The Widow Of Pale Harbour

He’d heard the gurgle of her stomach, seen her slightly abashed expression and recognized the signs of hunger from his own youth. He vaguely wondered what Jasper earned on the docks, and onto what kind of hard times their family had fallen.

Fanny followed him to the kitchen and sat on one of the rickety stools while Gabriel scrounged up some leftover bread and hard cheese. “All I have,” he said apologetically as he laid it on the tabletop.

But Fanny eagerly broke off a piece of the bread, piled the cheese on top and chewed contentedly. “It’s perfect.”

They sat in comfortable silence while Fanny devoured the little meal and Gabriel let his thoughts wander. He’d spent so long fortifying his mind and his heart, forcing himself not to think of Anna or the events of the past year, and inevitably failing miserably. But since meeting Mrs. Carver that afternoon, his thoughts kept turning to the gentle curve of her neck, the quickness of her smile, and her generosity and warmth to the likes of him.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Fanny said, breaking the silence.

Gabriel realized he’d been staring at her as his thoughts ran away from him. “I’m sorry?”

She gave him a chastising look, a trace of hurt in her voice. “You’re wondering what someone like Mrs. Carver would want with someone like me.”

He hastened to deny it, but he was curious. Mrs. Carver was the wealthiest person in town, pariah or not. She need not associate with the likes of poor ministers or serving girls. “I’ve heard a lot about Mrs. Carver, and I’m curious,” he said, opting for honesty. “How did you meet her? Your brother couldn’t have been too happy when you accepted a position with her.”

Fanny shifted in her seat, her expression suddenly uncomfortable. “Jasper and me, we needed money. Castle Carver was the finest house in town, so I took it upon myself to inquire about a position there. Everyone warned me about her, but she was nothing but kind to me. Pays me well, and I go over not just on working days now, but other days too just to talk and keep her company.”

“All those rumors, though. Weren’t you afraid they might be true?”

She crossed her arms and looked affronted. “’Course not.”

“And what about the strange happenings around town?”

She surprised Gabriel by smiling, wide and slow. “Oh, I think it’s wonderful,” she said breathlessly.

“Wonderful?”

“You wouldn’t understand what it’s like, coming from a big city like you do.”

Gabriel didn’t bother correcting her. Everyone here conflated Concord with Boston or envisioned it as a bustling city in its own right, neither of which was even remotely close to the truth.

“Pale Harbor is so poky and boring,” she continued. “Nothing ever happens here. Oh, it’s probably just some troublemaker, but you can’t imagine the thrill it gives us. It’s like a riddle, but no one understands the meaning. Or hidden treasure...things seem to be found in the most surprising of places. Jane Fisher’s sister found the strangest little doll stuffed into a tree.”

“I see.” Recalling the stories he’d heard from Lewis and the Marshalls, Gabriel doubted as to whether the rest of the town shared in Fanny’s enthusiasm. It seemed that everything that had been found had been hidden, secreted away out of sight: the remains left in an abandoned church, a doll hidden in a tree, skinned squirrels in the woods.

He rubbed at the two-day growth on his jaw, not wanting to speak of such things anymore. “So you knew Mr. Carver?”

If Fanny was caught by surprise by the change in subject, she didn’t let it show. Indeed, she seemed to be enjoying the gossip. “No, he died before I came on.”

“She’s so young to be a widow,” he murmured.

Fanny shrugged. “She’s better off without him, if you ask me. Anyway, when he was alive, they had a cook and a whole score of help. But when he died, Mrs. Carver sent them all away.”

“All except for Helen,” he said.

“That’s right. Helen is so kind to her. She takes good care of Mrs. Carver, even if she is a tough old thing.”

“I’m sure she’s lucky to have you both,” Gabriel said diplomatically. His curiosity about Mrs. Carver had already been piqued, but as he spoke with Fanny, it had flared into an insatiable hunger for answers. He had sat across from the elegant woman herself, listened to her proclaim her innocence in her silky-smooth voice. He couldn’t explain why, but he was desperate to see her again, to peel off the rumors surrounding her and discover the person underneath.

