The White Gull

by Laura Strickland

  Not so hard for Mignon, Lisbeth thought bitterly as she tucked the precious coins into her pouch. Had Mignon loved her husband or only his fortune and position? An unkind question that, she admitted ruefully.

  To Mignon she said, “We all manage as we can.”

  She turned to leave, but Mignon stopped her with a question. “Have you decided to attend the dance?”

  “Most likely not. I am staying at Rab’s—”

  “I know.” Mignon’s eyes brightened with malice. “It’s the talk of the town.”

  “Is it?” Lisbeth paused in consternation. The last thing she wanted was to complicate Rab’s life. “But he is not staying there.”

  “Not at night, perhaps. But night is not the only time for a man and woman to get up to what they may, together. You of all women should know that—married to Declan O’Shea.”

  Lisbeth’s eyes narrowed. How did Mignon guess Declan had demanded the occasional afternoon in bed when he should have been out working?

  “Rab is a decent man. If my staying there is damaging his reputation, I will move out.”

  “Um-hm. His reputation, is it, and not your own? You always were so straight-laced, Lisbeth. I could never guess what Declan saw in you, and him such a wild lad.”

  “Opposites attract.”

  “And birds of a feather flock—as well as do other things—together.” Mignon gave a wicked smile. “Rab is attractive enough. Do you mean to tell me you have never noticed?”

  To her discomfiture, Lisbeth felt her cheeks heat again.

  When she did not reply, Mignon went on, “Certainly there are other women in Lobster Cove who think so.”

  “You?” Lisbeth asked, turning sick inside.

  Mignon laughed. “No, not quite to my taste is our lad Rab. But I know for a fact Emily Cooper has set her cap at him.”

  “Oh?”

  “Heard she makes excuses to go to his shop, and also asked him to the dance.”

  “Rab has taken on one of her students for apprentice—that’s why she was there.”

  “Oh, Lisbeth, I think not. True, she’s no beauty, but she has a fine head on her shoulders and is obviously a woman who knows what she wants.”

  “I must go.”

  “I will walk you out. Such a fine day! I hope the weather holds for tomorrow. Here, let me show you something. Have you ever seen the view from the cliffs?”

  Reluctantly, Lisbeth followed as Mignon took the path from the front door toward the rocks that overlooked the ocean. A slight wind blew inshore, bringing the scents Lisbeth always associated with Declan: salt and the slight tang of fish. The sun, nearly overhead, cast dazzling patterns of light on the water, and Lisbeth could hear the hiss and drag of waves far below.

  “Beautiful,” she said, because it was.

  “This view is why Claude wanted to build here. He did me a favor—more than he ever knew.” A faraway look came to Mignon’s eyes as she remembered her husband.

  “Did you love him?” Lisbeth dared ask.

  “Claude?” Mignon cast her a look. “Not the way you loved Declan, perhaps. But there was affection, yes, and gratitude.”

  Lisbeth wondered what it had been like, bedding a man so old—Claude had been sixty—but she certainly wouldn’t ask that.

  “I must go,” she said again.

  Mignon ignored her. “Oh, look! A white gull—of what does that remind you?” Mignon asked, and shot another glance at Lisbeth. “And look, did you know there’s a path just here? See that gap between the rocks?”

  Dutifully, Lisbeth leaned forward and peered down. She would not like to have to make that nearly vertical descent. “Why would anyone want to go down there?” she wondered aloud.

  “When the tide is out, there’s a narrow strip of shingle below. Not now, of course. Careful!” Mignon grabbed at Lisbeth’s shoulder. “Do not lean too far; you might fall, and that would no doubt be the end of you.”

  Lisbeth took a decided step backwards. “Yes. Thank you for your custom, Mignon. I hope you enjoy the dance.”

  “I am sure I will.”

  Lisbeth walked away quickly and took the coast path northward. All the way back to Lobster Cove, she tried to convince herself that when Mignon caught her shoulder she hadn’t urged Lisbeth forward, instead of pulling her back from the edge.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Good afternoon to you, Rab. We do not see you in here often.”

  “Afternoon, Sam,” Rab returned, and nodded to the proprietor of the Hogshead. “Warm day, in the forge. I fancied a pint of your best.”

