Day Dreamer by Jill Marie Landis Page B

determination fills his eyes
.
    Terror is lodged deep in Cord’s heart. Anxiety. Abandonment. Anticipation. Loss and betrayal. Utter desolation that fear only heightens. All of them swarm like a maelstrom inside him
.
    Even after Cordero released her, the residual despair that had seeped from his past into her mind continued to rock Celine to the core. She stared up at him, searching his eyes for some trace of the deep-seated hurt he had experienced—pain which had been replaced by cynicism and cool detachment.
    This time when he placed his hand at the small of her back, she was ready for the contact. To protect herself, she created a filter of rose light, the way Persa had taught her so long ago. She felt only the touch of his hand this time, warm even through her clothes, and possessive.
    “You
are
ill,” he said.
    “No. Just a bit melancholy. I’ll miss this place.”
    “I thought you and your father just moved here from Boston.”
    Celine sighed, too distressed to argue the facts; besides, it was still to early to explain. “What are our accommodations?”
    “We have two cabins in the stern.”
    “With windows,” Foster added. The servants had come aboard and directed the stevedores hefting all their trunks and boxes, and now joined Cord and Celine.
    “Windows?” Edward voiced his worry aloud. “What if they leak? What if water seeps in during a gale?” He frowned so hard his brow became a solid, wrinkled hood above his eyes.
    Neither Cordero nor Foster bothered to reassure him.
    Two cabins
. The underlying worry of how she was to avoid intimacy with Cordero over the journey began to gnaw at Celine anew. From here on she would have to rely on a quick wit—and perhaps, if she could get the ingredients, one of Persa’s sleeping potions. The thought of that option lightened her step as they made their way toward the passenger cabins where those who could afford the price traveled in greater comfort.
    She had spent most of the daylight hours on the long voyage from England roaming the deck with the other emigrant children. Along with their families, they had been crowded together in steerage, sleeping in narrow, open berths arranged like so many shelves in a pantry, forced to cook, eat, give birth, relieve themselves and even die—as her mother had—in a common area with barely enough room to turn around.
    On good days, their meals had consisted of salt beef and barreled pork. She could recall her mother, and then Persa, offering her a handful of raisins on the days when only flour, suet and raisins were doled out to them for pudding.
    The moment she and Cordero reached the stern where the first-class passenger cabins were located, Celine knew her experience this voyage would be far different from her last. They passed through a saloon with a dining table in the center of an otherwise bare room. Then Cordero moved to one of the many doors that lined the saloon and opened it. He stood aside to let her pass.
    Celine stepped inside the confined space of the cabin, which proved to be nothing more than a very large closet. The doors and walls were paneled in wood, polished to a high shine. Her gaze flew to the bunk against the sea wall. The shelf, barely wide enough for two, took up most of the floor space.
    Jemma O’Hurley’s trunk had already been delivered. It stood in the middle of the floor alongside two others, one small, one a bit larger.
    She pointed to the other two trunks. “Those were delivered to the wrong cabin. Are they yours?”
    Cordero walked to the small window, bent to allow for his height and peered outside. “You can see downriver.”
    “I said, your trunks somehow wound up in my cabin.” She started for the door to seek out Foster and Edward. “I’ll get one of your men to remove them.”
    “Why? This is my cabin, too.”
    “You said we have two cabins.”
    “We do. Foster and Edward have one. I’ll not have them in steerage.”
    Celine would not condemn a dog to the ’tween