You are cordially invited to the weddings of

Lord Ratliffe’s three daughters

as they marry their courageous heroes

A captain, a surgeon in the

Royal Navy and a Royal Marine prove true husband material in

this stirring trilogy from Carla Kelly

Look for:

THE SURGEON’S LADY

February 2012

MARRYING THE ROYAL MARINE

March 2012

Praise for Carla Kelly:

‘A powerful and wonderfully perceptive author.’

—New York Times bestselling author Mary Jo Putney

‘A wonderfully fresh and original voice…’

—RT BOOK Reviews

‘Kelly has the rare ability to create realistic

yet sympathetic characters that linger in the mind.

One of the most respected… Regency writers.’

—Library Journal

‘Carla Kelly is always a joy to read.’

—RT BOOK Reviews

‘Ms Kelly writes with a rich flavour that

adds great depth of emotion to all her characterisations.’

—RT BOOK Reviews

Marrying the

Captain

Carla Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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About the Author

CARLA KELLY has been writing award-winning novels for years—stories set in the British Isles, Spain, and army garrisons during the Indian Wars. Her speciality in the Regency genre is writing about ordinary people, not just lords and ladies. Carla has worked as a university professor, a ranger in the National Park Service, and recently as a staff writer and columnist for a small daily newspaper in Valley City, North Dakota. Her husband is director of theatre at Valley City State University. She has five interesting children, a fondness for cowboy songs, and too many box elder beetles in the autumn.

Novels by the same author:

BEAU CRUSOE

CHRISTMAS PROMISE

(part of Regency Christmas Gifts anthology)

To my dear sisters, Karen Deo and Wanda Lynn

Turner, who showed me Plymouth.

Said the sailor to his true love, ‘Well, I must be on my way, For our topsails they are hoisted and the anchor’s aweigh; And our good ship she lies awaiting for the next flowing tide, And if ever I return again, I will make you my bride.’

—Pleasant and Delightful (English folksong)

Prologue

After five years in Plymouth following her 1803 expulsion from Miss Pym’s Female Academy in Bath, it still burned Nana Massie to be an Object of Charity.

She closed the door to the Mulberry Inn behind her and looked down at the hand-lettered placards in her hand. In these hard times of war, made harder for Plymouth by the blockade of the French coast, the inn-keeps at the bigger inns closer to the harbor still had no objection to the placards, even though everyone knew there was no need for them, because there was no overflow of clientele.

We Massies are engaged in a great deception, Nana told herself as she hurried toward the harbor, blown along by the stiff November wind. She glanced back at the Mulberry, knowing Gran would be watching her from an upstairs window. Nana waved and blew her grandmother a kiss. This grand deception is for my benefit entirely, she thought, and I am hungry.

She was cold, too, even though she wore Pete’s cut-down boat cloak and two petticoats under a wool dress. She knew Gran was knitting her a cap to cover her short hair, and it wouldn’t be done a moment too soon. After a look of deep worry when Nana returned from the wigmaker last week with short hair and a handful of coins for the more pressing bills, Gran had turned straight to her knitting.

Even though Nana could see one small frigate bobbing in anchor at the harbor below, Gran and Pete both had insisted it was time to take placards to the large inns. Time meant noon, when the inns would be serving dinner. Those two old conspirators knew the keeps and cooks would see that their darling Nana ate.

The sailors were seldom allowed off the warships, but the officers and petty officers were usually free to go ashore and stay in Plymouth’s inns. Many ships meant more officers. If the larger inns were full, some could be persuaded to stay at the Mulberry on far-distant Gibbon Street, if there was a placard announcing the little inn’s existence.

Nana almost turned around after she passed St. Andrews Church. The matter was hopeless because the admiral of the Channel Fleet, in his wisdom, had decreed that his warships would not leave their watery stations for anything except dire emergency. They were to be revictualed at sea—with food and water—and remain there, because of Boney and his threats.

One frigate in the harbor. Nana stopped and nearly crammed her signs in a bin, then reconsidered. Gran would be devastated if she returned from the harbor unfed, and would see right through a lie to the contrary.

Besides, the wind carried the fragrance of sausages from the Navy Inn, her first stop. Nana wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and let the wind coax her along.

There was a sausage for her at the Navy Inn, with a crunch when she bit into it that nearly brought tears to her eyes. She went through the charade of protesting when the keep insisted on wrapping an extra one in oiled paper, then hurried to the Drury Inn, where she left another placard and sat down to potato soup with hunks of ham and onion, bubbling in the broth of cream flecked with butter.

The keep even handed her a pot of it to take along, declaring the soup would just sit around, uneaten and unappreciated, if she didn’t take it back to the Mulberry. Maybe Gran or Pete could have it, if Nana was full. She accepted it with a smile, even as her face burned from shame.

At Drake’s Inn, the bill of fare was pasties, as she had hoped. Mrs. Fillion, the keep, insisted she eat one quickly, before it went bad, then packaged two more for her, all the while complaining about an admiral so mean-spirited as to keep his ships from Plymouth and make life a trial for the quayside merchants.

“Well, we are at war, Mrs. Fillion,” Nana ventured.

Mrs. Fillion sighed. “You’d think in the year of our Lord 1808 we could have figured out some way to abolish such stupidity.”

She took a placard, but gently informed Nana that the Drake had already received the frigate’s surgeon, both lieutenants and captain.

She slid another pasty on Nana’s plate. “At least we’ll have Captain Worthy when he returns from Admiralty House in London in a day or two. His sea chest is already here.”

“That’s his frigate in the Cattewater?” Nana asked.

“Aye. The Tireless, a thirty-four, and bound for dry docks,” the keep said. She snorted. “Not even an admiral can figure out how to repair a frigate in the Channel.”

Nana glanced out the window and let Mrs. Fillion run on, declaring how she would run the war and the Royal Navy, if put in charge. Maybe the rain would stop by the time the keep ran out of words.

It didn’t. Mrs. Fillion handed her a bag to hold the pasties and the other food Nana had accumulated. “Just return it next time you’re in the Barbican, dearie,” she said. She shook her head. “I wish I could send you Captain Worth, but we need the trade. He’s not a bad-looking man, if you could get him to smile. ‘Course, nobody’s smiling much.”

At least I never ask for anything, Nana thought as she excused herself and started for the Mulberry. There was food enough for supper now. She paused to look at the Tireless, noting the listing main mast, and what looked like canvas draped across the stern. “Dry docks for you, Captain Worthy.”

And who knows what for me? she considered. She couldn’t help but think of her father, William Stokes, Viscount Ratliffe, and his devil’s bargain, which had sent her fleeing back to the safety of Plymouth, Gran’s protection and more uncertainty.

“I may be hungry now,” she whispered, “but if you think I ever intend to change my mind, dear Father, you’re as wrong now as you were five years ago.”

Her anger—or was it fear?—made her speak louder than she intended. As a child of Plymouth, she knew the prevailing winds were speeding her words to the French coast. No one could hear her. Beyond Gran and Pete, she knew no one cared.

Chapter One

Twelve hours into the return journey from Admiralty House, Captain Oliver Worthy felt the familiar but unwelcome scratchiness in his throat and ache in his ears. “Oh, damn,” he whispered. This was no time to be afflicted with the deepwater sailor’s commonest complaint—putrid ear and throat.

He tried to get comfortable in the chaise, mentally ticking off a long list of duties upon arrival in Plymouth, all of which trumped any ailments. The dockmaster was waiting for his final appraisal and list of repairs to the Tireless. The warped mast—the result of patching two splintered ones together—was bad enough. Even worse, the inept captain of the Wellspring, who had crashed his bow into the Tireless’s stern, caused more damage to a vulnerable part of the ship. Welcome to life on the blockade.

He had to make arrangements with the purser to complete the laborious resupply lists that ran on for mind-numbing pages. The chances of receiving all requested stores were slight, but he had to apply anyway. He also intended to release his crew, a few at a time, for shore leave. Oh, Lord, details and paperwork.

Right now—nauseated from the post chaise’s motion, his head pounding and his throat as painful as sandpaper grating on bruised knuckles—all he wanted was a bed in a quiet room, with the guarantee not to be disturbed for at least a week.

Even more than that, all he wanted was a glass of water, and then another one, until he no longer felt that his insides were coated with slimy water stored months in a keg.

No landsman who took a drink of water for granted would understand the feeling of thirst beyond belief, as he stared long and hard at a cup of water, green and odorous. After a month or two, the water would even begin to clump together, until swallowing the offending mass was like choking down someone else’s spittle. After only a few years at sea, he developed the habit of closing his eyes when he drank water more than two months old.

Then there were the days of thirst, especially in winter, when the water hoys from Plymouth were delayed because of stormy weather. Days when even a drop from the malodorous kegs—now empty—would have been welcome relief. Like all the others on the Tireless, he tried hard not to think of water, but surrounded by water as they always were, such a wish was not possible.

Past Exeter, where the view of the ocean usually made his heart quicken, he began to reconsider his impulsive agreement with Lord Ratliffe. The whole thing was odd. At Admiralty House, he had made his report of Channel activity, this time to William Stokes, Viscount Ratliffe, an undersecretary more than usually puffed up with his own consequence, and someone he generally tried to avoid.

Oliver had been irritated enough when Lord Ratliffe tried to pry into his Spanish sources, something no captain—even under Admiralty Orders—would ever reveal. And then the damned nincompoop had asked for a favor.

Maybe it was Oliver’s own fault. He shouldn’t have admitted the Tireless would be in dry docks for at least a month. But the undersecretary had picked up on it like a bird dog.

“A month?”

“Aye, my lord.”

“Not going home to your family?”

“I have no family.” Too true, although why a country vicar and his wife should succumb to typhoid fever in dull-as-dishwater Eastbourne, when their only child had survived all manner of exotic ailments from around the world, was still beyond him. No family. A wife was out of the question. He seldom met women, and he was too cautious to trouble any with a seafaring mate. In these times of war, he might as well hand over a death warrant with the marriage lines.

