Calypso Magic (Magic Trilogy 2)

"No," he said very clearly. "That is impossible. Come clean, my girl. Where are the Tomlinsons? We're aboard the Nelson with Captain Poutten."

"Now, Lyon, you mustn't excite yourself. You were coshed on the head very hard by one of those ruffians. Captain Carstairs saved us. You were quite ill and a quack came to the inn to attend you. He was drunk and wanted to bleed you and we booted him out. There was nothing for it, Lyon, please. Dr. Blickford is attending you."

"This is absurd!"

"We are on our way to St. Thomas. It was meant to be, Lyon, don't you see?"

He closed his eyes. An awful muddle. A ridiculous muddle. And here he was lying helpless as a damned babe in a damned bunk. In Rollo's bunk. He started to pull himself upright, but he didn't have the strength. He realized at the same time that he was naked and covered on

ly to waist with a sheet. Had Diana?

He forced himself to calm. "I trust you have chaperones aboard this vessel?"

Silence.

"Diana?" He knew deep in his gut what the answer was, but he said nothing. Perhaps he was wrong, perhaps

"Actually, no, if by that you mean another female."

He came to another realization. The clothes Diana had been removing from a trunkthey were her clothes.

"Diana, do you have another cabin?"

"Lyon, why don't I fetch Blick for you? That's Dr. Blickford. He will want to check you over."

"If you move, I will thrash you."

"Ha! No, forgive me, I don't want to bait you. Please, Lyon, lie still."

"Diana, are we sharing this cabin? All the way to the West Indies? For six weeks?"

"Yes."

"Did you arrange to share your favors with the captain? Is that why he brought me and mydoxie aboard?"

She remained unruffled at this insult. "No. I'm your wife."

He groaned. Perhaps the boat would sink. Perhaps he would succumb to his wound. Or he could simply throttle Diana. Being a widower wasn't such a bad thought.

"I didn't realize he thought that, not at first. Truly, Captain Carstairs assumed we were husband and wife, as did his doctor. I want to go home, Lyonel. I realized I couldn't tell him the truth. We would have been left ignominiously in Plymouth. It would have ---"

"Shut up." He sent his left hand downward to scratch his stomach. "Since you are my dear wife, did you strip me?"

"No! That is, I helped Blick with your upper garments and I got faint before he took off your breeches."

This ingenuous confession made him want to fling off the sheet. "I should thank you for protecting my privacy? Or protecting your maidenly sensibilities?"

"You forget I grew up with slaves. I have seen many of them with little more than loincloths."

He couldn't find words for that. "My head aches and I'm thirsty and hungry."

"I'll see to it at once," she said, and gladly left him to himself. It hadn't been too awful, she thought as she flagged down Neddie and made her requests. She returned to the cabin with a hesitant step, praying that Blick would come quickly. She disliked Lyon's current mood.

She opened the door to see Lyon seated on the edge of the bunk, his essentials covered, thankfully, with the sheet. He looked large and forbidding and altogether splendid.

"I told you to stay still."

"I had to relieve myself."