It was as though someone had been tracing the pattern for a crazy patc
hwork quilt on his back in red ink, careless of how it ran. Salt water, Gerritty had said, and quickly, before he began to come round. Sponging, rinsing, she worked doggedly, not realising she was crying until something tickled the sore point of her chin and she rubbed the back of her hand across it.
There. She looked doubtfully at her still-bleeding handiwork. Now fresh water. And then what? Should it be bandaged, or left to the air? At least there were no flying insects here.
In the end she wrung out a large piece of soft clean cotton cloth and draped it over the wounds, then went to mix birch-bark powder into a mug of water. With nothing left to do, she went back to sit by his head to wait.
She wanted to put her hand over his as it lay lax on the pillow, but somehow she felt she had forfeited the right to touch him like that, even when he was unconscious.
The long hiss of indrawn breath had her alert in an instant. ‘Nathan?’
His lips moved. Lip-reading, she came to the conclusion it was curses. She reached for the mug, then realised he could not drink in that position. ‘I’ll be back, just one moment.’
‘Mr Street!’
The cook turned from his game of cards. ‘Aye, lad? How’s he doing?’
‘He can’t drink lying on his stomach. Have you got a clay pipe? A new one?’
He got up and lifted a long churchwarden pipe from a rack on the wall, its stem a good foot long, and knocked the bowl off with a sharp blow on the tabletop. ‘That’s good thinking, boy. He’s come round, then?’
‘Just. He’s swearing a lot.’
‘That’ll do him good. You all right, Clem?’
‘Yessir, thank you.’ She could have hugged him, grease and all.
Nathan was moving his head, restless, when she got back. ‘Clem?’
‘I’m here.’ She restrained the impulse to ask how it felt, how he was, all the other useless, automatic questions. Instead she dipped one end of the pipe stem in the mug of birch-bark powder and water and sucked until she could taste the bitter liquid in her mouth. She turned his head gently on the pillow and slid the stem into his mouth. ‘Suck.’ He grimaced, twisting away, but she held his head firmly. ‘That’s an order, Mr Stanier,’ she said, making her shaking voice hard. Nathan gave a small gasp that she realised with surprise was a laugh, and did as she said.
When the liquid was almost gone she trickled brandy into the mug, sighing with relief when he slid back into unconsciousness again. Then she sat down on the deck by his shoulder, rested her head back against its hard edge and settled down to wait.
Now, with nothing to do but think, it was hard not to slip into complete despair. She was falling in love with Nathan Stanier; she could no longer delude herself that it was gratitude or desire or infatuation. And something was telling her to ignore the evidence of his presence on this ship and trust him with the rest of her life, if he wanted her.
But now she had broken her word to him and he had been punished, brutally, for her defiance. He might have desired her, he was too much a gentleman to stop protecting her, but he was never, after this, going to love her.
Chapter Ten
‘Clemence?’
She was awake and twisting round on her knees in an instant. ‘Yes? Nathan, what do you need?’ His forehead was hot and sweaty under her palm, the cloth over his back darkly stained in the lantern light. ‘Something to drink? Try more of this, there’s brandy and water and the bark powder.’
He sucked greedily and his voice, when he spoke again, was stronger. ‘What’s on my back?’
‘A damp cloth. I washed the wounds in salt water, then fresh, and covered them.’
‘Good. There’s a jar of salve in my pack. Green salve.’
Clemence found it, sniffed. ‘It smells very odd.’
‘It will help the healing and stop the cloth from sticking.’ He lay still while she lifted the cloth away. ‘How does it look?’ He was by far the calmer of the two of them; she could hardly stop her hands from shaking.
‘Um.’ Dreadful. ‘There’s some swelling. It has stopped bleeding.’ More or less. ‘Do I spread the salve on the cloth?’ The thought of having to touch that raw flesh, cause even more pain, made her dizzy.
‘Yes.’ There was silence while she worked at the table, trying to spread the evil-smelling stuff as evenly as possible. Then she lifted it by two corners and came back to the bed. ‘Clemence, are you crying?’
‘Yes,’ she admitted.