by Carla Kelly
‘I can’t say I had any choice,’ he told her after a long pause, when he seemed to be gathering his thoughts. ‘I was seven years old. At the time, I thought my father was doing me a terrible injustice. I see now his only crime was to want me to live.’
‘What did your father do?’
‘He had me indentured to a sea captain in the Pool of London. Captain Duncan’s father, actually.’
‘But Captain Duncan’s father was old Lord Thomson,’ Grace said.
‘True. His mother was Mollie Duncan, quite a sprightly lady,’ Rob Inman said. He lay still on the grass, holding his hand up as hawthorn blossoms settled around him. ‘After the British army evacuated New York City, she married David Cameron, a ship’s captain from Nantucket.’
She could tell the memory was a good one, because Rob smiled. ‘He was a hard man—I suppose that’s the nature of the business—but he was always fair to me.’
‘How did your father meet him?’
He eyed her for a moment, as if wondering what she would think. ‘My father was a thief. My ma, too, I suppose. I come from a family of thieves.’
‘Oh,’ was all Grace could think to say, which made Rob laugh.
‘Nowhere near as respectable as a baker’s assistant,’ he told her. ‘As far as I can recall, we lived on the lee side of a warehouse in the Pool. Ever hear of it?’
She had and not in glowing terms. ‘I…I thought it was just wharves and warehouses. People actually live there?’
She had embarrassed him; she could tell by the blush that crept up his face. She started to apologise, but he stopped her.
‘No fears, Gracie. It was what passed for living, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I don’t remember a day when I wasn’t hungry.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No fears!’ he said again, regaining some of his equilibrium. ‘What happened to me was dumb luck. All I can tell you—I was only seven—is that Da and Mama had been whispering together for several days. I remember that we were on the run from someone. Da had been jailed a time or two for petty theft, but this must have been more serious. I think he feared the drop.’
Don’t stare, Grace, she scolded herself. He probably thinks this is your background, too.
‘And your mother?’
‘She was no better. I do remember a neighbour woman scolding her for feeding me gin. It put me to sleep, so Mama and Da could thieve in peace.’ Rob held out his hand to catch the blossoms. ‘I can only suspect there was just enough family feeling for Da to want me out of there. One morning he dragged me to the wharf. I remember he looked at several merchant vessels—a Russian flag, a ship from the Ottoman Empire, another from Denmark. When he saw the Stars and Stripes, he hauled me up the gangplank.’
‘The sailors didn’t just throw him off?’
‘Dumb luck again. Captain Cameron happened to be on deck. So was Dan Duncan. I believe Dan was sixteen or so. My father plunked me down in front of them, said I’d be a good cabin boy and hightailed it off the ship. Last I saw of him was a clean pair of heels.’ He chuckled. ‘More like, a dirty pair.’
‘They could have just thrown you off the ship,’ Grace said.
‘Certainly.’
‘Did you cry?’
He regarded her more seriously. ‘Is that what you would have done?’
Grace shrugged. When Papa’s solicitor had sold their estate and bid her good day, he had not made the smallest enquiry into her future. Perhaps Rob Inman’s father was kinder. At least he left his son with people. Still, this was a man far below her in status—she smiled inwardly—if status mattered to her any more. ‘What did you do?’
‘Before I left our warehouse lean-to, Mama had put a handkerchief in my pocket,’ Rob said. ‘It must have been one they picked from someone, because there was lace on it. I took that, crawled on my knees to Captain Cameron and started polishing his shoes.’
Grace felt her heart crack a little around the edges, imagining a child with a strong instinct to live, grovelling at the feet of a sea captain who could easily have thrown him off the ship.
Maybe Rob Inman knew what she was thinking. There was an element of disbelief in his voice, even though the incident had obviously happened years ago. ‘He could have done anything to me. God only knows why he didn’t just kick me aside. He had Dan take me below, give me ship’s biscuit and assign me the duty of keeping their cabin clean.’
‘That was it?’
