She had been dozing for half an hour, when the motion of the boat changed dramatically. The pail slid across the floor, crashing against the far bulkhead. Her stomach dipped and she groaned.

"I'm going to have to go on deck in the fresh air," she whispered. Jake suddenly wailed, sat up with his eyes still shut, and clutched his stomach.

Gabrielle grabbed the pail and reached him just in time, almost before Nathaniel had grasped what was happening. The child vomited wretchedly, in between moans and wails, and the atmosphere in the confined space grew even more fetid.

Gabrielle held his head over the bucket, murmuring soothing words as she tried to control her own roiling insides. "Can you fetch some cool water?" she asked Nathaniel, who was hovering helplessly. "Just to bathe his face."

"I don't know if there's any fresh on the boat."

"Then salt will do. But surely there's some drinking water?"

"It's only a twelve-hour voyage," he said. It hadn't occurred to him any more than it had to the fishermen to carry a cask of fresh water on board. Nathaniel had made this journey many times, but never with a woman and a child.

He returned in a few minutes with a bucket of sea-water. His cloak was wet from both rain and spray, and he lurched against the table as the boat pitched violently, water slopping over the rim of the bucket.

Jake was still vomiting, the violent retching interspersed with his tortured wails and moans of uncomprehending protest at this horrible thing that was happening to him.

Gabrielle took Nathaniel's kerchief soaked in seawater and bathed the child's hot, sweaty face. Her expression grew tense as half an hour passed and Jake continued to vomit, no longer groaning or moaning, just hanging in her arms over the pail.

"He can't go on like this, poor little mite," she said worriedly. "He hasn't got anything left inside him. Oh, God…"

She lost the fight with her own nausea and rushed stumbling to the companionway, her hand over her mouth. "You'll have to look after him," she managed to gasp before she clambered up onto the drenched deck and the blessed fresh night air. Even the rain was a relief. She made it to the railing and gave herself up to the supreme misery of seasickness, heedless of the gusting wind and soaking spray.

Nathaniel took over at his son's bedside. The child's agony was wrenching as the spasms racked his small frame. His face had a waxen, greenish pallor to it, and in no time at all his eyes had sunk into their sockets, lusterless brown smudges surrounded by black shadows that looked like bruises.

After an hour Nathaniel felt the first stirrings of alarm. He'd never taken seasickness particularly seriously; it was something some people suffered from and others didn't. He was feeling mildly queasy himself, but nothing he couldn't control. The child, however, seemed to be losing muscle and sinew before his eyes. He no longer had the strength to sit upright without support, but if Nathaniel laid him down on the cot, he instantly began to retch where he lay.

The vivid image of Helen rose in haunting memory as he stared around at the dancing specters on the bulwark. He'd watched her fade away too, and as quickly. But she'd bled to death. Jake was just sick.

He told himself this, but he knew Jake was suffering no ordinary sickness. Somehow he had to stop it, give the child some rest. Why the hell hadn't they brought water? Something to replace what Jake was losing-at the very least something for him to be sick with-to ease the convulsive heaving of the slight body.

He thought of Gabrielle enduring alone on deck. Savage anger flooded him as he held his son, helpless to relieve his agony, an agony that for the moment seemed to be entirely Gabrielle's responsibility.

His eye fell on the picnic bag and he remembered the brandy. It was a known palliative for seasickness.

What was good for adults might work for children. At least it couldn't make things worse. With grim determination he reached for his bag and took out the brandy bottle. He lifted the child in his arms and felt the fragility of his bones, the clamminess of his skin as he held him against his shoulder.

Gently he coaxed a few drops of liquid into his mouth. Jake protested feebly, choked, retched. With a patience he hadn't known he possessed, Nathaniel persevered. He spoke softly to the child as he held him tightly, holding the bottle to his lips, refusing to allow him to turn his head aside.

Insensibly, Jake's body began to relax. His eyes fluttered open once or twice, but to Nathaniel's alarm there seemed no recognition in them. But the violent spasms decreased in frequency, and after what seemed an eternity Jake seemed to fall asleep in his arms.

Nathaniel held him, unwilling to put him back on the cot in case he woke him and the terrible business began anew. He didn't know how long he sat there with his child, looking down at the small white face, listening in a kind of suspended terror to the shallow breaths coming from the parted lips. He wanted to wipe his face with the kerchief again, but was afraid to wake him.

He thought again of Gabrielle on the windswept, seaswept deck, locked in her own wretchedness, and he knew that Jake's predicament was not her fault. The child had been running as much away from his father as toward Gabrielle. He could lay much at her door, but not this.

It was a bleak reflection, but honesty obliged him to accept it.

After a long while he felt confident enough to lay the child on the cot again and pull up the blanket. Jake lay on his back, unmoving, but his breathing had deepened and slowed, almost as if he were unconscious. Exhaustion, Nathaniel told himself, but a cold chill of terror lifted his scalp as he felt for the pulse in the fragile wrist. To his relief, it was fast but strong.

Taking the brandy, he crept on tiptoe to the companionway. At first he couldn't see Gabrielle on deck. The wind seemed to have lessened and the pitch and roll was not so pronounced. The light was graying with the approach of the winter dawn, and he discerned the dark, huddled shape by the leeside railing.

"Gabrielle?" He trod over to her.

A groan was her only response.

He squatted beside her, uncorked the brandy, took her shoulders gently, and turned her toward him. "Drink some of this. It'll help."

She gulped and gasped as the fiery liquid scorched her sore throat and warmed her aching belly. "Oh, God," she croaked. "Why are you all right?"

"I'm not feeling wonderful, if it's any comfort," he said, half smiling despite everything at this very typical Gabrielle comment even in the face of misery. "Drink some more."

She did so, and a little color returned to her cheeks. "How's Jake?"

"Sleeping, poor little tyke. I've never been so terrified, Gabrielle. Once or twice I thought he was going to give up on me," Nathaniel said, his voice grim. "There's nothing to him at the moment. He's like a husk."

"He's too small to be sick like that," Gabrielle said. "He needs water."

"We don't have any… remember? I gave him brandy instead. I don't know if it was wise, but at least it sent him to sleep."

"Then it was wise," Gabrielle reassured him. She ran her hands through her tangled hair and grimaced. "I think it's over now. The pitch isn't nearly so pronounced, but I'm so cold and wet."

"Come below and change your clothes." Nathaniel stood up, reaching down his hands to help her up. She staggered and fell against him.

"My legs are like jelly. I knew there was a reason why I prefer the Dover to Calais crossing. At least one's misery is short. I should never have let you persuade me into this."

She had amazing powers of recuperation, Nathaniel reflected as he held her against him for a minute. She'd been heaving up her guts for over three hours in the rain and the wind over a violent sea and could still come up with her half-amused, truculent challenges.