Marriage of Mercy

Praise for award-winning author Carla Kelly:

‘A powerful and wonderfully perceptive author.’

—New York Times bestselling author Mary Jo Putney

‘It is always a joy to read a Carla Kelly love story. Always original, always superb. Ms Kelly’s body of work is a timeless delight for discerning readers.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘Kelly has the rare ability to create realistic yet sympathetic characters that linger in the mind. One of the most respected Regency writers.’

—Library Journal

MARRYING THE ROYAL MARINE

‘These two have seen each other at their best and at their worst. Have been tried and tested in the flames yet come out stronger for it.

I certainly enjoyed the trip …’

—Dear Author

BEAU CRUSOE

‘Taking her impetus from Robinson Crusoe and the film Castaway, Kelly crafts the story of a shipwreck survivor readjusting to civilisation … Kelly presents a clear portrait of the mores and prejudices of the era, and demonstrates how to navigate through society’s labyrinth with intelligent, sharp repartee. This alone is worth the price of the book.’

—RT Book Reviews

CARLA KELLY has been writing award-winning novels for years—stories set in the British Isles, Spain, and army garrisons during the Indian Wars. Her speciality in the Regency genre is writing about ordinary people, not just lords and ladies. Carla has worked as a university professor, a ranger in the National Park Service, and recently as a staff writer and columnist for a small daily newspaper in Valley City, North Dakota. Her husband is director of theatre at Valley City State University. She has five interesting children, a fondness for cowboy songs, and too many box elder beetles in the autumn.

Novels by the same author:

BEAU CRUSOE

CHRISTMAS PROMISE

(part of Regency Christmas Gifts anthology)

MARRYING THE CAPTAIN

THE SURGEON’S LADY

MARRYING THE ROYAL MARINE

Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Marriage

of Mercy

Carla Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Prologue

Robert Inman, sailing master, had a cheery temperament. He had always been inclined to take the bitter with the sweet and chalk everything else up to experience. Still, it was a hard slog to reconcile himself to another year of captivity in Dartmoor, a prison newly built but scarcely humane.

Recently, among the Orontes survivors, he had noticed a change in conversational topics. A year ago in 1813, conversation had been almost exclusively of their capture off Land’s End, where they had been toying with British merchant shipping.

With a monumental sigh, Captain Daniel Duncan had handed over his letter of marque and reprisal to the victor. The captain of the Royal Navy’s sloop of war was a mere ensign, but regrettably had had the weather gauge, so capture had come as a matter of course. Rob had felt a serious pang to see the triumphant crew haul down the Stars and Stripes and fly British colours from the elegant, slanted mast of the privateer Orontes.

When the humiliation of capture turned to resignation, tongues loosened up. The powder monkey boasted there wasn’t a jail in England that could hold him long. Duncan’s first and only mate declared that war would end soon and their discomfort would be a mere annoyance.

Both the powder monkey and the mate had been wise beyond their years, apparently. No jail held the monkey long. He claimed the distinction of being the first to die, courtesy of an infected tooth that the prison governor felt deserved little attention, since it resided in an American mouth.

The first mate’s discomfort—indeed, his final one—had proved to be a serious annoyance after rampant scurvy opened up an old wound inflicted by Tripolitan pirates. The scar in his thigh had separated, gaped wider until blood poisoning accepted the invitation and waltzed in, a most unwelcome guest.

As for the war ending soon, no one’s expectations were high. The carpenter keeping the calendar had to be reminded to cross off yet another day on the wall, one very much like the day before, with thin gruel for breakfast, and gruel and a crust of bread for supper, and nothing in between.

Earlier conversations had revolved around food and women, as in what each seaman would eat, upon liberation, and just how many women he would sport with at the first opportunity. Food was too tantalising to discuss any more, and women not even a distraction, not to starving men. Rob had spent one fruitless hour trying to remember the pleasures of the flesh, only to realise he had not enough energy for what would follow, even in his generally fertile imagination.

