every ship. It’s an outrage.”
“Does anyone ever get pardoned?” Jocelyn asked.
“There’s only one way off a prison ship,” Derek said angrily. “Wrapped in canvas and tossed over the side.”
“That’s barbaric,” Jocelyn said.
Derek didn’t reply. He turned away, his gaze fixed on the southern tip of the city.
The rolling of the ferry and the vile smell made Jocelyn feel sick, so she began to count the ships on the river to distract herself from the nausea that threatened to overwhelm her, but the exercise didn’t help. The ferry was downwind of the prison ships, and the reek intensified as they reached the center of the river.
“Are you all right?” Derek asked. “You look awful.”
“I’ll be fine once we dock,” Jocelyn managed to reply, hoping she wouldn’t vomit on his boots. Derek reached for her hand and squeezed it in a reassuring manner.
“Almost there,” he said. “Just hang on.”
It took some time to get off the ferry and then twice as long to make it to the next corner. The street leading away from the dock was thronged with wagons and carriages, and there seemed to be people everywhere. British soldiers in their red tunics stood out of the crowd, sailors crowded the decks of their ships, and stevedores called out to each other as they unloaded the merchantmen, cargo lowered using pulley systems that suspended the heavy crates directly over their heads in a most precarious manner.
At last, they reached Broadway Street, and Derek turned right, leaving the worst of the congestion behind. This street was wider, paved with gray stone and lined with handsome brick houses, some of which were fronted by neatly trimmed bushes and russet-leafed trees. Well-dressed pedestrians strolled leisurely along or hurried about their business, but it was the soldiers who drew Jocelyn’s eye. They were everywhere, walking in pairs with muskets slung over their shoulders, delivering messages, and, in some instances, standing guard, their grim faces shadowed by tricorns pulled low over their eyes to keep out the bright sun.
A young soldier exited a house on the corner of Broadway and Crown Street and waited for the cart to pass before crossing to the other side. His pale blue eyes met Jocelyn’s gaze and widened with interest, his mouth stretching into a friendly smile. She quickly looked away, uncomfortable beneath his scrutiny.
“Where are we going?” Jocelyn asked, wondering why Derek had brought her to this part of town. She felt deeply uneasy since most of the houses appeared to be occupied by British officers. Their presence made her stomach clench with fear, even though most of them paid her little mind.
“To the theater at John Street,” Derek replied patiently. “We’re nearly there.”
“I thought you said it was closed,” Jocelyn said as the cart slowed down yet again to let an expensive-looking carriage pass.
“It is, but I thought it might help you to see it for yourself. Do you recognize anything?” Derek asked, looking at her intently, as if willing her to say yes.
“I feel a sense of familiarity,” she said truthfully. “But I suppose this looks like any other street in any other city.”
“Yes, but if you had performed at the theater at John Street, you would have walked down these streets, possibly even lived somewhere nearby,” Derek pointed out.
Jocelyn paid closer attention to the individual facades, wondering if she had come this way. Was it possible that she had lived in one of these grand houses? She didn’t think so. If she had been an actress, she would not have been able to afford extravagant lodgings, unless she’d married one of the theater’s patrons, but this new theory didn’t feel right, so she dismissed it. Could her husband be one of the actors in the troupe? Or might she have had a lover rather than a husband? Was she the type of woman to live with a man without the benefit of marriage? All she knew was that she was carrying someone’s baby, but the man’s identity eluded her.
The wall her mind put up whenever she thought of her child’s father made her tremble with frustration, so she forced her thoughts down a different path. The theater had been closed since the occupation, so for just over a year. What had she been doing since then? Had she had to earn a living, or had she been supported by her man? And where had she been going at the time of the shipwreck? Had he been with her? Was he now dead? Jocelyn nearly screamed