Carier, his craggy face set into stern lines, glanced at me and then away again, showing none of the overconcern for me that his master habitually used these days. Rather, relief limned his features. By that I knew my guess was right, and somewhere in that huddle lay an injured person who might need my help.
The crew around the injured man shuffled back to let me through. The boy was painfully young, barely old enough to shave. He lay on his side, his face contorted in pain, his leg twisted. Unfortunately, it twisted the wrong way.
“How did this happen?” I demanded.
One of the sailors glanced up. I followed his gaze, squinting against the intensity of the light. A man hung from the rigging, on his way down, bright hair glinting against the dazzling sun. He scrambled like a monkey or a particularly acrobatic spider. As I stared at him, he glanced up, as if expecting to see someone higher up. Richard gave a sharp command. “Bring that man to me.”
I looked back at the man on the deck—the boy on the deck. He lay moaning, his features paper white, blood gathering from several wounds on his body.
“How far did he fall?” I asked.
One of the men shrugged. “About fifteen feet, my lady.”
I winced at the reply. I shoved my skirts out of the way, heedless of the delicate silk, and crouched on my haunches. I glanced up into Carier’s eyes. He had squatted down by the boy’s other side.
The valet reached into his coat pocket and produced a wicked-looking knife. “Do you have another one of those?” I demanded.
Someone held a razor-sharp stiletto knife in my line of vision. Richard’s signature weapon. I took it with a murmured word of thanks. I didn’t need to look around to sense the tension emanating from him. I’d ignored him and his warnings of danger. We would no doubt have a discussion about that soon.
Not now, though. While Carier sliced the clothing from the boy’s arms, I took care of his breeches and stockings. I heard some sounds of protest, but not from our patient. He was too far gone to do anything other than moan. He sounded pathetically young, and I guessed that only pride was stopping him from crying for his mother. I had treated young people before, and the worse they were hurt, the more they wanted their mothers.
A commotion went on around us, another thump that shook the deck, but I didn’t look up. One slip of that knife and I’d cause the boy further harm.
Shouts and calls of “Get him!” were followed by a splash and several curses. I decided to ignore them as I was busy probing and touching the boy, searching for injuries.
“Just a broken leg here,” I said. “It looks bad, but it appears to be a clean break.”
“Shallow wounds, my lady. Grazes and such,” Carier reported.
“Then we can safely leave Carier to attend to the boy,” Richard said.
“No.” I heard the sharp intake of breath at my response to my lord’s command. Not his, but the men standing around us. “Carier and I have this in hand. He’ll need my help.” For the boy’s sake, I didn’t elaborate what kind of help he’d need.
“It’s not suitable for your delicate sensibilities, my lady,” our ship’s captain said.
Behind us, the Portuguese officials jabbered.
I snorted, not bothering to cast a glance their way.
The leg had broken below the knee. Sickeningly distorted, it shouldn’t have lay at that angle. We had to act quickly, before it went dead and numb, but the task didn’t appear impossible.
Sailors were resourceful men. They had to be when they could expect to spend weeks at sea with no landings. Someone had found a strip of wood that would act as a splint, and someone else raced up with several strips of rags, the planks of the deck reverberating under my legs as he thundered towards us.
I felt Richard’s presence all the time. He was waiting for me to show weakness, to faint or something equally visible, but I would not do it. I wouldn’t show him or anyone else. I knew Carier would be watching too.
Richard exchanged a few murmured words with one of the men, but I didn’t listen. If it was important, he’d tell me later. I would ensure he did. No more cosseting.
Closing my ears to the boy’s screams, I probed the injury as gently as I could, then Carier and I straightened the leg and reset the bone into its rightful place. I wished the sailor would faint or that we’d thought to ply him with brandy before we began, but I wanted this done, and I wanted the crew to see I was more than the feeble aristocrat I knew they all considered me. The looks had rankled with me. Now I’d show them I was more than the pampered wife of a privileged man.
