‘What would you like in a husband?’

A mere twenty-four hours ago such a question would have amazed her with its impertinence. As she sat there considering his question she discovered that she had already taken the measure of this man. Captain Ross Rennie was as transparent as water—a capable man with no inclination to dither or waste his time or anyone else’s. He had spent a lifetime in duty to his country so intense and harsh that it did not let go, even in a snowy village in Yorkshire. She knew it was not a casual question because he was not a casual man.

‘I’ve never really thought about it,’ she told him honestly.

He didn’t believe her. ‘Come, come, Miss Rennie, you’re a fine-appearing Scottish lass!’

‘Thank you kindly,’ she said with a smile. ’I also live with my aunt and uncle, who have no particular obligation to see me wed. They’re not the sort of people who exert themselves.’ She thought about the matter. ‘And perhaps I have not exerted myself overmuch either.’

She didn’t say that in any attempt for pity, and he seemed to know it. With a smile, he touched her hand…a light touch.

Praise for award-winning author Carla Kelly:

‘A powerful and wonderfully perceptive author.’

—New York Times bestselling author Mary Jo Putney

‘It is always a joy to read a Carla Kelly love story. Always original, always superb, Ms Kelly’s work is a timeless delight for discerning readers.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘Kelly has the rare ability to create realistic yet sympathetic characters that linger in the mind. One of the most respected…Regency writers.’

—Library Journal

‘…an emotional, uplifting, delightful romance about two wounded souls who find love and comfort in each other.’

—RT Book Reviews on HER HESITANT HEART

‘Taking her impetus from Robinson Crusoe and the film Castaway, Kelly crafts the story of a shipwreck survivor readjusting to civilisation… Kelly presents a clear portrait of the mores and prejudices of the era, and demonstrates how to navigate through society’s labyrinth with intelligent, sharp repartee. This alone is worth the price of the book.’ —RT Book Reviews on BEAU CRUSOE

The Wedding Ring

Quest

Carla Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

DEDICATION

To my cousins and to all men and women wounded, in some way, by war.

My Bonnie Mary

The trumpets sound, the banners fly,

The glittering spears are ranked ready;

The shouts o’ war are heard afar,

The battle closes thick and bloody;

But it’s no the roar o’ sea or shore

Wad mak me langer wish to tarry;

Nor shout o’ war that’s heard afar—

It’s leaving thee, my bonnie Mary!

Robert Burns

CARLA KELLY started writing Regency romances because of her interest in the Napoleonic Wars, and enjoys writing about warfare at sea and the ordinary people of the British Isles rather than lords and ladies. In her spare time she reads British crime fiction and history—particularly the US Indian Wars. Carla lives in Utah, USA, and is a former park ranger, and double RITA® Award and Spur Award winner. She has five children and four grandchildren.

Novels by the same author:

BEAU CRUSOE

CHRISTMAS PROMISE

(part of Regency Christmas Gifts anthology) MARRYING THE CAPTAIN* THE SURGEON’S LADY* MARRYING THE ROYAL MARINE* MARRIAGE OF MERCY THE ADMIRAL’S PENNILESS BRIDE HER HESITANT HEART

* linked by character

Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter One

This was no ordinary return to Plymouth; Captain Ross Rennie felt it in his bones. A frigate captain much wiser than he—dead now, like so many friends—had described it best during one of those chats on the far side of the world when another frigate pulled alongside to visit and hand off mail.

In the course of their conversation over beef too long in brine and green water, they described recent fights with the French or Spanish, depending on where national allegiance had swung in an endless war. The long-defunct captain had looked Ross square in the eye and said, ‘Sometimes a victory is only a hair’s breadth better than a defeat.’

A young captain at the time, Ross had nodded, wondering later what the devil the man meant. As his thirty-six-gun frigate Abukir sailed into Plymouth on a rainy day, Ross felt that hollow, sinking feeling of defeat, when he should have been over the moon with joy. The emotion had been growing since his ship had been ordered to join the convoy escorting Napoleon and his entourage to Elba after his banishment there in 1814 by the Allies. A time or two during the short voyage from France, he had stood on his own quarterdeck and observed Bonaparte on HMS Undaunted, Captain Tom Ussher’s frigate.

Ross almost hated himself for finding the man so fascinating, but the exiled emperor seemed to demand attention. Ross noticed other telescopes trained on Napoleon.

The longer he watched Napoleon, the greater grew his personal sense of disquiet, the greater his sense of defeat. Normally a sanguine fellow, Ross felt himself grow grim about the mouth. He’s so short and stout, Ross thought. So ordinary. He took his observation into dangerous territory then, the worst place any officer could take himself. How in the world did this man rule my life for twenty-four years? Ross found himself asking.

For he had. For more than a generation, Ross had sailed where this tyrant intended, fought French and Spanish ships, logged miserable hours twice in prisons, lost a leg, found a true love and lost her, too. Supposedly he was in the service of poor King George III, but Ross knew what all officers and men in the Royal Navy knew—had there been no Napoleon, there would have been no war. He would probably never have gone to sea in a fighting ship. Without that stout little man, Ross Rennie would probably have conned nothing more dramatic than a merchant vessel.

‘You ruined my life,’ he murmured one lazy afternoon as they approached the island of Elba, some twelve mere kilometres from Tuscany. The only man within earshot was the helmsman and he was used to hearing his captain mutter.

But because he was sanguine and normally rational, Ross had to reason with himself. Was this true? The war was over, so he did something unheard of: he leaned his elbows on the ship’s rail. He looked up when he heard the sails luff, and laughed, knowing his sudden lapse of ship’s discipline had caused the helmsman to stare and lose his concentration.

Embarrassed, Ross straightened up and administered the patented Rennie stare to his helmsman, who quickly corrected his error. Not one to leave a good seaman flustered, Ross nodded to the man. ‘I’m going to do it again, Carter,’ he said and returned to his casual pose. The Abukir continued on course.

True to his nature, Ross made a mental list of pros and cons. Aye, he had spent his life on board fighting ships, but that had likely proved more interesting than coasting around England and Scotland, and maybe to far-off America with a cargo of dried herring, shoes or corsets.

Had the navy not taken him to exotic Portugal, he would never have met Inez Veimira, whose love still made him smile. And he most certainly would never have fathered the boy who waited for him now in Plymouth, a boy with hair as dark as his own, but curly, with full lips instead of Scottish ones and an olive tint to his skin. Nathan’s brown eyes were his mother’s alone. Their beauty had given Ross pause to miss Inez Veimira, until his natural optimism turned his regrets into those little blessings a healthy son furnished.

The loss of his leg at Trafalgar in 1805 had not been without a little good fortune, as Ross chose to see it. The ship’s surgeon had only needed to take his mangled leg off five inches below the knee. Difficult as it was, and too long his stay in the Plymouth hospital, the surgeon had assured Ross that an officer who still had his knee could command a quarterdeck and expect advancement. And so it had proved.

And there was this, probably his greatest blessing: Napoleon’s stupid war had turned Ross Rennie into a leader of men, a rock-solid fellow whose sensible decisions made the Abukir a good home for men like him. The helmsman was a case in point. Once caught in Captain Rennie’s firm but benevolent web, men tended to stay there through the years, knowing they were in good hands.

Seen from this light, Ross decided perhaps the war that had spanned all seven seas and ushered out one century and welcomed another had not been a total failure. By the time the Undaunted and her escort dropped anchor in charming Elba’s harbour, Ross’s heart was calm again. True, the war was over with Napoleon and, as a valued post captain, Ross knew the Royal Navy would find something for him to do. As a father, he wanted to sail to Plymouth and spend some time with his son. It remained to be seen whether he had the clout to manage both, but he thought he did.

As it turned out, he was right on both counts. True, that immediate return to base in Plymouth had dragged out until November as the Abukir and others like her continued to patrol the Channel. While people in England had devoted much time rejoicing that the Beast was on Elba, the Royal Navy took a more cautious view and continued to patrol waters at least less hostile.

Hoys and lighters still made their way back and forth to victual ships like Ross’s long at sea and they conveyed letters. Many a night after mess Ross read and re-read his letters from Nathan and hoped his son did the same thing with the missives he sent, accompanied by those exotic things only a Navy man could come across: oranges and lemons, a prayer rug from North Africa and Gouda cheese from the Low Countries, specifically for Maudie Pritchert, who had the raising of his boy.

If only Ben Pritchert, sailing master, had lived to see Napoleon on Elba. On that final voyage from the Channel to Plymouth, he missed Ben even more than usual. It had been his sailing master, a father in his own right, who had suggested Ross take his infant son from Portugal to his own wife in Plymouth. In 1804, the year of Nathan’s birth, Oporto had suffered one of those earthquakes the coast was prone to. It was nothing as severe as the 1755 disaster, but the port merchant’s home had been demolished, along with all its inhabitants except a week-old baby covered by his mother’s body.

So the nuns at the nearby convent had told Ross, as he had shouted Inez’s name over and over in the ruins, when he came into port a week after the quake. He knew she had borne him a child during his last voyage of seven months’ duration to the Baltic. More than that, he did not know. The unexpected voyage had scuttled elaborate wedding plans, beyond quick nuptials, because their child was already underway. But that was the Royal Navy, which took no interest in the lives of its men. The good sisters had taken over the care of his little morsel and laid his son in his arms when tears still streamed down his face.

They had willingly fostered his child, named Nathan Thomas Fergusson Rennie and christened in the Holy Catholic faith because that was what the nuns did. Three months later when HMS Fearless was posted from Oporto to Plymouth for extensive repair, the nuns had returned Nathan to him, along with a goat.

He had known there would be a seaman or two who probably knew exactly what to do with a milking goat and they had not failed him. What had touched him to his soul was the way every man on board took an interest in his son. There had been no lack of volunteers willing to walk back and forth with a colicky baby, after Ross was ready to drop from exhaustion. His son’s first English lullabies were sea ditties better left shipboard.

Maudie Pritchert had received the baby with open arms. Two years later, she wore widow’s weeds. It was no wonder that as his prize money collected ashore, Ross had purchased a better house for the Widow Pritchert and her four children, plus his son. He paid her a handsome income to raise the boy he only saw at intervals. Now that the war was over and he was sailing home, Ross knew he would continue that stipend throughout that kind woman’s career on earth, for she had saved his son’s life.

His debt was far greater. After Ross had learned to stump around on a peg-leg and manage a quarterdeck again, Ben Pritchert saved his life during a skirmish not even worthy of inclusion in the Naval Chronicle. They had been coasting off France when a larger French frigate came out to play. In the middle of hot action, Ross lost his balance on his rolling deck. His sailing master rushed to steady him and took the deadly splinter in the back that would have cut Ross in two. He would owe both Pritcherts until he died.

