Blackwell's Homecoming (Blackwell's Adventures Book 3)

by V. E. Ulett

  He went immediately and found the old gentleman with Emma. She was trying to be brave, listening to the doctor with her hands clasped in her lap. But when Aloka appeared in the doorway, she turned on him such a gaze as quite melted his heart. Doctor Russ, too, must have seen that look. He rose and bowed, wished them good evening, and walked into Edward’s bedchamber adjoining the library, and shut the door.

  Aloka opened his arms and Emma flew into them. He held her for a long time while she sobbed on his chest. Aloka even dared to stroke her hair: precious moments for him.

  The first thing she said was, “You saw her. How is she really? Poor, poor Mama!”

  Aloka chose his words with care. “She knew me, and she knew where she was. We spoke about her getting better. While I watched beside her, she slept soundly. You shall go to her yourself, unless the Doctor forbids it. But first…Emma, I must ask what Lord Cochrane could have meant by all that.”

  Emma wiped the tears from her face with her fingers. A proper gentleman would have produced a handkerchief, but Aloka hadn’t got one. He waited while she composed herself, and then recited a most astonishing tale. Her account of being in the power of a man like John Bargeman made him grit his teeth. Aloka could see she’d spoken of all this before. She ended by saying Captain Blackwell knew the whole.

  “I am sorry, Aloka. I know you value Captain Lord Cochrane, and now your chances for another commission under him are quite dashed.”

  “You are to set the notion of my being injured aside, I assure you there is nothing in it. More importantly...would you have him had he come when your Mama was not so ill?”

  Emma looked away. “There is no point in such a question. He will not return after the way I spoke to him.”

  “You much mistake men, and particularly a man like his lordship. They value a prize the more when it’s difficult to obtain. Oh, Emma, don’t—” Tears had come into her eyes at his boorish remark. “Forgive me. Between this and your Mama, you have been through a great ordeal. It is only my anxiety that...that you not accept him, made me say such a deuced awkward thing.”

  “Never,” she said. “I never shall.”

  He was clasping both her hands in his, and they sat pressed together on the sofa.

  “He is not the man for you.” Aloka looked down at her lovely, upturned face. “Promise me...”

  Then he did what he’d been yearning to do for ages. Aloka plunged ahead and took advantage of her vulnerable state over her mother and the wretched business with Lord Cochrane, and he kissed her. It was very far from a brotherly kiss. She moved right against his chest, almost into his lap, kissing him back. The surprise and delight of it nearly overwhelmed him. Since he’d started it, he also ended it, pulling away from her.

  Aloka could not look on her with anything other than affection; shame was the last thing on his mind. “Promise me, dear Emma,” he touched her face, “no one but me.” He was not sure how he’d grown so bold.

  If she had rejected him, Aloka would have had to walk off and shoot himself. Instead Emma gave him a beautiful smile, a tender look, and fell on his breast. What she said exactly he could not hear, her words were muffled against his chest. For several glowing moments he was happy, just in the knowledge she would not be another’s, and they held one another in silent contentment. Aloka had a capacity for living in the moment; a trait bred into sailors, that helped him greatly as a sea-officer; but Emma, being younger, and much more English, did not.

  “Shall we ever be together?” she said.

  “We must not think of that now.”

  “Oh! You are right. How could I be so evil? Oh Lord! Edward!”

  “Yes, where is the fellow? I should think he would be here.”

  “The Herschels begged him to stay, to view the heavens at night through the great forty foot telescope. He really could not refuse, besides wishing to do so, and Papa would not stay. We were to send to tell him how Mama does. Now all this time has passed, and what shall he think has happened to her?”

  “You are not to worry. Ed shall have his head so far up the great telescope and the cosmos, he will not be aware any time has passed. I will go out this minute and send a messenger. Or ought I go myself?”

  “Oh, no, stay. I...I need you here. I’ll just dash off a note to Edward.” She ran to a writing table, and moments later put her folded letter into Aloka’s hand. “I’ll go up to Mama now. McMurtry will see a bedchamber is made ready for you, and I’ll speak to Cook about supper for you and Papa and Doctor Russ.”

