by Anne Gracie
“You will get well.” Angrily dashing an unwary tear from her cheeks. “A positive attitude!”
She sent her meals back untouched, ignoring Higgins’s reproaches. She couldn’t eat with him lying so still and wasted. She would be sick.
She fed him medicinal tea, with barley water for strength, and he swallowed it, but barely. His lassitude frightened her.
As she fed him his last dose of willow bark for the night and slipped in beside him, she prayed fiercely for his life to be spared. She lay holding him against her, her hand pressed against his heart, feeling each breath rasp in and out, in and out. She was too frightened to sleep.
But in the wee small hours of the night his heartbeat and the rhythm of his breathing lulled her briefly to sleep against her will.
And in the faint light of dawn, she woke up cold.
She sat up with a jerk and a shout, “Noooo.”
And beside her, he stirred.
She blinked. Her chemise was wet.
She was cold because her chemise was wet and the breeze from the porthole was chilling her.
Her chemise was wet because he was wet. He was sweating. She felt his forehead. It was cooling under her fingers.
Oh God, he was sleeping normally, his breathing deep and even. She pressed her palm to his heart and felt the strong and steady beat.
The fever had broken. Tears ran down her cheeks unchecked. He was going to live. His fever had broken.
Thirteen
He slept for most of the day, and in the late afternoon she glanced up to find him watching her. His blue eyes were as clear as the sky now, no sign of fever. And ever so slightly . . . annoyed?
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“It’s all right, you’ve been sick.” She hurried over to the bed and felt his forehead. Blissfully cool and normal.
He looked up at her and caught her hand in his, frowning. “What are you doing?”
“Checking for fever. But there’s none. You’re going to be well again.”
He tried to sit up and fell back against the pillows. “Good God, I’m weak as a kitten.”
“Yes, you’ll need to rest for some time yet and regain your strength. You’ve been very sick. I . . . I thought you were going to die,” she said mistily.
“Nonsense, I’m as tough as old boots,” he said and tried to sit up again, succeeding this time, though at a visible cost.
“No, you’re as stubborn as old boots,” she corrected him. “Now stay put, please. I need to wash you.”
“Wash me?” The black brows snapped together. “You’ll do nothing of the sort!”
“Don’t be silly, you desperately need a wash. In case you haven’t noticed, you stink. When the fever broke, you sweated like a pig, and now I need to get you clean so you can recover in comfort.”
Black brows lowered as he peered under the sheet. His eyes widened briefly as he saw he was naked. He glanced at her, then cautiously sniffed himself. His head jerked back. “Faugh!”
She laughed. “Told you so. All the evil humors have been sweated out of you. So now will you let me bathe you?”
He drew the sheet up to his chin. “Even less so now that I’ve seen—deuce take it, Ayisha, you shouldn’t even be here, with me in this state.” He tucked the sheet around him. “Where’s Higgins?”
“Outside.”
“Then send for him. He can assist me.”
“No, he can’t,” she said calmly. “Not for ten more days.”
“What do you mean, ten more days? I thought you said he was outside? Has he gone somewhere?”
“No, he’s still on the boat,” she told him. “But I might be infectious, so the captain has put me in quarantine for another ten days, just to be sure.”
“If you’re in quarantine, then what are you doing in my cabin?”
“This is quarantine,” she told him. “I told you, you were sick. We thought it might be the plague.”
“Plague?”
“But it wasn’t, and now you’re recovering from whatever it was. But I might have caught it from you, and so we have to stay in here for a little while longer.”
“A little—” He slumped back against the pillows. “I don’t understand half of what you’ve said to me. No—” He held up his hand. “Don’t explain it all again. I think I’ll just have a sleep first and hope that it all makes sense when I wake up.”
“Well, don’t sleep too long,” she told him. “I’ll need to bathe you and change those sheets before night.”
He shook his head. “No, you’re not touching me, blast it. I can put up with it.”
