Louise Allen Historical Collection by Louise Allen Read Free Book Online Page B

and found to her shame and shock that it was partly a shudder of sensuality. What on earth was the matter with her? Perhaps it was simply the unfamiliar shipboard world, the freedom, for a little while, from disapproving stares and whispers.
    A tap on the door. Johnny with the hot water. Meg ducked behind the curtain, glad of a distraction from her thoughts.
    ‘Put that can by the screen so Mrs Brandon can reach it,’ Ross instructed the boy. ‘And pour me some coffee. You can come back in half an hour with more hot water.’
    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