Marriage of Mercy. Carla Kelly

moves, now.’

      She hacked at his hair. ‘I had no idea it was this colour,’ she commented, as she worked her way around his head. Emery had vanished and the maid watched—her eyes wide—from the security of the shrubbery.

      ‘It hadn’t been washed in a year,’ Rob said, ‘Cut it closer. Don’t be afraid.’

      Grace concentrated on the task, then glanced at the maid. ‘What do you think?’

      ‘I think ‘e’s ‘andsome.’

      Rob laughed out loud, which sent her running up the steps and into the house, her apron clutched to her face.

      ‘You’ve embarrassed her, Captain Duncan,’ Grace said severely. ‘And no, you’re not handsome.’

      Maybe he could be. Grace cut closer to his scalp, flicking her fingers against his head when he moved. ‘Stop that, unless you want me to inflict a serious injury.’

      As soon as she said that, Grace thought of the marks of the lash on his back, covered now with a respectable shirt. ‘I doubt anything I do would trouble you much,’ she amended. ‘Still, behave yourself. Mr Selway is gone and you must mind me.’

      ‘Mr Selway spoke to me earlier. I’ll tell you what I told him, I cannot promise good behaviour,’ he replied, serious now. ‘What’s to prevent me, once I get my strength back, from just walking away from here? You don’t appear intimidating. I could knock over Emery with a mere backhand.’ He chuckled. ‘That maid is usually at Quarle, but she thinks I’m ‘andsome, so she’ll give me no grief.’

      ‘Mr Selway said you will be shot on sight,’ Grace protested.

      ‘An irate husband said that to me once,’ he mused.

      Grace flicked her fingers against his scalp, harder this time.

      ‘Ow!’ He put his hand to his head. ‘D’ye have steel splinters for fingernails?’ He turned serious then. ‘They’d have to find me to shoot me.’ He shrugged and shook the hair from the towel. ‘Careful around my ears.’

      Swallowing the irritation she felt, Grace did as she was bid, admiring his hair. It seemed a shame to cut it so short.

      The captain fell silent then. She hummed as she worked, looking at him objectively. The maid might be right. When Rob was allowed to eat in peace, the bony lines of his face would certainly fill out. His nose was straight and his lips full enough for all general purposes.

      She stood back a moment, looking at him, before she started on his face. ‘I’ll trim your beard with the shears, then you can get close to it with a razor.’

      Rob Inman did look better, despite his emaciation. She could hardly avoid noticing how blue his eyes were, maybe almost as blue as Plymouth Sound on a good day with no overcast. Intent upon her business, she trimmed close to his high cheekbones. He did have long lashes, the kind a woman would envy. She would, at any rate, if she bothered to invest much thought in the matter.

      When his face was trimmed to within shaving distance of a straight razor, she crouched a little to tackle his neck. He turned his head to oblige her. After a few snips, she stopped and stared.

      ‘My God,’ she whispered.

      Rob frowned, then must have realised what she was staring at. ‘It’s not that bad, Grace. It didn’t hurt for long.’

      She couldn’t help her tears, but wiped them away with her apron, even as she knelt in the grass by the stool. ‘Why would anyone do that?’ she asked, when she could speak.

      Her question seemed to embarrass him. His finger went to the black imprint of the letter R in his neck just below the hinge of his jaw. ‘I don’t think the British penal system has much fondness for runaways, Gracie. At least that’s what we figured it stood for. Or maybe rascal, or wretch, except I think that’s spelled with a w. Think what a permanent memory I’ll have of your island.’

       Chapter Seven

      ‘They did that to you in Dartmoor?’ Grace asked. She just held the scissors. Her hands shook, and she didn’t trust herself to continue.

      ‘Who can blame them?’ he asked. ‘I did a runner, and had the misfortune to be caught and hauled back. When Captain Shortland grew bored of his goon lashing my back, he brought out the iron. Grace, it was seven or eight months ago. Now I just have a souvenir.’

      ‘That doesn’t make it right,’ she said, wondering why she wanted to argue this kind of logic with a prisoner, someone who had done her country harm.

      He tried to smile, but she saw how tired he was. ‘Grace, there’s no accounting for war. It’s a nasty business, better not engaged in, but once you’re caught in its grip, you realise how small a cog in the great wheel you truly are. Admiral or powder monkey, it hardly matters. Just cut me close,’ he told her; now there was no mistaking the exhaustion in his voice. ‘I’ll shave myself, if you trust me with a razor.’

      ‘Of course I do. And while you’re doing that, I’ll bring out some breakfast.’

      ‘Music to my ears,’ he said with a conscious effort.

      She hurried as fast as she could, because he seemed to wilt before her eyes. She wished she had brought him breakfast even before the bath; it was all he could do to sit upright. ‘I’ll send Emery out with a razor, soap and hot water.’

      Rob shook his head. ‘Food first.’ He could barely keep his eyes opened. ‘Anything.’

      ‘I’ll hurry back,’ she said, irritated with herself for not noticing how weak he was.

      When she returned with a tray of well-sugared porridge and two hard rolls stuffed with butter and marmalade, her charge lay asleep on the ground. He had pillowed his head on his arms and his breath came slow and peaceful.

      ‘Drat!’ Grace said under her breath, guilty she had not thought to bring him food sooner. She set the tray beside him in the grass and sat cross-legged next to him under a hawthorn tree, which was shedding its white blossoms.

      Perhaps he had smelled the food. Rob opened his eyes and reached for a roll, almost in one motion. He moved onto his back, chewing and swallowing with the same singleness of mind she had seen yesterday, when he had devoured the watercress. The other roll went down faster than the first.

      ‘Can you help me sit up? It’s a pain to be so useless.’

      She did as he asked. In another moment, the bowl of porridge was just a memory. He looked around for more.

      ‘Emery is afraid you will vomit if you eat any more right now,’ Grace told him.

      ‘Emery can take a flying leap off a quay,’ Rob said. ‘You’re a baker’s assistant? At some point in your life, maybe you knew what it’s like to be hungry.’

      ‘I’ve been lucky,’ she said, too shy to tell him of her plummet from her station in life and her rescue from a worse fate by the Wilsons.

      By the time Rob had finished shaving—he took his time, stopping to rest—Grace had to agree with the maid who had brought the food from the manor. The man was at least a little handsome, discounting the high relief of his facial bones, a defect that time and food would soften.

      ‘I don’t think you’ll scare horses,’ Grace said, handing him a warm towel, which he draped over his face with an audible sigh.

      ‘I hope to heaven not,’ he replied and swabbed the warm towel across his face and neck, where the prison brand stood out in stark relief.

      Shaved and shorn, the captain looked so different. She wished she had not cut his hair so close, because it was a beautiful shade of reddish-gold. His eyes were as nicely blue as she had noticed earlier and his nose was straight, even if it did appear etched into his face, because of his total lack of body fat. There was something about him—she had noticed