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The fishermen called out to the other boats as they continued plucking sailors from the water. They weren’t speaking Greek, as he’d expected, but Italian. He knew some Italian, more than a little, but was too exhausted to try to interpret their conversation. As he rested, half conscious, he heard their voices rise in distress. He hauled himself up to look where they pointed.
Far east of their boat, in a choppier stretch of water, the Providence’s small, overloaded dinghy was getting swamped by waves. One of the other fishing boats called out and headed in their direction, but the dinghy had been blown far from the shore and its passengers were already in the water.
He turned away, overcome, thinking how he’d feel if Rosalind had been in that failing vessel with the other ladies and panicking gentlemen. Too many people would not survive this sinking. He and Rosalind had come close to being in that number. Their fishermen fell quiet, turning their boat about to head for shore. One of them murmured to him, tutto andrà bene, all will be well.
He replied grazie, grazie, thank you, over and over until they gestured for him to rest.
*
Rosalind drifted in a sort of waking dream, listening to the soft murmuring of women’s voices layered over gusting winds and a crackling fire. Sometimes she slept. Sometimes she blinked at the darkened space around her trying to remember where she was. There were oil lamps, the smell of food cooking, and wood beams across a low ceiling. She felt warm and safe, bundled in a cot, wrapped in heavy quilts.
A woman leaned over her and Rosalind tried to keep her eyes open to study her. Who was she? Rosalind didn’t recognize her. The woman was older with hair the color of burnt caramel and eyes of hazel or brown. She gazed down at her, touched Rosalind’s hair, and made a sympathetic sound of comfort. Signore, she said quietly.
Marlow appeared in her field of vision and Rosalind reached for him before realizing her arms were tucked tightly to her sides beneath the blankets. She was swaddled like a baby. Slowly, as Marlow gazed down at her, she began to remember what had come before this. Their ship had sunk. Marlow had made her jump into the water to swim though she’d screamed that she could not. A blast of cold had enveloped her, pulling her under. The water had wanted her, clutched at her, but she’d swum against it by sheer force of panic. Marlow had dragged her through the water, shouting at her that she must not stop. And then…
A boat. Men with dark eyes and wind-chapped skin. That was all she remembered.
“Be still, darling,” Marlow said, stroking her hair back from her face. “You’re safe here. You’ve had a small fever but it’s coming down.” He placed a cool cloth against her forehead. Her hair wasn’t wet anymore. It felt soft and dry, like someone had washed it.
Marlow spoke to the woman in stilted Italian. She seemed to understand him. She brought a mug of steaming broth and spooned sips of it into Rosalind’s mouth as Marlow helped hold her upright. She felt almost too weak to swallow at first, but her body must have craved the sustenance, because she took the mug herself and drank the rest of it as soon as it was cool enough not to burn her tongue.
The kind, grandmotherly woman was joined by another, younger woman. Her daughter? She seemed delighted to see Rosalind awake. Marlow explained they were somewhere on the Italian peninsula’s southern coast, where a great many of the Providence’s passengers and crew had been rescued. How strange to be in Sicilia, and not India, where they were bound.
“Grazie,” she said to the mother and daughter. Her voice came out in a rasp. She hadn’t used it since she’d cried out for help in the water. She looked down at her arms, now freed from the blanket. She was wearing a soft calico gown that was not hers. “Thank you. Grazie,” she said again. Her torn black mourning gown and chemise hung by the fireplace. Washed, she supposed, and drying. The kindness of these concerned strangers made her start to cry.
“Sweetheart, don’t fret.” He reached to brush the tears away. “Everything will be all right now.”
She turned to him, hiding her face against his chest. She cried a long while, unable to control her feelings now that they’d broken free of her tangled, fraught memories. The older woman brought more broth and murmured something ending in the word forte. Strong.
“Yes, you must grow strong,” Marlow translated. “Have as much as you can manage, then rest some more.”
“What about you?” Rosalind asked. “Are you wholly unharmed?”
“I’m sore and tired. I feel like a pack of horses has run roughshod over me, but I’m well.”
The two women moved away from them, back into the other part of the small cottage.
“This is the home of one of the fishermen who rescued us,” he explained. “And his crew has gone back out to work, believe it or not. Apparently storms bring good yields. That’s why they were out on the waters when the Providence was sinking. I dread to think…” His voice went tight. “If they hadn’t been there.” He cleared his throat. “I had every intention of paying them handsomely for our rescue, then I realized all the money I brought with me has gone down with the ship, along with the lion’s share of my worldly possessions.”
Rosalind opened her mouth, then closed it. She hadn’t even thought of her belongings in the heat of crisis yesterday. Her gowns, her jewelry, her beloved poetry book, all gone.
“It doesn’t matter,” he went on. “I shall reward them greatly as soon as I’m in funds again, though they have no expectation of it. I believe they are the kindest people I’ve ever known.”
“The women must have washed my hair and given me one of their dresses.” She touched her loose curls and looked down at the clean, sturdy, peasant-style gown she wore.
“Yes, yesterday morning while you were fevered. They washed my trousers and shirt as well, thank goodness, for I can’t bear the smell of sea water just now.”
He took her hand and cradled her against him, offering solidity. The contact jostled more memories free, memories of stolen hours before dawn, before the ship had come apart in the water. Marlow had held her just like this, then done more to her. He had touched her, kissed her and undone her dress, and slid inside her in the most astounding way.
Perhaps he was remembering it too. He leaned his face toward hers and kissed her forehead, lingering there. They’d both imagined they’d die in the dark that night, but they’d lived. They’d survived the storm.
“What will we do now?” she asked shakily. “Where will we go?”
“We must go home. We must return to England, by land as far as possible, for I don’t know if I can get on a ship again, at least not until we cross the Channel to Dover.”
“How will we go all the way to England when we have no money?”
“We need only travel to Florence, where Felicity lives with her prince and your nieces and nephews. I have accounts there, and your father owns an estate on the Arno River. We visited there once, all the Oxfordshire families, when Felicity married. Do you remember? Perhaps not. You were very young.”