“I want to show you something.”

Ratliffe had picked up a miniature from his untidy desk and handed it to Oliver, who couldn’t help but smile.

It was the face of a young lady approaching—or smack on the edge of—womanhood. Her hair was the same shade as Ratliffe’s, but he could see no other resemblance. The miniaturist had dotted tiny freckles across the bridge of her nose.

Her eyes had caught and held him: brown pools of melting chocolate. He glanced at the viscount’s eyes. Blue.

“She resembles her mother.”

After another look, Oliver handed back the miniature.

“Pretty, isn’t she?”

More than pretty, Oliver thought.

“She’s old now. Twenty-one. This was painted when she was sixteen.” Ratliffe sighed heavily, almost theatrically, to Oliver’s ears. “She lives in Plymouth in a rundown inn owned by her grandmother, Nancy Massie, a regular shrew. Twenty-two years ago, I was in Plymouth. I made the mistake of dallying with the shrew’s daughter. Eleanor is the result.”

Oliver couldn’t think of anything to say. “So you fathered a bastard?” hardly seemed appropriate, and to offer his condolences seemed even less palatable. He knew the viscount would continue, however.

“I did the right thing by Eleanor,” Lord Ratliffe said, putting down the miniature. “As soon as she was five, I had her sent to a female academy in Bath, where she was raised and educated.”

Oliver hoped he covered up his surprise. The country must be full of by-blows, and his superficial acquaintance with the viscount gave him no inkling Lord Ratliffe was one to own up to his responsibility. Imagine, he thought, bracing himself for whatever favor Lord Ratliffe had in mind.

Ratliffe threw up his hands. “When the child was sixteen, she suddenly bolted from Miss Pym’s school and returned to Plymouth! I had made her an excellent offer regarding her future, and she thanked me by leaving my care and bolting to that wretched seaport!” He glanced at Oliver. “You’re a man of the world. You know what Plymouth is like. Imagine my distress.”

Oliver could, even as he could also feel his suspicion growing. Although he had only been a post captain for two years, he had commanded men for many more. Something in Ratliffe’s tone did not ring true.

“Would you do me the favor of staying at the Mulberry Inn—that’s the name of it—during your time in Plymouth? Look things over and let me know how things are with Eleanor.” He leaned closer. “I am certain a few days would suffice to get the drift of matters. I could not bear it if Eleanor has fallen on hard times.”

“I usually stay at the Drake, my Lord,” Oliver temporized. “My sea chest is there already.”

Ratliffe sighed again, which only irritated Oliver. He was ready to say no, when the viscount shifted his position, and there was Eleanor Massie smiling up at him from the desk. Captivated in spite of himself, he wondered how an artist could capture such youthful promise in so small a space. A moment earlier, he might have just felt old. Now he felt something close to joy. For all he knew, the earth’s axis had suddenly shifted under Admiralty House. Was the Astronomer Royal aware?

What harm would it do to stay a week at the Mulberry? He could look over the situation, make sure the shrew wasn’t beating her granddaughter twice a day before breakfast, pen a report to the viscount and retreat to the Drake.

“I’ll do it, my lord,” Oliver said.

The viscount looked for a moment as if he were going to take Oliver by the hand, but he refrained. “Thank you, Captain Worthy. You’d probably understand my concern better if you had a daughter.”

That will never happen, Oliver thought, as he returned his attention to the November scenery outside the post chaise window. Only a crazy woman would marry a captain on the blockade. And only a crazier captain would ever offer.

He closed his eyes after Exeter, deciding to abandon Miss Eleanor Massie to her fate. But as the post chaise stopped in front of the Drake later that afternoon, he knew he couldn’t go back on his word, no matter how much he wanted to.

If Mrs. Fillion had been standing inside with a pitcher of water, he would have changed his mind again, but she was busy arguing with a tradesman. Oliver had quite forgotten into what octaves her voice could rise when she was on a tirade, and it made him wince. He came inside the inn and looked into the Den of Thieves. Sure enough, the perpetual whist game was in progress. Whist anywhere but the Drake tended to be a polite game, but he knew how noisy poor losers could be, and the room he usually rented was right overhead.

Mrs. Fillion drew breath from her rant concerning greengrocers in general, and this one in particular, and glanced his way. She came over immediately, which gratified him, but did not change his sudden resolve.

He held up his hand before she could even begin, trying to look apologetic and adamant at the same time. “Mrs. Fillion, I know my sea chest is already here, but I believe I will stay at the Mulberry this time. Can you direct me to it?”

You would have thought he had requested her to strip naked and turn somersaults through the Barbican, so great was her surprise at his request. Then a funny thing happened. She got an interesting look in her eyes, one he couldn’t quite read.

“Captain, that is probably an excellent choice right now,” she said. “It’s only a mile away and not fancy, but you look like someone who could use some solitude.”

I look that bad? he asked himself, amused, in spite of how dreadful he felt. “I think you’re right,” he said. “Let me send in the coachman and you can give him directions. And if Lieutenant Proudy is here, could you summon him? I’ll just wait for a moment.”

After letting his lieutenant know of his change in plans, Oliver struggled to his feet and walked slowly to the post chaise, hating the thought of getting inside again, but desperate to lie down, no matter how horrible the Mulberry Inn was.

If that was a mile, it was a longer one than found most places, Oliver decided, as the post chaise finally stopped in front of a narrow building of three stories. It was covered mostly with ivy that continued to cling stubbornly to the stonework, even though the November wind was trying its best to dislodge it. Paint flaked on the windowsills and door, but the little yard was as neat as a pin. He looked back toward the harbor. It’s a wonder anyone stays so far away, he thought.

The post boy shouldered his sea chest and leather satchel and took it to the front door, which was opened by an old man with a wooden leg.

“Have you room?” he asked, as the old fellow—he had to be a seafaring man—took the chest from the post boy.

“Captain, you’re our first lodger in at least six months.”

Oliver stared at him. “I’ll be damned! I thought this was an inn. How on earth do you manage to stay open?”

“We’ve been asking ourselves that lately,” the sailor said and shook his head.

Oliver came toward him, trying to walk in a straight line. “Maybe I shouldn’t even ask this,” he began, “but is lodging just room, or does it include board?”

“Just room right now, sir,” the old sailor said uncertainly. Oliver watched him glance at the post chaise, which had only gone a little way down Gibbon Street. “If you want, I’ll call ‘im back, sir. We won’t deceive ye.”

Oliver stood there on the front walk, undecided, when he heard someone else at the front door. He turned his head, even though he ached from the neck up.

It must be Eleanor Massie, even though her hair was cut quite short, in contrast to the miniature Lord Radcliffe had shown him. Her eyes were the same, though: pools of brown, and round like a child’s. She wore an apron over a nondescript stuff dress, but Oliver couldn’t think of a time when he had ever seen a lovelier sight. Even more to the point, she was looking straight at him, her brow wrinkling in what appeared to be deep concern for someone she didn’t even know.

“I’ll be staying,” he heard himself say.

Maybe it was the combination of little food, no sleep, the swaying motion of the post chaise, the roaring in his ears, his throbbing head and the ill humors lodged in his throat. Before he could even warn anyone, he turned away and was sick in a pot of pansies that had got through a long summer and had probably wanted to survive—hardy things—beyond late fall. Too bad for them.

“Pete cleaned him up. He’s tucked in bed now, and all he wants is water,” Gran said, as Nana came up the narrow stairs with her tray.

Eyes closed, Captain Worthy lay propped up in bed, the picture of misery, with red spots burning in his cheeks. He opened his eyes, and almost smiled at what she carried. He indicated the table by the bed. “Set it there and pour me a glass.”

She did as he said, and handed it to him. He drained the glass and held it out for more. Only a little water remained in the pitcher when he closed his eyes.

“Can… can I get you anything else, sir?” she asked. “Is there someone we can write who can be here to nurse you?”

“There isn’t anyone.”

“Oh, dear. There should be.”

“No, Miss Massie,” he said. “The blockade is the devil’s own business and I’d never share it with another living soul. That old salt…”

“Pete Carter? He works for Gran.”

“…tells me there is no board here.”

“With the blockade and general shortages, Captain, we don’t have the clientele or the resources to provide food anymore. I’m truly sorry.” She hesitated. His eyes never left her face. “Perhaps you will want to reconsider and return to the Drake tomorrow.”

“No. I am here to stay until my ship is out of dry dock.”

“You really want to stay at the Mulberry?” she asked in frank surprise.

She could tell he felt miserable, and he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. “Well, yes,” he replied, even smiling a little. “Am I, er… allowed?”

He sounded so much like a small schoolboy in that moment that she had to laugh. “Of course you are! We’re delighted to have you. It’s just that meals…”

He pointed to the bureau. “Pete said he stowed my purse in the top drawer. Get it out, please, Miss Massie, and take what you need to provide me with three meals a day. Right now I favor porridge with lots of cream and sugar, mainly because I do not think anything else will stay down.”

She had never rustled about in someone else’s possessions before, but the captain appeared to expect it, so she did, pulling out his purse. She closed the drawer quickly and brought the purse to his bed. He opened it and she tried not to stare at the coins.

He counted out a generous handful. “When this is gone, just ask for more. Miss Massie, I like to eat well when I am in port.” He looked at her with that frank gaze that should have embarrassed her, but didn’t. “I expect the people who run the inn to eat well, too.”

“Certainly, sir. Can I get you anything now?”

“What are you having for dinner?”

“A little tea and toast,” she replied, then wished she had said nothing, or lied, because it was starvation food. “I mean, I ate a large meal at noon and wasn’t…”

He took her by the wrist. “Miss Massie, I intend to stay at the Mulberry for a month, but if you tell me another lie, I’ll be gone tomorrow.”

“Yes, Captain,” she replied, her voice no more than a whisper. “T-toast.”

“And breakfast?”

She shook her head, too embarrassed to look at him. He was still holding her wrist, but his grip was easy.

