“Better?” asked Rhys.
Kenna’s eyes closed. Quietly she told him she was going to be sick.
Rhys fairly dove over her to get off the bed and retrieve the empty chamber pot. He managed to return with it just as Kenna pushed herself to the side of the bed and leaned her head over the edge. He shoved the chamber pot under her and held her heaving shoulders while she was sick. Afterwards he poured a cup of water and let her rinse out her mouth.
Kenna moved away from bed’s edge and Rhys covered her with a blanket. “I need my medicine,” she said weakly.
“I’ll get it for you.”
As was his custom Rhys measured out some on a spoon and lifted her head as he fed it to her.
After she licked the taste of it from her lips Kenna eyed the bottle. “More. I remember. You promised.”
“I did.” He poured a spoonful, then another. “Enough?”
She nodded.
He hid his smug smile as he locked the bottle with its diluted contents inside the oak desk. Several other bottles mixed with exactly the same proportions, lay beside it. Three teaspoons was still not equal to the amount she had been receiving in one dose at Polly’s. Rhys returned the key to a slim gold chain he wore around his neck. If Kenna wanted the key badly enough she could always break the chain but not without him knowing it.
“Better now?” he asked, standing beside the bed.
She nodded, a serene smile touching her mouth.
“Good. Move over.”
Kenna obligingly did as she was asked until she was against the paneled wall of the cabin.
Rhys slipped between the covers. “Not that far, sweet.” He pulled her close and curled his body against hers. She murmured something he did not catch. “What was that, Kenna?”
“S’lovely.”
“It is.” Rhys closed his eyes. In his own dreams Kenna said those words and knew what she was saying.
For the following ten days Rhys battled on and off with Kenna. She was frequently sick which he attributed more to the motion of the ship and less to her dependency upon the drug. He often entered the cabin in the middle of the day and found her sleeping. At night she kept Rhys awake, begging him to give her more medicine. She was a stranger to the crew. Rhys was afraid to let her out of the cabin for fear of what she would do. There were times when he did not think she knew she was on a ship at all. He had to care for her, washing her hair, bathing her, and feeding her. When their meals were prepared he had the cook’s assistant leave them in the companionway outside their door and then made certain the young man was gone before he went to get them. Rhys did it, not because he was ashamed of anything Kenna might do or say, but to protect her. The captain of theCaraseaaccepted his explanation that Kenna was unused to ocean travel and therefore indisposed.
When Rhys was not with Kenna, he spent his time on deck or quartered with Captain Johnson, learning about the shipping line he had inherited. Johnson was a brusque man, unable to tolerate ceremony for its own sake. He told Rhys bluntly that while he may be the new owner of the line he, Johnson, was in command of theCaraseaand that’s the way it would be until he drew his last. Rhys replied he would not have it differently and proceeded to grill the captain for all the information and expertise he had from his twenty years with the line.
Johnson was impressed that Rhys was not merely interested in the profit and cargo side of the trade. He asked about ship maintenance, trade routes, winds, navigation, the men’s food and sleeping quarters, their salaries, construction, and maritime laws. The captain was similarly impressed by Rhys’s quick mind and his grasp of what was important to the men trusted with the line’s cargo.
Rhys was not satisfied with simply listening to Johnson answer his questions. He wanted experience as part of the crew so he knew what he was asking others to do for him.
Johnson balked at the request. “Your father never asked to climb the rigging in his life,” he said. “Or to take a watch, hold the wheel, or plot a course.”
Rhys leaned forward in his chair then, his gray eyes as sharp as winter frost. “I am not my father.”
Johnson was thoughtful, rubbing one sandy eyebrow between his thumb and forefinger. “No, you’re not. Or your brother either.”
His voice was noncommittal and Rhys could not divine whether the captain thought it was a good or a bad thing, but it hardly mattered, for he saw that Johnson had relented. Rhys hurried back to his cabin to change his clothes before Johnson changed his mind.
He flung open the door to the cabin and in the brief moment he stood poised in the doorway he was transported to a time two years earlier when he had braved Mrs. Miller’s wrath and found Polly Rose very nearly bleeding to death.
Kenna was lying on the floor near the window bench, doubled up in pain. Her hands were covered with blood and below her waist her nightgown was crimson. A pool of dark blood stained the deck and the fringe of the carpet.
A young man was walking down the companionway toward the upper deck. Rhys grabbed him by his shirt and barked out orders. “Get the ship’s doctor! My wife has had a miscarriage.” He practically flung the startled man away from him, then ran to Kenna’s side.
She was moaning softly, unaware of anything save her pain, when Rhys tore the gown from her body and wiped her thighs and hands. He tossed the gown aside and carried her to the bed. The man who arrived to help Rhys carried the title of doctor because he had set a few bones, knew how to bring down a raging fever, and could stop the flow of blood from a wound. McKillop had no experience with miscarriages, having been at sea when his wife had two as well as when she had birthed his five sons, so he improvised as he went along.
He told Rhys to tear a sheet in quarters and fold the sections in pads. While this was being done, McKillop washed the stain of blood from Kenna’s body. He took the pillow from her head and stuck it under her feet, then placed the pad between her thighs and quickly covered her with a blanket. The pinched look on Kenna’s face was already fading and a measure of color was returning to her cheeks. McKillop wet a cloth and bathed her face. Mercifully she had either fallen asleep or passed out.