“Well, I can’t,” she told him. “If you think I’m going to sleep in dirty sheets with a man who stinks of evil humors, you’ve got another thing coming.”
“Nobody’s asking you to sleep in dirty sheets with any kind of man at all!” he retorted. “Go away. Sleep in your own bed.”
She said nothing.
His brows knotted as he caught the implications of what she’d said, and his gaze swept the room. No other bed.
“You mean that blasted captain shut you in here without so much as a bed?” he said with gathering wrath.
“No,” she said wearily. “I shut myself in here with you, and I’ve slept here—” She pointed at his bed. “There for the last three nights.”
“With me?”
She shrugged. “You were sick and unconscious. And there was plenty of room; it’s a big bed.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then groaned. “My head aches. I can’t think straight. Let me lie here for a bit while I work it all out.” He lay down and closed his eyes.
She instantly fetched the invalid cup and put the spout to his lips.
“Wha—what the—” he spluttered, pushing it away. “What’s this? I don’t need you fussing over me.”
“It’s willow bark tea,” she told him crossly. Fuss over him indeed. She was tempted to tip the tea over his big, thick head! “It will help with your headache. It tastes nasty, I know—and serve you right. As for fussing, you’ve taken it three times a day for the last three days, and it’s done you a great deal of good.”
He groaned and pulled the sheet over his head. It came out a few seconds later. “I really do stink, don’t I?”
She nodded. “Like a pig. And you need a purge as well as a bath.”
“A purge? There’s nothing left in me to purge. I’m not taking any blasted purge!” he growled. Then he looked at her. “Why a purge?”
“If the evil humors can be sweated out of you, I’m hoping a purge will rid you of the evil humor you’ve woken up in,” she told him sweetly. “I’m not putting up with that for another ten days, either!” It was the sort of thing you said before you swept magnificently out of the door, she reflected, but she was locked in, so all she could do was to turn her back on him.
She was shaking with fury—and maybe a little weak with relief that he really was all right. And possibly on the verge of tears for the same reason—but she was not going to cry in front of him. Stinking beast.
How could you fight day and night to save a man’s life and then when you had, want to strangle him?
She was tired, that’s all. She’d hardly had any sleep in the last few nights. She stomped over to the bed, not looking at him, and picked up two of the blankets he’d kicked off at some stage.
She folded one lengthwise in three, then in half, and laid it on the floor farthest from the bed. It would do nicely as a sleeping mat. She took a pillow from the bed, and placed it at the end of the oblong.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
She ignored him. She wrapped herself in the other blanket and lay down on the mat.
“You can’t sleep on the floor. Here, take the bed, I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“The bed stinks of sweat and sickness and so do you. I’ve slept on cobblestones in the open air for the last six years. I can sleep anywhere.” She closed her eyes.
“It’s too ea
rly to go to sleep.”
She sat up and glared at him. “Look, I’ve had very little sleep for the past few nights, so I’m going to catch up on it now. With any luck I’ll sleep for ten days and then I won’t have to talk to you at all. And you won’t have to put up with my fussing.” She lay down again.
There was a short silence, then he said, “I’m sorry. I was rude and I’ve upset you. I just don’t kn—I’m a bit confused, that’s all. I seem to have lost days of my life, and I don’t understand how.”
“You’ve been ill and now you’re better, and you’ve woken up bad-tempered and you stink,” she told him tiredly, adding, “And I’m bad-tempered, too, but at least I had a wash and changed, so I feel better. I’ll explain everything later, but first, I need some sleep.” And she closed her eyes and slept.
Rafe sat back against the pillows and watched her. She really had fallen right to sleep, then and there. He’d thought for a moment she was just trying to make some point. Some point he couldn’t work out.
But now that his brain was beginning to work, he realized she looked pale and drawn and somehow, frail. She really was exhausted.
He closed his eyes and tried to think. The last thing he could remember was . . . a woman screaming? A woman . . . but not Ayisha. But the reason eluded him. Whatever the memory was, it slipped away like dreams so often did. Or nightmares.