  “Bless you, Emma.”

  He kissed the hands clutching her letter. They stared at one another. Aloka wished for another kiss and embrace, and he thought he read the same desire in her eyes, but he hoped they were neither one of them fools. He smiled and bowed and ran out the front door.

  Mercedes woke in the dark. Her entire left side, her arm, breast, chest and torso felt paralyzed, the whole on that side of her body was a great throbbing mass. She was thirsty, her mouth and throat dry, and her bladder full. Mercedes turned her head and there was Blackwell, asleep in a chair at her bedside. A small table held glasses full of various liquids that she could not reach on her own.

  “James. James, darling.”

  Her voice came out a croak, quite destroyed from all the screaming. She shivered with the recollection, swallowed, and mustered her strength.

  “Captain on deck!”

  He came awake with a start and was instantly beside her.

  “Water, if you please.”

  He selected a glass from the bedside table and put a pipette the doctor had left into it, and held her and it so she could drink.

  “Thank you, darling. I need to use the p-o-t.”

  “Oh.” Blackwell looked confounded. “I can’t carry you, one armed as I am. I’ll go fetch Aloka, or Edward if he’s returned.”

  “No, no, I can walk. The Doctor said I should try.” It was a lie, but Mercedes did not want Aloka or Edward to have to help her. Bad enough Blackwell should have to do so.

  He put back the bedclothes and she swung her legs out of bed slowly. Blackwell helped her sit up, she felt a wave of nausea that frightened her very much, and then clinging to his shoulder and arm she was on her feet. They teetered into the dressing room. Passing her full length mirror Mercedes had to look away from the sight of the two of them, once so young and dashing.

  Blackwell eased her down on the close stool. He knelt on one knee beside her and turned away his head. Mercedes still clung to his arm, and she rested her head against his shoulder. Her urination felt hot and sick, just like the rest of her.

  After one of the most intimate moments of their married life, Blackwell helped her back into bed. He pursed his lips slightly pulling the bedclothes over the mountain of bandaging on her left breast, struggling to maintain a neutral expression. Mercedes began to cry.

  “Is the pain too bad, sweetheart? Doctor Russ has left a dose of laudanum should you want it.”

  “I’m mutilated, Jim. I thought they would cut into the breast, take out the offending part. They took the whole! The whole!”

  Now he looked at her speechless and appalled. What had she expected? She took a gasping breath.

  “What are the other draughts?”

  Blackwell swallowed hard and turned to the little table. “There is barley water, a broth if you are hungry. It has gone quite cold, but I’ll warm it if you wish. Water, and the small glass has the laudanum.”

  “My stomach is a bit uneasy. I’ll have the barley water, if you please.”

  She did not want Blackwell to be uncomfortable in the chair by her bedside all night, and she knew he would not leave her. He was sitting upon the bed facing her now, and Mercedes did not care to be looked at so much at this juncture.

  “I’m cold, James. Won’t you get in bed with me?”

  “I don’t want to disturb you, sweetheart. I’ll fetch another blanket.”

  “No, I can’t stand anything else on top of me. Please.”


  He leaned forward and put his hand on her cheek, kissing the other side of her face. Then he stood up and took off his breeches and shirt. His skin was healing, he would be well quite soon. Blackwell eased in beside her. She sighed with satisfaction at the feel of his shoulder and chest against her right side. They might both sleep now.

  He had snuffed out the candle before getting in bed, and his voice came out of the dark. “All those tender names you always call me—darling, dear—they apply more to you. You are the center of my life Mercedes, all I care about is that you are here with me. There would be no love, no tenderness for me without you, no home to come to, no country worth fighting for. You have given me all, all.”

  “Oh Jim! But now? Now I don’t know when I will be able to be a proper wife to you again.”

  “You have only had the surgery this self same day. You must give yourself time to heal.”

  “Perhaps I should say if I will be able to be a proper wife to you. If you need to be with other women, I will try not to be hurt by it.”

