Read Online By The Sea, Book Three: Laura by Antoinette Stockenberg - Free Book Online

with wonder. "Does it hurt?"
    "Hardly at all," she said with a smile. "Are
you getting up, sleepyhead?"
    "Did they try to"—he took a deep breath—"to
kill you last night, Mama?"
    "What an idea!" she said faintly.
    His blue eyes were brilliant with tears. "I
heard one of them say, 'I'll kill you.' I really did."
    It apparently never occurred to Neil that
his mother —with her low, musical voice and her soft, loving
eyes—could have been capable of the hysterical shrieking that had
floated aft over the sounds of stamping feet and the jangle of the
concertina. Not even after she threatened him. Not even after she
nearly pushed him down his own companionway.
    Flushing, Laura murmured, "People—grown-ups
too—sometimes scream and say things they don't mean. You know how
you've shouted at Billy sometimes when you're mad at him. It
doesn't mean you want to kill him."
    "But I've never said I wanted to kill him,"
Neil pursued with intractable logic.
    "That's just an expression, sweetheart. It
means, 'I've had enough,' that's all."
    "I was scared, Mama," he confessed, sounding
very ashamed but frightened still. "Will they come back?"
    "Not ever again. I promise. Now: about that
coffee. Did I mention there's one blueberry cake left to go with
it?"
    ****
    About an hour before Sam was due to arrive,
the Virginia was boarded by a rather peculiar visitor: a
neatly, almost prissily dressed gentleman of about fifty, as dainty
and precise in his movements as in his dress. So innocuous was the
visitor that Laura hesitated neither for herself nor for her son in
inviting him aboard. He said he had come "on business," and she
believed him.
    Mr. Angelina, as he called himself, settled
down in a series of exquisite flutters on the cedar-decked cockpit
seat and said, "I have come on behalf of my client, whom I shall
not at this time name. He is having a retreat built on one of the
more remote Bahama Islands, and to that end needs to have a certain
amount of material—lumber, fixtures, that sort of thing—imported
from up here. He has seen your advertisement and wonders whether
your vessel would be capable of such transport."
    He crossed his legs as if he'd come to
Sunday tea and leaned attentively toward Laura, waiting for her
response.
    Taken aback, Laura answered, "Well,
certainly she's capable—but in all candor, why would you choose a
sailing schooner when you could have the material moved so much
more quickly by steam?"
    He made a dismissive and rather pretty
gesture. "Oh, speed is not of the essence in this case. As it
happens, my client has—shall we say—alienated some of the locals by
importing virtually all of his contractors from up here. Naturally
you're aware that nearly all cargo down-island is still moved by
sail. My client feels that a vessel such as your own can come and
go more—shall we say—safely and freely than—shall we say—a
steamer."
    Laura looked startled. "Oh, well—if it's a
matter of sabotage!"
    "No, no, no, hardly that. Just ... possible
unpleasantness." He diverted his look to the cuff of his
well-pressed pants and picked off a microscopic fleck. When Laura
remained silent he returned his gaze to her and said through pursed
and very pink lips, "Naturally there will be compensation for that
admittedly remote possibility."
    Laura found her voice again.
    ****
    As it happened, Sam was unable to spend the
afternoon with them; a mechanical problem belowdecks on the Rainbow required his skills, and a messenger was sent with
his regrets to the Virginia. Laura, not wishing to inform
her husband by third party of their great good fortune, simply
smiled happily and said, "Thank you." Sooner or later Sam would
show up, and in the meantime there were advertisements to be posted
in the paper and around town: if Laura was to be captain, she
needed a first mate. Billy would never do: his body was agile, his
brain was not.
    Laura had complete confidence in her own
skills as a navigator, but she needed a backup, and she