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“Miss Amanda don’t like to be fussed over when she’s sick. She gets cross, you know, and wants to be let alone. And Mrs. Gales is only the tiniest bit under the weather. When I left she was setting up in the bed, just knitting away, like that was the only cure for anything.”
“Is—is Miss Cavencourt very ill?” Philip asked.
Bella appeared to consider. “Well, she’s green enough,” she said after a moment. “Greener than you are, Mr. Brentick. You look a deal better than yesterday, I’m happy to say. All the same...” She eyed him thoughtfully. “Mr. Wringle’s whiskers make him look more distinguished, but I can’t say the same for yourself. You look like a sailor what’s been on a five-day binge.”
Philip stroked his rough chin. “Raffish, Miss Jones?”
She shrugged her plump shoulders. “Whatever that is. Where’s your shaving things?’’
“Thank you, but I don’t feel up to shaving at the moment. Perhaps later.”
“Well, don’t I know that?” she answered indignantly. “I got eyes, don’t I? I’ll shave you,” she added, to his astonishment.
His shock grew to horror as her gleaming eye lit upon the washbasin, where his neglected razor lay.
“Thank you, but that will not be necessary,” he said firmly. “Nor advisable. The ship is not altogether steady at present.”
“I was shaving my pa since I was twelve years old, and I done Lord Cavencourt time enough when his valet was too drunk to be trusted with even a towel. My hand is perfectly steady.”
“No one has... ever... shaved... me,” Philip said, picking out the words with all the cold deliberation of his sire at his intimidating best. “No one. Not even J—no one!”
She drew her hand back from the razor and sighed. “Oh, very well, if you’re going to get all in a roar about it I was just looking for something to do.”
Swiftly recollecting himself, Philip assumed a mask of penitence. “I do beg your pardon. Illness appears to make me cross, as well. But it is a quirk of mine. I can’t bear to be shaved.” He thought quickly. “If you truly want something to do... “
“Well, didn’t I just say so?”
“In that case, I would be immensely grateful if you’d sew the button back on my coat. It came loose the day of the storm. When I fell ill so suddenly, I tore my coat off, and the button came loose,” he explained. “It’s dangling by a thread.”
Bella’s round face brightened. “Well, that’s more like it, then.” She retrieved the coat, then glanced about. “Got anything else? I expect you don’t care much for mending, and there’s no tailors near to hand.”
When the door at last closed behind her, a choked guffaw broke the silence. Philip’s icy blue gaze fell upon his servant, whose shoulders were shaking.
“Are you experiencing convulsions, soldier?” he asked frostily. “It would serve you right, for pretending to sleep, only to eavesdrop.”
“Bless me, guv, if the wench wasn’t gonna shave you. You,” Jessup chortled. “I never heard your voice go so high like that afore. Lawd, did y’ think she meant to nick up somethin’ else for you?”
“You know perfectly well I let no one come near me with a razor. Not even you, you decrepit old budmash. She’s taken your measure, hasn’t she? You heard her, lad. Miss Jones means to see you mend your wicked ways. She’ll do it, make no mistake, even if it kills you.”
Jessup chuckled. “Well, and mebbe I might let her. She do make salvation look sweet enough, that one. And pluck to the backbone, ain’t she? I seen brave soldiers near wet themselves when they heard that tone from you, and she didn’t so much as blink. Damn but I thought I’d bust a gut, tryin’ to stifle myself.”
“Why don’t you try again?” Philip answered, taking up a pillow. “Or would you rather I helped you?”
***
Bella returned to the Cavencourt cabin bearing one coat, one shirt, and two pairs of trousers.
Amanda had dragged herself up to a sitting position. She gazed dully at the pile of clothing.
“What is that, Bella?”
“Mr. Brentick decided to come off his high ropes and let me mend his things.” Bella took up her sewing box and deftly threaded a needle. “He took it ill when I asked to shave him,” she added, grinning. “I was afeard he’d jump clean out of bed and whack his head on the ceiling.”
“I suppose most men wouldn’t trust a woman with a razor,” Amanda said.
Bella’s grin broadened. “I wish you could have heard him. And seen him. For a minute there, he almost had me quaking in my slippers. I never in all my life seen anyone get so high and mighty. Looking down his nose at me, he was—and there I was standing practically on top of him, as there ain’t room enough in that cabin for a cat to wash its whiskers. And he got this little twitch in his jaw and his nose pinched up, and his voice just—just dripped out, like pieces of ice. ‘No one shaves me,’ he says. And I fair near dropped a curtsey and said, ‘No, Your Highness, no they don’t, I’m sure.’” She giggled. “Oh, he is a one, that one.”
“I expect it was being so seasick,” said Amanda, baffled by the strange flutter within her. Mal de mer. Would it never end? “No doubt he was out of sorts.”
“He was in a temper fit is what. He don’t like being sick, I can tell you. Hates it worse than you do. Still, who can blame him, such a nasty little place it is, and him with them long legs.” She shook out the trousers and gazed at them in shrewd appraisal. “And who’d think, skinny as he is,” she said, “any man could have such a small bottom?”
Amanda’s face grew unpleasantly hot. She glanced at Mrs. Gales, but that lady remained serenely asleep. The widow slept as steadily as she plied her needles and hooks. A cannon blast might wake her, but nothing less, once she’d composed herself to slumber.
“He asked after you,” Bella said, after a moment. “He seemed very worried. Maybe that’s why he got so grouchy. Poor man, it don?
?t seem fair, do it? He’s fine and handsome as a prince in one of your fairy tales. Why, he might have been a gentleman, miss, and then—”
“Bella.”
The maid looked up enquiringly at the unaccustomed sharp tone. “Yes, miss?”
“My head is aching like the very devil. Do you think you can mend silently for a little while?”
***
By the end of the week, though the sea continued choppy, the deck was sufficiently safe for perambulation. Late in the day, Philip made his way above.
Bella had said her mistress was fully recovered, but the mistress did not appear. He waited an hour at their customary place then spent another two hours prowling the vessel from stem to stern. Perhaps she’d come earlier, and the exertion had tired her after the strain of illness. Perhaps she’d taken to her bed once more.
He would not think about beds. Not her bed. Nor was it wise to consider his own narrow mattress. That had seemed a deal too much like a coffin, and the airless cell in which it lay seemed to reek of illness and decay. So Bella must have noticed as well, for she’d arrived today with bucket, mop, and cloth, and the hapless cabin boy in tow. With Jessup alert and vigilant, Philip had happily fled, leaving the maid and her slave to scrub the living daylights out of every square inch of offending surface.
Not that her efforts could possibly make the space tolerable to Philip. Falling asleep would continue to be an ordeal. To linger there at all when it wasn’t necessary was needless torture.
***
Ah, thank you, Papa.
“There now, Miss Amanda, it’s all right.”
Amanda’s eyes flew open, and she jerked upright... to utter darkness. Panic seized her, and she tried to shake off the hand grasping her wrist.
“It’s all right, miss. You had a bad dream,” Bella said soothingly.
That was all. A dream. A very long one. She must remember it. Padji ought to know. But she wouldn’t forget, not this one. Not one detail.
Amanda sank back upon the pillows, and patiently accepted Bella’s fussing and fluffing and tucking. “Thank you,” she said softly. I’m sorry I woke you. Do go back to sleep. I’m all right now.”
