Three Regency tales of festive wishes come true...

CAPTAIN GREY’S CHRISTMAS PROPOSAL by Carla Kelly

Captain Grey had been fighting malarial fever in Savannah when he met Theodora Winnings. He proposed by letter—but it’s taken ten years to receive her reply. The answer was “yes!”—but is she still free to become his Christmas bride?

HER CHRISTMAS TEMPTATION by Christine Merrill

Faith Strickland’s plan to marry to save her family backfires when notorious rake James Leggett sets out to break her unhappy engagement. He’ll storm her Twelfth Night celebrations and scorch her into surrender!

AWAKENING HIS SLEEPING BEAUTY by Janice Preston

Lonely Diana Fleming knows handsome knights don’t really exist. But can a festive kiss from the man she loves reawaken her frozen heart?

Praise for the authors of

Regency Christmas Wishes

CARLA KELLY

‘Kelly is a master at emotional, uplifting romances.’

—RT Book Reviews on The Wedding Ring Quest

CHRISTINE MERRILL

‘Merrill pens another winner.’

—RT Book Reviews on The Wedding Game

JANICE PRESTON

‘Readers will enjoy this well-written tale packed with authentic characters and a tender lover story.’

—RT Book Reviews on The Governess’s Secret Baby

CARLA KELLY started writing Regency romances because of her interest in the Napoleonic Wars. She 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 books about the US Indian Wars. Carla lives in Utah and is a former park ranger and double RITA® Award and Spur Award winner. She has five children and four grandchildren.

CHRISTINE MERRILL lives on a farm in Wisconsin, USA, with her husband, two sons and too many pets—all of whom would like her to get off the computer so they can check their email. She has worked by turns in theatre costuming and as a librarian. Writing historical romance combines her love of good stories and fancy dress with her ability to stare out of the window and make stuff up.

JANICE PRESTON grew up in Wembley, North London, with a love of reading, writing stories and animals. In the past she has worked as a farmer, a police call-handler and a university administrator. She now lives in the West Midlands with her husband and two cats, and has a parttime job as a weight management counsellor—vainly trying to control her own weight despite her love of chocolate!

Regency Christmas Wishes

Captain Grey’s Christmas Proposal

Carla Kelly

Her Christmas Temptation

Christine Merrill

Awakening His Sleeping Beauty

Janice Preston

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Table of Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

About the Authors

Title Page

Captain Grey’s Christmas Proposal

Dedication

Dear Reader

Prologue

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

Her Christmas Temptation

Dedication

Dear Reader

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Awakening His Sleeping Beauty

Dedication

Dear Reader

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Extract

Copyright

Captain Grey’s Christmas Proposal

Carla Kelly

To all who believe in the magic of Christmas

Dear Reader,

All my life I’ve noticed that the Christmas season is a time when people everywhere seem to become a little better, perform kindly deeds, think of others more and act upon good promptings. It’s almost as though Christmas gives us permission—as if we needed it—to bring out our better natures and the better natures of those around us.

We become more susceptible to the possibility that glad tidings of great joy can become a reality. Maybe we’re more willing to believe in impossible things because at Christmas all things feel possible.

In that vein, I bring you the whimsical tale of a post captain in the Royal Navy—a careful man swept into an adventure made possible by the receipt of a years-old letter that went astray. The Peace of Amiens (1802–1803) becomes a window of opportunity that takes him from Plymouth, England, to Savannah, Georgia, in the new country of the United States—a place he remembers well from his childhood and has never quite forgotten.

There’s a touch of magic, too…or maybe it’s more than magic. Maybe it’s the grace that can shower down upon us all if we’re willing to let the spirit of Christmas and St Nicholas step in and make things right.

Reader, whatever your faith or creed, I invite you to consider the possibilities of this season of wonder.

Carla Kelly

Prologue

This wasn’t a story shared widely. After some thought and a few laughs, New Bedford shipbuilder James Grey and his wife, Theodora, decided to tell their little ones this odd Christmas tale of how they’d met, or re-met, after years apart. They thought it wise to tell it before those same children reached maturity and no longer set much store by St Nicholas. Later, if more adult scepticism took over—well, that was their worry.

It was Christmas story to tell around the fireplace, drinking Papa’s wassail and gorging on Mama’s pecans nestled in cream and caramelized sugar she called pralines. None of the children’s New Bedford friends ate pralines at Christmas, even though many of them had seafaring fathers who travelled the world.

None of their friends had a mother like Mrs Grey, or for that matter, a father like James Grey. If their parents’ origins were shrouded in mystery, everyone in New Bedford appreciated the solidity of Russell and Grey Shipworks, whose yards employed many craftsmen at good wages. More quietly whispered about was the boundless charity of Mrs Grey, who assisted slaves to freedom in Canada, or helped free men and women of colour find work in New England.

From the first, a deckhand out of Savannah, to the latest, a young couple fleeing Mississippi and a brutal owner named Tullidge, she and her network of volunteers provided food, lodging, employment and hope.

She was a woman of great beauty, with the soft accent and leisurely sentences heard in the South of the still new United States. James Grey spoke with a curious accent that placed him not quite in Massachusetts, but not quite in England, either. He had a mariner’s wind-wrinkled face, and the ships he and his partner built were sound and true. That James adored his lovely wife was obvious to all. That the feeling was mutual was equally evident.

Something about the Christmas season seemed to reinforce this tenacious bond even more. Their oldest friends had heard the pleasant story of how they met in a distant Southern city, after years apart. There always seemed to be more to the story than either party let on, but New Englanders were too polite to ask.

Chapter One

Plymouth, England—October 1st, 1802

‘Captain Grey, please excuse what happened. I found this under a box in my officer’s storeroom.’

Mrs Fillion held out a letter most tattered and mangled. James Grey set down his soup spoon and picked it up. He squinted to make out some sort of return address. Stoic he may be, but he couldn’t help his involuntary intake of breath to see a single word: Winnings.

‘What? How?’ was all he could manage as he held the delicate envelope as though it were a relic from an Etruscan tomb. Mrs Fillion, owner of The Drake, was kind enough to allow her Plymouth hotel to serve as an informal postal and collection station since the beginning of Napoleon’s war. He motioned her to sit down at his solitary table, wishing she didn’t appear so upset.

‘What happened was that I set a box with some poor dead officer’s personal effects on top of the letter, which I was saving for you,’ she said, apologising. ‘Unfortunately, I haven’t seen you in years.’

‘That’s because I’ve operated on the far side of the world for several voyages,’ he said. ‘Don’t let this trouble you.’ He stared at the envelope. ‘Any idea how long it might have been there?’ He found himself almost afraid to open such a fragile document.

He couldn’t help wincing when she said, ‘It’s been there since 1791, because the box I set on top of it had “1792” scribbled on the side.’ She sighed. ‘Eleven years, Captain. I hope it wasn’t something terribly important.’

Likely not. When he never heard from Theodora Winnings after he proposed by way of pen and paper, James Grey, a first lieutenant in 1791, understood a refusal as well as the next man. Since his career seemed to keep him on the far side of the world for much of that decade, he had felt a little foolish for proposing to sweet Teddy Winnings in the first place. Then he dismissed the matter, except when he stood a watch, the perfect time to reflect on so much charm, goodwill and charity in a lovely frame. He stood a lot of watches. Still, Mrs Fillion needed to be jollied.

‘I wouldn’t worry, Mrs Fillion,’ he said. ‘I was a brand new first luff and I proposed to a fetching young thing in Charleston, South Carolina. Did it by letter, so you see how callow I was.’ He laughed, and thought it sounded genuine.

Mrs Fillion smiled, which relieved him. ‘Captain, would you be brave enough to propose in person now, providing the right fetching young thing happens along?’

‘Unlikely. I’m a ripe thirty-seven, and serve in a dangerous profession. Why inflict that on a woman?’

‘You underrate females, Captain,’ Mrs Fillion said.

‘I have long been fortune’s fool.’ He picked up his soup spoon again, giving Mrs Fillion liberty to continue circulating among her other guests.

The dining room was less busy, mainly because of the Treaty of Amiens, which meant most warships were in port, with officers uncomfortable on half pay and scrimping, and crews dumped on shore to starve. War was almost guaranteed to break out again, but until it did, this meant tight times in ports like Plymouth and Portsmouth.

Jem waited until she was engaged in conversation with another officer before picking up the mangled letter. Eleven years was a long time to expect a letter to rule in his favour. Whatever the fervour of the moment, it was long past, whether Teddy’s reply had been yea or nay.

He had already finished reading his newspaper, and there was still soup to be downed. Might as well see what she wrote all those years ago. He slit the letter open carefully, dismayed to see water damage inside.

‘Yes!’ The word leaped out at him. My God, Jem thought, she loved me. The rest of the letter was mainly blotched and illegible. He stared hard, and fancied he made out the phrases, ‘...but you need to know...’ and then farther down the ruined page, ‘I should have...’ The box Mrs Fillion set on top of Teddy’s letter must have been damp. He could decipher nothing else.

His soup forgotten, Jem leaned back in his chair, staring out the window where autumn rain slid down the panes. His first glimpse of Theodora Winnings was through a fever haze, as though he gazed up at her from the bottom of a pond. That was his second relapse from malaria. Since the frigate Bold was peacefully moored in Charleston Harbour, the post surgeon had taken him ashore and left him to the tender mercy of the Sisters of Charity.

He had recalled nothing of the first week except the stink of his sweat and his desire to die. Toward the end of that week, he vaguely remembered a visit from his captain, who announced the Bold was sailing to Jamaica, but would return in two months, hoping to find him alive. At the time, he had preferred death. Even in his addled state, Jem knew that was nothing to tell his commander.

By the second week, he could get out of bed for a call of nature, if someone clutched him close around the waist. The Sisters of Charity were tough women who manhandled him so efficiently that any embarrassment quickly vanished.

By the third week, life’s appeal returned, especially when Miss Theodora Winnings sat beside his bed to wipe his forehead and read to him. He was still too wasted to pay attention to the words, but he enjoyed the slow molasses sound of Miss Winnings’ Southern diction.

By the next week, he spoke in coherent sentences and silently admired the loveliness of her ivory skin, dark hair and eyes and full lips, not to mention a bountiful bosom.

‘Captain, your soup must be cold. Would you like more?’

‘Oh, no. I’m done.’ He looked down at the letter with its nine legible words. ‘Mrs Fillion, she said yes eleven years ago.’

He shouldn’t have told her, she who set the box on his letter in the first place. He knew Mrs Fillion had been through much, with children of her own at sea, and bad news when her lodgers died in the service of king and country. Her eyes brimmed with tears.

‘Look here, ma’am, don’t weep on my account,’ he added hastily. ‘As it turned out, once the Bold picked me up and revictualled, we left the Carolinas and never returned. I was a foolish lieutenant. Our paths were destined never to cross again.’

