The Wedding Ring Quest

by Carla Kelly

  ‘December the seventh. I’ll still have time to wrest that fruitcake from Miss Bruce’s long-lost lover, provided he hasn’t died of apoplexy from the shock of Mr Barraclough’s love note. There’s probably even time for a few side trips for victuals, as you call them,’ she added.

  ‘Then let’s do it. I know I’d rather ride out a typhoon on a quarterdeck than sit on a cold horse with snow pelting down. I’ll tell Preston when we stop.’

  Ross Rennie seemed disinclined to doze, and Mary had found her tatting shuttle. She tucked her legs under her and made herself comfortable on her side of the post chaise as they continued the journey, slower now, as the snow grew heavier. When she shivered, the captain removed his boat cloak and draped it across her lap. She smiled her thanks and didn’t bother to insist he keep it for himself. Not even twenty-four hours in his company, Mary knew he would overrule any paltry objection she thought up. And he did have broad shoulders.

  ‘How did you lose your leg?’ she asked when she was comfortable again and tatting.

  ‘Trafalgar, on the deck of the Sirius, a thirty-six-gun frigate. I was first luff to Captain William Prowse, the best tarpaulin who ever sailed.’

  ‘Tarpaulin?’

  ‘Up from the ranks or a grizzled old veteran; Will Prowse is both. I vow Captain Billy has forgotten more about the management of a ship than I will ever know.’ He looked down at his wooden leg and gave it a hard knock, which made Nathan stir and then resettle himself on his father’s thigh. ‘Sorry, Nate. Frigates are the eyes of the fleet, Cousin. Our task at Trafalgar was to lie upwind of the Victory and pass on her flag signals to the rest of the ships. It was lively, but not particularly dangerous.’

  He tapped his wooden leg a little kinder this time, almost a caress. ‘Wouldn’t you know, I was the only serious injury on board during the battle.’ His leaned back and his voice took on the quality of reminiscence. ‘There I was, standing on the quarterdeck by Captain Billy, writing down a signal from Victory, when, blam! A splinter from a cannonball misfired from the San Agustin took off my leg as slick as be-damned. One second I’m standing there and the next second I’m lying on the deck, slippery in my own blood and wondering what the hell happened.’

  ‘A splinter?’ she asked, her eyes wide.

  ‘Not the little kind you get under a fingernail.’ He gestured. ‘About a yard long and wicked.’ He smiled. ‘The auxiliary helmsman slung me over his shoulder and carried me below deck to the surgeon. I left quite a trail, I am told. Bones tidied me up and left me a good flap and I have my knee. Piece of cake, Mary Rennie.’

  She frowned at him, and he just gazed back, as pleasant as could be.

  ‘I’ll never understand sailors,’ she said finally.

  ‘You weren’t meant to. Didn’t your mother warn you about seamen?’

  ‘She died when I was fifteen. I doubt Mama ever met a mariner of any sort.’

  Mary was silent then, looking out the window in her turn. I have lived such an ordinary life, she thought, as the snow pelted down. The post chaise moved slower and slower.

  * * *

  You damned fool, scare your cousin to death, Ross chided himself as he watched his cousin return her attention to her tatting, her expression thoughtful. She had such a pretty face, framed with dark red hair pulled back into a low chignon. No one would ever mistake her for a diamond of the first water, but he relished her quiet air and the sense of calm he felt around her. In a fraught life of noise, terror and bedlam, alternating with weeks on end of stupefying boredom, there was something so restful about her. He thought again of Nathan’s comment: ‘She touched me.’

  He liked the way her hair curled out from under her bonnet, as though unwilling to be wrangled and confined in that chignon. There was nothing memorable about her face, except its calm. She had a charming way of giving him her undivided attention that he found flattering. Maybe that was what Nathan had noticed, too.

  Funny thing about Mary; she looked absolutely nothing like the woman on a different wardroom list—the one he had composed mid-ocean in the horse latitudes when not a breath of wind stirred so much as a hair follicle for a long and dreary month. The heat and monotony were stupefying and no one wanted to even talk about food. Wardroom chat turned to women, as it frequently did on any ocean. He was a first luff then, young and with blood so hot he’d have willingly sacrificed two or three years off his likely short existence to drop anchor in Otaiheite with its island full of obliging women. While they sweated and his captain swore at them and drank deeper, his young officers had each compiled a list of absolute necessities in female companionship.

