It was more difficult to find a space to sit inside, but they managed to find a bench that was empty. The impending darkness was more noticeable below deck.
“I’ve never traveled without a cabin,” she said.
“Not even just to the plantation?”
“Not even,” she admitted
“This is a new experience then,” he said
“And one I’m not interested in repeating. We should have brought food.”
“I can go in search of food.” He nodded, looking around. “Other people have food.”
“I think they brought it with them, but you can go look.”
“I will do that. Will you be alright here?”
“There isn’t really anyplace I can go,” she said. He could tell the crowdedness and discomfort was beginning to wear on her.
Later that evening, after they had eaten some bread and fried chicken, Camille felt that her eyelids were going to fall closed. She leaned her head back and felt herself nodding off.
Bradley shifted on the bale of cotton they had found to sit on.
He must have apologized about ten times for being the one responsible for her not having a cabin to sleep in, much less a bed.
It’s not his fault, she thought, as her head wobbled sleepily.
Bradley shifted again, this time putting his arms around her and guiding her head to his lap. She didn’t know where he’d found a pillow, but she was grateful.
She couldn’t hold her eyes open any longer and would have fallen asleep standing up if he hadn’t been there to save her.
Bradley blamed himself. Camille should never have been on a boat without a cabin to sleep in. She was much too delicate. And, he thought, glancing warily around, it wasn’t exactly safe to be out here in the open. Sleeping. Most of what Camille referred to as the refined people were upstairs, either in their cabins or dancing and drinking in the ballroom. He could hear some more boisterous folks laughing and singing on the outside lower deck. He watched another young man pass by, glancing at Camille as he passed. Everyone at least glanced at Camille. She was a siren for men’s eyes.
He would have to stay awake while she slept. Resigned to not getting any sleep, he gazed down at the one he vowed to protect.
Her lips were slightly parted in sleep. Her eyelashes were dark smudges against her porcelain skin. He couldn’t resist picking up a lock of her long, raven hair. So soft. Every protective instinct he had was on full alert.
He looked around and wondered what he, a pilot, could possibly do if they were attacked. He hoped and prayed that, unlike in the movies, they wouldn’t be disturbed.
Leaning his head back against the wall, he took a deep steadying breath. He’d had a few appointments with a psychologist after his sister had gone back in time. Though he’d been supportive, he was left with grief. He’d even told the psychologist that his sister had died. Which, in truth, for him, she had.
The psychologist had guided him through the process of grieving and dealing with the subsequent anxiety. She given him a prescription for Xanax and taught him to relax. Taught him that anxiety comes from trying to control things that he couldn’t control. And truthfully, there was very little anyone could control. It was all an illusion.
At the time, that idea seemed to help him, but right now, he found it depressing.
Shifting his thoughts, he went back to the problem at hand. Camille was the woman for him. He had very little lingering doubt that destiny had put him here to be with her. The problem was finding a way to support her in the manner she was accustomed to. He scoffed. In this world, he was a pauper, and although it was by accident that they were sleeping in a public area on a cotton bale, even if there had been room available, he wouldn’t have been able to even afford the smallest of cabins.
It was too soon to tell her how her felt about her. Or was it? She trusted him enough to come on this journey with him. But was it more than trust? Did she feel the love that he felt?
His eyes were heavy. He wasn’t sure he was going to make it through the night.
She stirred and opened her eyes, then shifted to sit up. “Do you want to sleep for a little while?” she asked. “I can keep watch and wake you when I get sleepy again.”
“You are a God-send,” he said, too drowsy to even question how she’d known that he was staying awake to keep watch.
Camille moved the haversack she’d mistaken for a pillow into her own lap. She patted it for Bradley to put his head in her lap.
“Just for minute,” he said. “Wake me up when you start to get sleepy.”
“I will,” she said, but in truth she was wide awake now. There was so much to think about. She had never travelled without a chaperone and the whole trip was one of the most exciting things she’d ever done. Indeed, it was hard to sit still, when there was so much excitement all around them. Music drifted from the upper deck, where she knew there would be dancing and laughter. There were still a few people walking about, but most who had come below, had come looking for a place to sleep. Other than the occasional passerby, the nearest person was an elderly man asleep on a cotton bale several feet away.
Bradley had instantly fallen asleep when his head hit her lap. He was snoring so very lightly she could barely hear it. She smiled at the notion that she knew that about him. It seemed risqué that that she knew so much about a man she wasn’t married to.
Her thoughts looped around to one of the things she liked so much about him. Things besides him being handsome and kind. She like it that he wasn’t a plantation owner or a tavern owner or an owner of anything. She liked it that he had nothing. He was the one man she had ever met who would not try to take her away from her home and her family.
Camille was nothing if not loyal to home and family. That was the primary reason she remained single at age twenty-two. She’d had ample offers from suitors and both her mother and her father had urged her to find a suitable husband before it was too late. Camille had hoped it was too late. Besides, her brothers were older than she and neither of them had been pressured into taking a wife.