* * *

Sailing into Plymouth harbour this time was more bittersweet than he would have imagined. For nostalgia’s sake, Ross conned the Abukir, savouring the moment. He glanced towards the houses that marched up the gentle slopes away from the town centre, wondering if Nathan was watching. During his last visit a year ago, he had given his son a telescope. Maybe in a few years, he would give him a sextant. Maudie said the lad had an aptitude for mathematics.

On the advice of the overworked harbour master—so many ships returning—he dropped anchor, then looked around at the disorderly order on the Abukir’s decks. His orders said the ship was to be refitted and refurbished. Two months and he would sail again—where, he had no idea. Two months of shore leave was one month and three weeks longer than any break he had enjoyed since the Peace of Amiens in 1802.

With a reluctance that surprised him, Ross turned the ship over to his number one, assuring him he would return in a day or two to settle out any complications with dry docks. He knew his officers yearned to leave the Abukir as much as he did. The men would go home, too, those who had homes. Others would hang around the docks, spend their money and be glad to see him in two months, if they hadn’t been pressed into another vessel short of crew.

His chief bosun’s mate insisted on piping him over the side himself, which was flattery, indeed. Because all eyes on deck were on him, Ross did his best to descend the ropes with dignity, never easy with a leg and a half. When he was safely settled in his launch for the pull to shore, he raised his hat and saluted his crew. It’s only two months, he reminded himself as he felt unfamiliar tears gather behind his eyelids.

Although there were hackneys waiting to take him anywhere in Plymouth, Ross waved them off. He wanted to walk from the harbour to Maudie Pritchert’s house. He knew his sorely tried leg would start to ache before he got there, but he needed the opportunity to shake off his sea legs. In parts of England far from the coast, the watch would probably be summoned to deal with men lurching and rolling down the street. Not Plymouth, a Navy town that understood what it meant for its men to remind themselves how to walk on a flat surface that didn’t pitch and yaw.

A peg-leg presented its own challenges, but he arrived in good time at the base of Flora Street, with its pretty pastel houses. As always, he stood there a long moment, wondering how much his boy had changed. Nathan was ten years old now. No one knew what his actual birth date was, because there hadn’t been time to register anything before the earth moved in Oporto. A few visits back, the two of them had picked June 7th, an unexpected compliment, because that was Ross’s birthday.

When he had asked his son why he wanted to share a birthday, Nathan’s answer confirmed for all time that while it was possible to take a Scot far from the land of his ancestors, the economy remained. ‘Simple, Da,’ his son had told him. ‘It’s a tidy thing to do. We’ll have cake but once a year, but we’ll have twice as much.’

It was the perfect answer. Nathan, whose mother had been a heavy-lidded, sloe-eyed daughter of Portugal and deeply fond of cake, was a fitting combination of Dumfries and Oporto.

‘Twice as much,’ Ross agreed.

With the war over, he had plans this time, since a prodigal amount of leave stretched ahead that would take them through Christmas. The two of them were bound for Dumfries, where Ross’s older sister lived with her surgeon husband. He hadn’t seen her in years, but that was nothing because he had always been a prodigious correspondent and so was Alice Mae Gordon. She had promised them a good visit and hinted that she knew of a piece of property in need of a landlord in nearby Kirkbean. ‘In sight of open water,’ Alice had written, to further entice him.

He stood a moment more, wondering at the half dread he always felt, hoping his son hadn’t changed too much since the last visit, but well aware that children grow. Will he remember me? he always asked himself. If he passed me on the street, would I know him?

Ross took the customary deep breath and continued up Flora Street, his eyes on a yellow house, where flowers still fought the good fight against late autumn. He knew that in Scotland, the flowers had long surrendered to winter, but this was lovely Devon.

He walked slower because his leg pained him and because there was always that moment when he wondered who would greet him. For the first time since Inez’s death, for the first time in the terrifying and fraught years since, he wanted a wife to greet him, too. It was a heady thought and he entertained it cautiously, thinking of all the times he had assured his officers and wardroom confidants that he would find another wife when the war ended. Maybe the time was now.

Ross stopped outside Number Six Flora Street and looked up at the second-storey window that he knew was Nathan’s room. His heart skipped a little beat as his dear son looked down on him. The boy disappeared from the window and Ross watched the front door. It slammed open and his son hurtled outside and into his open arms.

Ross was home from the sea.

Chapter Two

For someone without much choice in the matter, Mary Rennie had finally had her fill of relatives. Maybe it was the season; more likely it was her Cousin Dina. Maybe it was simply time for an epiphany.

Her father, long dead, had been a clergyman in the Church of Scotland. He knew a thing or two about epiphanies, especially the January 6th one involving the Christ and the Magi. Mary had a different epiphany in mind, the one where you realise something startling that probably should have happened years ago.

She blamed it on her propensity to be a late bloomer, but there she was, twenty-seven years old and tired of relatives, especially Dina. And so she told Mrs Morison, her only confidante, when they were peeling potatoes in the kitchen.

Mrs Morison was cook and not generally the peeler of potatoes, except that Betty, the scullery maid, had a toothache and Mrs Morison never seemed to mind a good chat with Mary, especially over tea and biscuits on a raw October afternoon in Edinburgh. Dinner was a long way off, and there was time to peel and chat and drink tea.

‘Oh, my dearie, Dina is engaged to that prosy foreign fellow and she is blue-devilled,’ the cook announced, after heaving herself up to retrieve more biscuits. ‘Never trust a man from over the border.’

Mary smiled to herself. She had never been over the border, herself, but Papa had assured her years ago that Englishmen were only doing the best they could and Presbyterians could be charitable.

‘Aye, Mrs M.,’ she said, applying herself more diligently to the potatoes. She stuck the potato on the end of her knife and wagged it at the cook. ‘But why must I suffer because she is engaged? She whines and carries on, and I don’t know why. Isn’t a bride-to-be supposed to be cheerful?’

Mrs Morison peered at her over the top of her spectacles. She lowered her voice and leaned closer. ‘I think she is already afraid of her wedding night.’

‘That’s months away,’ Mary whispered back. ‘Besides, I would think that once you find a man to love, that wouldn’t be a consideration.’ She leaned back as another epiphany followed hard on the heels of the first. ‘Ah. Maybe she doesn’t really love Mr Page?’

Mrs Morison gave her a sage look and shook her head, tut-tutting as she peeled.

‘Then why...?’ Mary put down her knife. ‘Oh, dear. Is she afraid she’ll never get another offer?’

She considered the matter. It was probably true. Dina Rennie wasn’t high on good looks. Mary couldn’t help but smile, remembering the time last summer when one of the street sweepers neighed when Dina passed by. But it was wicked to joke about Dina’s long face, or so Papa would have told her. Mrs Morison was saying something, so she glanced up.

‘You have the family looks—all of them, I think,’ Mrs Morison was saying. She shook her head and returned her attention to the root vegetable in her lap whose skin was starting to turn a little brown from lack of attention.

Maybe, but none of the money, Mary thought, knowing that the cook was too kind to mention it. Not that any of the Rennies were particularly attractive, she knew, but Papa had married a Maxwell from Spring Hill and there was the difference: lips a little fuller than the Scottish norm, a trim and tidy figure, deep auburn hair—none of the Rennie carrot hue—and snapping green eyes. Mary felt the freckles were a discount, but Mama always said they were a happy sprinkle across her nose and no detriment.

‘I wish I had money,’ she admitted, because she knew Mrs Morison was no tattletale. ‘I’m twenty-seven and something should have happened to me before now.’

* * *

When she lay in bed that night, Mary considered her age and virgin state. She smiled in the dark, remembering how carefully her Aunt Martha had skirted around matters of procreation, how it was accomplished and women’s subservient role. Since they were much the same age, Dina had been party to the same conversation, her eyes wide, her mouth a perfect O. Mary had listened to Auntie’s red-faced circumlocutions and kept her own counsel. Before Mama had died when Mary was fifteen, she had been more plain spoken.

There had been a quiet admonition, though, a coda to the conversation about men and women and What They Did. ‘Remember this, my darling daughter: some day there will be a man who will meet all your requirements. Wait for him, because he will be worth it,’ Mama had advised, making no effort to disguise that lurking Maxwell twinkle in her eyes.

Too bad Mama had died two weeks later, killed by the wasting disease. Papa had never enjoyed good health, so he took the opportunity six months later to join his wife in a better place than a Montrose rectory where the chimneys drew badly and no one was ever warm.

‘And so I came to Edinburgh,’ Mary informed the ceiling, that night of her epiphany. ‘They are good to me here. I lack for nothing, but I have become part of the furniture.’

* * *

The matter was on her mind a week later after All Saints Day. Although Aunt Martha never would have admitted it, she was a superstitious woman. She never went below stairs with her Christmas cake recipe on All Hallows Eve, when ghosts walked. Mary and Mrs Morison were far too kind to ever tell the good woman that even ghosts weren’t interested in the Rennie Christmas cake.

It always puzzled Mary that Auntie kept the fruit-cake recipe squirrelled away in her bedchamber, as though it were a great treasure and liable to be stolen in so unprotected a place as the kitchen. Mary was the last person who would ever have told Auntie that Mrs Morison had long ago copied the recipe and kept it among her own well-used recipes in that kitchen so open to thievery and who knew what else.

‘It is time,’ Aunt Martha announced and handed over the much-creased paper with all the ceremony a Scot ever indulged in. ‘One dozen this year, if you please.’

It was always one dozen, four of which remained at home to be consumed around Christmas, after a six-week curing. The other eight were sent to friends and family.

Mrs Morison nodded and accepted the recipe, promising to take it to bed with her and put it under her pillow, until it was safe again upstairs with Mrs Rennie. ‘Lord love her,’ the cook had murmured after her employer went upstairs.

The only thing that saved the cakes from rejection was the thick layer of marchpane Mrs Morison applied to two of the cakes that remained at the house on Wapping Street. Mrs Rennie had looked more thin-lipped than usual the first time Mrs Morison applied the coating, but Uncle Samuel had nodded his approval, so that was that.

He had approved even more of the other two cakes remaining hearthside. In her desperation to make the cakes less dry—perhaps she had had her own epiphany—Mrs Morison drowned the other two cakes in rum. True, the recipe did include rum, but only a Scottish amount. ‘I fear my hand slipped,’ Mrs Morison had fibbed to her employer, the first time she served that particular rendition.

Uncle Sam had done more than nod his approval. He held out his plate for another slice. ‘And make it thicker,’ he added, his voice only slightly slurred.

