Читать книгу The Lightkeeper - Сьюзен Виггс, Susan Wiggs - Страница 11

She crouched against the headboard of the bed, the long nightgown bunched in a tangle, her hand reaching for the oil lamp on the table.

As soon as he realized her intent, Jesse blazed back to life. The damn-fool woman. She could hurt herself. Worse than that, she’d burn the house down.

“Don’t touch it,” he said between clenched teeth, striding across the room. His boots crunched on shards from the broken pitcher. Snatching the lamp, he placed it out of reach on a wall shelf and glared at her through the snaking yellow-gray smoke from the flash.

Color touched her cheeks, and her warm, hazel eyes shone—not with gratitude, but with anger. He was startled to realize that her fury matched his own. “You’ve done enough damage already,” he grumbled.

“And what would a body expect, I ask you?” she demanded. “I wake up to find myself in the middle of a pitched battle and you think I’ll simply surrender? You shoot at me, boyo, and I’ll fire back, make no mistake.”

Boyo? Jesse was reasonably certain no one had ever called him boyo. “I wasn’t shooting at you,” he said.

“There was an explosion. And I smell gunpowder.” She squinted through the smoke and wrinkled her nose, a perfect little nose sprinkled with freckles.

Jesse had no idea why he would make note of freckles. “You’re Irish,” he said stupidly, because it was the first thing that sprang to mind.

“And you’ve got some explaining to do.” She leaned sideways to look past him. “What the devil sort of gun is that?”

“It’s not a gun. It’s a camera.”

Her eyes widened. She pushed a hand through her tangled red hair. “A camera, is it?”

“Yes.”

The color leaped up in her cheeks again, making stark crimson spots on her pallor. “And what in the name of Peter and Paul are you doing shooting off a camera in here?”

Jesse’s already strained patience snapped. “Taking your picture, woman. What do you think?”

She made the sign of the cross and pressed back against the headboard, holding the covers to her chin. “Pervert!”

He gritted his teeth and clenched his fists at his sides to keep from doing something they’d both regret later. This was exactly why he lived here at the lighthouse, alone. He had no patience for other people, especially for mouthy Irishwomen who showed no gratitude for being rescued.

“Madam,” he said, “it occurs to me that your mishap has addled your brain. You’ve been unconscious. I thought it best to find your next of kin, so I took your picture. I had intended to circulate it to the newspaper and telegraph offices so your friends and family would learn of your survival.”

He strode to the door, the camera in one hand and tripod in the other. He paused and said, “I expect someone will be grateful that you’re alive.”

She moved quickly but clumsily, lurching from the bed. When Jesse saw her bare feet heading for the broken pieces of pottery, he had no choice. He dropped the tripod and scooped her up in his arms.

She gave a little squeak of surprise and paddled her feet in the air. “Don’t you do it, boyo.”

He glared at her. The top of her head was even with his chin. He could feel the heat emanating from her body. The sensation was so unfamiliar that he almost dropped her. Instead, he set her on the bed and stepped back quickly, as if he’d approached a hot stove.

“I beg your pardon?” he asked.

“Granted.” She gave a little bob of her head.

“I mean, I didn’t follow you, madam. Are you asking me not to leave the room?”

“Aye, that I am.”

“May I ask why?”

“Because I don’t want pictures of me put in any newspapers.”

Ah. So she was superstitious, then. Many immigrants brought their old-country beliefs with them; Palina and Magnus were proof of that. Quite a number thought it unlucky or even sacrilegious to produce graven images of themselves.

“Of course, now that you’re awake, there’s no need. You can simply tell me your name and destination. I’ll report that to—” he broke off, frowning down at her “Miss—er, Madam? Is there something wrong?”

She had begun to sway back and forth, her eyes glazing over. “I…feel strange all of a sudden. Higher than Gilderoy’s kite,” she said, her voice low and harsh. “Could you—that is, I need…”

Her words trailed off and she slumped to one side. Jesse dropped the camera, wincing as the lens cracked. Without breaking the flow of his movement, he dashed over to the bed, catching her by the shoulders and supporting her.

“Ma’am?” he asked. “Are you…all right?”

She made no response. She’d fallen unconscious again.

Jesse heaved a sigh of frustration. After settling her upon the pillows, he hesitated. Against his will, something inside him seemed to be bending toward her, reaching for her. He could not believe the impact of feeling her warm body curled against his, the tickle of her hair brushing his face and the scent of her, evocative and forbidden.

