Natchez Flame Read Online Free PDF Page B

heaven, don’t let Trask find out.
She prayed that the seas would calm and that she would start feeling better. Lying down on her narrow berth, Priscilla closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but a fresh bout of nausea forced her back to the chamber pot. How would she survive five days of this torture?
    With shaky fingers, she wiped her face with a damp linen towel, then worked the buttons at the front of her dress, thankful they weren’t out of reach. Once she’d removed her horsehair petticoats, she freed the laces of her corset, no small task, took off her chemise and pantalets, and pulled on a clean cotton nightshirt. Then the ship lurched into a trough, and Priscilla felt her stomach lurch right along with it. After another harsh round of vomiting, she climbed wearily back into her narrow bunk.
    Priscilla heard the knocking at her door and roused herself from her heavy-lidded slumber.
    “Steward, Miss Wills,” a now familiar voice said. “I’ve got tonight’s supper tray.”
    Priscilla swallowed the bile that instantly rose inher throat. “I … I’m not hungry yet,” she called through the door. “But I thank you for your trouble.”
    “You sure you’re feeling all right?” His voice sounded garbled through the thick plank boards of the door.
    “I … I’m fine,” she lied. “I’ll go down to the salon and get something later.” She’d been telling him that for the past three days. Telling the same thing to Trask, whenever he came to her door, which wasn’t that often. She guessed he believed her, because he always seemed relieved.
    In truth, she’d been lying on her berth, barely able to move, so weak she did little besides vomit and drift back to sleep. The room smelled so foul she wouldn’t even let the steward in—she’d clean it herself, she vowed, just as soon as she felt able.
    Lulled by the vibrations of the steamship’s engines, Priscilla shifted on the berth, and her hand brushed the book of Robert Burns’s poems she had tried unsuccessfully to read. She lifted the small leather-bound volume, but her hand shook so hard she dropped it on the floor. It was stifling in the airless little cabin, and the smell of her own sickness nearly overwhelmed her.
    Just two more days to Corpus Christi—or was it three? She felt so dizzy it was sometimes hard to remember. Surely the seas would soon calm and she’d be able to get back on her feet. She’d scrub the offensive odors from the cabin before anyone discovered her secret. No one ever need know how terribly sick she had been.
    Least of all the tall, handsome man who acted as her escort. The thought of Brendan Trask seeing herlimp and disheveled caused another round of lightheadedness. She would do anything to keep that from happening—anything.
    Priscilla refused to ask herself why Brendan Trask’s approval had become so important.
    “Excuse me, sir,” the little steward said. “Aren’t you Trask, the man who’s traveling with the lady downstairs?”
    “I’m Trask.” Brendan rested on a deck box, his feet propped up, watching the rising moon against the backdrop of the sea. “Why?”
    “I’m worried about her, sir.” Black-haired and sporting a tiny mustache, the steward stood facing him, a cloth-covered tray in his hands. “Every time I take her a tray, she says she’ll get something to eat in the salon. She never lets me in—won’t even open her door.”
    “So she’s eating in the salon,” Brendan said absently, but he felt a little guilty for abandoning her so completely.
    “Nobody’s seen her down there. Cook hasn’t made anything special—I think she’s … well, just saying that, sir, to keep me away. I don’t think she’s had a bite of food for the last three days.”
    “What?” Brendan swung his long booted legs to the deck and stood up. “Surely you’re mistaken.” But she’d said those same words to him each day, just as she had the steward.
    “Sea’s been pretty rough, sir. If the lady wasn’t