Marriage of Mercy

by Carla Kelly

  He was better at kissing than she was, which came as no surprise. ‘I’m not good at this,’ she whispered, their lips barely parted.

  ‘You’re better than you know,’ he replied, his voice as low as hers. ‘Let’s try it again, in case I was wrong.’

  They did, but she pulled away first, which seemed to bring Rob to his senses. ‘What was I thinking?’ he said, letting go of her.

  She wanted to tell him not to stop, but she knew better. ‘I told you weeks ago that you miss women,’ she said.

  He gently pressed his forehead against hers, then stepped back. ‘Too right.’

  If that never happens again, at least it happened, she thought, as they resumed their slow walk into Quimby.

  At least I’ll never wonder what a kiss from the man I love feels like.

  * * *

  Rob Inman tried to throw the doughnuts’ banner away, but Mr Wilson overruled him, insisting that it be tacked to the inside of the back wall now.

  ‘I see it this way, lad—Quimby isn’t an ostentatious place,’ he explained as he steadied the banner for Rob to tack up again. ‘We know where the doughnuts are now. We’ll just crow about it more discreetly.’

  Rob was silent in the early hours before the shop opened for business, head down, his thoughts his own, as he rolled dough and stamped out doughnuts. ‘I’m sure half the village will stop by to gloat,’ he told her finally.

  * * *

  He couldn’t have been more wrong. So indignant that the feathers on her ridiculous turban trembled, Lady Tutt was the first person in the shop, followed by her meek companion.

  ‘Here it comes,’ Rob whispered out of the side of his mouth.

  Without a word to the Wilsons, Lady Tutt lifted up the barrier on the counter and stood in front of Rob at the kneading table. She banged her parasol, then shook it at him.

  ‘You just wait, Captain Duncan! Your upstart nation will come about!’ She made an abrupt about-face and marched out of the shop again, not even stopping to pinch the fresh bread. Her mouth open, Grace stared after Lady Tutt, who marched across the street to the candlemaker’s. The door to the bakery was closed and they couldn’t hear, but from the startled look on his face, Nahum Smathers was getting an earful.

  ‘Lord love her!’ Rob exclaimed. ‘I’m gut foundered and blowed.’

  * * *

  So it went all day—words of commiseration and comfort from everyone, as they came for their daily fix of doughnuts and left their sympathy, awkwardly spoken—he was the enemy, after all—but no less well meaning. A time or two, Rob came close to tears. By the end of the day, his smile was genuine.

  * * *

  ‘Sometimes it’s nice to be wrong,’ he admitted that night, as he stood in the doorway to his room, leaning against the frame. ‘Are you going to watch over me again tonight to make sure I don’t escape?’

  ‘Is that a wise idea?’ she asked, standing in her doorframe.

  ‘Of course it isn’t,’ he said promptly. ‘It comes to this, Grace, I’ve never liked sleeping alone. What if I promise you no naughtiness?’

  ‘Can you?’ she asked, then could have bitten her tongue.

  ‘Can you?’ he countered, a twinkle in his eyes.

  ‘Yes, absolutely,’ she replied, her voice crisp, even if her face felt fiery. ‘Since my speciality seems to be plain speaking, I would always shoulder the worst of the consequences, should we…um…succumb to naughtiness.’

  ‘True. I give you my word,’ he said simply. ‘Lie down with me.’

  She did without a qualm, slipping out of her dress after taking a deep breath. She resisted the urge to tug on her chemise and make it magically longer, but she allowed herself to sink into Rob Inman’s gentle clasp. He settled his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder. ‘If I get too warm, just push me off,’ he told her. ‘When Dan Duncan and I were boys together—he wasn’t so much older than me—we shared a narrow bed. I got used to close quarters.’ He kissed her neck.

  ‘Don’t do that!’ she whispered. ‘I doubt you kissed Captain Duncan.’

  ‘He’d have thrashed me.’ Rob sighed. When he spoke, his voice was drowsy. ‘I think I won’t run away tonight.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Grace slept beside him all week, accustoming herself to his warmth and the feel of his body, so relaxed against hers. She wondered what her mother would have thought about this arrangement, but came to no conclusion.