For the most part, everyone sat in silence all the day. Evenings were reserved for night terrors ranging from rats on the prowl to memories of battle, near drownings to other incarcerations during this pesky war brought on by Napoleon. Those were the good dreams. Worse was the reality of scarecrow prisoners crawling among the men, preying on the more feeble.

The eternal optimist, considering his origins, Rob knew things could be worse. He had to say one thing about Dartmoor: the place was built solid, one cold stone on top of another. The wind found its way inside, though, through iron bars that no warden thought should be covered in winter, because that would be too great a comfort for prisoners.

And that was the problem for Robert Inman, sailing master. More than food and women’s bodies, he craved the feel of wind on his face, but not the wailing wind that filtered into the prison over high walls. He knew what the right wind could do to a sail. He knew he could stand in one spot on any slanting deck and know precisely what to do with wind. In Dartmoor, he could only dream about wind on his face—the fair winds of summer, the fitful puffs of the dog latitudes, the humid offerings of southeast Asia.

All he wanted was the right wind.

Chapter One

If Grace Curtis, formerly known as the Honourable Miss Grace Curtis, had decided to waste her life in fruitless self-pity, she knew several genteelly poor persons to use as her character models.

Agatha Ralls lived in rented rooms over the Hare and Hound, a steep decline from her childhood in Ralls Manor, a structure built during the reign of one Edward or the other, which now housed bats. Family fortunes had taken a dismal turn when a now-distant earl had backed the wrong horse in the era of Cavaliers and Roundheads. That the family’s resounding crash had taken some 150 years was some testament to earlier wealth. Now Miss Ralls lived on very little and everyone knew it.

Or Grace could have looked to the ludicrous spectacle of Sir George Armisted, who maintained a precarious existence on the family estate, when it would have been much wiser to sell it to a merchant with more money than class. Instead, Sir George sat in threadbare splendour in a leaking parlour.

Grace had watched her own father shake his head over Sir George, asking out loud how such a fool justified the expensive snuff he dipped and wine he decanted. That Sir Henry Curtis was doing the same thing never seemed to have occurred to him, even when he lay dying and advised Grace, his only child, to ‘make a good match in London during the next Season’.

Grace had been too kind to point out to her father that there were no funds left to finance anything as ambitious as a Season in London, much less induce any gentleman of her social sphere to ally himself with a cheerful face and nothing else. It wouldn’t have been sporting to point out her father’s deficiencies as he was forced to pay attention to death, as he had never paid much attention to anything of consequence before.

Grace had closed his eyes, covered his face and left his bedroom, resolved to learn something from misfortune and build a life for herself, rather than gently glide into discreet poverty and reduced circumstances. Poor she would be, but it did not follow that she couldn’t be happy.

Dressed in black and wearing a jet brooch, Grace had endured the reading of the will. Papa had had nothing to leave except debts. In the weeks before his death, his solicitor had made discreet enquiries throughout the district in an attempt to smoke out potential buyers from among the merchant class who hankered after property far removed from the High Street. He had found one, so Grace had had to suffer his presence as the solicitor read the will.

There had been paltry gifts for the few servants—all of them superannuated and with no hope of other employment—who had hung on until the bitter end, because their next place of residence would surely be the poorhouse. When the old dears turned sad eyes on her, Grace could only shake her head in sorrow, as she writhed inside.

What followed was precisely what she had expected, particularly since the solicitor had told her the night before that the manor and its contents were all going to the new landlord, an enterprising fellow who had made a fortune importing naval stores from the Baltic. With that knowledge, Grace had deposited her amethyst brooch, her only keepsake, in her pocket for safety.

And that was that. Grace had signed a document forfeiting any interest in her home, then had led the new owners through the threadbare rooms.

It was almost too much when the wife demanded to know how quickly Grace could quit the place, but Grace had always been pragmatic.

‘I can be gone tomorrow morning,’ Grace had said, and so she was.

