His face grew rigid, without emotion, except for the tick in his jaw. Images of Sir Teakle pelted him like a hail storm. “What are you going to do about Sir Teakle?”
“Sir Teakle?” Claire broke out in laughter, and he bridled more. Smiling, she shook her head gravely. “I’m afraid I won’t be seeing Sir Teakle,” she giggled again.
Devon frowned. It consumed him so completely that at first he didn’t comprehend what she said. “Did you say you won’t be seeing him?”
Claire nodded. “I think I’ve rid myself of the odious Sir Teakle forever. You see he left on the first boat, frightened of the plague. He’s gone forever.”
He regarded her for a moment, realizing that he’d made a mistake−a ridiculous one, but that didn’t help to end his agitation either. He concluded he’d had good reason to be angered. And that anger he directed at himself for being such a fool where she was concerned. “I have been unfair. Do you accept my apology?”
She looked up to him with all the sincerity in the world mirrored in those golden eyes of hers. “Only if you accept my apology for vain and ungracious behavior.”
“Dr. Blackmon, we need your assistance,” Robert Ames whispered from the other side of the sacristy door, a hint of warning in his voice. “A man named Tom Dooley has arrived.”
Devon cursed. His fists tightened. The revelation of what she went through with Jarvis created a desire to beat the man senseless. “I must go.” He turned at the doorway. “When you are ready, you will work with me.”
Devon strode to the garden. Tom Dooley hovered about the table of food, glancing around while secreting foodstuffs into his pockets.
“Faith. If it isn’t Mr. Dooley filching noonday supper.”
“Who me?” He spun around, sausages cascading from his pockets, a loaf of bread tucked beneath his arm. His mouth gaped with pretended innocence, but his chagrin grew unmatchable.
Devon towered over him, his hands fisted on his hips. “A thief in addition to your other crimes?” he provoked. “Your secret is safe with me.” Devon allowed Dooley a moment’s relief and laughed.
Dooley’s mortification tempered. He was a short spare man, his dark eyes, the shining quickness of a sparrow. “Well, I hear you’ve been asking of me. And I’m wondering what a slave wants with a free man such as meself?”
“Need I remind you, you’re not a free man until you pay off your debt, and at the mercy of his governorship? I do recall that day in the courtroom rather well. Your fate was determined by my opinion. You should be inclined to thank your benefactor. As the governor’s doctor and main counsel−if you follow my drift.”
Tom Dooley stood comic, another snatched square of cake arrested halfway to his mouth.
“A good fellow I am, answered your summons, so the likes of you can blackmail a poor soul like me?” He actually pouted.
No.” Devon stroked his chin. “You’ve answered my summons to make a profit. A proposed business venture between you and me.”
Dooley’s eyes grew big-round like saucers. “You, a slave? No way. If caught, I’d be off to Gallows Point, swingin’ in chains.”
“And off to prison, and a certain future of slavery if not.” Devon let the threat fall on his new business associate. When he trembled, he aggravated him further. “Why not consider a handsome profit and ticket off the island?” Devon flashed a gold sovereign and Dooley’s greed won out. Devon slapped him on the back and laughed. “There’s a good man come to his senses.” Devon put his arm around Dooley’s shoulder. “There’s a skiff to be bought and outfitted with supplies. Enough for twenty men. Bargain on speculation, with promises in the future. The payment will be forthright, but not until we are near to depart.”
After several minutes of finalizing his plans with Dooley, Devon strode off to the hospital with an extra lightness to his step. Claire startled him standing in the doorway. Warily Devon glanced over his shoulder. Dooley had vanished along with half the booty of the noon day’s meal. He put his mind at rest, satisfied she had heard nothing of their conversation. Her eyes were still puffy and he’d do anything to remove those smudges. “Will you do me the honor of assisting me?”
“Do you think you could humble yourself and tell me a little of your history?” Claire said an attempt Devon felt to put awkward emotions behind them and build a friendship.
“With humility?”
“Is there such a possible thing?” she laughed.
In a rare good mood, perhaps from the gold in his coat, or more likely from an understanding he formed with Claire, Devon revealed a part of his past. “Conceived in Ireland, I am the son of an Irish doctor and Scottish born lady. From my mother’s veins ran a wildness in me that my peace-loving father, often alarmed, curtailed by resolving to put my quick and ready mind to study. It was my fortune that my father’s singular desire determined my Baccalaureus Medicinae Degree at the age of twenty-two. My sire died three months after my graduation.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Claire said.
Devon looked up into the massive hand-hewed beams of Christ’s Church for a moment, reflecting the pain of those long ago memories. “Circumstances coupled with my restless nature led me to leave Ireland. I signed on with the Dutch in their war against France which served my predilection for the sea. I fought several engagements in the Mediterranean under De Ruyter. Ironic, I didn’t think twice about joining France’s fight in their war with the Spanish. Again, my love for the sea was fulfilled on long voyages. Captured, I rotted two years in a Castilian prison.”
He searched her eyes, eyes with gold flecks, mesmerizing eyes that searched his soul, weighing with gravity what he imparted. He assessed no negative opinion on her part only curiosity. Had she seen more than he wanted to reveal?
“At the plum age of thirty-one, a festering war wound and my appetite for adventure abated. I yearned for the smell of my homeland. Destiny brought me to England where hostile seas ran my ship aground. I had significant fortune in my pocket from years of soldiering and discovered a modest village in Somerset County and settled there. My health returned, and soon I set out my shingle to at last take up the profession my father had prepared me.” He shrugged his shoulders. “The rest of my history attaches itself to my heedless mercy with the Duke of Monmouth during his uprising against the King.”
Claire shook her head. “I don’t understand. You’re trained to be a doctor, yet you−”
“Lived a decade of my life as a soldier,” he filled in for her. “Medicine, a pastime at best. My true calling, the life of a soldier brought me some fortune where doctoring brought me into slavery. An irony bestowed by the Heavens, favoring more to kill men than to heal them.”
