Heart's Safe Passage by Laurie Alice Eakes Read Free Book Online

himself made respectable.
    But not enough to get him what he really wanted until he’d made landfall in Southampton in July and visited his usual haunts, sought out his usual informants. One sent him to the Nore, to a prison hulk rotting with its human cargo in the Thames, to one of those prisoners aboard, then across the sea to lands he’d avoided since Great Britain and America went to war the previous year.
    He didn’t want to fight Americans. Their complaints against Britain held merit. They didn’t deserve to be destroyed.
    Except for one of them.
    Who would take one look at Mel and use the child as Rafe was using Mrs. Chapman—bait to draw his quarry from hiding, draw him into surrender.
    “I’m retiring after this voyage,” he announced.
    Mel stared at him, horror registering in big green eyes. “You cannot. We’ll have to live on land then. I’ll have to dress properly in front of people.”
    “Aye, shoes and stockings and no cutlass in your waistband.” Rafe frowned at the unsheathed weapon.
    Mel set Fiona on the hammock and removed the cutlass. “I thought perhaps I should be carrying it with strangers aboard.”
    “They are two harmless women.” He thought of Watt’s black eye, of hands that appeared too delicate and smooth to have inflicted such damage, and added, “Mostly harmless.” If he thought little of her hands, her eyes, her fairy-tale-princess hair. “And one has the seasickness.”
    Reduce her to nothing more than the crumpled, retching stranger, and she wouldn’t haunt him so.
    “Ugh.” Mel grimaced. “I don’t have to do any cleaning up, do I?”
    “Nay, but I’m thinking you can make me more ginger water for her.”
    “More?” Mel gave Rafe a sidelong grin. “We’re running low on ginger. What happens if she drinks up all your ginger water?”
    “We’ll stop in Bermuda and buy more ginger.” He turned toward the door. “And get a proper barber to undo as much damage to your hair as possible. Until then, wear a cap when on deck.”
    “I can go on deck?” Mel grabbed Rafe’s arm. “I’m not one of the prisoners?”
    “You were never a prisoner, you imp. You had the lock and were supposed to use it until I assured you all was well up top.”
    “I did stay down here with Fi, and I am always obedient.”
    Rafe snorted. “I wish I were that good at raising you. But now that you have mentioned obedience, obey me in this: keep out of the way of our guests.”
    “I thought they were not dangerous.”
    “Aye, weel . . .” Rafe drummed his fingers on his thigh and gazed up as though he could see through the deck. At that moment, he couldn’t hear through it either. The ladies either slept or remained nearly motionless. “I do not trust the one to not be up to some tricks. She is not happy about being here.” He reached for the door and caught sight of the book still lying on the floor. He stooped to retrieve it.
    Mel dove in front of him, snatching it up first. “I—I still need to do my work in this.”
    “You threw it on the floor.” The bantering tone left Rafe’s voice. His muscles tensed. “You threw your Bible on the deck.”
    “I did not. I dropped it. I—” Mel’s chin jutted again. “I saw you throw one overboard once.”
    “Aye, weel, one thing you should have learned aboard this brig is that I am not the best example for a child.”
    “But you are.” Bible clutched in one hand, Mel laid the other hand on Rafe’s arm and gazed up at him with limpid eyes. “Do not be angry with yourself for me being here. You are the best teacher in the world. You make certain I can read well and write a fair hand and do my sums better than any of those schools you sent me to.”
    “But they taught you Scripture.”
    “And you don’t beat or starve me.”
    Rafe’s muscles relaxed, and he tweaked the end of Mel’s nose. “Nay, I simply expose you to danger every day.”
    “’Tis still better than being alone on land.”
    “You would feel differently