Regency Rogues and Rakes. Anna Campbell

Inferno. Or that other thing. Not a poem but a picture of Hell, of the damned. Curse it, what was wrong with her? She couldn’t lie here, wondering about paintings.

      “No.” She could barely form the words. “Not me. My—my—s-seamstress.”

      “Your maid?” His voice was so calm. So reassuring.

      “Jeffreys. She’s badly ill. Brandy. I came for…brandy.”

      More talking, over her, around her. She heard screaming and shouting, too, but far away. The world went up, then down, and down, and down.

      Don’t let me be sick again. Don’t let me be sick again.

      Something cool and wet touched her face. “Saunders will see about your maid,” the familiar voice said.

      “Don’t let her die,” she said. Or did she? Her voice sounded far away, so small against the infernal clamor about them. Hell, she thought. This was like the Hell the righteous ranted about. The Hell in the pictures.

      “People almost never die of seasickness,” he said.

      “They only wish they might,” she said.

      An odd sound. A chuckle? It was his voice, low and close. Behind it, around it, above it were horrible sounds, like death. A long, drawn-out moan, a terrible grinding, then a crack.

      The ship…cracking open…

      “We can’t go down,” someone said. Had she spoken?

      Don’t talk. Lie quietly. Don’t move. Don’t breathe.

      “We won’t go down,” he said. “It’s bad, but we won’t go down. Here, swallow this.”

      She moved her head from side to side. That was a mistake. Bile rose. “Can’t.”

      “Only a drop,” he coaxed. “Laudanum. It will help. I promise.”

      She couldn’t raise her head, couldn’t even open her eyes. The world was spinning round and round, leaping up and down, throwing itself from side to side.

       Where am I?

      He lifted her head, so gently. Was it he? Or was it she, spooning medicine into Lucie? Lucie, Lucie.

      But she was away from this. She was safe in London with her doting aunts, who spoiled her appallingly. Lucie was safe because her mother and aunts had turned into three witches, brewing potions to keep her alive.

      They had not fought so hard only to leave Lucie an orphan, because her mother had made a foolish mistake. A man-mistake. More than six feet tall and beastly arrogant and…oh, those big, beautiful hands.

      “A little more,” he said. “Another drop.”

      Take your medicine. Get better. Get back to Lucie.

      She swallowed it. So bitter.

      “Vile,” she said. “Vile.”

      “I know, but it helps. Trust me. I know.”

      “Trust you,” she said. “Hah.”

      “Clearly you’re not dying.”

      “No. Devil won’t take me.”

      The low chuckle again. “Then we’re all safe.”

      She wasn’t safe. The storm raged and the ship moaned and rose and fell and flung itself from wave to wave. She’d been in rough seas before. She knew this was very bad, and she wasn’t remotely safe. Yet while her mind knew this, her heart understood matters altogether differently: his voice, his surprisingly gentle touch, and the calm of his presence. Reassuring. How ironic!

      “Ah, you’re smiling,” he said. “The opium is starting to take hold already.”

      Already? Had she fallen asleep? She’d lost track of time.

      “No, it’s you,” she said. How far away her voice sounded, as though it had traveled to London already, ahead of her. “Your ducal self-assurance. Everything will give way to you. Even Satan’s own storm.”

      “You’re definitely improving,” he said. “Full, mocking sentences.”

      “Yes. Better.” Her insides seemed to be quieting. But her head was so heavy. She opened her eyes, and that was hard work. He was leaning over her. The light was too dim to make out details, and nothing would stay put. His eyes were deep shadows in his face. But she knew they were green. Jade green. Or was it sea green? A color not many women could wear successfully. A color not many women could withstand…in a man’s eyes.

      She closed her eyes again.

      She felt the cool cloth on her forehead. So gentle. A feeling she had trouble naming washed over her. Then she realized: She was protected. Sheltered. Safe.

      What a joke!

      “Strange,” she said.

      “Yes,” he said.

      “Yes,” she said.

      The world grew heavy and dark, then everything went away.

      Clevedon had no idea long the storm lasted. He’d long since lost all sense of time. He’d awoken in a room heaving this way and that, to a clamor of panicked voices, a roaring storm, and the creaking and groaning vessel. He’d been sick, a bit. But his was a strong stomach—as numerous drunken entertainments testified—and the first thing in his mind was Noirot, somewhere on this boat. He’d been about to go to her cabin, medicine box in hand, when she fell through his door.

      Since then, he hadn’t time to be sick or to worry about anybody else. Her pearly skin was dull and drawn. That much one could see even in the dim light. She’d been shockingly ill, and delirious. That was so unlike her. She was strong, strong to a fault, and the change had him halfway into a panic before his frantic mind sorted it out.

      This was no more than seasickness, reason told him. The delirium must be part of it—or due to her having little sleep and hurried meals, thanks to her mad haste to get away from him.

      Whatever caused the alarming symptoms, she was too ill to be left on her own. He left his servants to look after themselves while he tended to her and tried to stay calm. He knew what to do, he told himself. He worried all the same.

      He was no physician and he wasn’t used to playing nursemaid. He told himself that he and Longmore had lived through the cholera epidemic on the Continent, and he’d learned a few basic principles from the doctors who’d had any success with the disease. They hadn’t much success, and they argued about what worked and what didn’t, but this wasn’t the cholera. This was seasickness, and there was nothing to worry about, he told himself. When the storm passed, she’d be better.

      If the ship didn’t go down.

      But it wouldn’t.

      Meanwhile, he knew he needed to make sure she took in nourishment, and especially liquids—not easy when she couldn’t keep anything down. The brandy might have helped a little, but the laudanum proved more effective. It took a while, and she was out of her head for part of the time, muttering about witches and Macbeth and angels and devils, but eventually she quieted. When at last she fell asleep, he let himself draw a breath of relief.

      He sat on the edge of his bunk and gently bathed her face now and again with a wet cloth. He didn’t know that it did any good, but he needed to do something. Saunders undoubtedly would know what to do, but Saunders was attending the maid—or seamstress—or whatever she was.

      Gad, the facts about Madame Noirot were as slippery as the deck under his feet.

      Deception, thy name is Noirot.

      Manipulative and elusive and not to be trusted.

      If he had trusted her, he wouldn’t have set a spy on her, he wouldn’t have pursued her from Paris, and he wouldn’t be on this curst vessel in this hellish storm.

      Yet