He let go of her then, and relaxed against the pillows again. “All I need tonight is another pitcher of water. Would you do me a favor?”

“Anything, Captain,” she said and meant it.

“Ask Pete if he knows a good remedy for sailor’s throat.”

“He has a thousand cures, almost as many as Scheherazade had tales.”

Her answer made him smile. “I’ll wager he has. And might your… your grandmama know of a poultice for my throat?”

That is odd, she thought. How does he know about Gran? “Have you stayed here before?” she asked. “I don’t believe I mentioned Gran.”

It was his turn to look confused. “Pete must have said something,” he replied.

“That’s a whopper,” she said candidly, looking him in the eyes.

He looked at her in exasperation. “I do believe an older woman was in here when Pete relieved me of my uniform and bared me to the skin, but I didn’t want to be so indelicate!”

She left the room, smiling to herself.

Gran put the money in the strongbox she kept in the drawer under the bread box. Only a few coins remained from Nana’s haircut, and the sound of Captain Worthy’s money made Nana sigh with relief.

“I wonder why he’s doing this?” she asked her grandmother.

“Who knows?” Gran said. She turned to the nearly bare shelves and put her hands on her hips. “Nana, get on the stool and hand me that sack on the left. I can make the captain a poultice for his neck. I’ll send Pete to the apothecary’s for some oil and cotton wadding.”

“And food, too, Gran, food,” Nana said. “He wants porridge and cream for breakfast.”

Gran rested her hand on Nana’s shoulder. “You’ve been hungry.” It was a simple statement. “Maybe our luck is turning.”

And hour later, Nana carried the poultice upstairs. It was made of wheat, simply heated and packed into a clean stocking someone had left behind, back when the Mulberry had lodgers. Gran had wrapped it in a dish towel so she could carry it. “We may leave it wrapped in that, too,” she said as Nana knocked on the door. “It wouldn’t do to cause him bodily harm, not after he’s paid so much for our help.”

Gran carried the oil Pete had brought from the apothecary before he left again to convince a grocer to open his shop. She warmed the vial in her hands.

The captain was asleep, but he rolled over as soon as she tiptoed into the room. He was half out of bed before he realized who it was.

“Lie down, Captain. You’re not on the blockade now,” Gran ordered. “Turn over. I’ll put some oil in your ears.”

He did as she demanded. Gran dropped oil in each ear and plugged it with cotton. She motioned Nana forward.

“Just drape it around his neck. That’s the way,” she said, as Nana lifted the poultice over the captain’s head. “Settle it around his ears, too.”

The captain was silent as she followed Gran’s instructions. She leaned close to him, wrinkling her nose to discover that Captain Worthy smelled of brine. Trying not to be obvious, she sniffed his shabby nightshirt. Salt again. Surely they didn’t wash their clothes in salt water.

When she finished, Gran settled the captain back against the raised pillows. “That should do,” she said. “Come, Nana, let us leave this man in peace.”

Gran left the room. Nana made to follow, but the captain cleared his throat and she turned back to the bed, a question in her eyes.

“Make sure I am up by seven,” he said. “I’ll eat breakfast downstairs and then go to the dry docks.”

“I don’t think so, Captain,” she replied. “You’re a sick man.”

“All the same, Miss Massie, that’s an order.”

“Aye, sir,” she said, amused, “though I doubt you’ll be going anywhere for at least a week.”

“Try me.” There was no amusement in his voice. “I’ll be at the dry docks tomorrow if Pete has to push me in a wheelbarrow.”

After she left, he lay in bed, trying to think about the Tireless, and not about Nana Massie. He thought of Lord Ratliffe’s concern for her, and wanted to know why on earth she had decided to return to Plymouth, rather than continue to receive the comforts her father seemed ready to offer. It was not his business, though.

Chapter Two

Drat her pretty hide, Nana Massie was right; he was a sick man.

Oliver woke before it was light. His throat ached and his ears throbbed, but at least the pain in his shoulders was less, thanks to the wheat poultice still strung around his neck. It had ceased to give off warmth hours ago, but the smell of wheat had set him dreaming of bread—loaves unbelievably tall from yeast, soft, slathered in melting butter, and nary a weevil in sight.

He was cold. Through the fog of last night’s humiliation at vomiting on the pansies, then crawling into bed and shutting out the world, he remembered Gran or Nana saying something about extra blankets in the bottom drawer of the clothespress. He thought about getting up to retrieve another blanket, but he was disinclined to so much exertion.

As he lay there, thinking about the merits of another blanket, the door opened. The ‘tween-stairs maid, he thought, has come to rescue me from the cold. He lay there, peaceful, in spite of his pain, and thankful for the prospect of more coal on the fire.

She laid a quiet fire—how many inns had he frequented where the opposite was true. In another minute the room would be his again, and warmer. Maybe he wouldn’t need another blanket, after all.

She didn’t leave. He heard her opening the lower drawer of the clothespress; in another minute, she covered him with a welcome blanket. Even that wasn’t enough. She tucked it high on his shoulders, bending close enough in the low light until he saw it was Nana Massie, and no ‘tween-stairs maid.

“I could have done that,” he told her, sounding gruffer than he meant to, maybe because his throat seemed filled with foreign substances.

“I know,” she whispered, apparently not in the least deterred by his tone. “You’re not the only human on the planet who sometimes lies in bed because he—or she—is too indecisive to get up for another blanket.”

He couldn’t help chuckling at her observation on human nature, even as he wished there was a ‘tween-stairs maid at the Mulberry. He hated to think the daughter of a viscount had to work so hard, even if she was illegitimate.

What an uncharitable man you are, he told himself sourly. Who on earth has a say in the pedigree of her birth?

She tugged the blanket higher around his shoulder. “Go back to sleep, Captain. I’ll bring your breakfast in an hour, and then Pete has a foul concoction to try on you.”

“I told you I’d get up for breakfast,” he reminded her.

“I have decreed otherwise,” she replied in complete serenity.

To his surprise, he did precisely as she ordered and went back to sleep. When he woke again, the sun was up. At least, watery dawn seeped around the curtains. He heard a shutter banging somewhere across the street from the force of the wind outside, but the Mulberry itself seemed sound as a roast. Somewhat like its inhabitants, he concluded, as he sat up slowly.

He eased himself out of bed, found the chamber pot under the bed and used it, hoping Nana wasn’t the one to dump it. He slid the chamber pot out of sight and crawled back into his warm nest, loath to leave it again, but knowing today he must visit the Tireless in the dockyard, and conduct all manner of shoreside business for the good of his crew and ship. Sometimes he wondered why he had not chosen the serene life of a country parson, like his father.

He lay there, going over everything he had to do that day, and realized he needed Mr. Proudy, his number one, close at hand. He knew he could summon the man and he would eventually appear, but why bother a fellow busily engaged in refreshing his wife? He had another idea. He didn’t know much about female academies in Bath, but Miss Massie could probably write. Of course, this meant he would have to succumb to breakfast in bed to placate her. The blockade had taught him a great deal about flexibility, however.

She knocked on the door a little later, when the wind had settled down and rain pattered against the window-pane.

“Come.”

She opened the door, carrying a tray of food and concentrating on keeping it level. Pete Carter stood behind her. It was all he could do to keep from sighing out loud. Nana Massie was beautiful. Thank God he had decided years ago that he would never be troubled by a wife. His personal pledge had only been strengthened in recent years by seeing too many distraught wives meeting ships in the harbor, hoping for news. He’d be damned if he’d do that to anyone.

He knew there was no ordinance against admiring a pretty woman, but his glimpse at Lord Ratliffe’s miniature and his own wretched state yesterday had not fully prepared him for Nana Massie.

Thank God I am too old for her and too kind—despite what my crew thinks—to punish a woman by loving her and leaving her for war on the ocean, he told himself. Those eyes. He had never noticed such round eyes on an adult. Or maybe it was her high-arched eyebrows that gave her a wide-eyed gaze. Whatever it was, he wanted to study the matter during some leisure time he knew he would never have.

And why shouldn’t I have that opportunity? he asked himself. Other men do. They must, or Adam and Eve would have had no offspring. He decided to indulge himself, and kept looking.

He thought her cheeks were too thin, but he knew that look could be cured with more food. He couldn’t properly assess her figure, because she wore the same stuff gown and apron. It was on the thin side, but that could be rectified, until she was softer and more rounded in all the right places.

Nana appeared to be one who could develop soft edges, if given the opportunity. What am I doing? he thought, as he admired her. She would thrash me across the chops, if she could read my mind.

All this reckoning had taken place in just a few seconds. Nana seemed to be unaware of his assessment because she was concentrating on placing the tray on his lap now, and adjusting the legs around him. On the other hand, Pete Carter didn’t look like someone who would allow much scrutiny of his little charge.

But here she was, bending over him. Oliver couldn’t help himself. He looked her square in the face, and smiled to see those freckles across the bridge of her nose, probably destined to fade as she aged, but there now to entertain him. And he was entertained, hugely so. He liked everything he saw.

He could have cried when Nana stepped back and folded her hands in front of her. “Porridge and cream, Captain, just what you ordered,” she told him. “I didn’t know how much sugar you liked, so I brought up the whole bowl. Gran stewed some apples, too, but we decided against any toast. Your throat, you know.”

He nodded, wishing she were still bending over him. She smelled faintly of roses, not a fragrance he chanced upon much, but far more appealing than tar, bilge and gunpowder.

He looked at her again. “Miss Massie, could you prop up these pillows? I’d hate to dribble porridge across my chest like a hospital pensioner, since you’re so determined I am to eat in bed.”

She did as he asked, plumping up the pillows behind him, then getting out another from the lower drawer of the clothespress. As she put that one behind his head, her arm brushed his temple. He was in heaven.

Then it was Pete Carter’s turn. As Nana stepped back, the old sailor set down a vile-looking compound on the bedside table. “For what ails you, Captain Worthy,” he said. “Drink all of that after you finish breakfast.”

