Saira gaped at the mass of ships bellied up to the East India Dock, fascinated by the aerial dance of sliding ropes, expanding and collapsing sails, and sailors leaping from deck to deck without setting foot on the wharf. Looking down the line, it was impossible to tell which masts belonged to which hulls, which rigging belonged to which sails.
The cluster of women tangled around her like the ropes and beams in the harbor. They jostled shoulders and angled for a better view of the brawny, chestnut-skinned man in an East India Company uniform. The Chief mate's dark, piercing eyes scanned over the waiting crowd as he stacked empty crates for a makeshift podium.
Saira's nerves matched the energy of the crowd, all talking excitedly amongst themselves, yet no one addressed her directly. Perhaps her own dark skin spoke for her, implying a connection with the Chief mate's sun-drenched arms and charcoal hair. Or, perhaps the fair-skinned women discreetly avoided her gaze out of civility, not wishing to pry into the business of a stranger.
Likewise, Saira did her best to silence her Gift. These women were also desperate enough to flee their homeland and sail halfway across the world, and her head was too full to welcome anyone else's tragic tales into the swirling tide pool of her own desperate actions.
Even now, looking towards the future she had chosen for herself, Saira had no idea how to process what had transpired back at Avonburg House.
The angrier she became… but it wasn't anger, not really.
The sadder she became… but sadness couldn't begin to describe it.
Confusion. Yes, it was confusion and bewilderment, because after everything she and Five had shared, after agreeing that they both must hide away for the good of everyone around them, she had found him consorting with her father and Garfield in her own home.
What am I supposed to think of you now, Five?
She didn't know how to properly feel about sewing him up and wanting to kiss him in spite of the conflict running through her… why… why… why… and he had been incapable of explaining how Garfield had acquired her father's estate. That had been her money. For her future… and she hadn't wanted to hear how giving it all to Garfield would fix anything. How had Five thought her father's actions were helping? Why had Five even been there, with her father and Garfield, in the first place?
Five hadn't known those coins were hers.
Yes, she gathered that from the mortification on his face. But shocked expressions, misunderstandings, and desperate kisses weren't enough to veer away from her plan.
He'd told her to stay away. But why hadn't he?
An ear-splitting whistle drew everyone's attention to the Chief mate, now standing on the stacked crates. When the hubbub died down, he addressed the crowd.
"For those inquiring about passage to India, Captain wants it known that he will only grant cabin space on the HMS Malabar to persons which take the tour." His words carried a lilt like Bavagna's. A weathered hand waved towards the row of planks leading up to the pier, a rickety rail, and an empty slip, where, apparently, they were supposed to board a boat.
"Which one is the ship?" one of the ladies asked.
"Look down the line, and you might catch sight of 'er flag." He pointed down the mile-long row of blended ropes and masts.
Saira's eyes followed the direction of his tattooed arm, anchors dancing on his biceps as he waved her gaze farther out. Beyond the docked ships, she caught sight of a massive vessel moored off the wharf. Excited chatter filled the air as a small jolly boat with smudged sailors and sea-worn oars bumped against the slip that had been empty moments before. The sailors offered sun-drenched hands to the first group of ladies who hiked up their skirts and wobbled on unsteady legs into the small rowboat.
Eight hopeful women rowed out to their destination as the reality of what Saira was about to do settled around her. Three days ago, she and Miss Emma had fled from Avongburgh and huddled like war-ravaged refugees in the rooms above The Modern Modiste. Yesterday, Mrs. Lanchester received word of an available spare room in London from a friend, and last night, Saira and her aunties had flown. The tears started when the overnight coach crossed the bridge leaving Bath. They continued, steady as a summer's rain at the Marlborough toll, which distressed Bavagna. Even hard-nosed Rameswari wrapped Saira in a tight hug for the rest of the trip.
That had only been the first leg of her journey. If she bought passage, she would have months and months to convince herself that whatever Five had thought he'd done on her behalf, he had still betrayed her trust in seeking out her father or Garfield.
Stay…
Every time she attempted to lay blame at Five's feet, his last word revisited her with haunting clarity. What would he have told her upon waking from the laudanum? No, she could never have sat by his side for so long. She'd have needed to face her father again. That, she could not make herself do.
