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)
“We ought to lie down,” he told her. “There’s no sense in staying awake.”
“I’m afraid to sleep. What if the ship capsizes? I’m fearful of drowning. What sorts of creatures live in the water below us? I can’t swim well enough to escape any of them. I’m afraid—”
He put a finger over her lips, silencing her litany of horrors. If they were to die by shipwreck now, after all they’d borne to be together… Life could not be so unfair.
“Try not to worry, darling. This is a sound ship.” At least he hoped so.
“Please don’t leave me.” She reached for his hand as if to restrain him, though she practically sat in his lap. “Please don’t leave me alone.”
“I’m not leaving you. Only let me put out the lantern.”
He took off his coat and blew out the small light he’d kept burning to comfort Rosalind. Without it the cabin went black but for flashes of lightning, which made the howling wind and crashing waves sound louder than before. He couldn’t see her, but he heard her sniffle and felt the wetness of tears where her cheek rested upon his shirt’s collar.
“Lie back on my bed, darling. Close your eyes and try to sleep.”
“We’ll fall out of bed if we sleep. And if the ship starts to sink while we’re sleeping, we won’t know it.”
“Shh.” He wished he could push the bed against the wall, to make a protected place for her to lie, but it was bolted in place. The waves’ motion made the bolts creak, but if they were both on the bed, perhaps their weight would keep it from making the unnerving sound. He stroked her cheeks and forehead, cradling her against him, and pulled the woolen covers over them. No, still creaking. How cold were the Mediterranean waters at this time of year, if they should be pitched into them when the ship foundered?
If the ship foundered. It was only an if.
“Don’t cry,” he whispered in the dark. “It will be over eventually. These storms blow up, then they peter out.”
“It’s more than a storm, isn’t it?” Her fingertips worried at one of his buttons, then she gave a small shriek as the ship pitched violently. “I’m afraid we’re going to sink. What will happen to us if the storm flips us over?”
“Darling.”
“What will happen?” Her voice was barely a whisper. “What will happen to us if this vessel sinks? We’ll drown, won’t we? What will it feel like to drown? Will it hurt? What if a shark or whale tries to eat us? I think that would hurt very much. How big are their teeth?”
He didn’t wish to scold her, but her increasingly panicked questions brought up scenarios he didn’t wish to imagine. If only he had some laudanum to give her, or even a stiff drink to calm her, but he had nothing at hand and the ship was rolling too hard now for him to walk about in search of it. Her heart raced in her chest. He could feel it beating against his. She breathed too hard, too fast.
“Listen to me, love. You’ll drive yourself mad imagining what-ifs. Take a breath for me, will you? A long, deep breath, softly in and softly out.”
He felt her try, only to revert back to anxious panting.
“Slow breaths, Rosalind. In and out.” He used his sterner voice this time and she obliged, though her long, slow breaths hitched now and again as if stuck in her lungs.
He didn’t know how he was to calm her. He couldn’t bear to feel her shaking with such fear. Curse him for running away to India and drawing her along on his ill-thought-out caper. He ought to have stayed in safe London, or safe Oxfordshire. Or he could have run to the Continent and nursed his sorrows there. But no, he’d had to set out for India on some injured, heartsick whim, even though his mother had warned against it.
He could have remained in England and made the best of things. He and Rosalind could have remained friends. Now he feared they’d spent their last precious weeks together. If he was to lose her now, those weeks had come at too high a cost.
He pulled her closer, taking steady breaths of her familiar, flowery scent, tracing her well-loved features though it was too dark to see her face. That was for the best. He didn’t want to see how afraid she was. He didn’t want her to see that he was afraid too.
“Let’s think about happy things.” He had to put his lips right by her ear to be heard over the storm outside. “Let’s distract ourselves with pleasant imaginings.”
“I love my horses,” she said. “Zelda and Sheba, and sweet old Goldilocks. I wish I could be riding now.”
“I miss the cinnamon buns my cook used to make me every Sunday. I can’t wait to have them again.”