  At first, she wondered if her love for Rob Inman, and the delight of sleeping next to him, was some measure of her desperation to find a man of her own, when none had ever offered even his friendship before. She decided the answer was no, mainly because she had known with an unassailable conviction than no man would offer for her. She was either too high for some, or too low for the rest.

  And then came Rob Inman, a paroled prisoner of war from a nation as foreign to her as Persia, but a place she came to identify with, as he told her of his home in Massachusetts, on an island much smaller than her own. Allowing for the embellishment she expected from one who was homesick and sorely missing his country, she knew she would like America.

  As the week wore on, she lay awake in his arms late into the night, comparing his misfortune of birth, which had done nothing to stop his ambition, and her bad luck with parents who should have been wise enough to prevent the state to which she had slid, through no fault of her own. How ironic then, that Rob Inman’s father, a thief, had done more for his son’s future than Sir Henry Curtis had ever done for his more privileged offspring.

  They had talked about it late into the night, finally. ‘You’re awake, aren’t you?’ he had whispered into her ear one night.

  The kindness in his voice gave her permission to spill out all her disappointments and she did, finally dabbing her eyes on his sheets and begging his pardon for being such a whinger.

  ‘You’ve done so much with so little,’ she said, when her eyes were dry again.

  ‘So have you,’ he replied, with just a touch of humour in his voice. ‘When you were at the counter one day, Mrs Wilson and I took our ease, feet up, in the back room. She told me how you came to the bakery, all calm as a May morning—Lord, I’ve never seen that side of you! Ow!’

  She punched his arm again for good measure. ‘I’ll have you know I can be calm and biddable,’ she insisted, as his smile increased. ‘I vow you are bringing out the worst in me, you parolee!’

  He laughed at that. ‘Is that the worst thing you can think to call me?’ he teased. ‘Mrs Wilson told me how brave you were. “I have never heard her complain,” she told me.’

  ‘What good would that have done?’ she asked.

  ‘Spoken like a lady,’ he told her, his voice drowsy now. ‘But how would I know, since we both agree that I am not a gentleman.’

  She winced at his words, grateful for the dark, and still ashamed of her intemperate words. But he was a gentleman. If keeping him company in this odd way brought some peace to his generous heart, she would make it do for the rest of her life without him. Grace closed her eyes, secure in her knowledge that he was more of a gentleman than he knew. I wish I were less of a lady in his eyes, she thought, as she slept, too.

  * * *

  Lady Adeliza Tutt was less of a lady, to Grace’s relief and delight. Two weeks after the dismal news from America, the knight’s widow came to the bakery and rapped on the door with her parasol. Grace looked up from the kneading table, where she was working over the bread dough. Rob had suggested they try raisin bread with cinnamon and walnuts, which was proving to be a steady seller.

  Grace glanced at the clock. The bakery wasn’t due to open for another half-hour, but there was Lady Tutt and she wouldn’t stop rapping. Her hands floury, Grace called to Rob in the back room, where he had taken to chin wagging with the Wilsons as they finished breakfast.

  ‘I don’t know what she wants, but I can’t get the door,’ she told Rob, when he came out of the backroom. ‘Maybe her clock doesn’t work.’ />
  He smiled and gave Lady Tutt a good-natured salute from the other side of the door, then opened it, stepping back quickly as she threw herself into the room, the feather on her hat bobbing like a flag in a breeze.

  ‘Lady Tutt?’ he asked in surprise, as she took a newspaper from under her arm.

  ‘Read it! Read it now!’ she said, in her most declarative voice. ‘Ladies aren’t supposed to read newspapers, but, Captain Duncan, I have been following the news every morning for the past two weeks…’ she paused dramatically

  ‘…all for you!’

  ‘It couldn’t wait?’ he asked. His lips were already set in a tense line as he unfolded the paper.

  Wiping her hands on her apron, Grace watched his face as he read the paper. Lady Tutt practically danced up and down like a child in her excitement. A slow grin worked its way across Rob’s face. With a whoop that brought the Wilsons running into the room, he set down the paper and picked up Lady Tutt. He whirled her around the room as she blushed and made all kinds of dire threats. With a resounding smack, he planted a kiss on her lips.

  Mystified, Grace picked up the paper he had dropped. She scanned the page, then took a deep breath of her own. ‘Where’s Baltimore?’ she demanded, when Rob had set Lady Tutt back on her feet.