  Sam gave a gap-toothed smile. “My best is very good indeed.” He pulled the pint almost before Rab pushed up to the bar. “And if I worked half as hard as you do, I’d be in here every day.”

  “I work hard enough to keep from drinking up all my profits,” Rab told him equably. It was one of the first lessons Tip Howard had imparted. Not that Tip objected to a drink now and then. He just kept his own bottle of rum in the kitchen cupboard.

  “Remember, lad,” he’d said more than once, “hot metal and the drink don’t mix.”

  Now Rab took a deep draught from the mug Sam set before him and glanced around the room. He had hoped Maggie Grier might be on the job, but the place was nearly empty at this hour of the afternoon. In fact, school would let out soon, and Dougie would be at the forge. Rab had limited time.

  Sam, apparently in the mood to talk, leaned his elbows on the bar. “You going to the dance tomorrow?”

  “Me, dance?” Rab returned as he had to Emily Cooper. “’Tisn’t a pretty sight, that.”

  “Thought you might intend to take your new ladybird.”

  “Eh? What’s that?”

  “The Widow O’Shea. Heard you two are a couple now.”

  Rab froze with the glass half way to his lips. “Where did you hear that?”

  “It’s all over town. And about time, too. She’s a sweet thing and terrible young to be left without a husband. Be fine if she married again.”

  Rab’s heart began to pound in his chest. “Is that what folk think? That we’re bound to marry?” All he’d ever wanted since he first laid eyes on Lisbeth all those years ago.

  “No reason not to, is there? You’re a decent man and she’s a respectable woman—not like some I could name—so marriage seems only natural.”

  “We have not got to that point. Yet.” Rab leaned on the bar also. “Can I ask you something Sam, just between the two of us?”

  Sam’s brown eyes, steady and kind, met Rab’s. “You can.”

  “What did you know about Declan O’Shea? His behavior before he died, I mean. His—character.”

  Sam’s gaze cooled a whit. “Everybody knew what Declan was—everybody except that little wife of his, maybe, and her stuck out there up the shore.”

  “Just what was he?”

  Sam lowered his voice even though no one was near enough to overhear. “Do I have to say it?”

  “Please.”

  “You went to school with him. You must know.”

  Aye, Rab knew. Declan lived by his own rules and got away with whatever he could. In school, if he could not dodge a quiz he cheated on it. A smile and a wink and a beguiling look from those tawny eyes usually brought him dispensation.

  Baldly, Rab asked, “Did he step out on his wife?”

  “Well, now.” Sam directed a hard look at him. “That’s a curious question.”

  “I’m a curious man.”

  “You’re not, though. I should have said, Rab Sinclair, you’re a man who keeps his nose in his own business—conspicuous for it.”

  But Lisbeth Parsons O’Shea was Rab’s business: if what he suspected proved true, he should have moved to protect her years ago.

  He gave Sam a shrug. “It’s something I’ve wondered about for a long time.”

  “Well, wonder no more. In my job it pays to be discreet, but what can it matter now? The man’s dead.”

  “So—how many? And when?”

 
“Son, Declan O’Shea went through women the way some men go through pints. Don’t know if he was standing stud to them all, but he enjoyed their company, loved charming them and stealing at least a kiss or two. I’ve seen him at work in this very room.”

  “Your barmaid, Maggie?” Rab inquired.

  “Well, now, why ask questions if you already know the answers?”

  “When was this?” The most pertinent piece of information, that. “The reason I ask is, I’ve taken the woman’s son for apprentice, and when I went to speak with her I got a look at her other wee bairn.”

  “Ah.”

  “He does no’ look like his mother, nor his older brother.”

  Sam’s gaze met Rab’s again, frankly this time. “Looks like his father, he does.”

  “That’s what I suspected.”

  “Declan O’Shea,” Sam said ruefully, “could have seduced a nun. Maggie Grier proved no challenge.”

  “What about Declan’s brother?”

  “Pat?”

  “Aye, it occurred to me the child could be Pat’s. He and Declan looked as alike as two peas from the same pod.” Of course, if Rab remembered correctly, Pat O’Shea had brown eyes. Still, he carried the same blood that had bestowed those tawny eyes on Declan.

