The Companion (19 page)

Beth looked up at the humiliation in the handsome face above her as he struggled for words. The blue eyes glanced away and down, his long lashes brushing his cheeks. Evil was never ashamed of itself, was it? Ah, but perhaps he could not control the evil, once it was loosed. He might be of two minds about what he did. But he did it, did he not? She
shivered. And what of her? Was she to be trusted? What she thought might have happened last night was . . . but that was only a dream. Wasn’t it?

He cleared his throat and raised his eyes to hers. “I . . . I should like to apologize for . . . for last night. I had not meant to . . .” He trailed off, then straightened and spoke more formally. “You have suffered at my hands in an extremely distasteful manner. I extend my abject apologies and assure you that I shall see that you receive proper care and are delivered to the ship in time for sailing if you should choose to do so. I myself shall be proceeding overland. Rest assured that you will not be burdened by my presence.”

She nodded, wary, feeling weak and vulnerable. His thigh lay along her hip. She could feel its heat through the quilt. It made her shiver, but not in fear.

“If there is any way . . .” Here again he stumbled and recovered with difficulty. “If you can think of any manner in which I can give a more substantial sign of my extreme regret, I beg you will inform me.”

“You are too good, sir,” she mumbled, just to make him stop. The startled and hurt look he cast her said he thought she tried to wound him. “If you would leave me . . .”

A knock sounded at the door. A small man in a full-bottomed wig and a mouse-colored waistcoat with definite gravy stains upon it bustled into the room, smelling strongly of raw onions and human sweat. He was English by his look, but he also appeared to have been absent from England for some time. His clothes were not fashionable. Nor had he occasion to launder his shirt. Rufford rose hastily and ceded his place to the doctor. He did not leave, in spite of Miss Rochewell’s request, nor did the doctor ask him to do so. The doctor must believe that she was under Mr. Rufford’s “protection.” That was the genteel phraseology, was it not?

She must get away from Mr. Rufford, but how, when she was so weak? If she made a scene now, they might both be ejected from the inn. She pinned her hopes on the doctor. If he could restore her strength she could get to the ship.

“Well, well, sit up, my dear,” the doctor said. “So you are a passenger on the
Beltrane
?”

She nodded and struggled to sit. The telltale black globules began to form at the edge of her vision. Rufford moved to help her, then thought better of it and clasped his hands behind his back. Her vision cleared a bit. She stuck out her tongue, coughed, and generally obeyed the doctor’s instructions.

“What are the symptoms?” the little man said in his most professional voice as he drew down her lower eyelids. “Look up.”

She rolled her eyes to Rufford, who was looking anxious. “A general malaise,” she said. “Weakness.” The doctor would not believe her if she told him what had really happened. And if she tried, Rufford might well kill her or the doctor or both.

The little man gave over examining her eyes, felt under her jaw for swellings, and by accident found the two small wounds at her neck. Rufford pressed those vulnerable lips together into a thin, hard line and waited.

“Well, well,” the doctor said. “Does your ship have rats? They are most uncommon bold these days, I swear. You are not febrile, and the wounds do not seem infected. They are not the cause of your symptoms.” He sat up. “My dear, I think a cupping, twelve or fourteen ounces at the most, should set you up.” From his pocket he drew out a lancet covered in rusty flakes.

“You will
not
bleed her.” Rufford suddenly loomed over the doctor, looking very angry and very frightening. He grabbed the little doctor by the upper arm and lifted him bodily from the bed. “Charlatan!” he growled, propelling him toward the door. “You should be flogged.”

“Unhand me!” the doctor squeaked. Rufford almost threw him out the door. “My fee . . .”

Rufford reached into his pocket and flipped a sovereign at the doctor with contempt. The little man caught it, examined it, and retreated, almost into the laden arms of the landlady. “I shall not be available when next called upon,” he threatened, and scooted down the stairs.

When the landlady met Rufford’s glowering countenance, any protest about his handling of the doctor died in her throat.

“Give me that.” He took the tray and shut the door in her purpling face without ceremony. “Cupping, for the Lord’s sake! It will not answer.” The bass growl rolled over her.

Beth retreated into her pillows as he turned that angry face on her. He had just cut her off from any help, and with that look in his eyes she might need help at any moment. What was she to do locked in a room with a man who had turned into a monster last night? Then he softened, his face losing the expression that said he was capable of anything. She knew what “anything” in this case might entail.

“Forgive my outburst,” he muttered, and she saw him consciously master himself.

“I beg you will leave me, sir,” she said with all the strength she could muster.

He shook his head. “Not until you have consumed this broth and the porter in the tankard.” He set the tray upon her lap and retreated to the fireplace, cold, since October in the Med was still quite warm, and leaned against the mantel with folded arms.

At least he gave her a little space. The inn’s silver felt strangely weighty as she lifted spoonfuls of broth to her lips, conscious of his eyes upon her. Rufford paced to the window. After a half-dozen sips her hand began to shake. She managed two more before the spoon clattered to the tray. She sank back.

He pressed his body against the far wall as if he did not trust himself or her before he spoke. “Could you take more? I might be of assistance. . . .”

Beth shook her head, exhaustion setting in. How would she ever make it to the ship?

His assessment of her chances seemed much the same. “If you would like to remain in Gibraltar for some days, to recoup your strength, I could engage some local woman. . . .”

She did not want to be confined in Gibraltar, weak and incapacitated,
a woman alone in a strange town with a vampire ashore. She wanted to leave this horrible place and him with it. If she could make it to the ship and know that he went overland, that there were hundreds of miles between them . . . “I shall do, I am sure,” she said with all the firmness she could muster. “Mrs. Pargutter will see to me once I am aboard, and the surgeon, of course.”

