Chapter 32
Inside Passage; One Week Later
The pain was worse than she’d expected. Rosalind squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the rocking of the ship to ease, but no sooner had the ship straightened than it was caught up on another wave.
Up and down, up and down. Each movement jarred her ribs and sent flashes of agony through her body.
She wasn’t one who typically got seasick, but the pain was bad enough that her stomach was starting to feel queasy.
She whimpered, then tucked her knees against her chest, curling herself into a ball on the bed in the captain’s cabin.
And to think that Dr. Reid had said the ship would be the gentler part of the journey.
He was more concerned about the train, but she couldn’t imagine being in more pain.
The constant moving was causing more agony than when her father had nearly beaten her to death ten days ago.
“Rosalind?” The door to the cabin creaked open, and Yuri’s voice filled the room, but she didn’t acknowledge him.
“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Hurried footsteps approached the bed, but she wasn’t going to roll over and look at him. That would only hurt more.
Oh, heavens, she was such a child, not even able to roll over in her bed.
“Rosalind, darling?” Yuri stroked her hair away from her face, then settled a hand on her shoulder. “Do you need help? What can I do?”
“It hurts,” she rasped. “Nathan was right. I’m not strong enough to make the journey, and this was supposed to be the easy part.”
“There’s a storm coming, and the sea is wild. Normally I would tell Captain White to ride it out, but we can seek shelter off one of the islands until it passes.”
“No. Don’t make the whole ship wait on me. We’ve already booted the captain out of his cabin, and the ship is making an extra stop in Portland just for me. Tell Captain White to keep going. I’ll be— Ah!”
The ship came down hard off a particularly large swell, causing her to bounce against the mattress. Flames licked the lower part of her chest, and she curled herself into an even tighter ball.
“Hang on. Let’s see if this helps.” Yuri kicked off his boots and climbed onto the bed behind her. Careful not to touch her ribs, he slid his arm over her lower stomach and hips.
It would have been a wholly inappropriate position had they not been married, but the Russian Orthodox priest had come to the house yesterday evening to marry them before they left.
They’d also signed paperwork to annul the marriage and even had the priest sign it, along with writing a statement that claimed she’d been under duress at the time of the marriage.
“Does this feel better?” He spoke into her hair. “Are you moving less with me behind you?”
She drew in a shallow breath, and only then did she realize the pain had lessened right along with the pleasant warmth filling her chest. “I . . . It doesn’t make any sense.
Why is there less pain?” It was still greater than when she’d boarded the ship, and she could still feel the rising and falling of the vessel as it bobbed on the water, but this was certainly better.
“Nathan told me I might need to try this. Having something firm against your back can lessen how much you move, but a wall or board would be too firm and an unnatural shape, so he suggested I lie behind you and brace your body so that I absorb most of the movement.”
“It’s nice.” Too nice, really. She could get a little too used to feeling Yuri’s arms around her.
She’d longed for this very thing more than once before she’d been injured. Now he was here doing it as her husband—a husband she couldn’t keep. “You don’t have to stay, though. I’m sure there are other things you should be doing.”
“Taking care of you is my priority. Everything else can wait.” He smoothed another strand of hair away from her cheek and tucked it behind her ear, then nuzzled his face into the hair hanging wild and free behind her.
She pressed her eyes shut and relaxed into him. She could stay like this forever, curled in Yuri’s arms and letting the heat from his body seep into her back. It made her feel like she was the most cherished, protected person in the world.
And it made her wonder how she was going to be able to watch the person who made her feel so cherished walk out of her life after he took her to Texas.
Washington Coast; One Night Later
“I can’t breathe . . . Let me go. I can’t breathe!”
Yuri sat upright on the pallet where he’d been sleeping on the floor of the cabin.
“Please, you have to let me go.”
“Rosalind?” Yuri looked in the direction of the bed, but inky blackness filled the ship’s cabin.
A weak cry sounded next.
He threw off his covers and stood. “Rosalind, what’s wrong?”
Panicked breathing met his words, followed by the rustle of sheets and the thump of a hand hitting the wooden headboard.
“No— Please— Stop—I can’t breathe. Let go of me! I can’t breathe!”
Yuri felt his way toward the bed in the darkness, then reached out, blindly trying to find his wife. “Rosalind?”
She was facing the opposite direction, hunched in on herself as sobs shook her shoulders.
“Ros?” He gave her a gentle shake. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain? Did something happen?”
She jerked, and the sudden movement was followed by an immediate whimper. “Yuri?”
“What’s wrong, darling? Are you in pain?”
“I was having a nightmare.” Tears clogged her voice. “Did I wake you? I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right. I don’t mind being woken. Do you need anything? Is there something I can get you? I can go down to the kitchen and brew some willow-bark tea if you’re in pain.”
