“No, I am not married, but whatever you’re planning to ask of me, you should consider with all seriousness what you told me earlier in this conversation.” At the quizzical look in Reverend Berry’s eyes, he continued. “Rachel is a very intelligent young woman.”
“Yes?”
“Do you honestly think she’ll go along without question with whatever scheme you’ve worked out to get her safely back to England? Even if it entails saddling her with a one-armed naval officer?”
Rachel hadno idea what her father had discussed with Captain Halloren, but the expressions on both men’s faces told her neither one of them was satisfied with what had transpired.
However, she was convinced no one could remain unhappy for long when faced with a tureen of chicken stew. She motioned to Tenneh to bring in the fish soup course first.
When everyone was seated around their simple table, her father produced a bottle of his treasured Madeira. Rachel’s eyes widened and fixed on the vicar. Whatever the two men had discussed, her father was trying very hard to please the captain. Her gaze flicked between the two men. Their expressions were guarded, but each seemed to soften a bit when the captain proposed a toast.
“To friendship, and to our continued pursuit of the cause of freedom.” He took a long sip and then placed his wine glass carefully on her mother’s prized white linen tablecloth.
Rachel took a small sip and set her glass back down, careful not to spill any of the liquid on the pristine white cloth. She could not help mentally tallying the work entailed in laundering such a fine piece of needlework. Their laundry was taken down to the river for washing, and then dried out on a line behind the vicarage in the sun. They pressed out the wrinkles with a heavy anvil iron heated on top of the wood stove in the kitchen.
Although the steps seemed a lot of work for a few hours of luxury, her mother had gloried in bringing the cloth out for special guests. Mrs Berry had embroidered raised white lilies all along the hem. Rachel had also placed her mother’s silver candelabra on the table and had Tenneh light a few slim candles so that her father and the captain could linger over the Madeira later while she helped Tenneh clear the dishes back to the kitchen.
Her father looked up from his wine and smiled. “Please tell Captain Halloren about your latest project with the women in your needlework group.”
Rachel let her gaze slide between the two men. Her father was up to something, but she loved him too much to question his motives. “It was actually Tenneh’s idea. We have so little to provide the new freed people coming here, that she suggested we should do a sort of shared needlework group to sew basic clothing. We do have a supply of bolts of fabric from the mission, but building a place to shelter in is usually a freed family’s first priority.”
“Instead of each of us spending a lot of time on finishing a pair of trousers, or a shirt, or dress, each one of us does a part of each piece of clothing, and then we all get together to assemble the finished clothing.”
Christopher could not believehe was taking an interest in needlework. However, the light in Miss Berry’s eyes was something he would not have missed and the way she used her hands to express herself in the candlelight had a mesmerizing effect. He couldn’t decide whether the Madeira or her heady scent of lemon and lavender were to blame for the slight dizziness he felt.
And he was intrigued that she hadn’t taken credit for the idea herself, but instead lauded the young woman she was teaching. He wished the men on his ship could be as forthright. Much of the bickering amongst his junior officers could be attributed to the lot of them forever trying to take credit for the work of others.
“More Madeira, Captain Halloren?”
When he looked up at the vicar, the knowing look in the man’s eyes startled him. His thoughts must be too transparent. How in the hell was he going to extricate himself from this mess before he did something irrevocably foolish?
When he extended his glass for another pour, the Reverend Berry made a suggestion that caused Christopher to put a hand to his neck. He felt as though the vicar was tightening a noose there.
“Since you have to wait for the prize court here in Freetown to adjudicate on whether you’re going to be credited for the slaves rescued this time, or whether you’ll be allowed to keep the ship you seized, why don’t you let Rachel and her friends take you on a picnic to Mill Island up the river?”
He couldn’t help himself. He stole a quick look at Rachel. In the half shadows beyond the candlelight the expression on her face was calm, but her eyes snapped out something else. She was angry, and embarrassed, at her father’s blatant attempts at matchmaking.
“Of course, Father, we’d be happy to prepare a picnic outing for the captain. However, I’m sure he has much better things to do with his time ashore than spending hours with a bunch of missionary students and their teacher.”
Ah, there it was. She was throwing the onus of ending her father’s matchmaking attempts into his lap. She was giving him the perfect out. And so he did something he knew he would regret later. “I don’t think my time is so important that I couldn’t spend a few hours getting to know the very people whose freedom depends on the endless days and nights we spend patrolling jungle estuaries. I’d be a fool to deny myself that pleasure.”
And now the fool he’d become over a candlelit supper, Madeira, and shielded glances from snapping blue eyes walked happily into the dangers of a day in the company of this woman he couldn’t help wanting to know better. Surely he could spend a few more hours enjoying her company without becoming leg-shackled? He ignored her sudden intake of breath. She’d expected him to demur.
After Captain Hallorenhad thanked them profusely for supper, he’d taken his leave and seemed as relieved as she’d been to stop her father’s barely veiled attempts to push them together.
She’d be happy to entertain the captain with a picnic just to satisfy her stubborn father that there was absolutely no spark of affection between her and the darkly handsome captain. Her father had been hinting for months that she’d be much better off back in England with his sister’s family, and she knew he believed that was the life she should choose.
However, even her adoptive father didn’t know the hope she carried within. She yearned to find her mother’s tribal family. She yearned to know who she really was. It never occurred to her to seek out her slave-running father. She refused to acknowledge that part of her heritage even though hazy blue eyes mocked her every morning in the cracked tin mirror at the basin where she washed her face.
She retreated to the small room she shared with Tenneh, and they helped each other undress and fold away their frocks into the storage chests at the foot of her bed.
Tenneh continued to mix the English she was learning from Rachel with her old Yoruba dialect, but they still managed to communicate fairly well. Rachel retained memory of the languages spoken in her father’s barracoon by captured slaves passing through after being taken from numerous tribes across western Africa.
“You like him,” Tenneh suddenly blurted out into the darkness. They’d pulled the protective netting over them and had lain down on the bed that had been Rachel’s since she was a child.
She sat up and gazed down at Tenneh. “Of course I like him. He’s a good man.”
“You…you will leave soon with him.”