That she might have nowhere to go never occurred to the new owners, so intent were they to take possession. Her two bags packed, Grace had lain awake all night in her room, teasing herself with the one plan in her mind. She discarded it, reclaimed it, discarded it again, then shouldered it for the final time after breakfast. She straightened her shoulders, picked up her valise and walked away from her home of eighteen years.

Grace had had only one egg in her basket. That it proved to be the right one had given her considerable comfort through the next ten years. It had been but a short walk from her former home to Quimby, a village close to Exeter. The day was pleasantly cool for August, with only the slightest breeze swaying the sign of Adam Wilson’s bakery.

She had hoped the bakery would be empty, and it was, except for the owner and his wife. Grace set down her valise and came to the counter. Adam Wilson wiped his floury hands on his apron and gave her the same kindly look he had been giving her for years, even when she suffered inside to beg for credit.

‘Yes, my dear?’ Mrs Wilson asked, coming to stand beside her husband.

Grace took a deep breath. ‘We owe you a large sum, I know,’ she said calmly. ‘I have a proposal.’

Both Wilsons looked at her, and she saw nothing in their gaze except interest. They had all the time in the world to listen.

‘I will work off that debt,’ Grace said, ‘if you can provide me with a place to live. When I have paid the debt, and if my work has been satisfactory, I’ll work for you for wages. I know you have recently lost your all-around girl to marriage with a carter in Exeter.’

To her relief, nothing in Mr Wilson’s face exhibited either surprise or scepticism. ‘What do you know about baking?’ he asked.

‘Very little,’ Grace replied honestly. ‘What I am is loyal and a hard worker.’

The Wilsons looked at each other, while Grace stared straight ahead at a sign advertising buns six for a penny.

‘My dear, you have a pretty face. Suppose a member of your class decides to offer for you, and then we are out all of our training?’ Mrs Wilson was the shrewder of the two.

‘No one will offer for me, Mrs Wilson,’ Grace said. ‘I have no dowry to tempt anyone among the gentry. By the same token, no man among the labouring class will want a wife who he fears would take on airs and give him grief, because she is elevated in station above him and can’t—or won’t—forget. I am completely marriage-proof and therefore the ideal employee.’

So she had proved to be. The Wilsons lived above the bakery on the High Street, but had gladly cleared out a small storeroom behind the ovens for her use, a fragrant spot smelling of yeast and herbs. She had cried her last tear, walking to Quimby. Once that was done, she became an all-around girl and never looked back.

The first time one of her acquaintances from her former days had come into the shop, Grace had realised she could never afford to look back. She knew the moment would happen sooner or later; blessedly, it was sooner. The morning that one of her dearest friends had come into the shop with her mama and ignored Grace completely, she knew the wind blew differently. Discreetly put, Grace Curtis had slid.

The matter bothered her less than she had thought it might, considering that she had debated long and hard about throwing herself on the mercy of that particular family. Grace’s decision had been confirmed most forcefully a year later. She overheard Lady Astley say to an acquaintance that they had taken in a poor cousin. And there she was, middle-aged and obsequious, always nervously alert in public to do her cousin’s bidding, for fear of being turned off to an unkind world. No, Grace knew she had been wise in casting her lot with the Wilsons.

When two years had passed, Mr Wilson declared the family debt eliminated. He seemed surprised when she took a deep breath and asked, ‘Will you keep me on still?’

‘I thought that was the term,’ he told her, as he set yeast to soften by the mixing bowls.

‘I hoped it was,’ she replied, reaching for the salt, afraid to look at him.

‘Then it is, Gracie. Let us shake on it.’ He smiled at her. ‘You’re the best worker I ever hired.’

The years had passed easily enough. After a brief peace, the war set in again. The Wilsons’ two sons sailed with the Channel Fleet, one dying at Trafalgar and the other rising to carpenter’s mate. Their daughters all married Navy men and lived in Portsmouth. Grace found herself assuming more and more responsibility, particularly in keeping the books.

She had never minded that part of her job because she was meticulous. Her real pleasure, though, came in making biscuits: macaroons, pretty little Savoy cakes, lemon biscuits, all pale brown and crisp, and creamy biscuits with almond icing.

