by Carla Kelly
These were not the best days, to be sure. At three in the morning, one of the captains came to her room downstairs and begged her to sit with one of his dying lieutenants. Terrified, she followed him upstairs to the room she and Oliver had used for their wedding night. A young man, his face swollen and deformed by killing frostbite, was begging for his mother.
“Just hold his hand,” the captain ordered. She did more; she held him in her arms until he died.
After three days of this, she was as tired as the soldiers. On the fourth day, most were able to travel toward their regimental homes, only to be replaced by others, as more ships came into the Sound. She learned from Pete’s hurried visits to the harbor that the guildhall and churches were full of rank-and-file soldiers. Some attempt was made first to put them in the unmasted ships bobbing in the Hamoaze, but even that comparatively calm pitch and yaw was too much for landlubbers. Some were then forced to lie on the docks under canvas in raw January wind, until actual room could be found.
Captain Dennison stopped briefly, on his return from Admiralty House, only to tell her he was heading back to Spain. “He’ll be along soon, Mrs. Worthy,” he told her, after he drank some soup but waved away more time-consuming meat and cheese. “Tell you what, though—if something happens to Oliver, I promise to take good care of you! There now, that’s better. I’ll wager you haven’t smiled in a week.”
He was right, absurd man. He looked at the post chaise waiting in front of the Mulberry to take him to his sloop. “My second home these days,” he muttered, then chucked her under the chin. “Buck up, Nana. The soldiers coming in now are those who formed the rearguard of the retreat. Like as not, the Tireless was the last to pull away, too. You know your man.”
Dennison was right again. In the middle of the afternoon, Oliver walked up the front steps and into her arms. She looked around him, willing the post chaise to disappear, but it did not. After a kiss that seared right through her loins, and another hug, he turned around and walked back to the waiting conveyance, all without a word spoken.
He returned five nights later, more tired than she had ever seen him. She put her arm around him and helped him into the kitchen, where he shook his head at food.
“Just a bed that doesn’t move, Nana love,” he told her.
She took him into her little room, helping him off with his clothes.
“I stink,” he told her as she removed his shoes. “Haven’t changed clothes in three weeks. Sorry.”
He was asleep as soon as he lay down. She sat on her bed and watched him, relieved he was alive.
Pete and Gran were still moving about in the kitchen, talking in whispers.
“You needn’t whisper,” Nana said. “Nothing short of a volcanic eruption would wake Oliver right now. He’s so worn down.”
“He just needs some sleep.” Gran put her hands on Nana’s shoulders. “So do you. We’ve done every earthly thing we can. Go to bed, Nana.”
She did as Gran ordered, dropping her clothes by the bed and squeezing herself into the small space, happy to settle in close behind her husband and hold him. He jerked awake once toward morning, but she shushed him and he slept again without a murmur.
She was dragged out of sleep an hour later by the terrible sound of her husband weeping. The raw keen sent a chill across her shoulders. I don’t know what to do, she thought, as she did the only thing she could do, wrapping an arm and leg across his body as he cried as though his heart would break.
“Please tell me what’s wrong,” she whispered, when his tears subsided.
He shook his head violently, like a two-year-old asked to do something completely against his will. “I couldn’t possibly burden you with this.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
His voice was cold as wind off the Cattewater. He started to cry again.
Then she was angry with him, maybe angrier than she had ever been with anyone in her life, except her father, who had richly earned her dislike. She tugged at Oliver’s shoulder, but he refused to turn and look at her.
Without a word, she climbed over her bed and knelt beside it, her hands tight around his face so he could not turn away.
“Captain Worthy, you listen to me,” she ordered. “You came to the Mulberry and immediately started bearing all of my burdens, sick as you were. You even told me you loved me. Well, prove it! Let me really be your wife.” She shook him again. “I know everything is bad right now, but something is worse, isn’t it? You’d better tell me right now.”
