Laurie Alice Eakes - [Midwives 01] Read online

She reached her garden gate and paused, her hand on the latch, reconsidering going back to town. But the man was gone and she would awaken Mayor Kendall for nothing. She would stay with her original plan and go into town later, after she slept.

  The idea of sleep suddenly the most important thought in her head, she pushed open the gate and froze. Her nostrils flared, catching a scent familiar and out of place, a sharp tang piercing through the subtle richness of newly turned earth. To her right, fabric rustled.

  She started to turn. “Who’s—”

  A hand clamped over her mouth. “This is a warning.” The voice was sibilant, muffled, as though he spoke from behind a kerchief. Something sharp pricked the skin of her throat. “Keep silent about this night if you don’t want to swim with the fishes.”

  2

  ______

  Dominick Cherrett finished sharpening the last of the kitchen knives and removed his own blade from its sheath inside his boot. He hadn’t cut anything with it since having to slice up the rock-hard beef aboard the merchant brig that had carried him into exile. But rusty stains marred the perfection of the steel blade, and he wanted the weapon sharp, ready for action at any time.

  And whetting knives made an excellent excuse for coming in from outside at six o’clock in the morning instead of stumbling down from his cupboard of a chamber at the top of the Kendall mansion. It wouldn’t do for his master to discover Dominick had spent the night outside of the village. He hadn’t earned that kind of trust in his two weeks as a servant to the mayor of Seabourne.

  He shuddered at the notion of donning the ill-fitting uniform and powdering his hair like some English butler of the previous century, gave his knife one last swipe along the whetstone, and held it up to the light. Sunshine breaking through the mist sparkled and shimmered along the blade. Not a speck of rust, not a hint of a nick marred the steel. With a nod of satisfaction, Dominick slipped the knife into its sheath and gathered up the kitchen utensils.

  The kitchen door sprang open behind him. “That’s what I like to see, a man willing to work before his breakfast.”

  Dominick faced the tall cook whose thinness belied the fact that her culinary arts rivaled the best he’d eaten in any nobleman’s home. “I figured it was the best way to get a fine breakfast if you could slice the bacon thick and the toast thin.”

  “Yes, and you want me to cook your egg as runny as tree sap.” Letty Robins shuddered. “But that’s not cooking and I won’t have it in my kitchen.”

  “Please.” He gave her his most engaging grin. “I already make my own tea so as not to offend the sensibilities of you Yankees.”

  “I’ll soft-boil your egg.” Letty spun on the heel of a sturdy brogan and stomped back to the kitchen.

  Laughing, Dominick followed with the knives. Coffee he could abide, with a generous dollop of cream applied. Eggs cooked until they resembled the beef served aboard ship, turned his stomach.

  Letty stood before the fire, pouring water from a bucket into an iron kettle suspended over the flames. Despite her height, she appeared too scrawny to heft the five-gallon pail.

  Dominick took it from her. “Kendall would have been better off buying my indenture to make me your assistant here than to answer his front door.”

  “He’s the mayor.” Letty picked up a basket of eggs. “He needs to maintain an appearance of importance.”

  Dominick managed not to snort. “And now that you mention appearances,” he said, “I’ll just go up and change into my livery.”

  “Yes, that coat you’re wearing looks like you slept in it.” She narrowed her eyes so they skewered him like emerald blades. “Next time you sneak out at night, at least remember to tie your hair back before you come home.”

  “Why, Mrs. Robins,” Dominick drawled, giving her a wide-eyed stare, “I have no id—”

  “Don’t try to bamboozle me with those pretty brown eyes of yours.”

  “Pretty?” Dominick’s cheeks warmed.

  “With those lashes, yes, but handsome if you prefer. Handsome is as handsome does, and if you’re playing the tomcat and get caught, your lady won’t find you so good-looking with the stripes of a whip across your back.”

  Dominick flinched. “No tomcat acts, I assure you, ma’am.”

  But there had been a lady, a lady who would likely wield the whip herself for nothing more than his country of origin.

  “I needed air,” he added.