“Damn,” he swore between his teeth. She was everything he was trying to avoid.

As he tucked the quilts around the unconscious woman, his movements were slow, his hands gentle. He’d had no idea there was any tenderness left inside him.

The sooner he was rid of her, the better. He would send for Dr. MacEwan today to make certain this relapse wasn’t serious.

Amazingly, the one photographic plate he had taken remained intact. After developing the image, he would have a picture of the stranger. The amber tones would fail to capture the vivid richness of her red hair and her cream-and-roses coloring, not to mention the freckles, yet it would be a decent likeness.

Sleeping Beauty, he thought.

The hell with her superstitions. If she wouldn’t stay awake and tell him who she was, then he would publish her photograph and get the investigation started.

His boots crunched on earthenware shards from the shattered pitcher. In all the years Jesse had lived here, there had never been such a mess.

And she’d only been awake five minutes.

“Brass,” Palina said, hurling the word like an invective. “It is the bane of my existence.”

Jesse levered himself to the top of the ladder leading to the pinnacle of the lighthouse. In the lamp room, Palina and Magnus were well into the day’s chores. Palina was polishing the brass of the central compressor and cursing it, as usual.

“Why do they have to make everything out of brass, anyway?” she muttered, her wadded cloth making tight, neat circles in the fittings behind the reflector.

Magnus, who had his good arm deep inside the mouth of one of the eagle-headed water spouts under the eaves, winked at her. “So you can see your beautiful face in it everywhere you turn.”

“Humph,” Palina said, but the brass she was polishing reflected a blush and a smile. She worked a few moments longer, pausing to wave at Erik, who strode across the bluff toward the horse pasture.

Life at the lighthouse station suited Palina and Magnus perfectly, because they enjoyed each other’s company above all others. Erik fit easily into their world. They accepted their son’s affliction with a God-given, abiding patience Jesse would never understand. And the boy—seventeen last year—seemed happy enough.

“’Morning,” Jesse said to Palina and Magnus.

“’Morning, Jesse,” said Palina. “How is our little guest today, eh?”

Jesse picked up a can of oil and held it to the light, checking the purity. The lampwicks consumed nearly two hundred gallons a month, and each ounce had to be pure. “Now that,” he said, “depends.”

“Is she awake?”

“She woke up,” he said.

Both Magnus and Palina stopped what they were doing.

“And?” Magnus prompted.

“Well, she cursed at me and then she threw a pitcher at my head.”

Palina looked away quickly. “She must be confused, poor lamb.”

“The woman’s a menace.”

“Well, what did she tell you about herself?”

“Hardly a thing. She accused me of shooting at her when all I did was take her photograph to publish in the newspaper.”

“Ach, you frightened the little dear,” Palina said. “Here she is in a strange place, all alone, having lost God-knows-what in the way of family, and she wakes up to picture taking.”

“She didn’t seem so defenseless to me.”

“She was afraid,” Magnus said, reaching into the lantern to trim the wicks. He shook his head, thick gray hair falling across his brow. The crystal facets of the huge Fresnel lens distorted his good arm, making it appear disjointed and huge. “She probably lost her husband in the wreck.”

A knot of guilt formed in Jesse’s throat. He should have been more patient with the woman. “I left word with the harbormaster to find out the name of the ship that went down. We should hear something today.”

He hated this part of his job, hated it with a virulence that made him all the more determined to battle the sea for its victims. The waiting always got to him. He despised the course of events as it unfolded. The harbormaster would check all the schedules and manifests. Which ship was expected in the area? When was it due in port? Was it late? Then would come a list of the crew and passengers. And at each new stage of discovery, new grief would arise.

“She didn’t tell you the name of her ship?” Magnus asked.

“She didn’t even tell me her name.” Jesse set down the bucket of oil and sat on the floor, his feet resting on a rung of the ladder leading down to the mezzanine. “We barely had a chance to exchange words. Then she—I guess she overexerted herself and she sort of got dizzy and had to go back to bed.”

Magnus peered at him through so many layers of glass that it was hard to tell where the real Magnus was. “Overexerted? Now, what do you mean by that?”

The feeling of guilt sharpened. The sea—not a defenseless woman—was the enemy. He should be doing everything he could to help her. Instead, he’d let her presence stir up old, forgotten feelings inside him. None of this was her fault.

