The Earl's Untouched Bride by Annie Burrows

he would be sorry. She whimpered, reaching for the conveniently positioned bucket yet again. Or would he? No, he would probably just shrug one shoulder and declare that it was a great pity, but after all he could always marry someone else. It was not as though he cared for her — no, not one jot. How could he, to leave her to endure such suffering alone?

    Not that she wanted him to see her in such a demeaning state, she amended, heaving into the bucket for what seemed like the hundredth time.

    Oh, when would this nightmare be over? How long before she could leave this foul-smelling cupboard and breathe fresh air again?

    Never, she realised, after an eternity had rolled and pitched relentlessly past. Though she could hear the sounds of the hull grating against the dock, of officers shouting commands and sailors running to obey, she was too weak to so much as lift her head from the coarse cotton pillow.

    'Come, now, my lady,' she heard her husband's voice say, none too patiently. 'We have docked. It is high time to disembark — Good God!'

    The evidence of Heloise's violent seasickness finally caught his eyes.

    'Go away,' she managed resentfully when he approached the bunk, stern purpose in his eyes. He was a brute to insist she get up and move. Later, once the ship had remained steady for several hours, she might regain the strength to crawl. 'Leave me here to die,' she moaned.

    'Nobody has ever yet died of seasickness,' he said briskly, swinging her into his arms. It was amazing how cheerful he felt to discover it was seasickness which had kept her belowdecks, when he had been imagining her lying there weeping for her lost freedom. 'I know it must have been unpleasant for you, but you will be right as a trivet once you get upon dry land.'

    'Unpleasant?' she protested. 'I have never suffered anything so horrid. How could you be so cruel as to force me to go to sea in a storm? I think — ' she hiccupped down a sob ' — that I hate you.'

    'I am sure you don't mean that,' he reproved her mildly. Although he wasn't at all convinced. 'Besides, the sea was scarcely more than a bit choppy.' He consoled himself with the reflection that, even if she did hate him, nothing but the direst distress would ever induce her to endure another sea voyage.

    He had planned to push on to London straight away, but he could not force Heloise to travel in her weakened state. He told the coachman to stop at the first hotel that could offer a suite of rooms.

    He left her to herself for as long as he could. But when night fell concern for her had him knocking on her door and marching in before she had time to deny him admittance.

    She was sitting up in bed, looking much better. Indeed, the nearer he got to the bed, the rosier her cheeks grew...

    He checked in the middle of the room, biting down on a feeling of irritation. Did she think he was crass enough to insist on his marital rights, after she had been so ill? But before he could begin to defend himself Heloise blurted out, 'Oh, I am so sorry, Charles, about what I said.'

    'What exactly that you said are you apologising for?' He frowned, drawing a chair to her bedside and settling himself on it.

    'For saying that I hate you! I thought you meant to force me to walk off that ship and try to behave like a lady, when all I wished to do was die. I never guessed you were going to pick me up and carry me. And I had spent the entire voyage cursing you, so it was hard to get myself out of thinking that everything was entirely your fault. Indeed, at that precise moment I think I did hate you. But of course now I have calmed down I fully accept it is not your fault that I have seasickness. And you weren't at all cruel to force me to go on that ship. It would only have been cruel if you had known how ill I would be — and how could you, when I never knew myself? For I have never been on a ship before!'

    'Nor will you ever set foot on one again,' he said with determination.

    She shuddered.