“You would not believe me if I told you.”
Jackson started to pursue her statement, but Smith cut him off with a warning glance and a hasty explanation. “Captain ordered that no one talk to her. That includes you.”
“Perfectly understandable,” Alexis said. “Hasn’t he told you anything about me?”
“Nothing.”
“And he is not likely to. It’s what I would expect from him. He should not be concerned though. I did not intend to blurt everything out.”
Smith briefly wondered what she meant, then he dismissed it. “He does not want you to stay—”
The doctor interrupted, asserting his position. “She can’t be moved. She is not well yet, in spite of her banter. She’s told me she’s given doctors rough times and I believe her. Morning will be soon enough. Maybe even too soon.”
“Moved to where?” asked Alexis. “Is he planning to lock me up somewhere? Can it be he actually fears me?” She almost laughed. The thought was extremely amusing, just as the memory of his indignant, outraged, and finally astonished expression was when she spit on his boots. She’d had only a fleeting moment to view the raised eyebrows, the cold, piercing eyes the hawk-like nose, nostrils flared in anger, the thin, cruel lips, parted for an instant as he uttered an oath. She had only seen those things briefly before she’d fainted, but now she recalled them and allowed herself to enjoy them to the fullest.
Smith shook his head. He laughed lightly, though somehow uncomfortably, at the ludicrous suggestion that Travers feared anyone. Certainly not this slender woman with unusual amber eyes that were almost gold in certain lights. He tore his own eyes away from hers. How strange they were. He thought about them no more, but when he spoke to her he fastened his attention on some point on the wall behind her.
“You will have to get your answers from the captain. He will want to talk to you in the morning.”
“That should be all right,” she said more to herself than to her companions. “I should be able to greet him properly by then.”
Her speech had the clarity and resonance of a person deep in thought. Both men noticed she seemed to have dismissed them. The doctor rose from the side of her bed and found more blankets to cover her. She thanked him absently. It was some time after they had gone before she noticed their absence.
“What do you make of her?” the doctor asked when they stepped out of the room. “She seems to know what kind of man Travers is, all right.”
“She seems to know too much. How did she know this was theFollansbee?Did you tell her?”
“No.”
“Then how did she know?” Smith was exasperated. “I don’t understand it, Hugh. I don’t understand any of it.”
The doctor gave him a commiserating look. He left the officer alone to think on the matter while he searched out a mirror to discover if the years with Travers truly did show on his face.
Smith thought of little besides the young woman occupying his room. Shortly after midnight, no answers to be found in the calm expanse of the sea, he returned to his cabin. It seemed he had only been asleep a matter of minutes when he felt a hand nudge him awake. He almost tipped the chair he sat in as he came fully to attention.
Alexis suppressed a smile. “Do you think I might have some more of that broth?”
Ian reached for the cup at his side, spilling some as he groped in the dark. He murmured an apology about it being cold and offered to warm some for her.
“Don’t go to the trouble,” she said, accepting the cup. After a few sips she asked, “What time is it, Mr.—”
“Smith. Lieutenant Ian Smith. And it is about two in the morning and I am surprised you did not know either the time or my name; you seem to know everything else.”
“I am not a clairvoyant, Lieutenant.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Yes, I suppose it must seem that I am. Just to prove I’m not, I will ask you another question. Where is this frigate bound?”
Ian laughed. “You won’t get that from me…” He paused for a name and he was surprised when she gave him one. “How do I know you do not make a habit of preying on British vessels under the guise of a half-drowned waif, Alexis?”
“Is that what you think?”
“It had occurred to me. Nothing else makes much sense.”
“No, I suppose it doesn’t.”
Ian shut his eyes and when he opened them the cabin was still dark and his confusion just as deep. “I still don’t understand any of this, Alexis,” he said at last.
