A wash in hot water was a pleasure. In water someone else had heated and carried, it was luxury. By dint of contortions that would not have been out of place in Astley’s Amphitheatre, Meg managed to sponge herself all over and felt her spirits rise. Her water-soaked gown had dried, the worse for wear, but not looking as bad as she feared.
When she emerged Ross was propped up in bed, one large hand enveloping a mug of coffee. The aroma curled rich and strong through the air.
‘I’ll go and have my breakfast with the other passengers. And get Johnny to bring you some food down with the hot water. When I get back we can look at your leg.’
‘Can we?’
‘Yes, we can. I want you to have a good look at the wound so you understand my concerns. Perhaps you will take care of yourself better, then. You really do not deserve to keep that leg.’
Irritated with him now, she stuffed her hair into a net, tied her shawl around her shoulders and went out, telling herself that she misheard the muttered, It scarce matters, that she caught as the door closed.
It seemed a long time since that stew last night and the prospect of exchanging civil conversation with the other passengers was pleasant out of all proportion to the occasion. Just the brief contact last night as she had been greeted, had mingled while she collected their supper, had been enjoyable.
How long was it since she had behaved like a lady? Since just before Vittoria, of course, when, as a junior officer’s wife, she had a certain status. After James’s death, she became merely the scandalous woman who had lived in sin with a man. A few of the regimental wives had believed that she really did not know her marriage had been bigamous, but others were prepared to believe she knew perfectly well. They had all shunned her. And when she had taken refuge with Peter Ferguson and had lowered herself to nursing wounded common soldiers, then of course she was utterly beyond the pale.
It had seemed strange to her then, and still did, that it was as shocking that she tended to brave men in pain and distress as it was that she was apparently living in sin. Perhaps the sense of betrayal, the shock, had been so great that their attitude had hardly hurt. It was James’s betrayal that wounded her, kept her using her married name in a desperate attempt to deny this had happened.
Signora Rivera, surrounded by three of her older children, beckoned her to a place opposite them at the long table and she made an effort to shake off the ghosts of the past and smile. ‘How is young José, signora?’
‘Much recovered, I thank you, Signora Brandon. In fact, I am having much trouble keeping him in his bed. Fortunately my maid can watch him while she tends to little Rosa. And how is your brave husband?’
‘Quite well, signora, although he must rest today. He has a wound in his leg.’
‘You have been married long?’ Signora Rivera buttered toast, her eyes bright with curiosity. Meg told herself that she was unaccustomed to female company and that it was only natural that Signora Rivera would want to gossip to pass the journey. She controlled a natural impulse to recoil from the probing.
‘It seems like only yesterday,’ she said with a laugh and the other woman laughed too, accepting the reply as a jest before pouring out the story of her journey to England to join her husband, a wine importer.
Her meal eaten, Meg took a turn around the deck. She had to clutch her shawl against the brisk wind and her eyes watered as she squinted to try to catch a glimpse of coast. But they were well out into the Bay by now and perhaps would not see land again until they passed Brittany.
When she judged that Ross would have safely finished washing and shaving and eaten his breakfast Meg went back below decks. The cabin door was unlocked and when she entered she found him standing by the porthole, his legs encased in the loose white cotton trousers the sailors wore and wearing one of his better shirts, open at the neck and with the sleeves rolled up.
The purely visceral jolt of desire at the sight of broad shoulders tapering to taut hips and the sheer, powerful size of him brought her to a standstill. And then, before she could completely recover herself, he turned and it was the same dark, dangerous face, the same cold eyes, and the desire turned to something more like anger.
‘What the devil do you think you are doing?’ The door banged behind her as she marched in to confront him. ‘I told you to stay in bed and rest and here you are—’
He raised one brow and the slant of his eyes looked even more satanic than usual. ‘Your language shocks me, Mrs Brandon.’
‘And you shock me!’ she retorted, finding in the excuse to lecture him a refuge from the decidedly contradictory feelings that were unsettling her. ‘Take those trousers off and get back to bed.’
With an obedience that was patently provocative his hands went to the fall of the trousers. It seemed that just as she had got over her fright, so he had moved from worrying about her fears to actively provoking her. No doubt it appealed to his dark humour. As he undid the buttons the trousers started to slide from his hips. It was not funny.
‘No! Let me go out first, for goodness’ sake.’ If he so much as chuckles, she thought grimly, I’ll… But, of course, he did no such thing. Major Brandon did not smile, let alone laugh, she remembered when she was out in the passage, her back flat against the door.
It was shocking how arousing the sight of those trousers sliding down had been. Yesterday she had seen the man stark naked, and although she had certainly been able to admire his fine physique, it had not disturbed her half as much as what had just transpired.
It was because he was conscious now and fully aware of what he was doing—which had to be provoking her, punishing her for having him at her mercy when he was already seething with frustration over his injury. It was not attempted seduction. There was no heat in that dark stare, no amorous intent in his gestures and she believed him when he explained what had happened that morning.
The wood was rough under her knuckles as she tapped on the door. ‘Are you in bed yet?’
‘Yes,’ he said, amiably enough as far as one could tell through half an inch of panelling.
‘Where did you get those trousers?’ She walked past him without a glance to open her medical bag. She would not give him the satisfaction of looking at him. ‘From Johnny, I suppose.’
‘Yes. They are practical,’ Ross said indifferently. ‘But it hardly matters.’
The contents of the medical bag blurred out of focus. Four words, yet they told her so much. His indifference was not about trousers, or her presence or their cramped accommodation. Anyone else might read merely annoyance at her interference or weariness after a bad night in the way he said those few words. But they betrayed something else, something that explained his dark mood and unsmiling face.
She had heard that tone before in the voices of men who were exhausted from battle and pain, men who would not have taken action to end their own lives but who were beyond minding if someone else did. It was the voice of a man who hardly cared whether he lived or died and it was all of a piece with the way he had neglected his leg, the darkness in his gaze. But it was not battle fatigue that had brought him to this, nor the pain of his leg. Something deeper had wounded him.
She spread a towel on the trunk and laid out what she needed, filled a bowl with water and set it by the bed, her hands steady, her thoughts reeling. It was not just his leg that needed saving, it seemed. If helping drag him from the river yesterday was to have any value, then she had to hope he could find something to live for as well.
‘It has not bled.’ She lifted back the sheet above the bandage, laid her hand on the bare skin just at the edge of the linen bindings and felt his flesh contract at the touch. ‘It is not inflamed, or over-hot.’ Ross made no reply as she undid the knots and unwrapped the bandage, finally lifting