A Captain's Bride (Gentlemen of the Coast Book 2)

by Danielle Thorne

  Daniel tried to comfort her. "Please don't be distraught. I know you must feel devastated."

  Her mind scrambled for other solutions, for there were always some somewhere. "I'll just sell it to someone else," she sputtered. "The land, I mean."

  "Your mama would never allow it," Daniel warned, "and of course, I must plead with you to give me more time."

  Phoebe's violent determination to maintain her poise failed to keep despair from stinging her eyes. I'm almost 27! she wanted to scream. "I need to find my path," she whispered in a choked voice, "and decide my future."

  "It will come," said Daniel, patting her arm. "I have no intention of pushing you out of your house."

  Phoebe knew Winnifred would not hesitate, and besides, they would be back in the summer for a time and stay until the September harvest if the second round of planting was successful. "Your family has no room," Phoebe reminded him, "and your elder brother inherits everything." She swallowed with watery eyes that made the world looked glossy.

  "I do not mind the third floor," he assured her, but the small cramped attic level of the home on Beaufain Street was a mishmash of storage and Charity's room.

  Phoebe swallowed again so she did not cry. She was done with tears. "I have the bigger room, and I am happy to relinquish it to you and Winnifred should you move back home."

  "I know your Mama intended the house to pass to you both, but we would never throw you out."

  Phoebe knew after a time she would not be able to bear growing old in her own home if it was ruled by Winnifred and whatever children she brought into the world. Mama had already mentioned how Phoebe did not need it now with her living at Sandy Bank to come. But she would not marry James after all, and now the shop she hoped to open was gone.

  Phoebe made herself look into the window and find things to criticize. "It's quite a small space," she said in a shaky voice, "and so dirty. Why, it's a long walk to the wharves from here. I would do better to be closer to the Exchange."

  "Yes," said Daniel, pretending to agree with her. "We'll try again next year and find a better place."

  "I should go," stuttered Phoebe. She turned to leave, but he put a hand on her elbow.

  "Phoebe, I'm sorry. I did not want to tell you at dinner."

  "It's no matter," she mumbled, but it did. It mattered more than anything in the world. She fumbled with her freshly-repaired parasol. "I'm finished with Mr. Payne and have what I need from the market. I should return home before it's too warm." She looked around for Charity.

  Daniel hesitated. "Come, let me walk you."

  She rattled her head no. "You were on the way to your father's house."

  "I am sorry to disappoint you, but if you are going straight home..." His soft eyes studied her, and she understood her sister's attraction to the plain man. He was gentle and kind.

  "Yes," she blurted, ignoring the pinch in her throat. She stared past him toward the wharves. He sighed and turned away, and she let him go.

  Beyond him in the distance, her focus drew to a handsome, but rather haggard man with slumped shoulders crossing over the street. Her heart leaped into her throat.

  James looked up as if to speak to his papa beside him. There was a stern-looking man at his elbow on the other side, and a young boy trailed behind them. As if feeling her gaze, James stumbled to a stop and peered her direction from beneath a dark cocked hat. His clothes looked disheveled; his hair was pulled back in a tight queue behind his head. The devil-may-care boyish grin was nowhere to be seen. He looked instead as if he were on his way to a funeral.

  Phoebe's stomach clenched so hard at the sight of him she thought she would bend in half. He was alive! Her fingernails cut into her palms. Alive and safe, but her heart was still broken. She forced herself to turn about on her short heel, and with a face blazing with a fire that threatened to consume her, she hurried off. From the way that he'd gazed at her, she knew. He had received the letter. It was off.

  Scorching tears threatened, but she kept her chin up as she strode down the street. It was a tragedy the Lily had been lost and on his first excursion, too, but he was no longer her concern. Her heart squeezed painfully, and she forced herself to take a sharp, jerky breath that ended in a sob she cut short with great effort.

  James Hathaway had not drowned at sea. He was only drowning in land and wealth and privilege. Phoebe had her own problems to deal with, in addition to a heart he'd smashed into pieces.