Saira wiped at her face with the back of her hand. Goodness, where were these tears coming from? Hadn't she already cried herself dry?
From the snatches of conversation around her, some of these women had been widowed. Some had been courted. Some had been abandoned in disgrace. A few had no prospects, and one looked to Saira like she was escaping out from under the thumb of her family.
Saira hated that she shared their desperation. Hated that she had her own sad story and a reason to escape this land. As she watched the next boat slide into the slip, another cluster of women settled onto the benches. The wooden planks looked sturdy enough, but the churning waters between the slats set off a warning that if she dared to walk above them, they might suck her down into their depths and she'd never come up for air.
Dread settled in Saira's belly as sure as lead sinking to the bottom of the sea.
She'd left the man she had the most reason to trust, helpless and injured, in the hands of the two men that she trusted least in the world.
What of that, Saira?
In between tours, another jolly boat docked at the slip, and a group of sailors hoisted large casks into rolling carts. One stopped and stared at her, his deep-brown eyes holding many questions. His features reminded Saira of the portrait her aunties showed her from the crate. A light sheen of sweat beaded on his dark, bare arms.
A rapid flow of Hindu shocked her ears into recognition. "Now, now, now. This is not your tree, those are not your apples. Away." The Chief mate smacked the man on the back of the head, spurring him into motion down the planks. Then he appraised Saira with his own dark eyes. His words slid back into English. "Sorry about 'im. It's his first voyage to England."
Unlike these women around her, Saira didn't have the complication of chasing after lonely English officers. She was going to marry an Indian man already promised to her. Someone who might look like that sailor carting the wheelbarrow away.
A total stranger.
Saira's heart recoiled inside her chest, causing her ache to sink deeper within her. As she continued to walk this path that had at first seemed the right thing to do, her way became murky and dull like the English weather.
Why did she feel like she was sinking her ship before it ever set sail?
The jolly boat bumped against the pier, returning the first set of women to shore.
"Two trunks," one said to the other. "I have to reduce my luggage by two trunks. How am I to survive without my hats and parasols?"
"Did you hear the captain declare it to be a fourth-rate vessel?" another declared. "I'd expect a first-rate ship for the cost of this passage!"
"The Malabar is smaller than the HMS George, but that storm tore 'er aft mast right off the deck. She's still got twenty guns, the finest fourth rate I've ever had the pleasure to sail," said the Chief mate on the shore, sounding affronted that anyone would dare to insult the HMS Malabar. Saira felt like he'd defend the ship's honor at all costs, as if the ship's honor was his to defend.
"One ship is just as good as another," she overheard. "If we don't find passage here, there will be other ships. There's no rush in getting to India. There will be other men."
Saira tried to spin her thoughts away from Five and his green eyes and his swift hands and his assertion and confident strut and his Colonial accent…
His trust…
His acceptance…
His belief that she knew her own mind and that she could make her own decisions, and the respect he had for whatever she decided for herself…
She didn't need her Gift to tell her she would not find that anywhere else.
When the boat emptied, the remaining women surged forward, but the Chief mate held them back with a hand, counting them out like chickens in a pen.
"You, you and you and you four."
He had pointed at Saira. Saira forced herself to move forward, helped along by the ladies shoving behind her, but when she put her hand on the railing, she froze.
No. This was silly. It was time to bite into those stale teacakes and steer towards a guaranteed, predictable future.
But this vision assaulted her in stark black and white, yet clear as the sun appearing from behind the clouds. She heard shouting, she smelled death. Chains and straw and prisoners packed like sheep…
Wide-eyed, Saira blinked the vision away. Her hand jerked back from the railing, unsure of who had given her those images. Someone here, or nearby, had a disturbing past, or a tragic future.
"Are you going, or not?" said a woman amidst the impatient murmurs behind her.
Saira moved aside. "I will take a different tour."
Other tours.
Other men.
Cold sweat beaded on her skin, and she staggered to the empty crates. Tours came and went as her heart took its time to stop banging around in her chest and her breathing settled to something less than gulping for air.
Her fears swirled around inside of her, being separated from her aunties by a continent… being carted off to some manor with a Lord who held little regard or respect for her… the debtor's prison where she might end up if her father continued on his self-destructive path… and all the other niggling worries that plagued her since she set foot into London intending to leave it all behind.
