Please, let this all be a bad dream, she thought, but instinctively knew that it wasn't.
Then she felt the slow, back and forth roll of the bed beneath her and the room. And the faint sound of water. She was on a ship!
"You can't just leave her in there!" Tobias argued, in spite of the glare that could have cut a man's head in two. "It's been hours since we left Dover. Has she eaten anything in all that time? And what about water?"
"She's all right!" Zach closed the ship's log on the desk. "Tris made certain the ropes weren't too tight. At any rate she's still asleep. Tris checked on her a few hours ago."
"A few hours? For God's sake, man, what are you tryin' to do to the girl?"
"I think you underestimate Miss Winslow," Zach replied. "At any rate, it's none of your concern! Leave it be!" He hadn't slept. He was weary of arguing, but Tobias wasn't about to let the matter rest.
"As this ship's doctor, I demand she be well treated well! That doesn't include being tied and gagged. Where the devil would she go?"
Zach saw the determined expression on his old friend's face.
"I'll have the ropes removed. She'll be given everything she needs to make her comfortable. It was never my intention to mistreat her."
"Is that so? What about bringin' her here? I'm certain you just didn't walk into that church and extend a formal invitation for an ocean voyage. And I'm equally certain if you had, she would have refused!"
"Enough!" Zach's fist came down on the desk.
Undaunted, Tobias tried another direction. "What are you going to tell her about all this?"
"As little as possible. I think it's better that way."
Tobias stared hard at him. "Is that all there is to it?"
Zach's head came up. "That's all. There are things that you don't know. She's aboard this ship and confined to her cabin until I say otherwise. It's safer for everyone."
"You'll have to talk to her sooner or later," Tobias argued. "She doesn't strike me as the type to calmly accept bein' shut up in that cabin. She's undoubtedly goin' to have a lot of questions and she deserves answers."
"I'll take care of it when the time comes." Zach put him off, at the same time knowing full well he was only delaying the inevitable. He couldn't very well keep her bound and gagged for the entire voyage to New South Wales.
Tobias frowned. "Have it your way. But you need to know I don't agree with any of this."
"I intend to have it my way. I am captain of this ship," Zach reminded him.
"Aye." Tobias nodded thoughtfully. "Now, I think you'd better tell me what you found out."
Something had happened when Zach was at the Barrington estate, and he meant to know what it was. He didn't understand the change in his young friend. And what part did the girl play in all this? Why was Zach goading Jerrold Barrington into a confrontation he probably wouldn't survive.
"It's about your father, isn't it?" Tobias speculated. "It has to do with whatever you found out about him and Felicia Barrington."
Zach rolled his head back wearily, his eyes closed. Then laughter rumbled deep in his chest. It was mad, insane. Hadn't Elyse said that in the church? He came out of the chair, slowly pacing the cabin, laughter rolling out of him until his shoulders shook, leaving him weak, unable to talk. He'd come to England for the truth. Well, by God, now he had it.
He came up against the far wall of the cabin and braced his hands on either side of the open porthole. Tobias had a right to know. Slowly, he told him what he knew—a story of half-brothers, a story of greed and betrayal that led to murder, the trial that followed, and the lives that were destroyed. And he told him about Felicia Seymour the beautiful, innocent pawn of one man's hatred against his own brother.
When he again looked at Tobias, the anger had won. It was there in the hardened line of his mouth, the coldness of eyes, void of anything except the burning light for revenge.
"Alexander Nicholas Barrington was my father."
Tobias shook his head. "I can't believe it!"
All at once he felt old, very old. He rubbed his fingers against his forehead. "All those years I knew yer father, and not a word. Not one! There was only that one letter from her." Tobias sat back heavily in the chair.
"I need a drink." Zach stood, staring out the open porthole. Rolling waves spread away to the disappearing coastline in the afternoon sunlight. He frowned slightly at the sight of dark clouds on the horizon. Then he came away from the porthole.
He was tired. His body screamed for sleep, but his mind refused it. He wished a drink were all it would take to wipe his mind blank. Then maybe he could sleep.