  AFTER A SERIES OF LONG interviews, which included a private conversation with Papa and Mr. Albermarle before the menacing investors who'd financed Lily, James fled the Exchange. He returned to his dusty apartment across from the wharf to collect his things. He would meet his father at the ferry the next morning, and his trunks, gig, and horse, would transfer across the river to Sandy Bank where his life would begin again—without Phoebe.

  Seeing her on the street when he was at his absolute worst felt like a dagger to his splintered soul. He slept poorly, his mind obsessing over what he considered the most shameful moments of his life: the seconds he'd frozen at the mouth of the hatch as men shouted there was fire, the letter from Phoebe with its forbidding words and accusations, his father's disappointed face, and the furious expressions of the investors.

  Captain Ogden sent a harsh letter from Spanish Florida to explain his tardiness—as if he was seeing to the company's jilted connections although their goods had been delivered. He adamantly refused to accept any responsibility for a ship he hardly knew, a crew he had not hired, and a first mate, who failed to sound the alarm and give orders when it was reported there were flames in the hold. Somehow, it was all James's fault unless he could produce a guiltier party.

  James could have singled out young Albermarle. Once upon a time, it would have been easy to innocently lift his hands and shrug. What could one man do when a roaring fire raced through a wooden ship? The men had done their best, and he'd saved them all, hadn't he? Not a single life was lost. But that was because of the bosun, he admitted, who'd ensured the captain made it out alive. It could have been much worse.

  The silence of the night was broken by the occasional ship's bell or jolting cries of laughter from the darkness outside. By dawn, James was dressed and sending things down to the gig. The heavier items went on ahead in a stacked chest by wagon.

  His occasional valet promised to send over what remained, though there was little of consequence. James piled up his packet of papers and letters and stowed them under the gig's seat in a small lockbox. He knew before he even cracked the whip he would take a long, roundabout course to the northern dock where the ferryman waited.

  A lingering early morning fog thinned as he looped back and forth through the streets. When he turned right onto Beaufain, all seemed quiet and peaceful, and he wondered if Phoebe was asleep. In her brief letter, she claimed to have been injured to learn that he would only marry her for a ship. Mr. Quinton, she informed him, had told her everything. She knew about James's and his papa's bargain and believed her heart to have been taken in bribery.

  James could not believe that Benjamin would betray him so. His friend had never been happy for him to win at anything, much less have something he did not. It was selfish.

  Without thinking, he slowed Dogberry as they passed the Applewaite house. The confined dwelling looked murky in the wispy, damp morning. Its black iron gate to the back gardens was locked tight, and upstairs, the long porch running down the side of the house seemed to sag with loneliness.

  He brought the gig to a halt and searched the windows. They stared like blank eyes over the street. He'd never intended for Phoebe to know the truth. It had been a secret, and then before he knew it, the deal with his father hadn't mattered. He'd fallen in love with her anyway.

  James released a bitter sigh. He'd only loved a woman once before, and she'd been beyond his reach, too, a cinnamon-toned servant in the main house on a neighboring plantation. With dark eyes and sweet plump lips, she'd stared through him and ignored his advances,
inappropriate as they were. He pined for pretty Stella for years until she married someone and moved to the upstairs as a lady's maid or something like it. Had that even been love? He hadn't known her likes or dislikes, what made her laugh, or her opinions—about anything.

  Any man could fall for Stella, but not everyone would take more than a passing notice of Phoebe. She put people off easily, but only those who did not take the time to get to know her. Perhaps, they deserved it then. She was worth knowing and had no time for false pretenses.

  He was a walking false pretense if there ever was one.

  Studying the quiet house and wishing he could see her, James knew that with friends like Mrs. Leonard and cads like himself, it was no wonder Phoebe took care of herself first. She'd had to step up as a child after her father died and care for her timid Mama and sister. And she'd never stopped. The responsibilities had made her fortify herself against the world and nobody could get in. But he had.

  James swallowed the painful weight pushing on his chest. Phoebe had asked him not to write her a letter back. She didn't want a message. She didn't want to see him. She thought he was a fraud.

