you, sweetheart?” she said with a brightness that didn’t fool Michel for a moment. “I know you’ll feel so much more like yourself once you’ve slept. And I’m sure Captain Barker here will oblige me by showing me about his lovely ship, won’t you, sir?”
“That I shall, Mrs. Geary, and a pleasure it will be, too!” exclaimed Barker in his thundering voice. He winked broadly at Michel. “That is, Geary, if you don’t mind sharing your lady’s company with an old rascal like me?”
It wasn’t so much Barker that worried him as Hay, standing within earshot at the helm. The mate had not taken his gaze from Jerusa since he’d come on deck, watching her with the same hungry admiration that she drew from all men.
But morbleu, was he any different himself? With the wind in her loose black hair and her skirts dancing gracefully about her long legs, she was the most desirable woman he’d ever seen, as free and wild as the ocean itself. Only when she lifted her eyes to him did he see the misery he’d brought to her soul.
“Surely you don’t mind, sweetheart?” she asked again, silently begging him to agree, to set her free if only for an hour. “You know I’ll be quite safe with Captain Barker.”
And against all his wishes, he nodded, and left her on the arm of another man.
Listlessly Jerusa pushed the biscuit pudding around her plate with her spoon, hoping that Captain Barker wouldn’t notice how little of it she’d eaten. Despite his size, Barker’s appetite was as prodigious as his voice, and he was rightly proud of how the Swan’s cook could send out course after course to grace his table. Already she’d disappointed him by refusing the partridge and barely tasting the lobscouse, and she’d let him plop the huge, quivering slice of pudding onto her plate only to keep him from once again declaring she ate less than a wren.
Lord knows she should have been hungry. She’d spent the entire day following Barker around the Swan, clambering down companionways and squinting up at rigging as he’d lovingly pointed out every feature of the little brig. But though she’d oohed and aahed in all the right places, she’d hardly heard a word the captain had said. How could she, her conscience so heavy with what Michel had told her?
She dared to glance across the table at him now. He was listening intently to some interminable seafaring story of the captain’s, or at least he was pretending to, just as she was. He had shaved and dressed, his hair tied back with a black ribbon. He was the model Mr. Geary again, and more handsome than any man had a right to be. How could he sit there like that, just sit there, after everything he’d told her?
Tears stung behind her eyes, and abruptly she shoved her chair away from the table. “Pray excuse me, gentlemen,” she murmured as the three men rose in unison. “I—I find I need some air.”
“Let me come with you, my dear,” said Michel as he laid his napkin on the table, but without looking in his direction, she shook her head.
“There’s no need, Michael,” she replied, barely remembering to anglicize his name. “You continue here. I shall be quite all right on my own.”
On the deck she braced herself against the mainmast with both hands, gulping at the cool night air as she struggled to make sense of her roiling emotions. She loved Michel—that hadn’t changed—and in her heart she believed he cared for her, too. But though he’d shown her in a dozen ways, he’d never once told her he loved her. Instead he’d told her he had sworn to kill her father, and her blood chilled and her eyes filled again when she remembered the look on Michel’s face when he’d said it. If she could only convince him to leave the past alone, that what had happened so long ago had nothing to do with them now!
“Mrs. Geary?”
With the heel of her hand she swiftly rubbed her eyes free of tears before she turned to face George Hay. He was standing self-consciously at the top of the companionway, turning his hat in his hands around and around in a three-cornered circle.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” he asked. “I’ve no wish to pry into your affairs, of course, but when you left the cap’n’s cabin so quickly—well, I couldn’t help but wonder.”
Jerusa forced a smile. “I thank you for your concern, Mr. Hay, but I’m quite well. In fact I was just on my way to return when you appeared.”
She came toward the companionway, but he blocked her way. “I didn’t mean just now, ma’am, but in all ways. To my mind, things don’t seem to set well between you and Mr. Geary, and if there’s anything amiss that I can help, well, ma’am, here I am.”
She looked at him strangely, remembering Michel’s warning. “Are you often in the habit of interfering between husbands and wives, Mr. Hay?”
“I’ll do it if I believe the lady needs a friend, aye.” He fumbled in the pocket of his coat until he found a crumpled paper. He smoothed it over his thigh before he handed it to her. “You’ll forgive me if I ask you to read this, ma’am, and then tell me again that I’ve been meddlesome.”
A handbill of some sort, she thought as she took it, for the printing was coarse and smeared, and there were holes in each corner where it had been nailed to a tree or signboard. What could it possibly have to do with her? Perhaps it was some sort of warning about coming salvation, and Hay the kind of pious busybody who worried too much for his neighbors’ souls. Reluctantly she tipped it into the light of the binnacle lantern to make out the smudged type.
But what she read had nothing to do with religion. Instead it was a poster announcing the “Unfortunate disappearance of a Certain Miss Jerusa Sparhawk, a Young Lady of Newport, Aquidneck Island, lost to her grieving Friends on the Evening of 12 June.” Everything was there and all of it true, from the circumstances of her wedding to a description of her person, down to the color of the garters she’d been wearing for her wedding. And finally, at the bottom, beneath her father’s name and address, was the bold-faced promise of “Reward to be Given at Miss Sparhawk’s Safe Return.”
“Since you came aboard this morning, ma’am, I’ve thought of nothing else,” said the mate doggedly. “I couldn’t help but remark the likeness. But you tell me, ma’am, and I’ll abide by your wish. Is there anything amiss between you and Mr. Geary?”