His Californian Countess

A knock sounded in the cabin. “Is there a problem, ma’am? I heard a shout.”

“Oh, yes,” she called back. “I came to this man’s aid and he’s collapsed on top of me.”

“Has the gentleman perished?” he asked, sounding suspicious.

Her patient tried to push himself off her. “Are you my angel instead?” he asked. “Am I dead after all?” He stared at her with heartbreak in his violet eyes. “What will happen to Meara?”

His eyelids drooped closed then and his weight pressed more heavily on her. “He’s not dead, but he is very ill,” she called the man at the door. “I just need help to get up, then we can summon the ship’s surgeon.”

“You’ll have to extricate yourself,” the man at the door shouted. “I am a minister—Reverend Willis. I will pray for the man, but I fall ill very easily. I shall go find the doctor, though.”

“Then find him quickly, for God’s sake!” she shouted back, though she had to admit it came out like more of a croak, what with a man’s weight all but crushing her.

In the next moment, she managed to twist herself free, but her skirts were still trapped under him. So there she sat, showing more ankle than she had since she was in short skirts, but at least she was no longer trapped.

The doctor bustled in, wearing a rumpled light-colored suit of clothes and dingy waistcoat, his face bearded, a pair of glasses perched on his florid nose. And enough alcohol on his breath to knock out a room full of sailors. “What is this about a woman of ill repute trapped under a sick man? And why didn’t I know you were available?”

“How dare you!” Amber gasped and stared at him in speechless horror. Then she took a deep breath, trying to get hold of her anger. From the other girls at Vassar she’d learned that disdain got a woman further than anger. Amber notched her chin higher and tried to look down her nose at the man who stood half a head taller than her. “I am nothing of the sort!” She shook with rage inside, but explained in a cold haughty voice how events had transpired.

The doctor nodded and walked around behind her. His only response to all she’d said was a short phrase. “Do not leave this cabin.”

And with that ominous statement, she felt a tug as he yanked her skirts free. Sparing her no more than a glance when she hopped down off the high canopied bed, he went about examining his patient, unbuttoning the man’s brocade waistcoat and fine cotton shirt. Then the doctor began muttering and swearing.

Averting her gaze, she backed toward the door. “Well, thank you very much for your help. I’ll just return to my own cabin.”

“You will remain here, my dear.”

She froze. “Why?”

He turned to face her. “You may wish you hadn’t meddled. You have been exposed to whatever disease this man has. You must be quarantined with him for the duration.”

“The duration?”

“Of his illness and yours should you fall ill.”

“I most certainly will not! I won’t get whatever he has. I’m extremely healthy. Besides which, I am an unmarried lady. I cannot stay in here. I have a stateroom just across the saloon that is paid for. If necessary, I shall go there until you’re convinced I will not take sick with whatever has stricken him. What, by the way, is wrong with him?”

“He is a victim of scarlet fever.”

Normally she wouldn’t question a physician, but this man had clearly been drinking. “Isn’t that a child’s illness?”

“I have seen it in the odd adult. And he is quite seriously ill with it.”

He sounded so positive. “Oh, the poor man.”

The doctor narrowed his eyes, pegging her with his penetrating gaze. “And you will stay and lend yourself to nursing him. If not, he’ll die.”

Her ears had surely failed her. “Lend myself toward nursing him? I spoke with him only briefly on deck! And, as I told you, I am unmarried.”

The doctor locked his gaze on her. “Do not take me for a fool. Or simply a drunk. I am quite sober today. Lord Adair asked for a stateroom near yours. I was there when he booked passage. And I found you trapped on the bed with him.” He shook his finger at her. “You apparently know the man quite a bit better than I. If you refuse, you would be signing this man’s death warrant. He may not survive anyway. But I cannot help that.”

“Not help it? You are supposed to be the ship’s doctor.”

He backed toward the door. “There are many others aboard who may need my care on this voyage. For their sakes, I cannot help him at the risk of my own health. If you refuse, the captain might well order him cast overboard rather than wait until he perishes.”