Or what? she thought miserably. I’ll hit you? I’ll leave you? I’ll stop loving you? “Oliver, I didn’t mean to call you captain,” she said as she wiped his eyes with the sheet. “That was unkind.”
He opened his eyes at that, and managed a half smile. “That was unkind.”
She could have swooned with relief. She kissed his lips and then his cheeks and forehead, her arms tight around his neck now.
He was silent for the longest time. “Do you mean it, Nana?”
“Most emphatically. I was listening when the vicar spoke, and he said something about marrying for ‘mutual society, help and comfort.’” To her own ears, she sounded as if she were babbling, but at least he was listening. “I’m just a woman. I can’t fight your war. I wouldn’t be brave enough. But I can listen, and by God, Oliver Worthy, I’ll be damned if you have to cry alone! Don’t you dare dismiss me again!”
She had never spoken with so much energy to anyone before. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was injure this man she loved more than her own body, and here she was in the early hours, speaking with such vehemence. What have I done? she asked herself miserably.
It must have been the right thing, because Oliver shifted backward a little on the narrow bed and held up the bed-clothes so she could get in. “I still stink,” he said.
She hitched up her nightgown and put her leg over him. She pulled herself close until they were breast-to-breast. Oliver tried several times to speak, but couldn’t. Finally, he closed his eyes and breathed slowly and carefully until he had calmed himself sufficiently, all the while she stroked his face.
He took a deep breath. “Mr. Proudy is dead.”
Chapter Sixteen
“My darling, what happened?”
It spilled out of him. At one time she had to urge him to slow down.
“We were the last frigate away from Corunna. Major General Beresford brought up the rear, and he was on board. We took off all the rest of the wounded,” he added, and there was no mistaking the pride in his voice.
She kissed his forehead. “I’m not surprised.”
“Nana, the Channel was terrible. Even some of my best men were seasick, and that’s rare.” He sniffed her. “You smell so good.”
“Of course I do. I’m just a Plymouth layabout.”
“That’s not what I’ve been hearing from others.” Then he was back in the Channel again. “It was getting dark. We were having one squall after another, and the rigging had started to freeze.”
He looked around the room. “I should be on my way. We have to sail as soon…”
Nana pressed her fingers to his lips. “Not now. Tell me.”
Dutifully, he continued. “Christopher Quayle was in the crosstrees on the mainmast. Mr. Proudy shouted for him to come down, but he couldn’t move.”
“Was he hurt?”
“No. Just afraid. It happens to the best of seamen, especially when the ship is pitching about. You can imagine.”
She could. Just thinking about it made her heart race faster.
“Mr. Proudy started up the ratlines with a rope to retrieve Quayle.”
“What was he going to do?”
“Lash Quayle to his back and carry him down. I’ve done it before. Had it done to me once, when I was a young gentleman. Not very dignified, when you’re trying to convince yourself you’re a sailor.”
“Couldn’t he just have stayed there until he got the nerve to come down?”
“Ordinar
ily, yes, but it was so cold he would have died up there. I was in my cabin when all this was going on. Mr. Brittle came to tell me what had happened, so I ran on deck, hollering to Mr. Proudy to stop.”
“Why?”
“He’s not a good climber, Nana. Some men just aren’t, even the best officers.” Oliver brought his other arm around her. “He always obeys me but he didn’t this time. Damn the man! Why did Will not obey?”
That was the first time he had said Mr. Proudy’s Christian name. Nana closed her eyes, grateful through her whole body that she would probably never command anything more than children, and maybe a handful of servants, if that.
“Will was almost to the crosstrees when he fell,” Oliver said, his voice dogged now, as if determined to get through this nightmare. “To make it worse, he landed on the carpenter’s mate and killed him. Will suffered for another day and a half in the worst agony. He kept asking for Sarah, his wife,” Oliver sobbed. “Over and over! And damn me, I kept thinking, what if that had been me? Nana, what have we done?”