  Some of those necessities he blushed even now to remember, but he never forgot the gist. His wife of choice some day would be tall and blonde, with a low, seductive laugh—why that mattered, he couldn’t have said then or now—and just the faintest French-Caribbean accent. As much as he hated the Frogs, he remembered a memorable night in Martinique with just such a woman, the wife of a Frenchman way too long at sea. His wardroom mates had been forced to practically peel him off that fetching madame before the frigate sailed without him. Ross never forgot that accent.

  That was twenty years ago. He’d kept that particular list for years, until it sank with the HMS Marlborough and he’d ended up in that Turkish prison. By then, he didn’t need the list, but his tall, blonde beauty with the French accent remained his measuring stick for a future Mrs Rennie. He glanced at Mary, wishing for a fraction of a second that she possessed even one of the requirements. Alas, not one. He smiled to think about her thick accent, quite far removed from sibilant and seductive French. True, her dark red hair was attractive. Ah, well. He knew the war wasn’t over yet; there was still time to find the woman of that long-gone but never-forgotten list. Maybe, just maybe, this as-yet-unknown Mrs Rennie would have Mary’s innate kindness with children.

  The chaise moved slower and slower. At one point, the postilion stopped and dismounted, tromping back to the chaise to shake his head over worsening conditions. There was no denying the relief in his eyes when Ross said they would be staying the night at Skowcroft. That was the nice thing about travel on land, Ross decided, as they started up again, slower still. On land, it was possible to just call it off for a day until conditions improved. At sea, there was always the wind, or lack of it, to dictate and demand. No matter how the wind blew or the snow fell, Skowcroft lay dead ahead and required no great effort to locate. He looked out the window and there was a village already. Hopefully, the Begging Hound wasn’t boarded and shuttered.

  ‘Please be open,’ he said out loud.

  Mary looked up, a question in her eyes.

  He felt his face grow warm, knowing he must have sounded like the veriest fool. He didn’t know what to say.

  She did an amazing thing, one that convinced him that helping his cousin might turn out to be the smartest act he had performed since marrying Inez Veimira.

  ‘It will be open, Captain,’ she said, all the assurance in the world in her voice. ‘And there will be lemon-curd pudding, just as Mr Everett said there would be. Just you wait.’

  Strangely calmed, he nodded and returned his gaze to the white world. Another fifteen minutes, and they came to a stop in front of a stone building that looked as though it had been hunkering down against snow and wind since at least the reign of Good Queen Bess. The hound in question was a painted dog with drooping eyes and ears that swung rhythmically to and fro with a creak. It was a hound of dubious origins, but exactly as Midshipman Everett had described it, there on the far side of the world, somewhere by Otaihete, with its bare-breasted women who would spread their legs for the payment of a nail, but who didn’t know how to make lemon-curd pudding.

  Mary didn’t need to know that, he decided, with a little smile. The smile left his face as he thought of Dale Everett, such a talented young lad with chronometer and sextant, dying so far
from this white world. Unlike the French, the Royal Navy buried its men at sea, not stacking them belowdeck to rot, swell and burst on the return trip. Ross had written his usual letter of condolence and passed it off later to a frigate heading home. He hoped it had arrived eventually, but he had never enquired, never visited. There was always the excuse of no time, but even had there been opportunity, he doubted he would visit.

  Until now. He took a deep breath as the post chaise slowed and stopped. Nathan woke up and rubbed his eyes, looking around. In five more years his son would be as old as Dale Everett, when that talented midshipman, drenched in sweat, drew his last breath and let it out slowly and finally, so far from home.

  The sea is my home, Ross reminded himself. This is the alien world. He glanced at Mary, who was watching Nathan. She reached out to straighten his son’s jacket and run her fingers through his wild hair. Maybe it wasn’t going to prove as alien as he had feared, at least until they came to York, found the Christmas cake and parted company. He had no idea where he belonged, but he was like all men of the sea, willing to be flexible, because that was what the service demanded. Call it the price of Admiralty.