But he really did stink.
If what she said was right and they were locked in, he’d better clean himself up while she was asleep. Again he struggled to sit up.
He must have been very sick. There were only a few times in his life he’d found himself so weak. He hated it. Hated being dependent on others.
He’d rather shoot himself than let her bathe him while he was helpless as a baby.
He struggled to sit up and swung his legs out of bed. He sat on the edge of the bed, breathing heavily, and surveyed the cabin. Beneath the far porthole sat a row of covered buckets, a pile of folded cloths, and some empty bowls and a chamber pot. On the chest of drawers screwed into the wall sat his medicine chest, a teapot, and that blasted spouted cup. Beside them lay his razor. Excellent. He ran his hand over his jaw; he could use a shave.
He wobbled to his feet and, naked, staggered over and found himself clutching the porthole for balance. His head spun. He stood for a moment, hanging on and gulping in sea air. It seemed to help.
He investigated the buckets next. Two were empty, two contained water. He dipped a finger in and tasted gingerly. One was fresh water, the other, seawater.
He took a washcloth, soaped it up with some medicinal-smelling soap he found, then scrubbed himself all over, using the seawater. He scrubbed every inch of himself from head to toe, contorting to get his back clean, scrubbing hard. He stood carefully over one of the empty buckets and used his tin shaving mug to ladle seawater all over him, sluicing himself down.
Instead of into the bucket, the scummy gray water went all over the floor. He stared at it, dismayed.
He glanced at Ayisha, sleeping the sleep of the just on the other side of the room. Her breathing was deep and even. Dark lashes lay in delicate crescents on her pale cheeks. Her hair clustered prettily around her temples and ears, curling in that just-washed look.
She’d bathed. And somehow left everything neat and tidy and dry, like a little cat.
He stared down at the spreading pool of soap-scummy salt water, staggered back to his bed, ripped the top sheet off, and flung it on the puddle.
God, he was exhausted—again. He hated being so weak. He clutched the side of the porthole and breathed until the chill on his wet, naked body revived him.
He went to shave himself and got a severe shock when he saw himself in the looking glass. Under the rough beard, he looked . . . scrawny and his eyes were bruised-looking and sunken. Oh well, he’d look better with a shave.
His razor was out and opened. The pouch with the rest of his toiletries was back with his baggage. What had she wanted with his razor?
He shaved in cold water. He’d done it many a time before, but for some reason this time he kept nicking himself, and by the time he’d finished, there were flecks of blood on the sheet at his feet.
He scrubbed himself all over again with his own soap and this time rinsed off with freshwater. He glanced at himself in the looking glass. He was a sorry-looking creature all right, but he felt a million times better.
But Lord, what a mess he’d made.
The sheet was sopping. What to do with it? Solution obvious. He pushed it around the floor with his feet, mopping up all the water, then bundled it up and shoved it through the porthole. Problem solved.
He toweled himself and his hair dry, and tossed the used towel out of the porthole. Damned useful things, portholes.
Ayisha muttered something in her sleep, and he glanced across. Better cover himself before she woke.
He grabbed a pair of drawers from his travel chest and tried to put them on. Damn. He needed to sit down. He sat on the bed, pulled the drawers on, then exhausted, fell back on the bed. Faugh. It still stank.
He pulled off the bottom sheet, sniffed, and pulled off the blanket underneath it and bundled them through the porthole. The pillows went the same way. He sniffed the mattress. Still a faint sour, unpleasant odor about it.
It was stuffed with wool. Wool carried infection, he’d heard. He tried to roll the mattress up, but though it was thin, it wasn’t thin enough to go through the porthole.
Damn. He sat down to think the problem through. And saw his portmanteau sitting there. He’d bought an Arabian sword of Damascus steel while he was in Cairo. Damascus steel was famous. Swords of Damascus could cut through anything—they’d shattered the crusaders’ swords in the old days, so a mattress made of wool and ticking should be no trouble.
