by Carla Kelly
It did neither. Pete enlisted the powder monkey to carry the kitchen scraps to the backyard and burn them in a barrel. Then he set the boy to work chopping kindling for tomorrow’s meals.
Sal scraped plates while Oliver dried and Nana washed. He put his credit at risk—if he even had any—and leaned close. “I think I am upsetting your grandmama, and I don’t know why.”
“I’ll tell you later,” Nana said as she handed him a plate. “She’s not upset.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Excuse my doubt, then.”
Nana smiled into the suds, not even looking at him. “If you were around females more, you would understand the difference between tears of joy and the other kind.”
Her revelation only left him more mystified than before. He directed his attention to the business at hand, when he wasn’t sneaking peeks at Nana. Why on earth doesn’t this well-raised lady rail against the hand fate seems to have dealt her? he asked himself. I would.
Since Nana had assured him Gran wasn’t afraid of him or angry, he took his chance to speak to her in private when he asked Nana to go upstairs to his room and retrieve Robinson Crusoe.
“Mrs. Massie, I am probably overreaching all kinds of propriety, but I just don’t have much time here,” he started.
She stopped scrubbing the stove and held the cloth in front of her, waiting.
“I know times are hard here—this whole shore is being battered by the war in ways we don’t often notice, when we are at sea. You are all bearing up admirably, but I’m worried that your granddaughter is too thin.”
“It worries me, too,” Mrs. Massie replied, her voice soft. “I hate it.”
“If you will allow it, I will leave you with a sufficiency to buy whatever you need to eat here, after I am gone back to the Channel,” he said. He tried to achieve some balance between outright command and feeble supplication. If he sounded reasonable enough, she might agree; if not, she would spurn his offer as condescending charity.
He must have hit it right. Gran’s eyes filled with tears again, but he knew what Nana meant this time. She wasn’t angry with him, or sad. Her relief was obvious, and as palpable as if she had thrown her arms around his neck and sobbed into his chest.
One burden lifted, he thought. “I’ll set up an account for the Mulberry at Carter and Brustein tomorrow,” he told her. “You have all been so kind to me, and I know this would relieve your mind.”
She did something then that he had not expected. Before he could stop her, the woman took his hand and kissed it. With her apron to her eyes, she left the kitchen. He was relieved she did not question him, and embarrass them both by asking if he could afford such philanthropy. I can afford it, Mrs. Massie, he thought. I could feed Plymouth, if it came to that.
He had read Robinson Crusoe several times before; never did he enjoy it more. Nana sat close to the fire, book in her lap, and with the added fortification of a lamp close by. He sat on the opposite side of the room, free to observe her at his leisure. Sal and Matthew—after securing his permission—sat close to her on the floor, legs crossed. Gran, her face content, sat close, too, knitting. The rhythmic click of her needles reminded Oliver of his own mother, who never sat down without some work or other to occupy her hands. Pete fell asleep after the first chapter.
Oliver felt himself nodding off, too, soothed by the timbre of Nana’s voice. Her accent was a delightful combination of the delicacy of her Bath upbringing with the little turn to the Rs he often heard in the speech of the Devonshire coast. She had their same way of drawing out her Os he was familiar with from the same source, but which must have driven Miss Pym to chewing carpet tacks, if she was a stickler. Miss Pym, you can’t take all the Plymouth out of the lady, he thought.
He couldn’t help himself then—he was a man, after all. As she read of Robinson Crusoe’s capture by pirates, he began to wonder what Nana would be like in bed. No question she would have to put on some weight before that romp. He wasn’t a weighty man himself, but he’d be afraid of breaking her in half, at her present stone. She wasn’t tall, but her height seemed to be in her legs. He had never seen them, of course, but he couldn’t help imagining how nice they would be wrapped around his waist, and the soft sound of her breath, coming more ragged, in his ear.
