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)
The kind, grandmotherly woman was joined by another, younger woman. Her daughter? She seemed delighted to see Rosalind awake. Marlow explained they were somewhere on the Italian peninsula’s southern coast, where a great many of the Providence’s passengers and crew had been rescued. How strange to be in Sicilia, and not India, where they were bound.
“Grazie,” she said to the mother and daughter. Her voice came out in a rasp. She hadn’t used it since she’d cried out for help in the water. She looked down at her arms, now freed from the blanket. She was wearing a soft calico gown that was not hers. “Thank you. Grazie,” she said again. Her torn black mourning gown and chemise hung by the fireplace. Washed, she supposed, and drying. The kindness of these concerned strangers made her start to cry.
“Sweetheart, don’t fret.” He reached to brush the tears away. “Everything will be all right now.”
She turned to him, hiding her face against his chest. She cried a long while, unable to control her feelings now that they’d broken free of her tangled, fraught memories. The older woman brought more broth and murmured something ending in the word forte. Strong.
“Yes, you must grow strong,” Marlow translated. “Have as much as you can manage, then rest some more.”
“What about you?” Rosalind asked. “Are you wholly unharmed?”
“I’m sore and tired. I feel like a pack of horses has run roughshod over me, but I’m well.”
The two women moved away from them, back into the other part of the small cottage.
“This is the home of one of the fishermen who rescued us,” he explained. “And his crew has gone back out to work, believe it or not. Apparently storms bring good yields. That’s why they were out on the waters when the Providence was sinking. I dread to think…” His voice went tight. “If they hadn’t been there.” He cleared his throat. “I had every intention of paying them handsomely for our rescue, then I realized all the money I brought with me has gone down with the ship, along with the lion’s share of my worldly possessions.”
Rosalind opened her mouth, then closed it. She hadn’t even thought of her belongings in the heat of crisis yesterday. Her gowns, her jewelry, her beloved poetry book, all gone.
“It doesn’t matter,” he went on. “I shall reward them greatly as soon as I’m in funds again, though they have no expectation of it. I believe they are the kindest people I’ve ever known.”
“The women must have washed my hair and given me one of their dresses.” She touched her loose curls and looked down at the clean, sturdy, peasant-style gown she wore.
“Yes, yesterday morning while you were fevered. They washed my trousers and shirt as well, thank goodness, for I can’t bear the smell of sea water just now.”
He took her hand and cradled her against him, offering solidity. The contact jostled more memories free, memories of stolen hours before dawn, before the ship had come apart in the water. Marlow had held her just like this, then done more to her. He had touched her, kissed her and undone her dress, and slid inside her in the most astounding way.
Perhaps he was remembering it too. He leaned his face toward hers and kissed her forehead, lingering there. They’d both imagined they’d die in the dark that night, but they’d lived. They’d survived the storm.
“What will we do now?” she asked shakily. “Where will we go?”
“We must go home. We must return to England, by land as far as possible, for I don’t know if I can get on a ship again, at least not until we cross the Channel to Dover.”
“How will we go all the way to England when we have no money?”
“We need only travel to Florence, where Felicity lives with her prince and your nieces and nephews. I have accounts there, and your father owns an estate on the Arno River. We visited there once, all the Oxfordshire families, when Felicity married. Do you remember? Perhaps not. You were very young.”
Felicity, her beloved oldest sister. She’d be so happy to see her, but there was still the worry of traveling to Prince Carlo’s estate when they hadn’t two coins to rub together. “H-how far is Florence from here?” she asked. “Can we walk there?”
Marlow pulled the blanket tighter around her. “It’s too far to walk. We’ve no shoes for it anyway. I’ll figure something out.”
No shoes, no money, not even proper clothes. They were paupers, at least until they reached her sister’s household.
There was a knock at the door, and a flutter of greetings from the women. An elderly man entered dressed in a black robe. At first, she wondered if he was an undertaker coming to check if they’d survived the night. Then she noticed his starched liturgical collar and pointed cap. Ecco il prete, said the women. Here’s the priest.