softly. He took her into his arms to comfort her, even as he told himself he shouldn’t. “But before they touch you, they’ll have to answer to me.”
Wearily she slipped her arms around his waist, holding him tight as she rested her head against his chest. This once she would forget what their fathers had done, and pray that Michel could to the same. She would forget about the bridegroom she’d left behind and about the dark-haired woman in the miniature in the saddlebag. None of it mattered, not really. But twice now Michel had saved her life, and he was promising to do it a third. She wouldn’t doubt him again. If he said he would watch over her, he would.
His embrace tightened around her protectively. No one had trusted him like this before, but then, he’d never let anyone come this close, either. But with her, it somehow seemed right.
Right as rain.
Jerusa sat upright in the center of the bed and with both hands aimed the pistol at the door and whoever had knocked on the other side.
“Who is it?” she called, trying to make her voice sound properly sleepy.
“Who else could it be, Rusa?” answered Michel softly, so as not to wake Mrs. Cartwright’s other guests.
Jerusa flung back the coverlet and bounded to open the door, the pistol still in her hand. “You’ve been gone so long,” she said breathlessly as Michel slipped into the room. “I was afraid something had happened.”
“Less than an hour. And what more could happen, eh?” He frowned as he noted that she was completely dressed, down to her shoes. “You were supposed to rest.”
“Oh, Michel, how could I possibly sleep?” She fought back the impulse to throw her arms around his neck and hug him. Things had been different by the well. Then he’d offered his embrace as comfort, and welcomed hers in return. Now she wasn’t as sure.
“I suppose sleep was too much to expect, chère.” But she did look better, he decided, her eyes bright with excitement, and some of his worry for her slipped away. “No visitors?”
“Not a soul,” she declared as she handed him the pistol, keeping to herself how she’d imagined every creak on the stairs to be the constable coming for her.
“Just as well,” he said dryly as he disarmed the flintlock. There’d been a time, and not so long ago, when she would have cheerfully emptied the same gun into his back, and now she handed it to him without a thought. Progress, he supposed, though of what sort he wasn’t sure. “Gather your things and we’ll leave.”
She didn’t have much. At Michel’s suggestion she had changed back into the clothes that the Cartwrights had washed and returned earlier, and she’d already packed the green gown into a neat bundle she could carry with one hand.
“Can we get the horses from the stable at this hour?” she asked. “Though I suppose there must be a boy who’ll let us take them.”
“The horses are gone, Rusa. I sold them this afternoon.”
“Sold them?” she cried with dismay. “Even Abigail?”
He tucked the pistol into his belt and slung the saddlebag over his shoulder. “Abigail and Buck both. As charming as they were, ma chérie, we didn’t need them any longer.”
“But we can’t stay in Seabrook, Michel,” she said anxiously. “You said that yourself.”
“And I also said we were leaving. Just not on horseback.” Carefully he laid two guineas on the edge of the table where Mrs. Cartwright would be sure to find them, a more than generous settling of their account. Generous enough, he hoped, that she’d also forget Master and Mistress Geary had been her guests if the constable did come asking questions.
“By sea, then,” she said uneasily, clutching her bundle to her chest in both arms. “By ship?”
“By ship.” He took the single candlestick from the table and turned to face her. “But you needn’t worry that I’ll take you back to the Hannah Barlow.”
In the draft from the window the candle’s flame flared and flickered, dancing shadows across the angular planes of his face, masking his expression from her.
“Or to Newport?” Reminding herself of all they’d shared together, she dared to ask, and dared more to pray he’d say yes.
For a long moment he stood before her in silence with his fingers cupped around the little flame to shield it. Mordieu, why had she asked this one thing of him? Her eyes were so luminous, filled with candlelight and hope he’d no choice but to destroy. If he did what Jerusa asked, he’d turn his back on his mother and his father’s memory. But by granting Maman her wish, he was destroying the first real chance for happiness he’d ever found for himself and a future that had nothing to do with the past.
“Michel?” she asked tentatively, her voice scarce more than a whisper. Was it one more trick of the flickering candlelight, or were the pain and bitterness in his eyes really that keen?
But before she could decide, he looked away, above her head to the door and the journey beyond. “Come. I had to bribe the captain to sail early before the tide was turned, and we shouldn’t keep him waiting.”
She swallowed. “And where are we bound, Michel?”
“South, ma chère,” he said, taking care not to meet her eyes. “South, and away from Newport.”
In these last shadowy hours before dawn, Seabrook was quiet and still. The slender crescent of the new moon gave little light, but still Michel walked as confidently through the unpaved streets as if he’d done it a thousand times before. For all Jerusa knew, he had, and as she hurried beside him, she realized again how little she truly did know of him.
To her relief, they headed to the opposite end of the waterfront from the Hannah Barlow and to another wharf where a small brig was tied. Even by the meager light of the one lantern hung at the entry port and the second by the binnacle, Jerusa could tell that this brig was better managed than the Hannah Barlow would ever be. The crewmen bustled about with lastminute preparations before sailing, tugging a line a bit more taut or hurrying off to obey an order. Though the ship was smaller and more provincial than anything the Sparhawks owned, she felt at least they’d be sailing with a competent captain.
“Is that you, Mr. Geary, sir?” called a man from the larboard rail as Michel and Jerusa walked up the plank. “The cap’n’s below, but he asked me to welcome you aboard in his stead.”
He held his hand out to Michel. “George Hay, sir, mate. We’re glad to have you aboard the Swan, Mr. Geary, indeed we are. We don’t usually carry much in the way of passengers or idlers, but as Cap’n Barker says, your company will be a change from our own dull chatter. And you, ma’am, must be Mrs. Geary.”
Lifting his hat, Hay smiled and bowed neatly to Jerusa. She liked his face, broad and friendly, and because his manners and speech were so much better than most sailors’, she wondered if he might be a son or nephew of the Swan’s owner, sent to sea to learn the trade before he took his place in the countinghouse. As she smiled in return, she wondered wistfully what might have happened if earlier she’d come aboard the Swan seeking help instead of the Hannah Barlow.
She felt Michel’s arm slip
