“He called me Ben,” Drew blurted.
Lorena pulled away, startled and speechless. Benjamin had been Drew’s name before he came to them. Why would Captain Talvis call Drew by his former name? How would he even know of it?
A chill of foreboding stole up her spine, rattling her composure until her hands shook. She clasped them behind her back, before Drew noticed how shaken she was. This innocent child had no idea of the dark secret that surrounded him.
But Lorena knew the secret. It smoldered bitterly in her heart.
Except for Papa and herself, no one knew about Ben.
No one who was still alive.
3
Her father asked that she wait in the east parlor, but Lorena brought Drew across the hall to the more feminine west parlor, where she would be better situated to hear her dinner guests arrive.
Butterflies flittered nervously in her stomach, making her wonder whether it wasn’t the anticipation of receiving her papa’s client that had her pacing the floor or the inevitability of another face-to-face encounter with Captain Talvis.
He’d never seen his attacker in the shipyard, and since Drew had reclaimed his stone, Lorena doubted the captain even realized what had hit him.
She feared his reaction. Would her identity shock him? And once revealed, would that identity as the lady of the house, rather than a servant, diffuse any anger he might be inclined to vent for the way she’d left him lying in the marsh?
The blame was not all hers to bear. By all accounts, the captain should have made a proper introduction. It would have explained his presence in the shipyard. Lorena could have welcomed him to Duxboro and might now be looking forward to his stay in town with pleasure instead of dread.
More than the sort of nervousness a woman in her situation might be expected to feel, she felt disquiet.
Benjamin was Drew’s middle name. Andrew Benjamin Huntley, named for her paternal grandfather, Squire Andrew Josiah Huntley, whose portrait hung over the mantel in her father’s study and who had founded the shipbuilding empire he later passed on to his eldest son. Had Captain Talvis mistakenly transposed Drew’s first and middle names? Was it that simple? Had she overreacted, or was there good reason to remain leery of the man?
In any case, this was her home, and she would not allow him to take her at a disadvantage again. No, not as he had this morning, approaching her unawares, bullying her with muscle and arrogance, with haughty smiles and deep, arresting stares.
She peered out one of the front windows, but the dark, moonless night saturated the glass so thoroughly, Lorena saw only her reflection and the parlor’s interior.
Hand-blocked French wallpaper depicted a mural of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen at a lakeside picnic. The tall case clock ticked five past the hour. Chinese porcelain vases sat atop the fireplace mantel adjacent to a yellow and ivory silk damask sofa, where her gaze came to rest.
She whirled about. “Don’t slouch, Drew, or your clothes will get rumpled.”
The child half sat, half reclined on the sofa, head propped against the back with his chin pressed to his chest in a way that concealed his pout in the lacy ruffles of a cravat. He wore a pistachio waistcoat that did marvelous things for bringing out the peacock blue of his eyes.
Yet perhaps it wasn’t the waistcoat at all but the angry defiance blazing through those eyes that intensified their color.
Lorena marched over for a seat beside him, leaning closer when he made no visible acknowledgment of her. “Listen to me, sweetheart. Papa Huntley is entertaining a very important client this evening. Think how rude it would be for Captain Briggs to sit on the table while you carried on a conversation with him none of us could share in. You’ll be together with Captain Briggs soon enough. In the meantime, give me a smile and be a good boy for your papa Huntley. Think of all the nice things he does for you. Why, just the other day he took you for a ride in the chaise to Timmy Baker’s farm and let you chase the baby pigs through the mud. And didn’t he say you could have one of Taffy’s puppies once they’ve been weaned?”
Drew turned his head and mumbled something about a stupid giant, his body slumped in a manner that reminded Lorena of the cloth doll he pined for. Captain Briggs wore a tiny sea captain’s uniform in honor of the father he believed had perished at sea. Drew and Captain Briggs had joined the household as a pair. Young and disoriented in his new home, the frequency with which Drew had awakened during the night came as no surprise, but Captain Briggs, tucked under the quilt beside him, never failed to ease the child back to sleep.