by Carla Kelly
Before she could do that, there was the smallest tug on her hand from the man holding it, the one about to assume her care. He was a man with nothing to recommend him except a brain probably more liability than asset at times, and a heart she suspected was his mind’s equal.
She tugged back and looked at him, then away, because there were tears in his lovely brown eyes. While John Ripley waited with a smile on his face, Able Six, the man with the made-up name, leaned close to her and whispered, “You are my everything. I need nothing more.”
Oh dear. That warranted another glance and the sight of the most reassuring husband a woman could ask for, a man so capable she could follow him anywhere with good conscience.
The vicar cleared his throat. “ ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered together ….’
Meridee listened with her whole heart to every word her brother-in-law spoke, holding tight to the hand of the man she adored. Each glorious sentence sank into her mind and heart, driving out any bitterness she might have admitted to earlier—only under duress—that she had not found a husband sooner because of life’s circumstances. She dismissed those moments joyfully, grateful to be twenty-four, unencumbered, and marrying a man worth waiting for.
She smiled at Able’s firm responses, and heard low laughter from some in the congregation who hadn’t suspected that a man who looked like a Greek god would sound like a Dumfries Scot. If you think that is the only thing strange about this man, you have no idea, she thought.
Then came the moment when John Ripley asked for the ring and Able handed him the glorious bit of gold filigree taken from a Barbary pirate, carefully wrapped on one side with enough thread to keep it on her finger. John set the amazing bauble on the Book of Common Prayer he held. He looked down at it for a long moment, and Meridee heard his sigh, and his whisper, “Beloved sister, we’ll miss you.”
“And I, you,” she mouthed.
He handed the ring back to Able, who took it and faced Meridee. He slid the ring gently onto her finger and held it there. “ ‘With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods ….’ ”
That phrase brought smiles to the three of them. Were there two poorer people in England? “ ‘… all my worldly goods I thee endow. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.’ ”
Chapter Eight
“Are you having fun, Mrs. Six?”
God Almighty, he was. Able Six raised his head a little from the pillow they shared, even though the bed came with two. He knew right where she was, tucked against him with one bare leg thrown over his body, but he craved the unbelievable luxury of looking down to see her hair spread out on his chest.
He fingered her curls, alive again to the pleasure of burying his face in them last night when he took her so easily to a generally successful conclusion of their first lovemaking. One would think Mrs. Six had been waiting a little impatiently for a lucky husband to come along and do precisely that.
He tapped on her head. She swatted at his hand, barely awake. Apparently he had not married a lark.
“Merry Christmas, Mrs. Six,” he told her as she raised her head and glared at him. “My, that is not the look I anticipated.”
Her eyes softened at that, and she kissed his chest. He put both hands on her head and began a slow massage. He discovered a few minutes later that she was far livelier at the crack of dawn than he had reckoned.
Satisfied, he flopped back down on the mattress, wondering how he had managed to reach the ripe age of twenty-six without a wife. More specifically, since he was a man who dealt in specifics, how he had managed without this wife.
“You realize this is habit-forming,” he told her, when she returned to bed after a wash and brought along a damp cloth for him.
She threw back her head and laughed, then smothered his face in the wet rag, straddling him in fun now, which led to a bit of a tussle that she won, because he felt far too complacent to put up a struggle.
“If you expect to be rescued, you have to scream louder than that,” she said and sat back on him.
“Help,” he whispered, which led to another assault with the cloth and more giggles from his unrepentant darling. Still laughing, she collapsed on his chest and stayed there until her breathing became deep and regular. The room was cool, so he pulled a blanket over them and let her sleep, worn out like a pup after rambunctious play.
To be fair, neither of them had slept much last night. He thought about her initial reticence, abandoned soon enough because he knew as much about female anatomy as any surgeon in the fleet. Once the Triumph’s surgeon understood his rare loblolly boy, pointed out by Captain Sir Belvedere St. Anthony, he turned over his medical texts with the admonition to read them only in spare moments.
