Page 34 of The Indigo Heiress

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 the Glasgow Lass than aboard the Endeavor ... 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 only how he’d weather it but if he 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 were always 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.

He frowned after a brief examination in the dressing room. “I recommend bleeding, blisters, and purging, in that order.”

Juliet listened in dismay, images of widowhood gathering round her. “What medicines can be given?”

“A sleeping draught of diacodium would be best.”

A wan Loveday appeared in the doorway. At Juliet’s questioning glance, she said, “Derived from poppies. I prefer it to bloodletting or purging, which weakens the patient.”

Leith’s eyes opened. “I’m nae patient.”

“You are—and a very feverish one,” Juliet answered quietly.

“A lingering cough ... chest pain,” he murmured, closing his eyes again.

“Pneumonia, likely,” replied the doctor. “The first order of treatment is to remove Mr. Buchanan to a proper bed.”

Juliet already had the covers turned back and the pillows bunched to keep Leith upright and help his breathing. With a cabin boy’s help, the doctor undressed him and put him to bed, something of an ordeal as Leith coughed throughout. When the miniature slipped out of his pocket, Juliet picked it up, tears in her eyes. Slipping it into her own pocket, she returned to the matter at hand.

“A tincture of opium might be more beneficial than diacodium,” Loveday said, despite the doctor’s obvious disapproval. “Four grains of laudanum, to be exact. Sleep is a great restorative, and he must be kept well watered.”

“Have you a medical degree, Miss—?”

“Catesby. And I do not, as women are denied that privilege.”

“Midwifery would be the best pursuit, then,” he said briskly.

But Loveday was undeterred, staying by Leith’s side opposite the doctor.

Despite an occasional protest, Leith gave them little trouble as the medicine was given, confirming how very ill he was. Juliet vowed to stay near, though the ship’s surgeon would return as needed.

Left alone with Leith, Juliet tried to tamp down her alarm as she cooled his fevered face with a wet linen cloth. The rattle in his chest signaled danger, but what more could be done?

As the night deepened, she faced her greatest fear. Even if she arrived in Scotland without him, nothing must deter her. Loveday’s future was her foremost concern. If Juliet couldn’t find happiness, Loveday could. And Juliet would call upon the Buchanan name and fortune to help that happen if she could. Still...

Lord, I want to be a wife, not a widow.

The moment held a keen lonesomeness. It cast her back to the night her mother died and how grief had met them, frightful and irreversible. If Leith were to die, it would be a slower death, his grave the Atlantic.

A sennight passed, the longest of her life. Tending him nearly round the clock except to sleep in snatches, Juliet became heartily sick of the sea and the wicked insecurity of it all, though the Atlantic stayed blessedly calm.

Back on her feet, Loveday spelled her, though Juliet rarely left Leith’s side. It begot a strange, one-sided intimacy.

She now knew by heart every angle and contour of his face. The slight scar on his left temple. The faint stubble on his jaw that grew into a beard, even more roguish black than his hair. The sweep of his lashes, as long as her own but still manly. And the slightly indented left cheek she’d not noticed before—but then, he seldom smiled, as Loveday had once said.

He was wasting away before her eyes, his robust frame diminishing day by day. But he remained one of those uncanny individuals who maintained a presence even in illness. She took off the too-large signet ring he’d placed on her finger the night they’d wed. Gently, she returned it to his own finger lest she lose it, as if it might restore him to the man of strength he’d been before.

Silently she pleaded for his life, snatches of Scripture threading her thoughts, though one seemed gilded. Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. This she prayed over him aloud, though it was naught but a recurring whisper. Sometimes she laid her head upon his chest when his lungs seemed especially labored and willed his heart to keep beating.

And then came the golden hour. As the mantel clock struck midnight, when it was just the two of them in the cabin, Leith rallied.