Ashley had pleasured me there. The admiral had abused me there. Priest knew this.

He knew that not all my wounds were visible.

“We need to talk about Ashley,” I said.

Not today. A firm response as he rose from the bed and covered me with the sheet. Sleep.

“How did you get your burn scars?”

Later.

I hated those soundless words. “I want my hearing back. I miss your voice.”

He kissed my brow then my lips. Soft, warm, whispering kisses that gradually lulled me into the sweet surrender of slumber.

The next few days passed in a flurry of activity—meals, medicine, exercise, and a parade of livered servants. Ashley’s manor was fully staffed, and every seamstress, housekeeper, cook, and maid seemed to know my husband on a smiling, tittering, intimate level.

While I slept often and needfully, Priest must have made himself well acquainted with the resident females. I daresay most of the women were twice my age, but that wasn’t the reason for my indifference about it.

He’d proved his loyalty to me so many times over the past few months, I knew in my heart he wouldn’t betray me again.

My rigorous exercise began in bed with his hands supporting my limbs as I repeatedly sat up, lifted small objects, flexed joints, and stretched muscles. I put myself on a strict tiresome routine that lasted hours several times a day. When I wasn’t sleeping and eating, I was sweating, shaking, grunting, and oftentimes screaming at the rafters in agony and frustration. But I was growing stronger.

Servants came and went. Meals were delivered. Fabrics were hauled in, cut, and sewn to fit my measurements. The ship’s surgeon, Lieutenant Flemming, had returned to London with Ashley. But Ipswich was here. Lucky me.

I sat on the edge of the bed as he waddled around me, probing tools in my ears, thumping at the bones in my arm, poking, prodding, and running his mouth with a sour look on his wrinkled face.

“I might be as deaf as an adder.” I stared into his cloudy eyes. “But I can hear you insulting me, you senile old curmudgeon.”

He grinned without teeth.

Perhaps I should have punched his impudent mug. But I owed him my life. After everything thing he’d done for me, I could only shake my head and laugh.

By the end of the week, I walked on my own. The steps were few but strong. I paced the bedchamber, lifting brass candlesticks, one in each hand. Back and forth, I went. Panting, trembling, and soaked with sweat, I worked my muscles until they limped. Then I plucked one of the swords from the stand in the corner and used it as a crutch to power through.

Sometimes I stepped out on the balcony and gazed upon my majestic galleon far below, where she moored in Ashley’s private bay of cliffs. I missed her and my crew.