Marrying the Captain. Carla Kelly

had been one—he had attended grand levies and routs and listened to other officers entertain the ladies with romantic tales of life at sea. Couldn’t he have found something cheerful to tickle Nana’s fancy?

      Well, no, he couldn’t, especially since he had committed himself to the truth, with all its ugly barnacles and whiskers. From the looks of things, Nana probably wouldn’t have minded a little lie or two here and there, to make her own problems seem less fraught.

      He buttoned his last clean waistcoat and tied his neckcloth. Maybe if he looked stern enough, he wouldn’t have to grovel before the shipwright in the hopes of getting those repairs done fast. There was probably no point; desperate captains were a penny a pound at every dry docks in England. Scotland, too.

      He sat at the little desk by the fire and wrote a quick note to Mr. Proudy, stating his needs and hoping for the best. As second mate and low man among the three of them, Mr. Ramseur was already at the dry docks. Maybe they could threaten to break the shipwright’s legs, ravish his wife and daughters and plunder the man’s bank account, if he did not produce instant results.

      Oliver signed his note. Maybe my mind is unhinged at last, he thought. He heard a horse outside. He opened the window and leaned out. “I’m coming,” he called down, then wished he hadn’t, because his throat felt as if it were belching fire.

      Nana was dusting the mantelpiece in the empty sitting room when he came downstairs. She smiled at him, and he felt grateful for his immunity. My God, she was lovely. He had never seen such luminous skin before. Maybe there was some truth to the rumor that the damp on England’s southwest coast gave ladies the clearest hides in all of Europe.

      He held out the note to her. “I would deliver it myself, but I’m going directly west to the dockyards.”

      “I don’t mind at all, Captain,” she said, taking the note and just barely grazing his fingers with her own. “Gran is sending me out for revictualing, as you would probably call it.”

      “I would indeed.” He put on his hat, then took it off, when the top of it brushed the low ceiling. “Go light on the weevily biscuit. I fancy white bread with no boarders.”

      She laughed. “I’ll insist on nothing in the bread except… well… bread.”

      She went ahead of him into the hallway, taking off her apron as she walked, which gave him an especially nice view of the swaying motion of her skirts. He thought he could probably span her waist with his hands. She swung her cloak around her shoulders, tucked the note up her sleeve and left him standing there, hat in hand.

      The jehu took him to the dockyards, located on the east bank of the Tamar River, some three miles from Plymouth. There was the Tireless, looking forlorn now with main sails and rigging gone, and that damned crooked mast marring her otherwise clean lines like a snaggletooth in the mouth of a pretty woman. Standing dockside was Mr. Ramseur and the shipwright.

      It begins, Oliver thought. He paid the jehu, sent him on his way and prepared to do whatever battle was necessary to get his ship healthy and back to sea inside of three weeks. He was walking toward the two men when he thought of Nana Massie, and the lovely way she had smiled at him in the Mulberry, dust cloth in hand. Thank God he was immune to females.

      If he could wrestle down the shipwright from his standard two months to three weeks, that would be heaven. If he could only manage four weeks, that would be heaven on earth, because then he might find more ways to get Nana Massie to smile on him. Since he was immune, that would be enough.

      By the time she arrived at the Drake, Nana had thought the matter through and decided to give the note to Mrs. Fillion to deliver. Heaven knew she didn’t want to knock on the Proudys’ door and rouse them from whatever they were doing. That was delicacy better left to the innkeeper.

      Not that Mrs. Fillion had too many delicate bones in her body, not after twenty years of innkeeping. She took the note and laughed, leaning closer to Nana. “They didn’t even come down for breakfast this morning, Nana. Considering that breakfast is included in the bill, the newly married ones are such an economy!”

      Mercy, thought Nana. All I am here for is to deliver a message. She made some noncommittal reply and started for the door again, even though the rain was coming down harder.

      After thinking about it, she waited until Mrs. Fillion came back downstairs. Gran would want her to thank the keep for sending much-needed custom to the Mulberry. She hung her sodden cloak on the rack in the hall.

      Mrs. Fillion didn’t return immediately. When she did come down, she gestured for Nana to follow her into the kitchen, where she ladled a bowl of yesterday’s soup. Nana started to say that she wasn’t really hungry, but reconsidered. No telling how long Captain Worthy would stay at the Mulberry.

      The soup was wonderful, even a day old. She ate all she could hold, then put down her spoon. “Mrs. Fillion, thank you so much for sending Captain Worthy our way,” she said. “I know you had room for him here, but we so appreciate your consideration.”

      Mrs. Fillion cocked her head to one side. “That’s the odd thing, dearie—I didn’t send Captain Worthy your way. When Mr. Proudy and Mr. Ramseur and the surgeon hauled up here, the captain told his officers to put his sea trunk in the room I usually reserve for him, before he took a post chaise to London.”

      “I wonder what made him change his mind,” Nana said.

      Mrs. Fillion shrugged, obviously not too concerned about the issue. “I’ve been wondering if I should apologize to you for sending him!”

      This is a mystery indeed, Nana thought. What can Mrs. Fillion mean? “I don’t quite understand,” she said.

      There was a loud knock at the back door. Mrs. Fillion looked over and motioned in the porter with a quarter of beef slung over his shoulder and unplucked chickens belted around his waist. She sighed and got up. “No rest for me.” She turned back to Nana. “You can’t precisely call Captain Worthy a little ray of sunshine, can you? Come to think of it, I disbelieve I’ve ever seen that thin-lipped cadaver even smile. He barely talks.”

      “Oh, he does,” Nana said. “He’s quite droll, too.”

      Mrs. Fillion forgot the porter and stared at her kitchen guest. “Oliver Worthy?”

      “Why… y-yes, if that’s his first name. He is rather thin, isn’t he?” Nana replied, suddenly unsure of herself. “He told me…”

      She stopped. He told me all kinds of things, she thought, and I’ll not repeat any of them. “Maybe he was a little stern,” she amended, hoping Mrs. Fillion, who liked to carry a tale, had better things to do in her kitchen at that moment than press her for more information.

      Mrs. Fillion did. With a comment that sounded like, “The Second Coming must be the devil of a lot closer than we know,” the innkeep opened the door wider for the porter, her attention elsewhere. Nana bobbed a curtsey and quickly left the kitchen.

      A decidedly forlorn Mr. Proudy came slowly down the stairs, the picture of reluctance. For one brief moment, Nana wanted to remind him that poor Lord Nelson had inspired a nation-full of sitting room samplers that read, England Expects Every Man To Do His Duty. She didn’t know Mr. Proudy at all; quizzing him was quite out of the question.

      Although Miss Pym would have gone into utter spasms at her total lack of manners, Nana introduced herself. “Are you Mr. Proudy?”

      He owned that he was.

      “Your captain is staying at our inn, sir,” she said. “I was wondering—does he have a favorite meal that you know of?”

      The first mate returned her curtsey with a nod: no more, she observed, than would be expected from a gentleman to a servant. “He does like a good steak and ale pie,” he told her, “and nearly any dish with cod. God help us, cod and leeks.” He nodded again and went out to hail a hackney.

      Nana added leeks to her list for the greengrocers. When she showed