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None of us has slept much in the past two nights, Bentwood least of all. He deserves to rest. I won’t knock. I’ll simply slip my head inside and check on him. Just to make certain he is not hurt.
Without a sound, I lower the lever of his door, surprised — and a little alarmed — that I can do so. Despite my intent, I hadn’t really expected to be able to enter. It should be locked from the inside. It isn’t. Slowly I push against some resistance, but not enough to stop me.
Rather than swing the door wide, I set the lantern down and sidle in through the narrow opening, about to close the door when I hear Bentwood’s, “Kat?” from the other side of the portal.
He’s outside his chamber.
Before he can tell me off for sneaking into his private quarters, I fling open the door. Something drops with a thunk and we both stop, staring at an angry, writhing snake curling in on itself.
Good God! If… Well, if… I…
“Don’t move!” Bentwood bites out between clenched teeth as the snake’s head rises from its coil to face him. “Don’t move,” he orders again as if I’m not frozen in place.
Except I’m not still. I’m trembling, watching, unable to move as the snake’s neck splays. A cobra, weaving back and forth, back and forth, its tongue darting, tasting the air, poised to strike my husband.
Without the least intention of swooping, I realise that I have and stand. A heavy, angry serpent dangles from my stranglehold. I haven’t the foggiest idea of what to do with the unhappy creature. As impulses go, I’d have been better served to ignore this one. It could have been deadly.
“Good God!” Bentwood huffs, as if taking his first breath of life. “Be careful.”
He grabs the snake, prying my frozen fingers from its neck. For some idiotic reason, they clamped closed and do not want to open.
“That was meant for you,” I warble.
He fights my grip, voice low, gravely.
“Let go, Kat.”
I am trembling too hard.
“Tell me, what you are doing here?”
“Doing here?” I loosen my grip and step back, fear turning to anger. An emotion I can handle. “Someone has to look out for you.”
“And you think that’s you?”
He has two hands on the serpent now, and I realise he is facing it away from us.
There isn’t much space for me to back up more.
“Please, Bentwood, take it away.”
He looks at the angry reptile, at me, then at the ceiling where a basket hangs upside down, its lid swinging beside it.
“Don’t drop it!” I yell, wanting his full attention where it is best served.
“Of course I won’t.”
He looks around, presumably for a place to put the cobra, and eyes the basket again.
“What’s happened?” Lady E. peers into the cabin. We both turn to her. “Good God! Is that a viper?”
Behind her, Jenny wheels backward, the cabin boy righting her as he pushes through.
“Gor! Look at that.” His grin is wide as an apple slice. “You want me to take that?”
“Not you,” Bentwood says. “We need—”
“I knows just the ticket.” He rushes past Bentwood into the cabin’s berth. We all watch as he rifles through the bedding to turn, triumphant, with an empty pillowcase. “Here you go, m’lord.”
