Another hum. “Thanks to you, I believe. Sharing my fears…”
And staying home, though he had no intention of pointing out that correlation. Besides, he had given her new fears, new worries and wonders about the father she’d never before had to question. “I am happy to listen whenever you want to share what is plaguing you. I imagine there is more even than that loss. You are away from all the rest of your family. All your friends. And that beau in the suit of armor.”
Ah, yet another chime of laughter. “Sir Arthur.”
As if he had forgotten. He slid the prayer book onto the edge of the desk so he could put both hands on her shoulders. “Ah, yes. I imagine you miss him too.”
“Not enough for it to have been what I thought it was.” She reached for the book. “What is this?”
“Puritan prayers, transcribed by my grandfather. I thought they might lend you some peace.” He let his lips purse at her observation on her feelings for Sir Arthur. Notwithstanding that he was glad of it, the fact remained that it was the second expression within the hour of how fleeting such things could be. “I imagine he is missing you sorely, having not been through the trauma you have.”
She ran a finger along the spine of the book and flipped it open. “I cannot think so. We scarcely knew each other, and he would have been put out by my disappearing on him without a word that morning after I promised to speak with Papa. Oh, isn’t this lovely. ‘If I should suffer need, and go unclothed, and be in poverty, make my heart prize Thy love…’ ”
“That morning?” His hands paused and rested on her shoulders. “He was there?”
“In the garden. Too far away to have known. Now, I wonder what the author meant by this line about being constrained by His love. I have never thought of the Lord’s love as being something to bind or restrict, but I suppose in this sense, it holds us to contentment.”
His thumb moved over her neck again, though he neglected to put any force into it. “In the garden, you say. Does Sir Arthur perchance bear a resemblance to Arnaud, but with fairer coloring?”
“I suppose so, at first glance.” Her head bent toward her chest. “How did you know?”
“You drew him your first night here.” He had thought the figure looked lost to the observer—and what if that were more the case than that she had felt nothing real for him? What if she felt resignation, or even a sense of betrayal, that he had been so close but unable to help her? What if he were still ensconced in her heart, but she was just too struck by grief to realize it? His fingers wove through her curls. “What was it you promised to speak about with your father, Gwyn?”
She said nothing. Just breathed in and then out in a slow, even rhythm.
Thad sighed and crouched down beside her. Her eyes were closed, her fingers limp against the pages. He gathered her curls over one shoulder and then couldn’t resist resting his hand against her cheek.
“One of these days, my love,” he whispered, easing the book from her hands, “we will finish a conversation.”
Seventeen
Arthur looked up when the tin cup plunked onto the table before him, and he smiled at the expressionless lad who had brought it. “Thank you, Scrubs. With this storm raging, I am afraid I am more in need of the ginger than usual.”
“Sorry for my tardiness, sir. When the wind kicked up, I had to help secure everything.”
“I understand.”
In the corner of the cabin, Gates turned a page in his book. “Stop your chattering and let the boy get to work. The breakfast tray spilled when that wave struck. Of course, had you picked it up when you said you would…”
Arthur sipped the ginger water, welcoming the bitter taste that would help settle his stomach, which seemed bent on echoing the roll of every wave. Blast these summer storms. “Pay no heed to his testiness, Scrubs. Mr. Gates does not like being confined to our cabins.”
Gates snorted.
Scrubs merely headed for the mess by the table.
Arthur studied his older companion, both amused and bemused at how his usually stoic demeanor had given way to such acidity today. He suspected it had less to do with being asked to remain below than it did the captain’s words about the delay the weather might cause.
He took another sip. “Have you been to America before, Mr. Gates?”
He didn’t even bother to look up from his page. “Of course. I have been to nearly all of England’s colonies.”
Scrubs paused halfway into his reach for a fork they had overlooked on the floor. “You visited before the Revolution then, sir?”
Now Gates looked up with an expression of disdain. “No, my visits have all been in the late eighties and after.”
The boy grabbed the fork and tossed it to the tray with a clatter. “Then you did not visit her as a colony, did you?”