  “Sweetheart! What would you have done if I’d come home missing a leg, or an arm, or an eye?” She was silent beside him. “Eh? I shall tell you, you would have nursed me and loved me until I was better. Why would you think I should do anything less for you?”

  “Some men resent their wives for illness. And one of this kind, such a mutil—”

  “Those men would be what you might call scrubs. Listen now, sweetheart, I’m going to be a bit severe upon you. I do not want to hear any more talk of mutilation. You did what you had to do to save your life, and now your only duty is to get better. When you are well and strong, I guarantee you will feel differently about fobbing me off on other women.”

  “Oh, James! Oh, Jim!” She turned her face into his shoulder and wept.

  Mercedes had asked for the dose of laudanum, and now she slept profoundly beside him. Blackwell hoped her mind was somewhat eased. During their conversation, one of Doctor Russ’s little lectures had been in his mind. The doctor had said that for men the sexual act was all instinct and reaction to a woman’s sweet form. For a woman, on the other hand, much went on in her mind. How she felt about herself and all the circumstances surrounding coitus; it seemed a man might be the least part of it. Blackwell lay in the dark fervently wishing—he could not pray, having once been quite nearly a pagan—the doctors had removed the entirety of the cancer, and she might not have suffered the operation only to die that most lingering and painful of deaths.

  Such a fate could not befall her. He kissed Mercedes’ hair, her head was resting against his shoulder. He still cherished his dream of taking her back aboard with him, when he should have her to himself again.

  Aloka, Captain Blackwell, and Doctor Russ were the only ones in attendance at breakfast next morning, and a steady gunroom reserve presided. None of the three were apt to share their dreams and wishes. Edward had come home in the early hours, and finding the Doctor, who suffered bouts of sleeplessness, awake and in the library, he had received an account of Mercedes’ condition. Their talk had turned to Doctor Herschel, whom Edward described as equally kind and learned, and the wonders Edward had seen through the great telescope. As the conversation had lasted until dawn, Edward was now abed. Emma was upstairs helping Mercedes wash and prepare for the doctor’s attendance.

  “May they not disarrange the dressings in their zeal,” the Doctor said, a look of disapprobation on his face.

  “I should not interfere with the ladies in that regard, Doctor. I take it as quite a good sign that she should care about her appearance.”

  Captain Blackwell nodded to his table companions, and nearly smiled. McMurtry walked into the room and presented a calling card to Captain Blackwell on a silver tray. Captain Blackwell took the card with a wry look for McMurtry, and his show of gentility before the Physician of the Fleet.

  “Hell and death, its Admiral Gambier. Is he waiting below?”

  “He is, sir, though I did say as the family wasn’t to home. No one seems to mind it these days.”

  “That’ll do, McMurtry. Excuse me, gentlemen. I suppose I must see the Admiral.” Captain Blackwell rose and tossed his napkin upon his chair, exchanging a conscious look with Aloka. “Doctor Russ, do go in to her whenever you are quite ready, do not wait on me. I must also beg an interview with you later, sir, about your and Doctor Lally’s attendance on Mrs. Blackwell.”

  He bowed and closed the parlour door on his way out, leaving Aloka and Doctor Russ quite alone. Aloka supposed the time might have come for the doctor’s few private words.

  “Has your mother always been fastidious, so?”

  Certainly not the words Aloka had expected to hear.

  “Edward and Emma’s mother, sir, not my own. Though she has always been as kind to me as if I were her own son.”

  Why he had told the sharp eyed doctor such a thing Aloka did not know, unless it was out of a desire people should begin to understand he and Emma were only half-brother and sister.

  “I should like to have that private word I mentioned yesterday, sir, if it is not inconvenient.”

  Punctilious old gentleman. Aloka bowed from the waist in his chair.