Mrs Fillion wasn’t buying it. ‘Love doesn’t work like that,’ she argued. She dabbed angrily at her tears. ‘If you had known her answer, you would have found a way.’

‘Poppycock and humbug, Mrs Fillion,’ he stated firmly.

He misjudged the redoubtable owner of the Drake. ‘Listen to me, Captain Grey,’ she demanded.

Unused to being dressed down, he listened.

‘I think you should go to the United States,’ she said, lowering her voice so the other Navy men couldn’t hear. ‘Find Miss Winnings.’

‘What is the point, madam?’ he said, exasperated, more with himself than with her.

‘She said aye eleven years ago,’ Mrs Fillion replied.

He knew he was wearing his most sceptical expression, but she touched his sleeve, her hand gentle on his arm. ‘Have a little faith, Captain.’

He had to laugh. ‘Madam, I am as profane a captain as you will find in the fleet, as are most of my associates. We rely on time and tides, not faith.’

‘I don’t believe you.’ She looked around the room. ‘I doubt there is a captain or lieutenant in here who doesn’t rely on faith, too, say what you will.’

What could he add to that? He wasn’t up to a theological argument with a hardworking woman he had long admired. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he muttered, then leaned over and gave Mrs Fillion a whacking great kiss on her cheek. For both their sakes, he chose not to continue the narrative. He could pretend he had reassured her, and she was kind enough to think so, too. That was how polite society worked.

He knew it would be wise to leave the dining room then, and spare Mrs Fillion from more discomfort. He looked in the card room, not surprised to see the perpetual whist game about to get underway. He couldn’t remember who had named it that, but during wartime, there was always someone in port to make up a whist table. Some of the officers preferred backgammon, and there was a table for that, too.

Lieutenant Chardon, his parents French emigrés, was looking for a partner to sit in the empty chair opposite him. The other two partners, good whist players, were already seated.

‘Captain Grey, would you partner me?’ the luff asked.

Jem considered their chances of taking sufficient tricks from the proficient pair looking at him with similar calculation. He knew the state of Chardon’s purse—his parents dead now, and Auguste Chardon living from hand to mouth, thanks to the Treaty of Amiens. Jem knew they could defeat their opponents, who were post captains like himself, with ample prize money to see them through the irritation of peacetime. Chardon needed a big win to support his habit of eating and sleeping under a roof.

‘I’d be delighted,’ Jem said, and sat down.

‘Our Yankee captain,’ one of the opposing captains said, and not with any real friendship.

Jem shrugged it off as he always did. There were worse things to be called. Hadn’t his older friend Captain Benjamin Hallowell, also a Massachusetts Yankee, managed to become one of Sir Horatio Nelson’s storied Band of Brothers after the Battle of the Nile?

‘Aye, sir,’ he said, broadening his relatively unnoticeable American accent.

Jem motioned for Lieutenant Chardon to shuffle the deck.Ninety minutes later, he had the satisfaction of watching the captains fork over a substantial sum to Chardon. A note to Mrs Fillion had brought sandwiches and beer to their table. Jem wasn’t hungry, but he suspected Chardon was. How nice to see him eat and play at the same time.

After the captains left, grumbling, Chardon tried to divide the money. Jem shook his head. When the lieutenant started to protest, Jem put up his hand.

‘I have been where you are now,’ he said simply. ‘This discussion is over, Lieutenant Chardon.’

And it was; that was the beauty of outranking a lieutenant. He invited Chardon to join him down the street at a fearsome pit of a café serving amazing sausages swaddled in thick bread. He ate one to Chardon’s three, bid him goodnight and returned to the Drake, before the lieutenant, not so poor now, could go in anonymity and without embarrassment to his meagre lodgings. In due time if Chardon survived, once war resumed, he would have his own prize money earning further income in Carter and Brustein’s counting house.

‘You may prefer me not to say this, Captain Grey,’ Chardon told him as they parted company. ‘You are a man of honour.’

Jem Grey returned the little bow and made his way back to warm and comfortable quarters at the Drake. He could unbutton his trousers, kick off his shoes, lie down on a bed that did not sway with the current, and contemplate his next step, now that he knew Theodora Winnings had loved him eleven years ago.

Chapter Two

After a beastly night worrying how long Teddy Winnings had waited for him to reply to her letter, James scraped away at the whiskers on his face, slouched downstairs to the dining room, and settled for a coffee and a roll, which didn’t please Mrs Fillion.

‘I really hope you’re not still troubled over that unfortunate letter,’ she said as she poured him a cup. ‘I worried enough for both of us.’

‘No, no,’ he lied, then repented because he knew Mrs Fillion was intelligent. ‘Aye, I did worry some.’

‘What are you going to do about it?’

He looked around the dining room, wishing there were someone seated who had more courage dealing with Mrs Fillion. He saw none, and he knew most of the room’s occupants. Men could be such cowards.

‘I don’t know,’ he said frankly.

Honesty appeared to be the best policy with Mrs Fillion. She declined further comment, to his relief passed on to her next customer, coffee pot in hand.

He had a headful of things to do, but lying awake nearly all night had pushed one agenda directly to the top of his mind’s disorderly heap. His jaw ached. A man feeling as low as he did could only take the next step, which he did. He drew his boat cloak tight around him and walked to Stonehouse Naval Hospital.

Unwilling to face the nosy clerks in Admin, Jem walked directly to Building Two, where an orderly met him at the door.

‘Where away, captain?’ the man asked, in proper navy fashion.

‘Surgeon Owen Brackett,’ he said. ‘Tell him James Grey would like a word, if it’s convenient.’

The orderly touched his forehead and gestured to a sitting room. It must not have been convenient for Owen, because Jem sat there for at least thirty minutes. Still in a dark mood, he read through the obituaries in the Naval Chronicle, remembering the time he was listed there when his frigate had been declared missing after a typhoon in the Pacific. When the Nautilus finally made port in Plymouth a year later, there had been surprised looks from the harbourmaster. He smiled at the memory.

‘Jem, what brings you here?’ he heard from the doorway.

If Jem had thought he looked tired when he stared into his shaving mirror this morning, he was a bright ray of sunshine compared to Owen Brackett.

‘I thought this damned peace treaty would turn you into a man of leisure,’ he said to Owen as they shook hands.

‘Hardly. Why is it you deep-water sailors have so many ear infections?’ Owen asked.

‘Too many watches on deck in storms,’ Jem replied promptly. ‘If you don’t have time...’

‘I do. What’s the matter?’

Everything, Jem thought. A proposal of marriage I tendered was accepted eleven years ago but I never saw it. ‘My jaw aches,’ he said instead.

Owen gestured for him to come down the hall to his office. ‘Have a seat and tip your head back,’ the surgeon said. With skilled fingers, he probed, asked a few questions with his hand still in Jem’s mouth, and nodded at Jem’s strangled replies.

‘Tense jaw is all. You’ve been gritting your teeth for years,’ he pronounced. ‘It’s a common complaint in the navy.’

‘Surely not,’ Jem said. ‘I don’t grit my teeth.’

‘Probably every time you sail into battle,’ Owen countered.

Jem opened his mouth for more denial, then closed it. The surgeon was probably right. ‘What’s the cure?’

‘Peace. Maybe a wife,’ Owen replied with a smile. He consulted his timepiece. ‘There is a shepherd’s pie cooling below deck in the galley. Join me for luncheon? The ale is surprisingly good here.’

They walked downstairs together, the surgeon talking about gonorrhoea with an orderly who stopped him on the stairs with a question. It was more information than Jem wanted or needed, but he couldn’t interrupt a friend with no spare time, peace or war. Good thing Owen already had a patient wife.

Owen was right about the shepherd’s pie, which had the odd facility of both filling his stomach and loosening his tongue, although that could have been the fault of the ale. A fast eater from years of necessity, he decided to ask Owen’s advice about the letter, while the surgeon served himself another helping.

‘Here I am, the proud possessor of a letter in which a young woman I love, or at least loved, accepted my proposal,’ he concluded. ‘I’m curious to know how she has fared through the years.’

‘You say she is pretty.’

‘Quite, but that’s not the half of it. She was so kind to me.’

Even now Jem clearly remembered the loveliness of Teddy Winnings’ creamy complexion, and the deep pools of compassion in her eyes at first, followed a few weeks later by lively interest when he was coherent and—he hoped—charming. Young he may have been, but he was a gentleman. He had known he was enjoying the company of a young lady properly raised, and behaved himself.

‘Her father ran Winnings Mercantile and Victuallers, a few doors down from the hospital and convent,’ he told Owen Brackett. ‘It was a substantial business, and I imagine she had plenty of young men interested in her.’

‘She’s likely long-married,’ Owen said.

‘Aye.’ He hesitated to say more so Owen filled in.

‘But you’re going to cross the Atlantic and find out, aren’t you?’ the surgeon asked.

There it was, laid out before him, the very thing Jem wanted to do. Owen knew.

‘Better see a tailor right away and get yourself a civilian wardrobe,’ Owen said as he stood up and held out his hand.

Jem shook his hand. ‘Don’t tell anyone. I’m ashore on half pay, but I’m not certain Admiralty House would be happy.’

‘Why not?’ Owen asked as they headed to the main floor again. ‘We’re at peace, and that unpleasantness with the colonies is long over.’ He took a good look at Jem. ‘You want to go back, don’t you, and not just for Miss Winnings.’ It was a statement, not a question.

‘I don’t know what I want,’ Jem replied frankly. ‘I liked living in Massachusetts Colony, but when you’re ten years old and your parents pull all the strings...’ He shrugged. ‘Don’t say anything.’

‘I’ll be as silent as an abbey of Trappist monks,’ Owen assured him. ‘Bon voyage, friend. Let me know at what longitude your jaw ache ends.’

James took himself to his tailor in the Barbican, who opened his ledger to Jem’s previous measurements and congratulated him on maintaining an enviable trimness.

‘It’s easy enough to do in southern latitudes, when you sweat off every ounce of fat,’ Jem said.

Of nightshirts and smallclothes he had an adequate amount. Shoes, too. He assured his tailor that three suits of clothes would suffice, and he could use his navy boat cloak. He reconsidered. As much as he loved the thing, one look would give him away immediately as a member of the Royal Navy, which was perhaps not so wise. He could store his Navy uniforms with Mrs Fillion.

His order complete and promised in two weeks, Jem went next door for a low-crowned beaver hat which struck him as faintly ridiculous, even though the haberdasher assured him he was now à la mode. He knew he was going to miss the added intimidation of his tall bicorn, but as Teddy Winnings had told him once—how was it he was starting to remember their conversations?—he was already tall enough.

He paid a cautious visit to the harbourmaster to inquire about any outbound ships headed for the United States. He knew the harbourmaster as a garrulous man. To his surprise, George Headley didn’t even blink when he mentioned wanting passage to a former enemy country.