Oliver eyed it suspiciously, wishing that Pete did not look so pleased with himself at the punishment he was inflicting. “All of it? Shouldn’t I spread it out over the day?”

“All of it, sir,” Pete insisted. “And when you’re done, I’ll bring up more.” He smiled then. “It’ll work, Captain. It always does. I guarantee the remedy.”

For one disconcerting moment, Oliver felt that he had returned to his midshipmen days, under the scrutiny of a sailing master. You old rascal, he thought to himself, as the former sailor whisked away the chamber pot, not giving Oliver a single moment to feel embarrassed.

He was struck with a moment of shyness after Pete left his chamber, then reminded himself of the business at hand. Even the Tireless could wait; Nana Massie was going to eat more.

“Miss Massie, have you had breakfast yet?”

He could tell his curt question came at her out of the blue. She blinked her eyes, and then thought about an answer. Oliver leveled her with a stare generally reserved for midshipmen contemplating prevarication.

“You promised me last night you would tell the truth,” he reminded her as he picked up his spoon.

“That was for last night,” she said quickly, then laughed at his expression. “Aye, sir, I did promise,” she amended. “The answer is no.”

He set down the spoon. “I’ll wait until you come back with a bowl and spoon. If there’s porridge left…”

“There is,” she said hurriedly, interrupting him. “We kept it back in case you wanted more.”

“I don’t.” Oliver looked down at the tray in his lap. “This is quite enough. Please take what you want from the pot and come back.”

Without a word, she left the room, closing the door behind her. He stared down at the porridge, certain he had offended her and wondering if his next step now was to dress and go in search of her. To apologize? To bully her further? He asked himself why it was suddenly his problem.

The porridge tasted like ambrosia. It was sugared precisely right and needed no more. It even went down smoothly, causing his raw throat no further indignity. Too bad he wasn’t enjoying it, feeling sorry for himself and pining for company.

To his relief, she came back into his room with a full bowl and spoon. She pulled up a chair to the bed and helped herself to the sugar in the bowl on his tray. “All the sugar is up here,” she explained.

He smiled into his porridge, surprised at how much better it tasted. He glanced at Nana, who was spooning down a mouthful, a beatific expression on her face. He looked away quickly, so she wouldn’t think he was spying on her. I probably dare not do this with every meal, but I can try, he told himself.

When he finished, he eyed Pete Carter’s concoction.

“Do you know this elixir?” he asked, his voice cautious.

“I’ve had it a time or two myself,” she said. “I recommend you drink it first, and then follow it with the applesauce.”

“Does it work?”

“You’re stalling, Captain,” she teased, and he knew she wasn’t angry with him about the porridge.

“I am indeed. Facing the French fleet is one thing.” He picked up the glass. “This is quite another.”

“Cowardice will land you onshore permanently, and at half pay.”

Well, Miss Massie, you seem to know something of the navy, he thought. “So you are appealing to my patriotism now?” he asked, then took a deep breath and drank down the brew, reasoning it couldn’t be any more vile than old water in rotten kegs.

It was more pleasant than he had any reason to hope, with a strong aftertaste of molasses and just a hint of rum. There were other ingredients he could not name, and had no desire to find out. Following it with applesauce proved to be good advice, and so he told Nana. She beamed with pleasure.

“I’ll bring you another pitcher of water,” she said, rising to leave.

“Bring a tablet and pencil when you return,” he ordered. “What time is it?”

“Half-past seven, Captain.”

He rubbed his hands together and lay back against the pillows again as she picked up the tray. “I intend to be dockside staring up at the Tireless by two bells in the forenoon watch. Oh. Nine o’clock.” She began to protest, but he overrode it. “I need to prepare some lists before I go. Will you help me?”

“I suppose,” she said, her expressive eyes a little wary.

He watched her face, noting her wariness, and put it down to reluctance to spend more time in his chamber. So that’s how it is? he thought. Gran must have warned you about officers, too. Well, good for Gran, if bad for me.

“I must establish a list of priorities,” he told her. “If my number one—my first mate—were here, I would order him to help me. He, alas for me, is in the arms of his wife of less than a year. Although my men will tell you I am a hard taskmaster, I am not without feeling. Miss Massie, plain and simple—will you help me?”

That was blunt enough, he thought, observing the blush that rose to her cheeks, rendering her even sweeter to look at than before. “I would ask Pete Carter, but I doubt he can write,” he continued.

“His name only,” she said. “He didn’t need anything else in the fleet.” She looked at him, as if weighing the matter against her usual duties. “I can help,” she told him.

“Good! Have Pete summon me a hackney for half-past eight o’clock.”

“You should stay in bed,” she said, but without much conviction in her voice.

“I should, but I can’t,” he told her, trying to sound reasonable and less like a captain. “Boney doesn’t much care about my putrid throat, and probably less about my ears.”

She didn’t seem to have an argument prepared for Napoleon. “Especially your ears,” she echoed, as she closed the door behind her.

Nana went down the stairs quietly. She had gone upstairs, mostly afraid of Captain Worthy, and come down with a revised opinion. He was blunt and plainspoken, but surely no more than any other seaman she had encountered in the years since her return to Plymouth. His apparent concern for her was a surprise; she did not know why he should feel any obligation to make sure she had something to eat.

“You don’t know anything about me,” she whispered, looking back up the stairs.

She passed into the sitting room at the foot of the stairs, and then to the equally small dining room that adjoined it. Gran had told her to prepare a table setting for Captain Worthy—one table among eight. It looked faintly ludicrous in the empty room. She sat down, thinking of their only other tenant at the inn, who had died last spring.

Miss Edgar—Nana never knew her Christian name—had been a governess, a lady somewhat down on her luck whose last position had been with the harbormaster’s family. When the two daughters had outgrown Miss Edgar’s services, she had not the funds to relocate anywhere else, nor the energy, at her advanced age, to try for another post. It seemed no one was interested in hiring an old lady whose French was getting rusty, and who had difficulty remembering the capitals of Europe.

She had come to the Mulberry because it was cheap and clean, and stayed there five years before her money ran out. From Nana’s fifteenth birthday on, when she visited Plymouth during holidays, she had observed Miss Edgar sitting by herself in the otherwise empty dining room, and spending her evenings alone in the sitting room.

Gran had tried to get Miss Edgar to join them in their own tidy quarters through the green baize door into the back of the inn. “All I ever wanted to do was invite her to share our company,” Gran had told Nana, and there was no disguising the hurt in her voice. “She won’t hear of it. We’re not quality.”

After Miss Edgar outlived all her savings, there was nowhere to go but the street. When she returned to Plymouth for good, Nana had been surprised to see Miss Edgar still in residence.

“I couldn’t throw her out,” Gran had told Nana later, after Miss Edgar had gone upstairs to her room. “She has never spoken of the fact that her money is gone, and she still refuses to share our low society, even while she eats our food and lives here for free.”

Nana gathered up the place setting meant for Captain Worthy, but she did not get up. Two months ago, Gran had nursed Miss Edgar through her final illness, closed the woman’s eyes in death and prepared the body for the grave before summoning the parish cemetery society, which ushered paupers into pine boxes and unmarked graves.

Together they had cleaned out Miss Edgar’s room, finding nothing of any value beyond yards of tatting, a few old books and a handful of letters. Nana was cleaning out the clothespress and its threadbare garments when Gran suddenly took her by the arm. “Miss Edgar and I could have been friends!” she had lamented, as her eyes filled with tears. “What’s even worse, I had thought your stay at Miss Pym’s would prepare you for a career such as hers.”

Nana had kissed Gran then, not telling her that Miss Pym had delicately informed her several years before that she would never be able to get such a position, because no family would countenance a governess with questionable parentage. But Gran didn’t need to know that. She had assured Gran she had no plans to ever leave the Mulberry.

Nana sat for a few more moments in the empty dining room. The rain drummed down outside as she contemplated class, rank and general stupidity. She wondered if Captain Worthy preferred an empty dining room to low company at the back of the inn.

Pete was out, but Gran and the scullery maid, Sal, were finishing the last of the porridge. “Captain Worthy wants me to take some dictation.” She found a tablet and pencil in the drawer where Gran kept her records. “He wants more drinking water.” She smiled at Sal. “If you would bring up some shaving water after a while, he means to visit the dry docks.”

“I doubt he can stand up,” Gran said.

“But he will,” Nana replied.

She thought Gran might offer an objection to her returning upstairs, but she did not. Muttering something about “catching his death in this rain,” Gran reached for the rest of the wheat, prepared to make a new poultice.

Tucking the pencil in her hair, the tablet under one arm and the pitcher in the other, Nana went back to Captain Worthy’s chamber. She tapped softly on the door. There was no answer. She tapped again, no louder, then looked inside the room.

He was asleep. She thought about going downstairs, but remembered what he had said about going to the dry docks. She set down the pitcher quietly and sat again beside his bed.

She was struck by the way he slept—directly in the middle of the bed, with his hands folded across his stomach. She couldn’t help but think of a man in a coffin, and the notion sent a ripple down her spine. She considered the man, and understood. Flailing about in a hammock or sleeping cot would probably have meant a quick trip to the deck below.

I wonder, does he ever turn over? she asked herself, curious. No matter. He was sleeping peacefully, his face probably as relaxed as it ever got. Captain Worthy had a sharp and straight nose set above thin lips. His hair was dark brown, with wisps of gray in it by his temples, as well as a faint, curved scar, circling below his cheekbone and nearly touching his right nostril. Pirates on the Barbary Coast? she thought. Or a grappling hook swung by a desperate Frenchman?

He shouldn’t be so concerned about her own paucity of meals, she decided, considering that he was on the thin side himself. His hands, so peacefully folded, were deeply veined. Her eyes went back to his face, toasted by coastal Spanish sun to a pleasant mahogany that probably turned sallow during the winter. Nothing would change the weather lines around his eyes. She had lived enough of her life in Plymouth to know the mark of a deep water man.

