Chapter Six

“Mr. Freeman, I’m happy to tell you the Intrepid will be ready to sail tomorrow. Wanted to give you and your family some time to pack up your belongings and get ready. We’ll be leaving on the morning tide.”

Josie, overhearing Captain Roberts from where he stood at the back door, froze in the act of ladling soup into the bowls on the table. Her heart dropped within her, like a stone.

Five days it had been since she arrived in Lobster Cove—five wonderful days that had passed far too quickly. During that time she’d helped look after this place and tended Hetty and Eunice, but all the while her mind remained centered on the man who worked beyond the curtain, in the forge. It was as if her soul tracked him even when her eyes couldn’t.

She’d known this moment must come, carried it like a sickness in the pit of her stomach. She’d even listened for word, hoping to be prepared, but now Captain Roberts slipped up and delivered the blow without warning.

She set the soup pot down carefully and grabbed the edge of the table. Daniel and the captain went on talking, but she no longer heard them. She was too busy thinking back over those five days like a woman reliving a dream.

Life here had so quickly fallen into a pattern. There were always chores to be done, but regardless, she and Dougie somehow managed to make time for one another. When he finished his work for the day he invariably presented himself at the door like a proper caller and asked her to go walking. They’d thoroughly explored most of the town, and he’d showed her the view from atop the bluffs. He usually brought her some little gift—a flower, or a cake Mrs. Sinclair had baked, and once a four-leaf clover.

He’d tucked that behind her ear, his touch making her shiver like she had a fever.

“For luck,” he’d whispered, and she thought for one blinding instant he meant to kiss her. He hadn’t kissed her, nor done more than touch her hand—and her ear. A respectful man, was Douglas Grier.

There were times she wished he weren’t. Because she ached for his touch, ached to touch him, longed to brush her fingers along those broad shoulders, so often bared when he worked in the forge. To trace the single dimple that appeared in only one cheek when he smiled. To find out how his lips tasted.

Michael and Eunice had begun to look askance when he came to the door. Josie had even heard Michael protest once when she left, and Daniel’s response.

“Can’t nothing come of it. We’ll be leaving soon.”

Soon had just become tomorrow morning.

Josie set the ladle beside the pot and, before she could let herself hesitate, slipped through the curtain into the forge.

Mr. Sinclair, working at the anvil, shot her an inquiring look and lifted an eyebrow. “What is it, Miss Freeman?” He took in her expression. “Something wrong?”

“I hoped for a word with Mr. Grier.”

Rab smiled. “He’s just running a finished job up the street. Why don’t you wait out front?”

Josie did, unable to keep still and for once not even noticing the stares of people passing by. Soon enough, Dougie came back, still clad in his work gear. When he saw her, his face lit.

“Miss Josie, you looking for me?”

Desperate, she reached for his hand. “We just had word—we’re leaving tomorrow morning.”

****

Douglas knew himself to be far less than eloquent. Words rarely came easily to him, and he seldom tried to express what lay in his mind.

This, though, was different. This time Josie Freeman might well be snatched away from him. If ever he attained a degree of eloquence, it had better be now.

He could see and feel her desperation in the way her fingers caught at him, and in her trembling.

Well, but he’d known better than most that repairs to the Intrepid were almost complete. He and Rab had furnished the required parts for the rudder assembly, and he’d watched the new mast go into place. That had just left the repairs to the hull, which must have been completed sometime today.

Protest arose in his chest and got a stranglehold on his throat. Somehow he managed to say, “Walk with me.”

She came, unquestioning. They’d done a powerful lot of walking together these past days, and sitting together on the rocks above Frenchman Bay, talking.

She’d told him a little about her childhood, growing up in the big plantation house, so much more fortunate than the children who went to work in the fields at a young age. He gathered, though she didn’t really say, she attained that privilege because her ma worked in the house, as well.

Josie had grown up with her owner’s daughter, Alice, the two of them nearly inseparable. Sitting through Alice’s lessons with her, Josie had learned to read and write, her quick mind making little of the chore. She’d become adept at sewing and embroidery, as well.

Yet she always skipped some details when she spoke, things she would not describe. And when he’d met her, she’d been chained like a hound to others of the house servants. Douglas’s mind had trouble making the leap between that and a privileged state of existence. He knew Josie, yet he didn’t. Whatever he did or didn’t know about her, she fitted him like no one else he’d ever known.

