This Perfect Kiss by Melody Thomas

deeper into the blanket and looked away. Christel credited the response to the reality that a mother’s death would be devastating to any child. “Cousin Tia said Mam is in hell.”
    Christel gasped, stifling her breath. She had not thought about her half sister in years. Tia had made her life a living hell even before their father had died.
    â€œ ’Tis a cruel thing to say,” Christel replied. “Why would Tia tell you such a thing?”
    â€œCousin Tia did not tell me. She told Grandmamma because Papa had to force a priest to say words over Mam after she died. Papa said if he did not bury Mama in the cemetery at St. Abigal’s, he would see the kirk taken apart stone by stone and tossed into the sea. They think I am too young to know the hateful things people say about Mama and Papa. Some people blame Papa for her death.”
    â€œI am truly sorry, Anna.”
    â€œBut I am glad to be going home. I dislike London so terribly much. If a lady is nice to me ’tis only because she wants to marry Papa. Not because she likes me. I miss my uncle Leighton the most. He always gives me the best presents,” she said sleepily, burying herself in the pillows. “Even better than Papa’s. Last year he gave me a pony. A real pony, but Papa says I am too young to learn to ride.”
    â€œOr perhaps your papa is protective of you.”
    â€œGrandmamma says ’tis because Papa and Uncle Leighton both loved Mamma and that they miss her, too. I think ’tis because Papa and Uncle Leighton do not like each other, though Papa would never tell me such a thing.”
    â€œOf course, he would not.” Christel smoothed a hand over the comforter.
    She had always cared for Leighton, even as he had changed from a friend on whom she could depend into a vice-seeking young aristocrat hellbent on defying his father at every opportunity. The elder Lord Carrick had expected him to join the service to the crown, as all St. Giles’s men had dutifully done for centuries, but Leighton considered one brother serving enough for one family to sacrifice to England’s colors. So he had gone to Oxford to learn law and had got himself involved in the war. They had always remained in touch through her uncle. During that time, he had never so much as written a word about Saundra.
    â€œHave you eaten supper?” Christel quietly asked.
    Anna wrinkled her nose. Christel smiled in sympathy. “You do not like cold herring and biscuits?”
    â€œNurse Gabby does not let me eat the biscuits because once a biscuit nearly cracked her tooth. She says they should be used only as weapons of war and shot out of a cannon.”
    â€œPoor Nurse Gabby.”
    The ship plunged feverishly. Soon it would be dark. Christel’s gaze went to the door. “I need to check on her, Anna. I want you to remain here until I return.”
    The girl closed her eyes, seemingly quite content to remain beneath the warm feather tick, where Christel suddenly wished she’d been. She found the tinderbox and lit one of the lamps attached to the wall near the door, then tightened the belt around the robe she wore as she left Lord Carrick’s quarters, feeling almost as if she’d been an escaped convict.
    There were two other cabins off the companionway. One she knew belonged to Red Harry, as she had seen him retrieve a blanket for her from his room. She knocked on the adjacent door. When she received no answer, she opened it and immediately discovered that she was not immune to the effects of a rough sea when the smell of its effects flooded her senses .
    After bracing something in front of the door to keep it open, she found Nurse Gabby tucked in her bunk, oblivious to the raging chaos around her. The elder woman did not even stir when Christel set the back of her hand to her cheek. She had no fever.
    Nurse Gabby was a stout woman with round cheeks and steel gray curls sticking out of a woolen nightcap. A