Fanny gave a little sigh, though whether of contentment or sorrow he couldn’t tell. “And Pale Harbor is lucky to have her.”

8

Sophronia rubbed at her throbbing temple, willing the impending headache to hold off just a little longer. She had been editing a submission all day, and the author’s penmanship was particularly atrocious, cramped and hard to read. She had only a handful more pages to get through, but they seemed to multiply every time she turned the page, the tight lines of text stretching on forever. As she closed her eyes to give them a respite, her thoughts turned to her unlikely visitor the other day.

The minister had not been what she was expecting, but she had liked him all the same. She had been prepared for a genial older man with kind eyes and a white beard. She had been prepared for polite conversation, tiptoeing around the lies and suspicions planted by the townspeople. What she had not been prepared for was the racing heart, the trembling hands and the sensation that she had known him all her life. And that’s what made it all the harder to have to look him in the face and refute all the horrible rumors about herself. What would the reserved man with the watchful hazel eyes think about her if he knew the truth?

Yet she could still hardly believe her luck. How she had prayed, watching that storm roll in, feeling the change that was coming to Pale Harbor. And here it was, packaged in a young minister—a little rough around the edges perhaps—but as fresh as sea-salt air.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Helen came in, bearing a tray with a steaming pot of tea. Sophronia glanced up over the top of her desk, watching as Helen set the tray on the table. Putting her pen down, Sophronia stretched her aching back and yawned deeply. “Is that for me?” she asked with a hopeful smile.

After the minister had left, Helen had not been shy about letting her feelings for him be known. She didn’t trust him, didn’t like outsiders coming and sniffing around. But she must have forgotten that she was supposed to be sulking, because the tray was decadently laden with all Sophronia’s favorite tea cakes.

Bristling, Helen didn’t look up as she poured out the tea. “Of course it is. Who else would it be for?” But her bad mood was clearly already dissipating; a smile tugged at her lips.

Sophronia’s heart lightened in relief and she sprang up, sending her papers fluttering to the floor. “There’s a dear! I knew you couldn’t stay angry with me. Now,” she said, clasping her hands together as she surveyed the tray of cakes, “which shall we have first?”

Helen took a butter biscuit and sat down. She looked worn and tired, older than her forty years, and a twinge of guilt ran through Sophronia that she had been so short with Helen yesterday. But they settled into an easy conversation as if they had never had a disagreement. They had lived together too long, too closely, for such a trivial matter to come between them. Like two cogs grinding along in the same clock, it would take far more than a tiny, stray pebble to bring them to a halt.

“How is our patient doing?” Sophronia asked as she poured out another cup of sweet, milky tea. She had seen Helen going in and out of the carriage house with the raven, making splints and removing the old bandages.

The little lines at the corners of Helen’s eyes softened. “A real fighter, that one,” she said. “Had him eating grizzle out of my hand today.”

Helen had the touch when it came to animals, though Sophronia suspected some of it had to do with the craft she claimed to practice. Over the years, she had rescued seagulls that blew in from storms, an orphaned litter of kittens and even a fox cub that had found itself the worse for wear after a tussle with a dog.

“You’re a wonder,” Sophronia said indulgently as her gaze swept over the tempting tray of cakes. She’d been working without pause since breakfast, and she was famished. Just as she was selecting a little honey cake with lemon icing, there was a knock at the door and her hand froze. She caught Helen’s eye. It couldn’t possibly be the minister again so soon, could it?

As if reading her mind, Helen’s face darkened. “Probably that nosy minister come back,” she said, and she stalked out of the room to answer the door.

Sophronia hastily swept her hair up, tucking it back into its chignon. Her heart beat a little faster as she followed Helen to the door.

Helen yanked open the door and hissed, “What do you want now?”

But there was only darkness there, and nothing more. Helen stepped back as the door swung the rest of the way open, and Sophronia heard the sharp intake of her friend’s breath. “What?” she whispered, afraid that she already knew the answer.

Helen shot out an arm to keep her from going any farther. “Go inside, Sophy,” she murmured.