  “Then take it in the garden.” Letty returned to her eggs. “Mr. Kendall is a kind and generous master if we do our work and mind his curfew. But if we break the rules, the law is on his side to do about anything short of killing one of us.”

  “Perhaps I should have risked life on my uncle’s Barbados sugar plantation instead of here.”

  Dominick spoke the truth. Life in the Caribbean sounded harsh, even deadly, but there he’d have been a free man. Free so long as he didn’t set foot in England. But here, his signature marked papers that made him little more than a slave to Thomas Kendall for four years. Still, he was in America, where he could do the most good and make up for, if not clear, his name.

  “But I’m here now.” He injected cheerfulness into his voice. “No sense regretting what I can’t undo.”

  “Hurry yourself up. If you’re down in a quarter hour, I’ll have time to powder your hair for you.”

  “Thank you, madam.” Dominick bowed, then raced up the back steps with such a light step, his feet barely made a sound on the treads.

  He’d practiced the art of flying up and down stairs with little noise since boyhood. He and his brothers entertained contests to see which of them could sneak out of the house most often without getting caught. He won every time. Francis, older by three years, grew broad in the shoulders but without Dominick’s height, and never mastered the ability to skip every two steps. Percival, the eldest, with Dominick’s height, possessed no grace at all.

  Second nature to Dominick now, the skill had served him well the night before when he made his first move to abide by his uncle’s dictates. No one else had noticed his departure. Of course Letty would, sleeping in a room off of the kitchen as she did.

  Next time he’d be more careful. Next time he’d exit somewhere else. And when he prowled the beach, he’d keep an eye out for mermaids who weren’t watching where they were going.

  Not that he could wholly blame her for running into him. Gazing into the mist as though he could see England floating on the edge of the horizon, he’d paid no attention to anything else but the ache in his heart. For those few minutes, he’d forgotten four years of banishment, loved ones left behind, and a mission that could make him wish for a whip as the least of his difficulties.

  She wasn’t a charmer. Her very lack of artifice appealed to him after five years of parading through the drawing rooms, dining rooms, and ballrooms of London, sought after as an eligible bachelor to even out numbers at a dinner table, and provide shy young ladies with dance partners and bold women with someone to boost their self-assurance. She didn’t seem to care what he thought of her. She was forthright and unique, if she truly was a midwife and her lack of wedding ring proclaimed an unmarried state.

  He didn’t know if she was pretty in face or form. She had been as shadowy to him as he must have been to her. But he did know that she possessed the most elegant hand he’d held since the last time he saw Mother alive.

  And he knew the lady in the mist could prove dangerous to him if she talked.

  He leaned against the closed door of his room, the only place in the chamber where he could stand up straight, and scowled at the dormer window so fiercely the glass should have cracked. He had only himself to blame if she discovered his identity and told Kendall. Midwives and mayors didn’t travel in the same circles in England, but who knew what social starts the Yankees practiced. Kendall certainly thought nothing of inviting Dominick to sit and talk with him on those evenings when he didn’t have guests. It was a practice that discomfited Dominick while at the same time ple
ased him. The rest of the indoor servants were female and not the sort of companionship he needed or wanted.

  But Madam Midwife . . .

  Dominick began to slip the buttons on his coat out of their holes one by one. He should hurry if he didn’t want to trust Dinah or Deborah, the maids, with powdering his hair in time for him to serve Kendall his breakfast, but he couldn’t move faster with the lady on the beach occupying his thoughts. Part of his brainbox suggested he ignore her from now on and hope good sense would prompt her to say nothing of their encounter. He should have kissed her. That would have ensured her silence to avoid a scandal. But he hadn’t been that much of a rascal, alas. Still, it would have been far nicer than any threat.

  A threat was likely the wrong course to take with the mermaid midwife. Foolish to have considered it for a moment. Any pudding head should recognize a threat would send her in the opposite direction.

