Remember Me - Lesley Pearse [29]
To her delight it was warm, and the soap he’d left wasn’t the rough stuff they used for washing clothes. The bath was too small to do anything more than squat in it, but it felt so good, especially without the hated chains weighing her down.
She was drying herself with the towel he’d left when she spotted a looking-glass on the wall and took a look at herself, almost falling back with shock at what she saw. Hollows had taken the place of her plump red cheeks and her eyes seemed to be bulging out of her head. When she looked down at her body she saw that was emaciated too, her ribs sticking out below her breasts. Stranger still were her brown face and forearms when the rest of her was ghostly white.
But her newly washed hair did look pretty, hanging in dark shiny ringlets to her shoulders. She rubbed at it hard with the towel, and combed it through with Graham’s comb to remove the lice, then washed that too in the bath water and put it back where she’d found it.
As she heard the sound of Graham’s feet coming back she dived into the bunk, quickly covering herself with the blanket.
Graham came in slowly. He was carrying a small tray which he put down while he locked the door again. Mary felt too shy to speak, but at the smell of the food, she couldn’t resist sitting up.
‘Is that for me?’ she exclaimed, hardly able to believe her luck, for it was some kind of pie, the pastry all golden the way her mother used to make it, with a rich gravy poured over it.
‘I guessed you were still hungry,’ he said gruffly, without looking at her, as if embarrassed.
‘That was kind of you, sir,’ she said.
‘You don’t have to call me sir in here,’ he said, passing her the tray and sitting down on the edge of the bunk. ‘My name is Spencer, now eat it up before it gets cold.’
Mary didn’t need to be told twice, and fell upon it with glee. It was rabbit and vegetable pie, the best she had eaten since she left Fowey, and even though the food meant more than the man who brought it to her, she couldn’t help but notice he seemed to be enjoying her obvious delight.
The Lieutenant was surprised by his own emotions as he watched Mary eat. He had expected either to feel guilt that he was betraying his wife’s trust in him, or so lustful once he got back to his cabin that he wouldn’t be able to give Mary time to eat the dinner. But instead he felt able to put aside both his guilt and his lust, because the way she ate the food made him feel good. She hadn’t noticed as she was eating that her breasts had become exposed, two small perfect little mounds with pale pink nipples. A little gravy had run on to one of them, and it was all he could do not to lean forward and lick it off.
He had married Alicia, his second cousin, at twenty, ten years ago now. They had played together as children, learned to dance and ride together back home in a village near Portsmouth, and there had always been an understanding that they would eventually marry. Alicia had come to live in his parents’ home, and she was very much the daughter of the house. She painted, sewed and played the piano, was gracious to all their guests, never complained when he was away for long periods. She even produced first a son, then a daughter, without losing her shapely figure.
Graham considered it a very successful marriage. They were in harmony with each other, and he knew that other men envied him such a pretty and vivacious wife. He didn’t understand why he sometimes felt disappointed.
Yet as he watched Mary eating, he realized why. Alicia was like biting into fruit, delicious and good for him, but not satisfying in the same way as a meat pie could be. Alicia never argued with him, everything he said was right. She