So rum it was, and marchpane, for the Wapping Street cakes. The cakes to be mailed had rum, but not quite as much.

* * *

Making the cakes was a week-long event, with Monday and Tuesday taken up with endless chopping of glacé cherries, candied peel, sultanas and currants. Almonds generally were halved. Mrs Morison baked the homebound cakes on Wednesday, giving them ample time to cure or ferment in a dark space. The cook had been gradually adding more and more rum to the marchpane cakes, as well, which wouldn’t get their mantle of thick icing until closer to Christmas.

For the entire week, Mary had joined Mrs Morison and the scullery maid, now minus a tooth, in the ordeal of Christmas cakes. Dina hadn’t the patience for all the chopping and dicing, which Mary found a relief. She loved her cousin, but a few hours of non-stop talking gave Mary a headache. Dina’s conversation had taken a decidedly querulous turn, now that she was engaged, and was even whinier than usual.

Perhaps I am envious, Mary thought, as she diced candied cherries and candied peel to Mrs Morison’s exacting specifications. I would like a husband because that would mean children and I do enjoy wee ones.

Thursday had seen the construction of four more cakes, also baked, doused and sent to a dark corner to rest and lick their wounds.

The last four of the yearly cakes were in process on Friday, when Dina stormed into the kitchen and upset everything. Mary had finished cracking the eggs into the soft butter and caster sugar. As she stirred and Mrs Morison gradually added flour, Dina strode around the kitchen, fire in her eyes. She was waving a small object. Mary wished her cousin would go away. Mixing the batter was her favorite part of the whole process. She wanted to enjoy, without drama, the smoothness of the batter and the buttery fragrance as it competed with vanilla bean.

But Dina needed an audience. With a pang, Mary realised she had for too long unwillingly furnished that audience. I am too complacent, she told herself, as Dina wound herself up like a top. What would she do if I walked away?

Mary was fated never to know. By now, Dina had tears in her eyes.

‘I ask you, has there ever been a stingier husband-to-be than Algernon Page?’ she fumed.

‘What is it, my dear?’ Mary said at last, because it was required of her. She continued swiping down the sugar crystals in her mixing bowl, thinking Dina might get the hint.

Not Dina. Her cousin stuck a small ring in Mary’s face. ‘That...that cheapskate sent me this paltry bauble for Christmas! He thinks I’m going to wear it.’

Mary looked closer. It was a small ring, very thin gold with what looked like little scratches. She squinted. No, they were leaves or twigs. ‘Hmmm. Perhaps it has some family meaning,’ she ventured.

‘Only that the whole family consists of clutch purses,’ Dina shot back. ‘Would you wear such a thing?’

I would if I loved my future husband, Mary thought, even though she knew she would never say it. She decided Dina wanted some comment, so she mumbled something that seemed to fill the silence.

‘I won’t wear it,’ Dina said, making her long face suddenly longer. She stared at the cake batter, as though daring it to contradict her. Her eyes narrowed and she tossed the spurned ring into the batter. ‘There! Send it to someone.’

She stormed out of the room without a backward glance. Mary stared at the batter, then at Mrs Morison. ‘She can’t be serious.’

‘Poor Mr Page,’ the cook said with a shake of her head. ‘He’s in for a merry dance.’ She chuckled and picked up the wooden spoon that Mary had leaned against the side of the bowl when Dina demanded everyone’s attention. She gave the spoon a few turns, then sent Mary into the scullery for the tin of glacé cherries and orange peel.

‘Fold them in, my dear,’ she told Mary.

‘Really?’ Mary asked, amazed at Mrs Morison’s audacity.

The cook nodded. ‘It’s not much of a ring.’ She laughed a little louder. ‘Let’s hope no one bites down hard!’

Mary joined in the laughter. ‘I don’t think anyone really eats these cakes, do you?’

‘I wouldn’t know and I would certainly never admit such a thing to your aunt.’

* * *

After everything was added, Mrs Morison exercised the power of her culinary office and spooned the batter into the four weathered and venerable tins that the Rennies had probably used since Emperor Hadrian built his wall. Mary hesitated when Mrs Morison opened the Rumford.

‘You’re certain?’

The cook shrugged as Mary slid in the pans. ‘I’ll put these cakes in a separate place. If Miss Flibbertigibbet changes her mind, we can find the ring.’

‘But that’s...’

‘A waste? I think I will call it a diversion.’ Mrs Morison narrowed her eyes and glared at the ceiling above. ‘Your cousin owes us one.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘Do you realise we will have to listen to Dina up to and including the wedding in March?’

* * *

Mary thought about the ring later that night after she put on her nightcap and padded down the hall to see if her cousin needed anything. I wonder why I do this? she asked herself and nearly turned around. She remembered Mrs Morison’s words in the kitchen and reminded herself to keep the peace. It was a long time to March.

‘I’m not interested,’ her cousin said when Mary suggested there was still time to retrieve the ring. ‘Hand me that coverlet, Mary.’

Mary did, wondering when it was that Dina had stopped saying thank you for little services rendered. Funny she hadn’t thought of that before her epiphany. She waited a moment, but Dina only waved her hand in a peremptory gesture. ‘You’re welcome,’ Mary said softly. After that, she did not ask about the ring again.

* * *

After two weeks’ incubation, the cakes for home consumption were boxed and stacked in the scullery. The next batch went to the postal office on the Royal Mile, taken there in all ceremony by the newest footmen. Mary worried over the last batch of four, asking Dina if she had changed her mind. Her cousin only gave her ringless hand an airy wave as she went out the door with Aunt Martha for a dress fitting. The plan was to announce the Rennie-Page engagement at a Hogmanay party, which required a new gown.

‘Very well, Dina,’ Mary muttered as she handed the footman the last four rum-soaked cakes, wrapped in gauze, boxed and addressed, along with exact change. She went upstairs to her room to frown over her paltry wardrobe and wonder what she could refurbish for the Hogmanay party. She knew Aunt Martha would allow her to have a new dress, too, but it would be even nicer if her aunt suggested it first.

She looked out the window as the footman walked towards the postal office. ‘And that is that,’ she said, thinking of the ring.

But that wasn’t that, not by a long chalk.

* * *

When she was seated on the mail coach one day later, Mary decided that Thursday, December the 1st, 1814, would be long remembered on Wapping Street. More and more, she had taken to eating breakfast below stairs with Mrs Morison, because she liked the cook’s company. Her breakfast partner upstairs was only Uncle Samuel—all he liked to do was peer at her over his newspaper, give her a slight nod, then dive back into the pages. Dina never rose before ten, when the mail was delivered.

Below stairs, Mrs Morison usually had some pithy reflection on the state of affairs in the Rennie household. Failing that, she sat with Mary to look over the day’s meals and assign some useful task that kept Mary from boredom upstairs, where life was comfortable, but not much was required of her.

Since Christmas approached, Mrs Morison had assigned her to the agreeable chore of inventorying the spice cabinet. Since her arrival in the Rennie household twelve years ago, it had been Mary’s duty to open each aromatic little drawer in the spice cupboard, take a good whiff and decide which spices had run their course and which could hang around another year.

Mary had just opened the cloves drawer when there came an unearthly shriek from the upstairs bedchambers. The note quavered on the edge of hysteria as it rose higher and higher. Alarmed, Mary watched with big eyes as a crystal vase shivered on its base.

‘My God,’ she said, closing the drawer and running into the kitchen, where Mrs Morison stared at the ceiling.

Above stairs, a door slammed, another door opened and slammed, a few moments passed, then another scream of anguish shattered the calm of Wapping Street. Mrs Morison crossed herself and she wasn’t even Catholic.

‘We...we...could go upstairs,’ Mary suggested, but it was a feeble suggestion, much like the chirping of the last cricket on the hearth before winter.

By unspoken consent, they remained where they were. Another door slammed, then there was a great tumult on the stairs as the sound of disaster came closer and closer to the kitchen.

Mary and Mrs Morison looked at each other, mystified. ‘What did we do?’ Mary asked.

They held hands as the racket reached the stairs to the kitchen. Mary took a deep breath as the door slammed open and Aunt Martha and Dina squeezed through the door at the same time, Aunt Martha with fire in her eyes and Dina more pale than parchment.

If she hadn’t been so mystified, Mary would have chuckled to see that Aunt Martha had a tight handful of Dina’s already thinning hair. She gave her daughter a shake.

When Mary just stared, open-mouthed, Aunt Martha said something that didn’t usually pass her lips and thrust a letter into her niece’s hand.

Holding it out to Mrs Morison as well, Mary read the letter, a stilted bit of prose from Dina’s fiancé, not designed to tickle any woman’s fancy or much else. Her eyes widened and she felt her own face grow pale. As imaginary buzzards seemed to flap about and roost in the kitchen, Mary read it again.

‘“My choice and chosen one, that little bauble I sent you was given to my great-great-great-who-knows-how-many-greats grandfather by Queen Elizabeth herself. It is the dearest wish of my heart—and a Page family tradition—to see it on your finger when we announce our engagement on December the thirty-first.”’

‘Oh, my,’ Mary whispered. She stared at her aunt.

Aunt Martha gave her daughter another shake. ‘Dina just told me quite a tale. I am here for you to dispute and deny it.’

‘I fear we cannot,’ Mary said finally, when no one else seemed prepared to speak.

‘Then we are ruined,’ Aunt Martha said as she sank on to a chair that Mary quickly thrust behind her.

Dina began to wail, until she was shut up sharply by a resounding slap from her mother. ‘You are a foolish, foolish lassie,’ Aunt Martha hissed. ‘What are we to do?’

More silence, until Mrs Morison cleared her throat.

‘Simple. We send Mary to find those four cakes and retrieve the ring. She will start tomorrow.’

Aghast, Mary stared at the cook. Mrs Morison just smiled and patted her hand.

‘My dear, you are overdue for an adventure. Wouldn’t you agree?’

Chapter Three

Trust a little boy to find travel by the Royal Mail adventurous. Captain Rennie knew he would have preferred post chaise, but Mrs Pritchert informed him that Nathan longed to ride the mail coach.

‘When we’re in the Barbican, he always has his ears on the swivel to listen for the coachman’s blast and eyes in the back of his head to watch the horses,’ Mrs Pritchert explained. ‘And the uniforms! He pined for one when he was five.’

As if Ross needed an explanation. He used to do that in Dumfries a century ago, when the world was peaceful and he was a little boy. He could barely remember such a time; thank God he had a son to remind him.

‘Aye, Nathan, we’ll take the Royal Mail,’ he said, which practically made his boy wriggle with delight.