“We fell in love and married, just as the Proudys did,” she murmured, tears in her eyes. “Even the navy can’t stop that, Oliver. What happened to the man on lookout?”
“I carried him down,” Oliver said. “I climbed barefoot. I wish to God Will had at least taken off his shoes! Sometimes it’s easier that way.” He sighed. “And then when Quayle was still on my back and crying, too, I had to stand in front of the whole crew and tell them if any of them blamed Quayle for what happened, I would personally flog them with two hundred stripes each.” He burrowed his face into her shoulder. “I sat with Will until he died, asking for Sarah and broken-hearted because she would not come.”
There wasn’t anything she could say, so she didn’t try. She rubbed her hands across his back, pressing hard against his flesh. To her relief, he slept again, his face more peaceful this time.
She couldn’t sleep. She heard Sal and then Gran moving about in the kitchen. She tried to ease herself out of Oliver’s close embrace, but his arms only tightened around her. “Don’t leave me,” he ordered, and it was in no way a suggestion.
“Aye, sir,” she whispered. She had no urge to leave, beyond the need to help in the kitchen. Gran knew her grandson-in-law was here, so would never disturb them.
Nana watched her husband, seeing agitation cross his expressive face now and then as he slept, as though he had no relief from responsibility, not even in his new wife’s bed. Loving him, fearing for him, she put her hand gently around his neck, rubbing her thumb against the nape of it, where his hair was getting long again.
Her action seemed to serve as a trigger, because Oliver woke, managed a half smile that never reached his eyes and began to run his hand down her bare hip.
Almost before she knew it, they were making love: not gentle love, but something borne more of desperation and longing, of acute pain, even, as Oliver used her body to comfort himself for the loss of a valued first mate, maybe even a friend.
As new as she was to this marriage business, Nana understood, and gave herself to him gladly, thinking how puny her own contribution to his solace must be, realizing it was more powerful than she ever could have dreamed a mere month ago.
There was her own pleasure to consider, too. In all his own needs, her husband was mindful of hers in a way that touched her almost as much as their climax. If it were possible to banish care, relieve pain and renew hope for the future, they did exactly that, on a narrow bed in a small room off a kitchen in a shabby inn beloved by some and unknown by more.
Coming to know her body now, thanks to him, she would have wished him to continue, once they were both so satisfied, but she knew better this time. He was still tired right down to the soles of his feet. For all she knew, duty was a strumpet, blowing in his ear, teasing him in other ways she had no control over. So be it. If this was the cross of the wife of a captain in the Channel Fleet, then it was hers to bear. God willing, there would be other times, better ones.
“Nana, you’re a remedy,” he said finally, echoing what she thought he might be feeling. “Should I feel like a churl?”
“No. I don’t mean this to sound frivolous, but there may come a day when I have burned the dinner, the children are misbehaving and the servants have cheated us, that you will be called on to service me.”
He laughed out loud, and it was the healthiest sound. “Fair is fair,” he told her, pinching her rump. “By God, you have a nice shape.”
“I think it’s pretty typical of females,” she informed him.
He sat up, and she did, too. He took her on his lap, even as she blushed and tried to cover herself.
“You amaze me,” he said, as he tugged up the sheet to cover them both. “Here we were, making love with sincere abandon, and now you’re shy because you’re naked.”
“I hope you feel better,” she said simply.
“How could I not?” he answered. His eyes clouded then. “I stopped in Salisbury to offer my condolences to Mrs. Proudy.”
“Did she…”
“Already know? Yes. Virgil Dennison had dropped my letter off on his trip the week before. I stopped to give her the necessary papers allowing her access to her husband’s prize money. I added more. She’ll want for nothing.”
“Except a husband,” Nana said, not thinking.
Oliver winced. He put his finger over her lips when she opened them to apologize. “That’s the tragedy of this bad business, Eleanor. She’s not feeling any kindness toward the Royal Navy right now.”
“I could go see her, but I’m not so sure she’d welcome a visit.”
“No?”