‘Almost.’ Rob blew at the blossoms in his hand. His breath carried them to her lap. ‘Captain Cameron followed rules, but he could bend them, if needed. That evening, I put my X to a document that indentured me to him for eight years.’
‘Do they still do that in America?’ Grace asked.
‘No. The practice ended a few years later.’
‘What happened to your parents?’ she asked, holding her hand out, too, for the blossoms that drifted around them.
‘Who knows? On a voyage before this war, we docked near the Pool. Dan was captain by then, and we looked. I couldn’t find the warehouse. Maybe it burned down.’
‘So that was it.’
‘Not quite. Captain Dan was a bit like his stepfather, not a man to leave stones unturned, if the mood was on him. Dan found a minor clerk in an office in the maritime services. We checked manifests for prison ships to Australia. Found a Matilda Inman in the 1795 convoy. She might have been my mother. I never knew her Christian name. No other Inmans, though. My father probably found a noose that fit his neck, right here in England.’
Grace shuddered.
‘D’ye know where your parents are?’ he asked.
She nodded, unwilling to tell him her story, mainly because it paled in comparison to his. I only had to grovel to people I knew, she reminded herself, not some stranger who could just as easily have sent me to a workhouse, or left me on the dock. No wonder Rob Inman felt no particular tie to the land of his birth. ‘Mama died when I was fourteen and Papa died ten years ago, when I turned eighteen.’ She saw no need to tell him of her gentle, if debt-filled, upbringing.
‘We’re the same age, Gracie,’ Rob said. He smiled at her, a soft, slow smile that had shyness in it and just a touch of something that felt like friendship. ‘Has life been kind to you?’
She could have said no. Maybe she would have only an hour ago. She looked at him lying on the grass, too weak to stand. Until peace is declared, I can be your friend, she thought.
‘Life has been kind to me,’ she said. ‘Very kind, actually.’
Chapter Nine
She meant it. As onerous as her current station in life, at least she had not been raised in one of London’s worst districts, pitchforked into an indenture, or left to rot in prison. Still, Grace could see no reason to get too involved in his story. I’m a lady, one side of her brain seemed to be telling her, while the other side just laughed and said, Not lately.
She looked at Rob Inman again, wondering, if, torn from her corner of Devon, she would ache to see it again. ‘Well, what has England done for me lately?’ she murmured, reminded of his earlier question.
He made a weary attempt at a smile. ‘Forgive that, Grace. I’m rude and crude,’ was all he said.
There was a more important question: how to get this exhausted man back to the dower house? As she sat there with the afternoon waning, Grace hoped Emery would come looking for them when she didn’t return.
Lord Thomson did the honours, to her dismay.
Sitting there, she felt the drumming of horse’s hooves before she saw the marquis. As displeased as she was to see him top the small rise, she had to hide a smile at the inelegant way he sat a horse. ‘You look like a sack of meal, Lord Thomson,’ she said as she watched him approach, rising and plopping down in his saddle.
He thundered closer and closer and Grace stood up, planting herself in front of the parolee. Surely even so distasteful a specimen as Lord Thomson would not run down a helpless man. Or me, she thought grimly.
‘For God’s sake, help me
up,’ Rob Inman said behind her, the alarm in his voice unmistakable.
With one eye on the approaching horse, Grace did as he asked, tugging him to his feet until he swayed beside her. He put a hand on her shoulder to steady himself.
With a curse, and considerable sawing at the reins, Lord Thomson managed to stop his horse. She pursed her lips tight together to keep from laughing, when the horse stopped suddenly and Lord Thomson pitched forwards, hugging the animal’s neck.
Such a clumsy approach didn’t sweeten his mood. He righted himself and gave the old horse a clout to the head, then shook his finger at the two of them.
‘You don’t have the right to tramp about on my land, you bastard!’ he shouted. ‘Captain Duncan, you are the leavings of a British officer and colonial trash!’
He was taunting Rob. Grace swallowed her own hot words, wondering when she had suddenly become so combative. She yearned to yank the man from his horse and thrash him until his teeth rattled.