Still, it was hard travel for a man wanting nothing but comfort for the first time in more than a decade. Captain Rennie was starting to feel every single one of his thirty-eight hard-lived years when the mail coach pulled into Carlisle on December the sixth. By contrast, Nathan was as bright-eyed as on the morning they set out from Plymouth, with Mrs Pritchert’s tears and blessings.

‘That’s how women are,’ Ross had assured his son, as the child watched Plymouth recede in the distance. ‘They cry and fuss and let you go finally.’

‘But she’s not really my mother,’ Nathan said, looking around for his handkerchief. ‘I have a cold.’

Ross was wise enough to overlook his little sniffles. With a pang, he knew his son was close to the kind Mrs Pritchert; he knew no other mother. He put his hand on Nathan’s neck and gave him a little shake. ‘Laddie boy, we’ll be back in Plymouth in a month and she’ll be waiting for you, mark my words.’

As the miles passed, he had also realised with another pang that he didn’t like to see the ocean disappear from view. He said as much to Nathan, who gave him a look like the one he had given his son when Mrs Pritchert disappeared from view.

‘We’ll have a good time,’ Nathan assured him in turn and they were content with each other.

The first day with Nathan was always tentative. When his son was still a baby, there had been several days of reacquaintance, with lots of shy glances from both of them and maybe sentences started and stopped or half-finished. Now that he was ten, Nathan required only a few hours to remember his father. By the end of the first day’s travel north, he was laughing and telling Ross a year’s worth of school stories, memorising scriptures under duress and watching the harbour with his telescope. When he grew tired, Nathan leaned against Ross’s arm with a sigh of contentment. Or maybe that was his own sigh.

They had struck a bargain before leaving Plymouth. Nathan might want to travel by the Royal Mail, but, by God, they were going to stop every night in a respectable inn. As much as he loved his sister, Ross wasn’t in so much hurry to get to Dumfries that they needed to travel all night, too. He had taken this route before and knew where the good meals and soft beds were found. But more than that, he had a list this time. Not just a list: the list.

December the sixth found them in Carlisle, the last stop of any consequence before Scotland. He had given Nathan a map of England and Scotland, because ten years was the right age to begin charting a course. He was not surprised at the look his son gave him when he informed him they were stopping at the Guardian.

‘But Da, if we continue tonight, we’ll be in...’

‘Dumfries before midnight,’ he finished. ‘This is true.’ He leaned closer to his boy. ‘This also is true: for years, I have been dreaming about Cumberland sausage—an entire four-foot length—and whig bread served with Cumberland rum butter.’

‘Four feet of sausage?’ Natham repeated, his eyes wide.

‘I will share,’ Ross told him, the soul of generosity. He ruffled his son’s hair. ‘Would you deny a captain such a meal, after weevily ship’s biscuit and thick water?’

‘Never, Da.’

‘And if we can find sticky toffee pudding...’

The Royal Mail stopped at the Borderers, and after making sure when the morning coach to Dumfries was due, he directed Nathan down the High Street to the Guardian, home of the best Cumberland sausage he had even eaten.

If he were to try to explain to Nathan just how badly he wanted this moment, he knew a ten-year-old would never understand. There were times on the tedious blockade, or in the middle of the heaving Pacific, when he had stared into the distance, willing Cumberland sausage to appear. It embarrassed him to think of that weird obsession now, but such it was. He knew he was not alone in longings far removed from war. That was the nature of the beast: to wish yourself away from it.

They walked down the High Street, before turning on to a side street. For a tiny moment, Ross feared that the Guardian had closed its doors, or no longer served sausage. He smiled to see the venerable building, probably looking the same as when Caesar’s legions had bellied up to the bar, getting courage to attack the Picts.

He remembered to remove his tall fore-and-aft hat, because the entrance was low. He probably would have removed it anyway, out of reverence for the Cumberland sausage, which he could already smell.

‘We would like a room and a parlour for the night,’ he asked the landlord, who looked vaguely familiar. ‘And dinner, of course.’

Apparently the innkeeper was also impressed to see such splendour, if one could call a boat cloak splendid, in his little lobby. He stared at Ross’s hat on his counter.

Ross tried to keep his question casual. ‘There is Cumberland sausage cooking, eh?’

‘Indeed there is, Admiral.’

‘Just captain.’

Just. Just. No one this far north and inland would ever imagine how hard he had worked to get the title of post captain and the right to wear two epaulettes, instead of just one. Ross’s cynical side took over. One of his fellow captains, dead since the blockade, had remarked once over blackstrap in the wardroom, ‘With two epaulettes, the lads’ll at least slide another cannonball into your coffin so you’ll sink faster.’

The transaction completed, the innkeeper turned around the register and held out the quill. Ross dipped it, then signed his name.

He stared closer at the register, noticing the name above his.

‘Mary Rennie?’

A question in his eyes, the landlord looked at the register, too. ‘Oh! Beg pardon, sir. She did mention that a fellow was stopping by later. You’re earlier than I reckoned. You’ll want to share that parlour, I am certain.’ He beamed at Nathan. ‘And this is your little boy?’

‘Aye.’

Perhaps the same last name gave the innkeeper leave to attempt familiarity. ‘I wouldn’t say he favours either of you.’

‘Sir, I...’ Ross began, then closed his mouth, because the innkeeper was already intent on getting his guests together.

‘You’d probably rather share that bedchamber, too.’

‘No, I...’

The innkeeper was already starting down the hall. Ross looked at his son and shrugged. He knew he had the force of personality and years of command to stop the man short with a single barked expletive—God knows he had terrified lieutenants for years—but suddenly, he didn’t want to.

‘Let’s find out who this Mary Rennie is,’ he whispered to Nathan, who grinned back, a partner in crime. ‘Maybe we’ll like her.’

The innkeep stopped before a closed door and gestured grandly. ‘I’ll serve your dinner in here, Captain,’ he said, then snapped his heels together and executed a sharp about face, marred only by the way his rotundity kept swinging, even after he stopped. Ross knew better than to make eye contact with Nathan.

When he just stood there, indecisive, Nathan tapped on the door.

‘Mr Barraclough? You’re early,’ he heard from the other side of the door, followed by quick footsteps.

At least he thought that was what she said, since her accent was so thick and rich. A glance at his son told him that Nathan hadn’t understood any of it.

Mary Rennie opened the door. Ross found himself gazing at considerable loveliness, which made him say, ‘Ahh’, involuntarily.

He only took a quick look; to ogle would have been the worst of manners. Life at sea had trained him to make rapid assessments. In a tiny space of time, that moment between ‘Fire!’ and ‘Reload!’, he took in magnificent auburn hair and green eyes that reminded him of a particular bay near Naples. Mary Rennie’s gaze was clear eyed, straight on and not suspicious. What most captivated him were the freckles on her nose.

He knew better than to look down at her bosom. That little glance at her face suggested that other parts would be just as pleasant.

Nathan was elbowing him as discreetly as a young boy did anything, which made her smile deepen, as she gazed from one to the other.

‘Mr Barraclough, I had no idea you had a bairn.’

God bless the wee bairn. Nathan sketched a bow and declared, ‘I am Nathan and I don’t know what’s the matter with my da.’

That’s all it took; Ross remembered himself. He tucked his hat more firmly under his arm, which made Mary Rennie smile, for some reason. She leaned forwards, her eyes lively.

‘There’s no strong wind in the corridor,’ she said, then indicated they were to enter the sitting room. ‘Let’s sort this out inside.’

He did as she said, putting his hat where she directed and taking off his cloak. In another minute he was seated at the table and she was pouring tea for him and tea with a lot of cream for Nathan. He didn’t see any other teacups, so he knew this was for Mr Barraclough, whoever he was.

‘I am Captain Ross Rennie and my son has already introduced himself,’ he began. ‘Quite possibly you have confused me with someone else.’

‘Rennie?’ Her expression went from puzzled to understanding. ‘Oh! I suppose the innkeep thinks we are related.’

‘I rather think he believes we are man and wife,’ Ross said, then could have bitten his tongue, because she blushed furiously. He kept going doggedly, because all he knew to do was press forwards, full and bye, no matter the venture. ‘He said Nathan didn’t really resemble either of us.’

Mary Rennie laughed, a full-hearted sound that smacked the tension right across its snout and chased it out of the room. ‘Captain, if you are from Scotland...’

‘Dumfries...’

‘Then he is probably correct. I am from Edinburgh in recent years, but Montrose before that. My father was rector there.’ She stood up and went to the door. ‘I’ll ask the keep for more cups.’ She turned a friendly eye on Nathan. ‘And toffee pudding for you?’

Ross couldn’t help the moan that escaped his lips. Nathan giggled.

‘For my da, rather,’ his son said. ‘He’s been long at sea and gets silly about food, I think.’

‘For your da, too,’ she amended, ‘and enough for all of us, because I like toffee pudding.’

She left the parlour. Ross looked at his son. ‘Am I embarrassing you, laddie?’ he asked.

‘Not yet,’ Nathan replied, obviously a man to hedge his bets. ‘She’s pretty, isn’t she?’

Oh, Lord God Almighty, he’s already a son of the guns, Ross thought, impressed. He wondered for a brief moment what Mrs Pritchert would think.

The toffee pudding appeared with Mary, who carried it on a tray, along with plates, forks and tea cups.

‘You went right to the kitchen?’ he asked. Maybe Mary Rennie knew something of full and bye.

‘Certainly. And what is Mr MacDonald doing but preparing a monster dinner of sausage, neeps and taties, whig bread and Cumberland butter. Captain, I told him to serve it in here, because you’re starting to interest me.’

Chapter Four

Mary Rennie, he’ll think you’re the most outrageous flirt in the history of Scotland, she scolded herself, amazed, as she set the pudding on the table. ‘I mean...’ she started, then stopped, honest to her heart’s core, because that was how she was raised. ‘No, I mean just that. I’ve met a rascally army officer or two, but never a sea captain. And could we be cousins?’

The sea captain laughed out loud, which surprised her, considering stories she had heard of the solemn and stoic men of that profession.

‘A rascally army officer or two? That is all?’ he teased in turn. ‘There are many more, Miss Rennie. Just ask any inmate of the Royal Navy. As for cousins, dessert first. Genealogy can wait.’

He accepted the bowl of pudding after she poured a little clotted cream on top. He must have known they were both watching him, but he dug into the dessert with a single-minded zeal that told her worlds about him. The first bite must have been a little bit of heaven, because he rolled his eyes. She couldn’t help observing his face, with its sharp features and weather wrinkles. He looked forty-five at least, but it was entirely possible that he was younger.

‘Twelve years, madam,’ he said, gesturing with the spoon, but so careful not to drop a scrap. ‘I have wanted this for twelve years.’

