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I would have said more, but Lady Eleanor, leading a very pale Jenny, is heading our way.
“Here.” I wave. “There’s a light breeze. Jenny will feel much better.”
To no avail. Jenny barely makes it to the railing before heaving. Lady Eleanor waves us off as she tends to her maid.
“Oh, dear,” I sigh and turn back to the sea.
Bentwood follows me. Caring as he can be, seasick women are not part of his skills. He is a man, after all.
“Do you know where we are?” I ask.
“Past the straits of Dover.”
“Really?” I squint, as if to find markers. “We haven’t left home yet?”
“Not quite.”
“And our next port?” Where I have no intention of being left, unless he is with me. “Will it be an age before we touch land again?”
“In the next ten days or so.”
“Ten days?”
I’d expected 187 days of a rather tortuous journey. One night of ten is nothing.
I follow his gaze. Lady E. is signalling for a sailor, imitating taking a drink and pointing to her abigail.
Bentwood is one of that rare breed of men - when he speaks with a person, he truly engages. You know he is listening, without distraction. Yet now he’s looking everywhere but at me.
“The original plan was to sail the Mediterranean to Egypt,” he finally confesses. “From there we were to travel by land, on camels, to the Red Sea.”
“Across a desert? On camels? Oh, Bentwood.”
I marvel that he would take on such an escapade.
“It’s an old route, mostly forgotten. Fortescue thinks it might be a good investment. CeCe suggested you would enjoy the adventure of it.”
“When?” I ask.
Ignoring my question, he finally looks straight at me.
“This ship was merely in the right place at the right time to ensure we’d make the connection Fortescue arranged.”
“CeCe’s husband is arranging this venture? How is that possible? He is a world away. And why would CeCe consider me a traveling companion? She won’t even know of our marriage for months yet.” Nothing makes sense. “If she meant your wife, she would have been thinking of Lady Clarissa, and I can assure you, CeCe knows better than to imagine Clarissa would ever agree to this journey.”
“Lady Clarissa?” he frowns as Lady Eleanor joins us.
“Am I interrupting?” she asks.
Neither of us speaks. I’m trying to decipher what I’ve just been told.
“It looks like they're taking the sails down,” Lady E. remarks.
“Changing sails, possibly to lighter ones now the storm’s gone. They must be expecting fair weather,” Bentwood explains.
Perhaps Lady E. can clear my confusion. I tell her, “It is CeCe’s husband, Lord Fortescue, who instigated our journey. He asked Bentwood to travel to the far seas via Egypt. CeCe suggested I join him.”
“That was the original plan, yes,” he admits.
