Heart's Safe Passage Read Free Page B

fine.”
    “I’m all right.” Mrs. Lee’s voice sounded a bit stronger. “Just . . . my hands and feet. I can’t feel them.”
    “Oh no. Let me.” Mrs. Chapman started to rise again.
    “Sit down before you fall.” Rafe waved her back.
    He braced the cup of water between his knees and the chest beneath the bunk and lifted one of Mrs. Lee’s hands. A small hand as smooth as porcelain and just as cold. He began to chafe it between his palms. His calluses, earned from nine years at sea, grated on her delicate skin. He winced with each scrape. She didn’t move. Her fingers warmed beneath his. He grew warm. He started on her other hand. Their eyes met through her curtain of hair. His mouth went dry, and he released her fingers.
    “That’ll do. You can manage your feet yourself, no?”
    She nodded and pushed herself upright. “May I have that water first?”
    “Aye, of course.”
    He needed the water. Gallons of it in him. Over him.
    He handed her the cup, then backed away, half expecting her to throw it at him.
    She drank several dainty sips. “Thank you. That’s much better.” Her voice proved as light as sea foam and sweet as ripe peaches.
    Rafe took another step backward, closer to the door. “Let me fetch some ointment for your wrists and . . . er . . . ankles.”
    “Do you have any comfrey?” she asked.
    Rafe started at the question, then remembered she was a midwife, a healer. Not so odd for her to ask what sort of salve he had, or for Mrs. Chapman to want it if she fell ill.
    Or were in need of a midwife.
    He nearly groaned aloud. The brig pitched and rolled through the next wave, and Rafe’s stomach joined it. Surely not. Surely she wasn’t—
    He glanced at Mrs. Chapman. He couldn’t tell beneath her cloak and with her well-fed physique. And no matter if she were expecting Chapman’s bairn now that the dice were cast and this friend of a well-connected man had come aboard. He couldn’t let either of them go and just might find the lady’s condition useful to his plans.
    A prickling started in his middle. Not his conscience. He didn’t have one of those anymore. Not that he knew of.
    But the smell of lavender reminded him of his mother, so he maintained courtesy. “Aye, madam, ’tis a comfrey salve.”
    “I’m surprised.” Phoebe Lee glanced toward the wall, where a rack held a sword, two pistols, and a selection of knives. “Or maybe I shouldn’t be.”
    “Nay, madam, you should not be surprised we can manage wounds here. We’re part of this war.” He grimaced. “These wars.”
    “Which is why you have no business having Mrs. Chapman aboard.”
    “He needs me to free George,” Mrs. Chapman said.
    “Ha.” Mrs. Lee looked him in the eye, her glance shards of green ice. “You shouldn’t lie to an innocent like Belinda, Captain. You don’t need her help to free her husband. In truth, I doubt you have any intention of freeing her husband.”
    “Of course I do.” Rafe fingered the hilt of his dirk.
    Mrs. Lee curled her full upper lip. “Because you’re such a kindhearted man? Because you’re on the side of the Americans after all? Do please tell me of your altruism, sir.”
    “Phoebe, be nice.” Mrs. Chapman had paled, and her knuckles gleamed white on the arms of the chair. “He may change his mind if we’re unkind to him.”
    “No, he won’t. He holds all the cards in this game.” Phoebe Lee skewered him again. “Don’t you?”
    “Aye, I suppose I hold a winning hand now that I hold Mrs. Chapman.”
    “What—what do you mean?” The young woman licked her lips. “I thought I—I was going to help somehow.”
    “You will, lass.” Rafe gave her his best smile—a mere tilting of the corners of his lips. “After he’s freed, you will ensure his good behavior until I get what I want from him.”
    “I thought as much.” Mrs. Lee bared her teeth. “You have no scruples, do you?”
    “Nay, madam, I do not. I lost them on the deck of a Barbary pirate’s