Her heart wrenched. Could he do that? “You will not!” Her gaze shot to the man on the bed. To think of the kind, funny and, yes, handsome man, who’d teased her being thrown away like refuse broke her heart. If she declined, he would at best be left to his own devices and would most certainly die. Women back home often nursed injured miners. If they could do it, she could do it, too.

She looked back at the doctor and bit her lip. “I know less about nursing than I do about him,” she admitted. “You called him Lord Adair. What is his Christian name?”

“I believe I remember him saying he preferred to be called James … no … it was Jamie. Not at all what one would expect from Britain’s ruling class. Am I to assume you are willing to care for him?”

She took a deep breath. “You give me little choice if he is to have any chance, Dr…. uh … what is your name? I think I should know the name of the man coercing me to do something so far beyond my experience and propriety.”

“I am Dr. Bertram Bennet, late of New York, and ports east, west, north and south.”

“Fine, Dr. Bennet, what do I do?”

“Bathe him with cool water to lessen the fever. I will see nourishing broth is delivered to keep up his strength and—” he whipped off his worn black neckcloth “—put this on the door if he perishes.” His eyes softened a bit. “We will have to consign him to the deep if he does. It is the way of the sea.”

“Have you no powders or remedies?” she demanded as the doctor made for the door.

He stopped and sighed. “I will send something for the fever, but it rarely works for a pernicious disease such as scarlet fever. Mostly I believe such illnesses must run their course.”

“Doctor … what … what about his … um … his clothing?” she managed to ask, her cheeks burning like fire. She was sure he would need to be undressed. How else would she bathe him? How had she gotten herself into this? Oh, yes. She’d forgotten adventures often lead to difficulty.

The doctor considered her, raising one of his eyebrows. Her cheeks heated further. “Perhaps you don’t know the gentleman as well as we all believed. Just cut his clothing off. He can afford the loss. The earl is as rich as Croesus. I will have your trunk pushed in here. I am sorry your life has been thrust on this new path. Do you know why he insisted upon a cabin near yours?”

“From his ramblings, I have deciphered that he was a friend of … my father.” She hesitated. Lying was difficult for her.

“That is what he told the steward, but no one believed it,” Dr. Bennet said.

“He was apparently with my … uh … father at his death. It has left him feeling some duty to see to my safety.”

The doctor nodded. “I hope for Adair’s sake he has the chance to fulfill his mission.” Then he turned away sharply and left, closing the door with such a resounding thud that Amber jumped. It felt as if the door had closed on every plan she’d made for the rest of her life. As if nothing would be the same again.

She turned back to the bed and took a deep breath. The earl didn’t look very lordly at the moment. He looked rumpled and sick. And he needed her help. She wanted him to get well, but if he did, she wouldn’t look forward to his learning of the ruse that had put both of them aboard this ship.

If he was to get well, she first had to deal with his clothing. After the dreams she’d had all night long, she didn’t know how she would care for him so personally and not think of them. But she had no choice.

He murmured and tossed on the bed as she rummaged in his trunk. She found only a straight razor and a rather nasty-looking double-edged knife. The latter didn’t look as if it should be part of the accoutrements of an English earl and that gave her pause. What kind of man was he really? She especially had to wonder after not finding any sort of nightshirt. That, too, was outrageously scandalizing—at least to her.

She walked back to the washstand and wet a cloth to place it on his burning forehead, then, using the razor, split his seams, unable to just destroy such fine clothing. She had just finished when a cabin boy quickly shoved her trunk into the room. She rolled her eyes. There was a perfectly acceptable pair of scissors that would have made the job ever so much easier.

Next arrived the powders the doctor had promised. By the time she got the powder mixed with water and into him, her blouse was soaked. Since it had gone nearly transparent with the water, she decided to change. While she rummaged through her badly packed things, the earl called out for the woman named Mimm and someone named Meara.

Amber quickly changed her blouse and put on an apron. She thanked God she’d added her serviceable clothes to the spectacular wardrobe

Helena Conwell had given her. Then she pulled out her grandmother’s carefully written book of remedies and medicines. Her aunt, the wonderful woman who’d raised her from an early age, had added some of her own. She quickly looked through it for any reference to scarlet fever. What she found worried her. He was in for some hard days ahead.