As she walked away, Mercy quietly closed the door and leaned against it. Her heart thudded a hard tempo. Why had she sent Miss Lawrence away? Surely she wasn’t jealous or concerned that Joseph would show interest in other women.

She shook her head adamantly but couldn’t shake the realization that the only woman she wanted Joseph to be with was herself.

twenty

How is Sarah this morning?” Joseph asked as he entered the sick bay. He shook the rain from his coat and had to brace himself against the sway of the ship as she battled the choppier waters north of the equator.

Mercy sat on the edge of Sarah’s bed, holding a cloth against the girl’s wan face. At the early hour, Mercy was already dressed in the blue gown she always wore. He’d ashamedly realized it was her only gown when he went to fetch her belongings from her cabin the first morning she was quarantined.

The girls in her quarters had handed him one set of clothing and her shoes. When he’d inquired after the rest, they shrugged and told him that was all. He was surprised by his anger over her meager wardrobe and was tempted to ask the captain to drop anchor at the next port city, so he could take Mercy into town and buy her a dozen gowns.

But such a demand would have mortified Mercy, causing her to retreat back into herself. And he didn’t want to risk that again, not after they’d formed a solid friendship while she was quarantined with Sarah.

“I think she took a turn for the worse during the night, the poor lamb,” Mercy answered without breaking from her ministrations.

“I suppose that means you didn’t sleep much.” He’d given Mercy leave of his stateroom and moved to another one amidships. Most of the passengers knew by now that Sarah was deathly ill with a possible case of smallpox. Yet with no sign of blisters, he’d begun to think they had escaped an outbreak.

None of the other girls from Mercy’s cabin had developed any symptoms, so after several days he’d lifted their quarantine. Even so, he hadn’t lifted the quarantine on Sarah or Mercy.

It wasn’t safe yet, he’d told himself. There was still the chance that what Sarah suffered was contagious, typhus perhaps. Her fever lasting almost two weeks was symptomatic. But without the telltale red rash upon her abdomen and back, he couldn’t be certain.