Saira didn't have the ticket. Yet. She hadn't abandoned England. Yet. But those truths were moments away from becoming reality. She tried to reassure herself that yes, this was the right path. Besides, the ship would not rip her away from England today. All she had to do was get up enough nerve to take the tour and purchase passage for herself and her aunties, who were resting in the room that Mrs. Lanchester had secured. And then earn enough coin to pay for however long they remained in London until the HMS Malabar set sail. Perhaps she could write to Matilda and meet her to say farewell. That thought made her heart ache even more.
By the time she pulled herself together, the sun was low, putting an orange glaze over the docks.
"Miss," the Chief mate said, approaching the crates. "It's the last tour of the day."
The crowds had thinned. Three remaining ladies were being helped into the jolly boat with plenty of room left for her. The Chief mate held out his hand, intending to help her board.
"Are you coming?"
Five stared at the plaster acanthus leaves lining the ceiling above him, trying to remember if there was a particular room in Newman's estate where they stacked bricks on top of people's heads, because the half ton weight bearing down on him was becoming unbearable. All he could see without moving were shelves lining the walls, and books spilling out of every crevice. On a wince, he turned to the side and caught sight of a writing desk covered with precarious paper stacks. An abandoned journal laid spread eagle and upside down on the chaise lounge nearby.
His gaze shifted to a pile of scattered books on the floor next to an overturned chair. A sprawl of newsprint, trampled and creased in all the wrong ways, strewn across the floor like straw in a stable. As the heavy pounding in Five's brain shifted sideways, Newman's library came into clearer focus. Someone had emptied whole sections of the lower shelves onto the floor. Furniture had been shoved well away from the center of the room, where he seemed to be laying.
On a bed?
If tornadoes could form inside buildings, it might have looked like this. A groan escaped as he slowly rotated his view to the polished hardwood floor, redecorated with splatters of crusted blood. Guessing by the pounding in his head, the tornado's name had probably been 'Five'.
Sheets clung to a prickly, sticky hotness of being unwell mixed with a needle-stabbing sensation of urgency coating his skin. He tore the bedsheets away and tried to get up, but his leg felt anchored in place. Forcing his lower body to pivot, he bumped against a table which lurched and sent a large urn crashing to the floor.
Too stubborn to concede that moving was a bad idea, Five launched himself into a sitting position. The heavy weight clanged around inside his head, and his leg-anchor lurched sideways, sliding him off the bed into a puddle next to the broken urn. From the smell, it had been a piss pot.
That's when he noticed that his sweaty, sickly skin was all that he was wearing.
Fantastic.
Footsteps hurried down the hall. A lock clicked, and the door opened.
Daniel appeared, half-dressed himself, tucking in his shirt with one hand, and setting down a barrister's bag with the other. He looked as well-rested as Five felt. Which was not at all.
"Five."
"Daniel," Five said from the floor. He was sweating now in earnest.
"You shouldn't be out of bed," Daniel said, shrugging on his suspenders.
Putting on clothes might be a good start. Five braved another bout of boulders shifting inside his skull and scanned the room, but he didn't see a pile of clothes waiting for him.
"Are you going to help me, or not?"
Daniel was wearing clothes. Maybe if he reached Daniel, he could just take them off and…
"What do you think I've been trying to do?" Daniel quipped. "The magistrate finally dismisses the coaching charges, and next thing I know, I receive a panicked letter from Newman. 'He's on death's doorstep. Make haste, before the butler helps him over the threshold', it said. So instead of signing papers with the Baron and planning the best courtship London's ever seen for 'Tilda, I'm here, trying to keep you alive. Again. For God's sake, man, it's not even sunrise. Can't you manage to regain consciousness at a decent hour?"
"I'm fine."
"You're running a fever. You've reopened your wound. And you've been entirely inhospitable to your host."
Five looked down at his bandages and saw the crimson stain seeping through. He still didn't remember how he'd gotten into Newman's library, but he clearly remembered ordering a buffoon to stab him in the leg.
"The surgeon was shit. I had to restitch everything. The rest of it is a blur."
