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“I didn’t want to appear weak.”
“You’re not weak, Nick, you’re so strong. Any other man would have died with a dose of poison that lethal. Coleman was trying to discredit you, and perhaps if he’d administered a smaller dose, no one would have been the wiser. People would have thought you had a manic episode, triggered by visiting the asylum, but the dose he used was too strong. Enough to kill an ox, Dr. Forster said. And you survived.”
She kissed his knuckles. “I knew you would wake up.”
He wanted her to keep touching him.
Bringing their joined hands to his lips, he kissed the center of her palm, inhaling her clean, womanly scent.
Lavender. Lemon. A hint of salt spray.
A hint of adventure.
A disquieting thought gripped his throat. “Alice. How long have I been asleep?”
She smiled warily. “Five days.”
“Five days... but that means your ship... has it already sailed? What are you doing here? You have to go to India.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you when you might die, Nick. How could I leave and spend six months on the ocean wondering if you were alive or dead?”
“But you won’t be able to give the scholars your missing chapters of the Kama Sutra. They’ll be waiting and no one will arrive. I never wanted to come between you and your dreams, Alice.”
“I know that, Nick. You’ve encouraged my dreams at every turn. Outfitting my study. Finding me a tutor.”
Nick shook his head. “You should have gone. You can’t abandon your dreams for me.”
“I should have listened to you. You had a very good reason not to go to the asylum. I blindly forged ahead without thinking that you might have a legitimate reason. I should never have forced you to go.”
“You didn’t force me to do anything. I made the choice. And you have to find another ship. Is there another in your father’s fleet that will be leaving this month? You’ve worked so hard on this, Alice. I won’t let you give everything up for my sake.”
“You want me to leave?”
“Of course I do. You must follow your dreams to India.”
Dr. Forster arrived. “Awake, are we?”
“And obstinate as ever,” Alice said.
She dropped his hand and rose from the bed.
Nick heard the hurt in her voice and he didn’t know how to make anything better.
She was fearless and unconventional and she wasn’t his to keep.
She was something of the wind that blew through his life and lifted the dust from his heart. He could never be the one to destroy her dreams.
“Good to see you in the land of the living,” Captain Lear said, shaking Nick’s hand. “Scared us there for a moment, Hatherly.”
“Lear, I upset Alice. She left in a huff.”
“What did you do, you fool?”
“She missed her ship to India. And I told her she should find another one. That she should leave and she became agitated.”
“Of course she did. The lady loves you. She said so while you were sleeping.”
“I know, and that’s terrible.”