“What? No! Let me see!” Sophronia craned her neck, trying to see past her to the bottom of the steps.

“I’ll take care of it. Go inside.”

“Helen!” The force of her voice surprised them both, and with a reluctant sigh, Helen dropped her arm and stood to the side.

Sophronia blinked into the darkness, trying to make sense of the dots of light that danced before her.

Candles. Seven white candles stood in the middle of the path, their flames gently guttering in the night’s thin breeze.

A chill ran down her spine and rooted itself in her gut. They were laid out so...precisely, so deliberately. Not ten minutes before, someone had been on her front path, carefully arranging the candles and setting flame to each one. Just as the day with the raven, her neck prickled at the thought that someone might be watching her at that very moment.

Darting her tongue over her dry lips, Sophronia finally dared to break the taut silence. “Is...is it some sort of witchcraft?” There was something sinister about the way in which the candles stood, as if they were a jury, judging her, damning her to some dark fate. One of the most popular myths in town was that she was a witch; was this someone’s way of accusing her?

After sweeping down the steps, Helen began pinching out the flames with wetted fingertips. Sophronia’s chest tightened in fear as she watched her friend descend into the darkness, away from the safety and warmth of the house.

“No, not witchcraft,” Helen called back with authority. Then she paused, opening her mouth as if she was going to add something else but had thought better of it.

“What? What is it?”

Carefully, Helen plucked up a little white rectangle from amid the candles. “It’s addressed to you.” Coming back, she held the note out to Sophronia, who took it and unfolded the paper with shaking hands.

The two words were black and stark against the paper and sent an arrow of cold dread straight into her heart. “I know.”

9

I know. I know. I know.

Sophronia’s footsteps clipped along in time to the words. They spun through her head, imprinting themselves on the back of her eyelids. How could anyone know? They could have their rumors and suspicions all they liked, but the people of Pale Harbor did not know the truth, or her version of the truth, at any rate. The note with the candles was meant to scare her, rattle her. Well, it had succeeded. The question was, why now? Suspicion had followed her about like a cloud threatening rain in the four years since Nathaniel had died, so why send her this now?

After Sophronia had ordered Garrett to dispose of the candles somewhere out of sight, she had paced about the house, as restless and on edge as a caged animal. By the time dawn had broken, some of her fear had faded, replaced by anger and indignation. How dare somehow violate her Safe space? How dare they threaten her with their cryptic messages?

When she couldn’t take the racing thoughts anymore, Sophronia had told Helen that she needed to go for a walk to clear her head. Helen had pressed her lips tight as if she wanted to caution her against it, but ultimately let her go without a fight.

It had been ages since Sophronia had taken a walk by herself without Helen insisting on trailing behind her like some sort of medieval lady-in-waiting. But Sophronia was only going up to the hill anyway.

The hill—which was really more of a gentle slope—was Safe because no one else ever went there, and Helen had told her that she’d designated it as the outer edge of the ring of protection. It rose up alongside Castle Carver, and while it was part of the parcel of Carver land, it was so ambling and expansive that it could hardly be considered private property. It was the farthest that Sophronia would ever go, and at the top she would still be able to see Castle Carver, safe and snug, tucked into the surrounding trees.

The leaves under her boots were satisfyingly crunchy, and it felt good to let her legs stretch out under her layers of petticoats. The September breeze was crisp and cool, holding the promise of colder winds to come. Soon, the candles and the reason for her walk in the first place faded from her mind.

She walked without a bonnet, relishing the wind in her hair. Nathaniel had disapproved of her walking, especially without all the gloves and hats and cloaks that kept her proper. Without them, she’d be no better than a common housemaid in the eyes of the townspeople, he’d said, and it was their job as the most prominent family to set the standard for polite living.

Oh, everyone had loved Nathaniel. He’d been tall and just aloof enough that people deferred to him, but had penetrating blue eyes that made one eager to please him, to win one of his rare smiles. He was distinguished and well dressed, and everything that a wealthy man should be. Sophronia alone was privy to the streak of cruelty that had made him a monster to live with.