Rob Inman stiffened. Don’t say what you want to, Grace pleaded silently. Suddenly she wished Mr Selway were there with his calm air. Maybe I need a keeper more than Rob. This situation is bringing out the worst in me.
Rob merely bowed slightly. He wasn’t strong enough to release her, but his voice lacked nothing. ‘My lord, let me assure you—thanks to poor food in Dartmoor Prison, I am not leaving much of a footprint on English soil right now. Your grass is quite safe.’
The marquis’s face turned red, but what could he say that wouldn’t sound childish? He turned his attention to Grace, jabbing his finger at her this time. ‘Keep a better eye on my uncle’s bastard. I know he wandered away. I’ve been watching. If he does this again, I’ll shoot him.’
‘He was trying to see the ocean,’ she said quietly. ‘Now he knows he can’t see it from your land.’
Maybe even as dense a soul as Lord Thomson began to grasp how foolish he sounded. He tried to urge his old horse closer to the two of them, to force them to back up, but it wouldn’t budge. He sawed at the reins to turn away, which made the nag roll the whites of her eyes and step in a clumsy circle.
‘If you want to see any of that idiotic legacy my addled uncle left you, Grace Curtis, you had better not let this man out of your sight again.’ It was his parting shot, delivered as querulously as though he were a spoiled child denied a bauble.
With a vicious whack of his whip on the horse’s hide, Lord Thomson got her in motion, but just barely. Taking her sweet time as the man on her back seethed, the horse took her deliberate way slowly down the knoll.
Rob laughed softly. ‘That was worth the insult,’ he commented. ‘Call me vindictive, but I do love to see small men made smaller.’ He leaned on her more heavily. ‘Gracie, I just can’t manage that walk back and I suppose you daren’t leave me to get help.’
‘We’ll just have to wait here until someone more reasonable comes,’ she replied as she helped him down again. ‘Lord Thomson would shoot you, if I left you here alone.’
He sank down, real relief etched on his fine-boned face. ‘No, he’d have someone else shoot me. Men like that seldom do their own dirty work.’
‘All the same, we won’t depend on any charitable bones in his body. I’m certain he has none,’ she said.
* * *
It was nearly dark before Grace heard Emery calling to them. She stood up, relieved. ‘Over here!’ she called, jumping and waving.
She stood there impatiently, wanting to run to the old man and hurry him along, except some instinct told her not to leave Rob.
Odd. Just below the brow of the hill, when he was still out of sight, she heard Emery talking to someone. She took a step forwards, but Rob was quicker, grabbing the hem of her dress as he lay on the ground.
‘Stay here, Gracie,’ he said in a whisper.
She did as he said. In a moment, her heart slid into her stomach as she heard a rider gallop away and Emery top the rise, muttering to himself as he carried a basket. She felt her face drain of all colour as she glanced at the captain. ‘You’re right about small men,’ she murmured. ‘Someone was waiting there to kill you, if I had left your side.’
He nodded. ‘You’re going to have to earn every penny of that legacy.’
When Emery joined them, he looked back in the direction he had travelled. ‘Did you know one of Lord Thomson’s men was just waiting there? He had a brace of pistols.’ He managed a little smile. ‘Emery to the rescue.’
Rob laughed. ‘And you brought me some food. One would think you really were a butler, to anticipate my needs.’ He glanced at Grace. ‘Now, this part of life in England I could become accustomed to!’
Rob ate quickly, pausing only when he was done. ‘Could it be that I have been paroled to an estate where the owner is so patriotic that he cannot bear the sight of an American?’
‘I think it rather that he doesn’t like either of us,’
Grace said.
‘Such a relief to know it isn’t just because I am American.’ He accepted another sandwich from Emery. ‘Some day, we Americans and you British may have to cooperate on the world stage. Don’t laugh! Anything’s possible.’
When he finished, Emery handed him a bottle of cream. ‘The cook at the manor house thinks you need fattening.’
Rob looked at it dubiously. ‘Strawberries would help.’
‘Too early,’ Grace said, amused. ‘Drink it, Captain.’
He did as she said, then regarded the empty bottle philosophically. ‘If I balloon into Gargantua, I’ll never fit through a hatch again.’
