“Does theGlasgow Lasshave a cat?”
“Aye, a half-feral feline by the name of Jezebel. Hobbes best take care.”
33
The roaring seas and many a dark range of mountains lie between us.
Homer
“You may have heard the saying of English sailors, Mrs. Buchanan,” the captain said as the meal was served. “That the only cure for seasickness is to sit on the shady side of an old brick church in the country.”
She smiled despite the poignant reminder of their parish church and its age-old shade trees. “I shall share that with my sister in hopes of her recovery—and pray I stay standing.”
“If you’ve not succumbed yet, you’ll likely make a fine sailor.”
Talk rumbled on about the price of tobacco, French privateers menacing shipping lanes, and the ongoing unrest in America. Leith told her their ship’s master, Captain Hicks, had sailed on Captain Cook’s secret voyage to the South Pacific a few years before.
“When Australia was claimed for George III?” She looked up from her plate. “My family followed accounts of it in the newspapers.”
“What with the naturalists, botanists, and artists aboard, it was a riveting cruise,” Hicks replied with enthusiasm. “There’s not a finer mariner alive than Captain James Cook.”
“You yourself must be lauded since you were his lieutenant,” Juliet told him with a smile. She turned to Leith. “And you no less for securing him as captain.”
“We’re exceptionally well paid and provisioned with the Buchanan fleet,” Hicks said with a nod toward Leith. “And conditions are a wee bit better aboard theGlasgow Lassthan aboard theEndeavor... with a remarkably shorter sailing time.”
They laughed, and then she grew quiet, concerned. Though Leith acted hale and hearty, she saw through his bluster. His plate was hardly touched and his color was high. Had his fever returned? He was drinking an alarming amount of Madeira.
As for herself, she was having difficulty settling her nerves as they hurtled into the unknown. How she longed for the familiar contours of Royal Vale, the security of her hearth and downy feather bed, even her favorite Worcester teacup with its bright blue flowers on a sunny yellow ground.
Leith shifted in his seat, bumping elbows with her. The clumsy encounter left her atingle. Flushing, she realized this was the first time they’d shared a meal together as husband and wife. This cruise was to be a series of firsts.
“Are you available for divine service this evening, Mrs. Buchanan?” the ship’s chaplain was saying to her right.
She nearly choked on a morsel of chicken. The Sabbath. Was her befuddlement so great that she’d lost track of time? “Of course. Where shall it be held?”
“Right here at eight of the clock.”
Relief made her emotional. Even out in the midst of a vast ocean, God seemed suddenly near, not left on the shores of Virginia. “Perhaps my sister will feel well enough to join us.”
Leith had never been able to pay attention to divine service. When he was a lad, his mother had threatened to sit on top of him to keep him still in the pew. Tonight it seemed he was beset by that same restlessness, hard-pressed to stay composed and rein in his thoughts. That they kept drifting to Juliet didn’t help matters. She sat beside him, her sister on the other side of her, and seemed rapt, even a bit emotional. Her eyes glittered, and she reached for Loveday’s hand.
Was she ruing leaving Virginia?
The possibility brought a swift ache, and he coughed as if to counter it. They’d just begun the cruise, a dangerous undertaking in any season but especially winter. In this close, congested cabin where his stock again felt more like a noose about his neck, he wondered not onlyhowhe’d weather it butifhe would. His awe of the sea was equaled only by his dread of it. To leave his business affairs in Britain, along with the routines and comforts of home, and venture to the colonies and back had taken a toll he’d not reckoned with.
He pinned his gaze to a map on a far wall and took a careful breath. His lungs felt oddly heavy as if he’d run a race, his mouth dry. Instead of the bone-chilling shadow that often dogged him day and night, an odd warmth stole over him that felt just as menacing. If he could only have a bracing drink of water...
He needed sleep. The wine he’d drunk failed to still his coughing as he’d hoped. Bedtime was likely an hour away. And now there was the torment of sleeping near Juliet, making him half mad with intrigue and longing. She was his wife, yet she wasn’t.
Usually he wasn’t a man given to feelings. They werealways suspect, unlike facts. Yet there was no denying she was a winsome mix of all he found beguiling.
And he must fight against it with all his might.
As for Juliet, he fully realized she needed his name and position as a shield and a way to honor her father’s debts. But as a husband—not at all.
Juliet readied for bed, aware of Leith in the small dressing room of their cabin. He’d drunk a glass of water that she’d poured for him upon returning from divine service, but he’d accepted it with cool courtesy. Did he not like her attentions? She pondered it as she braided her hair. He seemed to be taking a very long time doing whatever men did before retiring. Since he was nearly a complete stranger, she felt an awkward curiosity about his personal habits. When he didn’t come out of the dressing room, she went in.
He lay sprawled in a chair at the back of the small space, still dressed save his stock, which lay on the floor at his feet. His eyes were closed. Her hand shot out to touch his fiery face. Feverish, just as she’d suspected. His breathing was alarmingly shallow, and he seemed oblivious to her presence. She rang the bell to alert the steward, then sent for the ship’s surgeon, a man as stern as he was stout.