“No.” She clasped his hand, and only then did he realize she was trembling. “No. Don’t leave. Please.”
“I won’t. Here, let me onto the bed. You can rest your back against my chest until the pain calms down.” He climbed onto the bed and lay down, just like he had yesterday during the storm.
“How do you know I’m in pain?” she whispered into the darkness.
“How you were moving had to have jarred things. Was it that bad of a dream?”
She seemed to be crying an awful lot for a nightmare, especially one that had ended.
He wrapped an arm over her lower stomach, then slid his body fully behind hers so she didn’t have to move.
But she didn’t relax into him, not like last time. She stayed stiff and tense in his arms. “I’m sorry. You said we’re passing Seattle tonight. I know I’m in a ship, and I know Leeland’s not going to row out and get me, but I . . .”
She’d been dreaming about Leeland? He wrapped his arm more tightly about her. “You kept saying you couldn’t breathe.”
“I did?”
He stroked a strand of wayward hair away from her cheek. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
Part of him wanted to demand an answer. She was clearly terrified.
The fact she’d been pleading for breath—and that it had somehow been related to Leeland—made him want to swim to shore and strangle the man in his bed.
But he was trying to give Rosalind as many choices as possible, which meant he was going to give her the choice to talk to him.
“He didn’t strangle me, not exactly. But he knew right where to put his thumb.
One moment I was breathing just fine, the next I could only get half my air, and the next .
. .” A shudder wracked her body, and she let out a small whimper.
He had no way of telling if it was because of her ribs or the memory.
“I wasn’t wearing his necklace, you see.
I had his ring on, but not the necklace.
He said I needed to wear it all the time, and then he cut off my air and told me it would be worse if he found me without it again. ”
“The sapphire one? The one you didn’t take off until after we were married?”
“Yes.” Tears choked her voice.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did.”
“You didn’t. I would have remembered.”
“I didn’t tell you about my throat, but I told you I wanted to leave. I went to the library the very next day and worked until you showed up, waiting to tell you that I wanted you to take me away. Remember?”
That’s what had prodded her to finally accept his help? Why hadn’t she told him everything? He wouldn’t have let her return to her father’s house to look for evidence against him. He would have gotten her away from Sitka that night.
“I was in my nightgown too,” she continued, her voice still trembling. “It was late at night when he found me. I’d sneaked down to the kitchen to get some food, because he wasn’t letting me eat much . . .”
Vandermeer wasn’t letting her eat much? Yuri’s hand tightened into a fist against her stomach. Just how much of a monster had her fiancé been? And why was this the first time he was hearing about it?
“I was going to search my father’s study, but then Leeland was there in the hallway, and he made some kind of comment about me being in my nightgown and our wedding night, and .
. . and . . . How come your entire family saw me in my nightgown—or less than my nightgown, really—but that never made me feel ashamed?
How come lying here with you in my nightgown with your arm wrapped around me doesn’t make me feel dirty, but after one second in Leeland’s presence, I felt like a prostitute? ”
“I don’t know, darling, but I’m so very sorry. No man should ever make you feel dirty. And no man should ever cut off your air to teach you a lesson. And no man should ever tell you how much food you can or can’t eat.”
These all seemed like statements that shouldn’t need to be said, like things that should be fundamentally understood. But he wasn’t sure that Rosalind knew them, which made him wonder just how much his wife had endured before God had brought her to him.
“He wanted me to be thinner for our wedding. That’s why he wasn’t letting me eat much food,” she added. Almost as though another person trying to starve her was some sort of afterthought. “He said my corset needed to be laced tighter for the wife of someone with his social standing.”
Yuri pressed his eyes shut and buried his face in her hair.
“I hate him. I absolutely hate him. I didn’t want you to marry him even without knowing this, but now that I know it .
. .” His throat became hoarse. “You listen to me. You have nothing to fear anymore. Do you understand that? You’re my wife now, and I’m going to take care of you, and you have nothing to be scared of. ”
“‘Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.’”
“Yes, exactly,” he whispered through a thick throat.
“Do you remember when you told me that? It was the night of Bryony’s wedding reception, when you found me standing outside in the snow and offered to take me with you to San Francisco. I’ve used it a lot since that night. So many times, really.”
“I’m glad that verse gave you strength, but I’m also going to use every last bit of effort and leverage I have to make sure you’re never again in a position where you feel afraid. Do you understand?”
She nodded, the back of her head bumping against his chest as she moved. “Yes.”
“Good. Now get some rest.” He tightened his grip on her, then paused to see if her body tensed with pain. It didn’t, so he kept her pressed tightly against him, then nuzzled his mouth beside her ear and prayed, hoping it would be enough to soothe her mind from the horrors she’d endured in Sitka.