Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 78100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78100 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
It had to. There was only so much rum to be had. On a long journey it was strictly rationed, and he didn’t want to arrive in India a drunkard on top of everything else.
*
It took a week for Rosalind to accustom to sailing, a week of nausea and sickness that made it difficult to eat. She slept most of the day, too fatigued to worry about what she’d done, where she was going, or what might become of her for taking this monumentally reckless step. Later, she thought. I will worry about things later, when my stomach isn’t flipping and squeezing like a landed fish.
As she lay in her narrow bed on the rocking seas, she took solace in one thing only—that Marlow was a thin wall away. In her waking moments she strained to hear him. The creak of his bed, the scrape of a drawer… His footfalls became the cadence of her drifting life, the gait she knew like the beat of her own heart. She came to know his schedule, when he was wont to walk up on deck or pace the narrow hallway or go to dinner. It was useful information—when she was finally well enough to move about again, it helped her avoid him.
She allowed herself only the most abbreviated trips outside her room when she needed a quick breath of fresh air. She would duck her head and hide behind her hat’s black veil, speaking to no one, then hurry back inside until she thought she must be the most mysterious wraith ever to board an East India Company ship.
It had to be that way. It was too soon for Marlow to discover her. Now and again she’d hear his voice as he greeted passengers in the hallway outside, and she’d nearly cry for want of revealing herself. How she craved to speak to him, to show him that they could be together after all, that she had also set off for India so they could be married and live happily ever after.
But they must pass Gibraltar first. Once they were through Gibraltar, there would be no more easily accessible ports, no way for him to send her back to England out of some sense of propriety and honor. There would be no choice but to go all the way to India together, or Egypt, or wherever they were destined to land. After Gibraltar, it must be left up to Providence, just like the name of the vessel that drew her farther and farther from England.
She must wait at least a month, to be safe. In the meantime, she would read her romantic poetry book and hope for the future, and pray all her dreams would come true.
Chapter Five
Terribly Misguided
Marlow stared across the vast sea each day, wondering where they were and when they would get there. It took so long to get to India. So very long.
They’d finally left the Straits of Gibraltar two days ago after a harrowing entrance in the teeth of a late spring storm. The ship had tossed violently, giving Marlow his first real bout of seasickness.
The skies had since calmed, but his emotions still roiled like a storm-tossed ship. For the thousandth time, he wondered why he’d fled England. Why wasn’t he at home, retiring to his country manor to continue his dissipated bachelor life? Another storm, a worse storm, could take the ship down to the bottom of this picturesque sea and then where would he be? Without Rosalind forever, unable to see her, hear her, think of her…
There was not only seasickness. There was sea madness. He ached for a woman, any woman, to help him forget Rosalind and his foolishness. He’d caught a glimpse of the mysterious Widow Lintel just before the storm, barricading herself in her room. He had only seen her from behind, but it was enough to prick his undisciplined imagination. How long had she been widowed? Had it been a love marriage or a thing of convenience, a union with a man twice her age? For she was very young, he could see that in the quick, shy way she hid when he glimpsed her. Might such a young, skittish widow be open to a shipside romance?
Shy. Young. Skittish.
Naughty?
There was only one small, locked door between them.
He decided he must befriend the young Widow Lintel, if only to chase constant thoughts of Rosalind from his mind. For three days in a row he shaved carefully, dressed in his best coat, tied his cravat with close attention, and smoothed his hair into some semblance of organization, although the warm sea air had a way of making it wild. That couldn’t be helped. He left his hallway door ajar, waiting to hear her emerge. She was a sneaky thing, but he was a man on a mission and when he heard her step in the hall, he went quickly to greet her.