She had never rustled about in someone else’s possessions before, but the captain appeared to expect it, so she did, pulling out his purse. She closed the drawer quickly and brought the purse to his bed. He opened it and she tried not to stare at the coins.
He counted out a generous handful. “When this is gone, just ask for more. Miss Massie, I like to eat well when I am in port.” He looked at her with that frank gaze that should have embarrassed her, but didn’t. “I expect the people who run the inn to eat well, too.”
“Certainly, sir. Can I get you anything now?”
“What are you having for dinner?”
“A little tea and toast,” she replied, then wished she had said nothing, or lied, because it was starvation food. “I mean, I ate a large meal at noon and wasn’t…”
He took her by the wrist. “Miss Massie, I intend to stay at the Mulberry for a month, but if you tell me another lie, I’ll be gone tomorrow.”
“Yes, Captain,” she replied, her voice no more than a whisper. “T-toast.”
“And breakfast?”
She shook her head, too embarrassed to look at him. He was still holding her wrist, but his grip was easy.
He let go of her then, and relaxed against the pillows again. “All I need tonight is another pitcher of water. Would you do me a favor?”
“Anything, Captain,” she said and meant it.
“Ask Pete if he knows a good remedy for sailor’s throat.”
“He has a thousand cures, almost as many as Scheherazade had tales.”
Her answer made him smile. “I’ll wager he has. And might your… your grandmama know of a poultice for my throat?”
That is odd, she thought. How does he know about Gran? “Have you stayed here before?” she asked. “I don’t believe I mentioned Gran.”
It was his turn to look confused. “Pete must have said something,” he replied.
“That’s a whopper,” she said candidly, looking him in the eyes.
He looked at her in exasperation. “I do believe an older woman was in here when Pete relieved me of my uniform and bared me to the skin, but I didn’t want to be so indelicate!”
She left the room, smiling to herself.
Gran put the money in the strongbox she kept in the drawer under the bread box. Only a few coins remained from Nana’s haircut, and the sound of Captain Worthy’s money made Nana sigh with relief.
“I wonder why he’s doing this?” she asked her grandmother.
“Who knows?” Gran said. She turned to the nearly bare shelves and put her hands on her hips. “Nana, get on the stool and hand me that sack on the left. I can make the captain a poultice for his neck. I’ll send Pete to the apothecary’s for some oil and cotton wadding.”
“And food, too, Gran, food,” Nana said. “He wants porridge and cream for breakfast.”
Gran rested her hand on Nana’s shoulder. “You’ve been hungry.” It was a simple statement. “Maybe our luck is turning.”
And hour later, Nana carried the poultice upstairs. It was made of wheat, simply heated and packed into a clean stocking someone had left behind, back when the Mulberry had lodgers. Gran had wrapped it in a dish towel so she could carry it. “We may leave it wrapped in that, too,” she said as Nana knocked on the door. “It wouldn’t do to cause him bodily harm, not after he’s paid so much for our help.”
Gran carried the oil Pete had brought from the apothecary before he left again to convince a grocer to open his shop. She warmed the vial in her hands.
The captain was asleep, but he rolled over as soon as she tiptoed into the room. He was half out of bed before he realized who it was.
“Lie down, Captain. You’re not on the blockade now,” Gran ordered. “Turn over. I’ll put some oil in your ears.”
He did as she demanded. Gran dropped oil in each ear and plugged it with cotton. She motioned Nana forward.
“Just drape it around his neck. That’s the way,” she said, as Nana lifted the poultice over the captain’s head. “Settle it around his ears, too.”
The captain was silent as she followed Gran’s instructions. She leaned close to him, wrinkling her nose to discover that Captain Worthy smelled of brine. Trying not to be obvious, 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.”