But that wasn’t why I did it. I had always responded to people in trouble. I had seen a man injured in the fields once, watched him bleed to death because I didn’t know how to help. On that day, I’d discovered that I wasn’t as squeamish as I’d imagined. Since then, I’d refused to ever let that happen again, to lose someone when I could do something to help him live. So I’d set myself to learn and hardened my stomach in favour of helping the needy.
I held the leg perfectly steady until Carier fastened the last knot in the last piece of cloth. Then I sat back while Carier attended to the less pressing injuries, the grazes and shallow cuts the boy had sustained on his fall. Someone handed him a damp cloth, and he sat back on his heels to wipe his hands. I didn’t need anything, since I’d only helped with the broken leg, not the cuts.
“He’ll need new clothes,” I said. It was likely this man had a change of clothes, but that was all. One set. I would ascertain he had what he needed. The warmth that new clothes and adequate bedding would bring him was essential for his recovery. “He must rest. Carry him below, but don’t jar that leg. And if he becomes overheated, or if the leg swells and looks strange, come and get either myself or Carier. No excuses.”
“Put him in my cabin,” Carier said. “I’ll watch him.”
The men murmured agreement, and I watched as three of them lifted the boy and carried him to the stairway. The boy’s screams had subsided to moans and groans. He had probably given himself a sore throat with all that screaming.
Richard helped me to my feet and we faced the officials, who hadn’t done the right thing and left after the man’s injury. The Magistrate of Health stared at us while he spoke, the man at his side translating rapidly. “The city of Lisbon is honoured to receive you as its guest, my lord. If you wish for any care or have any concern, please do not hesitate to contact me. Please go ashore at your leisure.” Another man handed him some papers, but Richard waved them aside. He didn’t handle such trivialities. The ship’s captain took them.
As a statement of reconciliation, it lacked a little finesse, but I was only too glad to see the official gone.
He took his time, his stately passage irking me further. A sudden gust of wind took me off balance. I staggered a couple of steps under the onslaught.
I recovered myself almost immediately, but not quickly enough. Richard was there, his arm around my shoulders, his firm hold supporting me as he had so many times in the last three months. And before that, but I hadn’t needed it as I did now. I bit down on my lip to stop a snappy response he didn’t deserve, and instead spread my feet a little wider to ensure my stance.
“We’ll go ashore soon,” he said. “We’ll have you ensconced in Lizzie’s parlour with a pot of tea before you can think twice.”
It sounded heavenly.
“But you will,” Richard continued, “come down to your cabin now.”
Not a request, but I wasn’t averse to this command. Fatigue tugged at me again, although I hadn’t felt it while I was tending to the sailor.
Richard didn’t touch me on the way there, a short journey but a solitary one. With the door to my bedroom closed, Richard helped me to sit before he turned to his valet, who had followed us down at his signal.
Carier’s rugged features took on an even sterner aspect than usual. Few people knew that a soft heart lurked under that tough hide, but I had seen it more than once. He removed his hat and held it in one
hand, using the other to run through his grizzled hair. “It could be nothing, my lord, my lady, but we should consider a possibility arising from this event. A few things disturbed me, and I would be neglectful if I didn’t bring them to your notice.”
Richard touched my shoulder, very lightly this time. “You should rest, Rose. I could tell you later.”
Or, if he thought it too upsetting, he wouldn’t tell me at all. I stiffened. “I’m sure I can bear it.”
“Very well.”
Carier regarded us both with the calm neutrality of a well-trained servant, but his iron-grey eyes saw more than we allowed most people to witness.
“Will the boy recover?” Richard asked.
“He should,” I told him. “We didn’t find any complications.”
“Your help was invaluable, ma’am,” Carier told me.
A tinge of happiness warmed me before cold shame washed over to take its place. I shouldn’t be pleased that a boy was hurt. I should be glad that the boy had escaped with the use of his leg and little chance of complications. But I was so avid for something to do, so tired of being treated like an invalid, I welcomed the diversion. It was a measure of how desperate I was growing.
