Drake said nothing, but if Thea was not with the blacksmith, he had every intention of convincing the man to take on his engine repair immediately, even if he had to pay him in bloody diamonds to do it.
Philippe's large bulk moved with a fluidity that surprised Drake as he followed the other man down the main street of the tiny village Merewether had referred to as town. White buildings with red tile roofs reminded Drake of a Mediterranean seaport. He impatiently scanned the structures for any sign of a blacksmith or stable but saw nothing.
As he was on the verge of asking the warehouse manager where exactly they were going, his thoughts were interrupted by Philippe's voice. "You are a fast-thinking and fast-acting man, Mr. Drake. This morning we would have lost our Mademoiselle Thea had you not been there. Sacre bleu, it was a good wind that blew you to our island."
"Did you find out the cause of the accident?" Perhaps Thea had a penchant for safety because others in the shipping company did not.
"That was a strange thing, oui?"
Drake made a noncommittal sound. He didn't know if it was strange or not.
"The cargo, it is all stacked the same way. Mademoiselle Thea insists on it to protect the warehouse employees. She is very conscientious."
"Then how did it fall?"
"This I do not know. It would have taken the arm of a very strong man, but that is impossible."
"There is no one on the island who would wish Miss Selwyn harm, is there?"
As irritating as Drake found her personally, he did not think her take-charge attitude enough motivation for someone to try to hurt her.
"No. No. Even the plantation owners would not do her injury."
Drake's interest was peaked. "What do you mean, even the plantation owners?"
Philippe smiled, his white teeth glistening against the dark tones of his skin. "Mademoiselle Thea, she speaks out against the slavery. It is not a popular position here on the island, vous comprenez."
That would be an understatement. The surrounding plantations relied on slave labor to function. It was only a matter of time before they would lose their conscripted labor force, and there was considerable speculation regarding the feasibility of paying wages high enough to encourage the backbreaking labor required on a sugar plantation.
"She is not foolish enough to be vocal about her abolitionist beliefs in a climate such as this?"
Even as he spoke the question, Drake guessed at the answer.
"She does not know caution, that one. She does not consider it a political issue either, but a moral outrage, and she refuses to be silent about it," Philippe confided.
If that were true, Drake marveled that today was her first brush with danger. Perhaps it wasn't. When he voiced his thoughts to the other man, Philippe grew pensive.
"Non. Non. Today, it is the first time she has come so close to real harm. Mademoiselle Thea, she helps all the landowners with the shipping company. They do not like her beliefs, but they like the money she brings. Monsieur Merewether, he is a kind gentleman, but the business side of the shipping venture falls to Mademoiselle Thea, as it did to her mother before her. The plantation owners know this. Non. It was a very strange accident, but an accident all the same."
Drake stopped himself from arguing with the man. Thea's safety was not his concern.
Thea watched Jacob's bulging black arms operate the blacksmith's bellows. While her thoughts should be centered on her business plans, or even the new winch, they kept drifting back to her meeting with Drake. He had infuriated her, and yet she found him strangely fascinating.
Mortification at what she had said in her fit of temper still tormented her conscience. To have implied to Uncle Ashby, of all people, that Drake was trying to proposition her had been foolishness itself. Uncle Ashby's heart could not stand great shocks and she well knew it. Drake deserved a proper set-down, but as usual, her tongue had gotten away with her and she had said entirely too much. She sighed.
The man had his own purchase on mockery, should she take his remark about marriage into consideration. Undoubtedly he had said it only to discompose her. He could not be in earnest. Regardless, she would never consider such a move. Unmarried women had few enough rights. Married women had none. Olympe de Gouge had lost her life, accused of treason, for revealing the disparity between the rights of men and women in France.
Thea could not ignore the reality of the plight of her sex. If she ever married, it would not be to a hard man like Drake. Her mother had been careful to educate her regarding the pitfalls of marriage, particularly to a man of inflexible nature.
Somewhere in England, a man born the same day as Thea lived and breathed. Her brother. She had never met him, had never even seen him because of their father, a man who would tear a babe from its mother's arms to punish his wife for a wrong she did not commit—simply because he could.
"This be a mighty good winch, yes'm."
Jacob's words brought Thea back from her woolgathering.
She leaned forward to exam
ine the tackle attached to the pulley. The spool-shaped wheel looked sturdy enough to handle the heaviest storage barrels. "You've done a marvelous job, Jacob. I believe that is exactly what we need."