Edith Layton (13 page)

“Then why are you allowing your son to traffic with him?” Mrs. Oliver persisted.

Lucy took a deep breath. Mrs. Oliver would be rude to anyone she considered inferior. “I allow Jamie to go with Lord Wycoff because he is a gentleman,” she said clearly, “and because, to judge from my experience of the journey here, I get sick at sea. I won’t be able to keep Jamie company for most of the trip. I won’t even be able to leave my cabin. Who is to companion a restless young boy, then? You or your maid? I hardly think so. Then who else? Better he has a nobleman to imitate than a common sailor, I’d think. And so it shall be.”

She was very pleased with this speech. But Mrs. Oliver only seized on the first part of it.

“You were sick on your voyage here?” the older woman asked. “There’s no need to worry about
that
,” she said with a laugh. “I myself suffer dreadfully from the motion of the sea. But since a noted physician in London gave me the cure for it, I’ve not been bothered once. A spoonful of his elixir at the start, two before dinner, and the same before bed. You’ll think you were traveling on glass. I have a few bottles with me. I’ll give you one for only a dollar. I paid much more.”

“Ladies?” a young sailor asked as he approached them and bowed. “We’ll be setting sail now you’ve come aboard, and the captain thought you might be more comfortable in your cabins.”

“Good,” Mrs. Oliver said, as they headed for the narrow flight of steps that would take them below deck.

The passageway was dim. The cabin the sailor led Lucy to was tiny, with just enough room for her bed, a trundle for Jamie, a chair, and a small wardrobe with a looking glass above it. All the furnishings were tacked or nailed to the walls and floor. Lucy noted some effort to make the space homey: There was a rag rug on the floor, a lamp, and a plank bolted to the wall under the porthole, obviously meant to be used for a desk.

“Just like home,” Lucy murmured with an attempt at a smile.

“Snug, but acceptable,” she heard Mrs. Oliver say from the cabin next door. “Ginny, start unpacking,” she commanded her maid. “I shall have a lie
down, I think. Oh, take this bottle to Mrs. Stone when you’re done. And return with a dollar, if you please. Lucy!” she shouted, though her room was only next door. “I’m sending Ginny with your medicine. Remember, a tablespoon now, two before dinner, the same at bedtime. The journey will fly by.”

She’d be lucky if she lived through it, Lucy thought miserably. She swallowed down the brackish taste in the back of her mouth, remembering the wretched hours she’d suffered through all the way to America. She’d suppressed the memory firmly, until now. She’d been seasick every morning, afternoon, and night, the days melting together into one miserable blur of nausea and queasiness. Francis had laughed and said she’d get her sea legs in time. She hadn’t even gotten a sea bottom. He’d left her to the mercies of the maid she’d had then. He’d come back to the cabin now and then to offer sympathy, shake his head, and leave again.

Francis had been a naval officer and loved the sea, if not the occupation. Knowing something he enjoyed only made her vilely ill had made it worse for her. She’d suffered from self-disgust, seasickness and loneliness.

Lucy sat down on her hard bed and tried to calm herself. There was no other way to get home, unless she learned to fly. She smoothed her hair back from her face with shaking hands. The journey might well be a horror. She might be ill all the way. If by some miracle she wasn’t, there was the fact that she’d probably have to see Wycoff every day. The storms
and tempests in her heart might be more turbulent than any the ship could encounter. Either way, she’d feel sick. It was a question of which was worse, pain in her stomach or her heart.

She took a deep breath. It was unfortunate. But it could be borne. It was very much the same as her life had been this past decade, after all. She’d get through it, all of it. Because she had no choice.

“Mrs. Stone?” Mrs. Oliver’s maid asked from the door. “I’ve got the medicine for you.”

“Thank you,” Lucy said dully. She rose and searched in her reticule. She gave the girl some coins. “I hope it’s worth it,” she said, eyeing the ugly brown bottle.

“My mistress swears by it,” the girl said enthusiastically. “Never has a wink of trouble sleeping no more. Sleeps through the night like a babe, and takes her nap every day rain or shine. Gives me rest too—for I get my time off that way,” she said with a grin, quickly suppressed, before she backed out the door.

Lucy uncorked the bottle, wrinkling her nose at the smell. It tasted bitter as her thoughts, but she swallowed it, hoping it would work. And not just because she dreaded weeks of seasickness. Fencing with Wycoff would be difficult, but she found she didn’t want to miss a moment of it.

