Marriage of Mercy. Carla Kelly

Dartmoor, contrasted with the unexpected kindness in the eyes of Rob Inman’s shipmates, as she knelt in the odourous straw by their dead leader.

      She sat up, listening. There was no mistaking it. Someone was moving down the narrow hallway to the stairs.

      Her heart hammering in her breast, Grace threw back her covers and reached for her shawl. She opened her door to see Rob Inman walking quietly down the stairs.

      ‘Rob Inman, you had better not be planning an escape. You’re taller than I am, but I think I could stop you.’

      He stopped and looked around, startled at first, then amused. ‘You probably could,’ he told her, then sank down on the step. ‘I tried to wrestle a rat last week and ended up losing my shoelaces.’

      She sat beside him, but not too close. ‘Are you hungry?’ she whispered.

      He nodded. ‘If my left leg didn’t smell so bad, I’d probably gnaw on it. D’ye think there’s anything edible in the kitchen besides that old man who thinks he’s a butler?’

      Grace put her hand to her mouth to stop her laugh. ‘I think there’s another sandwich or two in the basket. Shall we find out?’

      He nodded and tried to rise, then shook his head. ‘Best you go on and save yourself, miss. I think I’m done for.’

      ‘Spare me the drama,’ she teased as she started down the stairs. ‘Promise you won’t jump parole, and I’ll find you a sandwich.’

      ‘I can’t make a promise like that,’ he said quickly.

      ‘You must, on your word as a gentleman,’ she replied just as quickly. ‘You will be shot dead if you break parole. I’m not quizzing you.’

      He gave her a long look, as if weighing the very marrow of her bones. ‘If I must, I will. But know this—Captain Duncan may have been a gentleman, for all that he was a bastard. Rob Inman is no gentleman and never was.’

      ‘I suppose that will have to do,’ she said dubiously, puzzled about this man old Lord Thomson had foisted on her. No, that she had foisted on herself in Dartmoor. ‘But I have questions.’

      ‘I imagine you do.’ He grinned. ‘And I’m still hungry.’

      She found the basket easily enough in the dark kitchen and tiptoed with it upstairs, after pausing a moment to smile at the sound of Emery’s snoring. She handed the captain the remaining sandwich; he waited not a moment to demolish it and look around for more. She followed it with one of her own Quimby Crèmes. The cook at the manor house had obviously visited the Wilsons’ bakery a few days ago. Grace had made these just before the visit to Dartmoor.

      ‘I could eat more of these,’ he said, his mouth full.

      ‘You will. I made them,’ she said proudly. ‘My own recipe.’

      He looked at her, a question in his eyes.

      ‘I’m a baker for the Wilsons in Quimby,’ she told him. ‘Well, I was, and I will be again once you are sorted out.’

      ‘You’re going to sort me out?’ the parolee asked, humour in his voice. He might have been hungry and weak, but he wasn’t slow. ‘How on earth did you end up as Captain Duncan’s keeper?’ He popped the rest of the biscuit into his mouth. ‘If that’s what you are.’

      ‘I suppose I am, in a way. Your keeper now,’ she mused. ‘The old Lord Thomson—I wouldn’t give you a penny for the new one—used to visit the bakery shop regularly and he liked my Crèmes. He was full of crochets, but I never paid his ill humour any mind.’ She couldn’t help the tears that welled in her eyes and hoped they didn’t show. ‘I think I was almost his only friend.’ She also couldn’t help the way her voice hardened. ‘His own relatives were just waiting for him to die. Shame on them.’

      ‘I don’t see the connection, Miss … Grace.’

      ‘Nor do I. For some reason, Lord Thomson provided me with the dower house to live in and thirty pounds a year. I suppose that will last until the new Lord Thomson works out some way to stop it.’

      ‘I gather you could use the money,’ he commented.

      ‘I could, indeed. I intend to buy the bakery some day.’

      ‘But you don’t sound confident Lord Thomson’s kindness will continue.’

      ‘I’m certain it won’t,’ she replied, with no qualms. ‘People like that generally get their way, or haven’t you noticed?’

      ‘Aye, lass, I’ve noticed.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Why did the old man parole Captain Duncan? I know his origins. Dan was never shy about them. Was it a case of the old rascal wanting to help his bastard son from America?’

      ‘I suppose that was it,’ she replied. ‘You’ll find this amusing, but Mr Selway told me that Lord Thomson had some vision of Captain Duncan and me falling in love and marrying.’

      ‘Then you would have had to reckon with the captain’s wife and two children on Nantucket!’ He sighed heavily then. ‘Wish I could get word to them about what has befallen as good a man as I ever knew.’

      ‘I suppose it will have to wait until the war is over and you go home,’ she said. To lighten the moment, she added, ‘And I suppose you have similar entanglements to prevent my falling in love with you!’

      ‘Well, no,’ he said quietly. ‘I did have a wife, but she died. A Nantucket girl, like Captain Duncan’s Bess. She understood the sea. They do, on Nantucket.’

      ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Grace said. ‘I didn’t mean to make light of it.’

      ‘How were you to know? It’s been almost four years, but I am sorry, too,’ he told her. He turned reflective then, leaning on his elbow on the stairs. ‘What with the sea and then the war, I reckon I spent more time on the Orontes than in my own bed on Orange Street. Oh, and let’s not forget the attractions of Dartmoor.’

      She thought about the seafarers Rob Inman had left behind. Something about the man beside her seemed to loosen her tongue. It couldn’t have been an air of capability, not with him so weak he had to prop himself up on the stairs. Still, she wanted to talk to him.

      ‘Tell me. The sailor in that dreadful stall. He said “thee” and “thou”.’

      The expression in Rob’s eyes seemed to soften. ‘You have to know Nantucket. It’s an island of seafarers, many of them Quakers.’

      ‘Are you …?’

      ‘Not I. Most of my neighbours back home are.’

      He was silent, probably thinking of his island. She touched his arm lightly. ‘I’ve never quite been able to understand why things happen the way they do. Maybe people have to be really old to understand.’

      They were both silent. She reached for his hand. ‘Let me give you a hand up, Captain Duncan,’ she said. ‘Remember, you are Captain Duncan, you must be. Maybe you can sleep, now that you’ve had something to eat. Tomorrow comes early and we have quite a morning planned for you.’

      ‘Eh?’ He was shaky on his feet, so she held his hand until he regained his balance.

      ‘It involves a bath and pine-tar soap and short hair again and no beard. Even if you’re truly attached to prison yellow, your clothes are going in the burn pit.’

      ‘You can have them and gladly, too, but I don’t have anything else to wear,’ he reminded her. ‘Prisoners don’t come with wardrobes.’

      ‘Mr Selway is two steps ahead of you,’ she assured him, as they slowly walked up the stairs and to his room. ‘Whether you like it or not, he’s acquired shirts and trousers from Royal Navy stores in the Plymouth navy yard.’

      ‘The Royal Navy? Oh, foul!’

      ‘It’s no more than checkered