From Doctor to Princess?

‘Come...’

‘No!’ At least she’d made it to the bathroom. Now she was here, she wasn’t taking any chances. Hugo reached for the large, well-stocked bathroom cabinet. It seemed that in addition to condoms, which she’d found in there earlier in the evening and made use of later, the cabinet was also prepared for seasickness. Hugo took out a cardboard dish and gave it to her, collecting a bottle of ginger tablets.

He walked her through to the cabin, sitting her down on the bed. She felt a little better. Just well enough for embarrassment to take a better hold around her heart.

‘The sea’s a little choppier now than it was earlier.’

‘Yeah? Thought it was just me.’ Nell groaned as another wave of nausea took hold, but this time, she managed to quell it.

‘No, it’s unusually rough for this harbour. Try looking at the coastline, that might help orientate you a bit.’

Nell looked at the lights, still shining around the bay. They seemed a long way away at the moment, and enticingly still. ‘Can’t we...dock or something?’

‘I’m afraid not. There’s nowhere to dock.’

‘Oh-h-h...!’ Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. This was turning into a nightmare.

He supported her gently through to his cabin, saying that it was further back and so the roll of the ship would be less. If it was, Nell couldn’t feel it. He let her sip water, sitting with her as she looked through the porthole, trying to tell her brain which way they were moving before her stomach reacted to it. Gave her ginger tablets to chew, but they just made her sick again.

‘Drugs, Hugo...’

‘Yes. I think so, too. Do you have any allergies?’

‘No... I need the drugs...’ Surely he wasn’t going to make her go through the preliminary questions. But he did, and Nell responded automatically to his calm, gentle tone, trying to distance herself from what was happening.

He was good at this. Even the injection was accomplished with the minimum of indignity.

‘That’s going to work pretty quickly now.’

‘Yeah... Quickly...’ Thinking was suddenly like wading through treacle. All Nell could feel was Hugo’s arms around her and the sudden feeling of drowsiness.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

SHE WOKE TO half light. A slight breeze was playing through the cabin, and the sun must be shining outside the closed curtains. Nell’s first thought was that she didn’t feel sick any more.

Her second thought was for Hugo. He was sitting quietly in the corner of the cabin, looking the way a lover should in the morning. Freshly showered, not yet shaved, wearing a pair of shorts and a polo shirt. She wondered if he had fresh coffee somewhere and decided her stomach wasn’t quite up to that.

‘I’m so embarrassed.’

He didn’t even pretend to shrug it off. ‘Want me to show you my scar? We can feel embarrassed together.’

In an odd way, it was the nicest thing he could have said. Saying it didn’t matter would have been ridiculous. Sharing the way he felt was oddly comforting.

‘Your pacemaker isn’t as messy as being seasick.’

He shrugged. ‘You have excellent aim, which must be entirely intuitive, since you clearly weren’t up to thinking about it.’

Nell smiled. ‘Glad to hear it.’

‘Feeling better now?’

‘Yes, much. If I’d known, I’d have taken something before I came on board.’

‘I should have mentioned it. But then we doctors can be trusted to look after our own health so well.’ He quirked his lips down, to give the obvious lie to the statement.

‘Don’t we just.’

She almost wanted him to come back to bed. Actually, she did want him to, but she wasn’t going to ask, not after last night. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. It made the transition, between lovers and friends, a little easier. Something that might be laughed about even, when the sting of embarrassment had lost its bite.