He coughed, then tried to swallow, which marred his repose as he flinched from the pain in his throat, and uttered some small protest. Then he opened his eyes, looking directly overhead for a long moment, until he seemed to recall where he was.

He must have sensed her presence, because he addressed her, even as he continued to stare overhead.

“It’s like this, Miss Massie. When I wake up, I always look at the compass over my head first. Maybe you would induce more captains to visit the Mulberry if you hung compasses on the overhead deck beam.”

“I think you have been too long at sea, Captain,” she replied, laughing.

“Doubtless.”

“It is probably safe enough to turn on your side, sir,” she continued, feeling bold enough to tease him. “We may not be on the first tier of elegance here, but no bed at the Mulberry will pitch you onto the floor.”

“Old habits are nigh impossible to break,” he told her, then turned onto his side and faced her. “Before we begin, go to the clothespress, please, and take out the tar bag.”

That was what she had been smelling in the room. She did as he said.

“The log’s in there, but I’m looking for the ship roster. It’s rolled and tied with twine. Open it. Read the names, and mark a number in the margin where I say.”

She found the roster, removed the twine and unrolled it. Before she started to read, she poured him a drink of water, which he downed immediately, and then another.

He handed back the cup, and lay back with his hands behind his head, as though he felt he could relax in her presence. The gesture touched her, even as she was amused at the slow, careful way he moved his hands.

She knew he had business to attend to, and soon, but she couldn’t help asking, “Captain, I was wondering about that scar on your face.”

He smiled. “Looks like a grappling hook from pirates on the Spanish Main, doesn’t it?”

She sucked in her breath, her eyes wide.

“Sorry to disappoint you. I fell out of a tree when I was a little boy and came in contact with a diabolical branch at a vicarage in Eastbourne.”

She tried not to look disappointed, but he must have caught her expression. “The grappling-hook scar is under my left armpit,” he told her in mock seriousness. He winked. “Right beside the bullet hole.”

“You’re quizzing me,” she accused him.

“Never! Now where were we?”

I don’t know where you are, sir, but I must inhabit another realm, Nana thought, as she spread the roster on her lap. What an ordinary life I lead. She looked over at the captain, who, to her surprise, appeared almost to be memorizing her face.

“Captain, may I ask you a question?”

“Aye.”

“Are you ever afraid?” She regretted the question the moment she asked it. He’ll think I am an idiot, she thought, her face red.

“I am afraid all the time, Miss Massie,” he told her, after a long pause. “I fear for my ship, I fear for my men, I fear for myself.” He looked at the ceiling again. “I suppose it’s in about that order, too.”

“I… I should never have asked such a stupid question,” she stammered.

“It’s an honest one, and I gave you an honest answer,” he told her, then looked her directly in the eyes. “Ships like mine are the only thing standing between England and ruin. I know times are hard here, but they are infinitely worse on the blockade. And in Spain and Portugal? I doubt Oporto will hold out much longer against the French, damn Boney and Marshal Soult to hell. If Sir John Moore’s army survives to fight another day, I will be amazed. Yes, I am afraid, Miss Massie. Don’t cross me when I say I need to be at the dockyards at two bells in the forenoon watch, even if I have one foot in the grave. I do.”

Nana stared at him, shocked. He stared back, just as surprised, as though amazed at what just came out of his mouth. She watched him in silence, watched as the astonishment on his own face changed into irritation, and then mellowed into a rueful expression she couldn’t quite fathom. Maybe it was chagrin.

When he spoke, he sounded apologetic. “Miss Massie, I… I almost don’t know what to say. I just told you things no one knows except officials at Admiralty House.”

“Maybe you needed to tell someone,” she said, after a long pause of her own, remembering the great relief she had felt after she finally confessed to Gran the terrible future her own father had planned for her. “Sometimes it feels better to share bad news.” She lowered her voice. “Are things as bad as all that?”

“They are worse.” He put his hand over his eyes. “I have to go to the dock now, listen to the master shipwright tell me he needs at least two months for repairs and then bully him into doing it in three weeks. Then I must cajole the victuallers to move really fast to resupply my ship.”

“I wish I could help you.”

She knew there was nothing she could do, no strings she could pull, no advice she could give. If there was a more powerless person in all of Great Britain, she had no idea who it would be.

Perhaps the captain saw it differently, although she couldn’t think why. He looked at her again, that same, searching look. “You already have,” he said simply. “You are listening.”

“Anyone would,” she assured him.

“No, they would not. I have observed that when most people are afraid or bewildered, they just change the subject.” He took a deep breath. “People at the highest levels of our government do it.”

She had nothing to say to that. This man would never

lie to me, she told herself. I suppose it doesn’t matter, because when he finally realizes life is more comfortable at Drake’s Inn, he will be gone and I will never see him again. I can at least be as honest.

Chapter Three

Nana looked down at the list in her lap. “Shall I begin?”

He nodded, and stared at the ceiling above, as though wishing for a compass there to tell him which way the wind blew off Spain.

There were two hundred names on the roster, not quite a full complement of crew for a 34-gun frigate. As she read each name, he had her write in a one, two, three or four in the margin.

“What was that for?” she asked, when he finished.

“I’m assigning them to shore leave,” he told her. “The fifty ones will go first, for five days, and so on.” He chuckled. “My brother officers on other ships think I am insane for allowing any leave at all, but I have not had much trouble with desertion.”

It struck her as strange—even after his earlier plain speaking—that he seemed to want to talk to her. She decided it was her very powerlessness that made him garrulous. He seemed to sense—rightly so—that there was nothing he could tell her that would ever be repeated. Obviously she knew no one who could profit by any of his conversation, and he was aware of that.

Or so Nana reasoned. She looked at him, but not as minutely as he had observed her earlier, deciding she had nothing to fear from this stern-looking man who was probably braver than lions, even if he did say he was afraid.

She wanted him to smile. “Do they not desert because you see that their bedding is turned down nicely at night and there is a fire laid in the grate?”

He rewarded her with a laugh, which pleased her beyond all expectation. “I rather think it is the bedtime story, lullaby and gentle rocking of the hammock.”

It was her turn to laugh. She looked into his eyes and saw good humor mirrored there. “And hot milk before lights out,” she added.

“You’ve hit upon it. Actually, it’s wrapped up in money, as most things are, I must confess,” he said. “Although the Tireless is part of the Channel Fleet, we operate under Admiralty Orders.” He looked at her. “Are you bored yet?”

She was far from bored. She could have listened to him for hours. “I don’t think you could bore me,” she told him. “We live a quiet life here in Plymouth.”

“Admiralty Orders are more onerous because my ship is at the beck and call of Admiralty House for special missions.”

He must have thought that sounded ostentatious, so he made a face. “Someone has to do it, Miss Massie. When we take the occasional prize ship, we needn’t share it with the fleet, so our shares are larger, from captain right down to the lowest-rated landsman. They love me for the money.”

She didn’t believe that for a minute. He must have noticed the skepticism on her face. “What other reason can you use to explain my low desertion rate?”

“You are fair.”

“You don’t even know me,” he countered.

“No, I don’t,” she agreed. The room seemed suddenly too warm. “Is that all, sir? Should I ask Pete to find a hackney?”

He sat up carefully. “Not yet. Look in the tar bag again. I think there is a folded sheet with the heading of Repairs. I have a few more you need to add.”

She sat down again and picked up the bag, wrinkling her nose at the smell, but rummaging until she found the sheet.

“That’s my copy. I left the original with my sailing master, so the shipwright could see it when the Tireless went to dry docks.”

Under his direction, she added two more items to check, then handed him the list. He looked it over, then directed his gaze at her again. “If you would have Pete find a hackney now, I can dress and be ready. Also, I am going to write a note for my number one at Drake’s Inn. I’m sorry to ask this, but could you please deliver it? I truly hate to bother him, but I still need him in dry docks.” He smiled more to himself than to her. “He’ll still have to pry himself off Mrs. Proudy.”

She knew she should pretend she hadn’t heard that remark, so she bit her lip to keep from laughing.

He observed her anyway. “Miss Massie, I feel confident that your grandmother, and certainly Pete, have sufficiently warned you to have nothing to do with members of the Royal Navy. They are vulgar, lewd and single-minded to the point of mania.”

She had to laugh then.

“By God, it’s good to hear a woman laugh,” the captain said, and she could tell he was utterly serious now. Or was he? “But do have a care in your dealings with the sailing fraternity, Miss Massie. I’ll see you belowdeck—downstairs.”

“Aye, Captain,” she teased.

She went to the door, but he called her back, almost as though he didn’t wish to be alone. He gestured toward the rain-polished window. “I must confess I am concerned about sending you outside into this Plymouth drizzle to deliver a message.” He cleared his throat, as though stalling for time and trying to figure out how to proceed. “I can’t help but notice how short your hair is. If you have been recently ill, surely someone else can deliver the message to Mr. Proudy.”

She touched her hair. Now it was her turn to figure out how to proceed. She could make light of the matter, and laugh about her hair weighing so much it was uncomfortable on her neck. Or she could just tell the truth, since that seemed to be coin of the realm with Captain Worthy.

“I sold it to the wigmaker,” she told him, looking him in the eye. “We needed the money.” She opened the door, eager to escape the room now, especially when she saw the sadness come into his eyes. “I’m in fine health, Captain, and can deliver any message in any weather.”

Nana closed the door, and leaned against it. She felt out of breath, even light-headed. She wanted to go back into Captain Worthy’s chamber and pour out all her worries: no money, no possible prospect of marriage, a shameless father who saw her as a tool, the real and gathering threat of the Mulberry’s ruin with its accompanying fear and humiliation of having to throw themselves onto the dubious mercies of the parish.

He has enough worries, and some to spare, she thought, as she went downstairs. I can at least run his errands. There must be other ways we can make his stay a good one, even if this is the shabbiest inn on the entire Devon coast.