The man had been astounded, and at first disbelieving, when Able returned them two days later. He had hollered at Able, who stood there and took the abuse. Amused, Captain St. Anthony suggested the surgeon give Able Six an oral exam, which turned the ship’s doctor into a believer in genius. “He knows it all,” the surgeon had said that evening in the officers’ wardroom. “What alchemy is this?”
“The Isaac Newton sort. He’s a bona fide polymath,” Captain St. Anthony had replied, or at least so he had reported the next day as Able emptied urinals over the side of the Triumph, becalmed west of the Azores.
Female anatomy. Shooting stars. Maritime knots. Celestial navigation. Pi. Under the pleasant weight of his wife, Able rested his arms on the curve of her back, briefly running through the vertebrae and touching her coccyx. He couldn’t resist stroking the smoothness of her hips, which made her sigh and murmur something. He concluded that Meridee Six knew what she liked already. He slept, his mind peaceful.
Meridee was still asleep when he woke. Carefully he edged out from under her and sat up, hungry and wondering what was available in mid-afternoon. At least the church bells had quit their thundering. He dressed and looked down at Meridee Six, his wife, his lover, his keeper. He said a silent prayer to the god of all those noisy bells and let himself out into the hallway.
Per Captain Hallowell’s thoughtful instructions, the proprietor had isolated them on the top floor. Able already knew this floor was famous for the privacy it offered when ships and their officers came into Plymouth and their wives had no inclination to wait until the men came home.
And lately, at least until the Treaty of Amiens, there had been little free time for officers to leave Plymouth and go home, not even to remind themselves how people not associated with the Royal Navy lived.
The matter of wives readily available at the Drake had never affected Able Six. He had been happy enough to wave off husbands from the frigate swinging on its anchor in the harbor and remain aboard to see to last-minute details. He had no one eager to see his wind-scoured, thirsty carcass.
Thanks to his wife’s masterful efforts to find him a position highly suited to his unique talents, the most strenuous part of his working day would be crossing Saint’s Way, the quiet street between St. Brendan the Navigator School to his house. He already knew Meri would be waiting for his return.
He went down two flights and peeked in the dining room. Empty. He wondered if he and Meridee were the hotel’s only Christmas guests. Following the “nothing ventured, nothing gained” principle that kept life interesting, he went to the kitchen, where the redoubtable Mrs. Fillion hummed and stirred a pot.
“Master Six, I wondered if anyone was alive upstairs,” she said as she moved the pot off the hob. “Can I interest you in something hearty that will increase your stamina? It has oysters.”
That was Mrs. Fillion. No point in blushing. He laughed—he knew there was nothing wrong with his stamina—and went to the cupboard for a bowl. She filled it and sat him down at the kitchen table, joining him with a cup of tea for herself and coffee for him. Amazing how the woman remembered her guests’ favorites.
He ate with relish, considering that his last meal had been wedding cake and was
sail. When he finished, she filled his bowl again. After that went down slower, he sat back and answered her questions about St. Brendan’s, realizing as he did so how little he really knew about the place, beyond that someone in the government or Admiralty had enough pull and interest in helping workhouse vermin.
“Twenty-one little students is all we have,” he told her. “The youngest looks to be not more than seven or eight. The oldest is maybe thirteen, and probably headed to the fleet this spring. Some are small. I know they have been underfed.”
She sighed at that, and asked if he wanted another bowl of stew. He gave a regretful shake of his head.
“When I ran away from the workhouse at nine, I actually grew taller on shipboard fare,” he said. “I wasn’t alone in that. Workhouse brats grow in the fleet.”
They sat in pleasant silence. He knew Mrs. Fillion had started at the Drake as a scullery maid years ago. She had probably grown taller on kitchen fare, herself.
After their quiet conversation, he accepted a bowl of stew for Meridee and went upstairs, where his wife lay snuggled on his side of the bed, looking as contented as a cat in a patch of sunlight when he woke her.
