Carla Kelly - Marriage of Mercy

A lengthy bath won’t come a moment too soon , she thought, as she went to her own room. He smells worse than a kitchen midden in August . She would probably have to burn everything he was wearing and his bedding, too. The least I can do is return him to America in better shape than Captain Shortland gave him to me , she thought.

She stood in front of the fire in her room, hands outstretched, wondering why she had ever agreed to any condition in Lord Thomson’s will.

‘Emery is right. It will be interesting,’ she murmured, as she folded her clothing on the battered bureau, with its mirror in dire need of re-silvering. ‘Thank God for Emery.’

Grace burrowed under her covers, pulling her knees close to her chest for warmth, missing the yeasty fragrance that permeated the bakery. Grace, at least you are not incarcerated in Dartmoor Prison , she reminded herself. ‘Maybe it’s best not to think about such things,’ she murmured into her pillow.

Her sleep had been troubled. She kept seeing the real Captain Duncan, his eyes closed in death, his silent, stinking men grouped about him. Over and over in her dream, she looked at Rob Inman, then chose him. Why him and no other? She had no idea, but there he was in her mind’s eye as she tossed and turned, waiting patiently as he had probably waited since the Orontes was captured. What else is there to do in prison but wait?

She wasn’t sure what woke her hours later. She wasn’t perfectly convinced that she had even been asleep, not with her mind still filled with the horror that was Dartmoor, contrasted with the unexpected kindness in the eyes of Rob Inman’s shipmates, as she knelt in the odourous straw by their dead leader.

She sat up, listening. There was no mistaking it. Someone was moving down the narrow hallway to the stairs.

Her heart hammering in her breast, Grace threw back her covers and reached for her shawl. She opened her door to see Rob Inman walking quietly down the stairs.

‘Rob Inman, you had better not be planning an escape. You’re taller than I am, but I think I could stop you.’

He stopped and looked around, startled at first, then amused. ‘You probably could,’ he told her, then sank down on the step. ‘I tried to wrestle a rat last week and ended up losing my shoelaces.’

She sat beside him, but not too close. ‘Are you hungry?’ she whispered.

He nodded. ‘If my left leg didn’t smell so bad, I’d probably gnaw on it. D’ye think there’s anything edible in the kitchen besides that old man who thinks he’s a butler?’

Grace put her hand to her mouth to stop her laugh. ‘I think there’s another sandwich or two in the basket. Shall we find out?’

He nodded and tried to rise, then shook his head. ‘Best you go on and save yourself, miss. I think I’m done for.’

‘Spare me the drama,’ she teased as she started down the stairs. ‘Promise you won’t jump parole, and I’ll find you a sandwich.’

‘I can’t make a promise like that,’ he said quickly.

‘You must, on your word as a gentleman,’ she replied just as quickly. ‘You will be shot dead if you break parole. I’m not quizzing you.’

He gave her a long look, as if weighing the very marrow of her bones. ‘If I must, I will. But know this—Captain Duncan may have been a gentleman, for all that he was a bastard. Rob Inman is no gentleman and never was.’

‘I suppose that will have to do,’ she said dubiously, puzzled about this man old Lord Thomson had foisted on her. No, that she had foisted on herself in Dartmoor. ‘But I have questions.’

‘I imagine you do.’ He grinned. ‘And I’m still hungry.’

She found the basket easily enough in the dark kitchen and tiptoed with it upstairs, after pausing a moment to smile at the sound of Emery’s snoring. She handed the captain the remaining sandwich; he waited not a moment to demolish it and look around for more. She followed it with one of her own Quimby Crèmes. The cook at the manor house had obviously visited the Wilsons’ bakery a few days ago. Grace had made these just before the visit to Dartmoor.

‘I could eat more of these,’ he said, his mouth full.

‘You will. I made them,’ she said proudly. ‘My own recipe.’

He looked at her, a question in his eyes.

‘I’m a baker for the Wilsons in Quimby,’ she told him. ‘Well, I was, and I will be again once you are sorted out.’

‘You’re going to sort me out?’ the parolee asked, humour in his voice. He might have been hungry and weak, but he wasn’t slow. ‘How on earth did you end up as Captain Duncan’s keeper?’ He popped the rest of the biscuit into his mouth. ‘If that’s what you are.’

‘I suppose I am, in a way. Your keeper now,’ she mused. ‘The old Lord Thomson—I wouldn’t give you a penny for the new one—used to visit the bakery shop regularly and he liked my Crèmes. He was full of crochets, but I never paid his ill humour any mind.’ She couldn’t help the tears that welled in her eyes and hoped they didn’t show. ‘I think I was almost his only friend.’ She also couldn’t help the way her voice hardened. ‘His own relatives were just waiting for him to die. Shame on them.’

‘I don’t see the connection, Miss … Grace.’

‘Nor do I. For some reason, Lord Thomson provided me with the dower house to live in and thirty pounds a year. I suppose that will last until the new Lord Thomson works out some way to stop it.’

‘I gather you could use the money,’ he commented.

‘I could, indeed. I intend to buy the bakery some day.’

‘But you don’t sound confident Lord Thomson’s kindness will continue.’

‘I’m certain it won’t,’ she replied, with no qualms. ‘People like that generally get their way, or haven’t you noticed?’

‘Aye, lass, I’ve noticed.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Why did the old man parole Captain Duncan? I know his origins. Dan was never shy about them. Was it a case of the old rascal wanting to help his bastard son from America?’

‘I suppose that was it,’ she replied. ‘You’ll find this amusing, but Mr Selway told me that Lord Thomson had some vision of Captain Duncan and me falling in love and marrying.’

‘Then you would have had to reckon with the captain’s wife and two children on Nantucket!’ He sighed heavily then. ‘Wish I could get word to them about what has befallen as good a man as I ever knew.’

‘I suppose it will have to wait until the war is over and you go home,’ she said. To lighten the moment, she added, ‘And I suppose you have similar entanglements to prevent my falling in love with you!’

‘Well, no,’ he said quietly. ‘I did have a wife, but she died. A Nantucket girl, like Captain Duncan’s Bess. She understood the sea. They do, on Nantucket.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Grace said. ‘I didn’t mean to make light of it.’

‘How were you to know? It’s been almost four years, but I am sorry, too,’ he told her. He turned reflective then, leaning on his elbow on the stairs. ‘What with the sea and then the war, I reckon I spent more time on the Orontes than in my own bed on Orange Street. Oh, and let’s not forget the attractions of Dartmoor.’

She thought about the seafarers Rob Inman had left behind. Something about the man beside her seemed to loosen her tongue. It couldn’t have been an air of capability, not with him so weak he had to prop himself up on the stairs. Still, she wanted to talk to him.

‘Tell me. The sailor in that dreadful stall. He said “thee” and “thou”.’

The expression in Rob’s eyes seemed to soften. ‘You have to know Nantucket. It’s an island of seafarers, many of them Quakers.’