  He looked at his son and his cousin, already considering them his crew. ‘Here we are, mates,’ he said, which made Mary smile. ‘I’m almost afraid to ask if the Begging Hound still serves the best lemon-curd pudding in Yorkshire. I have it on good authority that was the case in 1803, but that was eleven years ago. Shall we?’

  They did. He had to duck and remove his hat to negotiate the low ceiling, but his crew passed inside with no difficulty. Before he closed the door, he looked back at his postilion with some sympathy. Preston helped his son down from the near horse. He stood a moment in the doorway, watching the Prestons shiver and slap gloved hands on each other. In another moment, the ostler and a young boy joined them to lead the team to shelter, grain and hay. He closed the door and turned to face what must be the innkeep, his face red from the heat of the kitchen.

  ‘Welcome, sir,’ the man exclaimed, wiping floury hands on an apron of dubious cleanliness. ‘You’re a long way from home.’

  You have no idea, Ross thought. He nodded to his host. ‘We were planning to travel on, but my postilion assures me that is not wise. Do you have a room or two?’

  ‘Aye, Captain.’

  ‘We’d like rooms, but before that, we would like your lemon-curd pudding.’

  Ah, the moment of truth. Was Midshipman Everett right, or was lemon-curd pudding a figment of a homesick boy’s imagination? Ross glanced around. The public room was bare, hardly surprising, considering the storm. Maybe the innkeep had decided not to make pudding, knowing that few customers would venture far from their own hearths today. He almost feared to look the man in the eye because he did not want to be disappointed, not after years of longing.

  He turned to his host to see the man all smiles, as though he knew a crew from the frigate HMS Abukir would be arriving on schedule for luncheon.

  The keep gestured around him, giving them leave to try any or all tables, maybe even rearrange them, so happy he was to have customers. ‘I’ll have it to you almost before you can decide where to sit!’ He looked at Mary, then at Nathan. ‘Madam, do you want your boy to eat sweets before beef and bread?’

  Mary blushed so becomingly, opened her mouth to make some explanation or other, caught Ross’s eye and merely nodded. ‘We’d all like to try the pudding, but do serve the captain first. He’s waited a long time for this rare treat.’

  God bless the ladies. Ross pulled out a chair for her, and she sat down. He took his courage in his hands and whispered close to her ear, ‘Decided not to bore the man with details, eh?’ he teased.

  ‘I’m old enough to be Nathan’s mother. It’s a logical mistake,’ she whispered back. ‘Don’t try me, Cousin.’

  ‘I would never.’ The look she gave him curled all five of his toes.

  If a stout man who hadn’t shaved yet, and with flour on his fingers, could present lemon-curd pudding with something approaching a flourish, then the proprietor of the Begging Hound could be judged and found not wanting.

  With solemn step and slow, as though he bore in a haggis to a piping tune, he came into the commons room carrying a bowl with steam rising from it. He was followed by an equally serious little girl holding spoons and bowls. Ross’s mouth watered as he smelt the tang of lemon and the warm comfort of wheat. He remembered that little wardroom in the middle of the South Pacific crowded with officers as hungry and homesick as he was, all of them listening to Dale Everett describe the pudding.

  He didn’t think his expression had turned melancholy, but Mary’s hand rested firmly on his arm.

  ‘A generous helping for the captain,’ she said, because he could not speak.

  And there it was before him, tangy and hot and quivering a little. He lifted his spoon with a hand that trembled and sank it deep into the yellow goodness in front of him. First to his nose for a deep whiff worthy of a connoisseur of fine port and then to his mouth.

  Great God of battle, he thought, in all reverence. Dale, you were right. I wish to heaven above that you were here. He swallowed the pudding around an enormous boulder in his throat. He set down the spoon, unable to take another bite. Damn his eyes, he was about to cry.

  Chapter Eight

  Mary’s heart went out to Captain Rennie as he bowed his head over the pudding, unable to eat because he was in tears. The publican stared at them both, shocked.