It was these last biscuits—she named them Quimby Crèmes—that had attracted the attention of Lord Thomson, Marquis of Quarle. Mr Wilson always thought he was aptly named, because the old man always seemed to be picking one. Colonel of a regiment of foot serving in New York City during the American War, Lord Thomson suffered no fools gladly, be they titled like himself, merchants with more pretension than the Pope, or the smelly knacker man, who regularly cleared the roads of dead animals. Lord Thomson was equally disposed to resent everyone.

Grace was the only person in Quimby who had a knack for managing the marquis and she did it through his stomach. She had noticed his marked preference for her Quimby Crèmes when he visited the bakery, something he did regularly.

His bakery visits puzzled Mrs Wilson. ‘My cousin is an upstairs maid in his employ and I know for a fact he has any number of footmen to fetch biscuits on a whim. Why does he do it?’

Grace knew. She remembered her own treks to the bakery for the pleasure of the fragrance inside the glass door, and the fun of choosing three of these and a half-dozen of those. Invariably, after Lord Thomson made his selection, Grace watched him open his parcel outside the shop and sit in the sun, eating one biscuit after another. She understood.

She probably never would have realised her eventual fondness for Lord Thomson if he had not come up short in her eyes. One morning—perhaps his washing water had been cold—he elbowed his way into the shop, snarling at a little boy who took too long to make his selection at the counter. He poked the lad with his umbrella. The boy’s eyes welled with tears.

‘That’s enough, Lord Thomson,’ Grace declared.

‘What did you say?’ the marquis demanded.

‘You heard me, my lord,’ she said serenely, adding an extra lemon biscuit to the boy’s choice. ‘Tommy was here first. Everyone gets a chance to choose.’

After a filthy look at her, the marquis turned on his heel and left the bakery, slamming the door so hard that the cat in the window woke up.

‘I fear I may have cost you a customer,’ Grace told Mr Wilson, who had watched the whole scene.

‘I can be philosophical,’ Mr Wilson said, patting Tommy on the head. ‘He’s a grouchy old bird.’

She worried, though, acutely aware that Lord Thomson didn’t come near the shop for weeks. Easter came and went, and so did everyone except the marquis. Quimby was a small village. Even those who had not witnessed the initial outburst knew what had happened. When he eventually returned, even those in line stepped out of the way, not willing to incur any wrath that might reflect poorly on Grace.

With a studied smile, Lord Thomson waited his turn. As he approached the front of the line eventually, an amazing number of patrons had decided not to leave until they knew the outcome. Grace felt her cheeks grow rosy as he stood before her and placed his order.

She chose to take the bull by the horns. ‘Lord Thomson, I’ve been faithfully making Quimby Crèmes, hoping you would return.’

‘Here I am,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll take all you have, if you’ll join me in the square to help me eat them.’

She had not expected that. One look at his triumphant face told her that he had known she would be surprised and it tickled him. She smiled again. ‘You have me, sir,’ she said simply. She looked at Mr Wilson, who nodded, as interested in the conversation as his customers.

To her relief, they ate Crèmes and parted as friends.

Year in and year out he visited the bakery, even when the decade started to weigh on him. When an apologetic footman told her one morning that Lord Thomson was bedridden now, and asked if she would please bring the crèmes to Quarle, she made her deliveries in person.

Standing in the foyer at Quarle, Grace had some inkling of the marquis’s actual worth, something he had never flaunted. The estate was magnificent and lovingly maintained. She felt a twinge of something close to sadness, that her own father had been unable to maintain their more modest estate to the same standard. Quarle was obviously in far better hands.

She brought biscuits to Lord Thomson all winter, sitting with him while he ate, and later dipping them in milk and feeding them to him when he became too feeble to perform even that simple task. Each visit seemed to reveal another distant relative—he had no children of his own—all with the marquis’s commanding air, but none with his flair for stories of his years on the American continent, fighting those Yankee upstarts, or even his interest in the United States.

