by Carla Kelly
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 windowpane.
“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.”