With renewed determination, he pulled the sword from his portmanteau and began to methodically cut the mattress in pieces, flinging each one from the porthole. It was as sharp as—maybe even sharper than—his razor, and it sliced through the fabric and wool without a sound.
She slept right through it.
Marvelous weapon, he thought as he sheathed it. He wished he’d had a sword like this in the army. He should have bought four, one for each of the lads. Five—one for Ethan. Maybe he’d write to Baxter.
He sat on the bed. It wasn’t very comfortable with just a sheet of canvas over the woven ropes. Still, better than having a mattress harboring infection. He glanced at the sleeping girl. Why the devil had she slept in the same bed with a sick man? If she got sick because of him . . .
They could get a new mattress at the next port. Where were they anyway? He peered out of the porthole, but could see nothing, just a smudge of far distant land.
He pulled on his breeches and a shirt and felt halfway to being civilized again. There was a soft knock on the door.
“Miss? Are you all right, miss?” It was Higgins.
Rafe went to the door. What the devil? It was bolted—from the inside. But she’d said they were locked in. He unbolted it and flung open the door.
Higgins’s face lit up. “God be praised, sir, it’s true—you’re well again.” The older man’s face crumpled and he worked to control his emotion. “I thought—I was sure—” He cleared his throat. “Miss Ayisha said you were better, but I . . . I wasn’t sure . . . And seeing you—” He did an abrupt about-face, pulled out a handkerchief, blew into it loudly, then, after a moment, turned back to Rafe, his customary wooden expression in place.
“My apologies, sir, but I truly thought you were done for. The plague is a killer.”
“Plague?” Rafe repeated. And suddenly he recalled what that woman had been screaming. Plague. He frowned. “But it wasn’t plague, was it?”
“No, sir, but everybody thought it was. Some of the other passengers were panicking.”
Rafe nodded. “So that’s why they locked me in. But what I can’t understand is why they’ve put Miss Ayisha in with me. She wasn’t sick, was she?”
Higgins brow furrowed. “No, sir, she locked herself in with you. To stop them dumping you.” At Rafe’s mystified expression, he added, “Didn’t she explain, sir?”
Rafe shook his head. “No, she didn’t. She’s asleep at the moment. See?” He stood back and gestured for Higgins to come in, but the man didn’t move.
“Beg pardon, sir, but Captain’s orders are that no one is to go into or out of this cabin for another ten days.” He gave Rafe an uneasy look and said, “It was a direct order, sir, but if you insis—”
Rafe waved his explanation away. “No, superior officer in this instance. You did right. But fill me in.”
Higgins did and by the end of his tale, Rafe was frowning. “You all believed I had plague? And yet nobody tried to stop her?”
“Everyone did, sir, including yourself. Everyone else wanted rid of you; the plan was to tow you to some godforsaken part of the African coastline and leave you there, to live or die in the hands of God. And you, sir, you were all for it—bent on being the noble hero you were.”
He grinned, half tearfully. “But Miss Ayisha wouldn’t have a bar of it. You should have seen her, sir! Like a young tigress she was, protecting her cub. She pushed you back into the cabin, followed you in, and shut the bolt. She even threatened to shoot the first two men who came in—they were going to break the door down and haul you out. But she stopped them.”
Rafe stared at the slender young thing curled up on the floor and swallowed. “How long ago was this?”
“Four days—three nights, sir. She’s tended you night and day for all that time, sponging you down, pouring Peruvian bark tea and God knows what into you. A real little heroine she is.”
“A bloody little fool,” Rafe muttered. What he’d heard shook him to the depths of his being. It was one thing to risk yourself for a friend in the heat of battle; it was another to shut yourself in with a man you thought had plague. Risking certain death. For a man she barely knew.
He sighed. “I’m starving, Higgins. Can you get me some food?”
“Of course, sir, and Miss Ayisha, too, I expect; she hasn’t eaten eat a thing since before yesterday.”