Now that she was free of him, she could walk without any time spent fussing over her appearance. But her world had shrunk down since his death. The people of Pale Harbor had worshipped Nathaniel, the wealthy businessman who had donated generously to charity and had given their little town a cosmopolitan flare. The first time she had ventured out into town after his funeral, there had been hissing, spitting and even whispered threats. The cold looks, the eyes flared with hatred, had eventually driven her back to the house, where she took sanctuary. Helen had cossetted her, making spells and charms that she claimed would keep Sophronia safe. It was all right, though; she had no need of the world beyond the grounds of Castle Carver. For all the bad memories that those walls held, there were a thousand more outside.

But when she got to the top of the hill, Sophronia found that she was not alone. She stopped in her tracks, her heart freezing in her chest like a rabbit stumbling across a fox. A man stood with his back to her, hands in his pockets, staring off across the misty landscape.

Sweat sprang to her palms and her throat tightened. What if it was the writer of the note, come to attack her somewhere no one would hear her scream? She turned to run back the way she had come, but tripped on a branch, snapping it. The sound rang out in the hollow air, giving her away. Unable to regain her balance, she went sprawling face-first and landed hard on her hands.

The man’s head jerked around at the sound. This was it. Squeezing her eyes shut, Sophronia braced for an attack.

But nothing came.

When she opened her eyes again, she recognized the tall, hatless man striding toward her. Her pulse slowed, but only a little.

“Mrs. Carver,” the minister said, his surprise nearly equal to her own. His coat had been slung over one arm, but when he saw her on the ground, he dropped it and offered her his hand. As he leaned over her, she could see the concern creasing his brow. “Are you all right?”

She let out a long, unsteady breath, and her fear dissipated into embarrassment. Now he would think she was a flighty, clumsy mess of a woman, as well as an eccentric. For all that she was used to being disliked, for some reason it cut her to the core that this man might share in those opinions of her.

Her dress was heavy and cumbersome, but she wouldn’t accept his hand, not when she was so vulnerable. With considerable effort, she scrambled to her feet, nearly tripping on her hem.

He stood, hand still out as if he didn’t quite trust her to manage on her own. She teetered for a moment, swaying into him before regaining her balance. Before the breeze wound between them, she caught the faint scent of sandalwood and whiskey. It had been so long since she had been touched, at all, by anyone, never mind an astonishingly attractive man. She found herself wishing she could take his hand. “Quite all right,” she said briskly when she finally found her voice, taking a good step back.

He gave her a look of lingering concern but only nodded. “I didn’t think that you—” He stopped himself, though Sophronia knew what he was going to say: I didn’t think that you ever left your house. Clearing his throat, he just said, “The path up was overgrown, and I didn’t think I’d see another soul.”

She pretended she didn’t notice. “It’s the highest point in Pale Harbor. In the summer, the blueberries will be ripe, and in the winter, when the trees are bare, you can see clear across to the old lighthouse beyond the harbor.”

“I should like to see that,” he said.

She gave a grim little laugh. “You say that now, but you’ve yet to experience a winter here. Bleak doesn’t begin to describe it.”

“And yet you brave it to come up here.”

“Well,” she said, bristling, feeling the need to defend her home, “there’s a beauty in the bleakness. If there wasn’t, the endless months of snow and gray would be enough to make one go mad. Besides, it’s part of my property.”

She wasn’t sure what perversion made her say that, other than she felt he should know that she did exert some control, that she was not a completely ridiculous person.

She waited for him to redden and stammer an apology, but he only leveled a curious look at her. “Is it now?”

“It is.”

He nodded without further comment, squinting out into the distance. The shadow on his jaw she had noticed the other day had lengthened into the beginnings of a beard. It became him. Parlors and manners and polite society didn’t suit him, and his broad frame looked much more at home here on the rocky hill than it had folded into a chair in her parlor. Unlike her, he was not trapped in a cage of his own construction. He came and went as he pleased, beholden to no one and nothing. An acute pang of envy ran through her.

The breeze was picking up, the sky darkening, and she began to wish she had brought a cloak after all. To change the subject, she asked, “And what brings you here? Gathering inspiration for a sermon?”

