Regency Christmas Wishes. Carla Kelly

rabble caught him, tarred and feathered him. If Jem’s tears could have washed the tar away, Mercury would have survived. He never asked Papa how he put Mercury down, but at least his pet did not suffer beyond an hour or two.

      Here he stood, a grown man of some skill and renown among his peers, melancholy over a long-dead dog. As with most complicated emotions that seem to surface after childhood is gone, James wasn’t entirely sure who the tears were for.

      Contemplating the water through many days of the voyage, Jem found himself amazed at his impulsive decision to bolt to the United States, after reading a mere scrap of a decade-old letter. He knew himself to be a careful man, because he understood the monumental danger of his profession and his overarching desire to see all the officers and seamen in his stewardship as safe as he could make them. Quick decisions came with battle, but this hasty voyage had been a quick decision unrelated to war.

      In the cold light of this Atlantic crossing, he justified himself, convinced that the Peace of Amiens, while a fragile treaty, would last long enough for him to make sure all was well with Theodora Winnings and return with Admiralty none the wiser.

      Or so he thought. Anything seemed possible, now that his jaw didn’t ache all the time and he was sleeping eight hours instead of his usual four. Until this voyage, he had forgotten the pleasure of swinging in a hammock and reading.

      As the journey neared its end, he spent a pleasant evening in Lucius Monroe’s cabin, drinking a fine Madeira; maybe he drank too much. However it fell out, he told the Yankee skipper about Theodora Winnings and the long-delayed letter.

      ‘Am I a fool for this expedition?’ he asked Lucius.

      ‘Probably,’ the Yankee replied. ‘She helped nurse you back to health from a malaria relapse?’

      ‘Aye, she did. I was a stinking, sweating, puking, pissing, disgusting mess.’

      ‘Then it must be love,’ Lucius Monroe joked. ‘More?’

      Jem held out his glass. ‘I never had the courage to ask her why she was even there. There were other women in the ward besides the nuns, but they were all slaves.’

      ‘Who can understand the ladies?’ Lucius said. He leaned back and gave a genteel burp that he probably would have apologised for a few weeks earlier, before theirs turned into a first-name acquaintance.

      Lucius broke the comfortable silence. ‘I’ve been curious about this since you came aboard, James. You tell me you were born in Massachusetts Colony and spent your first decade in my country. How do you feel about it now?’

      ‘I liked Massachusetts,’ he said finally. ‘I liked the dock people who didn’t mind my chatter, and my friends who took me fishing. My father was next in authority after Benjamin Hallowell, Senior, then serving as Admiralty High Commissioner. Papa let me roam all around the docks.’

      He saw by the way the American nodded, that his own childhood had been spent much the same way. ‘You understand, Lucius, don’t you? There is a freedom here that I cannot explain or understand.’

      ‘Did you come back for another glimpse of that, or of Miss Winnings?’ Captain Monroe asked.

      ‘I wish I knew.’

      * * *

      When the Marie Elise docked in Baltimore, James walked down the gangplank, took a deep breath of United States’ air, realised it smelled the same as it did in Plymouth, and laughed at himself. With instructions from Captain Monroe, he arranged passage on a coasting vessel to Charleston, South Carolina.

      After an evening of good food with Captain Monroe at the curiously named The Horse You Came In On Tavern at Fell’s Point, and a night at the inn next door, James boarded the Annie, a vessel that deposited him in Charleston a day and a half later, none the worse for wear, even though the vessel was less sound than he liked and the crew even more dubious.

      He had stuffed his effects in his old sea bag, which still naturally fit the curve of his shoulder. After a short walk, spent trying to divest himself of the seagoing hip roll, he stood in front of the Magnolia Tavern and Inn, took a deep breath and wondered again what he was doing.

      He didn’t bother with luncheon. After dropping his duffel in his room that overlooked magnolia trees with their heady blooms, he walked the route from the dock to Winnings Mercantile and Victuallers. At least, he walked to where it should have been, and stared up at a swinging sign that read South Carolina Mercantile. He reminded himself that things change in eleven years, and opened the door.

      The smells remained the same—dried cod, pungent tobacco, turpentine. Jem fancied he even recognised the man behind the counter, a fellow with an outmoded wig and a big nose.

      ‘May I help you?’ the man behind the counter asked.

      Jem relished the soft sound of his speech, wondering how it was that an English-speaking people not so long removed from the British Isles could sound so different. When he was coherent, he had asked Teddy Winnings about that. She had reminded him that African slaves had much influence in the language of the Carolinas.

      ‘Perhaps you can help me, sir,’ he asked. ‘I came into port here some eleven years ago, when this place was the Winnings establishment. What happened?’

      ‘Mr Winnings died of yellow fever and his widow sold the property to the current owner,’ he replied.

      That was a fine how-de-doo. Now what?

      ‘Where do the widow and her family live now?’ he asked.

      The counter man shrugged. ‘She didn’t have any family. Don’t know where she is.’

      ‘No family? I distinctly remember a daughter,’ Jem said. Who could ever forget Theodora Winnings and her quiet, understated loveliness? Obviously he hadn’t.

      ‘No. No daughter.’ A pause. ‘Where are you from, sir?’

      ‘Nowhere, I suppose,’ Jem said, surprised at himself. ‘I am a ship captain.’

      ‘From somewhere north?’

      ‘At one time. No idea where the widow is?’

      The shop’s front bell tinkled and three men came in. The man at the counter gave Jem a polite nod and dismissed him. ‘Sirs, may I assist you?’

      Jem took the hint and left the mercantile. He stood a brief moment on the walkway, then turned south, confident the Sisters of Charity hadn’t left their convent.

      There it was, much the same. He recalled ivy running over the walls, but someone had mentioned a hurricane years ago that had stripped some of it away. The Virgin smiled down at him from her pedestal perch, reminding him of his first view of the statue while lying on his back on a stretcher. With some embarrassment, he remembered shrieking like a girl because she seemed to be falling on him. Oh, those malaria fever dreams.

      He rang the bell and waited for quiet footsteps on the parquet floor within. He never prayed much, if at all, but he prayed now that someone would know where Theodora Winnings lived. He squared his shoulders to face the reality that if Mercantile Man said Widow Winnings had no children, then Teddy might be dead, too.

      ‘Don’t disappoint me,’ he said out loud, not sure if he was trying to exert his non-existent influence on God Almighty, or the world in general, which had been stingy with blessings, of late. He remembered himself and thought, Please, sir, that and no more.

      Before he could ring the bell again, the door opened on a young face, probably one of the novitiates. In her calm but practical way, Teddy had told him that every yellow fever epidemic meant more young girls in the convent because they had nowhere else to go.

      ‘Sir?’ she asked.

      He took off his hat. ‘I am looking for Theodora Winnings, who used to assist here. Her father owned what is now South Carolina Mercantile. Can you help me?’

      She opened the door and he stepped into the familiar coolness that had soothed his fever almost as much as the