Good God, stop this, he told himself, grateful that he sat in a distant corner and so no one probably heard the little groan he hoped he had stifled. He concentrated on her story, instead, and gradually fell under its spell, like the rest of her audience.
He was in perfect charity with himself when Nana closed the book, looked around, and then at him across the room. “I believe you and I are the only people awake in this room, Captain.”
“I believe you’re right.”
“What do you suggest, sir?”
“Send them all to bed.”
It was easy to do. A touch to the shoulder was enough to bring Matthew wide-awake and on his feet. Sal took longer. Gran yawned and agreed to settle down the children.
“I can sleep here on the floor,” the powder monkey said. “It’s softer than the gun deck.”
Shocked, Nana stared at Oliver, who held up his hands to ward off her look. “He sleeps in a hammock! Honestly! Well, generally,” he admitted. “We’ve all taken our turn on deck, I’m sure.”
“He’ll be in Sal’s room tonight, and she will share with me,” Nana said firmly. “Matthew, you are our guest.”
The powder monkey knew better than to argue. With a smile in Oliver’s direction, Gran led the way and Matthew and Sal followed. Nana still sat in the chair by the fireplace, the book in her lap.
Oliver couldn’t believe his good fortune. Pete had gone to bed an hour ago, and Gran had deserted the field. He came closer and sat in the chair Gran had vacated, stretching out his legs and resting his shoes on the fireplace grate. Nana would have to go around his length to leave the room, so maybe she would stay a moment longer.
She seemed disinclined to move, or even to speak. He glanced at her face, and she looked away. He had no illusions she would stay for long, but he did have a question that she had promised to answer. But first, he had to thank her.
“Miss Massie, I’m grateful for your kindness to Matthew tonight.”
She waved her hand at him, as though it was too unimportant to mention. “It was no trouble. He’s a sweet boy and we have the room.”
He could tell she wanted to say more, so he returned his gaze to the fire, and not to her expressive face.
“I don’t think he’s ever had lamb chops before.”
Lamp chops. What a prosaic statement. They could have been husband and wife, discussing a child of theirs. The thought struck him like a gong that this must be what peace felt like: sitting before a fire, discussing lamb chops and talking about children, without a care or a worry beyond the limits of the room. It was almost unbelievable.
“I doubt lamb chops are a prominent entrée in a workhouse,” Oliver agreed, when he recovered from the novelty of his thoughts. “I can tell you this—he’s eaten shish kebab in a Moroccan bazaar before.”
She thought about that. “You’re telling me that although yours is an onerous life, it has its rewards.” She leaned forward impulsively, as though she wanted to touch his arm. “I’ve never been to Morocco.”
“No. You travel in quieter circles.” He leaned back, liking the feel of the fire’s warmth on his soles. Even more, he liked that this lovely woman could remain quietly in a safe place, thanks to the horrible work he, and men like him, did. “You were going to tell me earlier why Gran seemed so emotional about this evening.”
“I was.” Nana leaned back, too, and tucked her legs under her, so she was resting her cheek against the chair, and looked directly at him. “For ten years, we had a lodger named Miss Edgar, a former governess.”
“That must have been a welcome, steady income for the Mulberry,” he said, not sure his heart was up to her direct gaze.
“It would have been, except she ran out of mo
ney after year five.” Nana spoke matter-of-factly, as though such a thing happened to every hotelier. “We kept her on and never spoke about it. We couldn’t have turned her onto the mercy of the parish.”
Others would, he thought. No wonder the Mulberry never made any money.
“Miss Edgar always ate alone in the dining room. Gran tried and tried to get her to do what you and Matthew did tonight, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Even when she was living on our charity, she wouldn’t join us here.”
“Too good for the Massies, eh?” He said it softly, but the slight burned him. How could someone, especially someone living on their charity, not see the goodness of the women who ran the Mulberry? How could someone be so stupidly blind?
Nana seemed to understand. “I think pride must be a terrible burden, Captain Worthy. Miss Edgar was poorer than Job’s rooster, but quality, and therefore too proud to eat with us and have some company in her old age. She and Gran could have been friends. It broke my grandmama’s heart.”