“She got upset,” he said.

“And what upset her?” Palina asked.

“The picture flash must have startled her. She has a bad temper.”

“Ah.” The tone of Palina’s voice spoke volumes.

“So you no longer hold the market on tempers,” Magnus added.

“I don’t have a goddamned temper,” Jesse said.

Palina rolled her eyes.

“Palina,” Jesse began.

She laughed. She was one of the few people who dared to laugh at him. “Captain Head Keeper, you would lose your temper if a leaf fell across your path. And this young woman is more than a leaf—”

“That’s it,” he said, getting up. “I’m moving her to your house today. You can take care of her. I clearly lack the proper temperament to minister to our delicate young guest.”

“No,” Magnus said. “You must keep her. When a man saves someone’s life, he is bound to ensure her survival. Whatever she needs, you must give her. Whatever it takes to heal her, you must provide. To disregard this would be terrible for you both—”

“—for you all,” Palina added.

“—in ways you cannot even imagine,” Magnus finished.

“That’s superstitious horseshit, and you know it,” Jesse said.

“It is the law of the sea, and I’ll not be the one to challenge it,” Magnus insisted. “Will you? Will you take that chance, risk losing her? Just so you can have your life back the way you want it?”

“Maybe I will.”

“Maybe you will not,” Palina said, thrusting her chin out stubbornly and dipping her polishing cloth. She attacked the next panel with savage relish. “What if you move her and she dies, eh? Then how will you feel? This woman is a gift, Jesse Morgan. You know why she came. Do not look fate in the face and deny it.”

A cold shaft of foreboding lanced through Jesse. He gazed out at the blue-gray horizon, then at the waves below the lighthouse. Foam creamed the rocks, seething in and out of the blackness.

A whistle sounded, startling him. It was Judson Espy, the harbormaster, riding up on a naggy-looking, dapple gray mare.

“The sea hasn’t given me a goddamned thing,” Jesse snarled. “Except a pain in the ass until we figure out who this woman is.” He clattered down the iron helix of stairs. Perhaps Judson had the answers he sought.

Judson met him halfway across the yard between the lighthouse and the forest. He waved a sheaf of papers. “Interesting irony here.”

“What’s that?” Jesse hung back, wondering what ill tidings he would hear.

“There was a schooner-rigged four-master bound for Shoalwater Bay for a load of oysters. It left San Francisco with some trade cargo and was supposed to call at Portland. Never arrived.”

Jesse crossed his arms, bracing himself for the news. He turned to look out at the sea, endless and infinite in its bounty—and in its power to destroy.

The story was all too common. The hungry maw of the Columbia River swallowed ships with great regularity, spitting out the remains like undigested skeletons along the beaches. “Do you have a list of passengers and crew?”

“Uh-huh.” Judson handed him a list. “Came over the telegraph wire.”

Jesse groped in his shirt pocket for his spectacles. Putting them on, he studied the list. Each time he did this, he was hurled back to the day he had stood on the river dock, frantically scanning a ship’s manifest, hoping against hope that a mistake had been made, then feeling the world explode when he saw his wife’s name.

“You all right?” Judson asked.

Jesse swallowed hard and glared through his spectacles. “All crew. No passengers?”

“Nope. That’s the entire list.”

He scanned the names, seeking something overtly Irish, like O’Malley or Flanagan. “You think she could be a seaman’s wife and they just forgot—”

“They never forget. Look at the name of the ship. At the shipping company.”

His gaze drifted to the bottom of the page. Jesse felt as if a noose were tightening around his throat. The noose of a past he wanted to forget. “It was the Blind Chance.”

“You remember it well, don’t you?”

“The Blind Chance is a ship-of-the-line for the Shoalwater Bay Company.”

“Your own company, Jesse. They never make mistakes on the ship’s manifest.”

“It’s not my company,” he said dully.

“Not anymore, I guess.” Judson took the list from him. “But it hasn’t changed much since you left. That partner of yours keeps everything shipshape. What was his name again? Flapp?”

“Clapp. Granger Clapp.” Jesse hadn’t thought about Clapp in years. But then again, he hadn’t thought about anything in years. Not Granger. Not his sister, who had married Clapp. Not his parents, away on a two-year grand tour of Europe. Not anyone.

Jesse wouldn’t let himself care.

