The Lord's Inconvenient Vow

Chapter Six

The hawk swung low and settled on Leila’s shoulder. ‘That Gabriel being is still behind us. Stubborn.’

‘He thinks he is protecting me,’ Leila scoffed. ‘Why are humans so very foolish?’

—The Sprite Queen,

Desert Boy Book One

Sam inspected her cabin aboard HMS Lark. The linen closet at Sinclair House would fit three of these. Once she stepped inside there would be room perhaps for a cat and two mice. The cot itself looked like a window ledge—long and just about wide enough for a few flowering pots, but for sleep? Sam could understand why Edge had chosen a hammock below decks rather than accept the Post Captain’s offer of the only other cabin on the ship.

‘Well, at least if I fall I won’t roll far,’ Sam said and Edge nudged her inside, placing her sketching bag on a narrow shelf that served as a table. Even with half his body still in the passage the cabin shrank from tiny to stifling. He sighed, brushing back hair disordered by ducking under so many low lintels and missing a few.

‘I knew this was a bad idea. You should return with Poppy and Janet and wait until they sail on a more reasonable vessel built for actual passengers. There is still time; they won’t return to Cairo until tomorrow.’

That stung. As had their discussion that morning when they reached Alexandria and Edge realised that HMS Lark was a sixth-rate frigate—as fast as any ship sailing the Mediterranean, but hardly built for comfort. The Post Captain, a mere couple of years older than Sam, had been shocked to learn he was expected to transport ‘A woman’. His shock had fizzled a little beneath Edge’s glacial stare, but the realities of the arrangements on the frigate had made his point just as well. Edge had tried to convince her to wait with Poppy and Janet until they sailed on the next available merchant ship, but Sam had done her calculations. Waiting for a slower ship meant they would arrive weeks after Edge. He might be hurt trying to find Rafe or he might even follow his brother’s trail to the Antipodes and the next time she would see him would be in another eight years. The fact that Edge could make this suggestion as if it was nothing more than her taking the carriage while he rode a hack on the way back from Richmond Park only made her blood boil.

So they’d had their first argument as a married couple.

Well, she’d argued while Edge stood like one of the Colossi of Memnon, staring past her and perhaps hoping she’d wear herself out like a tantrum-throwing toddler. She hadn’t and she wouldn’t but in the end she’d adopted the same approach—stony coldness and staying put. At least he hadn’t physically removed her from the ship when Poppy and Janet returned to the carriage, but he had told them to wait on the quay until he ‘resolved the matter’.

Perhaps he’d expected her to change her mind when she saw the living arrangements.

Well, he’d sorely underestimated her.

She plopped herself resolutely on the cot. Not a smart move since it was hard and the rim of wood holding in the thin mattress was a great deal more painful than it looked. She would remember that if she had fantasies about rolling over to relieve a crick in her back in the middle of the night. She sucked in a breath and let it out.

‘No.’

‘Sam...’

‘No! I know you, Edge. When you reach London you will insist on searching for Rafe on your own even when I tell you that my uncle can probably find him for you like that...’ She snapped her fingers. ‘And you will probably make a hash of things.’

‘Thank you for that vote of confidence, Sam, but I told you I have no intention of involving the law in this search.’

‘My uncle is not the law. He is a law unto himself.’

‘We are not having this conversation. Sam...’

‘Go find your hammock. I’m staying.’

He didn’t slam the door, but neither did he close it, which was almost as much of a protest.

* * *

Two weeks was a long time to sustain a silent sulk, but then Edge was a master of the art.

It didn’t show on the surface. He remained impeccably polite, just like an automaton of a boy she’d seen in Venice that could bow, tip its hat and extend its hand to an invisible handshake. In an automaton these achievements were awe-inspiring; in a man this mechanical performance of politeness and propriety was intimidating to the lesser men aboard the Lark and infuriating to Sam, who knew full well he was giving her one long cold shoulder.

It added to the aches in her own shoulders from sleeping on the miniscule cot and wasn’t doing wonders for her temper. It was particularly awful in comparison to their amazing night in Cairo. The memory of bliss and pleasure faded with each passing day, cold look and aching muscle.