Mary looked at his son, already seeing a co-conspirator there. ‘What do you think? Should we let him eat the whole lot?’

Nathan shook his head. ‘I want some, too, and besides, Mrs Pritchert would scold him for eating dessert first.’

She glanced at the captain, already knowing he would supply the details, even though the pudding beckoned.

‘Mrs Pritchert is an estimable female and the widow of my best sailing master. She is rearing Nathan, because his mother died in an earthquake in Oporto. We think he was a week old.’

He spoke with a matter-of-fact tone that she found beguiling, considering that she was weary of her aunt’s circumlocutions and the tragedy that was Cousin Dina’s life. She liked the look of him, too. Most of the men she knew were men of business and finance like her uncle, with white, indoor skin and soft hands. None of them had an interesting scar like the one that ran from Captain Rennie’s left eye to his hairline. And absolutely no one had a peg-leg.

‘How on earth did you get Nathan home?’ she asked, intrigued by two lives that were far more interesting than hers.

‘By the grace of God, a goat and a frigate with willing nursemaids,’ he said, and there was no overlooking the fun in his eyes. She could only imagine at the desperate sadness, but that had probably been about ten years ago, if Nathan was as young as he looked. She knew how time could smooth away jagged edges; oh, my, she did.

It was good toffee pudding. She ate a smallish portion and left the rest to the captain. Nathan did the same thing, which touched her heart. Captain Rennie worked his way steadily through the dessert and appeared none the worse for wear when he finished. She could have laughed out loud as he eyed the residue around the rim of the bowl. Probably aboard his ship and dining alone, he would have run his finger around that rim; maybe even licked the bowl.

Mary hoped he would feel inclined to tell her more, before he and his son found their own private parlour. Her own day of travel had been boring in the extreme, without a single person of interest on the mail coach to talk to—not that she would have addressed a man she did not know, at least not one younger than sixty.

‘There now,’ he said, putting his empty bowl back on the tray. ‘After that restorative, let me think about my Rennie family tree. Feel free to jump in, Miss Rennie, if someone sounds familiar. My great-grandfather, Thomas Rennie, from Castle Douglas, had five sons. There was Angus, Max, Andrew, Douglas and Gerard. Ring any bells with you?’

‘Andrew,’ she replied promptly. ‘Named after the saint, but wasn’t, or so my father said. Papa was a rector, though, so few measured high on his scale. Papa’s grandfather was Gerard.’

He smiled at that. ‘Douglas was mine. I met Great-Uncle Andrew once.’ He leaned closer and there was no mistaking the twinkle in his eyes. ‘I also remember that Da counted the silverware when he left.’

Mary gasped and laughed out loud. ‘My father tells me similar stories. I think we are cousins of some stripe or other, Captain.’

She had not been raised to pry, but Mary knew she did not want either of them to leave her orbit so soon. Nearly a week on the road, tracking down Christmas cake, had shown her the dismal side of travel: there was no one to talk to. It was easy enough to bury her nose in a book on the mail coach during the day, or exchange pleasantries with respectable-looking females, but the evenings did drag.

‘I shouldn’t pry...’

‘Pardon me for asking...’

Nathan laughed at them both. ‘Mrs Pritchert always says to take turns in conversation.’

‘I always defer to rank. You first, Captain Cousin.’

‘I defer to the ladies, Cousin Mary,’ he said in turn. ‘May I guess your question?’

‘It’s not a difficult one. Where are you going?’

‘We’re heading to my sister’s home in Dumfries for Christmas.’ The glance he gave his son was a fond one. ‘Nathan has a chart and assures me we could have been there late this evening, but I wanted to eat here. My turn now: Where are you going?’

She opened her mouth to reply, but there was a knock on the door. ‘Come in.’

His face red from the heat of the kitchen, the innkeep struggled under the load of a massive tray. He was followed by a small boy with a smaller tray.

She looked at the captain, and he was watching her, a smile in his eyes that spread to his whole face as she watched, contradicting everything she had heard about the dour members of the sailing fraternity. Aunt Martha would probably have questioned the propriety, even if he was a Rennie, but Aunt Martha was nowhere in sight.

‘Right here, sir,’ she told the keep. ‘We’ll dine together.’

The keep gave her a puzzled look, as though wondering why there was any question about the man and boy dining with her. Hadn’t the captain already informed her that the keep thought them to be husband and wife? She looked to her new-found cousin to explain the situation, but his eyes were on the food. He would have to speak to the innkeeper later.

She could have closed the door and walked away and her cousin never would have noticed, which amused her. Captain Rennie liked to eat. She could also have stripped off her clothes and he wouldn’t have noticed. She couldn’t help her laughter at the roguish thought.

He looked up and surprised her. ‘Come, come, Cousin Mary,’ he chided. ‘Food has its place in my universe, but not to the exclusion of good company.’ He eyed the sausage with real appreciation, when, with a modest amount of Scottish fanfare, Mr McDonald lifted of the domed lid. ‘Mary, you may have...how many inches of this?’

She looked at the coiled sausage, moist and sweating and giving off the most heavenly aroma. Her mouth watered. It looked far more adventurous than the bowl of vegetable soup she had considered. ‘Six inches, Captain.’

‘Cousin Ross,’ he amended and nodded to Mr McDonald. ‘You heard the lady, sir. Six inches. Reminds me of a scurrilous joke I shall never tell. The same for you, laddie?’

Nathan nodded, his eyes wide. ‘Do...d’ye plan to eat the rest, Da?’

Mary watched with delight as the captain pursed his lips, squinted and eyed the monstrous sausage. Even after the keep and cook severed two portions, the remaining bulk was formidable.

‘Probably not, Son, if I plan to sleep tonight and not spend the wee hours of morning in the head. Maybe when I was younger, I could have.’ He eyed Mary without a single repentant look. ‘Plain speaking, ma’am. We Rennies specialise in it. Do you?’

‘I suppose I’d better,’ she told him, determined not to be embarrassed because she found father and son so fascinating. ‘Go easy on the neeps and taties, then.’

Mr McDonald served them and stood there. Mary suspected his sedate little inn seldom sheltered visitors as interesting as the Rennies.

Captain Rennie dismissed the keep with a slight nod, the kind of gesture that would have meant next to nothing if she had attempted it. Coming from a post captain, the nod sent McDonald to the door immediately. Too bad I cannot give a nod like that and send Dina scurrying, Mary thought. I’ll have to watch how he does that.

The whig bread smelled divine. She wasn’t sure about the rum butter until she tried a dollop on a scrap of bread. She couldn’t help her exclamation of pleasure. The captain took a break from his mouthful of sausage and buttered a larger slice for her, as though she were a child.

‘You’re used to looking after people, aren’t you?’ she asked.

‘A shipful, Cousin,’ he said around that mouthful of sausage. ‘Two hundred and fifty when we have a full complement, which is seldom.’

She savoured every bite of the bread and sausage, wishing she had loosened her stays before the Rennies knocked on her door and changed the course of her trip for one night. The errant thought crossed her sausage-soaked brain that she was going to miss them tomorrow.

Mary stopped eating just after Nathan pushed his plate away and staggered to the sofa to flop down. The captain showed no signs of quitting. The four-foot length of sausage had been greatly diminished and she wondered if he had a hollow leg as well as a peg-leg. She glanced at it, curious to know how he kept the thing on, then glanced away. She had never sat so close to someone with a wooden leg before, but it didn’t follow that she had lost all her manners.

She sat back and tried to hide a discreet belch behind her napkin. ‘That was amazing, Captain.’

‘Ross,’ he repeated, a man most patient. He set down his fork, but only long enough to add more potatoes to his plate. ‘Are you finished?’

Mary nodded. ‘I should have done that fifteen minutes ago.’ She chuckled. ‘Cap—Ross, I was going to have a bowl of vegetable soup and a hard roll.’

He just rolled his eyes at that dismal news and continued his tour through the Guardian’s cuisine. ‘Tell me, if I am not prying overmuch, what has brought a lady out on the road? I would think you should have a chaperon stashed somewhere.’

Mary shook her head, touched at his concern. I suppose you have added me to your stewardship of two-hundred-and-fifty men, she thought. And one small boy. ‘I’m past the age of needing a chaperon.’

‘I doubt that. You can’t be a year over twenty-four.’

‘Try almost four years over.’ She leaned closer. ‘Since you are being impertinent, so shall I be. How old are you?’

‘What do you reckon, Cuz?’ he asked. ‘I probably look fifty, but I blame the wind and general stress.’

‘I was going to say forty-five,’ she told him.

‘You’re off by seven or so. I am thirty-nine in January.’

‘Antique, indeed,’ she murmured. ‘Well, now, we are both getting on in years, but this is my first adventure. Care to hear about it?’

Ross did, surprising himself. He had spent so many years dining alone with charts and logs that the prospect of an evening with a pretty lady beguiled him. He glanced at Nathan, whose eyes were starting to close from the effects of such a meal.

Mary observed him, following his gaze. Without a word, she got up and took a light blanket off the back of the sofa. As he watched, she covered his son, then placed the back of her hand lightly against his cheek. Nathan opened his eyes, smiled at her, and made himself comfortable in that way of adaptable little boys.

She sat down again. ‘I am supposed to be having an adventure, all because of Christmas cake. Perhaps you call it fruitcake.’

‘I don’t call it anything.’ He chuckled. ‘I suppose I would have eaten nearly anything in my Turkish prison, but fruitcake?’

She widened her eyes, and he enjoyed the effect because her face could be so animated, he was rapidly discovering. ‘Turkish prison?’

‘A story for another day. It’s your turn now,’ he reminded her.

He kept eating while she told him a tale of Cousin Dina, a valuable ring and a cook named Mrs Morison who had volunteered her to retrieve four fruitcakes. Her tale was so homely and simple it took a moment to soak into his brain, because he was used to bad news, and storms and broadsides and noise.

‘You have commandeered three cakes already?’

She nodded, then laughed softly, careful not to disturb Nathan. He appreciated that nicety in her. Or maybe she was just a quiet woman. Whatever the truth, he found her air of peace almost as soothing as the Cumberland sausage. ‘I am suspecting that no one likes to eat my aunt Martha’s Christmas cake. P’raps not even Turks! You should have seen their eagerness when I said I needed them back!’

‘Did you tell them why?’

Mary shook her head. ‘That would only embarrass Dina, my cousin—our cousin?’ She seemed to gauge his expression. ‘Aye, she’s foolish, but I can be kind. I have concocted a taradiddle that the ingredients are a bit off and shouldn’t be served.’