"Let's set aside the fact that as soon as I told you to vacate the coffeehouse, you got yourself tied up in a publicly announced duel with Garfield over the Avonburgh Estate and then threw the fight."
Well, when Daniel put it that way, Five sounded like an idiot.
Daniel cleared his throat. "It was what happened after."
Right. The duel. Demanding the injury. The impending threat of tetanus. After that, Five lost the thread of the timeline. "After what?"
Daniel stewed in his own silence, as if he was trying to rein in a maddening outburst… one that Five felt like he might actually deserve.
"After what, Danny?"
Then, like a punch in the gut, it came back to him.
Saira. She had stitched him up. Kissed him. Told him she was leaving the country.
He felt the ugly clench of an empty stomach and tamped down the urge to turn his insides out onto the floor
"They told me you woke up, tried to mount a horse, ended up thrown, and now you have a twisted ankle and a displaced hip. You've been in and out of consciousness, and no one can talk sense to you. I arrived yesterday morning while you were still sleeping off the laudanum, and I've been trying to sort things out as fast as I can."
Five felt the floor drop out from under him. "How long was I out?"
"Three days."
Three days?
Five tried to get up, but his efforts resulted in limbs sprawling across the floor in a sort of panicky, jerky, useless motion. His vision was going dark around the edges, and he tried to blink the double beds above him back into one.
"They couldn't get you up the stairs with that brace. The library is the only downstairs room with a secure lock." Daniel continued on with a litany of things Five had done that his head hadn't been decent enough to remember for him, but they were all things that didn't matter, like the infection and doses of ineffectual medicine.
He only had one thing on his mind. "Where is she?" he demanded.
His friend fell silent again, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Danny," he warned.
"Can we talk about you, first?"
Five started to argue, but then Daniel blurted out, "She's gone, Five."
If he could have gotten up at that moment, he would have done several things. Since the brace on his leg kept him pinned to the floor, all he could do was waver between which order, if he had the means, he would have done them in.
He'd go after Saira…
He'd throttle Daniel, and anyone else who got in his way…
He'd put on clothes…
"I spoke with Mrs. Lanchester, who told me that Saira and her aunts left for London the day before yesterday. She's sent them to stay with a friend while they're gathering enough funds for passage to India."
Daniel was telling him all of this in a matter-of-fact tone that did nothing to quell the panic threatening to tear his head apart.
India. She'd said she had a contract… she was saving her aunts by going back…
If she was leaving the country, it meant he couldn't tell her all the things…
He remembered the words. He remembered how distraught she'd been, how she'd kissed him as if leaving was the last thing she wanted to do, but he'd passed out before he could tell her what he'd done, and why.
"Why India?"
"From what I understand, an old family friend offered her a marriage contract if she went back. They felt… at the time… that it was their only option."
Their only option… because Five hadn't given her another…
Hell, it was the one thing they'd actually talked about. Not that he'd known much else, or why, but it didn't matter. She was doing the one thing she had told him she didn't want to do… Because of her father? Because of him? If she wanted, or needed to get married, he would have delivered… somehow… But he didn't know the rules of this place well enough, and when she'd told him she was leaving, the damned laudanum hadn't let him put it all together, much less respond. All he knew was that the way she looked at him in the parlor had completely undone him. If that was the last time he would ever see her, it would rip him apart at the seams with no amount of stitching able to pull him back together.
"I have to go…" Five started pulling himself across the floor, unsure of which direction he should head. Towards Daniel seemed like a good start. At this rate, it'd take Five several minutes of struggling to even reach the spot where Daniel stood. Then there was the matter of the locked door. And possibly, clothes.
"Are you going to help me?"
Daniel crossed his arms and gave him a sour look. "Not like that, I'm not."
"What the hell, Daniel!"
"First, you'll promise me you'll get back in bed and listen to what I have to say. And remain civil about it!" Daniel's expression told him he'd already been through his own hell and wasn't about to get dragged through Five's personal circle of damnation for the fun of it.
"I promise," Five said reluctantly.
"I require more conviction than that. The last man who offered to assist you landed a heavy facer."
Five vaguely remembered a stiff man in an even stiffer suit attempting to accommodate him, and the white heat of anger slamming through his fist into something fleshy. "Is Smithers alright?"