She left not a drop of stew and polished off the buttered bread with masterful aplomb. Finally she sat cross-legged with her nightgown around her knees, which afforded him quite a view.
The nightgown came off soon enough, once the bowl was on the floor, and Able shed his clothes in record time. Later, the Sixes settled into what he knew was going to be a lifetime of comfortable post-coital conversation, that delicious, satisfying chat that must be one of the delights of married life. He had something to tell her. She knew him pretty well now, and didn’t think she would consider him certifiable.
Pillowing herself in the hollow of his shoulder, she laid her cheek against his chest. He breathed deep of her personal fragrance, enjoying a whiff of lavender too.
“I have an early memory, Mrs. Six, quite an early one.”
“Say on, Master Six,” she replied. He felt her eyelashes open and close against his chest, and settled himself lower.
“It was dark and sleeting,” he began. He closed his eyes and felt the chill all over again, he who was destined never to forget a thing. “Someone was breathing loud and groaning. I remember being cold, and even getting stiff. I cried.” He was silent, wondering if he should be telling her this so soon. “Will you believe this, Meri?”
She had put her hand over his eyes, so he knew they were moving under his closed lids. She took her hand away and tucked it against his neck. “You know I believe you.”
“I felt someone’s hand on my stomach, and then my head, which was wet. A woman said, ‘Grá mo chroí.’ The next thing I remember is an old man wrapping me in a brown shawl or cape and carrying me inside a church. I smelled incense.”
He heard Meri’s sharp intake of breath. “Heavens! How could you possibly remember …” she stopped. “Able, I must learn to never be surprised at what you tell me.”
“Wise of you,” he said. “When I was six, a laddie from the country came to the workhouse. He spoke only Gaelic, so I taught him English. When he knew enough, I asked him what Grá mo chroí meant. “
Her hand gently covered his eyes again. Through the roaring in his ears, he heard her tell him to slow his breathing. He did as she said, but she kept her hand over his eyes.
“ ‘Love of my heart,’ he told me.” Able took a deep breath, “Meri, she loved me.”
She took away her hand and he felt her tears on his chest. “Meri, it’s fine. I’m fine. I’ve never told another soul this before, but I think you needed to know.”
She sat up and looked him in the eyes. “There’s more. I see it in your face.”
“You have your own gift,” he said, pleased. “All I had was a prayer book inscribed with ‘Mary.’ I don’t know if that was her name, or if she stole it from someone named Mary. I still have it. It’s in the bottom of my duffel over there. I never go anywhere without that prayer book.”
She got up, pulled on her nightgown, and rummaged through his battered duffel that had traveled all over the world. He smiled to see her barefoot, disheveled, and utterly adorable. She pulled out the book and opened it to the first page. Sniffing and wiping her eyes, she held the book tenderly to her breast. How did I get so fortunate? he asked himself, entranced with marriage and a woman like Meridee Six.
She came back to bed and sat high on his hip, which made him laugh. “We had a cat like you on one of my frigates,” he told her as she slid down the mound of his hip and plopped in front of him. “He’d flop down wherever he felt like it.”
Meridee pointed to the number under Mary’s name, a question in her eyes. He took the book from her and closed it. “Someone made certain the prayer book remained with me. It was my only possession. Her numbered wooden grave marker was 134.”
How tender his wife was. She made an inadvertent sound that was a cross between a groan and a sharp exhalation of breath.
She curled up beside him. “We could take some of Uncle Aloysius’s money and get her a proper stone.”
“I already did, Meri,” he said, his fingers gentle in her hair. “I haven’t been a full-fledged sailing master too long, but I took what little prize money I earned for a ship sold for salvage and used it. When I could arrange leave, I went north to Dumfries, and had a stone cutter chisel ‘Mary’ and then ‘134’ under it. I’m proud of that granite marker, Meri. I’ll take you there someday.”
She kissed his palm. “You are a good son,” she whispered.