Headley leaned closer. ‘This is a special mission, isn’t it?’ he whispered. ‘My lips are sealed, of course.’

‘Good of you,’ Jem said in the same conspiratorial tone, hoping the Lord Almighty wouldn’t smite him dead for deceiving a good, if chatty, man. ‘The less said, the better my chances are that none of Boney’s spies will hear.’

The harbourmaster nodded, his eyes grave, and gestured toward a fair-sized vessel at anchor in the harbour. ‘Captain, the Marie Elise is headed to Baltimore, I believe. Would you like me to hail a waterman to take you out there?’

A mere half hour later, he sat in the captain’s cabin, drinking Madeira and then forking over passage money.

‘We’ll sail for Baltimore on or about the middle of October,’ Captain Monroe said. ‘We’re looking at a seven-week passage, give or take.’ The Yankee gave Jem a shrewd look. ‘You’re a seafaring man.’

‘I am,’ Jem said. ‘Royal Navy. It’s private business.’

The captain nodded, obviously not believing a word of that, and sounded remarkably like the harbourmaster. ‘My lips are sealed. You’ll only be a short distance from Washington, D.C. How is it you already sound slightly American?’

‘Many people on the Devonshire coast have a similar accent,’ Jem hedged, ‘but you are right. I was born in the colony of Massachusetts.’

‘We two countries need to get along, eh?’

‘Indeed we do. I’m lodging at the Drake. Send a boy around when you’re ready to lift anchor,’ Jem said.

‘You’ve been away a long time from Massachusetts?’ Captain Monroe said as he walked topside with a fellow captain, showing him all the courtesies.

‘Twenty-seven years,’ Jem replied, as he sat in the bosun’s chair to be swung over the side to his waiting boat. He wouldn’t have minded scrambling down the chains, but he couldn’t ignore the American captain’s kindness.

‘A lot has changed, Captain,’ the Yankee said as he motioned for the crew to swing him over now.

I hope not everything. Or everyone, Jem thought as he went over the side and waved to his American counterpart. Is it too much to hope that Theodora Winnings remains the same?

Chapter Three

James made a note in his log—personal logs were a habit not easily broken—to let Owen Brackett know when next they saw each other that his jaw stopped aching at Latitude North thirty-eight degrees, four minutes, Longitude West forty-eight degrees, forty-six minutes, roughly the middle of the stormy Atlantic.

The passengers aboard the Marie Elise were a disparate lot, some Americans heading home, a French emigré or two and Englishmen who were no more forthcoming about their reasons to travel than he was. He had a private chuckle, thinking that some of them might have been what the harbourmaster thought of him, spies or government emissaries.

The crossing was rough enough to keep many of the passengers below deck during the early days of the voyage. Jem had no trouble keeping down his meals, and less trouble standing amidships and looking at oily, swelling water hinting of hurricanes.

He only spent two days in the waist of the ship before Captain Monroe invited him to share the quarterdeck. Jem accepted the offer, scrupulously careful to stay away from Captain Monroe’s windward side. From Monroe’s demeanour, Jem knew the Yankee appreciated the finer points of quarterdeck manners.

Captain Monroe apologised in advance for some of his passengers. ‘Hopefully they’ll stay seasick awhile and not pester you with gibes about Englishmen who couldn’t fight well enough to hang on to the colonies.’ He laughed. ‘And here I am, making similar reference!’

‘I’ll survive,’ Jem said, and felt no heartburn over the matter. ‘We need to maintain a friendship between our countries.’

‘From what you tell me, the United States might be your country, too,’ Captain Monroe pointed out. ‘D’ye plan to visit Massachusetts during this visit?’

‘Perhaps. We’ll see.’

Mostly Jem watched the water, enjoying the leisure of letting someone else worry about winds and waves, especially when it proved obvious to him that Captain Monroe knew his ropes. He felt not a little flattered when Lucius—they were on a first-name basis soon—asked his opinion about sails and when to shorten them.

Even better than the jaw ache vanishing was the leisure to recall a much earlier trip in the other direction. He stared at the water, remembering that trip when he was ten years old; he’d been frightened because so-called patriots had torched the family’s comfortable Boston house. He remembered his unwillingness even then to leave the colony where he had been born and reared and now faced cruel times.

Looking around to make certain he was unobserved, Jem leaned his elbows on the ship’s railing, a major offense that would have sent one of his midshipmen shinnying up and down the mainmast twenty times as punishment. Most painful had been his agonized goodbye to his big yellow dog with the patient, sorrowful eyes and the feathery tail always waving because everyone was a friend. ‘I want another dog like you, Mercury,’ he said quietly to the Atlantic Ocean.

Papa had named Mercury, because he was the slowest, most good-natured creature in the colony, even after some Sons of Liberty rabble caught him, tarred and feathered him. If Jem’s tears could have washed the tar away, Mercury would have survived. He never asked Papa how he put Mercury down, but at least his pet did not suffer beyond an hour or two.

Here he stood, a grown man of some skill and renown among his peers, melancholy over a long-dead dog. As with most complicated emotions that seem to surface after childhood is gone, James wasn’t entirely sure who the tears were for.

Contemplating the water through many days of the voyage, Jem found himself amazed at his impulsive decision to bolt to the United States, after reading a mere scrap of a decade-old letter. He knew himself to be a careful man, because he understood the monumental danger of his profession and his overarching desire to see all the officers and seamen in his stewardship as safe as he could make them. Quick decisions came with battle, but this hasty voyage had been a quick decision unrelated to war.

In the cold light of this Atlantic crossing, he justified himself, convinced that the Peace of Amiens, while a fragile treaty, would last long enough for him to make sure all was well with Theodora Winnings and return with Admiralty none the wiser.

Or so he thought. Anything seemed possible, now that his jaw didn’t ache all the time and he was sleeping eight hours instead of his usual four. Until this voyage, he had forgotten the pleasure of swinging in a hammock and reading.

As the journey neared its end, he spent a pleasant evening in Lucius Monroe’s cabin, drinking a fine Madeira; maybe he drank too much. However it fell out, he told the Yankee skipper about Theodora Winnings and the long-delayed letter.

‘Am I a fool for this expedition?’ he asked Lucius.

‘Probably,’ the Yankee replied. ‘She helped nurse you back to health from a malaria relapse?’

‘Aye, she did. I was a stinking, sweating, puking, pissing, disgusting mess.’

‘Then it must be love,’ Lucius Monroe joked. ‘More?’

Jem held out his glass. ‘I never had the courage to ask her why she was even there. There were other women in the ward besides the nuns, but they were all slaves.’

‘Who can understand the ladies?’ Lucius said. He leaned back and gave a genteel burp that he probably would have apologised for a few weeks earlier, before theirs turned into a first-name acquaintance.

Lucius broke the comfortable silence. ‘I’ve been curious about this since you came aboard, James. You tell me you were born in Massachusetts Colony and spent your first decade in my country. How do you feel about it now?’

‘I liked Massachusetts,’ he said finally. ‘I liked the dock people who didn’t mind my chatter, and my friends who took me fishing. My father was next in authority after Benjamin Hallowell, Senior, then serving as Admiralty High Commissioner. Papa let me roam all around the docks.’

He saw by the way the American nodded, that his own childhood had been spent much the same way. ‘You understand, Lucius, don’t you? There is a freedom here that I cannot explain or understand.’

‘Did you come back for another glimpse of that, or of Miss Winnings?’ Captain Monroe asked.

‘I wish I knew.’

* * *

When the Marie Elise docked in Baltimore, James walked down the gangplank, took a deep breath of United States’ air, realised it smelled the same as it did in Plymouth, and laughed at himself. With instructions from Captain Monroe, he arranged passage on a coasting vessel to Charleston, South Carolina.

After an evening of good food with Captain Monroe at the curiously named The Horse You Came In On Tavern at Fell’s Point, and a night at the inn next door, James boarded the Annie, a vessel that deposited him in Charleston a day and a half later, none the worse for wear, even though the vessel was less sound than he liked and the crew even more dubious.

He had stuffed his effects in his old sea bag, which still naturally fit the curve of his shoulder. After a short walk, spent trying to divest himself of the seagoing hip roll, he stood in front of the Magnolia Tavern and Inn, took a deep breath and wondered again what he was doing.

He didn’t bother with luncheon. After dropping his duffel in his room that overlooked magnolia trees with their heady blooms, he walked the route from the dock to Winnings Mercantile and Victuallers. At least, he walked to where it should have been, and stared up at a swinging sign that read South Carolina Mercantile. He reminded himself that things change in eleven years, and opened the door.

The smells remained the same—dried cod, pungent tobacco, turpentine. Jem fancied he even recognised the man behind the counter, a fellow with an outmoded wig and a big nose.

‘May I help you?’ the man behind the counter asked.

Jem relished the soft sound of his speech, wondering how it was that an English-speaking people not so long removed from the British Isles could sound so different. When he was coherent, he had asked Teddy Winnings about that. She had reminded him that African slaves had much influence in the language of the Carolinas.

‘Perhaps you can help me, sir,’ he asked. ‘I came into port here some eleven years ago, when this place was the Winnings establishment. What happened?’

‘Mr Winnings died of yellow fever and his widow sold the property to the current owner,’ he replied.

That was a fine how-de-doo. Now what?

‘Where do the widow and her family live now?’ he asked.

The counter man shrugged. ‘She didn’t have any family. Don’t know where she is.’

‘No family? I distinctly remember a daughter,’ Jem said. Who could ever forget Theodora Winnings and her quiet, understated loveliness? Obviously he hadn’t.

‘No. No daughter.’ A pause. ‘Where are you from, sir?’

‘Nowhere, I suppose,’ Jem said, surprised at himself. ‘I am a ship captain.’

‘From somewhere north?’

‘At one time. No idea where the widow is?’

The shop’s front bell tinkled and three men came in. The man at the counter gave Jem a polite nod and dismissed him. ‘Sirs, may I assist you?’

Jem took the hint and left the mercantile. He stood a brief moment on the walkway, then turned south, confident the Sisters of Charity hadn’t left their convent.

There it was, much the same. He recalled ivy running over the walls, but someone had mentioned a hurricane years ago that had stripped some of it away. The Virgin smiled down at him from her pedestal perch, reminding him of his first view of the statue while lying on his back on a stretcher. With some embarrassment, he remembered shrieking like a girl because she seemed to be falling on him. Oh, those malaria fever dreams.

He rang the bell and waited for quiet footsteps on the parquet floor within. He never prayed much, if at all, but he prayed now that someone would know where Theodora Winnings lived. He squared his shoulders to face the reality that if Mercantile Man said Widow Winnings had no children, then Teddy might be dead, too.

‘Don’t disappoint me,’ he said out loud, not sure if he was trying to exert his non-existent influence on God Almighty, or the world in general, which had been stingy with blessings, of late. He remembered himself and thought, Please, sir, that and no more.