“So,” Judson said, peering inquisitively at Jesse. “What do you think it means?”

“Either the woman was aboard unauthorized—”

“A stowaway!” Judson snapped his fingers. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Or she wasn’t on the Blind Chance, at all.”

“She had to have been.” Judson showed him another page. “Look. The keeper at Cape Meares recorded seeing the ship’s stern lights at one-twenty in the morning on Sunday. She was logged in at Tillamook Light at four-forty. And you found the woman at what time, six? Seven?”

“Thereabouts.”

“She was on that ship. On the Blind Chance. Had to be. As a stowaway.” Judson shifted from one foot to the other. “Damn, this is a hell of a story.”

Jesse put away his eyeglasses. “We ought to let the papers make the most of it, then. I took her picture. Have Bert Palais run it. And send it down on the next packets to Portland and San Francisco.”

Don’t you do it, boyo.

He heard her words in his mind, her voice trembling with superstition. She was out of her head, he told himself. Not rational, or she’d see the sense in publishing her likeness. Her family was probably frantic with worry, waiting for word.

Jesse knew what that was like.

Circulating the photograph was the best way to spread the word about this woman. He fished it out of his breast pocket where it had lain against his heart. His hand shook slightly as he handed it to Judson, but he pretended it was just the wind.

Judson stared at the photograph for a very long time. Then he let out a low whistle. “Damn, she looks like a princess out of that fairy tale. You know, where she pricks her finger—”

“I don’t read fairy tales.”

Judson put the photo plate in his pocket. “This is one amazing catch.”

“You don’t know,” Jesse muttered, walking Judson back to his horse. “You don’t know the half of it.”

All that day, the new information and old memories haunted Jesse. Ordinarily, he kept the past in some dark corner of his heart, where he couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it. But somehow, the arrival of the woman lit a candle in that shadowy place, shedding light on things he had kept hidden for years.

There was an almost eerie serendipity in the idea that the stranger had been borne into his life by the Blind Chance. In his mind’s eye, he could see the schooner-rigged ship as it had been the day they’d christened it fourteen years before. Jesse hadn’t known it at the time, but his future had been defined that day. He closed his eyes, letting the memories in….

The sleek hull of the ship gleamed with fresh paint, the brass fittings were polished to a sheen and the teakwood railings felt silky to the touch. The scent of ocean spray filled the air.

“Blind Chance,” Emily had teased, tugging at his sleeve. “What sort of name is that for a ship?” She looked as fresh and perfect as the ship, in lots of ruffles and lace, a bonnet shading her china-doll face. There was more to Emily than blond-and-pink prettiness, though. She had a streak of mischief in her that delighted, and a breezy charm Jesse knew he’d never tire of.

“Granger’s idea. He insisted on being the one to name it, since I got to name the Trident.”

“Oh, now there’s an original name.” Her laughter made a bright counterpoint to the melody played by the brass band on the afterdeck. Everything about the day glittered with a diamond brilliance. The ship’s rigging was hung with rows of ensign flags, each deck festooned with huge flower arrangements. Tables laden with sweets and hors d’oeuvres lined the pier.

Company officials and the crew and all their families had joined in the festivities. The ship, Jesse reflected, was a microcosm of his world—friends and family and business associates all united in commerce. He surveyed the scene around him with complete satisfaction.

“You’re grinning like the Cheshire cat,” Emily said, tapping her kid-booted foot in time to the music.

“And why shouldn’t I? As the luckiest fellow in all creation, I think I have the right.”

She leaned into him—discreet as always, for Emily was nothing if not a perfect lady—and said, “Do you think everyone will be surprised when we tell them our news?”

“I don’t see how. It’s been pretty obvious that I adore you, Miss Leighton.”

“Oh, Jesse.” A breeze off the bay caught her sigh. “It’s going to be so perfect. We’ll be so happy together.” She gazed down at the midships deck, where ladies were milling about, twirling their fringed parasols. More than one shot a glance toward the rail where Jesse and Emily stood.

“Such a shame, though,” Emily said.

“What’s a shame?”

“After we make our announcement, that deck will be positively littered with broken hearts.”

He grinned at her. “You exaggerate, darling.”

“Oh, heavens, don’t pretend you don’t know. Half my class at Saint Albans sleeps with some token from you under their pillows.”

“And what do you sleep with, Em?”