But then there was Bradley. She ran her fingers through his smooth short hair. He looked so… clean compared to the men she was accustomed to. He was most handsome.
As she sat, studying him, allowing her mind to wander freely, she wondered if he was the one who could entice her away from her home.
She sighed with relief that she didn’t have to make that choice. She could bring him into her fold, knowing that he had no reason not to stay.
He stopped snoring and stirred. She jerked her hand away from his hair, feeling the flush on her cheeks.
He rolled over and looked up at her with a sleepy smile. “My turn?” he asked.
Her heart seemed to swell and burst in a million tiny little pieces that shot through her all at once. It was more than him not trying to rip her from her family and carry her away with him.
The shards of love that shot through her and the irony of the whole situation brought a bubble of laughter to her lips.
They alternated their sleep cycle several times over the next few hours. The boat slowed so many times to drop off and pick up passengers and freight that Bradley wondered if they would ever get to Natchez. Though he had no watch, he estimated that a boy went through at least every hour to announce their location in case someone needed to disembark. He didn’t recognize most of the stops, probably names of plantations, but he recognized enough to know that they were not even halfway.
He groaned. That meant another night sleeping in the open on cotton bales. At the first signs of light, after Camille opened her eyes, he suggested they go above deck. The rain had moved on leaving the air fresh.
There were several well-dressed families waiting to disembark at the next stop. He left Camille in the breakfast line and went in search of someone in charge. Unable to find anyone, he wandered into the cabin area and located a porter. After a brief discussion, he had secured a small cabin. At least Camille would have a place
to sleep tonight. No one seemed to know for sure, but it seemed they would be arriving in Natchez by mid-morning tomorrow.
Half an hour later, they sat on the upper deck in the warm, fresh morning sunshine eating a breakfast of stale biscuits.
“If you want it, you have a cabin for tonight,” he said.
She gaped at him. “How did you manage that?”
“I found the right person to ask,” he replied with a shrug, though he was secretly pleased that she was excited about it. “I don’t know who to pay though.”
“Oh,” her eyes lit up. “I know the answer to that.”
“Then, in that case, we make a good team,” he said, catching himself before he held up his hand for a high five.
“I didn’t realize it would take this long to get to Natchez,” she said.
He nodded. “This trip is interminable. What are we going to do for the rest of the day?” He asked, thinking about modern cruise ships with games, pools, spas, mini-golf, and even sky diving. He’d even go for a movie.
“We can walk about, talk. I brought a book,” she said.
He wondered how they were going to walk about with so many people crowding the deck. “I didn’t bring a book,” he said, wishing for his iPad, loaded with Kindle ebooks. One reason he’d been drawn to aviation was his desire to get from place to place quickly. Family trips in the back seat of the family SUV had been torture for him. His sister could sit and read contently for hours, but Bradley suffered.
“Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could just hop onto, I don’t know, a wagon, and fly from place to place?” Camille asked.
Bradley’s water went down the wrong way and he went into a coughing spell.
“Are you going to live?” she asked.
“I’m not so sure,” he said. The woman was a prophet and didn’t have a clue.
“Did I say something?”
He held out his hand. She put hers in his and he smiled into her eyes. “Nothing at all, my dear. Nothing at all.”
They spent the day waving at people from the deck when the boat veered close enough to send a small boat to the bank to exchange passengers, walking a bit, and talking. By early evening, they sat quietly, reading Camille’s book.
After supper, Camille suggested that it was time for her to sleep. Bradley immediately agreed, but his heart sank. They hadn’t been separated since they got on the boat and the thought of not being at her side caused his heart to sink.
They located her cabin and she reached into her pocket to pull out the key the porter had given her earlier. The porter was truly a miracle worker because he had located their trunks and brought them to the room. He had thought they were married and neither of them had corrected him.
It hadn’t hurt that Camille had smiled at him and thanked him profusely.
She put her key in the lock and turned it.
“We should make sure it’s good before I leave,” he said, his voice a little gravelly even to his own ears.
She nodded and shifted for him to push the door open. It was a small cabin, but it did have a nice window. The bed took up half the space and their trunks most of the other half.
“What do you think?” he asked, turning to gauge her reaction. He was certain it wasn’t up to her standards, but it was certainly better than sleeping on a bale of cotton.
She wasn’t looking at the room, however, she was gazing at him.
They stood, about a foot apart, gazing at each other. He was mesmerized by her green eyes locked onto his. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. Her lips were parted slightly.
“What is it?” he asked, closing the distance between them and taking her into a hug. He knew he was breaking every respectable rule possible in this 1830s world, but a distressed damsel was a distressed damsel no matter what the century. Her arms locked around his waist and he held her closer. Her head fit perfectly beneath his chin. A peaceful sense of coming home enveloped him.
He kissed the top of her head and felt her breath hitch. Shifting a bit, he put a finger beneath her chin to tip her face up. A single tear had slipped from her closed eyes. Forgetting everything about propriety, he kissed it away.