Before he could ring the bell again, the door opened on a young face, probably one of the novitiates. In her calm but practical way, Teddy had told him that every yellow fever epidemic meant more young girls in the convent because they had nowhere else to go.

‘Sir?’ she asked.

He took off his hat. ‘I am looking for Theodora Winnings, who used to assist here. Her father owned what is now South Carolina Mercantile. Can you help me?’

She opened the door and he stepped into the familiar coolness that had soothed his fever almost as much as the mere presence of Teddy sitting by his bedside, doing nothing more than holding his hand.

‘I will take you to our Abbess, sir,’ she said. ‘Please follow me.’

He walked beside her down the long hall, breathing in the faint odour of incense and something sharper that still smelled of disease and contagion. Underlying it all was the still-remembered rot of a warm southern climate.

The novice knocked on a carved door, listened with her ear to the panel, then opened it. She stepped inside and motioned for him to wait.

He stood in the hallway during the quiet conversation within, then entered the room when the nun sitting behind the desk gestured to him. The novice glided out quietly.

The nun behind the desk indicated a chair. She clasped her hands on the desk and wasted not a moment on preliminaries.

‘I have not thought of Theodora Winnings in years,’ the nun said. ‘Apparently you have, sir.’

He could blush and deny, but he was long past the blushing stage of his life. ‘I have, Sister... Sister...’

‘Mother Abbess,’ she corrected. ‘And you are...’

‘Captain James Grey of His Majesty’s Royal Navy.’

With that announcement, she gave him a long look, one that came close to measuring the very smallclothes he sat in, down to his stockings. ‘I remember you, sir. We despaired of your survival for several weeks.’ She permitted herself a smile. ‘Even your ship sailed away.’

‘With a promise to return,’ he reminded her. ‘Aye, you have me. I didn’t think I would live, either. At times, death sounded almost welcome.’

She chuckled, probably all the emotion her order was capable of permitting. ‘Teddy held your hand when we had done all we could.’

It was his turn and he took a page from her no-nonsense book. ‘I doubt you knew this, but I left her a letter the morning I walked out of here under my own power to rejoin my frigate. I proposed marriage in that letter, but I never heard from her. I want to know how she is. That’s all. The man at the mercantile said Widow Winnings had no children, but that can’t be right. Where is she?’

Only an idiot wouldn’t have noticed that he had disturbed the serenity of a woman probably committed by oath to be calm in all matters. She stood up quickly and turned her back on him to stare out the window.

‘If she’s dead, I understand,’ he said. ‘I want to let her know I would have moved heaven and earth to respond, had I known of her letter’s existence. Her letter was misplaced and I only received her reply in September. Granted, eleven years is a long time...’

He let his voice trail away. He knew enough of people to tell, even with her back to him, how upset Mother Abbess was. ‘I had good intentions,’ he insisted. ‘I proposed, after all.’

She turned around. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘Understand what?’ he asked, fearful and bracing himself for what, he had no idea. ‘Mrs Winnings must have had children. Teddy was one of them.’

‘Teddy is a slave.’

Chapter Four

‘Shame on her for not telling you,’ Mother Abbess said as she sat down.

Astonished, Jem couldn’t speak. He took Teddy’s battered letter from his inside coat pocket and spread the paltry thing on the nun’s desk. He stared at the few legible words through new eyes. ‘But you need to know...’ suddenly made sense. So did, ‘I should have...’ farther down the page.

‘She didn’t come here of her own free will, just to be kind?’ he asked, perfectly willing to ignore obvious evidence, even though he understood the shamble of a letter now. I want to see her anyway, kept bouncing around in his brain. ‘Maybe?’

‘No, sir. During fever times, and when we ask, some of the better class of ladies send their slaves here to help.’ She made an offhand gesture. ‘They’re just slaves. If something happens to them...well, you understand.’

‘No, I don’t,’ he said, uncertain if he were more angry or more appalled at her words. He closed his eyes, which was the only way he could glimpse Theodora Winnings’ ivory skin. True, her hair was curly and her lips full, but God above, he had curly hair, too. ‘She’s so fair-skinned.’

‘So was her mother, but by half,’ the abbess said. ‘Roxie was a house slave and a great beauty. If memory serves me, Roxie was the daughter of a plantation owner and another slave. I assume Mr Winnings fancied her and bought her for his own purposes. Theodora was their child, with a quarter African blood, therefore not so noticeably of African descent. It happens all the time.’

Mother Abbess’s callous appraisal caused the growing gulf between them to yawn wider by the second. They sat in the same small room, worlds apart. Jem did his best to control the complicated emotions beginning to pinch at his heart like demons from a painting he had seen in a Spanish monastery, thrusting pitchforks into some saint or other.

‘I like sailing the oceans,’ he said finally. ‘The thing I hate the most is patrolling the Middle Passage where we sometimes encounter slave ships.’

He watched her eyes, in his dismay pleased to see some of the complacency in them disappear. ‘They stink to high heaven. I have never seen more wretched people, thirsty, starving and chained below decks. Mothers holding their dying babies up to me, as if I could help them. God, it chafed my heart.’

Her face was still serene, but she rattled the beads on the rosary that hung from her waist. ‘Why are you telling me this?’ Mother Abbess asked.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Should Teddy have said something earlier? I mean before I fell in love with her, because fall in love with her I did.’

‘Certainly she should have told you,’ the nun said with some vigour. ‘More shame to her and good riddance.’

‘If you were a slave and you saw a way out of this...this... I don’t know what... Would you have said something?’ He asked, irritated that his voice was rising.

Silence. The beads rattled louder.

Jem went to the door, eager to leave the suddenly stifling office. ‘Can you...or will you...at least tell me where Mrs Winnings took her household, after her husband died and she sold the business?’

Perhaps Mother Abbess saw he was in complete earnest. She joined him at the door to her office. ‘Some slaves were sold at auction. Others went with Mrs Winnings to Savannah, where she was from. It was years ago. I doubt any records remain. Leave it alone.’

‘I have the time,’ he heard himself say. ‘I also have the means and the inclination. Good day. Thank you for your ministrations to me eleven years ago. I do owe you for that.’

She opened her mouth to speak, but Jem had no desire to hear another word. He outdistanced the novice who had seated herself in the hall, and had the satisfaction of slamming the front door hard.

On the other side of it, he shook his head at his own childish behaviour and took a deep breath, which brought a whiff of the harbour, and tar, and the sugary fragrance of gardenias, in bloom in December.

He stood there in front of the convent, angry at himself and wondering if he had wilfully overlooked signs of Teddy’s parentage. In Italy and Greece he had seen lovely women with cream-coloured skin like hers. Had he assumed she was of Mediterranean extraction? He looked down at his feet, distressed with himself. Did it even matter? He loved Theodora Winnings.

What now, you idiot? he asked himself, as uncertain as he had ever been in his life. A man across the street was scrubbing steps leading up to a modest house, and children were jumping rope beyond the servant. Jem had the distinct feeling he was being watched so he turned around slowly, and laughed at his folly. It was the statue of the Virgin looking over him.

‘Am I an idiot?’ he asked her, then felt instantly stupid for talking to a statue.

He felt disgusted with himself for tossing away money and time on a long voyage to the United States, on the highly unrealistic chance that nothing would have changed from the time he sailed away. God Almighty, he had chastised midshipmen at length for that kind of illogical thinking, and now he had committed worse follies than theirs.

His breathing slowed down as he began to admire the pretty statue’s carved serenity. He had long harboured the nagging suspicion that his was not destined to be an easy life, or even a lengthy one. A realist, he knew the Treaty of Amiens would only last until First Consul Napoleon felt he was sufficiently prepared with new warships sliding down the ways into the sea around Spanish Gibraltar. The war would begin again in more earnest. When that happened, he did not think it would end anytime soon. Like other men of his class and career, he would have to fight on until the armies wore themselves out, and the seas ran with blood.

The more fool he, that on the Atlantic crossing he had begun to imagine for a tiny moment a happy life with Theodora Winnings, who was waiting for him in Charlestown with love in her heart, even after eleven years. What folly. He had no idea where she was.

He looked at the statue with the modest downcast eyes. ‘Any suggestions, madam?’ he asked, after looking around to make certain he was still alone on the street. ‘Please consider the season. My mother used to tell me that wonderful things happen at Christmas.’

Nothing. What now, oh, brilliant man? he asked himself. He could go to Savannah, but for all he knew, Teddy Winnings had been sold down river and wasn’t there. He could also travel north to Boston, which he wanted to see again. Admiralty had no idea where he was, and he had enough funds to chase any number of will-o’-the-wisps.

Do I go north or south? he asked himself, uncertain, perplexed, irritated and above all, sad.

As he stood there, he took a deep breath and another. Each breath brought the fragrance of gardenia, roses and other blooms to his nostrils. Cardinals flitted in the trees. He knew Savannah promised more of the same. His chances of locating Teddy Winnings were slim to none, but he could at least spend one warm Christmas, which might render his misery less excruciating. He remembered Christmas in Boston, and decided he had no wish to be cold and sad. Warm and sad had more appeal; it also made him smile.

He waited for the idea to sound ridiculous, but it didn’t. ‘Savannah, it is,’ he told the statue, and gave her a little salute. ‘What do I have to lose?’

He went back to the shipping office, where the agent behind the counter took his money and informed him that the next coasting vessel would sail on the tide.

‘Towers,’ he said, and returned some silver to Jem’s palm.

‘Beg pardon?’

‘Towers, Sir.’

‘I don’t understand what you mean by towers,’ Jem said, speaking distinctly, and wishing the agent would do the same.

Appearing remarkably put out, the agent pointed to the clock and measured down from two to four.

The mystery was solved. ‘Two hours,’ Jem said, trying to decide whether to laugh or bang his forehead on the counter. He did neither; a post captain in the Royal Navy has some pride.

He took his ticket and left the office, hearing laughter behind him at his expense. He mentally rehearsed blistering profanity that would make him feel better, but only briefly. He decided in the spirit of the season to be a bigger man than that.

It didn’t hurt that the tavern next to the inn had crab cakes, something called okra that luckily tasted better than it looked, and excellent rum. The tavern owner’s slave served him well-remembered spoon bread that went down with equal ease. He finished it all with bread pudding and whiskey sauce, staggered back to the inn to pick up his duffel, and took his way to the wharf again, and Savannah.

He knew the distance between the cities wasn’t great. He secured a deck chair, propped his booted feet on the railing, and slept.

Chapter Five

A spanking wind off the mainland brought the little coasting vessel to Savannah by midnight. As slapdash as ship’s discipline seemed to be, Captain Grey had to give the man at the helm all due honour. Jem knew how tricky it was to sail in the dark near a lee shore, but the captain had managed such a feat, a testament to years of practice from the grizzled look of him.