Oliver Worthy dressed carefully, lying down a few times when his troublesome ears made the room spin around. He felt wretched, and with little prodding would have gladly crawled between the covers again. Maybe he could be ill later, when the work had begun on the Tireless and the shipwright was weary of having him around.

That would be good. He could lie around the Mulberry, reading when he fancied it, eating, and writing letters. He had seen people doing that in London hotels, when orders from the Admiralty dictated he remain in the City. He couldn’t really imagine such leisure, ranking it somewhere with the seven wonders of the world.

As for writing letters, there was no one to write to. His parents were dead, and so were some of his earlier comrades in the deep-water trade, those unlucky enough to come up against enemies or storms on the ocean, or lee shores in bad weather. His other friends were at sea, and had no more time than he did. Several years ago, he had written a time or two to a lady he had met in Naples, the widow of a customs official. Three years later, when he was back in that plague-ridden city, he had paid her a call, only to discover she was married again, a mother, and widowed once more. He must have had a sailor’s natural superstition, because that sounded like too much bad luck for him; he didn’t return.

It had been five years ago, when he was twenty-five and still optimistic. He left Naples harbor with a firm resolve to never even contemplate matrimony again. So far, he had not, which meant that someone as charming as Nana Massie was completely safe from him. He had declared himself immune to women, and he meant it.

This was not something the men of the fleet discussed, but he knew what happened when husbands were too long at sea. Some took to drink, many turned inward and others became soured by long-term separation and took it out on their crew.

He thought it was worse for the wives. He remembered, as clear as yesterday, the Retribution’s return from a two-year voyage, to see a row of wives lining the quay, and to watch some scream and others faint when the captain had to tell them their husbands had died and were buried in distant ports, or had been dropped into watery graves midocean. It was easily his own worst duty as a captain. He would never inflict such punishment on a wife.

Still, there was Nana. He couldn’t help but think of her, when all was quiet and he was far less busy than usual. He looked himself over while he shaved, or at least what little he could see of himself in the tiny mirror, and saw nothing there to tempt her. It wasn’t that he meant to look stern all the time. He liked to laugh as well as the next fellow, but there hadn’t been much occasion for frivolity lately, and he suspected the ladies liked to be charmed and entertained.

And what do I do but tell that winsome creature how frightening things are in the Channel? he berated himself. In more peaceful times—Naples had been one—he had attended grand levies and routs and listened to other officers entertain the ladies with romantic tales of life at sea. Couldn’t he have found something cheerful to tickle Nana’s fancy?

Well, no, he couldn’t, especially since he had committed himself to the truth, with all its ugly barnacles and whiskers. From the looks of things, Nana probably wouldn’t have minded a little lie or two here and there, to make her own problems seem less fraught.

He buttoned his last clean waistcoat and tied his neckcloth. Maybe if he looked stern enough, he wouldn’t have to grovel before the shipwright in the hopes of getting those repairs done fast. There was probably no point; desperate captains were a penny a pound at every dry docks in England. Scotland, too.

He sat at the little desk by the fire and wrote a quick note to Mr. Proudy, stating his needs and hoping for the best. As second mate and low man among the three of them, Mr. Ramseur was already at the dry docks. Maybe they could threaten to break the shipwright’s legs, ravish his wife and daughters and plunder the man’s bank account, if he did not produce instant results.

Oliver signed his note. Maybe my mind is unhinged at last, he thought. He heard a horse outside. He opened the window and leaned out. “I’m coming,” he called down, then wished he hadn’t, because his throat felt as if it were belching fire.

Nana was dusting the mantelpiece in the empty sitting room when he came downstairs. She smiled at him, and he felt grateful for his immunity. My God, she was lovely. He had never seen such luminous skin before. Maybe there was some truth to the rumor that the damp on England’s southwest coast gave ladies the clearest hides in all of Europe.

He held out the note to her. “I would deliver it myself, but I’m going directly west to the dockyards.”

“I don’t mind at all, Captain,” she said, taking the note and just barely grazing his fingers with her own. “Gran is sending me out for revictualing, as you would probably call it.”

“I would indeed.” He put on his hat, then took it off, when the top of it brushed the low ceiling. “Go light on the weevily biscuit. I fancy white bread with no boarders.”

She laughed. “I’ll insist on nothing in the bread except… well… bread.”

She went ahead of him into the hallway, taking off her apron as she walked, which gave him an especially nice view of the swaying motion of her skirts. He thought he could probably span her waist with his hands. She swung her cloak around her shoulders, tucked the note up her sleeve and left him standing there, hat in hand.

The jehu took him to the dockyards, located on the east bank of the Tamar River, some three miles from Plymouth. There was the Tireless, looking forlorn now with main sails and rigging gone, and that damned crooked mast marring her otherwise clean lines like a snaggletooth in the mouth of a pretty woman. Standing dockside was Mr. Ramseur and the shipwright.

It begins, Oliver thought. He paid the jehu, sent him on his way and prepared to do whatever battle was necessary to get his ship healthy and back to sea inside of three weeks. He was walking toward the two men when he thought of Nana Massie, and the lovely way she had smiled at him in the Mulberry, dust cloth in hand. Thank God he was immune to females.

If he could wrestle down the shipwright from his standard two months to three weeks, that would be heaven. If he could only manage four weeks, that would be heaven on earth, because then he might find more ways to get Nana Massie to smile on him. Since he was immune, that would be enough.

By the time she arrived at the Drake, Nana had thought the matter through and decided to give the note to Mrs. Fillion to deliver. Heaven knew she didn’t want to knock on the Proudys’ door and rouse them from whatever they were doing. That was delicacy better left to the innkeeper.

Not that Mrs. Fillion had too many delicate bones in her body, not after twenty years of innkeeping. She took the note and laughed, leaning closer to Nana. “They didn’t even come down for breakfast this morning, Nana. Considering that breakfast is included in the bill, the newly married ones are such an economy!”

Mercy, thought Nana. All I am here for is to deliver a message. She made some noncommittal reply and started for the door again, even though the rain was coming down harder.

After thinking about it, she waited until Mrs. Fillion came back downstairs. Gran would want her to thank the keep for sending much-needed custom to the Mulberry. She hung her sodden cloak on the rack in the hall.

Mrs. Fillion didn’t return immediately. When she did come down, she gestured for Nana to follow her into the kitchen, where she ladled a bowl of yesterday’s soup. Nana started to say that she wasn’t really hungry, but reconsidered. No telling how long Captain Worthy would stay at the Mulberry.

The soup was wonderful, even a day old. She ate all she could hold, then put down her spoon. “Mrs. Fillion, thank you so much for sending Captain Worthy our way,” she said. “I know you had room for him here, but we so appreciate your consideration.”

Mrs. Fillion cocked her head to one side. “That’s the odd thing, dearie—I didn’t send Captain Worthy your way. When Mr. Proudy and Mr. Ramseur and the surgeon hauled up here, the captain told his officers to put his sea trunk in the room I usually reserve for him, before he took a post chaise to London.”

“I wonder what made him change his mind,” Nana said.

Mrs. Fillion shrugged, obviously not too concerned about the issue. “I’ve been wondering if I should apologize to you for sending him!”

This is a mystery indeed, Nana thought. What can Mrs. Fillion mean? “I don’t quite understand,” she said.

There was a loud knock at the back door. Mrs. Fillion looked over and motioned in the porter with a quarter of beef slung over his shoulder and unplucked chickens belted around his waist. She sighed and got up. “No rest for me.” She turned back to Nana. “You can’t precisely call Captain Worthy a little ray of sunshine, can you? Come to think of it, I disbelieve I’ve ever seen that thin-lipped cadaver even smile. He barely talks.”

“Oh, he does,” Nana said. “He’s quite droll, too.”

Mrs. Fillion forgot the porter and stared at her kitchen guest. “Oliver Worthy?”

“Why… y-yes, if that’s his first name. He is rather thin, isn’t he?” Nana replied, suddenly unsure of herself. “He told me…”

She stopped. He told me all kinds of things, she thought, and I’ll not repeat any of them. “Maybe he was a little stern,” she amended, hoping Mrs. Fillion, who liked to carry a tale, had better things to do in her kitchen at that moment than press her for more information.

Mrs. Fillion did. With a comment that sounded like, “The Second Coming must be the devil of a lot closer than we know,” the innkeep opened the door wider for the porter, her attention elsewhere. Nana bobbed a curtsey and quickly left the kitchen.

A decidedly forlorn Mr. Proudy came slowly down the stairs, the picture of reluctance. For one brief moment, Nana wanted to remind him that poor Lord Nelson had inspired a nation-full of sitting room samplers that read, England Expects Every Man To Do His Duty. She didn’t know Mr. Proudy at all; quizzing him was quite out of the question.

Although Miss Pym would have gone into utter spasms at her total lack of manners, Nana introduced herself. “Are you Mr. Proudy?”

He owned that he was.

“Your captain is staying at our inn, sir,” she said. “I was wondering—does he have a favorite meal that you know of?”

The first mate returned her curtsey with a nod: no more, she observed, than would be expected from a gentleman to a servant. “He does like a good steak and ale pie,” he told her, “and nearly any dish with cod. God help us, cod and leeks.” He nodded again and went out to hail a hackney.

Nana added leeks to her list for the greengrocers. When she showed the grocer the money in her hand, he went to great lengths to fill her list, and agreed, without any cajoling, to deliver it after noon to the Mulberry. Minding her steps on the rain-slickened cobbles, she went to the wharf next and selected a promising-looking cod.

“I don’t like the way it looks at me,” she told the fishmonger, who whacked off the head with one stroke of his cleaver. Wrapped in brown paper and trussed up with string, the beast didn’t overhang her basket by much.

The rain stopped, only to be followed by a great rainbow that stretched from the Cattewater to the dry docks. I hope that is a good omen, she thought, as she started back toward the Mulberry. I know Captain Worthy is anxious to be back on the blockade.

There wasn’t any harm in putting a little muscle behind her wish, considering that she was just skeptical enough not to put her whole trust in rainbows. She stopped in front of St. Andrews.

