Amaryllis by Joyce Proell

Author:Joyce Proell [Proell, Joyce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fiction, American Revolution, George Washington, smuggling, spies, colonial America, NYC, shipboard romance, feisty heroine
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Published: 2018-11-18T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Something thumped and scraped against the floorboards and woke Lily. Woozy, she grabbed her head. It felt thick as cotton. Somewhere outside the cabin, footsteps thudded. Brusque voices whispered. She strained to see in the shadows and half-expected a crazed marauder to barge through her doorway. A man swore and fright lodged in her throat. What in blazes was going on?

“Griffin.” She swept a hand across his pillow. Cool and empty. “Griffin?”

Another unaccountable bump startled her.

We’re under attack!

Panicked, she threw aside the covers and scrambled from the bed. Arms outstretched in the dark, she stumbled on rubbery legs to the desk, baffled by her unsteady gait. A quick headshake didn’t dispel the drowsiness. Thickheaded and exhausted, she groped for the flint box, struck a flame and lit the wick. The pungent aroma of the spermaceti candle rose in the air. At once, she noted the absence of Griffin’s clothes. He’d dropped them on a chair before they’d fallen into bed. The image of entwined arms and legs and hot kisses caused a pleasurable shiver. Enough time for memories later. She must find him.

After throwing on a dressing gown, she stuffed her feet into slippers. From the washstand, she grabbed Griffin’s straight razor to serve as a weapon. The pewter candleholder clutched in a clammy hand, she listened at the door but heard nothing beyond the noisy pulse in her head. She reached for the doorknob and hesitated. Perhaps it made more sense to remain inside the locked cabin. Let them come to me she reasoned boldly even as she quaked with fear.

Beyond the door, someone moaned with a sound so pitiful it echoed in her bones. Worried it was Griffin, she threw open the door. Without hesitation, she lumbered into the corridor, surprised at her clumsiness.

Light spilled from the surgeon’s doorway. Though his back was to her, she recognized Samuel Church by his black hair and slender frame standing at the doctor’s examination table. Mead, at the table’s head, issued a command. Church shifted enough to reveal the bottom half of a man clothed in brown breeches stretched lengthwise on the slab.

Griffin. Her fear skyrocketed. Willing her leaden legs to respond, she shot across the corridor. At the door’s threshold, a brawny arm blocked her path.

“Let me pass, Mr. Tubbs.” The strength in her voice sounded more forceful than she felt.

The behemoth didn’t budge. He eyed Mead, who after a moment’s grave deliberation, nodded with a haggard, resigned expression. “Let her pass.” Tubbs shrugged and dropped the thick tree-limb arm.

Lily drove past the giant into a room filled with hundreds of tiny colored bottles, brass bowls, and books shelved on the walls. Instantly, the rusty tang of blood, sweat and whale oil assaulted her.

Dour faced, Church looked none too happy at her intrusion. “It’s best you not be here.” Weariness bleached his typically sun-tanned skin. Eyeing the razor clutched in her stiff fingers, he dragged a hand across the black stubble on his chin. “You can put away the weapon.

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