Jem woke up when he felt a difference in the direction of the wind on his face. He went to the railing and watched as the vessel turned west into the river’s mouth and proceeded upstream to the city proper, past the barrier islands of Tybee, Cockspur, Long and Bird, names he remembered from poring over colonial charts when he was much younger. Amazing what a man could remember. Beacon lights burned along the route as the sea diluted itself into the Savannah River.

Now what? he asked himself as the ship docked right at the wharf, tying up handsomely. Dockside, he looked around, overcame his natural reticence and inquired of a fellow passenger where a man might find an inn.

The traveller gave him a leisurely look—Lord God, didn’t anyone do anything in a hurry in the South?—and stated his opinion.

‘You, Sir, appear to be a man of means,’ the man said and pointed. ‘Up a street to Bay, turn right and you’ll see the Arundel.’ He tipped his hat and walked slowly into the night.

Up a street and right Jem went. The Arundel was a two-story affair with the deep verandas he was growing accustomed to. The lobby was deserted at this midnight hour. Opening the door must have set off a bell ringing somewhere, because a man in a nightshirt and robe emerged, rubbing his eyes. In a few minutes, Jem had a room on the second floor. He climbed the stairs, let himself into Number Four and was asleep in minutes.

He slept late, enjoying the quiet, until a soft tap on the door and a quiet ‘Sir?’ admitted a child with water, towels and soap. Jem took his time washing, shaving and dressing, appreciative of the early morning warmth that signalled life in the South. Dressed and hungry, he opened the glass doors onto the balcony and stood in silent appreciation of the city below.

Coasting vessels and smaller boats carried on the watery commerce. He wondered how on earth he was going to find a woman named Theodora Winnings, who was probably married by now and with some man’s name. That is, if she hadn’t been sold downriver to work the cotton, or died years earlier in one of the regrettable yellow fever epidemics he knew haunted these shores.

The folly of his enterprise flapped home to roost on the railing like one of the seagulls he noticed, squawking with its feathered brethren. He knew nothing about Savannah. He hadn’t a clue what to do. How did a man find a slave, or anyone for that matter, in a town where he knew no one? He had already been the recipient of wary looks because of his British accent. How would he even know if anyone would willingly help him? The war for independence wasn’t that long in the past.

He frowned and regarded Bay Street, lined with shops, some of a maritime variety advertising turpentine, tar and candles. Another sign swung in the breeze and proclaimed Jephthah Morton to be proficient at tooth pulling.

Jem shuddered and turned his attention to a larger, better-kept sign next to the tooth extractor, advertising a dining room. He could eat and walk around, to what purpose he could not have said. Savannah was too large to go door to door. Had he attempted that, he could see himself run out of town as a suspicious character.

He looked beyond the sign of the bloody tooth and experienced what was probably going to be his only good idea in Savannah. He squinted. The paint was faded, but he could just make out Savannah Times and Tides, with Weekly Broadside underneath in smaller letters on a building that seemed to lean with age.

He pulled on his suit coat, checked his wallet for money, and walked down the stairs. The fragrance of ham and hot bread coming from the open doors of the dining room was nearly a Siren’s call, but he walked past the tooth puller, where someone inside was already screaming, and in the door beyond.

He entered cautiously, because the building seemed to list even more when seen up close. ‘Hello? Hello?’ he called, and tapped on the doorframe.

No one answered. He sneezed from the veritable army of dust motes that floated in the air, and sneezed again.

The sound brought a man wearing an ink-stained apron out of a closed door. He was as wide as he was tall, with a long beard that looked as though birds of prey had been poking around in it, searching for something edible. Spectacles perched on the end of his nose appeared to hang there in defiance of Newton’s carefully thought out law of gravity.

‘How may I help you?’ Jem heard, and rejoiced that every syllable was enunciated. This was not a man from the South.

‘You really publish a broadside?’ Jem asked. ‘I need to place an advertisement.’

The man bowed as far as he could, which wasn’t far, considering his bulk. ‘Then you will be my first advertiser in a long, long time, sir.’ He held out his hand, took it back, wiped off some ink, and held it out again. ‘Osgood N. Hollinsworth, publisher, editor and chief correspondent of the Times and Tides.’

‘Captain James Grey of the Royal Navy,’ Jem said as they shook hands.

Osgood N. Hollinsworth blinked his eyes. ‘What? Surely we are not at war again and Savannah has already surrendered?’

Not yet, Jem thought. The question made him wonder how long that would be the truth. Already Secretary of State James Madison had warned the Sea Lords in a carefully worded document just what the United States thought about the Royal Navy stopping its ships and confiscating British crewmen.

‘No, sir, no war,’ Jem said. ‘I simply need to place an advertisement.’

‘Good thing you came this week, Captain,’ Hollinsworth said with a shake of his head. ‘I am laying out the final issue. No one in this Godforsaken town reads.’

‘Really? It appears to be a prosperous place.’

‘Perhaps I am hasty. Commerce here is conducted on the wharf, in the cotton exchange, at the slave auctions and in the taverns, without benefit of newspapers,’ Hollinsworth said. ‘I am not mistaken when I suspect that these...these...let’s call them Southerners...don’t trust anyone not from here.’

‘Where are you from?’ Jem asked.

‘Somewhere a ways to the west of here. Considerably west,’ Mr Hollinsworth said, with a vague gesture.

‘I’ve heard Southerners like to duel at the drop of a hat,’ Jem said, half in jest.

Hollinsworth shook a pudgy finger in Jem’s face. ‘You’ve never seen happy-triggered men so devoted to honour! Don’t run afoul of them!’

‘I shan’t, sir,’ Jem said, still amused. ‘About an ad...’

‘I can arrange it,’ the printer or editor or whatever he was said. ‘Soon enough, I will blow the dust of Savannah off my shoes. Do have a seat. I am so overcome by the idea that someone wants to place an ad that I must sit down, too.’

‘You mentioned slave auctions,’ Jem said, and felt his stomach lurch. Amazing that he could live through years of war and typhoons with nary a flinch in his gut. He knew his sailors referred to him as Iron Belly. Good thing they didn’t know how he felt right now, thinking of slaves and high bidders, and Teddy somewhere in between.

‘A travesty, those auctions,’ Hollinsworth said with a shake of his head. ‘Imagine it—a Yankee named Eli Whitney, invented a machine to take the seeds from cotton bolls. Now everyone is rushing to plant more, increasing the need for slaves.’ He gave a bleak look. ‘But you didn’t come here on slave business, did you?’

‘No,’ Jem lied. ‘Years ago, I spent a few months in Charleston, nearly dead of malaria. A young lady nursed me back to health. I hear she lives in Savannah now, and I want to find her.’

That was enough information for a fat little printer with inky hands, Jem decided. Besides, it was mostly true. He had no trouble looking Hollinsworth in the eyes.

What he saw smiling back at him was difficult to comprehend. If he hadn’t known better, he would have suspected that this man he had just met saw right through his careful words and into his heart, that organ many a midshipman would have sworn he did not possess. What in the world? Jem thought, then dismissed his sudden feeling of vulnerability as the drivel it was. He folded his arms and stared back. ‘I will pay you well.’

‘Enough for passage to Boston, like you?’ Hollinsworth said with a wink.

Do you know something about me? Jem thought, startled again. ‘That seems a little high. If you are reasonable, I will be generous.’

Hollinsworth slapped the table between them and the dust rose in clouds. Jem sneezed again. ‘Oops! I can be reasonable.’

He named a small sum, which confirmed Jem’s suspicions that Osgood N. Hollinsworth was a right jolly fellow, and liked to tease even potential clients. ‘That will be fine,’ he said, and took the few coins from the change purse in his coat.

A sheet of paper and pencil stub seemed to materialize from thin air while Jem was blinking his eyes from the dust.

‘What do you wish me to write?’ the publisher said. ‘Maybe something like, ‘Where are you...insert name? Captain James Grey wants to know. Inquire at the Times and Tides on Bay Street.’ Insert name?’

‘Theodora Winnings,’ Jem said and tucked away his handkerchief. ‘Could you run it in big letters?’

‘I can and will,’ Hollinsworth said promptly. ‘There isn’t much news this week, beyond a warning from the mayor about hogs running loose, and a notice about two escaped slaves.’

‘That will do,’ Jem said as he rose, eager to leave this dusty shop before he sneezed again. ‘Now to breakfast.’

‘And I to work,’ Hollinsworth said. ‘The broadside will be distributed tomorrow. You might wish to walk around Savannah and admire what happens when a town is laid out in an orderly fashion. It’s quite unlike your port of Plymouth.’

‘How do you know where I...’

Hollinsworth shrugged, and looked at Jem with that same piercing but kind glance. ‘A lucky guess, Captain Grey. The ham, biscuits and gravy next door are superb, and you might discover an affinity for hominy grits. Good day to you.’

Chapter Six

Osgood N. Hollinsworth had been correct about the ham, biscuits and gravy. Nearly in pain from over-indulgence, Jem pushed himself away from the table and paid his bill of fare.

Over the next few days, he realised Hollinsworth had also been right about Savannah, a pretty river town laid out in leafy squares. He came to admire the deep porches and understood their necessity. Summers here were probably blistering hot and drenched with humidity. In the deep shadows of the verandas he saw overhead fans, probably set in motion by the children of slaves doing what they were ordered to do. He couldn’t help wondering if Teddy had ever been ordered to fan folks too.

But it was almost Christmas, so the fans remained motionless. He walked, admired the buildings, and breathed deep of magnolia wreaths on many a door of home and business alike. It was far cry from his memories of Boston at Christmas, with wreaths of holly and bayberry, hardy enough to withstand the aching cold. The heady fragrance of magnolia blossoms seemed to reach out to the boardwalk and grab him unaware.

He watched the faces of the city’s workers, wondering if he would recognise Teddy Winnings if he saw her. Would she recognise him? A man who stares day after day into a shaving mirror can probably be forgiven if he thinks he has not changed much. For one thing, Jem knew he looked healthier than the pale, shaking malaria-ridden specimen Teddy had tended. He had put on sufficient weight and heft to give himself more of an air of command. Eleven years had done that, too.

His own curly hair was scarcely visible under his hat, mainly because his habits kept it short. He was a man grown, tested and experienced, not a lieutenant just beginning to understand mortality, and think about dangers ahead. Age could do that; so did war.

When the broadside came out the day after he bought his ad, Jem had been suitably impressed with Hollinsworth’s effort. The twenty-word plea ran across the bottom of the single page in bold letters impossible to miss. Would anyone read it was the question.

In his anxiety to find Teddy without knowing how to do so, he began a little daily commentary to the Almighty, that unknown personage he had been addressing as Sir for years. He acknowledged the absurdity of it, but found himself comforted.