You are kind, he thought. ‘And?’ he prompted.

‘No ring in those three cakes.’

She trilled her rs so beautifully. Ross enjoyed the sound, as well as the thickness of her accent. He found it almost a balm to his soul because it reminded him of earlier years, before Napoleon had decided to rule the known world. Ross thought of his mother suddenly and her well-nigh impenetrable brogue. Mam had died while he languished in a Spanish prison on the other side of the world in Caracas, Venezuela. He would have given the earth to hear her lovely voice one more time.

‘Captain?’ Her voice was soft and she looked concerned.

‘Just woolgathering,’ he told her. ‘I’ve been a long time away from a good brogue with no bark on it. The Royal Navy tends to smooth out most Scotsmen.’

‘You, included.’ She smiled at him, then glanced at his sleeping son. ‘I’m not so certain your wee bairn can understand much of what I said. Ah, well. I’ll be hopefully travelling back to Edinburgh tomorrow, triumphant with a ring, and you’ll be on your way to Dumfries.’

‘Aye.’ Funny that he wasn’t so pleased to think of that. Silence settled on them both, and he teased his vanity with the notion that Cousin Mary might miss him a little. He was done with dinner—or at least all he dared cram down his gullet—but he didn’t want to leave her orbit just yet. Time to snatch at a straw. ‘This fourth Christmas cake. Who has it here in Carlisle?’

She seemed not to mind his temporising. ‘Miss Ella Bruce, a chum of my auntie’s from their younger days at the Lorna McKay’s Select Academy for Females,’ she said with a straight face. ‘Don’t laugh! Aunt Martha learned to create any number of improving samplers.’

He laughed anyway, leaning back in his chair, still mystified by peacetime conversation. ‘Would it surprise you to know that there is someone on nearly every frigate, ship of the line and tender who has a sampler reading, “Great Britain expects every man to do his duty”?’

‘Do you?’ she teased.

‘Of course! My sister Alice Mae in Dumfries has two daughters.’ He sat back, thinking of the samplers, and Trafalgar, and Lord Nelson dead on HMS Victory. They were all in the employ of Napoleon, the grand puppeteer of Europe who pulled his strings so everyone would dance and caper about to his tune. But Cousin Mary didn’t know what that felt like.

Or did she? To his surprise, she leaned forwards and touched his hand, just the smallest touch. And here he thought he had trained his face to show no expression, especially not when things were going wrong and everyone looked at him to save them. Why in the world was he letting down his guard to this sweet lady intent on collecting Christmas cakes? Maybe he shouldn’t have eaten so much Cumberland sausage.

‘Do you know these people with the fruitcake?’ he asked, wanting to change the subject.

‘Not one of them,’ she said as quickly, maybe wanting to change it, too. ‘Only last week, my auntie asked herself why on earth she is still sending Christmas cakes to people she hasn’t heard from in decades. I suppose that is what people do at Christmas; ergo, Ella Bruce gets a fruitcake.’ She laughed. ‘Don’t look for logic, Captain; it’s Christmas.’

* * *

Ross couldn’t think of anyone, except his son, that he had ever sent anything to at Christmas. He opened his mouth to admit it when someone knocked on the door.

Mary gave the door a frown that hinted she wished they had not been interrupted, or so he wanted to think. As she got up to open the door, her hand just brushed his shoulder—again, the lightest touch. He had probably imagined this one, because he didn’t think she was a forward woman at all.

‘This will be Miss Bruce’s emissary,’ she whispered.

‘Eh?’

‘I sent a note to her home, explaining the situation, and he responded at length, but managed to impart amazingly little.’ Her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘D’ye think he’s a solicitor? Let’s hope he has the cake.’

Let’s hope he doesn’t, Ross thought suddenly as she opened the door. Maybe you could use a chaperon, if the cake has strayed. Pray God it has crawled away to die somewhere else.

Chapter Five

His name was Malcolm Barraclough, and he was the bearer of bad news. He was also prissy and overly dramatic, making Mary supremely grateful he was unknown to her. Let Miss Ella Bruce have the pleasure of his stultifying company once Mary quitted Carlisle.

After ten endless minutes of listening to Mr Barraclough explain who he was, Mary made a fearsome mistake—she glanced at Captain Rennie and witnessed an amazing eye roll. Maybe the Rennies truly were inclined more to plain speaking, as he had said. She doubted that the captain had wasted a word in his entire life. This led to her second epiphany: she needn’t suffer bores gladly.

Mary staunched Malcolm Barraclough’s haemorrhage of words. ‘Sir, please take a seat. You are Miss Bruce’s nephew and she has taken herself off to Stirling? Is that the gist of it?’

The man nodded, surprised, and obviously unused to interruption. ‘She will be back e’er long, but gone just long enough for your little errand to—ahem—save my bacon.’ He put his hand to his forehead. ‘I did a rash thing.’ He hung his head in manufactured shame. ‘I’m not certain what I was thinking.’

Captain Rennie laughed, but was rewarded with a fishy stare. ‘Were you foxed? Three sheets to the wind?’

The estimable Mr Barraclough drew himself up, which was amusing enough, because he was even shorter than Mary. ‘Captain, I am an elder in the Kirk!’

‘Ooh, no vices allowed?’ the captain asked in an innocence as manufactured as Barraclough’s humility.

‘None whatsoever.’

You have a playful streak, Mary thought, giving the captain her own fishy stare. She returned her attention to her sitting-room guest. ‘I was hoping you would just bring me the Christmas cake, Mr Barraclough. The ingredients were a wee bit off and my auntie wanted me to retrieve them. I explained this in my note to you this afternoon.’

‘I cannot return it, for I have sent the Christmas cake to another,’ Mr Barraclough confessed. His head hung lower. ‘My Aunt Ella has no idea.’ He struck a little pose. ‘I lay the blame at Cupid’s door.’

The captain turned away and his shoulders started to shake. Don’t look at him, Mary warned herself. She had to ask. ‘Cupid’s door? But this is Christmas, sir, not Valentine’s Day.’

‘Cousin Mary, people can fall in love at Christmastime, too,’ the captain said, his expression bland, except for a lurking twinkle. ‘Surely it happens all the time.’

Mary looked from one man to the other, one a tease and the other a prig, and fell back on her remedy for all ills. ‘Gentlemen, shall we have tea?’

Mr Barraclough agreed to tea, settling himself at the table with the air of a man prepared to stay all evening. Mary poured, wondering if tea had been a tactical error. She knew better than to look at the captain, who had seated himself on the sofa beside his sleeping child. She wanted to laugh when he crossed his legs and the peg rested atop his knee. He waggled it once or twice; Mr Barraclough stared, then coughed and looked away.

The sight of the peg-leg seemed to have deprived him of speech, which gave Mary the opening for her questions. ‘Sir, did Miss Bruce know about the cake?’

‘No. It arrived after she left to visit her sister, my mother. She gets one every year.’

‘A sister? How amazingly profligate,’ Captain Rennie said.

‘Sir! A fruitcake! From someone in Edinburgh I have never met!’

The peg-leg waggled again and Mr Barraclough stared at it. I’m going to thrash a post captain in the Royal Navy, once this bore leaves, Mary thought.

‘What did you do with the cake?’ she asked.

After another look at the wooden leg, Mr Barraclough dragged his eyes away and told a tale of Miss Bruce’s unrequited love for a solicitor and the thirty years she had pined for him. It was the stuff of Highland legend, if Mr Barraclough was to be believed. ‘Mr Maxfield was too shy to declare himself, so my mother tells me, and my aunt too much a shrinking violet to nudge him.’ He paused for breath finally, casting sidelong glances at the peg-leg, which had mercifully settled down, to Mary’s relief.

‘And?’ Mary prompted. ‘My aunt has never mentioned such a tale.’

‘Aunt Ella falls into severe melancholia at Christmas, because Mr Maxfield wasn’t ever brave enough to kiss her under the mistletoe positioned so strategically at the Select Female Academy.’ He sipped his tea noisily. ‘For thirty years, she has pined, cried and taken to her bed at this time of year, when most Christians rejoice. I have witnessed this annual agony and it is not a pretty sight! Then she goes to Stirling and pines and cries there, too.’ He gave a gusty sigh. ‘Such is the fate of the spinster, I suppose.’

Lord, I hope not, Mary thought, then tried to remember the last time anyone had kissed her under mistletoe, much less a kissing ball. To her dismay, nothing came to mind.

‘But what does this have to do with the missing cake?’ Captain Rennie asked. To Mary’s surprise, he sounded interested.

‘I, sir, am a romantic,’ Mr Barraclough announced, with a click of the teacup on the saucer. In his tight, shiny suit, he looked more like the counting-house clerk he probably was, and no solicitor. Mary felt her heart soften as she began to understand this little man, probably no more acquainted with adventure than she was.

‘After ten years of listening to my aunt suffer this annual torment, I decided to mail the fruitcake to Tavish Maxfield, along with a note declaring her steadfast love and a proposal of marriage. I signed it Ella Bruce.’

Silence, then the captain applauded. ‘Well done, Mr Barraclough!’ he declared.

‘D’ye think so?’ the man asked, blushing like a maiden. He tweaked the few hairs forming a fringe around his head, smoothing them with nervous fingers.

Mary stared at them both, the captain’s admiration seemingly genuine, and Mr Barraclough’s pleased expression told Mary worlds about his own quiet life, shared with a spinster aunt. Almost like my life, she thought reluctantly.

‘Sir, it takes a bold stroke to conquer the heart! Rather like war at sea,’ Captain Rennie said. ‘If Mr Maxfield follows through and goes to Carlisle, your auntie will be so pleased. If he does nothing, she’ll at least be none the wiser.’ Rennie clapped the man on the shoulder. ‘Brilliant!’

Mr Barraclough beamed at Mary. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have fretted and worried so much,’ he said. ‘I am not ordinarily so impulsive.’

‘Maybe you should not fret,’ she agreed, in charity with him because Captain Rennie was. She glanced at the captain, who now sat calling no attention to his peg-leg. ‘More tea, Mr Barraclough?’

* * *

While Nathan slumbered on, Mr Barraclough stayed another hour, drinking tea, eating some of the rapidly congealing Cumberland sausage and telling them about his life in the counting house of Mackey and Wilde. It was as boring and dry as toast, but the captain seemed to take an interest in each dull detail. Mary listened in growing admiration of her cousin as Ross Rennie teased out little scraps of information about Mr Barraclough’s own pining for Jennie Lynch, a rector’s daughter. As her cousin made affable conversation with a man probably as lonely as his maiden aunt, Mary had the smallest glimmer what sort of captain he was and felt her own heart grow warm at his effortless kindness. She amended that mentally—his kindness once he had got past his teasing nature.