He reached into his pocket and held up a notebook, the pages blank. “Something like that.” Although he didn’t smile, there was just a hint of chagrin in his hazel eyes. “I thought a walk might get the words flowing.”

Should she warn him that he might write the most illuminating sermon and it would only fall on indifferent ears? The people of Pale Harbor were not exactly keen for outsiders to come to try to enlighten them. When Mrs. Whittier had come from Rochester and tried to start an abolitionist society, there had been such an uproar that she had been forced to abandon her plans and had eventually left town. The townspeople might fill the pews and listen with upturned faces, but their hearts and minds would not bend from the prejudices that shaped them. Sophronia hadn’t the heart to dash the minister’s naive hopes, though, and so she bit her tongue.

Pocketing the notebook, he gave a shrug, as if the sermon and the inspiration for it were suddenly unimportant. “And what brings you out here?”

“I was craving some fresh air,” she said, omitting the reason for it.

It would be so easy to let her guard down with a man like this. A man who looked at her with eyes as warm as cinnamon, a man who did not judge her or ask anything of her. But neither did he want to offer her anything, as it was becoming clear. He did not wish to engage with her about his church, and he certainly did not seem interested in sharing his thoughts.

“Well, I don’t want to frighten away any inspiration,” she finally said, turning to leave. She would go and calm her racing mind, seek her solitude elsewhere, and leave him to the privacy he so clearly craved.

“Wait.” His hand shot out and he caught her by the elbow. She froze.

“Please,” he said without removing his hand, “don’t leave on my account. I trespassed on your property. I should be the one to go.”

His hand was big and his grip strong, his fingers encircling her arm like a manacle. Panic sluiced through her, and suddenly it was Nathaniel clamping his hand around her in his bruising grip, berating her as if she were a contrary child. She let out an involuntary gasp, wrenching her arm away from him as hard as she could.

At her cry, he released her, dropping her arm like a hot coal. He took a hasty step back. Through her receding panic, she saw the alarm on his face.

Safe. Safe. You are Safe. Just breathe.

She hadn’t bothered with a corset today, and she was glad of it as she gulped down the cool, salty air like a tonic. “I...you’ll have to excuse me,” she said with a shaky laugh. But when she nervously looked up at him, there was no sign of humor or understanding in his expression, only intense scrutiny.

“No excuse necessary,” he said, his graveled voice dropping to a soft murmur. “I shouldn’t have taken the liberty.”

She bit her lip, burning under his level gaze.

“Would...would it be possible, do you think, for us to start over?” She didn’t want to be the woman whom he’d heard rumors about, nor the woman who had flown into a panic at an innocent gesture of goodwill. Most of all, she didn’t want to be pitied.

For a moment, it seemed like he would not answer. He dipped his head, rubbing at the back of his neck. When he looked up again and met her gaze, his face broke into a dazzling grin. It was glorious, lighting up his whole face and flooding her stomach with warmth. “God, yes.”

A weight lifted from her shoulders. His smile was infectious, and she found herself grinning back at him.

He stuck out his hand. “Gabriel Stone,” he said. “And you must be Mrs. Carver.”

With only a second of hesitation, she put her hand in his and shook it. This time, she did not shrink back from his touch, instead letting the warm strength of his grip envelope her. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Stone.”

It seemed silly to cling to such formal conventions when they were surrounded only by grass and open skies, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask him to call her by her given name. But oh, Lord, what would it look like spoken on those sensual lips of his?

“When I come up here I like to sit.” She pointed to a little depression in the ground that acted as a natural windbreak. “Will you join me?”

He followed her as she lowered herself to the grass, arranging her skirt and petticoats around her. In a surprisingly fluid motion, he sat down beside her, stretching out his long legs in front of him. How much more at home he seemed out here, what an easy grace he possessed when not confined by parlor walls and social orders. She envied him his ease. Where tea and polite conversation might be confining to him, to her they provided a scaffold of safety, a framework where expectations were clearly delineated. She knew where she stood, and she was Safe. But out here there were no rules, no expectations. It was both intoxicating and terrifying.