Marrying the Royal Marine (2 page)

She started to cry then, except she was too dehydrated for tears. Out of his element, he didn’t know how to comfort her. Was she in pain? He wished there was a porthole he could open to let in some bracing sea air and banish the odour. Poor Miss Brandon was probably suffering the worst kind of mortification to be so discovered by a man she barely knew. If there was a better example of helplessness, he had never encountered it.

Private Leonard returned. Hugh looked behind him, but there was no surgeon.

‘Sir, the surgeon and his mate are both tending to a foretopman who fell from the rigging.’ Private Leonard made a face. ‘He reminded me that no one dies of seasickness and recommended we get some water and vinegar so she can clean herself up.’

‘Private, she can’t clean a fingernail in her condition,’ he said. He stood there a moment, looking down at Miss Brandon, then at the Private. ‘Go get a quart or two of vinegar from Cook and a gallon of fresh water. If anyone gives you any grief, tell them they don’t want to know how bad it will be if I have to come up and do it myself!’

The Private stood even straighter. ‘Aye, aye, sir. Should I get some cloths, too?’

‘As many as you can gather. Good thinking.’

He closed the door behind the Private, who pounded up the companionway, obviously glad to have a purpose. He found a stool and pulled it close to the sleeping cot, which was swaying to the ship’s roll. He tried to keep his tone conversational, knowing that nothing he was going to do in the next hour would be pleasing to a modest lady. ‘Miss Brandon, the surgeon cannot come, but he has declared that no one dies of seasickness. You will not be the first, and certainly not on my watch.’

‘I. Would. Rather. Die.’

At least she was alert. ‘It’s not allowed in the Royal Navy, my dear,’ he told her kindly. ‘When Private Leonard returns, I am going to tidy you, find you another nightgown, and put you in my sleeping cot, so I can swab down this one.’

She started to cry in earnest then, which was a sorry sight, since there were no tears. ‘Leave me alone,’ she pleaded.

‘I can’t leave you alone. I would do anything to spare you embarrassment, Miss Brandon, but you must be tended to.’

‘The surgeon?’

‘Busy. My dear, you’ll just have to trust me, because there is no one else.’

She hadn’t opened her eyes in their whole exchange, and it touched him to think how embarrassed she must be. She was obviously well educated and gently reared, and this was probably the first time in her whole life she had ever been alone with a man who wasn’t a relative. He wasn’t sure what to do, but he put his hand against her soiled cheek and held it there until she stopped her dry sobbing.

Private Leonard returned with the vinegar and water. He had tucked clean rags under his arm, and removed them when he set down the bucket. ‘I’ll get some sea water, too, Colonel,’ he said. ‘That fresh water isn’t going to go far, and you can swab her down with salt water.’

‘Do it, Private. When you return, close the door and resume your sentry duty. If there are two of us trying to help Miss Brandon, it’ll be too much for her.’

He could see that Private Leonard was relieved by that order. He came back soon with two buckets of sea water; God knows there was plenty of it to spare on a frigate in a squall. Private Leonard closed the door quietly.

Miss Brandon tried to sit up and failed. ‘If you leave the water, I can do this myself,’ she managed to say.

‘Begging your pardon, Miss Brandon, but I don’t think you even have the strength to scratch your nose right now,’ he told her. ‘I am so sorry that no one knew the extent of your extremity, or believe me, it would not have come to this.’

She opened her eyes then, and he saw all the shame, embarrassment, and humility in the world reflecting from them. All she could do was shake her head slowly and put up her hands to cover her chest.

It was such a defensive gesture that his heart went out to her. She was soiled and smelly and more wretched that the worst drab in the foulest slum in the rankest seaport he had ever visited. The last thing he wanted to do was violate her dignity, which was all she had remaining. He rested his hands gently on hers. ‘Whatever I do for you, I do out of utter necessity, Miss Brandon. I can do no less because I never back down from a crisis.’ He smiled at her. ‘My, that sounds top-lofty, but it is true. Take a leap of faith, Miss Brandon; trust me to be kind.’

She was silent a long while, her hands still held stubbornly in front of her. ‘I have no choice, have I?’ she said finally.

‘No, you don’t. Take that leap, Miss Brandon. I won’t fail you.’