She winked. “Nothing but dreams, Jesse. Nothing but dreams.”

They watched in companionable silence, waving as Emily’s parents arrived. Gentlemen in seersucker suits joined the ladies, and the dancing began. “It’s men’s hearts that’ll be in pieces, Em,” said Jesse. He spotted Granger in the high bow of the ship. Together, he and Granger would take over the helm, leading the Shoalwater Bay Company into the future.

At the moment, Granger sat on an upended crate with his fair head bent, a thick rope in his hands as he demonstrated sailors’ knots to a rapt group of boys.

“No matter what else you think about Granger, he does love children,” Emily said, noticing where Jesse’s attention had wandered. “I always thought he would be the first of us to marry.”

A few moments later, Granger left the boys practicing their half hitches and went to the deck. Jesse’s younger sister, Annabelle, was there, looking coltish and shy as she clung to her mother’s hand and greeted the guests.

Granger made an elaborate bow before the ten-year-old, then led her into a dance. Even from a distance, Jesse could see her blush with pride and pleasure.

A blast from the ship’s horn interrupted the dancing. Jesse’s father waved to him and Emily, gesturing them down to the pier. Thomas Clapp, Granger’s father, announced through a bullhorn that it was time for the christening. The crowd surged along the dock and gathered there, buzzing with excitement.

Photographers with their cameras mounted on tripods jockeyed for position during the brief speeches from Morgan and Clapp. Granger leaned over and gallantly kissed Emily’s hand, whispering, “I hope you saved me a dance.”

She blushed, but before she could reply, the speeches ended. Both Jesse and Granger were handed bottles of Dom Perignon, tethered by scarlet ribbons to the prow of the ship.

“Lord have mercy,” Granger complained good-naturedly. “What a waste of fine champagne.” He pressed his lips to the bottle in a passionate kiss, and the crowd roared. His grin was slightly hard-edged—chiseled, Jesse knew, by the constant, strident demands of his parents. “Ready, old pal?” Granger asked.

“Not quite.” Jesse’s heart filled with anticipation. What a perfect time, what a perfect day, to share his news. He made a great show of stepping back to hand Emily the bottle. “This is an honor that belongs to Emily Leighton, my bride-to-be.”

For just a heartbeat, there was stunned silence, broken only by the shivering of lines against the masts and the lapping of the water at the hull. In that heartbeat, Jesse took it all in—Emily’s glowing smile, his mother’s wordless gasp followed by a gush of tears, his father’s hand lifting to slap him on the back, Mr. and Mrs. Clapp exchanging a cold glare before pasting on their smiles. But most of all, Jesse saw Granger. More clearly than he’d ever seen him. It only took a moment, but he saw something in Granger’s eyes ignite and then die. Granger, too, had been in love with Emily.

“Congratulations, son,” his father declared, and the hearty applause that followed chased away the frozen moment Jesse had sensed when he’d looked at Granger.

“All the best to you,” Thomas Clapp said expansively. He thumped his own son on the back a bit harder than good nature dictated. “How about that, eh? Your partner beat you out again. Looks like you’d better find yourself a bride and give me some grandkids to spoil.”

Granger went red to the tips of his ears. “All in good time, Father,” he muttered.

Something had changed that day. Though Jesse hadn’t realized it at the time, there was a subtle shift in the dynamics of the three friends, as if the world had tilted on its axis, never to right itself again. Jesse and Granger and Emily. They’d always been the merry trio, together at parties and holidays; going to the opera where Emily sat enraptured while Granger and Jesse drank secretly from a shared flask and tried not to guffaw at the posturing on stage; practicing the newfangled game of baseball while Emily pretended to understand it.

But after that day, a frost hung in the air. Granger became more and more distant. He spent Friday evenings at Madame Fanshaw’s Mansion of Sin rather than in the company of Jesse and Emily. The three of them would never be easy together again.

Emily had recovered first from Thomas Clapp’s insensitive remark. She laughed, cloaking the moment with humor, then said, “If we don’t do this right now, I’m going to uncork this bottle and drink it all myself!”

The last thing Jesse remembered about that day, that glittering day that had changed the course of his life, was the sight of two green bottles swinging through the air, pausing ever so slightly at the top of the arc where the sun shone through the green glass, then shattering against the hull and exploding into a million sun-sparkled bits of emerald.

