Free Where Seagulls Soar by Janet Woods Page B

tossed in the stormy waves off the Portland coast, twenty years before.
    ‘’Twas guided by the spirit of a dead sailor whose soul had entered a seagull,’ her beloved pa had said, and Joanna had since come to believe that the gull had been the spirit
of the master of the ship she’d been travelling on, Captain Lucian Morcant.
    Joseph Rushmore had taken her home to his wife, to be loved and cared for. He was a man Joanna remembered with affection for the warmth and security of his love, though he’d died when she
was young. Although he’d been in the wrong to keep her, Joanna couldn’t think ill of him.
    Then there was the father who’d lovingly carved the cradle for the daughter he’d thought he’d lost. Circumstance had eventually joined them, but it had been the wrong
circumstance, leading to a hasty marriage of convenience. That had forced them apart once again, and had set in motion a chain of events that had been the downfall of the Darsham and Morcant
Shipping Company. Gabriel Tremayne, as her father was now called, was a tough, unselfish man – a man she’d grown to love and respect in the short time she’d known him.
    Toby’s eyes began to droop as she rocked him back and forth. He only just fitted in the cradle. ‘Sleep, little man, you’ve had two busy days,’ she whispered. ‘May
your pa come to guide you in your dreams.’
    Thaddeus had come home, Joanna could hear the rumble of his voice as she went downstairs.
    His smile was sympathetic as she went into the drawing room, his voice brusque with the emotion he was trying to hold back. ‘How are you bearing up, girl?’
    ‘I keep thinking it’s all been a mistake, that Alex will go back to the house alive and well, find it boarded up and think we’ve left him. I don’t want to believe
he’s gone. It happened too quickly.’
    ‘Aye, it did, but maybe that was a blessing. You’ll get used to living without him.’
    She crossed the room and kissed him. ‘I shall have to. You and Charlotte married without telling me, I understand.’
    ‘We did at that. I reckoned I’d waited long enough and had better get the vows said before she changed her mind.’ Thaddeus aimed a smile at Charlotte, who promptly blushed.
    Joanna’s numbness soon wore off. The pit of despair she then plunged into was made all the more unbearable by Charlotte’s happiness. Joanna tried not to show her
grief during the day.
    But at night her body betrayed her when she thought of Alex, and she was appalled by the thought that she could feel the need for the flesh to be satisfied when she had no husband to share that
particular intimacy with. She lost her appetite, but forced herself to eat so her milk didn’t dry up. The tears she shed at night bit into her sleep. Soon her tiredness took a toll on her and
she began to look as strained as she felt.
    Only Toby kept her sane over the following two months. His frustration in his attempts to crawl brought a smile to her face as he rocked back and forth on his hands and knees. He soon outgrew
the cradle. Now he was sleeping in a cast-iron cot Charlotte had found in the attic. It rattled and clanged when he grasped two of the bars and shook them, which he did as often as possible.
    Sometimes his progress was watched intently by Albert, the tabby cat Alex had given her. The pair talked to each other, Albert with perfectly modulated meows, and Toby with shrieks and
chuckles.
    Joanna spent most of her time closeted in the private sitting room attached to her bedroom, or sometimes in the garden, where her active son could enjoy some freedom of expression without
annoying anyone. After a while she began to feel penned in. She hadn’t been raised to live a life of idleness.
    One fine day in August she placed Toby in his carriage, with the intention of setting off for town. On the way out she passed a man who was writing down something in a small notebook. He was
tall and well-dressed, and doffed his hat politely when he