Richard crossed the room to the bed and then back again, restlessly pacing. Although luxurious for a seagoing vessel, it wasn’t a particularly large room. Six paces and he turned. “The boy might be young, but the captain made sure to employ no beginners. And that man in the rigging—I saw what you two did not. He didn’t fall. He dived overboard and swam for shore.”
“Several of the crew were ill.” By his tone, Carier intimated what he thought of the illness that had occurred two weeks before. It had driven Richard into a raging fury of concern. An illness aboard ship could wipe out crews, and with infants on board, it could be fatal. From the day the first man had fallen ill, the babies had been kept in one area of the ship, and only named people had permission to touch them. We’d alighted at the next port and spent several days in an inn close to the shore until the danger receded.
The babies were guarded closer than anyone knew, except us and the men we’d set to guard them. Although we had lost some enemies recently, some still existed, and we preferred not to take unnecessary chances. At the time we’d put the illness down to bad food given to the crew, or one of those inexplicable bouts of sickness that appeared from time to time.
However, in light of the recent injury, it began to look as if there might, just might, be a pattern forming.
I said the word first. “A saboteur?”
“Too early to tell, ma’am.” Carier glanced at Richard, who continued to pace, his shoes hitting the boarded floor with a decided clunk. “On the whole, I think not. Such illnesses aren’t uncommon, particularly when the crew is relatively large. We have extra servants aboard, and the regular crew suffered quarters more cramped than usual.”
“You’ve investigated already,” Richard said. “You suspected it too.”
Carier shrugged. “I merely offered my help. It is as well to remain on the alert.” Very few people had the ability to put people at their ease like Carier. He could efface himself so people almost forgot his presence, or he could use his natural kindliness, which tended to unbalance people when they expected something sterner.
“What did you discover?” Richard rapped out.
“A lack of alarm, my lord. There have been no new cases, and nobody died of it.”
“And the injury?” Richard snapped.
“That could be cause for concern, my lord. It could have been accidental. However, I don’t recognise the man who was up in the rigging with him. And when you asked him to be caught and held, he got away. It indicates he didn’t want to be detained.”
I gave an unladylike snort. “You don’t say. Not unlikely if he’d caused the accident, even if he did it by mistake. He’d probably rather take his chances than face us, especially if the boy had died.”
“Ask the men. Discover who he was.” Richard fixed Carier with a penetrating stare. “I have to make sure.”
Our enemies had sent assassins after us before. “But if it is someone sent for us, it’s a remarkably clumsy way of doing it,” I pointed out. “Why would he push the boy off the rigging? Attract attention before he’d done the job he was there for?” Which would be to kill us, if Richard’s suspicions were correct.
I saw this as another attempt to swamp me, to overprotect me, but I also knew that we could not afford to ignore suspicious activity around us. He would have investigated this even had he not been worried about me.
Richard frowned then jerked his head in a quick nod. “Yes, you have a point. So an inexperienced person, or a sailor with a vicious streak, perhaps. Even a lovers’ tiff. Or an attack on us that went wrong. I want to know which it is, and as quickly as possible. If you need me to exert a little pressure, let me know. If they sent someone for us, then they got through Thompson’s and all our other observances. I will not have my wife and children put in danger. I will not tolerate any carelessness.” I had thought us far away from the staff agency we’d founded in London, but domestic servants travelled all over the world, and we had some of Thompson’s special staff with us—the ones who also acted as bodyguards and even extra eyes when we required it.
Carier bowed and left.
Now we were alone, the tension in the room thickened. I wanted him to hold me, just hold me. No, that was a lie. I wanted to feel his body next to mine. I wanted to make love, feel him hot and naked over me, under me, by my side. But that wouldn’t happen for some time yet. I had to curb my eagerness, or I might make a foolish mistake and drive him even further away.
His anger filled the room, and I wanted him to shout, to explode in fury. Anything to break this icy reserve, the calm I couldn’t bear anymore. Richard had a vicious temper, but he’d controlled it over the years, so now it emerged as an icy condemnation. I didn’t want that. I wanted the hot fury.