T
he captain’s table was lavishly set, with flowers, good china, and gleaming crystal.

“First night out,” Mrs. Oliver whispered to Lucy as they came in the door to his cabin. “Soon as we reach the open sea this will be packed up and we’ll be eating off plain crockery and drinking from mugs. No one minds if that sort of dinnerware slides off the table and crashes to the floor in bad weather. Let’s hope we arrive in two weeks instead of three, or the food will be stale by then as well.”

“Ladies,” the captain said, bowing as he greeted them. “At last we meet. Forgive me for not being available sooner; duty prevented me.” He gazed at Lucy. “Mrs. Stone?” he said, pulling out the chair at his left for her. “Mrs. Oliver?” He indicated a chair down the table his first mate was holding out. “And
Jamie, I thought you might enjoy sitting beside your friend Lord Wycoff tonight.”

Lucy barely heard the rush of introductions. Servants didn’t eat at the captain’s table, and so there were only seven passengers seated, and only three she didn’t know—an elderly couple and a prosperous-looking man. Wycoff, dressed more elegantly than she’d ever seen him, looked magnificent—as though he were going to an evening at the opera in London. He sat across from her at the captain’s other side. Too close for her comfort, but too far to talk with comfortably.

But talking wasn’t an issue with Lucy tonight. She felt sleepy and satisfied, drained of all the tension and fear she’d been plagued with for days. Even Wycoff’s splendor couldn’t unsettle her this evening. She was on her way home at last. And miracle of miracles, the ship was underway, and she wasn’t sick. She’d never felt better. Mrs. Oliver’s potion did indeed make their passage feel like traveling over glass. She turned and gave the captain a smile for something witty he’d said, something she’d almost caught. His eyes kindled, and he smiled back at her.

Such a handsome fellow!
she mused as he raised his glass for a toast.
Dark black eyes, curling ebony hair, young and dashing, he might have been a pirate in some other life, with a sword held between those gleaming white teeth, not just a fork, with a bare bronzed chest to show, and not just a white shirt….

“Mmm?” she said, with a slow smile for something Wycoff asked.

“I asked how you were feeling, but I see you’re a born sailor,” he said.

“Oh no.” She smiled. “I almost didn’t live out the journey here. But this—this is—this is an
extraordinary
voyage. I never felt better.”

“Thank you,” the captain laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment. So tell us, Mrs. Stone, where are you bound, if I may be so bold as to ask? More important, to me, at least, when will you be returning? Because I aim to be sure there’s room for you. Every ship needs a lovely lady to grace her cabins, and not just her masthead.”

Lucy smiled at him, pleased he admired her looks. After all, she’d worn her best gown tonight, the rose one. Or was it her blue? She felt too lazily content to look down and see.

“I thought females were unlucky aboard ship,” the prosperous-looking man down the table said.

“So those who are married tell their wives to discourage them from sailing with them,” the captain said, “out of fear some other dashing sailor will lure them away. Sea-faring men are known for their taste in women—and their appeal to them. But if the ladies were unlucky, be sure we’d never name our ships for them. The
Sarabeth
is named for my own mother. In fact, my great-grandfather, who founded our shipping line, named his first ship the
Cristabel
, after his first love. And when I wed,” he added with a wolfish smile at Lucy, “my next ship will be named for my true love.”

“Interesting,” Wycoff drawled. “Too bad we
landlocked fellows don’t know the ladies prefer that sort of tribute. We wouldn’t waste so much money on diamonds and rubies.”

“Well, hold on there!” The elderly lady laughed. “I’m sure Captain Kelly didn’t mean that!”

There was laughter, there was wine, there were jests and toasts. There were savory soups served in silver tureens. Lucy felt as if she’d stepped into another world, as far removed from the life she’d lived these past years as the ship itself was removed from the shore. The conversation became as murmurous as the sea, floating around her, lulling Lucy instead of challenging her. Mrs. Oliver was blessedly silent. Jamie was chatting with the first mate. The captain was amazingly charming.

It was a little too warm in the cabin. The wine went right to Lucy’s head, slowing her tongue and her wit, leaving her only with a soft smile and easy laughter. The captain didn’t seem to mind; he was soon telling her all about himself, as she sat, her chin on her hand, watching him with wide and dreamy eyes.

Wycoff couldn’t stop frowning.
Well, too bad for him
, Lucy thought with drowsy triumph.
Spoil-sports never have fun
. She was pleased to see him looking gloomy at how much fun she was having.
Well, not exactly having fun. Having ‘content,’ actually
, because she seemed to have slowed down and was growing ever sleepier.