  “You are probably unaware, sir, given your involvement in the recent action, and your family circumstances, that the King and Queen of Hawaii are paying a state visit in England. Both you and Captain Blackwell speak the language, I am told, and it would be disingenuous to suppose anyone connected with the Service was not aware why you are called the Black Savages.” Aloka smiled at the doctor, he liked a man who would call him that to his face. “In short I have been commissioned by Sir Joseph Banks, with whom their Majesties are currently residing, to present you to the Royal couple. I know this is not the time for social calls, but I was to extend the invitation for sometime in future. Sir Joseph strongly wishes to present one of their own, turned English gentleman, if you will, sir.”

  Aloka was taken aback, and he perceived Doctor Russ was not quite comfortable with this commission from Sir Joseph.

  “I would be most honored to wait upon the King and Queen, sir. Please give Sir Joseph my best respects and gratitude. If the invitation might include my family, when Mrs. Blackwell is recovered, m’father has a closer association to that nation than I. Edward still knows the language, and I’m sure it would be a great comfort to the Queen and her ladies to have the acquaintance of Mrs. and Miss Blackwell.”

  “I am sure you are in the right of it, sir.” Doctor Russ rose and bowed. “I shall convey your acceptance, and your suggestion, to Sir Joseph. I must go in to Mrs. Blackwell.”

  Doctor Russ was relieved Aloka Blackwell had not taken offense, he’d expressed his apprehension beforehand to Sir Joseph. “He is a sea-officer, not a social experiment or a creature for display.” Sir Joseph had pooh-poohed his fine scruples, and the young gentleman, too, seemed to make nothing of them. He had not expected to meet with such a family, and certainly not at a London ball.

  From the time Doctor Russ had made Mercedes’ acquaintance, he’d felt an uncommon interest in the Blackwells. She had immediately brought to his mind his own mother and his aunts in Spain. Small, unremarkable women except for their backbones of tempered steel. He went to an upstairs cabinet where the bandages, linen, and compresses were stored to collect material to change Mercedes’ dressings.

  He hoped she was strong enough to recover from the trauma of the surgery, and that, with the blessing, all her cancer was removed. Doctor Russ much doubted he would perform another such operation. It had taken a great deal out of him, he still felt unnerved by the experience. If he was only to do one breast surgery, he was happy it should have been for such a woman as Mercedes.

  He had been curious to meet the man she called lord and master. Doctor Russ had found Captain Blackwell to be the best kind of sea-officer; circumspect, disciplined, with a weather beaten, open and kindly face. No doubt brave as a lion, and his tender regard for his lady did him a great deal of credit.

  In Edwa
rd Blackwell Doctor Russ had found quite simply the most interesting mind outside his official capacities he’d ever encountered; it was the reason he’d promoted the young man with the Herschels and the Royal Society. Now he had made the acquaintance of the last of Captain Blackwell’s offspring, and found the native son to be a man very much like the father; physically as well as in manner. Doctor Russ was fairly certain he’d been witness yesterday to a scene in the library no one was meant to see. He thought of his own spirited and lovely daughter, and of the delicacy of the female reputation.

  Captain Blackwell imagined Admiral Gambier might have heard of Mercedes’ illness, perhaps from Lord Cochrane, and come to inquire after her. He felt a pang for not having dealt with Lord Cochrane himself, and he had not yet spoken to either Emma or Aloka about the outcome of that meeting. He was aware he was not doing his duty as he went in to meet Admiral Gambier, a man who was no stranger to avoiding the obligations of fatherhood.

  Admiral Gambier disabused him almost immediately about the reason for his call. After inquiring into the state of Captain Blackwell’s wounds, he brought up Lord Cochrane.

  “I tell you this in perfect confidence, Captain Blackwell, because of our long association. Government is contemplating a vote of thanks to me for the success of the late action, but Lord Cochrane has informed the First Lord if the matter was raised he felt it would be his duty as a Member of Parliament to oppose it. Can you credit the flippant and pert behavior? His duty! After I wrote some very handsome things of him in my official report to the Admiralty. Very handsome, I do assure you. Lord Cochrane has made such a noise that I may be obliged to demand a court martial, and I’ve come round to discover if you will stand by me in the matter of the recall orders.”

  Captain Blackwell gazed at the self-centered brute, amazed that his lovely Mercedes could have sprung of such a parent.