Several days passed. In the print shop where no one ever came, Mr Hollinsworth displayed in the window what he insisted was still the last broadside he intended to publish in Savannah. Jem watched for the small stack to diminish as readers put down their pennies, but it remained the same height, to his discomfort. This was no way to find Theodora Winnings, and so he told Mr Hollinsworth, who took his sharp comments in stride.

‘I’ve distributed my broadsides in the squares, too,’ the little man said serenely. ‘Be patient.’

Jem honestly tried to be patient, going so far as to sit in the back of Christ Church in Johnson Square, the oldest of the squares, according to a shoeshine boy who gave his boots a lick and a promise each day. A choir rehearsed in Christ Church in the evenings, preparing for Christmas services, or so he gathered from their repertory. After supper in the Marlborough Dining Room, he walked the short distance to Johnson Square to listen.

He sat there long enough each night to be greeted eventually by the singers, then asked to join them. He demurred at first, well-acquainted with his own voice. In their polite Southern way, which was beginning to nestle comfortably under his skin, they asked each night until he agreed. By the middle of the second week in Savannah, he attended choir practice three nights a week.

By the end of that week, he also knew his feeble and puny enterprise had failed. How much longer could he stay in this beguiling place remained open to doubt. He had the means to stay for months, but not the inclination. A strange homing instinct was drawing him north toward Massachusetts. He wanted nothing more than to walk those familiar streets and think about his life’s direction, something he hadn’t questioned in years, but which now loomed large in his agile brain.

He owned to traitorous feelings, if such they were. Why was a respected post captain in the Royal Navy even for the tiniest moment considering a more permanent connection with the United States? He should know better, but he liked it here and America was compelling him to stay. It’s complicated, he thought, as he listened to Christmas music, walked the streets and squares of a beguiling little city, and wondered about himself as much as he wondered about Teddy Winnings.

The day came when he knew it was pointless to remain any longer in Savannah. He sat on the side of his bed and silently informed ‘Sir’ in his now-daily commentary that it was time to move on.

I certainly bear you no ill will, sir, he thought or prayed. He never could decide which it was. It was a long-odds chance. I know how busy you are at this season, when I suspect many people who pray more than I do want things. I wish it had worked out. Thanks for listening...if you did.

The day was warm and sunny, much as the day before, and probably as the day after would be. He took his time sauntering to the wharf, breathing in the familiar odour of tarred rope and maritime paint. He waited his turn at the coastal shipping office, aware of his difference among these soft-spoken, slow-moving, congenial folk.

He inquired about a passage north and was informed that he could leave this afternoon on the Charleston coaster, or hang around until the end of the week for a larger vessel being loaded now with cotton and contracted for a Baltimore destination. He decided upon Baltimore. He could take a coach or private conveyance north from there to Boston.

Dissatisfied, unhappy, he walked around that day, stayed awake at night staring at the ceiling.

Tired of his own company and wishing he had cared enough to bathe and shave, he stood on the veranda of the Arundel in the morning, looked toward the print shop and saw her.

Certain he was mistaken, Jem squinted his eyes shut and rubbed the lids. Almost afraid to look, he opened them, and knew the woman across the street, standing there with a broadside in her hand, was Theodora Winnings.

He remained where he was, rooted to the spot, certain she would disappear if he took one step closer. She wore a drab dress, unlike the pretty muslins he remembered. Her hair was invisible under a blue bandanna wrapped around and knotted high on her forehead. He had seen this head covering on slaves in Charleston and Savannah. She was slimmer than he remembered, which told him all he needed to know about her hard life. Holding his breath, he looked down and saw bare feet.

‘Good God, Teddy,’ he whispered, then addressed his silent partner. ‘Sir, why didn’t anyone take care of her?’

It was my job, he told himself. He walked toward the woman he knew he still loved, no matter her circumstances, her race, her current matrimonial status, her anything.

‘Theodora,’ he said, when he was halfway across the street.

The woman had been staring down at the broadside, and then looking at the dilapidated print shop, as if wondering what she was doing there.

Maybe he was wrong. Maybe it wasn’t Teddy. He cleared his throat and spoke louder. ‘Theodora Winnings.’

Honest to God, if he didn’t feel his heart pound like a drum when she looked at him. He stood still in the middle of the street, barely mindful of a carter cursing at him to move. He gave a don’t-bother-me wave of his hand to the driver but consciously willed himself to move.

She stared at him, holding the broadside in front of her as if to shield her body. Slowly she raised it to cover her face, which broke his heart.

He stood right in front of her now. Silently he took the broadside and pulled it away from her face. ‘Teddy,’ he said. ‘Teddy. I owe you such an apology.’

Now that he looked at her, really looked at her honestly, without any of his malaria fever dreams, he could see the smallest trace of Africa. His recent weeks in Savannah had accustomed him to the beautiful shades of dark brown, barely brown, and Teddy’s own creamy complexion found on the kindly, patient people who waited on his table, changed his sheets, and ironed his shirts.

‘Lieutenant Grey?’ she asked, her voice as musical as ever.

He smiled. ‘Captain Grey, actually, Miss Winnings, like it says in the broadside,’ he told her. ‘I grew a little smarter and achieved some rank.’

He wanted her to smile because she looked so serious, with sorrow writ large that he knew was his fault, because he had failed her.

To his dismay, she did not smile. Her shoulders drooped. ‘I should have told you,’ she said simply, and turned to go.

He reached for her, but she was quicker. ‘You don’t want to make a scene here,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Believe me, you do not.’

He lowered his hand. ‘Why did you come then?’

‘I had to see you, Captain Grey,’ she said and took a deep breath. ‘Now I’ve seen you.’

‘But I...’ He saw the tears on her face as she kept backing away.

‘No,’ she said. ‘No.’

‘Sir, this is not fair,’ he said out loud. ‘Not at all.’

She looked around, as if wondering to whom he spoke, when the door to the print shop banged open and Osgood N. Hollinsworth stood there glowering.

‘Get in here right now, Teddy! Your mistress promised me a day’s work!’

Chapter Seven

She ran inside the shop as Hollinsworth glowered at her as though she were a disobedient servant. Jem stood in front of the open door, astonished, wondering what power the man had to command someone he probably had never seen. Jem could have staggered under the weight of the whole awful business when he realised that in the eleven years since they had met, Teddy had become subservient and knew when to obey a white man. Either that, or she knew a ruse when she saw one. Jem already knew how intelligent she was.

‘Sir,’ he whispered under his breath to the Lord above. ‘Help me know what to do.’

Once Teddy was inside, Hollinsworth’s expression changed to his usual cheery demeanour. Jem understood. ‘Captain Grey, we’re going to let every flying insect into this print shop. Hurry up and come in!’

He hurried, closing the door after him. Teddy stood behind the drafting table, as if afraid of them both. Her eyes were huge in her face until Hollinsworth bowed from the waist and introduced himself. To Jem’s relief, she smiled.

‘Miss Winnings, I had to do something to get this slow-moving captain out of the street. He doesn’t understand Savannah the way we do, does he? Do have a seat, please. No one here is going to harm you.’ The printer gestured toward the stool in front of the drafting table. He propped a broom against it. ‘If anyone sets the doorbell tinkling, start sweeping.’

Teddy nodded and sat. With a pang, Jem watched her smooth down the rough fabric of the shapeless dress she wore, recognising the graceful gesture from many a time when she sat beside his bed in the hospital in much better clothing. His heart eased, as he realised Teddy was still Teddy.

Jem had to admit that Osgood N. Hollinsworth had a certain charm, something he had not noticed before in their various exchanges. Teddy appeared to relax as the tension left her face. ‘Yes, Sir,’ she said. ‘I can sweep.’ Jem saw the dimple in her cheek and relaxed further. ‘No one will know I don’t belong in here.’

The capable, assured, confident post captain that James Grey knew himself to be had vanished. He stood there like a lump, awkward as though his feet and hands were five times larger than usual. At least so he felt, until Hollinsworth took his arm in a surprisingly gentle grip and motioned him toward the other chair beside the drafting table.

Hollinsworth regarded them with something nearly resembling beatific goodwill toward men. ‘Talk,’ he said. ‘I am going to the Marlborough for some food. Captain, do you have any money? You know what a poverty-stricken editor I am. Why is it writers cannot make an honest dime?’

Wordless, Jem reached inside his coat and took out several bills. ‘What do you like to eat, Teddy? I remember macaroons and something with pecans.’

She smiled for the first time, and Jem felt his heart cuddle down into a little pile. ‘You remember well... Jem?’

‘That’s still my name,’ he said, even though all he had heard in years was Captain Grey, or something more informal. ‘My men call me Iron Belly, but only out of my hearing.’

Her smile grew larger. ‘I recall a time when all you did was puke.’

Hollinsworth rolled his eyes. ‘My land! Eleven years and this is the best you two can do? I’m going, before I smack you both!’

Jem laughed, and Teddy put her hand over her mouth, a gesture he remembered as though the hospital was mere days ago, when she was a lady and too polite to laugh out loud.

‘Fried chicken and greens? Corn bread?’ Hollinsworth asked. ‘Crab sandwiches?’

‘It all sounds wonderful, sir,’ Teddy said. ‘I haven’t had chicken in a long time.’

The door closed, and Jem absorbed the sight of Theodora Winnings, still the loveliest woman he had ever seen, and he had been in many a foreign port since his proposal by letter. He wished he could tell her he had been a chaste, celibate man, but that would have been a lie. He wished he had received her letter years sooner.

He could have said all that; instead, he held out his hand to her. He could have died with delight when she held out her hand and grasped his in a firm hold. Her hands were rough and her grip strong, much like his own. He remembered her delicate touch and the softness of her hands, but much time and many tides had rolled over them both since he wrote that letter and she answered it.

She opened her mouth to speak. He held up his free hand, ready to break a social rule.

‘A gentleman would let you speak first, Teddy, but I have to start. I won’t have you apologise for anything when I owe you the apology.’

It didn’t work. ‘Jem, I’m a slave. I always was. I never told you.’ Her voice was low and earnest. ‘It was wrong and I’ve regretted it for years. May I please apologise first?’

‘No, you may not.’ He felt like he floundered, but he was still a man used to command. ‘Teddy, I didn’t get your letter until September.’ He reached in his pocket and pulled out the fragile thing, setting it carefully on the drafting table. ‘You see what I could read. Mrs Fillion had set a box on top of it, and there it remained for years.’

‘You told me to send a letter care of the Drake,’ she said. ‘Her hotel?’

‘We officers of the fleet based in Plymouth have long used the Drake as an informal place to store our personal effects. Everyone passes through there sooner or later,’ he explained. ‘What happened in this case is that the owner of the box on top of your letter died.’

‘So there it sat,’ she said with a sigh.

‘Every so often, Mrs Fillion advertises in the newspaper, listing the names and property, hoping next of kin will claim the items,’ he said. ‘Someone finally did. I happened to be in port when she found the letter underneath.’