  ‘It’s...it’s most generally reckoned to be good pudding,’ he stammered.

  ‘You’re completely right,’ she told the man. ‘Captain Rennie has been thinking about this pudding during long, long years at sea, keeping all of us safe from Napoleon. Please understand his emotions. Your pudding is wonderful.’

  The keep nodded and gave the captain a kindly glance. With a nod to Mary, he left them alone. She calmly fished in her reticule and found a handkerchief, which she handed to her cousin. Nathan’s eyes began to well with tears as his father pressed the handkerchief to his face and took several deep breaths.

  Mary gestured to Nathan. He came to her side, and she took his hand. She led him outdoors where the snow was beginning to let up. ‘Let’s just stand here a moment, breathing in and out, and give your father a solitary moment.’ She made no mention of Nathan’s tears, but his empathy touched her heart.

  Mary took her own advice until she was in control again. The air was brisk, but the wind had stopped, along with the snow. So the captain expected them to just hunker down at the Begging Hound until morning? She realised suddenly that there was more work to do in Skowcroft.

  Nathan tugged at her hand, and she leaned down. ‘Why did Da start to cry? I’ve never seen him cry, and it scares me.’

  Leaning wouldn’t do. Mary crouched in the snow, her hands on Nathan’s shoulder now. ‘I think he is remembering Midshipman Everett, and maybe other crew members like him who are no longer with us.’

  The boy nodded, but his eyes were still troubled. He swallowed and leaned into Mary. ‘Sometimes when she thinks we are all asleep, Mrs Pritchert cries.’

  ‘She’s missing her husband, Nathan.’

  ‘Do you think Da cried when he found me and then discovered my mama was dead?’

  Nathan was in control of his own emotions now, discussing his mother calmly because he had never known her. Mary took a deep breath of her own. She imagined all the sorrow of sailing into Oporto after a long voyage—who knew how dangerous—looking forward to a baby her cousin knew would be born during his absence and finding rubble instead of a home.

  ‘I suspect he did.’ She hugged him, then got to her feet. ‘But what a relief it must have been to find you alive.’

  Nathan nodded, becoming again the practical, matter-of-fact child she was coming to appreciate after less than a day in his company. He tugged her hand. �
��I want more of that pudding and we don’t know that Da won’t eat it all, once he feels better.’

  Mary laughed. ‘We’d better hurry!’

  Cousin Ross hadn’t touched another bite of the pudding he had yearned for and travelled out of his way to find. He sat there, tears dry on his face, just staring at the wall at a painting of dogs much darkened by years and tobacco and chimney smoke. Mary doubted he even knew the painting was there.

  This situation was new to her; maybe Mrs Morison hadn’t even reckoned on such dealing when she assured Mary she was overdue for an adventure. Mary had never dealt with a man in pain before, or a little boy in need of reassurance or travel in foreign lands. She stood a moment in silence of her own, thinking what her father, late Church of Scotland minister, would do in her place. He would quote some scripture or other, she told herself. She thought a moment. The only one that sprang immediately into her brain was Psalm 37, which began ‘Fret not’.

  She looked down at the captain to see that he was looking at her now. So much for what her father would have said or done. She knew what her mother would have done so she did it. Without a word, Mary kissed the top of his head and sat down beside him. Without losing a beat, she spooned the pudding into a bowl for Nathan, who sat on her other side. She dished up another for herself.

  ‘We weren’t about to let you steal a march on us and eat the whole thing,’ she said after several bites, each more delicious than the one before. ‘I think Midshipman Everett was entirely right. What was his first name again?’

  ‘Dale,’ Ross said and picked up his spoon again. He ate another spoonful and then closed his eyes, this time in obvious pleasure. It was the same expression she had noted last night when he dug into the Cumberland sausage. ‘His father was vicar in this parish, so his origins were similar to mine.’

  It was normal, ordinary conversation, and she had begun it. ‘Mine, too, then. My father was a minister in the Kirk of Scotland.’ She cast caution to the wind and nudged his shoulder. ‘So you are a minister’s son.’