Dawn on a Distant Shore
Page 61

"Good," she said, producing the first really broad smile he had seen from her in Canada. "Very good news."
"Boots," Nathaniel said, watching her closely. "The Jackdaw is hanging around port, and I'm wondering if you have any idea why that might be."
Her smile was gone as suddenly as it came. She busied herself with Lily for a moment, and then she looked up at him, her expression torn between distress and irritation.
"Has he approached you?"
"Mac Stoker? No. Will he?"
"I fear so, yes."
Nathaniel considered for a moment. "I can't help if you don't tell me what's going on, Boots."
A squawk from Daniel, which went ignored for the moment while he let Elizabeth stare at him, a tremor at the corner of her mouth and her eyes narrowed. Color crept up her neck and cheeks. She said, "Very well, if you must know. Stoker knows about the Tory gold. At least, he thinks he knows--he has one of the five-guinea pieces."
He didn't know what he had been expecting, but she had managed to surprise him. "You paid Stoker with gold coin?"
"I am not an idiot, Nathaniel." She was struggling for her composure, and not quite able to meet his eye. "I paid him silver. But as we were coming off the Jackdaw one of his men dropped a barrel, there was a lot of confusion ... I was pushed. I felt nothing at the time, but later I realized that my chain was gone." She touched her throat as if to convince herself that the long silver chain she usually wore hidden inside her bodice was really no longer there. She had worn three things on it: a silver-and-pearl pendant that had once belonged to Nathaniel's mother, a panther tooth, and a single five-guinea piece.
"You needn't say anything, I know very well that I should not have gone to see him, even with Bears. That was bad enough, but to let that gold piece fall into Mac Stoker's hands--"
In one movement she was away with Lily clutched to her breast; Nathaniel caught her by the skirt and pulled her up short. Daniel began to cry in earnest and Lily joined him; Elizabeth rounded on Nathaniel with a furious look. "Let me go!"
But he pulled Elizabeth down next to him, trusting that she would put Lily's needs and distress above her own. Then he retrieved Daniel and held him until Elizabeth could handle both infants, suffering her thunderous expression without comment.
When the babies were settled she said, "Aren't you ever going to say anything?"
"You told me not to."
A twitching at the corner of her mouth. "I have never known you to be so compliant."
"I'm just biding my time," Nathaniel said.
"Until I come to my senses." She was wound so tight that the muscles in her jaw jumped and all her bones seemed to come up close to the skin.
"Until you get the better of your hurt pride."
She shuddered then, her expression turning from anger to grief with such suddenness that for a moment Nathaniel could see what she might look like as an old woman, with a will as contentious and sharp as a new blade, her heart as tender and strong as ever.
"Of course my pride is hurt. It was a damnably stupid thing to do." Her eyes sparked a warning, daring him to contradict her. Elizabeth rocked the nursing children tighter against her and narrowed her eyes up at him, waiting.
And she was right, it had been a mistake. She had not intended it, but she had given Mac Stoker some power over them. He knew they had at least some of the Tory gold, he knew they were on the run, and he knew exactly where they were.
"It was bad luck," he said quietly.
She laughed hoarsely and then caught herself up suddenly, blinking hard, and turned her face away. "You are kinder than I deserve."
"Christ, Boots. I couldn't be any harder on you than you are on yourself."
She drew in a deep breath. "All day I have been expecting some word from Stoker and wondering how to handle him."
"He'll be nosing around soon enough, that's true. But there's nothing he can do if he can't find us."
Elizabeth's head came up, her expression much brighter. "Shall we go to the Providence straightaway, then?"
He looked out at the shape of the Isis in the growing dark, the vaguely shimmering face of the Lass in Green, ivory and gold and ebony. Candlelight glowed from the Great Cabin, and he could just make out movement there.
"What did you think of Pickering's surgeon when he came by?"
She creased her brow at him. "He seemed knowledgeable, and a gentleman. He spoke kindly to Hannah, and he had a conversation with Curiosity. But he was only here for a short time, Nathaniel, so I really could not say more. Why is it relevant?"
"There's more than Stoker to worry about, Boots."
She waited, one brow raised.
Nathaniel said, "Don't it strike you as strange that Somerville's got every redcoat he can muster looking for us upriver, while things are so quiet around here?"
She let out a harsh laugh. "You are not looking for more trouble?"
"Not exactly on the lookout, no. But expecting more than we've run into. There was a whaleboat full of soldiers on the river--that's what startled Hannah into falling out of the canoe-- and they never even looked hard at us."
A thoughtful look came over her. "Well, you were traveling with a child. And you have changed your clothes since you left Montréal."
"You think a change of clothes could hide Robbie MacLachlan in a crowd? Or my father, or me, either? If they're looking for us, they ain't looking very hard. It just don't feel right."