The Lightkeeper

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 down at what he held in his hand. The crushed newspaper. He hurled the ball of paper into a small bin in the kneehole of the desk. When he looked up again, the phaeton was rounding the corner of Lassiter Way. Pedestrians craned their necks to peer at the beautiful Mrs. Annabelle Clapp.

His perfect wife. In all ways but one.

She was barren.

Five

She awoke to sunlight and pain and the disconcerting notion that she had been dreaming of the baby. Formless and vague, the wraithlike images followed her into wakefulness. Light had pervaded the dream. And the rainbow colors of hope and joy shot through the light.

She lay still, listening, wondering about the dull ache in her shoulder. How had she hurt herself? Something to do with the shipwreck. She had a blurry recollection of holding a rail, feeling the wood twist and hearing the snap of timbers being wrenched apart. The screams of the seamen and the roar of the ocean echoed in her ears.

The memory of violence and black night and churning waters should have plunged her into a panic. Yet instead, she thought of the lighthouse. The beacon, flashing a message of hope to her as she washed ashore.

Pressing her good arm behind her, she sat up, unable to move again until a wave of dizziness passed. Mother of God, but she was ill. A squeak of alarm came from her throat, and she laid a hand on her stomach.

“Are you still there, baby? Have you survived all this with me?” she whispered. She felt the small, hard knot and breathed easier. Still there. Still a part of her. She’d failed at every last, blessed thing she’d ever attempted, and she didn’t want to fail at motherhood.

For a while, she held herself motionless, waiting. Finally, the baby moved. She’d first felt it a week earlier—the fluttering of fairy wings. A small, precious miracle grew inside her.

Grasping the sturdy bed frame, she got up. She went outside to the necessary, seeing no one along the way, hearing only the morning birds of early summer and the whispery sighs of the wind through the trees.

On the way back, she stopped in the yard. The trees were the grandest, tallest things she had ever seen, and they looked enchanted, all clad in lichen and draped in long, green beards of moss. Their tops swayed in the breeze as if dancing to music only they could hear. Surely the majestic forest could speak if only she knew how to listen. It could tell her what sort of place this was, what she could expect here, if she was safe with that moody, dark stranger.

Her gaze traveled down the broad lawn to a meadow where horses grazed. She saw a barn and, in a sunny corner, a vegetable garden fenced off from rabbits and deer. The entire place had an impersonal air of order, as if no one actually lived here.

But someone did, of course.

A very puzzling someone.

High on the distant bluff to the west was the lighthouse. The stony sentinel, painted white with three bands of red, stood proud and impervious to the wind and the sun. The flashing beacon had been her guiding star after the wreck. She could hardly look at it without feeling the harsh sting of thankful tears in her throat.

Weakness plagued her. Dizzy, she made her way back to the house. A railed veranda faced west. Green shutters and lime-washed siding, the chimney made of smooth, round stones. At one time, flower beds must have graced the front, for along the gravel walkway, she spied some bald rose hips struggling up through wild fern and weed. Hidden close to the ground were runners of alyssum and larkspur, defiantly blooming in anticipation of the coming summer.

A pity about the flowers, she thought. Blooming flowers would liven up the place considerably.

Stepping inside, she held the back of a chair and let her eyes adjust to the dimness. Books everywhere, stacked on tables and shelves. The interior of the house was excruciatingly neat, from the bin of wood beside the stove, to the supplies precisely aligned, like little tin soldiers, on the shelves in the kitchen pantry.

Mum would have liked that, she thought, letting in a warm wave of fond memories. Mum liked a tidy kitchen.

The memories departed like the tide before an onrush of impulse far stronger and more urgent. She was starving. At the sideboard, she found a pitcher of fresh milk with the cream still on top. Drinking straight from the pitcher, she sated her thirst. Her weakened hands held the pitcher clumsily, spilling a little down her front and onto the floor. Like Goldilocks in the nursery story, she helped herself to what food she could find—hard-tack biscuits from a tin, and a jar of spiced apples so delicious they made her teeth ache.

