she sniffed his shabby nightshirt. Salt again. Surely they didn’t wash their clothes in salt water.
When she finished, Gran settled the captain back against the raised pillows. “That should do,” she said. “Come, Nana, let us leave this man in peace.”
Gran left the room. Nana made to follow, but the captain cleared his throat and she turned back to the bed, a question in her eyes.
“Make sure I am up by seven,” he said. “I’ll eat breakfast downstairs and then go to the dry docks.”
“I don’t think so, Captain,” she replied. “You’re a sick man.”
“All the same, Miss Massie, that’s an order.”
“Aye, sir,” she said, amused, “though I doubt you’ll be going anywhere for at least a week.”
“Try me.” There was no amusement in his voice. “I’ll be at the dry docks tomorrow if Pete has to push me in a wheelbarrow.”
After she left, he lay in bed, trying to think about the Tireless, and not about Nana Massie. He thought of Lord Ratliffe’s concern for her, and wanted to know why on earth she had decided to return to Plymouth, rather than continue to receive the comforts her father seemed ready to offer. It was not his business, though.
Chapter Two
Drat her pretty hide, Nana Massie was right; he was a sick man.
Oliver woke before it was light. His throat ached and his ears throbbed, but at least the pain in his shoulders was less, thanks to the wheat poultice still strung around his neck. It had ceased to give off warmth hours ago, but the smell of wheat had set him dreaming of bread—loaves unbelievably tall from yeast, soft, slathered in melting butter, and nary a weevil in sight.
He was cold. Through the fog of last night’s humiliation at vomiting on the pansies, then crawling into bed and shutting out the world, he remembered Gran or Nana saying something about extra blankets in the bottom drawer of the clothespress. He thought about getting up to retrieve another blanket, but he was disinclined to so much exertion.
As he lay there, thinking about the merits of another blanket, the door opened. The ‘tween-stairs maid, he thought, has come to rescue me from the cold. He lay there, peaceful, in spite of his pain, and thankful for the prospect of more coal on the fire.
She laid a quiet fire—how many inns had he frequented where the opposite was true. In another minute the room would be his again, and warmer. Maybe he wouldn’t need another blanket, after all.
She didn’t leave. He heard her opening the lower drawer of the clothespress; in another minute, she covered him with a welcome blanket. Even that wasn’t enough. She tucked it high on his shoulders, bending close enough in the low light until he saw it was Nana Massie, and no ‘tween-stairs maid.
“I could have done that,” he told her, sounding gruffer than he meant to, maybe because his throat seemed filled with foreign substances.
“I know,” she whispered, apparently not in the least deterred by his tone. “You’re not the only human on the planet who sometimes lies in bed because he—or she—is too indecisive to get up for another blanket.”
He couldn’t help chuckling at her observation on human nature, even as he wished there was a ‘tween-stairs maid at the Mulberry. He hated to think the daughter of a viscount had to work so hard, even if she was illegitimate.
What an uncharitable man you are, he told himself sourly. Who on earth has a say in the pedigree of her birth?
She tugged the blanket higher around his shoulder. “Go back to sleep, Captain. I’ll bring your breakfast in an hour, and then Pete has a foul concoction to try on you.”
“I told you I’d get up for breakfast,” he reminded her.
“I have decreed otherwise,” she replied in complete serenity.
To his surprise, he did precisely as she ordered and went back to sleep. When he woke again, the sun was up. At least, watery dawn seeped around the curtains. He heard a shutter banging somewhere across the street from the force of the wind outside, but the Mulberry itself seemed sound as a roast. Somewhat like its inhabitants, he concluded, as he sat up slowly.
He eased himself out of bed, found the chamber pot under the bed and used it, hoping Nana wasn’t the one to dump it. He slid the chamber pot out of sight and crawled back into his warm nest, loath to leave it again, but knowing today he must visit the Tireless in the dockyard, and conduct all manner of shoreside business for the good of his crew and ship. Sometimes he wondered why he had not chosen the serene life of a country parson, like his father.
He lay there, going over everything he had to do that day, and realized he needed Mr. Proudy, his number one, close at hand. He knew he could summon the man and he would eventually appear, but why bother a fellow busily engaged in refreshing his wife? He had another idea. He didn’t know much about female academies in Bath, but Miss Massie could probably write. Of course, this meant he would have to succumb to breakfast in bed to placate her. The blockade had taught him a great deal about flexibility, however.
She knocked on the door a little later, when the wind had settled down and rain pattered against the window-pane.
“Come.”
She opened the door, carrying a tray of food and concentrating on keeping it level. Pete Carter stood behind her. It was all he could do to keep from sighing out loud. Nana Massie was beautiful. Thank God he had decided years ago that he would never be troubled by a wife. His personal pledge had only been strengthened in recent years by seeing too many distraught wives meeting ships in the harbor, hoping for news. He’d be damned if he’d do that to anyone.
He knew there was no ordinance against admiring a pretty woman, but his glimpse at Lord Ratliffe’s miniature and his own wretched state yesterday had not fully prepared him for Nana Massie.
Thank God I am too old for her and too kind—despite what my crew thinks—to punish a woman by loving her and leaving her for war on the ocean, he told himself. Those eyes. He had never noticed such round eyes on an adult. Or maybe it was her high-arched eyebrows that gave her a wide-eyed gaze. Whatever it was, he wanted to study the matter during some leisure time he knew he would never have.
And why shouldn’t I have that opportunity? he asked himself. Other men do. They must, or Adam and Eve would have had no offspring. He decided to indulge himself, and kept looking.
He thought her cheeks were too thin, but he knew that look could be cured with more food. He couldn’t properly assess her figure, because she wore the same stuff gown and apron. It was on the thin side, but that could be rectified, until she was softer and more rounded in all the right places.
Nana appeared to be one who could develop soft edges, if given the opportunity. What am I doing? he thought, as he admired her. She would thrash me across the chops, if she could read my mind.
All this reckoning had taken place in just a few seconds. Nana seemed to be unaware of his assessment because she was concentrating on placing the tray on his lap now, and adjusting the legs around him. On the other hand, Pete Carter didn’t look like someone who would allow much scrutiny of his little charge.
But