Might as well dump it all on her. “Maybe I’m not so good,” he confessed. “Before I left Dumfries to return to Portsmouth, I paid a visit to the workhouse.”
“I hope you gave the master a generous portion of your mind,” Meridee declared.
“I wanted to thrash him as he used to thrash me. Damn my eyes, I couldn’t. After all, I had survived and ended up someplace better. He was still in the workhouse. Still a bully too, I have no doubt. Why would he change?” He blew out a deep breath. “I stood in the doorway, pointed my finger at him and said ‘Shame on you!’ Can’t blame him for laughing.”
Meridee sat up, her expression militant now. “I’d have … I’d have ….”
“Given him a black eye?” he teased, then grabbed her hands. He easily turned her on her back and sat on her this time. “Woman, are you going to fight all my battles?”
“If I can,” she replied, her eyes dark, intense, and close to his face. She tugged up her nightgown. “But right now, I don’t feel like fighting.”
“I don’t, either,” he said, and kissed her.
Chapter Nine
Lord have mercy, the uses of a husband, Meridee Six thought, as they left Plymouth two days later, bound for Portsmouth, and both of them scared to death, if two clammy hands hanging onto each other was any indication.
Or maybe hers was the only clammy hand. She glanced at Able and found him looking back, with considerable glee in his eyes.
“Aren’t you afraid?” she asked, wondering about her man.
“Not a whit. I’ll tell you what does frighten me: a rogue high wind in a storm when my ship is trying to claw out of a trough. What frightens you?”
“How can I even admit what scares me, after your observation?” she asked, wanting to feel grumpy, but having a hard time.
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, which did amazing things south of her stomach. Gadfreys, here they were on the mail coach and he was giving her impish ideas.
“Meri, we’ve led different lives up to this point,” he told her. “Fear is fear and I understand it. Say on.”
She whispered her fears to him about finding a cook and setting up housekeeping in a place of some ill repute. He proved quite willing to soothe her in public fashion by pulling her closer. Oh, capable man, she thought, and leaned into his protection. How do I love thee?
When it was his turn to doubt, as Portsmouth drew closer, she reminded him how well
he taught her nephews in the vicarage, and how she knew he would be more useful as an instructor training other sailing masters than as a single master.
“I do confess some uneasiness,” he said. “You saw how I taught your nephews. We sat on the floor and played jackstraws, and broke them and counted fractions.” He sighed, as if wondering what to do with himself. “I am no ordinary teacher.”
That is the understatement of the century, she thought, jollied out of her own doubts. “That’s why the headmaster wants you, and what is he called … the man with all those names?”
“Captain Sir Belvedere St. Anthony?” he said with a smile now.
“Do you actually call him all that?”
“No. We’d have been thrust upon many a lee shore, if the helmsman had to spit out that name at a moment’s notice. He’s Sir B. And yes, I think that’s why they want me.” He sat back, resting her hand on his thigh. “I think it’s the spur-of-the-moment bits of knowledge the men in charge want, plus real training in navigation.”
“Whatever it is, you’re equal to it,” she said. She patted his thigh and he chuckled. “I suspect you’re good at everything.”
“We had a jolly this time morning, didn’t we, Mrs. Six?” he teased, his voice low, and his eyes on the clergyman sitting opposite them and giving them both The Look. “You seemed to be highly involved,” he whispered.
Meridee felt her face grow warm. She hadn’t meant to make so much noise. At least there wouldn’t be little boys in their new house right away. “You know I was,” she whispered back. “My goodness, Master Six.”
She moved her hand farther away from his thigh, which kept the grin on his face. The clergyman wisely looked down at the Bible in his lap. “We’ve inspired him,” Able the Incorrigible whispered. “He turned to the Song of Solomon.”
“Able!” She lowered her voice. “It doesn’t make any difference if you read upside down or right side up, does it?”
“No.”
“You probably even know the chapter and verse and what it says,” she said, wondering if she would ever come to understand his brain.