He now had to convince her of that.

They walked down along Main to the harbor and then northward. There, among the rocks, they found their favorite perch. Douglas boosted Josie up and followed her, the silence stretching out like the water at their feet as he flailed inwardly for the right words.

At last, giving it up, he spoke plainly, from his heart. “Don’t go.”

Her gaze flew to his and held there. Just as it had been that first night when he broke the shackles from her wrists, he felt the connection between them flare.

“Oh, Dougie,” she said then, like a woman in mourning. “You tell me how I can stay. How?”

“With me.” He ached to take her in his arms, longed for it so intensely he felt breathless. He wouldn’t coerce her. This choice had to be hers.

“My family—” she began.

Of course, her family. All she had in the world. How could he expect her to part with them for him?

“They can stay, as well.”

Quickly, she shook her head. “This community where we’re going—it’s full of others like us, former slaves starting over. Aside from that, there’s something you don’t know. Men are after us—slave-hunters.”

“What?”

She made a helpless gesture with her delicate hands. “Massa Collingwood, our master—the man who used to be our master—hired them to bring us back. We found out in Philadelphia. It’s why we left.”

Douglas turned sick. What sort of man would do such a thing? He struggled to grapple with the awful truth of it. “But you’re freed. Mr. Lincoln signed a paper that says so, turned it into law.”

“Buford Collingwood, he isn’t the kind of man to let a piece of paper dictate what he believes. What he owns is his—for life.”

Douglas reached out and captured her hands. “Philadelphia’s a long way off.”

“Not far enough, not while there are ships as fast as the Intrepid.”

“I’ll go away with you, then.” He added with difficulty, “If you want me.”

She gazed at him in wonder. “I can’t let you do that, Dougie. Your life is here, your job and the Sinclairs.”

“It’s not much of a life.”

“Your dreams are here.” She gestured wildly up the shore. “Like that house Mr. Sinclair built. That’s what you want.”

Was it? Maybe—maybe his heart wanted a home. But his heart now beat for Josie.

“Josie, I want that with you.”

“Oh, Dougie, sweet Jesus!” Her hands tried to fly up to her face; gently, he restrained them.

“I want to build you a house like that. I want to work my whole life for you. I’m talking about marriage.”

“Marriage! To me?”

Was that dismay Douglas heard in her voice? Horror? Before he could decide, she rushed on, “But you know who—what I am.”

“I believe I do,” Douglas replied. “That’s why I’m asking.”

****

Josie sat perfectly still with her hands trapped between Dougie’s fingers and her heart trapped by his words. He thought he knew; he didn’t guess the half of it. If she told him…

She gave an inward, half-hysterical laugh. The man supposed the fact that he’d been born a bastard a terrible thing. Shame stained her cheeks just imagining how much worse he’d consider what she was.

She parted her lips to tell him how impossible it was; the words wouldn’t come. Because what he held out to her was just so beautiful. Was it what she wanted? Marriage, children, a life here in a snug, little home, even if it wasn’t as pretty as the Sinclairs’. Maybe. A place in this man’s heart?

Oh yes, yes, yes.

But shouldn’t she tell him all, before she accepted the gift he held out to her? If she did, would he turn away from her? It would be more than she could bear.

“Dougie,” she whispered. “People would never accept it. I’m a Negress.”

“So? I’m half Indian. They’ve accepted me, more or less. What choice do they have?”

“This is different.”

“Josie, I don’t see how.”

Again, she tried to draw her hands from his; gently, he retained them, the warmth of him stealing through her. What would it be like to lie in his arms, to feel that warmth in her bed?

Desperately, she said, “You haven’t lived what I’ve lived.”

“You’re right, I haven’t.”

“And these men after us—they could come here, steal me away, any time.”

“You think I’d let them?” He stared at her. “You think I’ll allow anyone to harm one hair on your head?”

“How could you fight them, Dougie? One man…”

“With everything I have. With everything I am.”

He raised one of her hands to his lips, kissed the back of it, and turned it over to kiss the palm, then followed by blessing the other hand in the same way.

“Trust me, Josie.”

Trust was hard for her. She’d trusted her ma once, when she told Josie everything would be all right. She trusted Daniel, Michael, and Eunice—but she’d be saying farewell to them, staying with this man.

He bowed his dark head over her hands. “Please, Josie.”

Following the bidding of her heart, she tumbled forward and into his arms.