‘And you dropped everything and ran away to the United States? Captain Grey, I don’t remember you as an impulsive person. Aren’t you at war? Did you bring your frigate with you?’

The way her eyes twinkled made him laugh. Funny how they had picked up where they left off. When his malaria fevers had begun to subside and he lay there in the convent, stupefied and even unsure where he was, Theodora Winnings had jollied him out of the doldrums by reading a book of wise remarks and tomfoolery by Benjamin Franklin. He knew she liked to laugh, and by God, he could have used a few laughs in the past decade.

‘There is no war right now. First Consul Bonaparte has foisted the Peace of Amiens on us.’

‘That’s a good thing, I would imagine, Jem.’

He smiled to hear her affectionate name for him. Amazing how eleven years could nearly vanish. With a start, he realised that since his parents’ deaths years ago, no one called him that except Teddy Winnings.

‘Amiens is good for me,’ he assured her. ‘Most of us post captains were thrown ashore on half pay, which meant I could book passage on the first ship to the United States and the Royal Navy is none the wiser.’

‘You came all this way without knowing even where I was or whether I was alive or dead?’ she asked.

He heard the wonder in her voice. He could assure her that was the truth, or he could be honest. Which would it be? He knew now she was a slave, a woman of Ashanti or Ibo origin two or three generations back, someone who had to bend to the will of others. He could chat with her, satisfy himself she was well, and leave for Baltimore at the end of the week, as planned.

He might have done precisely that, if he had not looked into her eyes and remembered what it was beyond her amiability and breathtaking beauty that made Theodora Winnings so memorable. Kind eyes looked into his and he recalled with delight her amazing ability to give whomever she was talking to her complete and undivided attention. He knew it was a rare gift. He would be honest, because she was paying attention to him, completely focused.

‘Teddy, I wanted to assure myself that you were alive,’ he said. ‘I had no doubt you would be married and with a family of your own.’

‘Not this slave,’ she said. ‘Why else are you here then?’

He couldn’t help looking around to make sure British spies weren’t pressed against the front window, peering in and listening. I’m an idiot, he thought, suddenly weary.

‘You can tell me,’ she said, putting her hand over his. ‘I don’t expect you to come to my rescue. You had no idea I even needed rescuing. What else?’

Her hand was warm. He turned his over and interlocked their fingers. ‘Teddy, I wanted to go home again to Massachusetts. After I assured myself that all was well here, I was...well, I am...taking ship north to Baltimore and then to Boston.’

He felt her fingers tremble and tightened his grip. ‘You told me eleven years ago how a howling mob burned your house when you were a boy, killed your dog, and sent you all fleeing north to Halifax,’ she said. ‘Why would you ever want to return there?’

‘I liked Massachusetts,’ he said simply. ‘I wish I had a better explanation. Have you ever just liked something?’

She nodded. ‘Since we are truth telling and it sounds to me like you’ve already booked passage...’ Her voice trailed off and he heard the regret. It might have been wistfulness, or even envy that he could travel about on a whim.

‘Have you?’ he asked.

‘I liked you,’ she said, her brown eyes claiming his total attention. ‘You sailed away at Christmas, Jem. Every year I wondered how you were doing. I lit a candle every year at Congregation de St Jean-Baptiste, hoping you were still alive.’ She broke off her glance. ‘I wasn’t going to this year. I was done with it.’ She looked up and he felt his heart start to beat again. ‘But here you are, at least for now. I know you are alive and I suppose that must suffice.’

‘Then why are you crying?’ he asked, his voice soft.

Chapter Eight

The shadow of a man passed the door and Teddy gasped, tears forgotten. She grabbed the broom and began to sweep a floor that looked as though it had not been touched in a generation. Dust flew and Jem sneezed.

When the footsteps receded, Jem grabbed the broom. ‘Hey now, lady, he walked on by.’

He tried to pry the broom from her grasp, but Teddy was strong and hung onto it. ‘You don’t understand that I am a slave and this is the South,’ she said and yanked on the broom. ‘Let go.’

Jem released the broom, acutely aware of the terror in her eyes. He watched her edge toward the door and knew he had no incentive to keep her there, if she wanted to leave. Her fear told him chapter and verse of what could happen to a slave alone with a white man. Eleven years had changed Theodora Winnings even more than it had changed him. Better keep talking.

‘When I did not hear from you, I was moderately philosophical about the matter, I’ll admit,’ he told her. ‘Who was I, after all? A Royal Navy first lieutenant barely alive and still shaky. I assumed you were the pampered daughter of a Charleston merchant, determined to do good in a fever hospital. I was nothing but very small fry.’

As practical as he remembered, Teddy shook her head. To his relief, she put down the broom and moved away from the door, not far, but far enough to give him reason to hope. It began to matter to him more with each passing minute that she not leave.

‘Captain Grey, no one volunteers at a fever hospital,’ she said, enunciating each word in a most un-Southern way. ‘Mr Winnings hated it, but Mrs Winnings volunteered me all the time. I had no choice.’

‘My God, what kind of woman is she?’ he asked.

‘A sad woman who could not produce any children of her own and could only look on as I was born and cherished by her husband,’ Teddy told him. ‘He even taught me to read and write, which is illegal, I assure you.’

‘White folks are afraid you’ll get ideas?’ he asked, unable to mask his disgust.

‘Most likely.’ She sat down. She smiled at him, and years fell away. ‘Don’t get a swelled head, Captain Grey, but going to the fever hospital became the best part of my week.’

The smile left her face soon enough and she settled into that neutral expression he had seen on many a slave’s face in his brief tenure in the South. ‘I should never have walked through the convent grounds with you when you started feeling better.’

‘Probably didn’t have a choice, did you?’ he asked, his understanding growing of Theodora Winnings’ life spent balancing on the tightrope of keeping Mr Winnings happy and not irritating Mrs Winnings too much.

‘I did, actually,’ she said. ‘For all that they were cloistered, religious women and unacquainted with actual life, some of the nuns could see what was happening between us. They told me I should find another patient, or at least tell you of my parentage.’ Her expression softened. ‘They didn’t order me away, however.’

As he watched her, Jem wondered how easy it would have been to ignore that ruin of a letter Mrs Fillion gave him. He could still be in England, restless at being ashore on half pay, and thinking about nothing more interesting than what he would be having for dinner that night. All things considered, this was better. Come to think of it, any time at all in Theodora Winnings’ gentle orbit was better. Maybe this was his odd little Christmas gift from St Nicholas.

She sat back on the chair, her guard down again. ‘Every morning before I went to the hospital, I told myself it would be the last time. I ordered myself to tell you I was a slave, and every morning, I could not.’

In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought. ‘The thing is, Teddy, it would have changed nothing,’ he said and took his own deep breath. ‘I remain firm in my resolve.’

‘You can’t be serious,’ she replied.

‘Never more so.’

‘Even if you know any sort of...connection between us is impossible?’ she asked.

He shrugged. ‘Why? I assume you could not tell me the truth because you loved me.’ He touched the ruined letter on the drafting table. ‘Your letter confirmed it eleven years ago.’

Teddy opened her mouth to speak, then gasped as another shadow approached the door and opened it. She leaped to her feet and crouched behind the drafting table as Osgood Hollinsworth opened the door, bearing a pasteboard box of food.

Go away and let me talk to this lady, he wanted to shout as Mr Hollinsworth set the box on the desk.

‘You can talk after we eat,’ the printer said. ‘I’m not going anywhere until we do. Chicken, greens, Johnny cake!’

How was it that this round little man seemed to know what he was thinking? I am losing my mind, Jem thought, exasperated.

‘Captain Grey! Coax that pretty miss out from behind my drafting table. You can be as high-minded as you wish, but we need to eat. You know, as we puzzle out what to do.’

‘There is nothing we can do,’ Teddy Winnings said as she left her hiding place and sat where Mr Hollinsworth pointed.

Hollinsworth blinked his eyes in surprise and clucked his tongue. ‘Missy, you have a lot to learn. Doesn’t she, James?’

Hollinsworth looked from one to the other, smiling as though all was well in the world. ‘Must I do all the thinking?’ he asked the air in general. ‘Eat something.’

Maybe the chance was gone. Teddy seemed almost relieved not to venture deeper into their conversation. She arranged the food, setting it just so, as if seeking order to a life suddenly out of kilter.

So be it. He was hungry. He could be superficial, too, although for how long he did not know. The chicken was tasty enough for Jem to ask her, ‘Miss Winnings, can you cook like this?’

‘Certainly, sir,’ she said, after she chewed and swallowed. ‘I can cook chicken anywhere.’

‘Don’t be so...so...blamed trivial!’ Hollinsworth declared, and waved a chicken leg for emphasis. ‘Miss Winnings, how did you find my broadside? Just curious.’

The soul of manners, she wiped her fingers delicately on a piece of newsprint. ‘It was the strangest thing, sir. I was hanging up the wash today when the broadside just sailed into the yard on that high wind, and dropped in my hands.’

‘There wasn’t any wind this morning,’ Jem said, reaching for another chicken piece.

‘There was,’ she insisted. ‘Are you a wind expert?’

‘Actually, I am. No wind,’ he said firmly.

She gave him a look that would have skewered a lesser man. ‘Wind. The broadside seemed to attach itself to my hand. Don’t laugh! I dropped everything and came here. You don’t know everything, Captain Grey.’

I like this spirited Theodora, he thought, but decided wisely to keep his comments to himself. ‘I bow to your greater knowledge,’ he said, unable to resist some repartee, even as he longed to yank the conversation back to her words spoken just before the printer opened the door.

Hollinsworth, damn the man, seemed to have other ideas. ‘Miss Winnings, enlighten us. What happened after your father’s death?’

She glanced at Jem, apology in her eyes, but obedient in her attention to the printer. Jem decided that the intervening years must have been a harsh school for a slave who lost her only advocate with her father’s passing.

‘Mrs Winnings sold the business, bought a house and moved us here.’ She shook her head over a thigh fried a crispy brown. ‘Savannah was her childhood home.’

Jem took heart when she turned to him and touched his arm. ‘Jem, Mr Winnings died not long after that Christmas when you sailed away. He died in January of ninety-one. When I was tending him at home because he could no longer go to the mercantile, Mr Winnings showed me his will, already notarized. Upon his death, I was to be freed and provided with two hundred dollars.’

Sudden tears spilled onto her cheeks. ‘Jem, when the will was read, there was no mention of my freedom or any money. When I asked Mrs Winnings about it in private, she said solicitors could be easily unconvinced.’ She put her hands over her ears. ‘I can hear her still.’

In the silence that followed, Jem could almost hear Mrs Winnings, too. He thought of his own life in those few months since he had left Teddy the letter, hopeful she would answer, determined to return for her, despite duty and war. Time passed. He never grew any more in stature—he was tall enough—but he grew in cynicism and then a complacent sort of acceptance, where Teddy was concerned.