Chapter Two

M
iss Brandon didn’t say anything, but her hands relaxed. Hugh did nothing for a moment, because he didn’t know where to begin. He looked closer in the dim light. She was wearing a nightgown, which chastely covered most of her, so his task was not as uncomfortable yet as it was going to get. He opened the door.

‘Private, go in my cabin. Bring my shaving basin, plus the silver cup next to it.’

He was back in a moment with the items. Hugh put his hand behind Miss Brandon’s back and carefully raised her upright. He dipped the cup in the fresh water Private Leonard had brought, and put it to her lips.

‘It will only make me vomit,’ she protested weakly.

‘Just swirl it around in your mouth, lean over the edge of the cot and spit it out.’

‘On the
floor
?’ she asked, aghast.

‘Yes, ma’am. The deck—the floor—has suffered some ill usage. I’ll never tell.’

She sighed. He held the cup to her parched lips and she took a small sip, doing what he said and spitting on the deck.

‘Try another sip and swallow it this time.’

She started to protest, but gamely squared her shoulders and did as he said. ‘My throat is on fire,’ she said, her voice a croak.

‘I imagine it is raw, indeed, Miss Brandon, considering the ill treatment it has suffered for nearly two days.’ It smote him again how careless they had all been not to check on her. ‘Try another sip. Just a small one.’

She did, then shook her head at more. They both waited, but she kept it down.

‘I’m encouraged. Just sit here,’ he told her. ‘I’m going to mix some vinegar in this little bit of fresh water and wipe your face and neck. I’ll see what can be done with your hair.’

Silent, she let him do what he wanted, turning her head obediently so he could swab around her eyes and nostrils. ‘Soon I’ll have you smelling like a pickle, Miss Brandon,’ he joked, trying to lighten the mood. She did not indicate any amusement, which hardly surprised him. When her face was as clean as he could manage, he added more vinegar to the bucket of sea water and wiped her neck and ears.

Her hair took much longer, as he pulled a few strands at a time through the vinegar-soaked cloth between his fingers, working as quickly and gently as he could. He had to stop for a while when the ship began to labour up and down steeper troughs, as the storm intensified. She moaned with the motion, so he braced the sleeping cot with his body so it would not swing. As he watched her face, it suddenly occurred to him that part of her problem was fear.

‘Miss Brandon, I assure you that as bad as this seems, we’re not going to sink,’ he said. He spoke loud enough to be heard above the creaking and groaning he knew were normal ship noises in a storm. ‘Ships are noisy. The sea is rough, I will grant you, but that is life in the Channel.’

She said nothing, but turned her face into his shoulder. Hugh kept his arms tight around her, crooning nothing that made any sense, but which seemed to calm her. He held her close as she clung to him, terrified.

When the waves seemed to subside, he released her and went back to cleaning her long hair. When he felt reasonably satisfied, he knew he could not avoid the next step. ‘Miss Brandon, do you have another nightgown in your luggage?’

She nodded, and started to cry again.

‘I’d happily turn my back and let you manage this next part by yourself, my dear, but I don’t think you’re up to it. You can’t stay in this nightgown.’

After another long silence during which he made no attempt to rush her, her hands went to the buttons on her gown. She tried to undo them, but finally shook her head. Without a word, he undid her buttons. ‘Where’s another nightgown?’ he asked quietly.

She told him and he found it, fragrant with lavender, in her trunk. Taking a deep breath, Hugh pulled back the sheet. Her hand went to his wrist, so he did nothing more until she relaxed her grip.

‘I’m going to roll up your nightgown, so we can best keep the soiled part away from your face and hair when I pull it over your head. Miss Brandon, I regret the mortification I know I am causing you,’ he said.

She was sobbing in good earnest now, and the parched sound pained him more than she possibly could have realised. Not only was he trampling on her female delicacy now, but jumping up and down on it.

‘No fears, Miss Brandon, no fears,’ he said quietly, trying to find a balance between sympathy and command.

Maybe she finally realised he was an ally. He wasn’t sure he would have been as brave as she was, considering her total helplessness to take care of herself. Feeling as stupid and callow as the merest youth, he couldn’t think of a thing to say except, ‘I mean you no harm. Not ever.’

