Trouble by Lex Croucher

Author:Lex Croucher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zaffre Publishing

Chapter Eighteen

E

mily wasn’t sure how exactly they made it up the cliffs and to the house. She was primarily concerned with keeping Grace moving, although she had to stop a few times to encourage some poor trembling sailor who looked ready to give up and die where he fell.

The chaos didn’t stop when she made it across the threshold.

She deposited Grace in the kitchen with Joe, who had immediately set about warming vast pans of broth, and then walked through each room, stoking the fires and pulling the curtains shut to try to preserve as much warmth as possible. Men huddled in sodden little piles around the hearths, leaving sand and puddles of seawater all over absolutely everything. They at least had the good sense not to sit on the furniture.

When they were all settled and there was nothing more Emily could practically do, she returned to Joe and Grace and found herself on another production line. She was so exhausted that she just accepted whatever she was given without comment, did as she was told, chopped vegetables and portioned up soup, then helped Akia carry it upstairs to the men, who grabbed on as if they were still drowning and this soup was to be their saviour.

Ten minutes after she had returned downstairs to the kitchen, Emily looked up from her work to discover that Captain Edwards was standing next to her. He had changed his clothes and was chopping carrots with mechanical precision, hair still wet, exhaustion that rivalled her own only showing around his eyes. He was standing so close to her that his arm brushed hers whenever he reached for a new carrot. She hadn’t even noticed.

‘Joe wants them thinner than that,’ she said. ‘Quicker to cook.’

Captain Edwards glanced up at her, his expression unreadable. When he spoke, his voice was monotonous and hoarse.

‘Are you giving me orders in my own kitchen?’

‘It’s Joe’s kitchen,’ said Emily. ‘Still not thin enough. Look at mine if you want to see how to do it.’

Emily wasn’t sure if Captain Edwards knocked her arm by accident, or if he had just intentionally given her a gentle nudge of reproach before he resumed chopping. She darted a look at him and found him looking as inscrutable as ever; he was at least cutting the carrots correctly this time.

They worked together side by side like that for at least an hour, and developed a rhythm that stopped them from bumping into each other; Captain Edwards noticed every time Emily ran out of vegetables to chop, and rolled some more towards her. It was almost companionable, if Emily put aside the fact that every time their arms brushed now she felt a strange, shivery jolt run up her from wrist to elbow.

She remembered him drunk at this same table, leaning towards her, soft and unguarded. It had been hard to reconcile that man with the one she had dealt with in the past, but today it made sense to her that he might reside somewhere in the middle.

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