  ‘In Maryland, not far from Washington City,’ he said, his excitement almost palpable. ‘Look you there, Mr Wilson—your armies couldn’t take Baltimore and have left Chesapeake Bay!’

  ‘Not my armies, lad,’ Mr Wilson said mildly. ‘Your Yankee Doodle Doughnuts have turned us all into flaming radicals.’

  ‘I thought this was good news and knew you needed to know,’ Lady Tutt said, her cheeks still rosy. She patted her chest. ‘Captain, I haven’t had that much kissing since my husband…’ She paused and looked around, remembering herself. ‘Captain, you are a rascal!’

  Rob grabbed her by the waist, hauled her in and kissed her again, this time on her cheek and gentler. ‘And one more for good measure, Lady Tutt. You’ve made me a happy man.’

  Grace sighed with relief as she watched the joy on Rob’s face as he read the entire article. They had quarrelled last night over some inconsequential business she couldn’t even remember in the morning, all because his nerves were on edge at the news of the burning of Washington, and the constant daily appraisal of Nahum Smathers.

  After their quarrel, she had retreated to her own room for the night. It had been a long night, spent tossing and turning and wishing Rob Inman to Hades, then worrying about his country, the men still in Dartmoor, the state of things in Nantucket, Emery skulking after Smathers—anything she could think of to worry about. By dawn she had had a headache and a frown. She had snapped his head off at breakfast when he had the temerity to run his finger gently down the frown line between her eyes. ‘You know, it’ll freeze that way,’ he had said, which made her burst into tears and run from the room, something so missish that she was promptly ashamed of herself.

  They had both apologised on the walk into town, but it had still been a silent progress, unlike their usual ambling stroll, full of far-ranging conversation. ‘We’ll know something good or bad, sooner or later,’ he had said to her as they had arrived at the still-shuttered bakery.

  Now they knew, thanks to Lady Tutt’s speedy visit to the bakery. ‘What else does it say?’ she murmured, looking around his arm as he leaned on the counter.

  He started to include her in his embrace, then remembered himself and did not. ‘Says here that the fleet moved out of Chesapeake Bay and is heading south.’

  She looked at him, a question in her eyes.

  ‘I think they’re making for the port of New Orleans,’ he said. ‘It’s a grand place, if you don’t mind a yearly plague of yellow fever, or air so heavy you feel like you’re drinking it when you breathe. Great food.’ He hesitated and shook his head.

  ‘What?’ she asked, ready to worry again.

  He must have seen that in her eyes. He glanced at Lady Tutt, whose interests lay now with the raisin bread Mr Wilson had placed on the counter to cool. He touched Grace’s hand. ‘The army that controls New Orleans controls the Mississippi River. We’d be boxed in like clams in a bucket.’

  ‘Does America have an army down there?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s mostly Creoles, slaves and pirates. I hope there will be an army, when the British arrive.’ He looked at Mr Wilson. ‘Sir, what day is it?’

  ‘December 14, lad.’ He wrapped up a loaf of the raisin bread for Lady Tutt and handed it to her. ‘Here you are,

  dearie. Good news deserves a reward.’

  ‘That’s Lady Tutt to you, Adam Wilson,’ she said crisply.

  Mr Wilson just smiled. ‘I knew ye when ye was Adeliza Jenkyns, your ladyship!’

  She gave him a levelling stare. ‘Adam Wilson, you are impertinent!’

  He nodded. ‘I know it.’

  * * *

  As they walked home that afternoon, Rob took her hand. ‘As far as we know, the war goes on. Who knows what is hanging in the balance?’

  Emery had already heard the news. ‘Captain Duncan, have you forgotten that I am keeping an eye on Smathers for you?’

  ‘How could I forget?’ Rob asked. ‘Was he unhappy?’

  Emery nodded, his eyes serious for a moment. ‘I followed him back to Quarle—’

  ‘Lurking from beech to beech,’ Grace interjected.

  ‘Ah, yes. I have become somewhat of a woodlands expert,’ he said mildly enough, enjoying the joke as much as they did.

  Rob smiled. ‘Emery, has this little dower house no smuggler’s wine? We should lift a glass to Baltimore.’ He grinned at Grace. ‘Great crab cakes in Baltimore, by the way.’