Then he held her close again, restraining from kissing her on the mouth. From kissing those luscious pink lips.
As they stood there, he watched the deepening colors of the sunset and the subsequent darkening of the room. He’d read enough to know that he needed to leave her. Every moment he stayed, he increased the risk of ruining of reputation.
He pulled back. “I have to go,” he said, sliding his hands down her arms to take her hands in his.
Her head still down, she nodded. Then she lifted her chin and met his eyes again. “I don’t want you to go,” she whispered.
“But, my love, you know I can’t stay.”
“I can’t stand the thought of you out there. Alone.” She pulled away and swept a hand around the room. “Besides, who would know?”
“We would,” he replied, feeling that sense of protectiveness toward her – even from himself.
She looked from the bed to the trunks. “There are two pillows and two blankets.” She turned her attention back to him. “But I suppose a cotton bale would be more comfortable than the floor.”
“What are you suggesting?” he asked, feeling a surge of hope that he didn’t dare overly entertain.
“You could take the extra linens and sleep on the floor.”
He nodded. “I don’t know if that would be proper.”
She scoffed. “Is it proper for me, your charge, to allow you to sleep out there in the open on a cotton bale while I sleep here, in a bed, behind a closed door?”
“Yes,” he said, but the sense of hope grew.
“Nonsense,” she said, going to the bed and pulling a pillow from it “I won’t allow it. You’re my guest and I would be remiss in allowing you to take such a risk. You don’t know the customs and one misstep could put you in danger.”
He caught the pillow that she tossed to him and smiled. “You’re most persuasive,” he said. And, yes, he would rather sleep on a hard cold floor any day next to her than on the relative comfort of a cotton bale. Which wasn’t as soft as he had imagined. In fact, he wondered if it was not as rough as any floor.
“We have to do a bit of rearranging first,” he said, handing her pillow back. He slid both trunks to the middle of the floor, leaving just enough room on the other side for him. Standing with the trunks between them, he reached for the pillow. “Now,” he said. “I have my own little room.”
She smiled and, pulling a blanket from the bed, handed it over to him. “I think we shall sleep much more soundly this way,” she said.
“Agreed,” he said, arranging his scant bed linens and sitting on the floor. “Good night, sweet princess.”
“Good night,” she said, as she climbed into the bed.
He stretched out on the floor and, putting his hands behind his head to stare at the ceiling, he wondered if he would sleep at all with her so close and the memory of her body pressed against him still imprinted on his skin.
Camille closed her eyes and reveled in the feel of Bradley’s body against hers. She had never been hugged so closely by a man. The sensation was nothing that she had experienced before. And something she anticipated experiencing again as soon as possible. She replayed the entire interaction over and over in her head. How he’d kissed the top of her head and kissed the tear from her cheek.
His kisses evoked the sensation of being cherished and loved. Loved. The word echoed in her mind, then settled in her thoughts. She was falling love with this man. This man from the future who knew so little about her world. This man who had nothing to his name. Her father would be appalled.
She smiled at the thought. Her father, who had tried so fervently to match her with a wealthy man of his circle, would not react favorably to his only daughter falling in love with this man who had no family pedigree and not even a means of support. His name was unknown to them, though he may be
known in Natchez, since his sister lived there.
His sister.
Her eyes flew open and she had to catch her breath. Bradley’s sister. In Natchez. It hadn’t occurred to her before this moment that in order for Bradley’s sister to be in Natchez, then she too must have travelled back in time. And probably his grandmother, too, but she would have to think about that later.
If Bradley’s sister had travelled back in time, then how did she end up in Natchez? Camille had assumed that Bradley was from New Orleans, but now she needed more information. Was he traveling to Natchez in order to return to his own time?
No. She pressed her hands against her head to stop the oncoming headache. Bradley had traveled through time in New Orleans. She knew this for certain because she had been there.
She would never get any sleep if she allowed her thoughts to continue racing in this fashion.
I have to sleep. I’ll sort this out in the morning.
She turned on her side and, even though it was too dark to see them, faced the trunks Bradley had placed between them. She wished he hadn’t put them there, even though she understood he was only trying to protect her. She strained, but couldn’t hear him breathing. She had liked it better when he snored ever so softly. Perhaps he wasn’t asleep.
Bradley wasn’t sure how long he lay wide awake, but eventually he drifted into a light slumber.
Just as the first streaks of dawn began to break the darkness, he woke to a clamor, the likes of which he hadn’t heard since the last time he went to a college football game. Camille was his first thought as he sat up. He peered through the pale light, but she appeared to be still asleep. He wondered how anyone could possibly sleep through the yelling and cheering coming from somewhere on the ship.
He got and hesitated, trying to decide if he should wake her. Coming to the decision that he couldn’t leave her here alone, he went to her bed and whispered her name. She stirred, but didn’t open her eyes. She was so peaceful, her lashes smudged against her skin, her lips parted in a peaceful expression, turned up slightly at the corners. He regretted interrupting her good dreams.
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