The door was open and she went inside, not sure of the protocol of carrying a cod, no matter how neatly wrapped, into the Lord’s house. There wasn’t any question about leaving it outside. Her faith in man didn’t extend to tempting anyone with an easy catch of the day, especially not in Plymouth.

She set the cod by the back bench and took a coin from her reticule. Strictly speaking, she was spending the captain’s money, but she didn’t think he would mind. It took her only a moment to drop it in the box and light a candle. Determined to keep the cod in sight, she stood there, her hands folded, and implored the Lord and St.

Andrew, a fisherman himself, to speed the repairs on the Tireless.

“But not too fast, Gracious Lord,” she amended. “Captain Worthy has a putrid throat and clogged ears and he hasn’t had Gran’s cod and leeks yet.”

She opened her eyes to make sure no one was close by. “Besides that, Lord, I like his company.”

Chapter Four

Oliver knew he was not the most subtle of men—what captain was?—but he had to discover a diplomatic way to find out more about Nana Massie. It was becoming increasingly obvious to him that Lord Ratliffe knew nothing about his daughter.

His first order of business was the Tireless, which occupied him the moment he stepped onto the dry docks on the River Tamar and met the master shipwright. Indeed, he would have been hard to overlook. Oliver had never dealt with Roger Childers before, but he had heard stories, mainly about the bald spots here and there on his head. The rumor was that he pulled his hair out in little clumps, with each demand by impatient captains.

Before Childers could begin, Oliver handed him his copy of the survey, with the few items Nana had added. The shipwright read down the list, then began to worry a small patch of hair by his left ear. Oliver could hardly keep from bursting into laughter. He knew he didn’t dare look at his mates, who had heard the same rumors.

With a deep sigh, Childers jabbed at the survey with a finger fringed about with wispy hair. “She’ll not be ready before two months, and then we’re stretching it, Captain.”

“It must be three weeks.”

Back went Childers’s fingers to his hair. This war had better end soon, Oliver thought, or this man will have snatched himself bald. He turned away briefly to stare into the middle distance and force down a laugh.

During the tirade that followed, Oliver resolutely set his face toward the Tireless, and his crew that lined the ship’s waist. From bosun to the small gunners’ helpers, they watched the whole exchange with interest. There appeared to be money changing hands by the few who had any coins left. Oliver wondered if the wager was how many more bald spots, or the length of time for repairs.

“Six weeks, and not a minute less, Captain,” Childers pronounced finally.

“One month.”

The same routine followed, but it appeared to Oliver that the shipwright was weakening.

Finally they agreed upon three and a half weeks. Oliver found himself of two minds about the matter. Three weeks would have been better, but that extra few days meant more time admiring Nana Massie. He wasn’t even thinking of her as Miss Massie anymore, although he knew he daren’t call her by her nickname.

I have so little time, he protested silently. Almost none, and then I am back at sea. But there was Childers at his elbow, looking like a broken man, and holding out the revised survey for his signature. He signed.

“You’re a hard man, Captain Worthy.”

“This is a hard war, Mr. Childers.”

He turned his attention to the dry docks. There was a schooner in one way, and his own frigate next to it. The other four dry docks were empty. He looked to the ways in the distance, and only one showed a ship in progress. “It appears you can use the work.”

“We can indeed,” the shipwright said, the light back in his eyes, and his voice friendly again. If anything, he looked peppier than before his hair-pulling session. He frowned then. “I know Admiral Lord Gardner has his reasons for keeping the Channel Fleet at its station, but—” he gestured toward the frigate’s stern “—you can only defer maintenance so long. When the water’s up to your ass, it’s a bit late, wouldn’t you say?”

It was typical navy graveyard humor. “A bit,” he agreed. He held out his hand to the shipwright, who shook it. They parted friends.

Oliver handed his roster to Mr. Proudy. “We’ll follow our usual pattern. Number ones go first for five days, and so on in rotation. Remind the crew that if all the number ones don’t return, there will be no two, three or four. You might also remind them that their share of the prize money from our last cruise is at Brustein and Carter’s, matched against my roster and their identification.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Proudy said, as he took the roster. He turned toward the Tireless and held it up, to cheers from all on deck.

Oliver turned to Mr. Ramseur. “Is my purser still on board?”

“Aye, sir.”

Oliver took some coins from his waistcoat pocket and handed them to his second mate. “Give him my compliments, Mr. Ramseur, and ask him to have a quarter beef and a package of good lamb chops—maybe a dozen—delivered to the Mulberry. He knows the victuallers better than I do.”

“Aye, sir.”

“And, Mr. Ramseur…”

“Sir?”

“How about you and I watch the shipwright’s progress for the first two weeks and allow Mr. Proudy to escort his lady home to Exeter for some peace and quiet?”

Ramseur blushed, as Oliver knew he would. He grinned then and nodded. “Aye, sir. Shall I tell him?”

“Do. And tell him once he finishes the crew’s assignments, he can leave for Exeter.”

Oliver looked at Ramseur, really looked at him, and saw him for what he was: young, loyal, relatively untried. “Mr. Ramseur, I don’t think anything will happen in dry docks that you and I cannot handle.”

“Really, sir?”

For a moment, his number two sounded like a schoolboy. Was I ever that young? Oliver asked himself. Of course I was.

“Absolutely.” No point in stopping there. “Mr. Ramseur, I never fully thanked you for the clearheaded way you acted when the Wellspring rammed our stern. I’m glad you were on watch then, and not one of the midshipmen, or it might have been a different story.”

Oliver touched his forefinger to his hat and turned away to answer another question from Childers. When he turned back, Ramseur, his back straight and his step dignified, was crossing the plank to the Tireless, the picture of confidence.

I need to remember to do that more often, Oliver thought, as he watched his number two. Sometimes a kind word is more valuable than prize money. He thought of Nana Massie then, wondering if women could be treated the same way. He concluded they could.

With a look of gratitude worth more than speech, Mr. Proudy left the Tireless a few minutes later, saluted his captain and promised to return in two weeks.

“See that you do, Mr. Proudy,” Oliver said. “That’ll give Mr. Ramseur a week home in Lyme Regis. Didn’t he say something about a vicar’s daughter?”

“She’s the daughter of a solicitor, sir,” Mr. Proudy answered. “Dorie, I believe. Thank you again, sir.”

Oliver watched him go. Dorie, eh? he thought. Why on earth did I let all the Dories of the world pass me by? Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have given his mates’ personal lives a second thought. He blamed his new frame of reference on Lord Ratliffe’s miniature, and that curious axis shift at Admiralty House.

He nooned with Childers over a bowl of soup, then realized he had to return to his bed at the Mulberry. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” he told the shipwright. “If you have any questions, ask Mr. Ramseur.”

Even though his ears throbbed and his throat felt as though it was trapped in a vise, Oliver directed the hackney to Drake’s Inn first. All I want is information, he excused himself. I’ve known Mrs. Fillion for enough years to appreciate how much she likes to gossip. I will have to question her carefully, though.

He told the hackney driver to wait for him. He found Mrs. Fillion in the kitchen, staring glumly at her account book. She brightened when she saw him.

“Is the Mulberry not to your liking?” she asked. “They do need the trade.”

“So do you, madam,” he replied, sitting down. “Tough times ahead.”

She turned worried eyes on him. “We’ll fare all right, sir. Are you comfortable enough at the Mulberry?”

“I am,” he replied. “The Massies are seeing to my needs.” He leaned closer, pleased to see Mrs. Fillion do the same. “Pete Carter has fixed me a wicked brew for my throat, and Miss Massie seemed determined to keep the fire stoked to healing levels.” He shook his head. “It’s Gran that fair terrifies me.”

Mrs. Fillion laughed. “She’s an ogre, is Nancy Massie.” She leaned closer again. “If it weren’t for her, I can’t imagine what would have happened to Nana.”

Oliver didn’t have to say anything. He just raised his eyebrows.

“Nancy’s daughter, Rachel, was a flighty piece. She caught the fancy of a lieutenant. What happened to Rachel has happened to women in port the world over.” She looked at him knowingly.

“Ah, yes” was all he needed to say to restart Mrs. Fillion.

The innkeep lowered her voice. “Rachel had the bad fortune to die in childbirth. I don’t know how Nancy did it, but she held that lieutenant to some level of accountability.”

“That’s rare.”

“It is.” Mrs. Fillion shrugged. “I wouldn’t care to stand in front of Nancy Massie when she has an ax to grind. Somehow, a deal was struck. The baby’s father would see to her education, and then provide her with a meaningful opportunity.”

“Which didn’t happen, obviously, because she’s back in Plymouth.”

Mrs. Fillion nodded. “Five years ago, Nana came home on the mail coach from Bath. No one has said why.”

And you can’t worm it out of Gran, Oliver thought. This must be a tight secret indeed. And you don’t appear to know who that lieutenant was. He couldn’t deny his own disappointment at Mrs. Fillion’s news, which enlightened him no more than Lord Ratliffe had. He still didn’t know why Nana had bolted for Plymouth.

“At least Miss Massie has her grandmama,” he said, leaning back so he felt less like a co-conspirator.

“Gran’s a fierce protector,” the innkeep said. “So’s that old Pete.”

“A regular Scylla and Charybdis,” Oliver murmured.

“Are they Frogs?” Mrs. Fillion asked.

“Even worse. Greeks.”

“So Nana has returned to Plymouth. Lord knows if she will ever leave it.”

“No dowry, I gather?”

“Heavens, no!” Mrs. Fillion sighed, then gave him a knowing look. “A pretty face can get a woman a career in Plymouth, eh, Captain? But not Nana—a rich man’s by-blow, and not quite a lady.”

“She’s very much a lady,” Oliver said firmly. He couldn’t overlook the calculating look that suddenly came into Mrs. Fillion’s eyes, and hastened to neutralize it. “But it’s a pity, I agree. What can she hope for?”