“Is that better, baby?” She stroked her stomach and, for the first time since she had washed up on shore, she smiled. Ah, there. It felt so fine to smile.

Brushing the crumbs from the splendid gown she wore, she made her way back to the snug little bedroom adjacent to the kitchen. Sunlight streamed in through the square panes of the window and played across the floor, flowing like a river of gold. Surely it wasn’t just the trees that were enchanted. This whole place, this house, this strange and wild jut of land—all of it lay under a soft green enchantment.

And to think she had almost stopped believing in magic.

How foolish. Mum always said that magic happens when a body needs it the most. And so it had. She had needed a miracle in the most desperate of ways, and here she was in a distant place, feeling unaccountably protected. Though she had barely survived, bringing nothing with her save the babe in her belly, she felt a surge of hope.

She picked up one of the quilts on the bed. Lovely, it was, with a mermaid and a sapphire sea. Now that she felt better, she wanted to explore. She wanted to make certain she and her baby were really and truly safe at last. But she couldn’t very well go about in a flannel nightgown. Perhaps there was a dress or robe somewhere.

In the tall cupboard, she found a few bits of linen and gingham and cotton muslin. Some pieces had been cut but not stitched, as if the dressmaker had gotten interrupted long ago. Beneath the dry goods, she found a pile of inexpressibles—as Mum would call them—creased sharply along folds that clearly had been undisturbed for years. She selected a pair of sheer bloomers. Swiss dimity, they were, more dear than a season’s catch of herring.

She burrowed deeper into the cupboard, and way at the back, she found a dress hanging on a hook. She let out a long, heartfelt sigh. How fine it was, a sprigged muslin of rich green and gold, with leg-of-mutton sleeves puffed at the shoulder and tapered down the arms. A beautiful, wide sash was looped around the waist. Behind the dress hung a long white shift. More Swiss dimity.

Was he married? Whose clothes were these?

The garments weren’t new, and judging by what she’d seen in San Francisco, the gown was quite out of fashion, too full in the skirts for current style. But the fabric smelled of lavender sachets, and she felt better having real clothing on. It hurt her shoulder to reach for the buttons in the back, so she simply tied the sash. She didn’t have much in the way of a waistline these days, but the dress, cut to accommodate an outmoded crinoline, fit reasonably around her middle.

Putting a hand to her hair, she scowled at the feel of the tangled mess and went in search of a brush. This she found in another part of the house, the gentleman’s tiny dressing room adjacent to his chamber on the upper story. The smell of shaving soap spiced the air. She peeked into the bedroom at the massive bedstead. Though the headboard was intricately carved, only a single meager-looking pillow was visible. A blanket of rough olive-colored wool, frayed at the edges, draped the mattress. There was no coverlet.

A little thrill of apprehension chased down her back as she pictured the man with the wintry eyes who had taken her photograph. This was where he lived. Where he slept. Where he dreamed his dreams.

She knew nothing about him except that he had saved her life. That was enough for her to believe she was safe with him.

Except for the photograph.

Her brush strokes became agitated. She must remember to tell him that circulating a photograph was absolutely forbidden. Fear, which had been her constant companion since she’d made her escape, crept like a spider along her spine. She had to decide how much to tell her host, but she would make up her mind about that later. It would probably be wise to lie.

By standing on tiptoe, she could see herself in a small, round shaving mirror affixed to the wall above the washstand. She looked like death eating a soda biscuit, as Mum would say. But she was alive, sweet Jesus, she was alive, and the baby was alive, and she wanted to crow with the sheer wonder of the miracle.

The ecstasy of feeling safe, safe at last.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” demanded a gruff voice.

She whirled too quickly, and for a moment, she saw stars. They swirled like a halo around the head of her dark angel. He stood at the top of the stairway, one huge hand resting on the newel.

When she saw the menace in his face, the fear came roaring back at her, and a thousand times she called herself a fool for thinking she could ever be safe.

“Well?” he said.

Ah, that voice. Like the bellow of a windstorm, it was.

But she had weathered a greater tempest and lived to tell the tale, so she squared her shoulders and blinked until the stars flickered and died. This was the man who had saved her. Why would he harm her now, after giving back her life?