  But Sam shook his head. “If memory serves, Pat was seein’ Rachel Tennant back then.”

  “Could have been walking out with more than one woman. He did take off out of here round about the time Maggie would have come up expecting.”

  “True, that. I know only what I saw in here. Declan hung about, sometimes when he should have been hauling traps, and Maggie took him back to that place of hers.”

  “Do you think Maggie would tell the truth of it?”

  “Why? What does it matter now? Maggie has two sons by two different men. No one should be surprised.”

  “Well, the thing is, I would not want Lisbeth clapping eyes on that child, and him the spit of her dead husband.”

  “You’re a considerate man, Rab Sinclair. My advice: marry the woman, give her a child of her own, and make her forget. She’s not the first woman in these parts lost a man to the sea.”

  Rab shrugged and supped some more ale before he asked, “You would not know where Pat O’Shea hared off to, would you?”

  “Heard tell he went up to fishing the Grand Banks for the season and after that signed on a sealer. Of course, that was last year. You might get word of him from Billy Dixon. The two of them were tight before Pat went away.”

  Rab nodded. Billy, who ran his own lobster boat, seemed a steady sort, in his mid-forties, with a wife and a brood of bairns.

  “But,” he pressed, “you’re sure Pat’s not been in town?” It had occurred to Rab during the sleepless night just past, lying in the stable prey to his thoughts, Pat might be a likely candidate to impersonate Declan and play a prank on Lisbeth. Appearing suddenly out of the darkness, soaking wet and with Lisbeth already in a state, Pat might well be able to fool her.

  But why, after a year? And that did not explain the damned sou’wester.

  “I will speak with Billy Dixon as soon as I can.”

  “How you getting on with Maggie’s boy, Dougie?”

  “Well enough. The lad’s been working hard.”

  “Decent of you to give him a chance.”

  “Tip Howard gave me one. Thanks for the drink, Sam, and the information. I’d be pleased if you’d keep what we discussed under your hat.”

  Sam tipped an invisible cap, and Rab went out into the afternoon.

  He had no time now to search out Billy Dixon, likely still at sea. But Rab knew to the roots of his soul he needed to solve this mystery if he wanted any hope of winning Lisbeth’s heart.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The autumn dance, held at the hall adjacent to St. Joseph’s, went late Saturday night. Lisbeth could hear the music from Rab’s, all the way down First Street: Fred Andrews, she knew, with his fiddle, Henry Drake with his squeezebox, and Tommy O’Brien with a bodhran. They played at all Lobster Cove events, and sounded so lively this night they had Lisbeth tapping her foot when she should be thinking of sleep.

  The weather being mild—just as Mignon had hoped—she opened the window in Rab’s quarters and leaned out, the better to listen. Rab had already gone off down the street to the stable, and in a right strange mood for himself.

  Rab quite obviously had something on his mind. Lisbeth leaned on her elbows, absorbing the sound of the tune “Si Bheag, Shi Mhor” afloat on the night air, and wondered about him. He had been late coming to the forge this morning, and when he did appear Lisbeth could see the trouble sitting on his shoulders.

  Broad, strong shoulders… Lisbeth blinked determinedly. She had no business thinking about Rabbie that way, how good his arms had felt around her, how good he smelled, or how that kiss from him had tasted. She had no business imagining how it would feel to run her fingers through his black hair, or strip the rough clothing from him a piece at a time.

  Didn’t she more than half believe her husband was still alive? Besides, from the very first there had been no one for her but Declan, Declan, Declan. How could she take such delight now in merely thinking about Rabbie Sinclair?

  Yet she couldn’t seem to do anything else. Leaning there in the soft dark she considered: what if she had, all that while, followed after the wrong man, trailing him the way a child might a will-o-the-wisp?

  Now she truly did feel very like a woman wakened from a deep dream. She had started awake that first time she saw Declan in her bedroom doorway, as if back from the stormy sea. And, awakened, she had begun to see things differently.

  Honesty demanded she admit it: she wanted a chance with Rab, longed to claim the life she believed he held out to her in his big hands, the promise in his deep, blue eyes.