She was trapped in the dream, and she could not find her way out. It was as if some drug had been fed to her, holding her limbs and head immobile while she was forced to watch and feel things against her will.

The door. An ordinary door of four wood panels and a crystal knob. She sat in a chair opposite the door, watching, waiting.

The door opened. Slowly. She heard the tread of a footstep and the creak of a floorboard, always the same board, always the same tone. Her days had taken on a sameness that was almost comforting in its uneventful boredom.

But today was different. Today she had something to tell him. Something that would make him so happy. He would sweep her up in his arms and whirl her around, and she’d forget all the past slights, all the little unknowing cruelties he’d committed. She would be important to him now. She had something he wanted. Desperately.

A bar of light slanted through the open door. A tall, broad male form came toward her. She waited to see the handsome face, the neatly combed hair held in place with just a little coating of wax, the smile that set her heart to fluttering.

She found herself looking at a stranger. Taller, broader even, than him. And infinitely more frightening.

The light shone from behind, so she only saw his shape, but it was enough to send chills through her. Big shoulders and powerful arms revealed by rolled-up sleeves. Hair that was too long, too wild, flowing like a mane that stirred with the slightest movement.

It was the man who had shot at her earlier. Defying the throbbing pain in the region of her right shoulder, she made the sign of the cross. “Mother Mary and Joseph, help me.”

She heard the rasp of a Lucifer, then an oil lamp on the wall shelf flared to life. Just for a moment, her captor’s face was bathed in radiant gold, and she saw it in fine, exquisite detail, as if she were looking at a painting in church.

A painting of the Dark Angel. There was an icy purity in the blue eyes that made her blood run cold. A high, noble brow and heavy eyebrows. The shape of his mouth was so flawless that she felt the urge to trace it with her finger.

Then the Dark Angel turned and spoke. “Are you awake?”

She burrowed deeper into the covers, holding them to her chin. “And who’s doing the asking?”

He stared at her as if she had sprouted antlers. “Are you afraid of me?”

The words sent her hurtling back in time, back to a place she had risked her life to escape. Don’t be afraid. I don’t want to have to hurt you….

Whimpering, she dived under the blankets and drew her knees up to her chest. It was warm here, and she shouldn’t be shivering, but she couldn’t stop. What a turn she had come to. What an awful, awful turn. She had gotten to a place in her life where she wanted only one thing—to feel safe.

“Ma’am?” The stranger’s voice was low, tentative. Edged with annoyance.

No one had ever called her “ma’am,” as if she were a lady of consequence. The blethering fool, she thought, letting her mind drift like a bit of wood bobbing on the waves. Didn’t he know better?

Feeling like an idiot, Jesse stood with the lamp in one hand, the other hand stretched out toward the shivering mound on the bed. Confound the woman. Couldn’t she make up her mind whether to be awake or asleep?

Tonight, Erik was tending the light. The lad was steady, grinding the gears every four hours as Jesse had trained him to do. But he only allowed Erik to sit watch if the weather held no threat.

Early in the evening, Jesse had gone out to the edge of the promontory and stood for a long time, feeling the wind and tasting the air, watching the rush of clouds across the lowering glow of the sun.

People said his foreknowledge of bad weather was a mystical gift, but he knew it was simply a skill born of long practice. He had learned to read the mood of the sea and the clouds. The first tenet of warfare was to know one’s adversary. He had made a study of it. In the room at the bottom of the lighthouse he had an array of instruments any university scientist would envy—astrolabes and quadrants, barometers and gauges for all manner of measurement.

He was diligent in keeping his log, earning special commendations from the district lighthouse inspector for his attention to detail. Of course, he didn’t do any of this in order to earn commendations.

In the beginning, he’d done it to earn salvation. But after twelve years, he’d given up hoping for that. Now he just did it to survive.

Quietly he replaced the lamp on the wall shelf and stood looking at the hump of quilts and blankets. This was his night to sleep, and here he stood, wakeful and agitated, staring in resentment at the woman from the sea.

Earlier, Palina had brought up a fresh quilt and a jar of strong broth. He had heated some of the broth and set the bowl on the bedside table. “Ma’am?” he said softly. “You should try to eat.”

No response. Setting his jaw, Jesse awkwardly pulled back the blankets to reveal a tangle of hair and a flushed cheek. “Ma’am?” he said again, his voice tighter now, more impatient.

