Dangerous Waters by Jane Jackson

shouldn’t upset her now. “My mother – She died on a ship. We were returning from America.” She fell silent, overwhelmed by renewed feelings of loss: grief for the mother she could barely remember, and for her beloved Aunt Sarah.
    â€œWere you with her?” He was tentative, as if feeling his way. She nodded. “And your father?”
    â€œHe had been killed several weeks earlier in the Battle of Yorktown.”
    â€œHe was with General Cornwallis?”
    Phoebe nodded. “He was a captain. His death was the reason we were returning to England.” She clasped her hands. “I cannot picture my mother’s face. But I still hear the sound of her weeping. It was a love-match, you see, and cost them both –” She pressed her lips together to stop the outpouring of things he had no right to know nor she to tell. “There were dreadful storms and she suffered terribly from seasickness. Then she developed a fever. Because she was already so weak –” Phoebe swallowed and shook her head. There was another silence. She felt like glass, thin as a bubble and full to the brim with unshed tears. A wrong move and she would shatter. Or they would spill.
    â€œAnd how old were you?”
    â€œFive.”
    He nodded. He didn’t say how sorry he was. He didn’t say anything. She was deeply grateful. Yet it seemed wrong to thank him. How had he known she didn’t want, couldn’t have borne, the conventional expressions of sympathy? Then she remembered he was both physician and surgeon. He would have considerable experience of death and of dealing with the bereaved. If only when Aunt Sarah died he had been –
    â€œWhat happened to you when the ship reached Falmouth? Where did you go?” His quiet question brought her out of her scattered thoughts. She swallowed painfully.
    â€œI was told that just before she – my mother spoke to the captain. When the ship arrived in Falmouth he carried me to relations who took me in. I was very happy there.” Her voice wobbled and she coughed to disguise it. “My uncle and my two cousins are all packet men. They spend most of their lives at sea. My fear must have seemed very strange to them. But they were very kind.” She gestured helplessly. “I know my dread is foolish. I am no longer a child. But –” Glancing up the companionway she shook her head, and shuddered.
    â€œMiss Dymond, will you trust me?”
    Phoebe gazed at her shoes, embarrassed by her own hesitation. “I don’t know you.” He was trying to be kind. But she was wary of trusting anyone now.
    â€œThat’s true. But as a doctor I am bound by oath as well as by inclination to preserve life. You cannot spend the entire voyage down here. Your health would suffer. Look up. Do you see the blue sky? The sun is shining. It’s a beautiful spring day. Come. No harm will befall you, I promise.”
    As he held out his hand Phoebe could feel the familiar and dreaded stirring of panic. She couldn’t . He had promised she would be safe. She couldn’t. She shook her head.
    â€œI – I can’t.” She turned her face aside. He would release her now and, his patience exhausted, walk away. But he didn’t.
    â€œAll right, not today.” Cupping her elbow once more he steered her away from the stairs and turned towards the door leading into the captain’s day cabin.
    â€œWhere are we going?”
    â€œOne moment.” Knocking, he waited an instant then turned the handle. Stepping inside he drew her gently after him.
    Light streamed in from small-paned windows above a wide padded seat that almost filled the stern wall of the cabin. There was a cabinet to one side and a bookcase on the other. In the middle of the cabin stood a table covered with books and papers on which rested some kind of nautical instrument and an inkstand. A few feet from her along the bulkhead was a