Marrying the Captain

Chapter Three

Nana looked down at the list in her lap. “Shall I begin?”

He nodded, and stared at the ceiling above, as though wishing for a compass there to tell him which way the wind blew off Spain.

There were two hundred names on the roster, not quite a full complement of crew for a 34-gun frigate. As she read each name, he had her write in a one, two, three or four in the margin.

“What was that for?” she asked, when he finished.

“I’m assigning them to shore leave,” he told her. “The fifty ones will go first, for five days, and so on.” He chuckled. “My brother officers on other ships think I am insane for allowing any leave at all, but I have not had much trouble with desertion.”

It struck her as strange—even after his earlier plain speaking—that he seemed to want to talk to her. She decided it was her very powerlessness that made him garrulous. He seemed to sense—rightly so—that there was nothing he could tell her that would ever be repeated. Obviously she knew no one who could profit by any of his conversation, and he was aware of that.

Or so Nana reasoned. She looked at him, but not as minutely as he had observed her earlier, deciding she had nothing to fear from this stern-looking man who was probably braver than lions, even if he did say he was afraid.

She wanted him to smile. “Do they not desert because you see that their bedding is turned down nicely at night and there is a fire laid in the grate?”

He rewarded her with a laugh, which pleased her beyond all expectation. “I rather think it is the bedtime story, lullaby and gentle rocking of the hammock.”

It was her turn to laugh. She looked into his eyes and saw good humor mirrored there. “And hot milk before lights out,” she added.

“You’ve hit upon it. Actually, it’s wrapped up in money, as most things are, I must confess,” he said. “Although the Tireless is part of the Channel Fleet, we operate under Admiralty Orders.” He looked at her. “Are you bored yet?”

She was far from bored. She could have listened to him for hours. “I don’t think you could bore me,” she told him. “We live a quiet life here in Plymouth.”

“Admiralty Orders are more onerous because my ship is at the beck and call of Admiralty House for special missions.”

He must have thought that sounded ostentatious, so he made a face. “Someone has to do it, Miss Massie. When we take the occasional prize ship, we needn’t share it with the fleet, so our shares are larger, from captain right down to the lowest-rated landsman. They love me for the money.”

She didn’t believe that for a minute. He must have noticed the skepticism on her face. “What other reason can you use to explain my low desertion rate?”

“You are fair.”

“You don’t even know me,” he countered.

“No, I don’t,” she agreed. The room seemed suddenly too warm. “Is that all, sir? Should I ask Pete to find a hackney?”

He sat up carefully. “Not yet. Look in the tar bag again. I think there is a folded sheet with the heading of Repairs. I have a few more you need to add.”

She sat down again and picked up the bag, wrinkling her nose at the smell, but rummaging until she found the sheet.

“That’s my copy. I left the original with my sailing master, so the shipwright could see it when the Tireless went to dry docks.”

Under his direction, she added two more items to check, then handed him the list. He looked it over, then directed his gaze at her again. “If you would have Pete find a hackney now, I can dress and be ready. Also, I am going to write a note for my number one at Drake’s Inn. I’m sorry to ask this, but could you please deliver it? I truly hate to bother him, but I still need him in dry docks.” He smiled more to himself than to her. “He’ll still have to pry himself off Mrs. Proudy.”

She knew she should pretend she hadn’t heard that remark, so she bit her lip to keep from laughing.

He observed her anyway. “Miss Massie, I feel confident that your grandmother, and certainly Pete, have sufficiently warned you to have nothing to do with members of the Royal Navy. They are vulgar, lewd and single-minded to the point of mania.”

She had to laugh then.

“By God, it’s good to hear a woman laugh,” the captain said, and she could tell he was utterly serious now. Or was he? “But do have a care in your dealings with the sailing fraternity, Miss Massie. I’ll see you belowdeck—downstairs.”

“Aye, Captain,” she teased.

She went to the door, but he called her back, almost as though he didn’t wish to be alone. He gestured toward the rain-polished window. “I must confess I am concerned about sending you outside into this Plymouth drizzle to deliver a message.” He cleared his throat, as though stalling for time and trying to figure out how to proceed. “I can’t help but notice how short your hair is. If you have been recently ill, surely someone else can deliver the message to Mr. Proudy.”

