“I have a dear aunt who attends Bruton Parish, remember.”
“Captain Lennox was Eliza and Quinn’s guest, is all.”
“I do wonder if that’s all there is to the tattle.” Kitty cast a final, probing look her way. The shop door jingled anew as she went out. “Farewell, dear friend!”
By the time Esmée left Shaw’s Chocolate shortly after two o’clock, Captain Lennox’s horse was no longer tethered before the coffeehouse. Something inside her dimmed at the apparent rebuff. Where had he gone?
Her answer came when she rode her mare down the coastal road toward the almshouse.
A figure on horseback in the distance drew nearer in a storm of dust. Jago Wherry? He sat atop Captain Lennox’s handsome bay horse, headed back toward York.
“Good afternoon, Miss Shaw.” He tipped his battered hat, looking pleased with the world.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Wherry. A fine mount you have there.”
“Aye, ’tis not mine, Miss Shaw, but Captain Lennox’s. I’m playing the groom and returning Trident to the stable.”
Trident. The weapon of Poseidon, god of the sea. Why was she not surprised? She bit her lip before the next burning query escaped her.
Where is the captain?
But Jago, unless inebriated, was known to be close-lipped, and at this moment he was most decidedly sober. She cantered on, aswirl with her most recent encounter with Henri at Eliza’s. Used to confining his memory to a small corner of her mind, she could do so no longer. He was back, larger than life, and she could not shake his intriguing questions.
“Do you remember how we met?”
“Are you ... spoken for?”
Mostly she recalled his enigmatic answers.
“Mayhap the end of a matter is more important than the beginning.”
“You simply stated the truth, Esmée. Though at the time I was unwilling to hear it.”
He had called her by name, a name he once said he found beautiful and musical. Once he’d even teased her, calling her Esmée Shaw Lennox. She’d penned those very words over and over on scraps of paper when no one was looking, scrolling theEandSandLendlessly before throwing her daydreams into the hearth’s fire.
The road before her took a winding turn along the sun-soaked coast. For all her woolgathering, she saw the beach and boat plain. A small jolly was leaving shore, filled to the brim with all sorts of boxes and kegs.
The small hopes she’d begun to cherish fled. He was leaving. Rowing away from her just as he’d sailed away years ago. Bound for Indigo Island and looking for all the world as if he wouldn’t be back for some time, perhaps spending the winter there and taking a long-deserved rest after years at sea.
She took refuge behind a bunch of stately sea oats bronzed by autumn and tried to reconcile herself to his going. His coat and cocked hat were off, his sleeves rolled up, the thick muscles of his forearms like knotted cordwood. He plied the oars with an expertise born ofexperience, his linen shirt rippling like a white flag in the breeze. Gannets and gulls careened overhead as if inspecting his cargo.
Did he carry chocolate?
If he’d come into the shop, she would have given him a supply for his men, as they’d done one cruise. But he’d chosen the coffeehouse instead. That, in some way, seemed a rejection, a slight, even if exceedingly small. And yet the hurt loomed large. Overcome, feeling much like the little girl who’d fallen from an apple tree and had the wind knocked out of her, she bent her head.
Lord, help mend my still-broken heart.
Not feeling fit for company, she finally reined Minta in the direction of York. Till she’d collected herself, the almshouse must wait.
CHAPTER
eighteen
Henri felt a release as he pulled away from shore and slid into the current. With the governor’s meetings behind him and an uncertain future ahead of him, he needed the sanctuary of Indigo Island to weigh his decision. A decision best made away from distractions like a belle in a blue silk gown bearing chocolate. Or anything resembling the bustle and fuss of Tidewater Virginia.
He plied the oars with all his might, the breeze buffeting him, the sun’s sliding behind a cloud allowing him to study his launching point. He’d thought it secluded. Private. Just sand and scrub. He blinked and narrowed his eyes. A beat of amusement pulsed inside him and led to an outright grin.
Amid the tall beach grass and sea oats mingled with thick stands of bayberry and wax myrtle was a froth of white ostrich feathers. Just like the ones he’d spied atop Esmée’s riding hat. Eliza’s doing, likely. Esmée wasn’t one for fripperies and seemed to have forgotten the telling feathers that now gave her away. Had she unwittingly followed him here? Passed Jago Wherry on her way to the almshouse? Whatever had transpired, there she was in her befeathered hat, spying on him.