She moaned and shivered again, then turned her head away without opening her eyes. She had slipped back into that state of half sleep.

“Fool woman,” Jesse muttered. “You’re never going to get better if you don’t eat something.” He unfurled the quilt Palina had brought and settled the colorful blanket over the woman.

She stirred, and a small foot emerged from beneath the covers. When Jesse bent to tuck it back in, he was struck by the fine texture of her skin.

In a dark corner of his heart, part of him wondered if she was going to die like everything else he touched.

She released a contented sigh and settled deeper into sleep. The quilt seemed to have a calming effect on her. Ever whimsical, Palina had depicted on the fabric some favored Icelandic myth. This one showed a beautiful mermaid rising out of the sea, borne along on the crest of the boiling surf.

Palina and her myths. She used them to explain everything. She used them instead of simple common sense.

Jesse frowned. Common sense wasn’t working here. In truth, it was all too easy to see the Irishwoman as a creature of myth. She had appeared alone from the sea. She was shrouded in mystery. No one had come searching for her. She wore no wedding ring, yet she was pregnant. The foreign lilt in her voice only added to the mystique that hung around her like the golden glow of a lamp.

She took a deep, shuddering breath that startled Jesse. He hated being startled. He hoped to God that word of her would get out quickly. Bert Palais had promised to circulate the photograph and description as far as his newspaper contacts would reach.

Hurry, Jesse thought, turning down the lamp and walking quietly out of the room. Hurry and get her away from here.

He thought of a time years before when he’d been out yachting with friends. That had been in the early years, the oblivious years, before the darkness and the fear. By accident, a belaying pin had stabbed through the fleshy part of his hand. He’d stood frozen for a moment, staring at the vicious steel shaft protruding from his hand. Then he’d grabbed a bottle of whiskey and sucked it dry. And he’d told his friends on the yacht the same thing.

Hurry. Hurry and take it out of me. Before I feel the pain.

The sooner he found her, the better.

He stood in a parlor that reeked of furniture polish and expensive tobacco and wealth and privilege. Outside, the traffic of Portland creaked and rumbled past with a familiar and welcome cacophony. On the desk in front of him lay the morning journals.

The item that had seized his attention was on the bottom of the back page, tucked amid advertisements for Hiram’s Glory Water and Do-Right Farm Tools. A grainy photograph and a small block of text:

Ilwaco, W.T.—The head lightkeeper at Cape Disappointment rescued a single shipwreck survivor on Sunday last. Captain Jesse Kane Morgan, formerly of Portland, pulled from the surf a young lady of unknown family and origin.

According to Harbormaster Judson Espy, the only commercial vessel known to be missing at this time is the oysterman Blind Chance, of the Shoalwater Bay Company.

Anyone knowing the identity of the young lady is advised to address himself to the lighthouse station….

A strong hand, the fingernails manicured and buffed to a sheen, reached for the newspaper and snatched it up, crushing the page in a fist gone suddenly hard with fury.

Could it be…? He must find out. He would have to be discreet, of course. But he had to find out. He had to learn something else as well—what a man’s rights were to a child he’d fathered.

It was insult enough that the wench had gotten away. That an illiterate Irishwoman with dirt beneath her nails had outsmarted him. But—irony of ironies—she had been rescued by Jesse Morgan.

“Granger?” A feminine voice, tentative and respectful and cultured the way he liked, called from the doorway.

“Yes, Annabelle?”

“I…I was just going out. To call on the Gibsons.”

He eyed her across the room. His perfect wife. Every gilded curl in place. The folds and tucks of her morning gown precisely aligned. The parasol and reticule made to match. Ah, she was a credit to him.

He smiled and crossed the room toward her. She didn’t flinch as he bent and kissed her cheek gently, tenderly. Lovingly. “Have a fine day, Annabelle, dear.”

“I shall, Granger.” She took one step back toward the door, then another. What a vision she was, arrayed to take Portland by storm with her beauty and her charm. Yes, he was the envy of his peers.

Standing at the window, he watched her go. Only after a footman helped her into the drop-front phaeton outside did he look down at what he held in his hand. The crushed newspaper. He hurled the ball of paper into a small bin in the kneehole of the desk. When he looked up again, the phaeton was rounding the corner of Lassiter Way. Pedestrians craned their necks to peer at the beautiful Mrs. Annabelle Clapp.

His perfect wife. In all ways but one.

She was barren.