“Not much. And what a pity! Such a pretty child. She always came with her gran to the market. I can still see her hurrying to keep up. Even the fishmongers gave her little treats, and you know what a rough lot they are!”

He could imagine Nana Massie captivating her Plymouth audience. For the tiniest moment, he wondered how nice it would be to take a little daughter or son on board the Tireless and introduce them to his watery world. He could hold a small son up to the wheel and let him think he was helmsman.

His mind was wandering; it was time to leave the Drake and go to bed. “Times are tough,” he repeated. He stood up. “Gran still calls her Nana?”

“We all do. When she was a baby, she couldn’t say ‘Eleanor.’ I suppose she was Eleanor at that la-di-dah school in Bath, but what good did that do?”

What good, indeed. He returned to the waiting hackney.

As they traveled up South Hoe, he noticed the wigmaker’s shop on the corner of Lambhay. Surely a town the size of Plymouth only had one such business, especially now that men were inclined to exhibit their own hair, and not rely on someone else’s.

He told the driver to wait, and went inside. A bell announced his presence and a bald man came out from the back room. Oliver had to suppress a smile when the man’s eyes went right to his hair, studied it, then glanced away, disappointed.

“I’m not a customer,” Oliver said.

Here was the dilemma. He wasn’t a man to lie, but he was curious about something. “My… my father is sensitive about hair loss, and I thought I would inquire into wigs.”

The proprietor launched into a rhapsodic description of all he could do. Oliver felt uncomfortable for his lie, but he had ventured this far, so he might as well continue.

He listened and asked a few questions about the wigmaking process itself. “And where does the hair come from? Do you… do you have any hair here I could look at?”

He did. The man reached under the counter and brought out two long hanks of hair—one blond and the other Nana’s. He had to resist the urge to run his hand down the length of it, auburn hair more brown than red, but with deep copper tones. It nearly took his breath away. Or maybe that was his putrid throat; hard to say.

“Go ahead,” the wigmaker urged. “Touch it.”

Oliver ran his hand over the hair, then combed his fingers through it, unable to resist. He suddenly wondered what it would look like, spread upon a pillow, still attached to its former owner. He had to remind himself his damned occupation had rendered him immune to females.

“That’s beautiful,” he said at last, reluctantly removing his hands from the dark mass. “What do you pay for hair like that?”

The wigmaker ran his own fingers through the slightly curling locks. “Usually I give eight to ten shillings for hair this length.” His eyes looked troubled then.

“And?” Oliver prompt ed.

“I paid a pound.” The wigmaker shook his head. “I tried to talk her out of cutting it. Imagine that. She told me to go ahead, they needed the money.” He returned the hair to his drawer. “She cried when I finished.”

“I can imagine,” Oliver murmured. He had to leave, not so much because of his throat this time, but because he couldn’t stand the sadness. “Let me ask my father what he thinks about a wig. Good day, sir.”

The thing is, she seemed so proud to be able to help her Gran, Oliver thought as the hackney delivered him to the Mulberry. He paid the jehu and walked up the path, pausing to note that the pansies had been resuscitated and given clean earth. He stood there a moment, looking down. Maybe everyone got a second chance at the Mulberry.

Nana met him in the hallway. “I thought I heard a hackney, Captain.”

He wanted to tell her his name was Oliver, but he didn’t. “Ah, yes, returning from the docks. Looks like you’re stuck with me for three and a half weeks, until my ship heals,” he joked.

He must have been more ill than he thought, because her eyes filled with tears. Should he ignore it, or comment? “It’s a tough ship,” he said.

Bless her heart. She dabbed at her eyes, and looked him square in his. “I was thinking you need more time, Captain,” she said, with only the slightest quaver in her voice. “If you don’t take care of yourself, who will?”

It was a good question, but not one of great concern to either Admiralty House or anyone except captains junior to him who would rise higher on the rolls, if he should suddenly slough off his mortal coil.

“I’ll be fit by then, too. Probably even sooner, Miss Massie.”

She seemed to have recovered herself. “Yes, certainly,” she agreed. She traded concern for belligerence, and he wasn’t sure which emotion touched him more. “See here, Captain, you forgot to drink another of Pete’s draughts before you left this morning. I intend to see that you do.”

“You and who else?” he asked, amused.

“Just me, I suppose,” she said in confusion, then looked at him more closely. “You’re quizzing me.”

“And stalling, too. That’s a rough brew.” He looked toward the stairs. “But right now I admit to being weary beyond belief. Please excuse me, Miss Massie. I think I want to lie down and die.”

“You aren’t allowed to die at the Mulberry,” she said, teasing him back.

He crawled into bed and slept the afternoon away, after drinking down another remedy, administered by Pete Carter himself. He found himself dreaming of Nana, which only left him embarrassed, and thinking he had left behind such dreams in his midshipman days.

He was aware later of someone adding more coal to the fire, and then tucking a hot brick, wrapped in a towel, at his feet. When he started to sweat, someone applied a cool cloth to his face. Another wheat poultice went around his neck and crossed over his throat, which made him dream of bread this time. He could have sworn then that Nana Massie rested her hand on his forehead, because it was cool and soft and he thought there was a hint of roses. He didn’t think Pete had much to do with roses.

When he woke finally, the room was dark, except for a glow from the fireplace. It was too much to hope that Nana would be in his room, but she was. She sat in the chair by his bed, and she appeared to be asleep. He needed to use the chamber pot, but not badly enough to disturb her slumber. He wanted to watch her.

She had leaned her head back and to one side against the high back of the straight chair, sitting somewhat in profile. The light was low, but he was impressed by the length of her eyelashes. She had even propped up her stockinged feet at the foot of his bed.

He slowly moved his right foot until it rested close to hers. He knew better than to touch her foot, but he felt her warmth, and that was enough to send him back to sleep.

When he woke later, he could have cried to see Nana gone and Pete there instead, holding a urinal in his lap. Oliver sighed. I go from the sublime to the embarrassing, he thought, wondering if Nana had vacated the room when he began to move around restlessly and finger his member, like a little boy with the urge to piss.

“I think you’re needing this,” Pete said, his voice gruff, but not unkind.

“My blushes,” Oliver said. “I hope I didn’t embarrass Miss Massie.”

Pete put the urinal under the covers. “She’s tended me when I’ve been too ill to get out of bed. Gran cut up stiff, but Nana’s not a shrinking violet. If I hadn’t been available just now, she’d have done for you, too.”

Horrors, he thought, horrors. “I could get up and use the chamber pot,” he protested, but only feebly.

“And have you tumbling arse over teakettle because you’re too sick?” Pete scolded. “I’m not in your navy now, sir, so I can speak plainly.”

“Indeed you can,” Oliver agreed, chastened. “And you’re right.” He finished and handed back the urinal. I can be matter-of-fact if you can, he thought. I just hope I don’t have to see Nana Massie again for the next three and a half weeks.

She was at the door and knocking, only moments after Pete left. She had a tray in her hands, and it occurred to him that he was more hungry than embarrassed. So much for the delicacies.

She came close to the bed and set the tray at the foot, then picked up the extra pillow from the side table by the window. He sat up so she could place it behind his head, and then adjust the table over his lap.

“It’s cod and leeks, cooked in cream. Mr. Proudy said you liked it, and Gran said it will go down easy.”

He was almost afraid to look at her, but he had to. He knew he would always have to. There was nothing missish about her expression. Well, if she doesn’t mind I am human, I suppose I shouldn’t, either, he decided, as he picked up a spoon.

It was delicious, and flowed easily around the boulder in his throat. “My compliments to the chef,” he told her, pleased to see her smile.

“Gran made it, but I watched. I think I can do it now.”

She sat down, then got up again to tuck a napkin in the front of his nightshirt. She pulled the tray a little closer, then picked up another bowl and spoon. He hadn’t realized she was planning to eat with him.

“This is so you’ll know I’m eating, too,” she said. “So are Gran and Pete and Sal. We made plenty for us all.”

So the inmates of the Mulberry had come to an understanding. Good. “Who is Sal?” he asked between mouthfuls.

“Our scullery maid.” She looked at him, and seemed to know what he was thinking. “We couldn’t let her go when times got tough, Captain. She said she’d rather take her chances with us than return to the workhouse.”

“Wise choice.”

He knew she would leave when he finished, so he ate slowly, savoring the company as much as the cod. She cleaned her bowl, which had been as full as his. He decided he liked a woman with a good appetite.

When he finished, she took the tray from his lap, but stood there, indecisive. He could tell she had something more to say, and allowed her time to work up to it. Her sentence came out in a rush.

“You absolutely cannot go to the dry docks tomorrow, Captain. I forbid it.”

He would have laughed, except that the serious look on her face touched him as nothing else could have. He noted how tight together her lips were, and how she gripped the tray, as if ready to spring into all kinds of defiance, if he argued.

“I won’t then,” he assured her. “You’re right. I’ll never get better if I don’t stay in bed.”

“You’re worrying me, Captain,” she said, her voice no louder than a whisper. “I… we want you to get well.”

“I promise I will. Cross my heart.”

She relaxed then. “Sir, if you need anything in the night… anything. Pete and I will take turns sleeping on a cot by your door.”

He started to protest at that, and the look he got in return was nearly mutinous. He nodded instead.

“Good night, sir,” she said, and left the room.

He woke up once in the night, stirring about enough to wake Pete, who came in with the urinal, and another dose of his patented draught, good enough to raise the dead and cure the world.

Toward morning, he woke again. His throat felt moderately better; the boulder in his throat had shrunk to a rock. He thought he could even manage the chamber pot this time. He got up quietly and used it, pleased with himself. Before he got back in bed, he went to the door and opened it, just to see who was on duty in the corridor.

Nana slept on the cot this time, balled up tightly enough to tell him that she was cold. He went to the clothespress in his room and pulled out a blanket, returning to the hall and covering her with it. She stirred, but did not open her eyes. He watched her, and in a few moments, she straightened out her legs and returned to a deeper sleep. Impulsively, he touched her head. He could have watched her the rest of his life.

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