“And so?” the captain asked her.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked him sweetly.

“I noticed you didn’t eat very much tonight,” he said, indicating the table, where to her slowly dawning amazement, tarts and jellies had replaced the fowl and roasts. “I thought…perhaps a stroll about the deck before bed would suit you.”

“So it might,” Wycoff said, rising, “and so Mrs. Stone has already agreed to accompany me on one this evening.”

“Ah. Too bad. But there’ll be other evenings,” the captain said, rising from his seat.

Lucy got up, too, feeling sorry about it. It seemed things always ended just when you were getting comfortable. The captain kissed the hand she offered, and offered her more with those amazing eyes of his. She stared back at him until she found her arm being taken in a firm clasp. Not the captain’s. He was bidding her good night, and she was being walked out the door, and up some steps. She walked in silence, until she felt cool air caressing her face. She looked up and was surprised to see the enormousness of a never-ending starry night wheeling over her.

She blinked. Her eyes stung with a sudden stab of pain, but she couldn’t look down. Wycoff was holding her chin up to a lantern’s blazing light.

“My God!” he breathed, placing the lantern back on its peg. “What the devil! I never guessed that you…how long have you been taking that vile stuff?”

“What vile stuff?” Lucy asked, trying to pull away, tears from her irritated eyes trickling down her flushed cheeks.

“Opium,” he said, with disgust, “or pure laudanum. Same thing.”

“Opium?” she squeaked, the shock of his words penetrating the fine fog that had compassed her mind. “I don’t take opium. I don’t take anything!”

“You did tonight.”

“No,” she said forlornly, because the air was clearing her mind and she was trying to hold on to the warmth and certainty she’d just known, “I took nothing. Wine, with dinner, yes. Some soup, too, I think. Did I have a slice of roast? I think so. Peas. Something brown on a bit of toast. A taste of something jellied. Wine.”

He scowled.

“Mrs. Oliver’s medicine for the seasickness tasted so bad I needed something to get the taste out of my mouth,” she said defensively. “Soup—Oh, I said that, and…”

“Mrs. Oliver’s medicine?” he asked quickly. “How much, and where is it?”

“In my cabin,” she said. “Oh, where are we going?” She felt herself being propelled forward by a strong, warm hand on the small of her back. That hand became an arm wrapped around her waist when she stumbled. She felt herself being led down some steps. “Downstairs again?” she squeaked, almost missing her step, and being hauled back upright. “But we just came up. Not so fast! I’ll trip, I’ll fall…”

She opened her eyes to see the interior of her cabin. She swayed on her feet when she found her
self suddenly standing without that comforting arm around her. “Oh. We’re back. Jamie’s not here yet? Oh. Then you mustn’t be in my cabin, what will people think? That’s why I have Mrs. Oliver with me, so people won’t think. Ugh! Don’t wave that under my nose, I said it tasted vile.”

“How much did you take?”

She wrinkled her brow, thinking mightily. “She said a tablespoon at the start, and two before dinner, to prevent the seasickness. Oh, Wycoff, but I did suffer
such
seasickness when I came to America! I never left my bed, or my basin. She said two tablespoons and I was so afraid it would happen again I took another to be sure. And half another. It worked! It didn’t happen again, I wasn’t ill at all. But something is the matter, isn’t it? But I’m not sick and it cost a dollar, and that’s a great deal but if it works…”

“It certainly does,” he said in disgust. He sniffed at the bottle, and then raised his nose with elegant disdain. “As I thought. I’ve known enough fashionable females with mercenary physicians. This filthy stuff quiets their complaints and keeps them coming back for more laudanum.”

He turned as Jamie entered the cabin, white-faced and anxious. “Jamie—good, you’re here,” Wycoff said. “Don’t worry. It’s only that your mother took Mrs. Oliver’s medicine and it’s made her ill.”

“Is that why she was acting so strange tonight?”

“Yes. Now, lie down, Lucy, and sleep,” he said,
helping Lucy ease down on the bed she’d just found herself sitting on. He bent and quickly slid off her slippers, then drew her coverlet over her. “Jamie, it’s late, I know. But see if you can keep an eye on her tonight. Sleep, but sleep lightly, if you can. I don’t think she’ll get up, but if she does, or if you think she’s doing anything strange, come to me. I’d stay but it’s not proper. And it would be better for all if no one but you and I knew about this. I think she’ll just sleep now. Good, Lucy, yes,” he said as she stretched out on her bed. “Just so.”