He wondered why he said that, but his words, spoken quietly but firmly, seemed to give Miss Brandon the confirmation she needed of his utter sincerity. She stopped sobbing, but rested her head against him, not so much because she was tired now, but because she needed his reassurance. He could have been wrong, but that was what the moment felt like, and he wasn’t one to quibble.

Without any talk, he continued rolling up her nightgown as she raised her arms. His fingers brushed against her bare breast, but they were both beyond embarrassment. Even though the night was warm, she shivered a little. He quickly popped her into the clean nightgown, pulling it down to her ankles, then helped her lie back. She sighed with relief and closed her eyes.

The winds picked up and the ship began another series of torturous swoops through the waves. He braced the cot against his hip and kept his arms tight around Miss Brandon as she clung to him and shivered.

‘I don’t know how you do this,’ she said finally, when the winds subsided.

‘It comes with the job,’ he replied and chuckled.

‘Are you never seasick?’

‘No.’

‘Are you lying?’

He wasn’t, but he wanted her to laugh. ‘Yes.’ He knew nothing in the rest of his life would ever put him at ease more than the slight sound of her laugh, muffled against his chest.

Since his arms were around her, he picked her up. She stiffened. ‘I’m going to carry you across the wardroom to my pathetic cabin, and put you in my cot. You’re going to promise me you won’t be sick in it, and you’re going to go to sleep. I’ll come back in here and clean up everything.’

‘A Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Marines,’ she murmured, and Hugh could hear the embarrassment in her voice again.

‘I can’t help that,’ he told her, and was rewarded with another chuckle. ‘I’ve swabbed a deck or two in my earlier days.’ He wasn’t going to tell her how unpleasant that had been, cleaning up a gun deck after a battle. Nothing in her cabin could ever compare with that, but he wasn’t going to enlighten her further.

He was prepared to stay with her in his cabin until she felt easy, but she went to sleep almost before he finished tucking his blanket around her. He looked down at her, smelling of vinegar now, but as tidy as he could make her, in his clumsy way. He looked closer. There was something missing. He gave her a slight shake.

‘Miss Brandon, where are your spectacles?’

She opened her eyes, and he saw nothing but remorse. ‘I…I fear they landed in that basin by the cot, when I vomited.’

She started to laugh then, which must have hurt because her hand went to her throat. ‘Don’t look so stunned, Colonel,’ she told him. ‘I am quizzing you. They’re in my trunk, next to my hair brush.’

He grinned at her, relieved that she could make a joke. ‘I’ll get you for that.’

‘You and who…?’ she began, then drifted to sleep.

He stood there another long moment, watching her sleep, dumbfounded by her resiliency, and not totally sure what had just happened. ‘I’d have looked for them in that foul basin, I hope you know,’ he whispered, then left his cabin.

He spent the next hour cleaning Miss Brandon’s cabin. Before Private Leonard went off duty and was replaced by another sentry, he swore him to utter secrecy on what had passed this evening.

‘Sir, I would never say anything,’ the Private assured him. ‘She’s a brave little trooper, isn’t she?’

Hugh would have spent the night in her cot, except that it was wet with vinegar and he didn’t relish the notion. He could put his greatcoat on the floor in his cabin and not disturb Miss Brandon at all. He put her nightgown to soak in the bucket with sea water, and poured in the remaining vinegar. He found his way to the orlop deck, where the surgeon, eyes bleary, was staring at a forefinger avulsion that gave Hugh the shivers.

‘He caught it on a pump, if you can imagine,’ the surgeon murmured. He patted the seaman who belonged to the finger. ‘Steady, lad, steady. It looks worse than it is, as most things do.’

While the seaman stared at his own finger, Hugh took the surgeon aside and explained what had happened to Miss Brandon.

‘Poor little lady,’ the surgeon said. ‘I hope you were gentle with her, Colonel.’

‘I did my best.’

The surgeon shook his head. ‘Only two days out, and already this voyage is more than she bargained for, I’m certain. All’s well that ends. Give her some porridge tomorrow morning and a ship’s biscuit, along with fortified wine, and all the water she will drink. That should take care of the dehydration.’