She told him about standing at the Hoe with Mrs. Brittle, and how Mrs. Proudy had so pointedly avoided them. “She thinks I am too common, as the granddaughter of an innkeeper. We should be relieved she does not know of my unsavory lineage.”
He tightened his arms around her.
“Just as long as you don’t ever have cause to feel that way,” she said. “I don’t want to feel…unworthy.”
“No, wife, you’re very much a Worthy.” He slid back down into the bed, keeping her on top of him. “In fact, be gentle with me again, in my weakened condition, Mrs. Ever-so-worthy.”
She made herself comfortable—content with the ease he entered her—but couldn’t help saying, “Now this is a new prospect. Does it change the rhythm? Oh, apparently not.”
“I really have to leave now,” Oliver said, after what seemed like only minutes later.
“A bath first,” she insisted, getting up decisively this time. “Then back to duty.”
“Indeed,” he agreed, as he rose, too, and pulled on his shirt and trousers. “I’ll spare your blushes and go ask Pete and Sal to carry some water into the washroom.” He put his hand on the doorknob. “But only if you’ll scrub my back.”
She scrubbed his back, kissing it, too, until he told her she’d better stop. She could tell he was joking, but the edge of command was returning to his voice. She knew he was thinking about what lay ahead, and not his own pleasure any longer.
“Back to patrol?” she asked, pouring warm water on his back.
“More than that. We have to land Rogelio Rodriguez back onshore below Corunna. He came off with us, and now he has to return to find out what he can in the interior.” He flicked some water on her. “Then we have to rendezvous in a few weeks, so I can take back the latest news.”
“I like to think you send someone ashore to do that for you,” she said, doubt in her voice.
“Alas, no. I wouldn’t dream of putting my crew in that kind of danger,” he said. “There. I didn’t want to say it, but you need to know the risks I run. Some of them.”
He left a short time later, after waiting patiently for Gran to fuss over him and fix another wheat poultice for his neck and ears.
“I meant to give you this last time,” she told him gruffly, even as Nana watched her wink back tears.
He stuffed it in his duffel bag. “I just w
arm it?”
Gran had turned away to dab at her eyes, so Nana took his arm and led him along the corridor. “Warm it, but not too hot or you will probably tempt the ship’s rats.”
“Now that’s a note to leave on,” he said. He squared his shoulders as she opened the door. “Still, it’s a better note than the one I came in on.”
He pulled her into his embrace again, the feel of him so familiar to her now as to make her wonder how she ever managed before he came to the Mulberry.
“I almost forgot,” he told her hair. “According to her husband, Mrs. Brittle is wanting a visit from you. Find a day to go to Torquay and drink tea with a lady who has not a qualm about you—her and most of the Channel Fleet, I might add.”
She kept talking, not wanting to end the embrace he also seemed reluctant to discontinue. “How could the Channel Fleet know anything about me?”
“You’d be amazed at the gossip between ships, Nana. Those signal flags don’t always dwell on business, I assure you.” He cleared his throat. “I hear there were wagers on whether O. Worthy would ever get spliced. Apparently significant quid changed hands.”
She remembered news of her own, and walked him to the gate. “I forgot something, too. Mr. Lefebvre vanished. Pete says he was pressed onto a merchantman bound for India.”
“Imagine that” was all her quixotic husband said as he blew her a kiss and started down the street toward the harbor.
Nana knew a week was too soon for a letter from her husband. He told her that it usually took five days for the Tireless to reach Ferrol Station. Return trips could be the same length, or longer, depending on the winds, as always. Still, she looked for a letter delivered by Captain Dennison, who seemed to alternate his return voyages with Oliver’s.
Beyond her own longings for a letter to be delivered at supernatural speed, Pete kept her posted on fleet news.
“The scuttlebutt seems to be the government is trying to decide when and where to send more troops, Nana,” he said. “There’s talk of Sir Arthur Wellesley commanding them.”
“Who?”