‘I wish I had known,’ he said. ‘If only there was a way to know instantly what goes on in others’ lives.’ It was absurd, but he had to say it.

Teddy gave him a faint smile. ‘You can’t imagine how I prayed you would find out and save me. I prayed and prayed. Nothing.’

He bowed his head in sadness at the same time Mr Hollinsworth blew into his handkerchief, muttering something about being stretched too thin, which made no sense to Jem. At least the man felt like crying in solidarity with them. How could he be busy? Nothing seemed to happen in Savannah.

‘She sold the business and moved here,’ Jem said. He put down the chicken thigh, hungry no longer.

Teddy nodded. ‘She bought a house near Ellis Square. It burned in the fire of ninety-six and we moved to a smaller house on the edge of Green Square.’

How many times have I walked by it in the past two weeks? Jem asked himself. He amended his thought. He had only walked there once, because it was a ramshackle area, unsafe. ‘I’ve been here long enough to know that as a come down,’ he said.

‘It was,’ Teddy replied. ‘She started selling off her slaves.’ He heard the sob in her throat. ‘My friends!’

He stared into her eyes, chagrined to see that deep gaze of men who had been in combat on sea and shore. He knew he had that same stare, but he had never seen it in a woman’s eyes before and it unnerved him.

‘Theodora...’

‘I am last,’ she said quietly. ‘I believe I was her hedge against ruin.’

Chapter Nine

Reticence be damned. Jem took her arm, pulled her toward him and held her while she sobbed. Between breaths that shook her, she murmured something about card games and one losing streak after another. He listened in horror and heard the dreary pattern of a desperate widow gambling at cards, trying to recoup some shred of a formerly prosperous life.

He glanced at Mr Hollinsworth, who seemed involved in sorrow of a different sort, an inward examination. Jem had not known the man a few hours before he had seen him as a jovial fellow, with ready quips. Who was this new fellow?

He held Teddy close on his lap and realised he had not been a callow fool in 1791, infatuated by a pretty face and figure. He had told his story a few times in frigate wardrooms, usually to hoots of laughter, until he had begun to think perhaps he had been a naive boy, recovering from illness, who mistook kindness for attachment of a more permanent nature.

He held her, felt her tears dampening his coat, and understood the nature of what he had felt in 1791, love so deep it shook him even now. ‘Help me, Sir,’ he whispered to that friend of his.

He glanced at Mr Hollinsworth just then to see him nod ever so slightly, his own countenance anything but trivial, or jovial, or shallow or any of those weary adjectives describing someone lightweight.

‘Aye, laddie,’ Mr Hollinsworth said.

He let Teddy’s tears run their course, pressing his handkerchief into her palm. ‘Blow your nose and dry your eyes,’ he said. ‘I will return with you to Green Square and I will buy you. I didn’t come here penniless.’

She didn’t bother with his instruction, beyond wiping her nose, her face stained with tears. ‘You’re too late. She sold me yesterday to William Tullidge. I am only hers until after Christmas. She insisted.’

Mr Hollinsworth gasped. ‘He’s one of the richest men in Savannah. Cotton, land, slaves.’ He shook his head. ‘Influence.’

‘Then I will buy you from him,’ Jem said, undeterred. ‘What did he pay?’

‘Two thousand dollars,’ she said, then looked away, unable to meet what he knew was his own horrified gaze. ‘Do you have that much money?’

He shook his head. He had more, clearly outlined in a legal letter of transfer from Carter and Brustein to any counting house in North America, but such a transfer took months. ‘Not on hand.’

‘Then I am ruined,’ Teddy said. Dignified even in her despair, she got off his lap, straightened her dress and started for the door. She turned back to give him the level gaze that told him he commanded her total attention.

‘Captain Grey, I came here for one reason only. I know there is nothing you can do to save me, at this point.’

‘But I can tr—’

She help up her hand. ‘Stop. Let me speak. I came here solely to see you. I came here to assure my eyes—no my heart—that you are well and whole now. I came here to apologise...’ She gave him a fierce look that closed his mouth again. ‘Deny that you came here for the same reasons only. I dare you.’

She had him. ‘I came here for those precise reasons,’ he admitted, because it was true.

Her hand was on the doorknob now. He knew he had lost, but he had to try once more. He knew what he had to say would brand him forever in her eyes as a fool, but he had to try. He glanced at Mr Hollinsworth for... For what, he had no idea. Support? Compassion? Empathy? And he saw an amazing sight.

Somehow, the little round man seemed to grow a foot taller. His eyes bored into Jem’s eyes, telling him without words that he had a potent ally in this odd quest that had turned into a mission so important that he felt it in his entire being.

‘Listen to him, Theodora,’ Mr Hollinsworth said, and it was no suggestion.

‘Something happened in Charleston,’ Jem began.

Maybe Teddy felt something unusual in the dusty room, same as Jem did. Whatever it was, she walked back and sat on the stool.

‘I learned who you were in Charleston, and it didn’t send me rushing to take ship back to England,’ he said. ‘I stood outside the convent and I must have prayed. Me! I never pray.’

He looked for scepticism in those lovely eyes and saw something else. Eyes still cast modestly toward her bare feet, she smiled.

He couldn’t help his sudden intake of breath. ‘Teddy, that statue,’ he said, and couldn’t think of words, he who had commanded, and fought, and blistered his frigate’s air with admonition.

Total silence filled the room. He watched dust motes dance. Theodora didn’t raise her gaze. She placed her hand near her heart. He waited, barely breathing.

‘You sailed in December of 1790,’ she said. He leaned forward to hear her soft words. ‘In September of ninety-one, a hurricane struck the city.’ Her breath came quicker. ‘The statue outside the convent literally blew away. The winds stripped all the ivy from the buildings. Such a storm.’

As she raised her eyes to his, Jem remembered to breathe. ‘My father commissioned another statue, one in stone this time. I was the model. It was the last thing he did before he died.’ She hesitated.

Now what, he thought. Now what?

‘I think you should challenge William Tullidge to a duel,’ Mr Hollinsworth said, and rubbed his hands with something close to glee.

‘He’ll shoot me dead,’ Jem said immediately. ‘I am a terrible shot.’

The room grew silent again, as the others seemed to expect Jem to say more. ‘A duel is nonsense. I can offer the man a down payment and see if he will wait three or four months for my money to arrive.’

‘Tullidge is impatient and used to matters falling out in his favour,’ Mr Hollinsworth said. ‘I doubt he ever waited a week for a dime owed him.’

‘We have until the day after Christmas,’ Teddy said, dignified as he remembered, but with something else. He could nearly feel her excitement, as though the wheel was suddenly turning in her direction.

‘What about Mrs Winnings?’ Jem asked. He felt sweat dripping down his back as he contemplated staring down the muzzle of a pistol aimed at him. ‘Could she stave him off? What was the nature of this devil’s bargain the two of them made?’

‘Mrs Winnings has finally lost all the money she received for Papa’s store. Her house burned in the fire six years ago,’ Teddy told them both. ‘She gambles at cards...’

‘Badly, I would say,’ Mr Hollinsworth said.

Teddy sighed. ‘She is always certain the next turn of the card will recoup her fortune. I fear gamblers are like that. She staked her house, a poor ruin of a place, mind you, on the turn of the card and lost it.’

‘He played her deliberately, didn’t he?’ Jem asked.

‘Emphatically yes,’ she replied. ‘He’s been eyeing me this past year and more, and it unnerves me. He promised she could keep her house and he would give her two thousand dollars for me.’ She paled visibly at her own words and covered her face with her hands. ‘She was saving me for an emergency, Jem.’

‘That is an unheard-of sum,’ Mr Hollinsworth said, his face pale.

It’s not a penny too high for someone as beautiful as Theodora Winnings, Jem thought, shocked, too, but not as surprised as the printer.

‘I was her insurance against total ruin,’ Teddy said, and bowed her head.

That was all she needed to say. Jem thought about the barrel of that pistol, then dismissed it. He had been on lee shores before, when nothing good was going to happen unless he and his crew exerted supreme effort. His crew had never failed him. He looked around at his crew—Teddy, and a fat printer from somewhere—and grinned at them.

‘Teddy my dear, I can’t explain this, but when I looked at your statue in Charleston I felt some odd assurance that things would work out in my...in our favour. I didn’t even know where you were, but something told me to go to Savannah. I know it’s nonsense, but what is that, measured against a duel to the death with a Southern gentleman?’

His crew laughed, indicating they were as certifiable as he was. Emboldened by their reaction and amazed by his own words, James Grey, usually a thoughtful man who never performed a hasty act, remembered Mrs Fillion’s admonition in Plymouth and decided to have faith.

Further emboldened, he kissed Theodora Winnings’ cheek and told her to go home before she got into trouble with the silly gambler who had controlled a good woman far too long.

‘Heaven knows you are probably in trouble with Mrs Winnings right now,’ he said, as he opened the door for her. ‘What will she do?’

‘She has a silver-backed hairbrush,’ Teddy said with touching dignity. ‘It hurts.’

He stared at her in shocked silence, realising how naïve he was.

‘Too bad I cannot duel with her, too,’ he said, pleased with himself that he controlled the anger threatening him. ‘Do you dare leave her house in the evening?’

‘She goes to her room by nine of the clock,’ Teddy said.

‘I’ll be at Christ Church then.’ He couldn’t help a chuckle, even as he wondered why in God’s name he had any right to be cheerful, not with death by duel on his menu this week. No doubt about it: In the past few months, he had gone through more emotions than Edmund Keene on the Drury Lane stage. ‘The choir has asked me to join them in Christmas carols.’

‘I didn’t know you sang,’ she said.

‘I didn’t either, Teddy,’ he told her, and kissed her lips this time, something he had wanted to do for the past eleven years. ‘There’s a lot I didn’t know, before I ran away to the United States.’

She smiled at that, touched his cheek for a too brief moment with the palm of her hand, and left the printing shop. He watched her hurry away, looking right and left, maybe hoping no one had seen her. Usually a bustling, busy thoroughfare, Bay Street was surprisingly empty. He chalked it up to an unexpected blessing.

‘Well, now, Mr Osgood N. Hollinsworth,’ he began, turning back to face the printer, ‘since you seem confidently sanguine that I should challenge a poor specimen of manhood to a duel, do you have any idea how I can survive it and live happily ever after with the woman I love?’

‘Not one single idea,’ Hollinsworth assured him cheerfully. ‘I have found in life that it’s often best to make up things as I go along.’

‘I wish I found that reassuring,’ Jem replied. ‘Where away?’

‘The residence of Mr William Tullidge, Esquire,’ Hollinsworth replied. ‘You have a date with destiny.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t look so cheerful,’ Jem groused.

‘Have faith, Captain. Didn’t you just say that?’

‘I did,’ Jem replied, his mind resolved. ‘Lead on, sir. What could possibly go wrong?’