  Dash it all! He wanted to see her, to explain and convince her that he'd never meant to mislead her and that he cared for her. Loved her. She must despise him now and think him a dreadful failure for losing the Lily. It was like being bound back in his bed in his room at Sandy Bank. He felt trapped and alone, with no one who understood or cared.

  A movement on the porch upstairs made his breath catch. Why, there she was! She stood in the corner wrapped in blue peering down at him. With her long hair curling past her shoulders, she reminded him of a sea nymph scrutinizing the morning. Had she been watching him the entire time?

  Their gazes clashed, and she stepped back as if she hoped he would not see her. He froze, unsure if he should touch his hat or climb out of the carriage and beg her to come out into the street. He opened his mouth to call out, but she shook her head in one swift movement and melted out of sight.

  No, she did not want him. He was the laughing stock of Charleston now—a silly fool that pranced around in ruffles and lace singing drunken ditties at midnight in the alleys. The man who was given a post on a brand new merchantman—a man with no naval experience, just canoe races down the river—and he'd sunk it. With Ogden's help, they'd all think him a blustering imposter with no talent or ability at all. It was better to go back to his plantation with his tail between his legs and direct the family business from the study instead of getting his hands dirty.

  James's cheeks tingled with shame. Phoebe didn't come back out. She was finished with him, and he deserved it. She was better off with a millinery shop than she was marrying the village idiot. He sniffed hard and cracked the whip before the tragic weight of it made his eyes wet. The gig lurched and pulled him away from Phoebe Applewaite for good.

  A while later, he found Papa and Mr. Albermarle waiting for him at the river. As his belongings were loaded onto the ferry, he moved over to the rail and watched the sun rise over the eastern horizon beyond Sullivan's Island. The murmur of voices on the breeze mingled with the birds' complaints overhead. Nervous horses stamped and vibrated the boards beneath his feet.

  He'd just released another cleansing breath of salt air when Albermarle joined him. James remained silent. The man had been furious with their loss. His loss. He'd built the Lily himself and almost sacrificed his son on the maiden voyage.

  James pretended not to notice him, but Albermarle folded his arms with a heavy release of breath that reeked of disappointment and something worse. After a few moments, he said, "You have escaped responsibility with the inquiry board and the investors. I know your family is relieved."

  When James said nothing, Albermarle continued. "You're a very lucky man, Mr. Hathaway." He looked sideways at him. "It comes as no surprise to me, none at all, since you are more adept at starting your own fires than you are putting them out."

  James winced, but his fists curled with offense.

  "I've watched your papa make excuses for you for years. I pity him." Albermarle shook his head in disgust, and James's face warmed. It was a sickening feeling of shame and anxiety that had already made him feel ill for weeks. He wanted to defend himself, but there was no point.

  "I lost a great deal of my own money in this venture," Albermarle complained. "I don't suppose you have any intention of providing restitution to the other owners?"

  James looked at him with heavy eyes. "You know I do not have enough money to cover a ship's cost. Besides," he muttered, "it was a risk. Every investment is."

  Phoebe jumped into his mind, and he tried to push her away. Yes, he had invested heavily, too. Not with his money but with his heart. He'd lost wonderful possibilities with her, on top of faith and respect and his reputation.

  "Well, it comes out of your pocket in the end," muttered Albermarle, meaning the Hathaway fortune, James suspected. The man's nerve prickled him. He hadn't approved of James since he was a boy, and now he was using this unimaginable tragedy to unload his unsavory feelings onto him.

  Zachariah came up beside his father, and Albermarle put a hand on his shoulder. James studied the child then sensing he was being watched, returned to the water view.

  "If it wasn't for my boy," said Albermarle, "I'd take you to a court for my losses, but I suppose there are more important things."

  Zachariah glanced uncomfortably at his father then at James. James looked away. Their secret would be kept.

  "I should thank you for saving his life," admitted Albermarle. Touching Zachariah on the shoulder again, he added, "But I don't want to see you in the shipyard ever again. If you come to work under me—or over me—I will quit and never see your father or have anything to do with your family again."

