The heat was unbearable, the sun beating down on him without cease. His linen shirt clung to his chest, slick with sweat. His arms itched under the wool of his uniform. Cannon fire boomed across the field. The ground seemed to thunder as dust rose in plumes and sprays of rock and sand. His body was frozen in fear. He could not move or cry out. Only his heart seemed to work, thumping away in his chest like a drum. Where was he? He blinked at the sun.
Marlowe awoke with a start, eyes filling with the light of early dawn. He placed a hand, the injured one, over his chest. It was a reassuring weight against his galloping heart. He could still smell the scent of death that clung over the battlefield, feel the burning heat of the sun against his neck, and hear the cawing of the crows echoing his ears.
He sighed and kicked himself out from underneath the light linen sheet he had been sleeping under. It was clinging to his bare chest. It was quite warm. That hadn't been a dream. The floorboards creaked underneath his weight as he stepped over to the window. He should not have closed the shutters last night. There was no air at all in the room. He reached for the latch grumpily, remembering that the reason he had closed them during the night was in an attempt to block out the loud, off-key singing of a drunken neighbor. That was the problem with having taken the room facing the street. But it had been the gentlemanly thing to do. His parents and the Jennings had taken the largest rooms. And the Jennings young son Louis had needed a quiet room with his governess since no one wanted to deal with an overtired and sulking child. Of course, Marlowe had wanted Katherine, Miss Jennings, to be comfortable, so it had fallen on him to take the least desirable bedchamber.
He shuddered to think of where he might have had to sleep had Nicholas and Arabella not decided to find their own lodgings elsewhere. He suspected that it must have been Nicholas who had insisted. Knowing Arabella, she would have tried to scheme her way into Marlowe's very bedchamber. He let out a puff of air that blew his damp curls from his sticky forehead. He really needed to speak with her about discretion. It had been difficult to find any time with her in private during the long and tedious voyage. He wasn't sure if that was for the best or not. Perhaps it was due to the novelty of seeing her so frequently during their travels, but he felt almost relieved that they had not had any alone time together. Though that hadn't stopped her from constantly making doe eyes at him at every available chance, brushing against his shoulder when they passed beside one another on the ship... When she hasn't been feeling seasick, at least.
It was so early that he felt a pang of remorse at the idea of ringing for his valet, so instead, he dressed himself. The clothes had already been laid out the night before and they were brushed and ready for him. Truth be told, he preferred dressing alone. He had grown quite accustomed to it in the army. He winced, thinking of his memories, remembering a fragment of his dream. He flexed his hand against his thigh. The movement sent a searing pain through his wrist and all the way up to his elbow. It usually did not trouble him so much. Perhaps he had been clenching it in his sleep.
He was still cautiously curling and uncurling his fingers when he arrived in the main dining room. To his surprise, there was already a maid setting down a plate of fresh bread and butter. She looked at him in surprise. "Will you be having breakfast as well, signore?" Her voice was heavily accented. She was a local girl they had hired for the few weeks that they would be staying in Florence.
"As well?" he mused in confusion, but the answer was made clear as a familiar face appeared at the door. Her dark, curly hair was bound up most becomingly. She wore a paint-splattered smock over her pale dress. "Oh, Lieutenant! You startled me!" Miss Jennings's cheeks flushed with color. "I thought that I would be alone so early."
"I couldn't sleep," confessed Marlowe. "But you look rather clear-eyed."
"I've been awake for hours." She settled at the table with the plate offered to her by the maid, who then scuttled away to get something for Marlowe. "I was too excited to sleep!"
"I thought that I would sleep for days now that we have finally arrived... "
She eyed him sharply. "Your hand is bothering you."
He leaned back, startled. "How could you tell?"
"You always roll your fingers up--yes, just like that, when it pains you."
He smiled ruefully. "I didn't realize that it was so noticeable."
"An injury?"
"Yes."
She held up her hand, wriggling her crooked pinky. "Just like mine," she said, with a grin.
"Just like yours," he agreed.
Her deep blue eyes lingered on his face. "Does it bother you often?"
"Mostly it is just stiff. Today it pains me."
"May I see?"
"Are you a physician now?" he jested.
"Yes. May I?"
He nodded, and she set aside her cup of tea and crossed over to him. He felt heat surge through his body as she neared him. She was so close, inches away. The thought came to him unbidden of how she had looked that day in the rainstorm, dress clinging to her every curve. He almost choked on his tea and tried to turn his mind to something else--Arabella on her horse, Arabella in the glade, Arabella with the rivulets of water running between her breasts. Christ, what was wrong with him that all he could think of to distract him from one woman was another? He stared intently at the drapes as Miss Jennings took his hand in hers, soft fingers running over his skin. He felt prickles on his arms. He thought he had rather begun to glare at the drapes as she pressed her fingers into his flesh. "Does that hurt?"
"No," he grumbled. In fact, it felt rather nice. Far too nice. She released his hand.
"I have an idea," she said, "since you said that it often feels stiff. Perhaps if you were to practice something that required fine motor skills... You might redevelop the muscles that were injured."
"I do the stretches," he replied, "that the field physician recommended."
"But am I correct that you still have some clumsiness?" She resumed her seat across from him, taking a long sip of tea. Her cup made a small chinking sound as she placed it back on the saucer.
"Yes."
"What if you were to take up drawing?"
He looked up at her. It was a mistake. She was biting her cherry lips, her blue eyes gazing at him intently. He looked at that table cloth, a fine weave of pale linen. "Drawing? But I have no skill at it."
She took her place across from him again. "No one does when they first begin. But you show promise."
He laughed rather loudly. "And how is that?"
"I saw the drawing you did... Before we left England. You left in on the cherry table in my parlour. It was a ship."
He was afraid that he might blush at the thought of her seeing his scribbling. He swallowed a long sip of tea from the cup that the maid had brought him. "I... I find myself rather at a loss for words."
Her eyes twinkled. "You shouldn't be. I think that it could be just the thing to help you. What else will you do while we are abroad?"
"Drink, gamble, smoke..." he made a shrugging gesture with a smile. "All manner of vice."
"Oh, la, I shall put you to something much more productive. If you let me." She smiled at him.
He could not help but to smile at her in return. "How could I refuse you?"
