Excerpt of Love & Freedom by Sue Moorcroft

‘Excuse me, you’re burning.’

The man in Honor’s dream, whoever he was, was right – her
face, arm and thigh felt as if they were on fire. She’d
been dreaming of falling asleep too close to a furnace.
Could it be on a boat? Because she could hear seagulls,
too. And feel the seasickness.

‘Quit yanking on my arm, you’re making me queasy,’ she
tried to protest. But the words clung thick and sticky to
her lips.

The voice grew louder. ‘Wakey, wakey. Come on, lady!
You’re burning.’

Waves of nausea swelled sweatily up her body as she tried
to prise up her heavy eyelids. The sun blazed into her
eyes and she scrunched them shut again. ‘Please don’t,’
she whimpered.

The voice was deep, coaxing. ‘Just help me to help you
inside.’

She squinted one eye open again as the dark figure of a
man bending over her moved around to block the sun. ‘I
think I’m sick,’ she whispered as sweat trickled between
her breasts. ‘Real sick.’

‘If you weren’t before, you are now,’ the silhouette
agreed, cheerfully. He had a cute English accent. She was
familiar with the English way of making jokes about
serious stuff but she hoped he realised that she really
was sick. Desperately. Colours-melting, brain-whirring
sick.

What was a great, tall Englishman doing filling her
vision, anyway? She groped through her memory.

She was in England …

The whirring in her head became the hiss of the ocean and
the furnace became the sun. She was lying on a wooden
lounger on a patio overlooking a road and the ocean
beyond, with a stranger crouching beside her. And she
felt bad.

‘Get up,’ the stranger persisted. ‘You’re being
barbequed.’

‘Right.’ It halfway made sense. She made to sit up but
cried out. Parts of her had fallen into a furnace! The
patio swooshed alarmingly and she clamped a hand to her
mouth.

The man jumped up and retreated. ‘Do you need a
bathroom?’

She scrunched her eyes and hoped that he would understand
that she meant, Yes! Quick! I dare not nod my head or
remove my hand to speak.

‘Can you stand?’

‘Mmm …’ Maybe. But when she attempted to drag her feet to
the ground black spots danced behind her closed eyelids.
She froze.

‘OK, I’ll carry you. You try and keep it all in until we
reach the bathroom and I’ll try not to hurt you.’

‘Ah-ah-ah-WOOOH!’ Honor’s eyes flew open as her side
burst into flames, taking her mind off her nausea.
‘Careful, for Chrissake, I’m on fire!’

‘I’ll bet. I’m trying not to touch your burns but you’ve
got to get indoors.’

She shut her eyes again as the man surged to his feet
beneath her with an impressive expulsion of breath, just
like a weightlifter. A door opened and the furnace
receded. She unscrewed her eyes, almost expecting to see
long, white hospital corridors instead of a vaguely
familiar house interior. ‘Have I been in a fire?’

She felt a rumble of laughter in his chest. ‘It’s not
that bad. I found you asleep in the sun and it looks as
if you’ve been there way too long. Even the English sun
can burn you once in a while, you know.’

Fresh sweat flooded down her face. She gulped.
‘Bathroom–’

‘Got it. We’re here.’

Just in time.

‘The doctor’s just arrived.’ His voice came muffled
through the bathroom door.

So the man was still here. During the misery and pain of
delivering her innards to the toilet, Honor had kind of
forgotten about him. She held back her hair, sweat
leaking down her forehead and behind her ears. And
despite flames licking her skin whenever she moved, she
was shivering like a frightened puppy. ‘OK,’ she managed.

Cautiously, she inched to her feet, ran water in the
basin and washed her face with the tiniest little pats,
then swilled out her mouth.

Another rap at the door. ‘Hello? This is Dr Zoë Mayfair.
Can you let me in?’

‘It’s not locked.’ Honor hung over the basin, breathing
hard. She couldn’t straighten; her right side had been
set in hot glue.

And then there was a neat woman in the tiny room with
her, flushing the toilet, looking into her face, turning
her cautiously to frown sympathetically at her skin.
‘Let’s see if we can get you out of here so that I can
examine you. Have you stopped vomiting?’

‘For now.’

‘Martyn, the bedroom’s at the back, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, through here.’

Allowing herself to lean on the dark-jacketed arm of the
doctor on one side and – gingerly – the bare arm of the
man on the other, which struck almost as hot as her own
miserably scarlet limb, Honor weaved to the blue bedroom
with white furniture, like a doll’s house, that would be
hers for the next four months and where most of her cases
stood waiting to be unpacked.

Scared her skin might split, she sort of oozed down on to
the edge of the bed.

Dr Mayfair was coolly efficient. ‘Right, Martyn, I don’t
think we need you in here. See if you can find a jug to
fill with cold water and bring a glass. She needs
fluids.’ The door clicked. ‘Poor you.’ Dr Mayfair was all
sympathy. ‘The first hot spell of the summer and you have
to go and fall asleep in it. The sea breeze makes the sun
deadly.’

‘Jetlagged, I think. I didn’t set out to sleep.’

‘No doubt you’re sore.’ Doctorly understatement, like
when they said, ‘There will be a scratch,’ and then
thrust a massive needle into the heart of one of your
joints. ‘Your skin’s quite inflamed and you’ll be feeling
dehydrated. Let’s get some fluids into you and something
on that blistered skin.