Page 19
S ebastien opened his eyes a slit. Something was squeezing his brains in a vice and when he groped his brow with a hand, he felt a thick layer of linen strips wrapped around his head.
“Pull those bandages off again and I vow I shall bind your hands down by your sides.”
Sebastien opened his eyes wider and saw Penman’s face looming inches above him.
“What happened?”
“What happened is, your head isn’t as hard as you thought it was, and the blow you took on deck was exasperated by a second blow when you bounced off a beam and knocked yourself out cold.
You tore your wound open again, ruining all of my excellent stitchwork.
You were damned lucky you didn’t break your damned neck. ”
“Your bedside manner is appalling.”
“I try hard. How many fingers?”
He held up a hand, extending his forefinger and moved it slowly side to side.
“Two. And they are both blurry.”
Penman frowned. “It should clear. I had to restitch the wound and your lump has a new lump. I can give you some laudanum if you need it to help you sleep.”
“I don’t want to sleep. I want to know what’s happening. How long have I been lying here?”
“A few hours. I woke you several times to make sure you weren’t bleeding inside your skull, but I gather you don’t remember?”
Fonteyne frowned. “I remember losing my balance when the ship heeled, but nothing else.”
Penman arched his eyebrows. “You lost your balance?”
“I was distracted.” Fonteyne glanced around.
The lamps were lit, the wicks turned low, but he could see that he was in his own berth, in his own cabin.
Rose St. Clare was there, standing back in the shadows, but when she saw he was awake, she stepped forward into the light.
Her hair was loose about her shoulders, but her face was distorted by the stark whiteness of the shirt she was wearing.
It was obviously several sizes too big which spread the glare even more as she moved closer to the lamplight.
“You are wearing my shirt,” he muttered.
“I haven’t had time to fetch any of my own clothes from the Cygnet ,” Rose said. “And mine was stained helping to scrape you off the deck and lug you back up here.”
Penman leaned over him again. “Drink this, it will help.”
Sebastien recognized the strong, sweet smell of the liquid in the cup and pushed Penman’s hand away. “I don’t want any laudanum. It tastes like burned shoe leather.”
“Suit yourself. Suffer away.”
“Can he stand?” Rose asked. “If so, I’d like to move him to another cabin.”
Sebastien grasped Penman’s hand and brought the cup back. “Maybe a few sips. The floor and ceiling seem to be spinning together.”
The doctor slid his free hand behind Fonteyne’s neck to support him then held the cup to his lips. The tincture was as bitter and distasteful as Sebastien remembered. He made a face but emptied the cup, then pressed his head back down onto the pillow. He closed his eyes and kept them closed.
“Can he be moved?” Rose asked again. “I’d like to have some privacy.”
“If possible, I would like to leave him be for the moment. Just until I’m certain his brains are not going to leak out of his ears. The laudanum should take effect shortly and he will sleep soundly for a few hours.”
Penman set a small bottle of the brown liquid on the stool beside the berth.
“I gave him a rather strong dose, but I will leave you with this, Captain, should he need it. No spirits, regardless how loudly he bellows. And if he becomes an annoyance, feel free to knock him on the head again but please do it on the other side.”
“I’m right here,” Fonteyne said, glaring through slitted eyes.
“Then do us all a favor and try not to act the fool again. If you strike your head a third time, I cannot promise your skull will not crack wide open.”
Fonteyne managed a half-hearted wave of his hand.
The laudanum was starting to take effect, spreading through his body in a warm, numbing wave.
The stabbing throbs in his head faded. His eyelids grew so heavy he gave up trying to lift them.
It went against every grain of his being to lie there like a puddle of pudding, but his thoughts became cloudy, his mind began to drift away with the gentle motion of the ship, and despite his best efforts to fight against it …
When he was certain Fonteyne was asleep, Penman gathered up his wooden doctoring box and left the cabin.
Rose stood by the berth for a moment and watched the steady rise and fall of Fonteyne’s chest. With his head swathed in bandages and the stern lines around his mouth and eyes gone slack, he hardly looked like the dangerous, blackhearted pirate who prowled the Caribbean causing fear and palpitations in the breasts of his prey.
She leaned over and drew the blanket up to his chin.
Somewhere in the back of her mind was the urge to climb into the berth and lay down beside him, to tuck herself against his big body and draw from his strength.
To breathe in his scent. To let herself remember how it had felt with him moving inside her.
A more rational voice between her ears told her to cast aside any foolish thought of doing so.
She stepped back, not entirely happy to see her hand was shaking slightly as she turned down the wick on the lamp beside him.
She was bone tired herself and if she did not get some sleep soon, she would be useless.
All three ships were staying close as they headed into nightfall. The order had gone out for absolute darkness, no deck lamps, no lights above the orlop deck. The gallery windows had been hung with heavy black sheets of canvas and she checked them again to make sure there were no gaps or cracks.
It was a moonless, cloudless, clear night, and the ships were moving like dark wraiths through a sea of starlight, impossible to see where the horizon ended and the sky began.
If the wind held and if Stubb’s calculations were correct—and she had no reason to believe he would be wrong—they would see landfall by morning.
She yawned and arched her back to stretch out the knuckles of her spine.
There were blankets folded at the foot of the berth and she took one up and spread it on the boards.
She had slept in worse places and she was too tired to sling a hammock.
She kicked off her boots, laid down on the blanket and was asleep as soon as her head touched her folded elbow.
Table of Contents
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