His brows drew together briefly. Then he glanced to the bedside table and took up the tankard. “Porter is said to be valuable in restoring strength. I have seen it used with men in an exsanguinary state from wounds.” He hesitated, then sat beside her, raising his brows in inquiry.

He was too close. “No, no,” she breathed. “You must go, sir. Go this instant.”

Shame suffused his face. He handed her the tankard. “When you have drunk this.”

She took the tankard in both hands, the metal cool and damp against her palms. It was all she could do to lift it, but if this was what it took to make him go, then she would drink. The porter was so thick you could almost chew it. The yeast and burnt grain taste was smothering. After a few gulps, she sputtered and lay back. “Now, see to your promise,” she murmured.

A sharp rapping on the door behind them made them both start. “The room has got to be made up, which is to say there is a gentleman bespeaking it below, if free.”

Rufford swung to the door and jerked it open to reveal a shocked young man, fingers dark from boot blacking. “Tell the gentleman to go to the devil,” Rufford said. “Miss Rochewell is not to be disturbed this afternoon.” He looked back at her. “Rest. I will let no one intrude.”

Indeed, her eyes were heavy even now. She felt like she could sleep for days. Days? What if she slept through the ship’s sailing? “Tell them to call me . . .” But now her exhaustion was such that she slurred her words. Or maybe it was the porter.

The last thing she heard was his apologetic mutter: “It is the least I can do.”

Ian sat in the dim taproom with a bottle of claret, his second of the afternoon. Damn her! To be so frightened of him, so dependent upon others, at this awkward juncture! She had outlined his choices only too clearly in her artless conversation. She placed all her faith in Mrs. Pargutter and the surgeon of the
Beltrane
. That she did not want to stay alone in Gibraltar he could understand. She would certainly get no medical help here. But he had even less faith in the surgeon of the
Beltrane
. Would Granger not bleed her? He had bled Callow. Since Ian had not taken half so much blood from the ship’s boy, there was no lasting harm.

Miss Rochewell could not sustain the same. As for Mrs. Pargutter . . . But it looked very like he would have to engage that lady to help Miss Rochewell. She and the maid were the only allies Miss Rochewell would have on the ship. He had his doubts. He was considering how much to tell Mrs. Pargutter when that lady sailed into the taproom like a frigate before the wind, with the maid, loaded above her head with parcels, trailing in the larger woman’s lee.

“There is hardly time to pack before we must be at the quay.” Mrs. Pargutter’s black silks exhibited great dark half circles of sweat beneath her arms, and beads winked upon her forehead under her fat, unnaturally colored curls. “I have hardly a moment to refresh myself.” She collapsed upon a bench and waved weakly at the barman. “A glass of negus, sir.”

Jenny peered around the bandboxes for a place to set them down. “No, no!” Mrs. Pargutter exclaimed. “Take those upstairs and pack my things. There is not a moment to be lost.” The urgency in her voice was almost comic. “And do check on dear Miss Rochewell.”

That sounded promising. Ian rose and took the glass of negus from the barman. “Madam,” he said politely as he set it down. “Allow me.”

“Oh, you young men are always trying to ingratiate yourselves
with a pretty woman,” she simpered. “Do join me, Mr. Rufford, in a glass.”

He sat across from Mrs. Pargutter.

“You should have seen the clever little reticules I found, made entirely from feathers. And lace as fine as any in Madrid or Barcelona. I purchased several ells, in black, of course.”

“Miss Rochewell is ill, madam. A physician was summoned to her this morning.”

“Oh, dear!” Mrs. Pargutter exclaimed. “Is it catching? I sat next to her in the boat.”

“It is not contagious. And she has you to sustain her on the ship.” Ian peered at her.

“Me?” Mrs. Pargutter’s eyes widened in shock. “I am a very bad sailor, sir, as you must have noticed.” She shook her head. “I could not possibly attend a sickbed.”

“Perhaps Jenny?”

“But she will be busy attending to me.” Mrs. Pargutter placed the tip of her forefinger in a dimple just under her mouth, considering. “Miss Rochewell had best stay in Gibraltar until she recovers. No one will have time to bother about her on board a ship.”

“Staying in Gibraltar does not seem suitable for a young lady alone.” Ian rose. It was much as he suspected. Still, the crew of the ship adored Miss Rochewell. They would care for her if the doctor could be kept at bay.

“Well, perhaps a good cupping would set her up in form,” Mrs. Pargutter offered. “Landlord, another glass.”

Ian turned away in exasperation. What was all this preoccupation with letting blood? Lord, they didn’t even drink it. This woman was of no use. Miss Rochewell had no protector, no one who could even see her back to health. What was his obligation here?

But that was only too evident. He was the cause of Miss Rochewell’s malaise, and he must protect her. It would mean breaking his promise. He set his lips. Well, that was for later. He strode out of the inn without a word to Mrs. Pargutter. Her indignant harrumph pursued him.

The streets down to the quay were crowded with soldiers, sailors, passengers, and merchants all engaged in seeing the convoy once more to sea in the late afternoon. Ian supported Miss Rochewell, half-fainting on his arm, toward the barge that flew the
Beltrane
’s number. Under his other arm he hefted a crate of porter. His neck cloth slipped and he almost cried out as the waning sun struck his face full on. He dared not stop to pull it up. He noted dimly that Mrs. Pargutter waited at the wrong dock.