Kate Welsh - His Californian Countess

The real question was how she could even face him. And if they did speak to each other, it stood to reason he’d ask her name again. She would be forced to give Helena Conwell’s name. That was the trouble about lies. They seemed to multiply. She sat down on the bed, tempted to skip the meal altogether.

But no. That would only put off the inevitable anyway and it would be cowardly. She’d flirted on purpose. This was her adventure, though she had not named it as such until then. She had promised to travel as Helena. It had even been her own idea and she’d given her word. That thought helped her get a grip on herself. Honor demanded she continue as planned.

She stood, marched to the door and pulled it open. As she turned the key in the door to lock it, she heard a deep groan come from behind her. She whirled and another low moan drifted out of the cabin across from hers. Amber noticed the door stood ever so slightly ajar. Hesitant to offer aid to what sounded like a man, she looked around the deserted saloon. Perhaps she should go for help, but he sounded to be in dire need and Amber had never been one to stand by and do nothing.

She advanced on the door and carefully pushed it open a bit, but after little more than a foot she met with resistance. “Hello,” she called out. “Sir, do you need assistance?”

Another groan was the only answer. Concerned for her fellow traveler, she thanked God she’d worn her own plain blue twill that was un-encumbered by a bustle. She took a deep breath, squeezed around the door and nearly stepped on the gentleman’s outstretched hand. He lay on the floor with his face turned away from her.

“Sir,” she called, her voice trembling as she stepped around him. Then she could only stare. It was the handsome man. He was clearly sick or injured.

She sank down and laid her hand on his forehead. He was burning up. She looked around and hurried across the stateroom to the washstand. After pouring water into the washbowl, she rushed back with a cool cloth to bathe his face.

His eyes opened and he stared up at her with glazed violet eyes. She didn’t know what startled her more—their pure violet irises, or his words.

“Helena?” he asked, his voice weak with fever. “Is it you?” He reached up and traced her cheek with his burning fingers.

She told herself it was the fever that made that slight touch radiate heat through her. It had to be, for she didn’t want to feel anything for one of the men trying to stop Helena from living her life as she saw fit. “How dare you seek to interfere with—” she began.

He grabbed her wrist and seemed not to hear her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know Franklin was inventing evidence against Kane. Please, believe I didn’t know.” There was such vehemence in his gaze that she found herself transfixed. “Harry was so worried for you as he died in my arms. I must keep my promise. I must protect you, Helena. You must be wary of Gowery. More wary even than you were. He is not what he seems.”

Amber decided not to argue names or intentions at that point. “Yes. Certainly,” she told him in her gentlest tone. “Put all that from your mind. Right now you must get to your bed. Let me help you.” She might well have saved her breath for he seemed to lapse into sleep. She tried to tug him upward, but he was dead weight. Kindness had failed … “Listen to me, you large galoot. Sit. Up.”

“Yes, Mimm,” he answered and rolled up onto his knees. “I’m hot, Mimm. I’m so hot.” He dragged himself to his feet with help from her. Once standing, he looked in her eyes. “Goodness, Mimm, you’ve shrunk. But you’re very pretty, suddenly.” He frowned. “You’re not lookin’ a bit like yourself.” Once again she heard the touch of an Irish accent in his speech and fought a smile.

“Come … You’re not far from the bed. One foot in front of the other,” she ordered as they wove across the floor. And then his weight got the better of her and he toppled, pushing her on to the bed. Stunned, she lost her breath as he landed half on top of her. Amber tried to shift out from under his body, but no matter how she squirmed and tugged, she couldn’t get her dress free. Desperate, she pushed on his shoulder so she could take a breath. He opened his eyes and stared into hers. “You aren’t Helena.”

“No, I’m Amber.”

“You’re my pixie. Did you just appear there?”

“No. You fell upon me,” Amber explained. She’d been so busy trying to help him, she’d forgotten all about the fact that the handsome man knew Helena. But her anger had cooled. He seemed to only want to help the woman she’d promised to impersonate. He’d talked as if he were an old friend of her family’s, but not a friend to Helena’s guardian.

A knock sounded in the cabin. “Is there a problem, ma’am? I heard a shout.”

“Oh, yes,” she called back. “I came to this man’s aid and he’s collapsed on top of me.”

“Has the gentleman perished?” he asked, sounding suspicious.

Her patient tried to push himself off her. “Are you my angel instead?” he asked. “Am I dead after all?” He stared at her with heartbreak in his violet eyes. “What will happen to Meara?”

His eyelids drooped closed then and his weight pressed more heavily on her. “He’s not dead, but he is very ill,” she called the man at the door. “I just need help to get up, then we can summon the ship’s surgeon.”

“You’ll have to extricate yourself,” the man at the door shouted. “I am a minister—Reverend Willis. I will pray for the man, but I fall ill very easily. I shall go find the doctor, though.”

“Then find him quickly, for God’s sake!” she shouted back, though she had to admit it came out like more of a croak, what with a man’s weight all but crushing her.

In the next moment, she managed to twist herself free, but her skirts were still trapped under him. So there she sat, showing more ankle than she had since she was in short skirts, but at least she was no longer trapped.

The doctor bustled in, wearing a rumpled light-colored suit of clothes and dingy waistcoat, his face bearded, a pair of glasses perched on his florid nose. And enough alcohol on his breath to knock out a room full of sailors. “What is this about a woman of ill repute trapped under a sick man? And why didn’t I know you were available?”

“How dare you!” Amber gasped and stared at him in speechless horror. Then she took a deep breath, trying to get hold of her anger. From the other girls at Vassar she’d learned that disdain got a woman further than anger. Amber notched her chin higher and tried to look down her nose at the man who stood half a head taller than her. “I am nothing of the sort!” She shook with rage inside, but explained in a cold haughty voice how events had transpired.

The doctor nodded and walked around behind her. His only response to all she’d said was a short phrase. “Do not leave this cabin.”

And with that ominous statement, she felt a tug as he yanked her skirts free. Sparing her no more than a glance when she hopped down off the high canopied bed, he went about examining his patient, unbuttoning the man’s brocade waistcoat and fine cotton shirt. Then the doctor began muttering and swearing.

Averting her gaze, she backed toward the door. “Well, thank you very much for your help. I’ll just return to my own cabin.”

“You will remain here, my dear.”

She froze. “Why?”

He turned to face her. “You may wish you hadn’t meddled. You have been exposed to whatever disease this man has. You must be quarantined with him for the duration.”

“The duration?”

“Of his illness and yours should you fall ill.”

“I most certainly will not! I won’t get whatever he has. I’m extremely healthy. Besides which, I am an unmarried lady. I cannot stay in here. I have a stateroom just across the saloon that is paid for. If necessary, I shall go there until you’re convinced I will not take sick with whatever has stricken him. What, by the way, is wrong with him?”