  James's breath hitched in his chest. Albermarle and Papa had been good friends for many years and very successful in business together. To be the cause of a wrecked friendship between them would break his heart. He gave a sharp nod.

  After staring hard at James to make sure he understood, Albermarle steered his son away from him, and they walked back to the front of the ferry together. Papa stood silent and alone across the deck, lost in some grim thought. He did not speak to James the entire course of the river crossing.

  THE HOUSE ON BEAUFAIN street felt like a smoking powder keg although April was deliciously breezy. Even when a messenger from the Regina brought the money and her papa's small trunk back from the exported handkerchiefs, it did not cool Mama's temper.

  Phoebe sat in the front parlor and sewed until her head throbbed, expecting no visitors and retiring to her room whenever Mama stomped in with a frown to stare out the window for hours.

  A few friends called, but Phoebe chose to escape outside into the blossoming garden or up to her room to avoid their disapproving frowns. For a woman who wanted to shroud their shame and avoid gossip, Mama was doing a fine job informing everyone in their acquaintance of Phoebe's hideous act.

  The tragedy of it all made the days uncomfortable and the nights restless. Phoebe spent more hours on the covered porch in the moonlight than she cared to admit, watching the quiet world turn outside her house. She avoided the church, the market, and even the sandy shore where she liked to dawdle. When James stopped in front of the house two mornings after returning to Charleston, Phoebe was horrified to be caught moping on the balcony as if she was not the one who'd penned the letter.

  Secretly, an enormous part of her hoped he'd leap from his gig and demand she come out and allow him to apologize. He had not, so she must have been right after all. There had been nothing real between them. She'd just been another shiny button on his coat.

  Mama stormed into the parlor on Tuesday, making Phoebe jump like someone had poked her spine with a knitting needle. Fumbling with her hat strings, her mother threw her bergère angrily onto the settee rather than lifting the bench seat to store her things.

  Phoebe stared in concern. "How were your morning calls?"


  "My calls? Mine? Well, besides going out alone because of your situation, I was not let in at Mrs. Heyward's who claimed to have a headache."

  Phoebe wrinkled her forehead. "Perhaps she did. 'Tis the season with so many of the trees flowering."

  "Or perhaps it is because she is one of Mrs. Hathaway's oldest and dearest friends. And who am I to be let into that fine house?"

  "They do have a fine home," agreed Phoebe, "but just because they are next door to the Russells and friends of the Hathaways—"

  "How could you, Phoebe? How could you do this to me?"

  "I did it to myself, Mama." Phoebe twisted the handkerchief she'd been decorating, poking her palm with the sharp needle. "Ow!" It did not help her temper. "Not to you. I did not do this to you."

  "Mr. Hathaway has retired to Sandy Bank. Even he cannot bear the ridicule of what you have done."

  "Mama," Phoebe warned. "He sank a company ship on its first voyage. Why they even let him aboard I cannot fathom, but—"

  "Oh, Phoebe! That is mindless and cruel. The stupid boat caught fire. It was probably ill-built. That's what we've all decided. It certainly wasn't poor Mr. Hathaway's fault."

  Phoebe raised her eyes to the ceiling at Mama's absurdity. It only served to stoke the ill feelings that blazed between them.

  "How dare you behave as if I'm overreacting." Mama snapped her hands up onto her hips. "You have sulked around this house like a woman scorned while you're the one who refused the man. A Hathaway!" she cried. "You could have been a Hathaway!"

  Phoebe grit her teeth. "You mean you could have been a Hathaway or related to one."

  Mama's eyes widened. "Don't you dare judge me. I have fretted about this family since the day your Papa died. I did everything I could to make sure you had all you needed to be accepted in society."

  Phoebe knew Mama was right, but how could she not mention Phoebe's sacrifices, either? Her mother wasn't finished. "There is no reason to drag us down so low we must cut gowns for our own neighbors. Before long I will be scrubbing floors!"