She touched her hair. Now it was her turn to figure out how to proceed. She could make light of the matter, and laugh about her hair weighing so much it was uncomfortable on her neck. Or she could just tell the truth, since that seemed to be coin of the realm with Captain Worthy.

“I sold it to the wigmaker,” she told him, looking him in the eye. “We needed the money.” She opened the door, eager to escape the room now, especially when she saw the sadness come into his eyes. “I’m in fine health, Captain, and can deliver any message in any weather.”

Nana closed the door, and leaned against it. She felt out of breath, even light-headed. She wanted to go back into Captain Worthy’s chamber and pour out all her worries: no money, no possible prospect of marriage, a shameless father who saw her as a tool, the real and gathering threat of the Mulberry’s ruin with its accompanying fear and humiliation of having to throw themselves onto the dubious mercies of the parish.

He has enough worries, and some to spare, she thought, as she went downstairs. I can at least run his errands. There must be other ways we can make his stay a good one, even if this is the shabbiest inn on the entire Devon coast.

Oliver Worthy dressed carefully, lying down a few times when his troublesome ears made the room spin around. He felt wretched, and with little prodding would have gladly crawled between the covers again. Maybe he could be ill later, when the work had begun on the Tireless and the shipwright was weary of having him around.

That would be good. He could lie around the Mulberry, reading when he fancied it, eating, and writing letters. He had seen people doing that in London hotels, when orders from the Admiralty dictated he remain in the City. He couldn’t really imagine such leisure, ranking it somewhere with the seven wonders of the world.

As for writing letters, there was no one to write to. His parents were dead, and so were some of his earlier comrades in the deep-water trade, those unlucky enough to come up against enemies or storms on the ocean, or lee shores in bad weather. His other friends were at sea, and had no more time than he did. Several years ago, he had written a time or two to a lady he had met in Naples, the widow of a customs official. Three years later, when he was back in that plague-ridden city, he had paid her a call, only to discover she was married again, a mother, and widowed once more. He must have had a sailor’s natural superstition, because that sounded like too much bad luck for him; he didn’t return.

It had been five years ago, when he was twenty-five and still optimistic. He left Naples harbor with a firm resolve to never even contemplate matrimony again. So far, he had not, which meant that someone as charming as Nana Massie was completely safe from him. He had declared himself immune to women, and he meant it.

This was not something the men of the fleet discussed, but he knew what happened when husbands were too long at sea. Some took to drink, many turned inward and others became soured by long-term separation and took it out on their crew.

He thought it was worse for the wives. He remembered, as clear as yesterday, the Retribution’s return from a two-year voyage, to see a row of wives lining the quay, and to watch some scream and others faint when the captain had to tell them their husbands had died and were buried in distant ports, or had been dropped into watery graves midocean. It was easily his own worst duty as a captain. He would never inflict such punishment on a wife.

Still, there was Nana. He couldn’t help but think of her, when all was quiet and he was far less busy than usual. He looked himself over while he shaved, or at least what little he could see of himself in the tiny mirror, and saw nothing there to tempt her. It wasn’t that he meant to look stern all the time. He liked to laugh as well as the next fellow, but there hadn’t been much occasion for frivolity lately, and he suspected the ladies liked to be charmed and entertained.

And what do I do but tell that winsome creature how frightening things are in the Channel? he berated himself. In more peaceful times—Naples 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 the grocer the money in her hand, he went to great lengths to fill her list, and agreed, without any cajoling, to deliver it after noon to the Mulberry. Minding her steps on the rain-slickened cobbles, she went to the wharf next and selected a promising-looking cod.

“I don’t like the way it looks at me,” she told the fishmonger, who whacked off the head with one stroke of his cleaver. Wrapped in brown paper and trussed up with string, the beast didn’t overhang her basket by much.

The rain stopped, only to be followed by a great rainbow that stretched from the Cattewater to the dry docks. I hope that is a good omen, she thought, as she started back toward the Mulberry. I know Captain Worthy is anxious to be back on the blockade.

There wasn’t any harm in putting a little muscle behind her wish, considering that she was just skeptical enough not to put her whole trust in rainbows. She stopped in front of St. Andrews.

The door was open and she went inside, not sure of the protocol of carrying a cod, no matter how neatly wrapped, into the Lord’s house. There wasn’t any question about leaving it outside. Her faith in man didn’t extend to tempting anyone with an easy catch of the day, especially not in Plymouth.