Tides of Lust by Alana Church

Author:Alana Church [Church, Alana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0000000000000
Published: 2021-11-03T16:43:43+00:00

*****

The next two weeks were a torment for William.

By day, he cared for the ill sailor women of the Pink Pearl. Flatly opposed to putting them back down in the stinking hold, especially after Captain O’Leary had told him the tale of their abduction, rebellion, and escape, he had an awning rigged out of spare canvas, putting as many of them in the shade as he could. The healthy women grumbled about being forced to work around the sick, but a steely glare from the captain kept the murmurs of protest low.

Day after back-breaking day he cared for the ill, until a small, loathsome part of him began to first resent, and then to actively hate them for their sickness. But he hated the illness more, and roused to a fury, racked his brains for any way to defeat it. Over and over, he fed boiled water to the sick, as much as they could hold, laced with salt and sugar and honey. The best food went to them as well, despite the protests of the cook. When a heavy thunderstorm hit on the fourth day, he ordered every vessel that could be set out to catch the rain, grateful beyond words for water which he knew beyond doubt would be clean.

And they were winning. Slowly, painfully, the tide of illness began to recede. No new sick came forward after his third day on the ship. And when Tilly, a tiny girl of no more than sixteen who had been apprenticed to a seamstress in Boston, staggered up from her cot, insisting that she was well enough to go back on duty, it was all he could do to keep his face from cracking with a victorious grin.

He stood, his hands on his hips, on the morning of the thirteenth day on board. The seventeen sick women who had greeted him when he first came on board had been reduced to nine, all rapidly improving. Two had died, their bodies sewn into sailcloth shrouds and consigned to the deep. The rest had returned to duty, though a few were still hollow-eyed and weak.

A faint, sweet scent came to his nose, and he turned to find Captain O’Leary standing beside him. “You have done very well, my lord.” For once, there was no mockery when she used his title. “How long until the rest are back on their feet?”

“Only a few more days, I think. I do not think any of them are malingering.”

The captain shook her head. “Nor do I. They have all come too close to death for them to pretend to be sick. I will say,” she said, looking up at him through her sooty lashes, her gray eyes glinting in the morning light, “A sea life agrees with you, my lord.”

He smiled wryly. The constant work of caring for the women had forced him to severe changes in the way he dressed. He had shed his coat and neckcloth, and now wore only trousers, a shirt which usually had the sleeves rolled up above his elbows, and his boots.

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