Just as kindly, Captain Rennie found a way to end the evening’s interview. He took out his watch and shook his head sadly. ‘Sir, all good things must come to an end, and look you here, my son is sound asleep.’

The two men shook hands, then Barraclough bowed gallantly over Mary’s hand. It was a self-conscious attempt, but it touched her heart. Maybe she could take a page from her cousin’s book.

‘Mr Barraclough, perhaps it is time you gave Jennie Lynch a kiss under the mistletoe,’ she suggested, pinking up as much as her parlour guest at her presumption.

‘Aye to that,’ the captain said. ‘Remember the bold stroke.’

The counting-house clerk nodded thoughtfully. He bowed to them both and started for the door.

‘Oh, wait!’ Mary said, hurrying to his side. ‘You didn’t tell us where you sent the fruitcake.’

‘I forgot.’ Mr Barraclough giggled. ‘I directed it to Tavish Maxfield, Esquire, Number Fifteen Apollo Street, York.’ He beamed at them. ‘Mrs Rennie, you must be so happy to have your captain home from the wars.’

‘My...’ She glanced at the captain, then looked away, suddenly as shy as Miss Ella Bruce, who was probably sobbing out her heart in Stirling right now.

‘She certainly is happy to see my waterlogged carcase,’ the captain said to Mr Barraclough’s retreating figure. ‘And I am glad to be here.’ He closed the door and leaned against it.

‘You could have told him the truth,’ Mary said, her face on fire.

‘We’ll never see him again. If I had corrected him, he would have been embarrassed. What would be served?’ He sat down by his sleeping son again, his hand going naturally to Nathan’s leg in a caress. ‘He was a little fellow in need of an audience. I hope to goodness he does kiss Miss Lynch under the mistletoe. Hope he gives her a really loud smack.’

Mary wasn’t certain she should say what was on her mind, but now her cousin was giving her that same interested look he had given to their late guest. She saw no subterfuge in his expression and it gave her courage. Or maybe it aroused her lately submerged sense of humour, because no one on Wapping Street in Edinburgh seemed to tease or joke.

‘Don’t deny that you started out to discommode the man,’ she chided. ‘I thought he was going to climb the wallpaper when you started waving about your...your peg.’

He crossed his leg again and gave it another waggle, which made her laugh softly, so as not to wake Nathan.

‘Dear Cousin, you’d be amazed how San Agustin can disturb the pompous. Yes, my crew named it after the Spanish ship o’ the line that gave it to me at Trafalgar!’ He put his hands behind his head then, regarding her. ‘Eventually, they just called it Gus,’ he added, when she laughed. ‘Of course, they never dared to tell me what they called it, but word gets about in close quarters.’

His expression became serious, almost wistful. ‘D’ye know, when Mr Barraclough started to talk about the counting house and his little life, I was reminded all over again what a large stage I have been playing on. Would I change places with him? Sometimes.’ He gave her a wry smile. ‘During this leave of mine, I must accustom myself to life among people who have never worked for Napoleon, as I did.’

She looked at him, startled, then understood what he meant. ‘The grand wizard of Europe?’

‘Aye, lass. Puppermaster, grand wizard, what you will. The Admiralty pays my salary, but Napoleon employs me. We all dance to his tune.’

So did I, Mary reminded herself, unwilling to say it out loud. She hadn’t thought of Lieutenant Reginald MacDowell in five years at least, but for just a moment, she was seventeen again and in love.

‘You, too?’ he asked.

You surprise me, she thought, wondering at his ability to delve deep without appearing to. She nodded, too shy to say more. No reason for this man soon to leave her life, once they said goodnight, to know how her heart broke when the lieutenant informed her of his need to marry a lady with money. Rather than yielding to bitterness, she had pined in sorrow, then suffered in more silence when she learned of his death at Salamanca two years later. By then, Lieutenant MacDowell had his own widow and a son who would never know him. Funny that she had never thought to blame Bonaparte.

‘It appears Boney has meddled in all our lives.’

Captain Rennie said it softly. Mary opened her mouth to tell him about Reginald, then closed it, choosing not to become as pathetic as Malcolm Barraclough. She decided he looked a little disappointed and wondered how many midshipmen and lieutenants he had counselled through the years. The captain had been kind to take an interest, but the hour was late and the Cumberland sausage had well and truly adhered to the serving platter.

‘How did he meddle in your life, Mary? Call me nosy—I want to know.’

‘I nearly became engaged to a lieutenant in the light artillery, until he decided he needed a wife with an income of her own,’ she said. ‘I gather that uniforms are expensive.’

‘Cad,’ he said. ‘And?’

‘He found someone else rather quickly, so I do not think he was truly invested in me,’ she said, finding it less difficult to talk about than she would have thought. ‘Perhaps it was for the best.’

‘I trust he died on some battlefield,’ Ross told her. ‘Serve him right.’

‘Actually, he did, but he left a wife and infant. Don’t be so flippant, Captain.’ She hadn’t meant for that to come out with real force, but it did. Maybe she had cared more than she knew. Maybe she should have talked about Lieutenant MacDowell to another human being and not kept it all inside her.

‘I am sorry,’ he replied. ‘Callous of me. No one is unscathed, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Captain, I think...’ she began, then stopped, wanting to change the subject. She was silent a moment, and the enormity of Mr Barraclough’s parting words sank in. ‘Dear me, York.’

* * *

Ross hadn’t known his cousin long, but her sudden frown told him the obvious: this little lady bent on finding a ring in a fruitcake had probably never ventured any farther south than Carlisle. And for God’s sake, had someone bullied her into traipsing around for fruitcake? She was a lady alone on the Royal Mail. He smiled inside. At the mercy of bores like Malcolm Barraclough? The smile left. And maybe a sea captain? Did she have enough money? Was he ever going to feel free of responsibility that had descended like a sodden mantle around his shoulders when he strode his first quarterdeck? Perhaps not. Perhaps he didn’t want that peculiar sense of stewardship to vanish now.

‘Cousin Mary, it appears you have to go to York. Could you use some company?’

Chapter Six

Mary frowned. She knew where York was on her uncle’s atlas. For years she had considered it high adventure to flop on the sofa when no one was using the sitting room, prop open the atlas on her stomach and imagine herself in exotic locales like London and Brighton. The prospect of actually venturing farther south from Carlisle into England was something she had not considered when she let Mrs Morison and Aunt Martha cajole her into retrieving the dratted Christmas cakes.

It’ll be simple, she thought with some chagrin, remembering Mrs Morison’s words. You’ll probably find the ring in the first cake you pick up. You’ll be home in no time.

‘Hmm, from the look on your face, Cousin, I think you hadn’t planned on voyaging in foreign waters,’ her cousin told her.

‘No, indeed.’ You must think me a complete ninny, she thought, considering the obvious competence of the man looking at her with such a pleasant expression. Might as well admit it. ‘I can imagine what your opinion of me is,’ she said, eager now for him to quit her sitting room, because she felt like a fool. ‘You’ve sailed into real danger for more than twenty years and I’m frightened of the prospect of York!’

Mary couldn’t even look at him. He startled her by touching her chin until she had no choice but to look into his eyes. And quite blue eyes they were.

‘My opinion of you is merely that you have never been to York and it is a large city.’

He said it so kindly that her embarrassment vanished and her charity returned. ‘I suppose it is a little odd for someone to be canvassing the countryside for fruitcake,’ Mary said, then laughed out loud. ‘I think it’s odd!’

‘No more strange than a post captain traipsing about for Cumberland sausage.’ He glanced at his son and lowered his voice when the boy muttered something in his sleep. ‘Personally, I could have stayed another day in York when we passed through earlier this week. My current sailing master told me about a shop in York that makes excellent blood pudding.’

‘You’re hopeless!’

‘I know.’ He didn’t touch her hand, but he stood closer. ‘Let us accompany you to York and retrieve that pesky cake.’

She wavered, then decided, with a shake of her head. ‘You have just been there. I’m no navigator and I expect you are, so you know better than to backtrack to York. You’re so thoughtful, Captain Rennie, but I can find York, Apollo Street and this old gent pining for love of Miss Bruce.’

‘It’s no hardsh—’

‘Yes, it is,’ she interrupted. ‘You tell me this is your first actual holiday—’

‘Shore leave.’

‘—in twelve years.’ She glanced at the Cumberland sausage, supine in its solidified juices. ‘You’ve obviously been planning this...shore leave for eons.’ She held out her hand to him. ‘Cousin, don’t worry about me. I hope you have a happy Christmas on land. Goodbye.’

The look of disappointment in his eyes surprised her, she who never elicited much response from her own relatives, much less one on such a distant branch of her family tree as the captain. She also knew he would recover, because that was what men did.

Captain Rennie shrugged. When he turned to pick up his son, he took a side step to get his balance. Mary shot her hand out automatically to steady him, her hand firm against the small of his back.

‘Thank you,’ he told her with no embarrassment. ‘Sometimes I still overset myself.’ He picked up Nathan.

Mary released her grip on the captain, deciding not to be embarrassed by her quick reaction if he wasn’t. She touched Nathan’s hair, brushing it back from his forehead. When he opened his eyes and blinked, she touched his cheek. ‘I hope you have a lovely Christmas, too,’ she said softly. ‘Don’t let your papa eat too much sausage all at once.’ She gave it a thought, then shrugged and kissed Nathan’s forehead.

Mary held the door open for the captain, watching as he carried the child from her room. He stood there a moment, then shook his head and turned around.

‘Cousin Mary, I never told the innkeep that I needed a separate room. He’s thinking we’re slinging our hammocks in here with you, because we are all Rennies.’

‘My goodness.’ She gestured to the sofa. ‘Put Nathan down in here again and make your arrangements.’

He did as she said, then grinned and knuckled his forehead like a common sailor as he backed out. ‘Suppose there are no spare rooms?’ He winked at her and it took years off his weather-blasted face. ‘Come, come, Cousin, it’s nearly Christmas, and we know how troublesome landlords are at that season!’

‘You, sir, are a rascal,’ she said firmly. ‘Find a room at this inn.’

He did, returning quickly with a key in hand. He stood by the sofa, looking down at his son. ‘You know, Mary, I have it on good authority that parents will often stand as we happen to be standing and just gaze at their sleeping children. That has never been my luxury. Pardon me, but I am savouring this moment.’

‘Savour all you want, Captain,’ she replied, her voice as soft as his. ‘I’ve never had this luxury, either.’ She couldn’t help herself. She brushed the hair from Nathan’s forehead. ‘His mother must have been a beautiful woman.’

