He cleared his throat. "Mrs. Freeman," he began. "My surgeon sends his regrets that he could not be here to greet you personally, but he has a difficult case that requires all his attention."

Curiosity narrowed one eye suspiciously. "Does he now." The long dark fingers fluttered, as if to indicate that more information would not be unwelcome.

"One of the midshipmen with a splinter lodged in the flesh of his upper arm. It was some days before he thought to seek out attention and I fear it is come away badly infected. Hakim Ibrahim would be very thankful for your consultation on the wound--if it is not too much of an imposition."

"I believe he was planning to drain it this evening," added Moncrieff, studying a point on the wall well above Curiosity's head.

She scanned their faces one by one. "I don' know, I truly don't. Do I look so simpleminded? Everybody so eager to send me off to see the Hakim, makin' up stories for me to swallow whole."

Pickering flustered visibly, but Hawkeye laughed.

"Well, Christ, woman," he said. "We could just tie you down to let the doctor have a look at you. Though I expect you'd give us a tussle."

To Elizabeth's relief, Curiosity produced a reluctant smile. "You hardly one to talk, Dan'l Bonner. I remember Cora threatening you with a rope more than once when you was fevered."

"Och, aye," said Robbie, glancing between the two of them. "Ye're gey stubborn, the baith o' ye. P'rhaps ye could open a school for mules once ye're hame agin safe. But today, Curiosity ma dear, ye're fair wabblin' wi' fever. Will ye no' take aid and solace when it's offered in friendship?"

"I do wish you would," added Elizabeth softly. "I am quite worried about you."

Curiosity pushed out a ragged breath and then raised one shoulder in defeat. "All right, then. If it'll set your mind at ease. I suppose it won't hurt me to drink his fever teas though I ain't ever yet seen a doctor who knew anything worth knowing about herbals. ... Lord knows I'm willing to be surprised. Captain, you'll have to show me the way to this Hakim fellow of yours. Elizabeth, I expect you'll cope without me."

"I'll do my best," Elizabeth agreed, suddenly aware of Nathaniel at her back and his breath on her hair.

"Have ye any objection tae company along the way?" Robbie asked Pickering. "She's a bonnie ship, and I expect we'll ne'er see the like agin."

To Elizabeth's amazement, both Hawkeye and Nathaniel seemed just as interested in the prospect of exploring the ship. She caught Nathaniel by the sleeve. "You won't go off to the Providence, will you--"

"Not until Bears comes back," he promised. The look in his eyes was as warm as his touch. He whispered, then, "Don't go to bed without me." And they were off, leaving her suddenly alone in the splendid cabin.

For a while she simply sat, overwhelmed by fatigue. In another life she might have examined the violin laid to rest in its case on the top of the spinet, the coat of arms above it, or the portraits that lined one wall. A young man in brown velvet with an elaborately curled wig seemed almost to be scowling at her in the flickering of the candlelight. And why not? What was she doing here?

Elizabeth got up and took a turn around the room, her feet sinking into the deep Turkish carpet. There was a long shelf of books on the wall with the predictable treatises on weather and navigation, but there were other volumes, too. Novels with well-worn spines, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling; Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded; The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews; The Castle of Otranto. Equally well thumbed were the Shakespeare tragedies and what seemed to be a full set of Moliére in the original French. There was much more: Aristotle, Dante, Cervantes, Machiavelli, Newton, Bacon, and Galileo. Elizabeth was intrigued in spite of herself, and newly curious about the captain.

With a sigh, she turned her mind to more practical matters: she ate some dried fruit from the platter on the sideboard, checked on the twins once and then again, sat for a little while by Hannah's bedside simply watching her sleep, sorted through their baskets, folded clothing, and made ready for a hasty departure should that prove necessary. After a moment's hesitation she rang for the cabin boy and requested hot water. This he produced in very short order, along with a message.

"Ma'am. Hakim Ibrahim sends word that Mrs. Freeman is sleeping and he wants to know may he call on you in the morning?" It came out in an earnest tumble.

"Please thank the Hakim," Elizabeth said. "I will look forward to his call."

She was almost sorry to send the boy on his way, but there was the hot water and it was growing late. Elizabeth found that she did not have the energy to take on laundry; that would have to wait until they were safely on board the Providence. Instead she had a quick bathe, changed into her nightdress, and brushed out her hair. By the casement clock she saw that Nathaniel had been gone forty minutes. It was a mystery to her that even sensible and rational men seemed to find gun decks and cannons endlessly interesting.

A deep settee with an abundance of pillows was inviting, but her nerves were strung tight and she could not relax: Runs-from-Bears and Will had been gone three hours.

With her shawl around her shoulders Elizabeth went to the long wall of draperies that had been pulled closed before the transom windows. They put her in mind of Aunt Merriweather's morning room at Oakmere; she might pull them apart and find a lawn that sloped down to the rose gardens, and beyond them, a sea churning in shades of emerald and evergreen. But when she slipped between the panels Elizabeth found only the river, caught up in the moonlight. A hundred masts poked into the night sky, a web of bony fingers out to snare a moon riding just out of reach. A shimmering of candlelight came through the draperies so that she could make out her own vague reflection in the glass, too pale and the unruly mass of her hair crackling around her head. "Our very own Medusa," Aunt Merriweather had often declared, convinced that Elizabeth's hair was the result of willful extravagance. But it pleased Nathaniel, and so she left it.