She did touch his hand then. He held his breath, afraid that if he moved, she would realize what she was doing. She kept her fingers against the back of his hand, even pressing down on them. “When you asked if you and Matthew could eat with us tonight, she was so overwhelmed she could barely speak to tell me to lay two more places at the table. Thank you, Captain Worthy. I can’t tell you what that meant to her, after Miss Edgar.”
Before he thought, he turned his hand over and clasped hers. She smiled at him, then gently withdrew her fingers. “You made her very happy tonight,” Nana said, showing no embarrassment at his brief attempt to hold her hand. “Me, too,” she added.
If she had not said that, he would have stood up, extended his apologies and retired from the field. I’m a fool, he thought. In for a penny, in for a pound.
She continued to watch him from her comfortable pose, as though she often sat that way, curled in a chair’s embrace. He longed to pluck her from her seat and hold her close in his lap, doing nothing more than keeping his arms tight around her.
Her hand still rested on the arm of her chair. He tapped the back of it once, lightly. “I want to ask you something that is absolutely none of my business,” he began.
She didn’t say anything, but watched him with an expression of interest and a little wariness.
“Blame Lord Nelson. He once said, ‘A captain cannot go wrong who places his ship alongside an enemy’s.’ Not that you’re an enemy,” he hurried to add, then stopped, dumbfounded by his idiocy.
He could have planted a great, smacking kiss on her forehead then, because she seemed to understand his question before he asked it.
“You’re not the first to wonder why on earth I left Bath when I was sixteen and came back here, when I had a father who was willing to educate me to become a lady.”
She spoke almost as prosaically as when she had mentioned lamb chops. He could have kicked himself when she straightened up and looked into the fire again, instead of at him. “Many would like to know,” she murmured, speaking more to herself than to him.
And you’re not going to tell me, he thought. It never was my business. Why should you?
“Why do you want to know?” she asked suddenly.
He wasn’t sure he even had a reason. Maybe he was more like Matthew, struck almost dumb by the pleasure of being part of a family, albeit an odd one. He had never had a home since he was twelve. Only a few days at a shabby inn on one of Plymouth’s backstreets must have sucked him in deeper than he had realized, to ask such an audacious question.
He was not about to tell her of Lord Ratliffe’s request that he spy on the Mulberry and provide a report. He was already feeling distinctly uneasy that he had written to Nana’s father at all.
He could tell her that he cared about her and wanted to know if she had been hurt in some way. He knew he could not do that, either, because he was in no position to care about anyone other than his crew and his ship. Two hundred men and a 34-gun frigate had leeched all the love and devotion from him that he possessed. At least, he thought they had.
“I just want to know,” he told her simply.
He held his breath when she rose, but it was only to close the door to the sitting room. He let it out as she returned to her chair and resumed her former, curled posture.
“I’ll tell you, Captain. It’s not that horrible, I suppose. Maybe only what I should have expected.”
Chapter Seven
Nana braced herself to answer him, knowing how repellant he would find what she had to say, and what a reminder it was of her illegitimacy. I can never escape it, she thought. I am a fool if I think I can.
Pete and Gran knew. In her humiliation five years ago, she had thought to keep the reason from them, but her resolve had crumbled at first sight of their worried faces when she came home to them, carrying nothing except a reticule.
Telling Captain Worthy was different. Whatever warmth she had felt from him would be gone. She reasoned it was for the best; her explanation would serve as an antidote to what her heart had been telling her. She took a deep breath.
“My unmarried mother died in childbirth. My father, William Stokes, Viscount Ratliffe, was a lieutenant on the Tonnant then. I think he might have been in love with my mother, because he made no effort to deny his paternity.”
“Big of him,” the captain murmured.
“I suppose few do admit it, sir, so have some charity,” she said, sounding sharper than she wanted to.