  And that would be simpler if she knew Declan was really dead.

  The music from down the street turned lively, a bright slip jig. Giving up the very idea of sleep, Lisbeth slid her shawl around her shoulders and went outside.

  She loved Lobster Cove at night, even when the breeze didn’t carry a tune. It felt so safe—not fey and lonely like the cottage up the shore. Yet the sea, life’s blood of them all, remained within reach. Lisbeth could smell the salt tang and almost catch the sound of the waves.

  That ocean had carried her family from England to Newfoundland, had carried Declan’s people from Ireland, and had brought the lonely, bereaved lad, Rabbie, from Scotland. It had also carried the White Gull to its doom. For whatever else she imagined, she knew the White Gull had come ashore in pieces that night.

  Back in the cottage, tucked beneath the bed, lay the ragged length of wood that had washed up that fateful evening last year. The trawler’s name, in white on a background of blue, had been painted there by Declan’s father some years ago, when he had—quite uncharacteristically—refurbished the boat. Lisbeth the child had gone up the shore that very day he finished it, going as she often did, pretending to gather stones on the shingle but in truth hoping for a glimpse of the wild boy with the red hair and the tawny eyes.

  So she could not mistake—the White Gull had broken up in that storm. How then could Declan have survived?

  She found her feet carrying her, of their own accord, toward the stables. Heading down Maple Street she could see the clouds gathering over the sea—Mignon’s good weather might not last long.

  Kelpie came out to meet her when she reached the stables. She greeted him softly and ruffled the fur on his great, black head.

  “Where’s your master, eh? Sleeping?”

  “He’s here.” Rab’s deep, lilted voice came at her out of the darkness. She started as he stepped from the shadows. “I could no’ sleep,” he confessed.

  “Nor I.” In the dim, soft light she saw he came but half-dressed as he must have lain in his bed: bare feet, a pair of trousers, and a shirt open at the front to reveal his broad chest. His dark hair, well mussed, tumbled down his neck; his eyes gleamed.

&nbs
p; She reached for him blindly, like a woman seeking refuge from storm. His hands closed on hers and she stumbled forward into his arms.

  The bliss of it enfolded her even as it had back in his quarters. A wild yearning arose inside her, and she felt his instantaneous response, as if his emotions sensed and answered hers. Despite his size, she fitted perfectly in his arms. Her body melded to his as if they belonged together.

  She raised her lips and, after a heartbeat, he claimed them. As before, the caress began gently, a whisper of sensation that tasted of devotion. Then the unrecognized emotion bloomed inside Lisbeth and she knew it for passion.

  She parted her lips beneath his, and he dove in. She sighed his name into him as his tongue began to explore her mouth with aching intimacy. With a shock, Lisbeth realized she’d never before tasted this kind of desire.

  Then she forgot about her past and what she knew—forgot most miraculously about Declan, who had occupied her thoughts for more than ten years.

  For Rab’s big, warm hands cradled her; his mouth wooed her. She could feel his heart thudding beneath the muscles of his chest. He tasted of delightful things: the pure, tangy essence of male, irresistible daring—and home.

  Why had she never seen that Rabbie Sinclair was her home?

  She sighed again and melted into him. He broke the kiss and slid his hands up to cup her face.

  “My God, Lisbeth.”

  “Don’t stop, Rabbie. Please don’t.”

  “But—”

  She kissed him again, putting her whole heart into it—the heart that seemed to have so recently awakened from a long, slow dream. He made a sound deep in his throat and, his mouth still on hers, drew her into the stable.

  Or perhaps he carried her; Lisbeth could not say her feet still touched the ground. Caught so fast in his arms, she didn’t care.

  The darkness inside the stable, deep and smelling of hay and horses, wrapped around them. Rab’s bed would be close at hand. Lisbeth wanted so badly to be there with him it hurt.

  She unclasped her hands from where they had linked around his neck and slid them down his shoulders to his naked chest. Smooth, warm skin met her palms, and lower down a sprinkling of hair that made her fingers itch with delight. She continued to explore until she encountered the waist of his trousers. He grunted, but did not stop kissing her.