“Then how may I help?”
Ariadne advanced further into the cabin and looked around, her brows rising like wings. “Is this your quarters alone?”
“No. The ship’s surgeon and I share this space. It’s our home on theArethusa.”
“But you must have somewhere else to store your gowns.” She continued to swivel her head around, seeking out the shadowed corners of the small space.
“No. Everything I own is in there.” Willa pointed toward her sea chest.
The other woman’s eyes widened. “How long will you live like this?”
“As long as my husband is a Royal Navy surgeon.”
The ship gave a sudden pitch and roll, and Ariadne staggered a bit, grabbing onto the side of the bunk. “Surely the two of you don’t sleep in this narrow bunk.”
Willa’s patience turned brittle. “Please state your intention in seeking our cabin at this late hour. If you have no need of medical advice, I would advise you find your own quarters before the rolling of the ship becomes any more violent.”
“More violent?”
“Yes, we’re in the strait leading to Gibraltar. The chop will get worse before we finally make our turn into the harbor.”
“Before I leave, I beg an indulgence of you, Mrs. MacCloud.” Ariadne’s hands gripped the side of the bunk so tightly, her knuckles whitened.
“What you possibly want from me?”
The other woman plunged her hand deep within a pocket inside her red woolen cape. Willa started and stepped back when she extended a locket on a gold chain with a tiny, smooth, painted oval hinged to the top.
“It’s a locket with a miniature of my aunt for my cousin, Viola.”
For a moment, Willa felt a frisson of vertigo. She did not trust the woman pressing closer now, her halo of curls a study in light and dark as she blotted out most of the glow from the lanterns. The woman’s flowery scent was so overpowering, Willa swayed and sat down suddenly on the bunk.
“I cannot…would not.”
“Please, do not deny me this small favor. It would mean so much to my cousin. Her husband is an English officer on St. Helena. She’s not seen anyone from our family for years.”
Willa stood suddenly and pushed against Ariadne, forcing her to back away and give her space. “I do not trust you. I cannot give credence to anything you say. Now I understand why Dr. MacCloud warned me against you.”
Ariadne cocked her head to the side and gave Willa a long, considering look. “I can see I’ve underestimated you, Mrs. MacCloud. However, have you considered there may be more than one reason Cullen does not want us conversing in private?”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No, but I do have a proposition for you.”
Willa remained silent, her eyes steady on Ariadne.
“If you perform this small favor for me, perhaps I will not need to send this letter to the Admiralty.”
In spite of her determination not to show fear, Willa’s fingers shook when she reached for the letter. The letter held by the woman whose malevolence sucked up all the air in the tiny cabin.
Cullen leaned against the rail and watched the foaming surges and whirlpools on the water’s surface below that signaled they were in the strait leading to Gibraltar. It was as if the mighty Mediterranean Sea and even mightier Atlantic Ocean struggled for supremacy in the narrow passage, using every trick they could conjure to challenge the unwary seafarer. At one point, the width of the strait narrowed to not quite nine nautical miles. The African lands of Morocco lay to starboard, the Spanish coast to larboard.
Scents of land - rotting fish with overtones of orange and spices - wafted over the water with the breezes, and an occasional land bird drifted out to the middle of strait. One of the little buggers, probably a small sandpiper, had landed near Cullen’s elbow before dropping down amongst the coiled ropes and nodding off into a nap.
He envied the creature’s blithe ignorance of life’s woes. He could not believe that little over a month before, he’d been ignorant of Willa’s very existence, let alone the non-stop madness she would wreak on his carefully ordered path.
Now he was cork-brained in love with a woman who was apparently trapped between two worlds. What was he thinking when he thought she could change worlds as easily as her clothes?
She hadn’t considered the consequences to herself, or to him, before taking off on her spectacular ascent up the mizzen to save a ship’s boy from cracking his fool skull on the deck. He worried that now the crew would treat her differently, or, God forbid, treat him with less respect after the spectacle of his wife climbing to the tops, her skirts billowing in the wind in full view of everyone. And then there was First Lieutenant Dalton. That one would bear watching. Willa had admitted the man had made advances to her when she was Will. What the hell was he playing at now?