"The bruising has gone down, but his dignity is still in question," Daniel said, helping Five back into the bed. "I did come to help, by the way. Wait here."
Daniel's stern look was made softer by the woozy feeling from the rush of standing up and sitting back down again. Sweat trickled down his back. The logical part of his brain was slowly waking up and warning him that if he didn't kick this fever, he might lose the leg to infection. Now that he was sitting up in bed, pain shot from his hip down to his ankle, telling him in no uncertain terms that he should not try those moves, or any moves, again.
There was no way he could travel to London like this.
Daniel propped the barrister's bag on the edge of the bed and sorted through a large assortment of papers until he drew out the one he was looking for, already folded back to an article from the business section of the London Times.
"Here."
Five's vision was barely clear enough to stop seeing double, but he could make out the larger print of the headlines in the trade section, sensationalizing the damaged ship returning from India that was being rerouted from London to Falmouth for repairs.
"That's the HMS George, which Mrs. Lanchester said they were seeking passage on. Investors are clamoring for insurance for their goods, because the next scheduled convoy…" he handed Five another folded back paper, this one to the remaining ships in London capable of sailing to India, "is a group of smaller vessels, one being the HMS Malabar, which is the only cargo ship fitted for passengers. Those men aren't trained for more than loading cargo. They'll moor at the East India Dock in London, until the George finishes repairs. Once the convoy is collected in the London harbor, they will sail out together. The whole matter delays the trip by at least three weeks. Bad for business. Good for us."
Five's eyes tried to focus on the details, but his head was swimming. She was really doing this. She was leaving. He swallowed a lump in his throat. If he could go back in time, what would he have done differently? Would he have made her a promise? Not knowing the timeline of
Daniel sorting out his affairs, could Five have kept it?
Breaking a promise to Saira would have killed him as easily as jumping off the edge of a cliff into a yawning chasm. But he felt as if he was already plunging into an eternal unknown, forever falling. Because every future he could imagine would be hollow without her.
Five eyed the barrister's bag, still full of papers.
"I've got every paper printed from the last week between Bath and London, and Newman is collecting subscriptions for the print coming out tomorrow. There's another bag in my room with the rest of them, but these were the most relevant."
Acting on printed news was a tactic for reactionaries, but it was all Five had at the moment. And Daniel, true to his word, had been helping.
"Thank you," he breathed.
"Can we talk about the leg, now?" Daniel asked. His apologetic tone soothed Five's frayed nerves, even though none of this was Daniel's fault. Five had brought all of this upon himself.
His leg throbbed through the bandages.
"Give me a knife."
Daniel reached into his waistband and handed him a small blade. The man might dress and sound over-the-top aristocratic, but he still thought like a man on the streets. Five approved and cut through the wrapping.
His friend winced at the sight of the inflamed skin around the stitches, accompanied by a stench stronger than the overturned piss pot. Yep, the slash looked infected, and this time, wine wasn't going to help.
"I'll get a washbasin." Five didn't miss the sound of the lock clicking into place as Daniel exited the room.
Well, hell.
Without antibiotics and steroids, coming back from this kind of infection was going to take forever. But he had to start somewhere. Somewhere, being not losing his leg to the ignorance of Regency-era wound tending.
Daniel returned with a basin of steaming water. He uprighted the table and set down clean towels. "Want me to lay dead chickens at your feet?"
When Five gave him a quizzical look, Daniel held up his hands. "My grandmother swears by the healing power of birds. By all accounts, your leg looks rotten."
Five's head fell back, and his eyes closed. He couldn't focus with the fever raging in his head. If his stomach hadn't been empty, he surely would be emptying it on the library floor. Daniel dipped a towel in the basin and dabbed at Five's wound, while telling Five that no one wanted to come in because he'd made such a scene the last time he was awake, which Five still couldn't remember. Also, how difficult, yet necessary it would be to hoist one of Newman's tubs into the library, because Five stank to the heavens, and Daniel would probably be required to stand guard since half of Newman's staff was wary of Five's fists.
His fever brain was pulling him in too many directions. His leg. London. Getting on a boat himself if he didn't make it in time to find Saira before she left the country. Wondering if he could get to India faster than a convoy of frigates, be on the shore when she arrived, and tell her what he'd done, what Garfield had agreed to. How was he going to assure her that Russell's debtors were being rounded up and paid off… to let her know she was safe and that she didn't need to run thousands of miles away?