Lucy bobbed up again, looking stricken. “But I oughtn’t to go to sleep in front of you. It isn’t done. People will talk.”

“Then do it in back of me. I’m leaving.”

“But if I don’t take the medicine I’ll be ill,” she moaned.

“No, you won’t,” he said. “If my math is right, you must have been anticipating Jamie on the voyage to America, right? That was probably what made you ill.”

“Oh!” she said, much struck, “maybe so! It was such early days I didn’t yet know…but yes…. How clever of you.”

“No,” he said, “it’s only experience. Not all my experience is bad. I was married, I have two children. It often takes women that way, even on dry land.”

“So I won’t be ill this time,” Lucy said dreamily, sitting and swaying as the motion of the ship began lulling her fears of illness instead of causing it.

Her eyes flew open as another thought swam into her mind. Even in the dim light he could see what he had on deck—the midnight blue of her eyes overwhelmed by her too wide, dark pupils.

“But—the medicine,” she cried, “what’s to become of it? I paid a whole dollar!”

“The fish will probably want to pay you more. They’ll have no trouble sleeping tonight,” he said grimly. His voice softened as he saw her eyes drift shut. She sank back to her pillow.

She felt a gentle touch on her hair as his hand stroked it back from her face. All unknowingly, she sighed and nuzzled against it. He paused, then drew back. “Good night, Lucy. And don’t bother to thank me in the morning.”

“I won’t,” she mumbled sleepily.

“I know,” he said with a rueful grin. “Lord, don’t I know it.”

The sunlight was a hammer, every sound was a knife through her head. Lucy groaned, and blinked burning eyes against the morning light in her cabin. An anxious face appeared over her. She squinted to see it.

“Mama? Are you all right? Should I send for Lord Wycoff?” Jamie asked.

She raised heavy eyelids wide and focused. Jamie’s freckles stood out starkly on his pale face; his eyes had faint shadows under them. She sat bolt upright. Both her hands flew to her head to hold it on. “Jamie!” she cried. “What’s the matter, are you sick?”

“Me? No. You were, though. Lord Wycoff said I should watch to see if you did anything queer in the night. You didn’t. But I never knew you snored before.”

“I do not!” Lucy said, horrified.

“You do. Maybe not usually, I don’t know. I don’t usually sit up watching you. But you do. Not a growl, like Mr. Ames when he falls asleep in the parlor. More like a snuffling, like a pi—More like a snuffling,” Jamie, wise for his years, said.

Lucy swung her legs to the side of the bed. They felt leaden, but not so heavy as her head. “Opium,” she muttered.

“Laudanum,” Jamie volunteered. “‘A dangerous crutch for foolish females,’” he quoted. “You should have heard the rest of what Lord Wycoff said to Mrs. Oliver this morning!”

“The rest?” Lucy asked nervously. “You eavesdropped?”

“Didn’t have to, they were talking so loud. I thought it would wake you, but all you did was turn over and pull your pillow over your head. See, he told her that she oughtn’t take it and she should never have given it to you,” Jamie reported with relish, “and when she told him about this fine London doctor who gave it to her, he said he didn’t care if God himself handed it down to her on a silver platter, she might as well take poison, because it was just the same!”

“Lud!” Lucy groaned. “She’ll never talk to him again.” But she was thinking how hard it would be
for her to talk to Lord Wycoff if her companion was so set against him.

“Right,” Jamie said cheerfully, “and she told him she’d never talk to you again either. Mama? Are you going to be sick again?”

“Oh,” Lucy moaned, “I wish it was as easy as that.”

Lucy was pale and subdued when she finally stepped out on deck. She forgot her condition when she saw what lay before her. The last time she’d sailed she’d been too nervous and frightened at the profundity of her move from England to America to notice more than her illness and terror. But now!

The world was wide and blue and silver, sunlight glinting from the sea and sky. The
Sarabeth
was a spanking fine brig, with neat white sides and a blue trim, and a proud red-haired beauty of a figurehead braving the waves at the front of it. Not a passenger ship so much as a cargo ship that accommodated some passengers, as they’d told Lucy when she’d booked passage. But she was beautiful, even Lucy could see that. Her tall sails were fully unfurled, filled with the same soft wind that was crimping the water into little white-capped waves as far as Lucy could see, all the way to the horizon.