  If he weren’t a sap skull, he wouldn’t be tugging on indecently tight knee breeches in deep blue and silver braid, and a matching coat. The silk stockings and leather pumps didn’t allow for him to carry his knife strapped to his calf, so he tucked it down the neck of his shirt. Although he felt as though he needed the sort of insurance Lloyd’s of London could provide, the knife was the best he could manage in his current position.

  His tread stiff now, he descended the steps at the pace of a man three times his five and twenty years, and entered the kitchen. The other two house servants sat at the table cutting their spoons into those spongy eggs, and eating pallid toast with cups of black coffee. Still chewing or sipping, they faced him, their identical blue eyes sweeping him from head to toe as though he were the next course.

  “I’ll go make your toast the way you like it, Mr. Cherrett,” Dinah cooed.

  “I’ll put your egg in the water to boil.” Deborah leaped to her feet. “Three minutes exact, right?”

  “Yes, thank you, but first—” He glanced toward Letty. “My hair?”

  “I’ll do it,” the twins cried.

  “A pity you have to powder it,” Deborah added. “It’s so thick and shiny and—”

  “Return to your breakfast,” Letty commanded. “You’re making the boy blush. Dinah, that bread’s too thick. Come into the yard, Dominick.” She gathered up the pomade pot and powder box.

  Feeling like an actor about to step onto stage, he submitted to Letty’s ministrations. She possessed as deft a hand with his hair as she demonstrated with a pastry.

  “Does the man think imitating an English nobleman will get him out of Seabourne and into Richmond?” Dominick asked.

  “Not anything so unimportant as Richmond.” Letty laughed. “He wants to get to Washington. He thinks Senator Kendall sounds fine.”

  “To vote against my countrymen?”

  “Yes. His nephew got shipped aboard an English vessel last year. Cover your face.” Dominick drew over his face the edge of the holland furniture covering he used to protect his clothing when Letty dusted his hair with powder like a cake being frosted with sugar. “So the English Navy doesn’t care if they’re rich men’s sons or not, eh?”

  “Seems that way, unless the young men around here are just taking themselves off after—what is it, Dinah?”

  Dominick peeked over the edge of the cloth. Dinah stood in the doorway, her cap askew, revealing guinea-gold curls, her eyes streaming. Behind her, smoke billowed toward the door. The reek of burned toast spilled into the garden.

  “Not that crispy,” Dominick muttered.

  “It fell into the fire,” Dinah cried. “All four pieces.”

  Letty sighed. “No more cooking, girl. Open the window and don’t open the door to the rest of the house.”

  Dinah vanished into the smoke like the mermaid midwife had slipped into the mist.

  These thoughts of the woman had to stop. Dominick fixed his gaze on a fat, red-breasted bird the Americans called a robin but was surely a thrush. It perched on the branch of an oak, whistling tunelessly and preening. It was a cheerful sound, but not nearly as happy as that of the red cardinal. Dominick had spent so much time in London to avoid his father in the country, he hadn’t noticed much about birds. He liked them. A man could distract himself from females by watching birds, as long as the creatures didn’t go about courting and flirting. Now that spring had arrived, courting and flirting permeated the avian population.

  Dominick shifted his shoulders. “Is it possible to run out of powder or have it get damp? Perhaps you could give that instead of bread flour to Dinah.”

  “Old Mrs. Kendall ordered it by the ton, I think.” Letty chuckled. “If we run out of the white, we have the pink and blue.”

  “If you dare . . .” Dominick twisted his head around to see the end of the queue.

  It was white, powdered thickly enough that not a strand of the original dark brown showed through. Revolting.

  “Can I bear four years of this?”

  “You’ll have to, lad.” Letty whipped off the holland cover. “Unless those fine relations of yours can find the wherewithal to buy your indenture.”

  They could. His brothers’ quarterly allowance alone provided them with more than enough. The question was, would they? The answer to that was simple—no. To have him out of the way for four years would have them all returning to church to count their blessings.

  His uncle, on the other hand, had promised to free him if the mission succeeded. Prancing about a rich man’s house like a Bond Street beau, instead of what he’d imagined—working hard outdoors, spending time along the shore, associating with the sort of young men disappearing from the coastal villages—made success appear unlikely.

