Page 52 of Echo in the Wind

Émile smirked. “Ye may recall there’s a reason few would share my cabin.”

Jean furrowed his brow.

“I snore.”

He shrugged. “I doubt if any noise will keep me awake tonight. But if the sea turns ugly, Lady Joanna might become frightened, so wake me. I’ve kept Gabe out of the cabin for most of the last days. He is putting it to rights now. He’s to bring her food if she is up to it, but no one, save me, may tend her wound.”

Émile muttered an oath under his breath, unhappy, Jean knew, for having the lady aboard. “Oui, it will be done as ye say.”

Jean, on the other hand, had no such qualms. With the vixen onboard, life was bound to be interesting.

Joanna watched Gabe move about the captain’s cabin, cleaning up the mess created by her presence. During the two days she had lain in the throes of the fever, Donet must have denied the boy his usual duties.

Everything was in disarray, her bloodstained clothes in one corner where Donet had apparently thrown them, books scattered on the table and charts strewn across his desk. Even the leavings from his hastily eaten meals were evident.

Thoughts of the comte’s care for her, especially his removing her clothes, made her cheeks flush with heat. He must have seen all of her.

The boy fussed as he cleaned the cabin, giving her the feeling he had no tolerance for disorder in his captain’s domain. He set the empty chamber pot next to the bed.

Before the night was out, she would need to use it. Perhaps the brandy he had left on the stool nearby would dull the pain so that she could get out of the bed on her own.

Awake for the first time in days, she thought to engage the boy in conversation. “Gabe, I want to thank you for helping the captain attend my wound.”

He looked down at his feet. “I only did as ordered.”

“Even so,” she began and then thought better of it. “You speak English well. Have you served the captain long?”

He straightened. “The last three years of the American War, Mademoiselle.”

He must have been eight or nine when he joined Donet’s crew. He had the swarthy complexion of a Breton, yet his face still possessed the soft curves of a boy beneath his wavy brown hair. Circling his neck was a red handkerchief. Over his shirt, he wore a light blue jacket. Like most of the crew, his breeches were wide-kneed “slops”. Some of the crew, she had noticed, went barefoot, but Gabe wore white hose and leather shoes.

The boy reshelved two leather-bound volumes that had been lying open on the table, night reading for the comte, perhaps.

“Monsieur Donet is a good captain?”

“Le meilleur.” Then, possibly because he did not know she spoke French well, he added, “the best.”

His hurried movements implied he felt awkward in her presence. “I imagine you would rather I did not occupy his cabin.”

The boy shrugged. “’Tis what the capitaine wishes.”

Curious, she ventured to ask, “Am I the first woman to be in his cabin?”

He turned and faced her, his stance proud. “No woman has ever stepped foot in his cabin while I have served him.”

Tempted to laugh, she smiled instead. “Then I shall try not to be a burden. Once I am better able to move about, perhaps the captain can assign me another cabin.”

The boy’s face appeared to take on a pleased expression as he considered her words. Loyal, this one, and she admired him for it.

Gabe left the cabin saying he would return shortly. Now was her chance to use the chamber pot. Fortified with another gulp of brandy, she eased off the bed. The cabin swam before her. Slumping back on the bed, she waited until the cabin settled and the only movement was the pitch and roll of the ship.

With one hand on the bed, she gingerly slipped her feet to the deck and reached for the chamber pot, an action that brought a knifing pain to her belly. She clenched her teeth and waited for the wave of pain to pass. She had yet to see what lay under her bandages and was none too eager to glimpse the damage inflicted by Commander Ellis’ Marines.

Since she could not very well crouch, she leaned to the left, stretching out her hand, and grasped the edge of the metal container. Taking a deep breath, she brought the pot up under the captain’s shirt that fell to her mid-thighs and let nature do the rest. “Ah,” she sighed in relief.

Still lightheaded, Joanna slowly slid the chamber pot to the deck and sagged back on the bed. The roll of the ship as it sliced through the gray sea she glimpsed out the windows only added to her unstable feeling. It wasn’t the seasickness some experienced, rather a kind of weakness. It might be due to her lack of food or the loss of blood, or both.

She rested her head on the pillow and slowly pulled the blue cover over her. Her new friend, Franklin, whom she had decided to call “Ben”, curled up beside her and promptly went to sleep, purring like a warm clockwork.