His relatives barely tolerated Grace’s visits. Her cheeks had burned with their scorn, but in the end, she decided it was no worse than the slights that came her way now and then. She found herself feeling strangely protective of the old man against his own relatives, who obviously would never have come around, had they not been summoned by Lord Thomson’s new solicitor.

At least, he introduced himself to her one afternoon as the new solicitor, although he was not young. ‘I’m Philip Selway,’ he said. ‘And you are Miss Grace Curtis?’

‘Just Gracie Curtis,’ she told him. ‘Lord Thomson likes my Quimby Crèmes.’

‘So do I,’ he assured her.

She returned her attention to Lord Thomson. She squeezed his hand gently and he opened his eyes.

‘Lean closer,’ he said, with just a touch of his former air of command.

She did as he said.

‘I’m dying, you know,’ he told her.

‘I was afraid of that,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll bring you Quimby Crèmes tomorrow.’

‘That’ll keep death away?’ he asked, amused.

‘No, but I’ll feel better,’ she said, which made him chuckle.

She thought he had stopped, but he surprised her. ‘Do you trust me?’ he asked.

‘I believe I do,’ she replied, after a moment.

‘Good. What’s to come will try you. Have faith in me,’ he told her, then closed his eyes.

She left the room quietly, wondering what he meant. The solicitor stood in the hall. He nodded to her.

‘Coming back tomorrow?’ he asked.

‘Yes, indeed.’

Lord Thomson’s relatives were returning from the breakfast room, arguing with each other. They darted angry glances at the solicitor as they brushed past him and ignored Grace.

‘You’ll be back tomorrow?’

‘I said I would, sir.’

‘Grace, I believe you’ll do.’

‘Sir?’

He followed the relatives, but not before giving her a long look.

As she considered the matter later, she wondered if she should have stayed away. But who was wise on short notice?

Chapter Two

Mr Selway knocked on the door of the bakery the next morning before they opened for business. Apron in hand, Grace unlocked the door, wondering if he had been waiting long.

He didn’t have to say anything; she knew. ‘He’s gone, isn’t he? Mr Selway, I’m going to miss him,’ she said, swallowing hard.

‘We are the only ones,’ he said. ‘I wanted you to know.’ He put his hand on her arm. ‘Please attend the reading of his will, which will follow his funeral on Tuesday.’

Surely she hadn’t heard him right. ‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

He increased the pressure on her arm. ‘I cannot say more, since the company is not assembled for the reading. Be there, Grace.’

And there she was, four days later. The foyer was deserted, but Mr Selway had told her they would all be in the library. She opened the door quietly, cringing inside when it squeaked and all those heads swivelled in her direction, then turned back just as quickly. The family servants stood along the back wall and she joined them. Mr Selway looked at her over the top of his spectacles, then continued reading.

This reading was different from her father’s paltry will. Mr Selway covered a wide-ranging roster of properties, even including a Jamaican plantation, part-interest in a Brazilian forest, a brewery in Boston and a tea farm in Ceylon.

‘T’auld scarecrow had his bony fingers in a lot of pies,’ the gardener standing next to her whispered.

She nodded, thinking about Lord Thomson’s generally shabby air. She tried to imagine him as a young army officer, adventuring about the world. Her attention wandered. Before his relatives had descended on him, Lord Thomson had had no objection to her borrowing a book now and then. She thought of two books in her room behind the ovens and hoped she could sneak them back before the new Lord Thomson missed them. Not that he would, but she did not wish to cross him. Grace was a shrewd enough judge of character to suspect that the new Lord Thomson would begrudge even the widow her tiny mite, if he thought it should be his. Books probably fell in that category.

Mr Selway finished his reading of the properties devolving on the sole heir, who sat in the front row, practically preening himself with his own importance. The solicitor picked up another sheet and started on a much smaller inventory of items of interest to other family members, ranging this time from items of jewellery to pieces of furniture. She listened with half an ear.