"Oh. Tiola. You're here." Jesamiah stooped beneath the low beam of the door lintel and stopped momentarily baffled, a step inside his Great Cabin. He removed his hat, coat, pistol and cutlass; hung them on their pegs.
Resorting to his usual flippant banter to mask the moment of discomfort, said with a laugh, "I was beginning to think you had decided to jump ship."
Tiola looked up from where she was kneeling beside a clothes trunk, pressing a gown into the already cramped space within. "If you want breakfast you will have to call for Finch. I ate an hour ago. There is some cold chicken left I believe. I doubt he'll re-light the stove and cook you something."
"I've already eaten." Jesamiah lied as he strolled to the table, opened the coffee pot lid, peered in and simultaneously felt its silver side. Stone cold. He poured a cup anyway. "When did you get back then?"
Tiola closed the lid of the trunk began to buckle the straps. "About an hour after we spoke last night." She sounded calm, no hint of anger, but her words were crisp and succinct. Jesamiah knew her well. This was a lull in the wind before the storm broke.
"Oh," he said, frowning, puzzled, at the baggage. She had been here all night then. While he had been. Bugger! He lifted the pot, attempted a placating grin: "Coffee?"
"No thank you." The air was almost crackling with her in-held fury.
She knew. Just how was beyond his comprehension, but then, when you had a witch for a fiancée, and you spent the night making love to another woman perhaps it was unwise to dwell on the details.
"I'm sorry Sweetheart." He shrugged; made a lame excuse, "I got detained."
Tiola went to the wall cupboard where she kept some particular medicines and salves, those that were expensive and hard to obtain; laudanum, quinine, mercury. Transferred them to a round leather valise that had compartments designed for the safe carrying of glass bottles and phials. Said nothing.
Jesamiah cleared his throat. "Er? You goin' somewhere?"
"I am."
Puffing his cheeks he sat, sipped the cold, black coffee. It tasted revolting, Finch must have been making it last longer by adding ground rats' turds and dust again. He peered into the sugar bowl. Empty. He thought about calling for his steward. Thought better of it. Finch would be in as much of a strop as Tiola was - and she was about to erupt with all the force of that Roman volcano he had learnt about in his history lessons as a child. He was damned if he could remember what the darn thing had been called, now. He pondered a moment; Popocata. something or other. He stroked his fingers down his moustache; no that was the Smoking Mountain of the ancient Aztecs in Mexico. Vesuvius! Ah, that was the one.
"So where would you be goin'?" He tried to keep his tone casual, to make it sound as if he was not much concerned.
"I have been asked to attend a confinement. The Governor's niece had a difficult time at her last birthing, he does not wish her to suffer so again."
That sounded ominous. Tiola would not be talking about Governor Rogers of Nassau for, as far as Jesamiah knew, his only family here in the Bahamas were his wife and unmarried children.
"Which Governor would that be then?"
Once again, no answer.
"You're packing quite a bit of dunnage; planning on being gone long?" When she did not reply, added, "Where would this governor's niece be then, eh? In England?" He forced a laugh. England was more than a good few weeks' sail away.
"North Carolina. Bath Town."
"What!" Jesamiah splattered coffee down his shirt and waistcoat. He dumped the cup on the table, spilling more on to the cloth. Finch would grumble for days about the resulting stain. "Bath Town? BATH Town!"
"Ais, Bath Town." Tiola shut the lid of the valise, looked around to see what else she should take with her.
"Are you out of your mind? No. Absolutely not. There is no way I will be permitting you to go there! No way!"
In front of the mirror Tiola patted her raven's-wing-black hair, pushed a few pins more securely into place. Until a few months ago she had worn it loose, draped across her shoulders and down her back but since she had become a respectable wife to the Dutchman, Stefan van Overstratten - and recently, his widow - she had taken to wearing it piled in this neat, prim style. Jesamiah hated it; his fingers continuously itched to tweak at the pins and set it free from shackled confinement.
"I will be gone a while. She is not due yet." Tiola turned, smiled an irritating smile that held nothing of humour or sympathy. "I am sure you will not find cause to miss me."
She knew. Definitely knew. She was like a fuse, an innocent length of tarred cordage, benign until attached to a barrel of gunpowder and lit. Beneath her apparent calm she was fizzing. Would blow at any moment.
Jesamiah Acorne, five feet ten, tanned, lean, muscular; dark-haired, dark-eyed. a respected seaman. Jesamiah Acorne, a pirate for ten years from the age of almost fifteen, an ex-pirate for less than two months. Quick to laugh, formidable when angry. aware he was up to his crotch in shite. And what did a man do when he knew he was in the wrong?
Losing his temper he thumped his fist on the table then kicked the chair aside. More coffee spilt on to the cloth. "I said no - you are not going! I forbid it!"
"Do you indeed?" Tiola answered primly.
"Bring It Close" by Helen Hollick