“I was brushing my hair,” she said.

Carefully, deliberately, she set the brush on the shelf where she had found it and stepped out of the cramped dressing room. She walked past him and descended the stairs.

He followed her and stood in the middle of the keeping room, right where an oval rug would have added a perfect touch of warmth. But there was no warmth here.

The man seemed to fill the entire space, so tall and broad was he. He glared at her, his eyes blue flames behind a layer of ice. “Where the hell did you get that dress?”

She touched the gown, lifting the skirt a few inches and admiring the fine print on the green and gold fabric. “Why, you left it in my room, so I supposed it was meant—”

“I didn’t leave it,” he said. “No one left it.”

Though he hadn’t raised his voice, she could feel his rage crackling like a brush of heat lightning in the air. What had sparked his fury? Wasn’t he pleased with her recovery?

In the past weeks, she had grown adept at hiding her fear. She faced him squarely. “I helped myself to a few things from the tall cupboard.”

A red curl fell across her face, and she tucked it out of the way. “You wouldn’t be needing the gown for anything, would you?” Her hand went to her throat as an unsettling thought struck her. “Blessed saints. Would these be belonging to your wife, then?”

The icebound flames in his eyes seemed to burn colder. Every inch of this man radiated a threatening strength. The sheer contempt in his face should have alarmed her, but instead, she looked at him and felt curiosity edging out her fear.

“I don’t have a wife,” he said.

A simple enough statement, but she sensed turbulence beneath the rocklike surface. What would she find deep inside this man, if she dared to peel back the layers?

“Then who do these clothes belong to?” she asked.

“No one,” he replied. “Not anymore.”

The tone of his voice made her wary of pursuing the issue. She simply stood there, showing no response save polite expectancy.

He put both hands to his head and combed them through his long hair. “You’d better sit down.” Ungraciously, he added, “I don’t want you having another fainting spell on me.”

She lowered herself to a wooden settle that faced the small fireplace. The fieldstone hearth had been swept clean. Not a speck of ash touched her bare feet as she swung them against the planks of the floor. “Faith, I don’t plan to swoon again. It was the hunger, I suspect. I helped myself to something to eat.”

“I noticed.”

Guiltily, she glanced through the open doorway to the kitchen. The apple jar was gone. The milk pitcher had been washed and put up, the biscuit crumbs cleared from the table. Hoping to improve his mood, she smiled. “Those were the most delicious apples I ever tasted.”

He sat on a stool across from her. His face might have been carved in marble, so expressionless did he hold himself. “It’s from last year’s harvest. There’re a few apple trees at the station.”

What a strange man he was, calling his home “the station.”

She took a deep breath. “There’s something I need to tell—”

“—something I need to ask—” He broke off.

They stared at each other for an awkward moment. She laughed. “We both spoke at once.”

“I need to know your name,” he said, not only unamused but looking baffled by her laughter. “So we can set about contacting your family.”

Mirth died a swift death. She sat very straight upon the settle and forced herself to look him in the eye. “My name is Mary Dare, and I have no family.”

Ah, but it hurt to say it. He would never know how much. No family. It was like admitting one had no heart, no soul.

“Mary Dare.” He leaned forward in a sort of grudging bow. Interesting to note that he had a small, miserly store of manners. “Your real name?” he inquired.

Anger—and guilt—chased off her maudlin feelings. “And you are?” she asked defensively.

“Jesse Kane Morgan. Captain of the lighthouse station.”

“’Tis an honor to meet you, Captain. But I confess, you have the advantage of me. Where, can I ask you, is this ‘station’?”

“Cape Disappointment.”

“Sure and that’s a terrible name for such a lovely place,” she said.

“Blue-water men trying to get their ships over the bar don’t think it’s lovely. We’re at the mouth of the Columbia, in the Washington Territory.”

Washington Territory. Fancy that. She had traveled to a whole new region and hadn’t even known it until now.

“Were you on the Blind Chance?” he asked. “As near as I can figure, it’s the only ship lost in the area on Sunday.”