“You didn’t know what waited for you on deck after that crash. Or who.” The still, quiet voice. Oh hell.
“No, I didn’t. But I haven’t changed, Richard. I still want to face my fate head-on.”
His voice remained dangerously low. “It could have been pirates, mutiny, anything.”
I wanted to laugh at his outrageous suggestions, but one look at his face, his features as graven as a marble statue’s, told me that would be a mistake. “It was one crash on the deck. I wanted to discover what it was, so I could protect my children. Our children. It wouldn’t have been pirates, and I knew it wasn’t an explosion. It was some kind of accident, I was sure.” He couldn’t keep up this cosseting forever. I would go stark mad, and why did he think to question me in this way? I got to my feet and whirled around to face him in a flurry of skirts and anger. “Don’t you trust my judgment any longer?”
A tiny twitch at the side of his mouth alerted me. He was thawing. He looked away and bit his lip before turning his attention back to me. “I— Yes, I do. But I trust my own more, and I couldn’t tell what that crash could have been. I do trust you, Rose.”
My mouth twisted bitterly. “Then act like it. Richard, I might tire easily, but apart from that, I’m not an invalid anymore. We didn’t need this trip. I could easily have weathered an English winter, especially with the pampering you give me, but I wanted to see my sister. And I wanted to get away. I thought it might help. I’m the same person, Richard. I am.”
He stood fully three paces away from me. I took a step towards him. “Unfasten me, please. I need to change.” My skirts were bloody from the grazes the sailor had sustained in his fall, and they were sadly creased. I wouldn’t go ashore like this. I was still wearing the stays that unhooked down the front, and I could easily get out of them on my own. But I wasn’t about to tell him that, any more than I was the day before. Unlike yesterday, I wouldn’t allow him to flinch away. This was a challenge. Would he accept it?
Richard never walked away from a confrontation. Firming his chin, he stepped fo
rwards and put his hands on me. I quelled my shiver of response. It might deter him.
Although layers of clothing lay between my skin and his, I sensed his touch like a burning brand. He must have felt my shiver because he paused, his hands on my robings where they hooked into my stomacher. He dropped his gaze, ostensibly concentrating on the fastenings. My gown undone, he pushed it off my shoulders, and I let it fall to the floor. My stomacher remained, and when I turned around, he could loosen its strings. I caught it as it fell away and dropped it on the chair nearest to me. This was different to yesterday. He wasn’t in control of his emotions. I had to push a little more, take the chance the unfortunate boy had inadvertently provided.
His hands fumbled at the cords of my stays. He’d always undone them deftly in our days of nightly loving and punctuated the unfastening with kisses and murmurs of love. None of that happened this time. He gave me a gentle scolding, controlled and careful. I would have preferred a clearing of the air, but he wouldn’t do that. He’d stopped himself a few moments ago when he was quivering with fury. I was losing him again.
He gave me reason and common sense. “Sweetheart, we have four children now. They need their mother. That’s why we brought them, rather than leave them at home.”
“I am here.” I put my hands on my hips to facilitate his action. Incipient tears blocked my throat, filled my eyes, but I wouldn’t let them fall until he’d left the room. Not that I intended that to happen for a while. If we continued like this, so watchful around each other, thinking about every word, every touch, we would drift apart. I’d seen it in too many couples who had let love remain hidden until cordiality became a habit.
His scolding continued. I still loved his voice, the quiet cadence, the rasp hidden under his customary congenial tones that grew pronounced in the throes of physical ecstasy. I wanted to hear that again. So much. Feel the touch of his hands, hot on my body, the soft, moist movement of his mouth on my skin, the hard suction when he sucked my nipple—I had to stop. I could feel the moisture forming at the top of my thighs. I let his voice float over me, listening to the tone rather than the meaning.
Lisbon: Richard and Rose, Book 8 Page 3
