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He fought the urge to follow her. He’d behaved absurdly enough as it was. For what? What did he think he’d achieve aboard a steam packet mobbed with travelers? He was lucky this was an English boat, or they would not have delayed its departure for him. As it was, he’d paid massive bribes to change places with other passengers. Even so, had he been a man of lesser rank, he’d be waiting in Calais for the next vessel.
Staying in Calais was what he ought to have done. No, he ought not to have left Paris at all. Six more weeks of freedom, and he’d thrown them away—for what?
But he’d done it, and having spent a day and a half racing over abominable roads, he was hardly likely to stand tamely on the dock, watching the packet sail away.
His behavior was lunatic—but never mind. In truth, Paris was growing wearisome, and a mad race to Calais was better excitement than anything he’d done in recent weeks, perhaps months. Certainly it had been worth it, simply to see Noirot’s shocked expression when she caught sight of him.
Surprise, indeed. He doubted anybody or anything had surprised her in a very long time.
He stayed on deck until the packet had sailed out of the harbor and out into the Channel. He noticed the clouds drifting across the heavens, dimming the starlight and moonlight, but he thought nothing of it. The sky over the English Channel was never perfectly clear.
He went below, where he let Saunders peel off his coat and relieve him of his neckcloth, waistcoat, and boots. Then his grace fell into bed and instantly asleep.
Not an hour later, the storm struck.
Marcelline staggered out into the narrow passage. The smell was foul: scores of panicked passengers being sick. Her own stomach, usually reliable even in rough seas, heaved. She paused for a moment, breathing through her mouth, willing her insides to quiet.
The ship lurched hard to her right, and she fell against a door. From behind it came shrieks and shouts, the same she’d heard from other cabins. The vessel screamed more loudly, its timbers groaning as the waves knocked it about.
She walked on unsteadily, telling herself that this was normal, the ropes and timbers protesting the sea’s pummeling. Her heart thudded all the same, with fear. It was hard not to imagine death when every lurch threatened to overturn them, and the vessel itself seemed to be screaming.
The crew had closed the hatches, but water washed in. Under her feet, the deck was wet and slippery.
Nearby, someone was crying.
“Repent!” a man shouted. “Thy time is nigh.”
“Go to the devil,” she muttered. Yes, she was afraid, as any sane person would be. But her time was not nigh and she was not going to die. She was not going to drown. The ship was not going down. She had a daughter and sisters waiting for her in London.
She trembled all the same, and her stomach churned. She was never sick. She couldn’t be sick. She hadn’t time. Jeffreys was ill, desperately so, and needed Marcelline’s help.
But oh, she did not feel well at all.
Later. Later she could be as sick as she wanted.
One thing at a time.
She came to the door she thought was the right one, the one where she’d seen the liveried servants loitering earlier. She’d heard, on her way back to her cabin, that the Duke of Clevedon had commandeered the best cabin for himself and two lesser ones for his retinue.
She pounded on the door. It opened abruptly at the same moment the ship gave an almighty lurch. She slid, stumbled, and fell straight into the cabin. Two big hands caught her and pulled her upright.
“Dammit, Noirot. You might have broken your neck.”
The hands bracing her were warm and firm, and she wanted to lean into him. He was big and strong and so was his personality. An image rushed into her mind of medieval knights protecting their castles, their women—and for one mad moment she wanted nothing but to put herself in his hands.
But she couldn’t. She daren’t lean on him.
She certainly daren’t look up. She did not feel well at all, at all.
“Had . . . to . . . come,” she managed to say.
“I was on my way out to find you, to see if you needed—Noirot, are you all right?”
She was looking down at his feet and thinking that any minute now she was going to be sick on his costly slippers. But the sea had ruined them already. Pity. Such fine slippers. He had big feet. Funny.
“Quite well,” she said, gagging.
“Saunders, brandy! Quick!”
Yes, that was it. Brandy. Why she’d come. Brandy. Jeffreys needed it.
So, heaven help her, did she.
“My . . . my s-seamstress,” she began. “Sh-she—”
“Here.” He put a flask to her lips. “Drink.”
“I’m n-never sick,” she said.
“Drink,” he said.
She drank, welcoming the fire sliding down her throat. If it scoured her insides, so much the better.
For a moment she thought she’d be well again.
Then the deck tilted and she slid and stumbled. This time his arms were about her, though. “Don’t,” she said. “Going to be . . . going to be—”
“Saunders!”
Something was thrust in front of her. A bucket. Good.
Then she was retching, doubled over, so sick she couldn’t see straight. Her head pounded and her knees gave way.
Sick, so sick.
Someone was holding her. Men talked above her head. His voice. Another’s. She was shifted onto something soft. A bed. Oh, that felt good. To lie
down. She would simply lie here for a moment while the boat rose and fell, rocked this way and that.
But no. She hadn’t time for this.
Someone slid a pillow under her head, then drew a blanket over her. That felt so good. But she wasn’t supposed to feel good. She had to get up. It was Jeffreys who needed help. But if she moved, she’d be sick again.
Must lie very quietly.
Impossible, with the ship pitching so. Slowly it tilted up, then slowly down again, and all the while, the horrible noises, ropes and timbers grinding and creaking and groaning as though all the souls of the drowned were rising to meet them. From a distance came the sounds of passengers crying and screaming. And somewhere above all the noise of the ship, she heard the storm’s fury, the wailing wind.
Hell, she thought. Dante’s Inferno. Or that other thing. Not a poem but a picture of Hell, of the damned. Curse it, what was wrong with her? She couldn’t lie here, wondering about paintings.
“No.” She could barely form the words. “Not me. My—my— s-seamstress.”
“Your maid?” His voice was so calm. So reassuring.
“Jeffreys. She’s badly ill. Brandy. I came for . . . brandy.”
More talking, over her, around her. She heard screaming and shouting, too, but far away. The world went up, then down, and down, and down.
Don’t let me be sick again. Don’t let me be sick again.
Something cool and wet touched her face. “Saunders will see about your maid,” the familiar voice said.
“Don’t let her die,” she said. Or did she? Her voice sounded far away, so small against the infernal clamor about them. Hell, she thought. This was like the Hell the righteous ranted about. The Hell in the pictures.
“People almost never die of seasickness,” he said.
“They only wish they might,” she said.
An odd sound. A chuckle? It was his voice, low and close. Behind it, around it, above it were horrible sounds, like death. A long, drawn-out moan, a terrible grinding, then a crack.
The ship . . . cracking open . . .
“We can’t go down,” someone said. Had she spoken?
