Phoebe found it exhilarating as she stood braced against the wind and the motion, her feet planted well apart on file spray-soaked decking. A few curious glances came her way, but everyone seemed too busy to take much notice of this unknown passenger. Phoebe, assuming that Cato would have to negotiate passage for her with the captain once the bustle of present activity was over, looked around again for her husband.
She saw him eventually on the lee side of the ship, peering over the rail. She made her way towards him, holding on to the rail for safety.
“Isn’t this exhilarating?” she called enthusiastically as she approached him. “Do you think you should explain to the captain that I’m here?”
Cato didn’t respond. He remained hanging over the rail.
“Oh,” Phoebe said as she reached him. “You’re sick. I remember you said the sea made you so.”
Cato straightened as the wrenching paroxysms ceased for a minute. He wiped his mouth on the handkerchief he clutched in his hand and regarded Phoebe, radiating rude health, with considerable disfavor. “Just go below and leave me alone,” he said, then with a groan swung back to the rail, vomiting helplessly.
“But can’t I do anything?” Phoebe touched his back in anxious concern. “There must be something.”
“Just go away!” he directed when he could draw breath again. “I can’t worry about you at the moment, so get below and stay out of the way!”
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Phoebe said in hopeful reassurance. “Indeed you don’t. I am worried about you. There must be something I can get you.” She put an arm around his shoulders, trying to support him through the violent retching.
“Brandy,” Cato gasped after long minutes. “In my portmanteau there’s a flagon of brandy. Sometimes it helps.” He hung over the rail again.
Phoebe flew belowdecks. Tossing neatly folded shirts aside, she rummaged for the flagon and found it at the bottom of the portmanteau. Then she flew on deck again, uncorking the flask as she went.
Cato staggered upright, supporting himself on the rail. He reached for the flagon and tipped it to his mouth. Sometimes it steadied his stomach and eventually it could bring merciful sleep.
“How dreadful for you,” Phoebe said sympathetically. “It’s strange, but I don’t feel in the least unwell.”
“How fortunate for you,” Cato muttered dryly, leaning back against the rail, holding the neck of the flask loosely between finger and thumb while the fiery liquid burned down his gullet and settled in his aching stomach.
“In fact,” Phoebe said with devastating candor, “I seem to find myself very hungry. Perhaps it’s the sea air.”
“Repellent brat!” Cato declared with some force, before turning with a groan to lose the brandy to the waves.
“I beg your pardon, I didn’t mean to make matters worse,” Phoebe apologized.
“Just go away!”
Phoebe thought that perhaps she should. There didn’t seem to be anything she could do to help him in his misery. And she was famished. She moved away from the deck rail, wondering where food might be found on a ship, and was swiftly accosted by the cabin boy.
“Eh, you owes me another guinea,” he announced, grabbing her arm. “I ‘aven’t told nobody.”
“Oh, yes.” Phoebe reached for her purse, then had a thought. “You shall have the guinea as soon as you bring me something to eat in the cabin. Can you do that?”
“Watcha want?” He looked at her speculatively. “Might be able to lay me ‘ands on a mite o’ bread ‘n’ cheese.”
“Perfect. And milk. Do you have any milk?”
“Nah!” The lad shook his head in unconcealed scorn. “Milk on a ship! Lor! You dunno much, do ya?”
“Not about ships,” Phoebe agreed rather loftily, shaking the purse so that the coins clinked.
“There’s ale,” the lad suggested at the music of money. “Reckon I could bring ye ale.”
“Thank you. That will do very well.” Phoebe nodded at him and made her way belowdecks.
Seasickness was a really wretched ailment, Phoebe thought, as she headed for her cabin, her mouth watering at the prospect of bread and cheese.
Chapter 21
“Oh, I think we’ve landed.” Phoebe sat up on her bunk, keeping her head bent. Experience in the last week had taught her the danger of incautious movements in the upper bunk. It was early morning, judging by the pinkish light coming through the porthole, and the ship was no longer moving. The rattling release of the anchor chain, together with the changed bustle on the decks above, had woken her. There was more running, more shouting than there had been in the days at sea.
“Cato?” she said when there was no response from the bottom bunk. Leaning over, she peered over the edge of her own into the narrow space below. It was empty.
Phoebe wriggled out of her bunk and climbed down the ladder, unaware that her mouth was pursed in a little moue of disappointment. Cato, once he’d finally acquired his sea legs on the second day of the voyage, usually awoke her himself in ways that made her blood sing. But not so this morning.
She went to the porthole and gazed out. They were docked at a quayside thronged with sailors, stevedores, carriers’ wagons. Even at this early hour, the activity was frenetic, although her view was limited to a smallish stretch of cobbled quay and a red-brick, rather crooked building a few yards away.
At the sound of the cabin door opening behind her, she spun around. “We’re here.”
“A reasonable deduction,” Cato agreed with a slight smile. But behind the smile, Phoebe could detect something else, something that made her a little uneasy.
He closed the door and said calmly, “Sit down, Phoebe. There’s something we need to discuss.”
Phoebe looked at him uncertainly. “What kind of thing?”
“Sit down.” He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her down firmly onto the stool, then leaned back against the closed door, his arms folded, his dark eyes, sharp and watchful, resting on her countenance.
He was dressed casually in shirt and britches, his doublet open, his dark brown hair ruffled by the wind. A streak of early sunlight coming through the small porthole caught the flicker of gold in the darker depths. Phoebe gazed at the pulse beating at the base of the strong column of his throat, and her belly jolted with familiar desire. She forgot the tingle of apprehension and made a move to stand up, but he spoke again and the gravity of his tone kept her seated.
“I’m going to ask you a question and I want you to consider very carefully before you make answer.”
Phoebe swallowed, disliking the tenor of this discussion.
“Will you give me your word of honor that when I leave the ship you will make no attempt to follow me?” Cato put the question in his usual cool fashion, but his eyes never left her face.
“Where are you going?”
It was a mark of how far he’d progressed along the road to understanding his wife that Cato answered without hesitation. “I have to go into the town to look for someone.”
“For Brian Morse?”
“No, no, indeed not.” Cato shook his head.
“But do you think he’s here?”
Cato shrugged. “Maybe. It matters not, but-”
“He’s a bad man,” Phoebe interrupted with some passion.
Cato frowned. “Misguided, untrustworthy, with an overweening ambition, certainly.”
“He’s evil,” Phoebe declared. “I know it and Meg knows it… and Olivia.”
Cato’s question seemed to have become lost. He was about to reiterate it when Phoebe said suddenly, “Could you not unadopt him? Disinherit him?”
Cato’s frown deepened. The question touched on an issue he’d considered too delicate to bring up. He said gently, “I had never considered it. I had assumed it wouldn’t be necessary.”