‘It will take more than cream, Captain,’ Emery said gravely. ‘Up now, one hand on me and one on Grace.’
He did as Emery said.
* * *
By stopping every so often, they had made it back to the dower house as darkness fell. Inside the front door, Rob shook his head over the stairs. ‘May I just stay in the sitting room tonight?’ he asked. ‘Cover me with something and leave me be.’
Grace left him in the sitting room. By the time she had covered him with a blanket, he was asleep. She watched him for a moment, her eyes going first to the brand on his neck, then to his fine-veined hands, which he had crossed on his chest in a protective gesture.
‘How is it that you are even alive?’ she asked softly, thinking again of the little boy crawling across the deck. ‘How different we are.’
To her surprise, he opened one eye. ‘I told you it was dumb luck,’ he whispered back as she laughed softly. ‘I had the best hearing on the Orontes, by the way.’ He winked at her then, a slow wink. ‘Maybe we’re not so different.’
* * *
She woke long before the sun was up, lying in bed and wishing herself back in her fragrant room behind the ovens. She tried to compose herself for sleep again, but she knew she should check on her parolee. Putting a shawl around her shoulders, she padded quietly down the stairs and went into the sitting room.
The sofa was empty, the blanket flung aside. ‘Dratted, dratted American!’ she said through clenched teeth. ‘I will have to tie a cowbell around your neck!’
At a complete loss this time, she returned to the foyer and noticed the front door was slightly ajar. She opened it and sighed with relief to see Rob sitting on the steps.
‘Take another step and I swear I will thrash you!’ she exclaimed, plumping herself down beside him. ‘You probably do not come when you are called, either!’
He chuckled. ‘Only when it’s the captain.’
‘Why are you making my life so difficult?’ she asked, irritated with him.
‘I really wasn’t going to budge, Grace, honestly. Then I heard the wind come up and I had to feel it on my face. Really, where would I go? I’m a stranger here.’
She knew the feeling. Grace had a sudden yearning to tell him how drastically her own life had changed years ago, and the early months after her father’s death as she dreaded facing anyone in Quimby, especially the tradespeople who would never recoup the debt her father had incurred. Sh
e had paid back what she could, but it would never be enough. Even more humbling had been the kindness with which she had been treated by the ordinary folk.
‘A penny for your thoughts,’ the captain said.
She looked at him, not realising he had been watching her. ‘It’s nothing,’ she said.
‘You just looked a little forlorn.’ He laughed softly. ‘You must wish I’d stay put.’ He leaned back, resting his elbows on the top step. ‘After I crossed the Atlantic that first time, I ran away when Captain Cameron’s ship—the Maid of Nantucket—docked in the bay. He found me fast enough. Where did I think I would hide on an unfamiliar island? He gave me such a tanning.’
‘I didn’t think he would do something like that,’ she said, surprised.
‘I told you he was a hard man. But fair. He reminded me that he had bought me for eight years, and that it could be a bad eight years or a good eight years. That’s a lifetime when you’re only seven.’
‘Where did you stay?’
‘In port, I had a small room in the attic of his house, but we were mostly at sea. I slept on the deck amidships, right in front of his cabin.’ He smiled. ‘Slid around a bit in bad weather, but I was never seasick.’
It was a life of such harshness that she could hardly imagine it. He seemed to sense her distress.
‘Mostly I worked hard and did what the captain asked. I never had to go without food again, even if it wasn’t very good after months at sea. Steady meals and work to do. In exchange, Captain Cameron taught me to read and cipher. That’s when things changed.’
‘How?’
‘I discovered a gift for numbers and geometry. Captain Cameron said so. I don’t think I ever made a mistake when he showed me how to use a sextant. And then when he set me to learning the sails and studying the wind, I was in high cotton.’
‘High cotton?’ she asked, mystified.
‘An expression I picked up in Georgia. Nothing’s better than high cotton.’
She listened to his enthusiasm, glad he wasn’t dwelling on what had happened that afternoon, or maybe, for a few moments, thinking of Dartmoor.