I felt a stir of excitement, but I hesitated, looking at Hari. She just nodded and smiled. This was the new Hari, I realized. She was seeing life through a different lens.
“I would love to,” I said, placing my hand in John’s large one.
He gently pulled me to my feet and carved a path to the dance floor, where couples were beginning to gather. He began a frenzied step dance punctuated by wrapping his great arm around my waist and twirling me through the air. I was a poor, uncoordinated dancer, but that mattered little as my feet rarely touched the ground. At first, I tried to find my footing, but eventually I gave myself over to John’s lead and trusted him not to let go of me, as I was sure I might fly overboard.
By the third dance, my hair had broken free of the pins that held it and my carefully constricted chignon slid from the top of my head to one side. At a break in the music, I made a rather inept attempt to fix it.
“Don’t,” John said, leaning in close. “I rather prefer the mermaid look.”
I laughed and, once more, felt the energy between us change. And at the moment, the music slowed. I went to return to my seat, but John took my hand.
“You can’t leave just when I finally get a chance to put my arms around you,” he whispered in my ear.
His warm hand pressed the small of my back, and I put my right hand in his and the other on his shoulder. For a man of his size, he was surprisingly graceful, and I felt equally elegant as we covered the floor with great swirling steps.
“You’re a wonderful dancer,” I said, looking up at him. My curiosity got the better of me. “It seems you’ve had plenty of dancing partners before me.”
“Yes, many,” he said. “But none like you. I certainly didn’t expect to find someone so charming and intelligent on the voyage.”
We continued to dance our slow waltz, and I had nowhere to look but into his cobalt-blue eyes. The rest of the world fell away. There was no boat under our feet, no people around us.
At the end of the evening, I scanned the seats for Harriet, but she must have already gone back to the cabin. John walked me to my door. Other passengers lingered on deck, so he politely kissed my hand before heading off to his own room. As I watched him go, I thought about what had transpired between us in the last weeks. I felt such a strong attraction to him, but a sliver of doubt lingered in my heart—not in John, but in myself. It was my own words that came back to me, what I had told Hari about the emigrant women being on the verge of real freedom.
As I stood on the threshold, I heard the metallic rumble of the ship’s anchor followed by a gentle roll of the deck beneath my feet. We had set sail for the dreaded Cape Horn and the bottom of the earth.
Chapter Twenty-eight
I woke at first light to the sounds of someone being sick.
“Harriet?” I croaked, rubbing my eyes. “Is that you?”
I stumbled out into the main room, where Hari was pooled in a heap on the floor, vomiting into the blue basin. She looked up at me, face pale.
“I don’t feel well, Char,” she said hoarsely.
I went to her side and pulled her hair out of her face. Slowly, she told me that she had been vomiting for a couple of hours, and the pain in her stomach was getting worse. I helped her back into bed, then ran to get Dr. Carson.
“Others have this as well,” he told me. He had examined Harriet and given her something to calm her stomach, and she was now asleep. “It came on so quickly that I think it must be some sort of food poisoning.”
“But I’m not sick,” I said, then I remembered the dinner of game hens I had pushed away. “Do you think she’ll be okay?”
“At this point I don’t know.”
I detected a note of urgency in his voice that I had come to know. “Tell me honestly, Dr. Carson.”
He sighed. “I wish she hadn’t relapsed with the drug taking. She’ll need all her strength to recover from this. The key is getting her to hold down fluids. I’ll leave her with you. If she wakes up, have her suck on a cloth dipped in water.”
After touching my arm lightly in sympathy, he closed the door behind him softly, but the hollow thud was enough to wake Hari from her fitful sleep. I sat gingerly on the edge of her bed.
“How do I look?” Harriet asked with a faint smile.
“As beautiful as always,” I said, mustering a grin of my own. “More important, how are you feeling?”
“Better now. Just weak.”
“Rest. I’m here to take care of you.” I handed Hari the damp cloth, and her stomach seemed to tolerate the tiny bit of fluid.
There was a soft knock at the cabin door, and I went to answer it. John stood at the threshold, concern on his face. “I just ran into Dr. Carson. How is she?”
“We hope she’s on the mend,” I said. “Just a matter of rest now.”
“Glad to hear it. Sarah sends her best,” he said, taking my hand and squeezing it gently. “I don’t want to pull you away. I just wanted to see you. I’ll check again later.”
“Thank you, John.”
He went to leave, then turned back and offered a small smile. When he’d gone, I came back into the room. “That was John, Hari, wishing you a speedy recovery.”
At the mention of his name, Hari’s brow creased. “Charlotte, there’s something I need to tell you. I’ve heard something about John. Reverend Burk saw the two of you dancing and bombarded me on my way back to my cabin.”
Nothing the Burks had to
