‘I always defer to rank. You first, Captain Cousin.’
‘I defer to the ladies, Cousin Mary,’ he said in turn. ‘May I guess your question?’
‘It’s not a difficult one. Where are you going?’
‘We’re heading to my sister’s home in Dumfries for Christmas.’ The glance he gave his son was a fond one. ‘Nathan has a chart and assures me we could have been there late this evening, but I wanted to eat here. My turn now: Where are you going?’
She opened her mouth to reply, but there was a knock on the door. ‘Come in.’
His face red from the heat of the kitchen, the innkeep struggled under the load of a massive tray. He was followed by a small boy with a smaller tray.
She looked at the captain, and he was watching her, a smile in his eyes that spread to his whole face as she watched, contradicting everything she had heard about the dour members of the sailing fraternity. Aunt Martha would probably have questioned the propriety, even if he was a Rennie, but Aunt Martha was nowhere in sight.
‘Right here, sir,’ she told the keep. ‘We’ll dine together.’
The keep gave her a puzzled look, as though wondering why there was any question about the man and boy dining with her. Hadn’t the captain already informed her that the keep thought them to be husband and wife? She looked to her new-found cousin to explain the situation, but his eyes were on the food. He would have to speak to the innkeeper later.
She could have closed the door and walked away and her cousin never would have noticed, which amused her. Captain Rennie liked to eat. She could also have stripped off her clothes and he wouldn’t have noticed. She couldn’t help her laughter at the roguish thought.
He looked up and surprised her. ‘Come, come, Cousin Mary,’ he chided. ‘Food has its place in my universe, but not to the exclusion of good company.’ He eyed the sausage with real appreciation, when, with a modest amount of Scottish fanfare, Mr McDonald lifted of the domed lid. ‘Mary, you may have...how many inches of this?’
She looked at the coiled sausage, moist and sweating and giving off the most heavenly aroma. Her mouth watered. It looked far more adventurous than the bowl of vegetable soup she had considered. ‘Six inches, Captain.’
‘Cousin Ross,’ he amended and nodded to Mr McDonald. ‘You heard the lady, sir. Six inches. Reminds me of a scurrilous joke I shall never tell. The same for you, laddie?’
Nathan nodded, his eyes wide. ‘Do...d’ye plan to eat the rest, Da?’
Mary watched with delight as the captain pursed his lips, squinted and eyed the monstrous sausage. Even after the keep and cook severed two portions, the remaining bulk was formidable.
‘Probably not, Son, if I plan to sleep tonight and not spend the wee hours of morning in the head. Maybe when I was younger, I could have.’ He eyed Mary without a single repentant look. ‘Plain speaking, ma’am. We Rennies specialise in it. Do you?’
‘I suppose I’d better,’ she told him, determined not to be embarrassed because she found father and son so fascinating. ‘Go easy on the neeps and taties, then.’
Mr McDonald served them and stood there. Mary suspected his sedate little inn seldom sheltered visitors as interesting as the Rennies.
Captain Rennie dismissed the keep with a slight nod, the kind of gesture that would have meant next to nothing if she had attempted it. Coming from a post captain, the nod sent McDonald to the door immediately. Too bad I cannot give a nod like that and send Dina scurrying, Mary thought. I’ll have to watch how he does that.
The whig bread smelled divine. She wasn’t sure about the rum butter until she tried a dollop on a scrap of bread. She couldn’t help her exclamation of pleasure. The captain took a break from his mouthful of sausage and buttered a larger slice for her, as though she were a child.
‘You’re used to looking after people, aren’t you?’ she asked.
‘A shipful, Cousin,’ he said around that mouthful of sausage. ‘Two hundred and fifty when we have a full complement, which is seldom.’
She savoured every bite of the bread and sausage, wishing she had loosened her stays before the Rennies knocked on her door and changed the course of her trip for one night. The errant thought crossed her sausage-soaked brain that she was going to miss them tomorrow.
Mary stopped eating just after Nathan pushed his plate away and staggered to the sofa to flop down. The captain showed no signs of quitting. The four-foot length of sausage had been greatly diminished and she wondered if he had a hollow leg as well as a peg-leg. She glanced at it, curious to know how he kept the thing on, then glanced away. She had never sat so close to someone with a wooden leg before, but it didn’t follow that she had lost all her manners.
She sat back and tried to hide a discreet belch behind her napkin. ‘That was amazing, Captain.’
‘Ross,’ he repeated, a man most patient. He set down his fork, but only long enough to add more potatoes to his plate. ‘Are you finished?’
Mary nodded. ‘I should have done that fifteen minutes ago.’ She chuckled. ‘Cap—Ross, I was going to have a bowl of vegetable soup and a hard roll.’
He just rolled his eyes at that dismal news and continued his tour through the Guardian’s cuisine. ‘Tell me, if I am not prying overmuch, what has brought a lady out on the road? I would think you should have a chaperon stashed somewhere.’
Mary shook her head, touched at his concern. I suppose you have added me to your stewardship of two-hundred-and-fifty men, she thought. And one small boy. ‘I’m past the age of needing a chaperon.’
‘I doubt that. You can’t be a year over twenty-four.’
‘Try almost four years over.’ She leaned closer. ‘Since you are being impertinent, so shall I be. How old are you?’
‘What do you reckon, Cuz?’ he asked. ‘I probably look fifty, but I blame the wind and general stress.’
‘I was going to say forty-five,’ she told him.
‘You’re off by seven or so. I am thirty-nine in January.’
‘Antique, indeed,’ she murmured. ‘Well, now, we are both getting on in years, but this is my first adventure. Care to hear about it?’
Ross did, surprising himself. He had spent so many years dining alone with charts and logs that the prospect of an evening with a pretty lady beguiled him. He glanced at Nathan, whose eyes were starting to close from the effects of such a meal.
Mary observed him, following his gaze. Without a word, she got up and took a light blanket off the back of the sofa. As he watched, she covered his son, then placed the back of her hand lightly against his cheek. Nathan opened his eyes, smiled at her, and made himself comfortable in that way of adaptable little boys.
She sat down again. ‘I am supposed to be having an adventure, all because of Christmas cake. Perhaps you call it fruitcake.’
‘I don’t call it anything.’ He chuckled. ‘I suppose I would have eaten nearly anything in my Turkish prison, but fruitcake?’
She widened her eyes, and he enjoyed the effect because her face could be so animated, he was rapidly discovering. ‘Turkish prison?’
‘A story for another day. It’s your turn now,’ he reminded her.
He kept eating while she told him a tale of Cousin Dina, a valuable ring and a cook named Mrs Morison who had volunteered her to retrieve four fruitcakes. Her tale was so homely and simple it took a moment to soak into his brain, because he was used to bad news, and storms and broadsides and noise.
‘You have commandeered three cakes already?’
She