Come Looking for Me. Cheryl Cooper

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СКАЧАТЬ unknown child in her arms, feeling its soft hair against her cheek, wiping away its tears, but it was impossible, as the women and children sitting in the darkness next to her were hysterical. Voices – frantic voices – called out her name, over and over again. Suddenly, the silhouettes of three men came upon her and lifted a lantern to her face. The tallest one wore a cocked hat. He tore the child from her arms and held his pistol to her breast …

      Emily awoke and cried out. Her heart pumped madly in her tightened chest and she gasped for air, her dark thoughts dragging her into an abyss where there was only oppressive sadness. Feeling icy cold, she began to shudder.

      Within seconds a hospital lantern was lit and Leander stood next to her bed. “It was a dream … just a dream,” he said gently, pulling the blankets she had cast off in her fitful sleep up around her shoulders. “Breathe in deeply and exhale slowly through your mouth.”

      Emily closed her eyes and tried concentrating on her breathing. “It was so black,” she mumbled on her pillow.

      “Keep breathing – slowly and deeply. I’ll be right back.”

      Fighting the temptation to revisit her nightmare, Emily lay there alone, trying to restore her breathing and heart rate with pleasant memories of her childhood home in England. It had been such a lovely house: three storeys high, stucco and beam, full of cosy corners, secret cupboards, and happy people. And the surrounding gardens had been so fragrant, all riotous colour, humming with tiny creatures. Father was there, smiling and waving to her as she played near the pond under the willow trees …

      But it was no use. The haunting sounds of sobbing women and children, and the delirious voices of her unseen companions as they ran about, calling out to her in the shadows, kept interrupting her images of England … kept echoing through the corridors of her mind. Where were they now? Caught in the ship’s remains, their scattered bones lost in the ocean’s dark depths? Try as she might, Emily could not flee from her fear and her guilt that somehow … she had been responsible for their fate.

      Leander returned quietly with a lantern and cup of water for her. “There’s a tincture of laudanum in it. It will help you sleep.”

      Longing for nothingness, Emily greedily drank the contents.

      Leander hung the lantern on a hook by the head of her bed, then pulled up the footstool and sank down upon it, watching her as he did so. She wore his muslin nightshirt, which hid the curves of her breasts. Her pale hair was damp with sweat, and bits of it curled around her face. Her cheeks were flushed and tears clung to her lashes, making her look more like a frightened young child than the self-assured woman of eighteen years he had been used to seeing. A wave of intense feeling swept through him and he longed to hold her in his arms.

      When Emily’s heart had slowed, she opened her brown eyes and looked at Leander as if seeing him for the first time. He was dressed in a blue-striped, open-necked nightshirt; his rumpled hair stood up in small tufts on the crown of his head, and a shadow of auburn stubble was visible around his lips.

      “Would it help to talk about it?” he asked, resting his elbows on his thighs.

      Emily exhaled through her open lips. “Thank you, but no … not yet.”

      He nodded and gave her a half smile. “The sea is calmer now. Shall I open the gunport? A bit of fresh air might help.”

      “Please.”

      Emily’s eyes followed him as he stood up and walked around the foot of her bed – his head and shoulders sloped forward to avoid hitting the ceiling – then slowly they dropped below the hem of his nightshirt as he worked to unlatch the gunport. His calves and ankles were well turned out and she took pleasure in the bone structure of his feet. A breeze, making its way through the open gunport into Emily’s corner, ruffled his nightshirt, outlining his slim form. Her eyelids grew heavy as a surge of warmth spread throughout her body.

      Leander retraced his steps to the stool and sat patiently in the event she needed anything. For several minutes, with his head leaning on an upturned fist, he looked upon her quiet face and closed eyelids, and was therefore startled when her lips suddenly twisted into a grin and one of her eyes popped open.

      “Doctor Braden,” she whispered, “you have a lovely, fine nose.”

      Leander lifted his head and raised his eyebrows, uncertain that he had heard her correctly. He opened his mouth to question her remark, but her breathing had steadied and her features had relaxed. He knew she was sound asleep.

      5

      Monday, June 7

      11:30 a.m.

      (Forenoon Watch, Seven Bells)

      BEFORE NOON THE NEXT MORNING, Meg Kettle waddled through Emily’s curtains, balancing a washbasin on one hip. Her thick face was scarlet and there were enormous sweat stains in the armpits of her beige calico dress. “Git up, git up. It’s Monday. Wash day fer ya.” She dropped the basin next to Emily’s hammock and stood, hands on her hammy hips, huffing and puffing.

      Emily sat up in her bed and wiped the sleep from her eyes, unable to decipher Mrs. Kettle’s ensuing mumbled irritation as the woman headed towards the gunport, her backside swaying like a prodigious pendulum.

      “We’ll ’ave to close this up,” she said gruffly. “We’re hove to, so Captain Moreland and his men kin ’ave their wash in thee sea, and it wouldn’t do fer ya to have a peek at their bare behinds. Mind ya, Mr. Austen looks fine without his britches. What I wouldn’t give ta …”

      Emily’s hands shot up in surrender. “Thank you, Mrs. Kettle. I’m up then.”

      With a bang, Mrs. Kettle shut the gunport. She wheeled about and with her squinty eyes sized up Emily in her crumpled nightshirt.

      “Well then, it’s wash day fer yer clothes as well. Gimme yer shirt and whatever’s underneath and that what Magpie made ya. I’ll ’ave ’em all back ’fore thee supper bell.”

      “The supper bell? And what shall I wear in the meantime?”

      Mrs. Kettle snorted. “A pair of thee doctor’s boots fer all I care.” She grabbed Emily’s jacket and trousers, which were hanging from a hook, ignoring Emily’s protests that her new clothes hardly needed cleaning at all, then trudged through the curtain, shouting over her plump shoulder, “Toss me what yer wearin’ now onto thee floor and ye can hide yerself under thee blankets for thee day.”

      Out in the hospital room Emily heard Leander’s warm voice. “Being your usual solicitous self, are you, Mrs. Kettle?”

      “I’m washin’ that woman’s clothes only on yer account, Doctor. If ya want me opinion, I would ’ave – ”

      “As a matter of fact,” said Leander, elevating his tone, “I do not.”

      With hands on her hips and a scowl between her eyes, Mrs. Kettle pounced upon Dr. Braden’s patients with a loud warning. “Ye lads keep yer trousers on whilst that woman’s walkin’ naked amongst ya.” Their heads bobbed obediently on their pillows. She waved a fat finger at Leander. “And you, Doctor – be sure to tie thee lads down in their beds while she’s ’avin’ her wash.”

      “I assure you I have rope ready for just such a purpose.”

      With a grunt, СКАЧАТЬ