Читать книгу A Catch of Consequence - Diana Norman - Страница 12

The landlady of the Roaring Meg, her brother and staff sailed for England aboard the Lord Percy on the evening tide.

Dapifer, finding himself in charge, had reasoned that a surgeon on a ship, where tar was used extensively, would be more used to treating its burns and therefore better qualified to help Aaron than a land-based doctor. In any case, Makepeace had to be taken out of danger; there was no guarantee that the assault on her brother didn’t presage another on her, and he could think of no safer refuge than a warship of His Majesty’s navy. Furthermore, the Percy was the only vessel on the quays with a surgeon – other large craft still lay further off in the harbour, waiting out the rioting – and her captain, charged with speeding Sir Thomas Hutchinson’s dispatches to London, would not delay sailing.

His own imperative was still to serve the memory of his drowned friend and support Ffoulkes’s son, a duty he couldn’t put off any longer. Neither could he desert Makepeace in her trouble.

Ergo: they must sail with Lord Percy together – and today.

This was explained to Makepeace who merely nodded – anything, anything. Dapifer had turned to Betty. ‘She can return later if she wants to but I’m not leaving her in Boston,’ he said. It didn’t seem strange to him that Betty accepted his right to arrange matters, nor that he was consulting an elderly, black, female cook. ‘The thing is, are you prepared to come with us?’ To separate the two women was unthinkable.

‘Ain’t leavin’ me behind in this place. Nor my boy neither.’ Betty’s face was drawn, though she was taking the horror of what had happened to Aaron better than his sister.