Until the wound was flushed and his fever broke, Five was going nowhere. He half-resented needing Daniel's help, but at the same time, he was immensely grateful. At least Daniel had brought, in the form of all the papers in England, some semblance of hope. Still, in his entire life, he had never been beholden to so many people at once that he needed an entire hand to count them all.
Sir Newman for his lodgings. Mr. Smithers for his possibly reluctant, yet essential help in locating Daniel. Daniel for his… whatever Daniel provided on any given day, which was a hell of a lot more than a sandwich or calling cards. Mrs. Lanchester for sheltering Saira and her aunts. Saira, for his heart, which would probably not survive through whatever hell he'd been thrown into without her.
Congratulations, universe. Now, he was damnably codependent.
Voices drifted through the library doors from outside. "I'm not so feeble that you must hold my arm down the stairs!" Newman's voice rose to the height of irritation. "If you want to help an invalid, go to the library!"
The double doors of the library burst open, revealing Smithers, the tips of his ears pink, followed by two stable hands, grunting and heaving a large tub on a wheeled platform.
Five winced as he noticed the dark bruising across the man's face. "I apologize," he said straight away. "For the nose."
Mr. Smithers had every right to look disdainful and set down an expensive-looking tray with a package of Bandy's Lavender Soap. "The hot water will arrive shortly." His shrewd gaze took in the wrecked library, and his eyes held a longing to fix all the scattered papers and overturned books, but he also looked like he wasn't going to get any closer to Five than he had to. "Will you require anything else?"
"Epsom Salts," Five said immediately. "Or any salt at all, if that's not available." He tacked on an "if you please," because Daniel was glaring at him.
"Sir Newman has a collection of salts from Epsom in the larder." Smithers sniffed, and then covered his mouth and nose with a hand and backed out of the room.
"Good Lord! I will fetch the maid!"
Five winced as Daniel finished dabbing at his wound. "Do you think I'll get to London before the next ship leaves?"
Daniel threw the soiled towel in the washbasin and stepped away from the bed. "Look, Five, you're going to have to be patient with this. I spoke to Newman, and he told me his plans. While you're stuck here, you should listen to him. I think it would be good for you."
Five shook his head, and then regretted it.
Saira was a twelve-hour coach away, about to sail halfway across the world without knowing she had another choice. There was a chance, even if she knew what he'd done, that she would decide to leave anyway. But leaving would be on her terms, not because she was running scared from her father. Five hated to acknowledge that she might not feel the connection between them as strongly as he did… that she might have already outgrown her attraction for him. And though he'd gone to great lengths to fix her immediate problems in this corner of the world, maybe she would truly feel safer with half a planet separating them.
"I feel useless," he muttered.
"You'll feel worse if you lose this leg. Or wind up dead because you were too stubborn to take care of yourself."
That deep, raw ache that he couldn't shake had burrowed into every part of him. He'd made so many plans in his life, most of them good, solid ones. But he didn't know how to plan for this, the chance that he'd never see Saira again.
This was the downside to needing people.
Mr. Smithers returned, carrying a cask of salt, holding the door for the maid who had brought a bucket and mop to clear out the piss pot mess. They were followed by two stablehands, carrying steaming pots of water, which took several trips to fill up the tub, while Smithers manned the door.
"The maid will bring fresh towels and change the sheets in a moment. Is there anything else?" Mr. Smithers asked.
Five let out a hollow laugh, followed by a fit of coughing. "If you know anyone who could locate Saira Russell in London and convince her not to leave the country, that'd be swell."
"Miss Russell," Smithers said, knitting his brows together. "I might know someone." Without further explanation, Smithers left the library, followed by the stable hands, who had finished filling the tub with steaming water.
Daniel lent him an arm as Five maneuvered towards the tub. "As soon as you're on your way to mending, I'm back to London anyway. I'll look for her, myself if I have to."
Five grunted, dumping the whole of Sir Newman's salt store into the tub. As he sank into the hot bath, he couldn't help but think that if he survived this, and Saira was gone, what the hell kind of retirement was he supposed to have?