  “I think you’ll have to suffer with me for four years, Letty.” He rose. “Thank you for playing coiffeuse. Do I get my breakfast—” A bell rang inside the house. “No, no breakfast for me. The master calls.”

  He strode into the kitchen and picked up the tray of coffeepot and cream pitcher that one of the twins had prepared. The stench of burned toast stung his nostrils, and he didn’t mind missing breakfast quite so much. It wouldn’t be the first morning meal he hadn’t partaken of in his life. Since leaving for Oxford at seventeen, he’d more often than not been sound asleep when food was available. Never in those lazy days of indolence did he imagine he’d be up before the birds to serve someone else.

  “Justice,” he reminded himself, and shoved open the door between the kitchen and dining room.

  Thomas Kendall sat at the head of a table for twelve, a newspaper spread out and a Bible open before him. Sunlight shimmered off his hair, turning the thick locks to pure silver, which emphasized the bronze of his complexion. At Dominick’s entrance, Kendall turned a pair of pale blue eyes in his butler’s direction. “Good morning, Cherrett, you’re looking fatigued. Didn’t sleep well?”

  What about not at all?

  “No, sir, I’m still getting used to things here.”

  “It’s a different life from the one you’re used to, I’m sure.” Kendall moved the newspaper aside so Dominick could serve the coffee. “But you’ve taken to it well. It’s a good thing. In another two weeks, we’ll be entertaining some important guests and I’ll hire extra servants to help. You’ll be responsible for them.”

  Father would have an apoplexy laughing if he saw his younger son responsible for anything.

  “Will you be up to that, Cherrett?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll fetch your breakfast now.”

  He retreated to the kitchen for the plate of bacon, eggs, and sconelike roll the Americans called a biscuit, though it wasn’t sweet. Once the meal lay before Kendall, Dominick withdrew to a place by the door to wait for orders to retrieve more coffee, butter, a handkerchief. Some mornings he never stood still. This morning he stood like a part of the wainscoting while Kendall munched and read, grumbled over the newspaper, and smiled over the Scriptures.

  Dominick began to nod. His eyelids drooped. Visions of mermaids danced between shafts of sunlight and his eyelashes. Mermaids wit
h pretty hands and caustic—

  The front door knocker sounded.

  Dominick’s head shot up and smacked the wall. “Ah!” He rubbed the back of his head.

  The knocker pounded again, going right through his skull.

  Kendall’s glance bored through his eye sockets. “Go get that, Cherrett, if you’re able.”

  “Yes, sir.” Dominick tripped over his toes as he exited the dining room by its second door, the one leading into the entry hall.

  He reached the front door as the knocker banged for a third time. He wondered if the brass pineapple was difficult to break. Or perhaps he should apply it to the head of the early morning caller.

  He hadn’t taken the time to speculate as to what sort of person would call at that hour, but if he had, he knew from his experience of the past two weeks that it wouldn’t have been the female who stood on the porch. Old ladies called on the mayor in groups. Elderly gentlemen called on him singly and in pairs. Businessmen of all ages arrived to petition him for favors, and widows brought gifts as excuses to gain entrée into his presence so perhaps they could attract him into making one of them the next Mrs. Kendall. Not once had a young female arrived on the doorstep—until now.

  Dominick had read about heart-shaped faces in sentimental literature but never before believed any female possessed such a visage. The evidence stood before him wearing a plain dress and pelisse the same blue-gray as her eyes, and an unadorned straw hat perched atop auburn tresses. No fashionable curls obscured the breadth of her cheekbones. The severity of her hairstyle emphasized the wide brow bisected by a widow’s peak that looked like a nice place to plant a kiss.

  He cleared his throat as though that would clear his head. “May I help you?”

  “Yes, please. I need to speak with—you.” One hand flew to her lips. Her eyes widened.

  Dominick thanked God for something for the first time in many years—that he hadn’t eaten breakfast. The flip his stomach gave at the sound of her accusing tone on the “you” would not have improved upon toast and a soft-boiled egg.