  ‘Captain Duncan, do you eat your way through the American seaboard?’ Grace asked, relieved at how relaxed he sounded now. ‘Beans in Boston, something I can’t pronounce in New Orleans…’

  ‘Étouffée,’ he supplied.

  ‘…crab cakes in Baltimore, and…’

  ‘Brunswick stew in Georgia,’ he concluded. ‘After Elaine, I gave up wenching and concentrated on eating.’

  ‘You are a rascal,’ she said.

  ‘I am a sailor.’ He beamed at her. ‘That’s what we do.’

  While Grace struggled to keep from laughing, Emery broke the sad news that there were no spirits of any sort in the dower house. ‘I have looked, Captain.’ He paused, and his voice sounded almost prim. ‘Besides, Captain, this is only one victory. Best not celebrate too soon.’

  Rob sat back, a frown on his face. ‘Emery, if I want gloom, I’ll knock on Ugly Butler’s door.’

  * * *

  There was no denying Emery had put a damper on the discussion. Grace sat in the servants’ hall long after Emery had said goodnight and Rob had gone upstairs, using the excuse of preparing tomorrow’s evening meal and then scrubbing out the bean pot. The room was deep in shadows. The elusive Mr Selway’s money needed to stretch and she had become a martinet about candles.

  I worry too much, she told herself, as she rested her head on her arms.

  * * *

  She must have slept. When she woke up, the candle had guttered out and Rob Inman sat across the table from her. He wore the nightshirt that Emery had found for him and he was just looking at her.

  ‘You gave me a start,’ she said, her voice shaky.

  He reached across the table and put his hand on her arm. ‘Are you planning to stay down here all night and worry some more?’

  ‘If I feel like it,’ she said.

  He stood up, but kept hold of her hand, so she had to rise, too. ‘Very well,’ she grumbled.

  Rob walked her to the end of the table, then released her hand to put his arm around her, when they stood together. ‘It’s too much for me,’ he said, his voice low, as they left the kitchen and climbed the stairs. ‘Each day I wonder, is this the day the war is finally over? What about tomorrow? What if it never ends and I am stuck here? What if Lord Thomson revokes my parole and I am sent back to Dartm
oor?’

  She shuddered. His arm went around her then and they reached the top of the stairs, to just stand there.

  ‘You chose me, Grace. Here I am,’ he said simply.

  She nodded. She moved out of his embrace and went to her door, angry with herself for not accepting his obvious invitation, but even more distressed with how lonely she would be when he left, a free man. ‘Goodnight, Rob. Things aren’t so bleak now, are they? I don’t think you need me in your room now.’

  The look he gave her was long and thoughtful. She felt her resolve slip away like water on a hot griddle.

  Go away, only don’t, she thought. ‘Goodnight, Rob,’ she repeated.

  Without a word, he went into his room and closed the door. She was hours and hours getting to sleep that night.

  Chapter Twenty

  Something had changed with the good news from Baltimore. More likely, it was her rejection of him, if that’s what it was. Is it I? Grace asked herself in the days leading up to Christmas. Is it Rob?

  To call it euphoria would be no exaggeration, she decided. Rob even smiled at Nahum Smathers the next day and admitted to her later that he was just as surprised when Ugly Butler smiled back.

  ‘It looks genuine,’ he whispered, after Smathers left the bakery, where he had actually purchased a dozen doughnuts. ‘Should I worry?’

  Grace just rolled her eyes. She glanced at Rob as he popped another dozen doughnuts into an oiled paper twist, pleased to see him chatting so casually with Lady Tutt’s mousy companion. She blushed when he teased her gently, and almost became pretty; Rob could do that.

  * * *

  He already sees himself back home on Nantucket, she thought that evening. Rob lounged on the sofa in the sitting room, shoes off, reading and then dozing like any normal man and not someone constantly on the edge. If that was what good news about Baltimore could do, she was grateful.

  * * *

  It took her most of the week to admit to herself that the prospect of peace had changed Rob Inman. He and Mr Wilson had spent a spirited hour in the back room, scooping flour into smaller bags and talking about commerce on the seas, once the war ended. Grace could almost see the wheels turning in Rob’s agile brain as he told her of his plans, once he was back on Nantucket. She knew it was inevitable—she had tried to steel herself against it, after all—but the pain was lacerating, all the same.