He then stood, took his blanket, pillow, and spyglass and stomped out of the hut only to return, retrieve a bottle of rum and leave again.
At the slam of the door, Tempest tried not to smile but was pleased with her success in getting exactly what she wanted. The house for her and the girls.
It really was his own fault. If he were not being so difficult, they could have worked out an arrangement and she would have been more willing to allow him the rest that he needed. She and the girls could have eaten outside, but Tempest knew that if she did not stake a claim now, they would have no safe place to sleep.
Three
Rhys must have rolled in his sleep because he awakened with a jolt and had to spit sand out of his mouth. He supposed it could have been worse. Instead of soft sand, he could have landed on the hard ground.
Not long after he had arrived in Martinique, he had tied a hammock to two trees near the beach that was sheltered from the sun and also close enough to the water for the sea breezes to cool him during the hotter evenings when it was too stifling to sleep inside the hut. That was where he retreated after he’d been forced to leave his own home because of six females.
With a heavy sigh, he stood and brushed the sand from his trousers and shook out his shirt—the one that he had removed to sleep. He was used to wearing nothing, and the trousers were uncomfortable enough that he wasn’t going to have his shoulders and upper arms bound by linen as well.
Despite having just dusted the sand away, Rhys sat back down and picked up his boots, tipped them over and shook them out in case anything had decided to crawl inside, then put them on. He’d prefer to be barefoot, but it wasn’t practical because one must always be prepared to run when one was a spy and barefoot through the forest could be dangerous.
He then reached for the bottle of rum and took a deep drink.
He could either return to his house or he could inspect the boat to begin repairs and since he did not want to encounter a bunch of little girls, he opted for the boat, though he would not mind seeing Miss Driscoll again, regardless of how prim, proper, judgmental and disagreeable she might be.
He stopped and frowned. She was the very type of woman he had avoided in Society so why the blazes would he want to seek her out now?
Maybe it was because she was English even if she lived on Dominica or it could be her Caribbean blue eyes and golden hair…
It was neither. He’d just been too long without a woman and once he was off this blasted island and in Antigua, the first thing he was going to do was get himself a mistress.
After taking another swig of rum, he corked the bottle and set it aside then waded into the inlet to inspect the boat. He had nails and a hammer in the hut, but not wood, unless he took it from the terrasse but who knew how old that was. He also did not have pitch, tar or anything to make the boat waterproof.
He’d faced more difficult dilemmas and this too would be solved in time.
Maybe it wouldn’t even be necessary. Miss Driscoll and her sisters could be rescued within the sennight and he would have a new person to exchange information with so he wouldn’t need the boat to leave.
Though, it would be nice to have it just in case they were found and an escape was necessary.
It was also something that he would address later.
His stomach grumbled and as much as he didn’t want to be around a bunch of children, he headed back to the hut but stopped when he heard voices. They were not female but male.
With spyglass in hand, he hurried up the small hill not far from the hut and peered down the path.
French infantry! Their white coats were not easily camouflaged in the forest. He then studied the area from how far they were, which path and then spied on the hut to make certain nobody was outside. He needed to make certain the children remained quiet, but what he saw was evidence that there were females in that hut.
Rhys looked back one more time to see where the soldiers were to note that they were on a path that led away from the beach then ran down the hill, yanked the female clothing off the rope strung between trees where they had apparently been hung after being washed, hurried up the terrasse and without knocking, tossed the clothes inside.
“Quiet! Soldiers!” he hissed and just as the youngest was about to cry out, Miss Driscoll clamped a hand over her mouth and warned the others with her eyes.
At least she understood the danger.
Satisfied that for once they would not make a sound, Rhys slipped away and followed the soldiers to see where they went, and tried to eavesdrop on what they were saying but could only pick up a few words. Apparently they’d been sent to different parts of the island to see if the British had them completely surrounded.
Rhys couldn’t imagine what difference it would make since ships couldn’t leave the port because of the British blockade.
He then heard one of them mention that a ship was going to drop supplies, if they could make it through.
When they reached what Rhys assumed was the rendezvous point, the six soldiers set up a makeshift camp. While they were far enough away that they wouldn’t hear anything from the hut, that did not mean they may not wander in that direction, so once again he slipped away and returned.
This time he quietly knocked on the door, which was opened by Miss Driscoll.
“Are they gone?”
