The Lightkeeper. Susan Wiggs

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      “Ma’am?” The stranger’s voice was low, tentative. Edged with annoyance.

      No one had ever called her “ma’am,” as if she were a lady of consequence. The blethering fool, she thought, letting her mind drift like a bit of wood bobbing on the waves. Didn’t he know better?

      

      Feeling like an idiot, Jesse stood with the lamp in one hand, the other hand stretched out toward the shivering mound on the bed. Confound the woman. Couldn’t she make up her mind whether to be awake or asleep?

      Tonight, Erik was tending the light. The lad was steady, grinding the gears every four hours as Jesse had trained him to do. But he only allowed Erik to sit watch if the weather held no threat.

      Early in the evening, Jesse had gone out to the edge of the promontory and stood for a long time, feeling the wind and tasting the air, watching the rush of clouds across the lowering glow of the sun.

      People said his foreknowledge of bad weather was a mystical gift, but he knew it was simply a skill born of long practice. He had learned to read the mood of the sea and the clouds. The first tenet of warfare was to know one’s adversary. He had made a study of it. In the room at the bottom of the lighthouse he had an array of instruments any university scientist would envy—astrolabes and quadrants, barometers and gauges for all manner of measurement.

      He was diligent in keeping his log, earning special commendations from the district lighthouse inspector for his attention to detail. Of course, he didn’t do any of this in order to earn commendations.

      In the beginning, he’d done it to earn salvation. But after twelve years, he’d given up hoping for that. Now he just did it to survive.

      Quietly he replaced the lamp on the wall shelf and stood looking at the hump of quilts and blankets. This was his night to sleep, and here he stood, wakeful and agitated, staring in resentment at the woman from the sea.

      Earlier, Palina had brought up a fresh quilt and a jar of strong broth. He had heated some of the broth and set the bowl on the bedside table. “Ma’am?” he said softly. “You should try to eat.”

      No response. Setting his jaw, Jesse awkwardly pulled back the blankets to reveal a tangle of hair and a flushed cheek. “Ma’am?” he said again, his voice tighter now, more impatient.

      She moaned and shivered again, then turned her head away without opening her eyes. She had slipped back into that state of half sleep.

      “Fool woman,” Jesse muttered. “You’re never going to get better if you don’t eat something.” He unfurled the quilt Palina had brought and settled the colorful blanket over the woman.

      She stirred, and a small foot emerged from beneath the covers. When Jesse bent to tuck it back in, he was struck by the fine texture of her skin.

      In a dark corner of his heart, part of him wondered if she was going to die like everything else he touched.

      She released a contented sigh and settled deeper into sleep. The quilt seemed to have a calming effect on her. Ever whimsical, Palina had depicted on the fabric some favored Icelandic myth. This one showed a beautiful mermaid rising out of the sea, borne along on the crest of the boiling surf.

      Palina and her myths. She used them to explain everything. She used them instead of simple common sense.

      Jesse frowned. Common sense wasn’t working here. In truth, it was all too easy to see the Irishwoman as a creature of myth. She had appeared alone from the sea. She was shrouded in mystery. No one had come searching for her. She wore no wedding ring, yet she was pregnant. The foreign lilt in her voice only added to the mystique that hung around her like the golden glow of a lamp.

      She took a deep, shuddering breath that startled Jesse. He hated being startled. He hoped to God that word of her would get out quickly. Bert Palais had promised to circulate the photograph and description as far as his newspaper contacts would reach.

      Hurry, Jesse thought, turning down the lamp and walking quietly out of the room. Hurry and get her away from here.

      He thought of a time years before when he’d been out yachting with friends. That had been in the early years, the oblivious years, before the darkness and the fear. By accident, a belaying pin had stabbed through the fleshy part of his hand. He’d stood frozen for a moment, staring at the vicious steel shaft protruding from his hand. Then he’d grabbed a bottle of whiskey and sucked it dry. And he’d told his friends on the yacht the same thing.

      Hurry. Hurry and take it out of me. Before I feel the pain.

      

      The sooner he found her, the better.

      He stood in a parlor that reeked of furniture polish and expensive tobacco and wealth and privilege. Outside, the traffic of Portland creaked and rumbled past with a familiar and welcome cacophony. On the desk in front of him lay the morning journals.

      The item that had seized his attention was on the bottom of the back page, tucked amid advertisements for Hiram’s Glory Water and Do-Right Farm Tools. A grainy photograph and a small block of text:

      Ilwaco, W.T.—The head lightkeeper at Cape Disappointment rescued a single shipwreck survivor on Sunday last. Captain Jesse Kane Morgan, formerly of Portland, pulled from the surf a young lady of unknown family and origin.

      According to Harbormaster Judson Espy, the only commercial vessel known to be missing at this time is the oysterman Blind Chance, of the Shoalwater Bay Company.

      Anyone knowing the identity of the young lady is advised to address himself to the lighthouse station….

      A strong hand, the fingernails manicured and buffed to a sheen, reached for the newspaper and snatched it up, crushing the page in a fist gone suddenly hard with fury.

      Could it be…? He must find out. He would have to be discreet, of course. But he had to find out. He had to learn something else as well—what a man’s rights were to a child he’d fathered.

      It was insult enough that the wench had gotten away. That an illiterate Irishwoman with dirt beneath her nails had outsmarted him. But—irony of ironies—she had been rescued by Jesse Morgan.

      “Granger?” A feminine voice, tentative and respectful and cultured the way he liked, called from the doorway.

      “Yes, Annabelle?”

      “I…I was just going out. To call on the Gibsons.”

      He eyed her across the room. His perfect wife. Every gilded curl in place. The folds and tucks of her morning gown precisely aligned. The parasol and reticule made to match. Ah, she was a credit to him.

      He smiled and crossed the room toward her. She didn’t flinch as he bent and kissed her cheek gently, tenderly. Lovingly. “Have a fine day, Annabelle, dear.”

      “I shall, Granger.” She took one step back toward the door, then another. What a vision she was, arrayed to take Portland by storm with her beauty and her charm. Yes, he was the envy of his peers.

      Standing at the window, he watched her go. Only after a footman helped her into the drop-front phaeton outside did he look СКАЧАТЬ