Hugh walked thoughtfully back to his deck, after looking in on the unconscious foretopman, with the surgeon’s mate sitting beside him. A howl from the orlop told him the surgeon had taken care of the avulsion.
Give me Miss Brandon and her troublesome seasickness any day
, he thought with a shudder.

Counting on his rank to mean something to one of the captain’s young gentlemen, he asked for and received a blanket and returned to his cabin. He looked down at her, asleep in his gently swaying cot.
Poor little you. The surgeon was right; you didn’t bargain on this
, he thought.

Surprisingly content with his lot, Hugh spread his overcoat and pulled the blanket over him. He woke up once in the night to check on her, but she was breathing deeply, with a small sigh on the exhalation of breath that he found childlike and endearing. Feeling charitable, he smiled down at her, and returned to his rest on the deck.

A fierce and nagging thirst woke Polly at sunrise, rather than the noise of a ship that she had feared last night would sink at any minute. She stared at the deck beams overhead, wondering where she was, then closed her eyes in total mortification when she remembered.
Maybe if I keep my eyes closed, the entire world will move back four days. I will remain in Torquay with my sister Nana and none of what I know happened will have taken place
, she told herself.

No such luck. She smelled of vinegar because she had been doused in it, then pulled from her nightgown and—horror of horrors—been set right by a Royal Marine of mature years who would probably rather have eaten ground glass than done any of the duties her care had required.

If she could not forget what had happened, perhaps Lieutenant Colonel Junot had transferred during the night to another vessel, one sailing to Australia. Failing that, hopefully he had suffered amnesia and remembered nothing past his tenth birthday. No such luck. She could hear someone snoring softly, so she rose up carefully on her elbow and peered over the edge of the sleeping cot.

There lay her saviour, a mature man—not a Midshipman—with curly dark hair going a bit grey at the temples, a straight nose, and chiselled lips that had caught her attention a few days ago, when she was still a reasonable being. He lay on his back and looked surprisingly comfortable, as though he had slept in worse places. He had removed his shoes, unbuttoned his dark trousers, and unhooked his uniform tunic, so a wildly informal checked shirt showed through. The gilt gorget was still clasped around his neck, which made her smile in spite of her mortification, because he looked incongruously authoritative.

He opened his eyes suddenly and he smiled at her, because she must have looked even funnier, peering at him over the edge of the sleeping cot like a child in a strange house.

‘Good morning, Miss Brandon. See? You’re alive.’

If he had meant to put her at her ease, he had succeeded, even as he lay there all stretched out. He yawned, then sat up, his blanket around him again.

‘Would you like some water?’ he asked.

She nodded, then carefully sat up, which only made her lie down again, because the room was revolving.

He was on his feet in an instant, turning his back to her to button his trousers, then stretching his arm up to grasp the deck beam as he assessed her. ‘Dizzy?’

She nodded, and wished she hadn’t. ‘Now the ship is spinning,’ she groaned.

‘It will stop.’ He brought her a drink in a battered silver cup that looked as if it had been through a campaign or two. His free arm went behind her back and gently lifted her up just enough to pour some water down her sorely tried throat. ‘Being as dried out as you are plays merry hell with body humours, Miss Brandon. You need to eat something.’

‘Never again,’ she told him firmly. ‘I have sworn off food for ever.’

‘Take a chance,’ he teased. ‘You might be surprised how gratifying it is to swallow food, rather than wear it. Another sip now. That’s a good girl. Let me lay you down again.’

After he did so, he tucked the blanket up to her chin again. ‘You’ll do, Brandon,’ he told her in a gruff voice, and she knew that not a kinder man inhabited the entire universe, no matter if he was a Marine and fearsome. ‘Go back to sleep.’

She closed her eyes dutifully, certain she wouldn’t sleep because she was so embarrassed, except that the Colonel yawned loudly. She opened her eyes at such rag manners, then watched as he stretched and slapped the deck beam overhead, exclaiming, ‘I love a sea voyage, Brandon. Don’t you?’ which made her giggle and decide that perhaps she would live, after all.

When she woke again, it was full light and the Colonel was gone. She sat up more cautiously this time, pleased when the ship did not spin. She wasn’t sure what to do, especially without her spectacles, except that there they were in their little case, next to the pillow.
What a nice man
, she thought, as she put them on.