He said nothing; he obviously did not agree with her. She could tell he would be a diverting man to argue with. Too bad that would never happen now.
“Gran extracted a promise in writing from Lord Ratliffe that he would see to my education and provide me with a future of some sort,” she continued. “I stayed in Plymouth until my fifth year, so all my early memories are of here.”
“What was your first memory of Plymouth?”
She could see he was interested in her as a child, which she found flattering.
“The seagulls, most certainly,” she told him. She laughed, and put her hand on his chair arm. “I remember their sound. They were everywhere, especially when the fishing smacks came to port. Gran told me we were at the docks once, and a seagull landed on my head and stole a biscuit from my hand.”
“I’ve seen that happen aboard ship,” he said. “Pesky thieves, eh?”
She settled back again. “I cried when Gran took me to Miss Pym’s. The only thing that kept me from dying of homesickness was that Bath has seagulls, too.”
“You left home even younger than I did. Imagine.”
So true, she thought, startled. “At least I was allowed home on holidays. Miss Pym couldn’t understand why I wanted to go to Plymouth at every opportunity, but Gran loves me and I adore her.”
She glanced at him. Even in the low light, the color that sprang into his sallow cheeks surprised her. Captain Worthy, you must have loved someone, too, she thought. I wish it were me. She was quiet a moment longer, wondering how any woman in her right mind would not want to be loved by Captain Worthy.
“I never met my father until I turned sixteen, but every year, he sent an artist to paint a miniature of me.”
She stopped, not wanting to go on. He did not press her to continue, which made her heart sink. Obviously, the whole subject was disgusting to him. Nana, what did you expect? she reminded herself. Better get it over with.
“When I turned sixteen, Lord Ratliffe invited me to London. I went to his home.”
“How did he receive you?”
“He was all kindness, and so polite,” she said. “I could never fault him for his manners. They were easily as good as Gran’s.”
She needed him to laugh, and he did, lightening the tension in the room. She stared straight ahead then, too humiliated to look at Captain Worthy. “As calmly as if he were talking of the weather, he told me he had arranged for me to become a mistress for one of his cronies, in exchange for payment of his debts.”
�
�Good God!” the captain exclaimed. He leaped up, and paced the room. He finally stopped by the mantelpiece and stared into the fire. “Did he explain himself?”
“I believe he considered that explanation enough. He assured me he had not educated me for nothing, and that any…” Her voice faltered. “Any bastard could surely not have hoped for something better.”
Well, that was said. Perhaps she could continue, if only she did not look at the horror on his face. “That was why he had wanted a miniature every year. He told me he passed it around every year at his club until he found a taker. Someone who would pay his debts to have me.”
Captain Worthy exclaimed something she had heard years ago on the docks that earned her a swat and no dinner, when she had repeated it to Gran. She dared herself a glance at his face, and it was stone-cold. As she watched, his expression turned to sorrow, as though the pain were his, too. It warmed her heart.
“I should be grateful, I suppose. He told me when I was eleven, there was a marquis who wanted me. Lord Ratliffe at least had the decency to turn him down, or so he told me.” She made a face. “He said he wouldn’t for the world have given me into the care of a beast who fancied children. It’s funny, Captain. He seemed to think this meant he was a caring father.”
Captain Worthy looked stunned. He sat down hard, as though his legs couldn’t hold him. “I don’t know what to say.”
“I didn’t, either. I just stared at him.” She didn’t try to stop her tears. “When I told him I would never consent to anything so sordid, he laughed at me. ‘What did you expect, you bastard?’ he said, and then ordered me to get out of his sight.”
Nana wiped her eyes on her apron. As she leaned forward, she felt the captain’s hand on the back of her neck. His fingers were warm and the gesture, though brief, was comforting.
“I left London immediately. A few days later, Miss Pym told me my father was no longer paying my expenses at her school, and I would have to quit Bath.” She looked at him then. “Captain Worthy, I returned to Plymouth, where Gran loves me.”