Sunday. It occurred to Mary that she didn’t even know what day it was. Nor did she know what manner of man he was, this cold stranger, or what the future held.

All the information coming at her began to swirl like a fever through her mind. Sunday…Washington Territory…the Blind Chance… And through it all, the lighthouse beacon had guided her. With a harsh little cry, she launched herself from the settle and landed on her knees before him, clutching his hands. Her pose was that of a supplicant before a savior. “Captain Morgan, I’ve forgotten my manners. You saved my life. Our lives. Mine and the baby’s. That is what I should be telling you. How can I ever thank you?”

He wrenched his hands away and stood. She heard an oath barely hidden in the harshness of his breathing.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I don’t like being touched.” Each word sounded measured, as if doled out from a meager supply. He walked away from her.

“Sure and if that isn’t the saddest thing I ever heard.” She followed him to the large front window, where he stood looking out at the distant bluff, his back to her.

“Never mind that,” he said brusquely. “I need to know several things about you, Mrs. Dare.”

“The first thing you should know is that—” she took a deep breath “—it’s not Mrs. Dare.” There. She’d said it. All along, she’d planned to lie to him and pretend she’d been a married lady and then widowed. Yet out popped the truth.

He didn’t move, didn’t react. “Miss Dare, then, is it?”

“Mary. Just Mary.”

“Did you have friends or family on the Blind Chance?”

“No.” The corners of her mouth curved up in an ironic smile. “I didn’t even have a ticket.”

He turned then, eyeing her suspiciously. Lord, but he was fine to look at, and he had no notion at all of his appeal. In fact, he was put together and clothed like a man who didn’t care for his appearance in the least. He just was. She itched to comb his hair for him, to trim it.

“I figured you were a stowaway.”

The thought of the ordeal she had endured sapped her strength. Her bad shoulder began to throb, and she touched it gingerly.

“Dr. MacEwan thinks you’ve hurt your collarbone.”

“A doctor’s been to see me?”

“Yes. You don’t remember?”

“I’m…afraid not.” She tried to stifle a yawn, but wasn’t quick enough. The dizziness spun upward through her. She felt her eyes roll back, her eyelids flutter.

“You should lie down and rest,” he said.

She nodded. His voice had a different quality now. She still heard that undertone of impatience, but the edges sounded smoother, somehow. “Thank you. I think I will.” She reached for his hand, then stopped herself.

I don’t like being touched.

Aye, it was the saddest thing she’d heard.

“Thank you again, Captain Morgan.”

“Jesse.”

“What?”

“Call me Jesse.” He strode across the room toward the door. “Now, go and rest.”

It was all Jesse could do to keep from running when he left the house. And that, perhaps, was what he resented most about this whole impossible situation. That the presence of this strange woman, this Mary Dare—imagine, her bearing the name of a shipwreck—could drive him from his own house, from his refuge against the outside world.

He walked across the clearing, heading for the barn. Whistling sharply, three short blasts, he didn’t even look to see if D’Artagnan obeyed. The horse came when summoned. It was the first lesson Jesse had taught him.

Within minutes, he had saddled up and was headed along the sinuous path to the beach. The horse was always game for a run, and as soon as they reached the flat expanse of brown sand, Jesse gave the gelding his head.

For a while, he felt something akin to exhilaration. The wind streamed through his hair and caught at his shirt, plastering the fabric to his chest and causing the sleeves to billow around his shoulders. The horse’s hooves kicked up wet sand and saltwater. Man and horse were like the skimmer birds, buzzing along the surf, heading nowhere as fast as they could.

From the corner of his eye, Jesse could see Sand Island, then the vast blue nothingness beyond the giant estuary. This was his world, his life. It was where he belonged. Alone. Eternally. He needed to be rid of Mary Dare, and quickly.

Because, somehow, her presence reminded him that his world was unbearably vast and empty.

God. The sight of her in that dress had nearly sent him to his knees. The memory had cut into him like a dagger: as if it were only yesterday, he’d seen Emily twirling beneath the chandelier in the foyer of their Portland mansion, laughing as the skirt belled out across the parquet floor….