‘She was. I never saw a bonnier lady.’

He must have thought such a comment was a bit cavalier, since she was a woman, too. He touched her nose with his finger, just a light touch. ‘But I do like freckles, something a man never sees in the Iberian Peninsula. ’Night, Mary, and goodbye, I suppose.’

He picked up his sleeping child again and, key in hand, went a few doors down the hall. She almost went to help him when he fumbled with the key and kept Nathan from waking up, but he managed. He closed the door and that was that.

* * *

But it wasn’t. Hours later, Mary was still wide awake and staring at the ceiling. She worried about money first, then reminded herself that she was excellent at economising and York wasn’t so far. Besides, if she needed more funds, Uncle Samuel would send them.

Thank goodness that the forlorn Miss Bruce didn’t pine for a man in Bath. York likely had modest establishments for careful travellers. Mary worried next about her fellow travellers, then reminded herself that since Aunt Martha had never felt inclined to send a servant to accompany her on trips about Edinburgh, she had long ago perfected her stern, leave-me-alone face that could quell all but the most relentless bores and roués. No one would bother her on the Royal Mail, not even in England.

She had no remedy for the loneliness that was beginning to plague her, even though she had only been a little more than a week on her quest for the Christmas cake. The days were lively enough, because there was usually a woman or two on the Royal Mail of sufficient gentility to share a nod with and then a polite conversation. And she always carried a book in her reticule. The nights were troublesome, cooped up in one inn or another with no one to speak to, once she had tracked down, acquired, sifted through and then discarded the Christmas cakes.

Until she had begun this impromptu journey, Mary hadn’t realised how much she enjoyed popping down to the kitchen for a chin-wag with Mrs Morison, or even listening to her Aunt Martha complain about this or that, or Uncle Sam speak to her until he retreated behind his morning newspaper. Cousin Dina hadn’t been any fun at all, since she had agreed to marry Mr Page.

‘It’s only a few more days to be lonely and then you will be home in Edinburgh, Mary,’ she told the ceiling. ‘Buck up a wee bit.’

That should have been enough, but she took her thoughts a step further tonight. Maybe she could blame it on Mr Barraclough and his little hopes, dreams and flights of fancy. He was a man living with a maiden aunt, perhaps for years, and he was fussy and silly already. All good wishes aside, Mary doubted supremely that Miss Jennie Lynch would ever stand with him under the kissing bough.

She lay in bed and realised that the saddest specimen of humankind in the world must be a ridiculous spinster or bachelor. Spinster I may be, but please God, not a ridiculous one, she thought as she fluffed her pillow, then pounded it and tried to sleep.

Nothing worked, so she thought about Captain Rennie, wondering how a man did what he did, taking the punishment of broadsides at close range or typhoons in the South China Sea without wanting to run screaming into a dark corner, as she thought she might. And how in the world did he maintain his balance on a slanting or pitching deck? She wanted to ask him, but the opportunity was gone.

Besides the obvious differences, Mary suspected that men were different in other ways, too. Her urge had always been to stay as far away from trouble as she could. Possibly if women ran the world, no one would fight. Although still not married to her, perhaps Lieutenant MacDowell would at least be alive to know his son, instead of dead on a Spanish battlefield he had probably never heard of, before it became his final resting place.

Mary wondered when her ever-so-distant cousin Ross had last spent Christmas ashore. It was too late to ask him. She knew the mail coach to Dumfries left before the sun was up. He and his son would be long gone before the York Mail left. She only knew that because she had overheard some of the other passengers talking about York. She would have to trust his sister to make his holiday—his shore leave—a good one. On that note, she finally slept.

* * *

Ross knew his son would go back to sleep as soon as he was in his nightshirt, but he didn’t. Instead, Nathan put his hands behind his head, wriggled into a comfortable spot and frowned.

‘What?’ Ross asked. ‘I know that look.’

He couldn’t quite bring himself to tell his boy that Inez had given him that same look a time or two, when he wasn’t quite measuring up. A pity his son never knew his own mother.

Nathan didn’t question his comment. ‘It’s this, Da,’ he began. ‘I don’t think we should let Cousin Mary travel by herself on the Royal Mail. I mean, the common coach is fine for us, but she’s a lady.’

‘Aye to that. You know, I’ve been having the same thought. What can we do, though, outside of kidnapping her?’

‘Oh, Da!’

They laughed together. Ross lay down beside his son, assuming the same position, hands behind his head. After a moment’s thought, he leaned on his elbow. ‘Are you expecting me to think of something?’ he asked.

Nathan nodded. ‘You’re the man here.’

‘Very well. I’ll think about it.’ He leaned over and kissed his son, then rose to put on his own nightshirt. ‘Now go to sleep.’

‘We really don’t have much time,’ Nathan pointed out. He closed his eyes, his expression blissful. ‘Da, she touched me and I liked it.’

She touched me, too, and I liked it, Ross thought, surprised. ‘All right. I’ll devise a plan. Will that do? Will you go to sleep now?’

* * *

When Mary woke up, dawn struggled in the east. She must have been roused by the sound of the Royal Mail, departing for Scotland. She yearned to be on it, even if she found herself squashed between ordinary folk headed to early markets, as she had found on other early mornings. Well, Captain Rennie and Nathan would only be crowded for a few hours themselves, since Dumfries was not far. Her destination was York, which made her sigh, turn her face to the wall and snuggle deeper into her blankets, eager to put it far from her mind for another hour.

* * *

When she woke again, the room was light and she could not ignore the day. She sat up, not pleased with herself and even more cross with Mrs Morison, who had so calmly enlisted her for this trip. No matter; Mary could put on her quelling face and no one on the Royal Mail would trouble her with conversation.

She washed and dressed, then went into the sitting room, looking with real distaste on the Cumberland sausage and wishing she had directed the innkeep to remove it after the Rennies had left. She would do that when she went into the commons room to request breakfast, a prospect that didn’t thrill her. The commons rooms were usually peopled by farmers resting after taking produce to market and she did dislike being ogled.

She stopped at the door and looked down at a folded square of paper pushed into the room, her name on it. She smiled to see ‘Cousin Mary’ and picked it up, curious. She read the note and her eyes opened wider. She read it through again out loud, thinking she might comprehend better what Captain Rennie had wrought.

‘“The Lords of the Admiralty wish to inform Miss Mary Rennie that Captain Ross Rennie, post, requests and requires her permission to serve as an escort during times of war, and all trips into enemy territory—York,”’ she read, shaking her head in amazement. She laughed out loud to read smaller printed words in parenthesis. “Aye, we are at peace now, but I know my employer pretty well and do not trust him to stay on that little island so close to France.” You would know,’ she murmured.

The note was close-written, but easy to read. Perhaps the economy of space came because he was used to writing in a ship’s log. She scanned the remaining paragraph, gasped at his impertinence, laughed at its conclusion, then reread it, touched.

‘“Because the Royal Mail is reliable, but uncomfortable, and Captain Rennie likes to travel in comfort when he can—which hasn’t been often in the past twelve years—he has already engaged a post chaise for the journey to York,”’ she read, amazed at his effrontery, which Aunt Martha probably would have called it. Mary wasn’t so sure. ‘“Besides, he is determined to stop at Skowcroft for excellent dessert and the mail coach would not oblige him. Cousin Mary, do not disappoint this peg-leg warrior of the Royal Navy.”’

‘So you will stoop to the sympathy card, sir?’ She laughed out loud and read the postscript. ‘“He also knows of some excellent shepherd’s pie in York proper.”’

Mary stood still for a long moment, tapping her finger against the note. She read it again, wondering about a man who had already engaged a post chaise to take her to York, because he knew she felt nervous about travelling alone. She couldn’t think of a time when anyone had been so generous to her on such short notice.

A reminder of the timid Mr Barraclough made up her mind. ‘I will do it, Captain Rennie,’ she said out loud. She took a deep breath and opened the door.

There they stood in the corridor, father and son, both looking at her with a hopeful air. She burst out laughing.

‘Oh, you two! What can I do but accept your kind offer?’ she told them.

‘Wise of you, since we weren’t going to take no for an answer,’ the captain said. ‘Would you be willing to break your fast with us in the commons room?’

She was, sitting down to another excellent sausage, considerably shorter than four feet, eggs and coffee. If she had felt shy, the emotion didn’t last long, not with Nathan needing a little attention tucking his napkin under his chin and then a better alignment of the buttons on his shirt when he finished. Perhaps he had dressed in the dark; possibly fathers didn’t notice such details of dress.

* * *

When Nathan was tidy and the dishes withdrawn, the captain pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket. He spread it on the table. ‘I have here a list of inns along our route,’ he told her. ‘Through the years, this sheet has graced the wardroom table on occasion, as I solicited information about good food in all corners of Britain.’

She looked at the list, seeing different handwriting. ‘This is what passes for entertainment on a frigate at war?’

‘Aye, miss, especially on the far side of the world, when we are drifting along in the doldrums and it’s hotter than Dutch love.’

Mary blushed. ‘Really, Cousin.’

Ross Rennie looked not a bit dismayed. ‘I confess to a salty tongue. You’ll get used to it.’ His expression turned nostalgic. ‘When you’re down to bad beef, weevily bread and thick water, and the wine has run out, a list like this is surprisingly comforting.’

He jabbed a line. ‘Look you here. If we leave now, we’ll be in Skowcroft for luncheon, and that is where...’ He stopped and looked at the barely legible line. He ran his finger gently across the words now. ‘I had a midshipman, name of Everett from Skowcroft, who swore by the lemon-curd pudding at the Begging Hound.’

‘I trust he has been back to enjoy it,’ Mary said.

‘Alas, no. He died in the Pacific. He was but fifteen.’ The captain leaned back, his eyes troubled now. ‘I...I suppose I want to have a dish of pudding for Dale Everett.’

She took the list from the table and scanned it. ‘Brown bread with quince jelly? I do like quince jelly.’

‘My former purser told me about a public house in Ovenshine.’ He shook his head. ‘A true scoundrel he was.’ He correctly interpreted her expression and took the list from her. ‘Here now, blood pudding in Wamsley, according to a pharmacist’s mate who lives in Wamsley as we speak. They’re not all dead, Mary, or rascals.’

Could it be that you need this little side trip to York even more than I do? she thought. The idea beguiled her far more than the prospect of fruitcake.

‘Isn’t your sister going to wonder where you are?’ she asked, making one more attempt to call the man to reason.

‘I sent her a letter before the sun was up, telling her we had to go to York on business.’ He grinned, and it threw years off his weather-thrashed face. ‘Hopefully, she will never ask what the business is. When do you need to report back to Edinburgh?’

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