Lorena jerked upright with a start. “George, how long have you been hiding there?”
They hadn’t spoken since exiting the carpentry shop yesterday. Lorena had returned to the house while George joined her father and a group of other shipwrights in conversation on the fitting wharf.
“Not hiding. I’ve been waiting for you.” He cleared his throat and removed his topper hat, stepping out from beneath the low-hanging branches to be plainly seen. “I cannot bear to leave Duxboro with ill feelings between us.”
Lorena felt for his bruised face, though she could not help but remain leery of George’s intent. “I would not wish that, either.”
“You have been a dear friend. I hoped for more, but if I cannot win your love, Lorena, then I would preserve our friendship,” he said, joining her in the garden. “I promise there will be no more talk of coming to England with me, and no matter what you may tell another yourself, I shall never speak of what I saw in the carpentry shop, to your father . . . or anyone.”
“George, you saw only two people in conversation.”
“Meeting in secret. Because of which I am now forced to walk about with a battered jaw and blame it on my own clumsiness.”
Her spine stiffened when Lorena realized she had no defense. George’s point was well made. She had been meeting the captain in secret. She’d sent him to the carpentry shop, where she knew they’d be alone. Alone, for a moment, when Brogan had caressed her cheek. He had gazed into her eyes with abandon and she into his.
“Lorena?”
She snapped her attention back to George with a blink of her eyes. She tried to see the situation from his perspective. Perhaps in his own misguided way, like Drew, George had been looking out for her. Perhaps she could give him the benefit of the doubt.
“George, let us not speak of this again. Let us accept that there are certain things on which we shall never agree. You choose ambition and fortune, while I hold fast to home and family. Each of us to our own path. I am sorry I accused you of being disloyal. I strive to be Christian in my views, but I am as human as any. You are of course free to go wherever your heart leads. You have much talent and much skill to offer any shipyard, and so I wish you success wherever you travel. May your vessels be heralded throughout the world, for in the end I do believe our lives work out according to God’s will.”
His intensity eased with a sigh of relief. “Lorena, you have no idea how much your blessing means to me. In that respect I beg a favor, if I may. I ask that you and Drew accompany me to the docks to see me off when I set sail.”
She had never seen his expression so humble, so hopeful. There was no question she would accompany George. She could not in good conscience allow someone she’d known since childhood to embark on such a journey without a proper farewell and a party on the dock to wave him off.
“Of course . . . of course we’ll come,” she said.
George beamed with pleasure. As Lorena watched his departure, she wondered why she did not feel the relief she’d expected. Soon George would be out of her life. No more offers of marriage, no further contention with the captain. They had agreed to part amicably. His doings need no longer concern her, so why this nagging foreboding?
Greater than ever, she felt the need to shake it off through her outlet of baking. Lorena entered the kitchen and mixed ingredients for a cake batter. Only a fool would choose to work with the ovens on what promised to be another sunny day. A fool or someone in search of solitude to toil away the demons that plagued her.
She worked at the breadboard table, blissfully lost in the task and her busy hands.
“I’ve heard it said that no one prepares sweets to rival those of Lorena Huntley. For just as like creates after its kind, so does the sweetest woman in all of Duxborotown bake the most toothsome desserts.”
Surprised to find she had a visitor, Lorena lifted her gaze to where Brogan leaned against the doorjamb in buff trousers, a striped waistcoat, and rolled shirtsleeves. He wore no hat. Sunshine gilded his sandy hair, and with his smile, his sharp masculine features softened.
Perspiration trickled down the back of her neck.
He studied her with a sprig of mint between his teeth, probably expecting her to blush and titter at the compliment, which could not even be credited as his own, for the captain had just quoted her father.
Wiping her brow with the back of a hand, Lorena stepped away from her large earthenware bowl of batter to blow at a stray tendril. “Come for an early check on your ship, Captain?”