At least I never ask for anything, Nana thought as she excused herself and started for the Mulberry. There was food enough for supper now. She paused to look at the Tireless, noting the listing main mast, and what looked like canvas draped across the stern. “Dry docks for you, Captain Worthy.”
And who knows what for me? she considered. She couldn’t help but think of her father, William Stokes, Viscount Ratliffe, and his devil’s bargain, which had sent her fleeing back to the safety of Plymouth, Gran’s protection and more uncertainty.
“I may be hungry now,” she whispered, “but if you think I ever intend to change my mind, dear Father, you’re as wrong now as you were five years ago.”
Her anger—or was it fear?—made her speak louder than she intended. As a child of Plymouth, she knew the prevailing winds were speeding her words to the French coast. No one could hear her. Beyond Gran and Pete, she knew no one cared.
Chapter One
Twelve hours into the return journey from Admiralty House, Captain Oliver Worthy felt the familiar but unwelcome scratchiness in his throat and ache in his ears. “Oh, damn,” he whispered. This was no time to be afflicted with the deepwater sailor’s commonest complaint—putrid ear and throat.
He tried to get comfortable in the chaise, mentally ticking off a long list of duties upon arrival in Plymouth, all of which trumped any ailments. The dockmaster was waiting for his final appraisal and list of repairs to the Tireless. The warped mast—the result of patching two splintered ones together—was bad enough. Even worse, the inept captain of the Wellspring, who had crashed his bow into the Tireless’s stern, caused more damage to a vulnerable part of the ship. Welcome to life on the blockade.
He had to make arrangements with the purser to complete the laborious resupply lists that ran on for mind-numbing pages. The chances of receiving all requested stores were slight, but he had to apply anyway. He also intended to release his crew, a few at a time, for shore leave. Oh, Lord, details and paperwork.
Right now—nauseated from the post chaise’s motion, his head pounding and his throat as painful as sandpaper grating on bruised knuckles—all he wanted was a bed in a quiet room, with the guarantee not to be disturbed for at least a week.
Even more than that, all he wanted was a glass of water, and then another one, until he no longer felt that his insides were coated with slimy water stored months in a keg.
No landsman who took a drink of water for granted would understand the feeling of thirst beyond belief, as he stared long and hard at a cup of water, green and odorous. After a month or two, the water would even begin to clump together, until swallowing the offending mass was like choking down someone else’s spittle. After only a few years at sea, he developed the habit of closing his eyes when he drank water more than two months old.
Then there were the days of thirst, especially in winter, when the water hoys from Plymouth were delayed because of stormy weather. Days when even a drop from the malodorous kegs—now empty—would have been welcome relief. Like all the others on the Tireless, he tried hard not to think of water, but surrounded by water as they always were, such a wish was not possible.
Past Exeter, where the view of the ocean usually made his heart quicken, he began to reconsider his impulsive agreement with Lord Ratliffe. The whole thing was odd. At Admiralty House, he had made his report of Channel activity, this time to William Stokes, Viscount Ratliffe, an undersecretary more than usually puffed up with his own consequence, and someone he generally tried to avoid.
Oliver had been irritated enough when Lord Ratliffe tried to pry into his Spanish sources, something no captain—even under Admiralty Orders—would ever reveal. And then the damned nincompoop had asked for a favor.
Maybe it was Oliver’s own fault. He shouldn’t have admitted the Tireless would be in dry docks for at least a month. But the undersecretary had picked up on it like a bird dog.
“A month?”
“Aye, my lord.”
“Not going home to your family?”
“I have no family.” Too true, although why a country vicar and his wife should succumb to typhoid fever in dull-as-dishwater Eastbourne, when their only child had survived all manner of exotic ailments from around the world, was still beyond him. No family. A wife was out of the question. He seldom met women, and he was too cautious to trouble any with a seafaring mate. In these times of war, he might as well hand over a death warrant with the marriage lines.
“I want to show you something.”
Ratliffe had picked up a miniature from his untidy desk and handed it to Oliver, who couldn’t help but smile.
It was the face of a young lady approaching—or smack on the edge of—womanhood. Her hair was the same shade as Ratliffe’s, but he could see no other resemblance. The miniaturist had dotted tiny freckles across the bridge of her nose.
Her eyes had caught and held him: brown pools of melting chocolate. He glanced at the viscount’s eyes. Blue.
“She resembles her mother.”
After another look, Oliver handed back the miniature.
“Pretty, isn’t she?”
More than pretty, Oliver thought.
“She’s old now. Twenty-one. This was painted when she was sixteen.” Ratliffe sighed heavily, almost theatrically, to Oliver’s ears. “She lives in Plymouth in a rundown inn owned by her grandmother, Nancy Massie, a regular shrew. Twenty-two years ago, I was in Plymouth. I made the mistake of dallying with the shrew’s daughter. Eleanor is the result.”
Oliver couldn’t think of anything to say. “So you fathered a bastard?” hardly seemed appropriate, and to offer his condolences seemed even less palatable. He knew the viscount would continue, however.
“I did the right thing by Eleanor,” Lord Ratliffe said, putting down the miniature. “As soon as she was five, I had her sent to a female academy in Bath, where she was raised and educated.”
Oliver hoped he covered up his surprise. The country must be full of by-blows, and his superficial acquaintance with the viscount gave him no inkling Lord Ratliffe was one to own up to his responsibility. Imagine, he thought, bracing himself for whatever favor Lord Ratliffe had in mind.
Ratliffe threw up his hands. “When the child was sixteen, she suddenly bolted from Miss Pym’s school and returned to Plymouth! I had made her an excellent offer regarding her future, and she thanked me by leaving my care and bolting to that wretched seaport!” He glanced at Oliver. “You’re a man of the world. You know what Plymouth is like. Imagine my distress.”
Oliver could, even as he could also feel his suspicion growing. Although he had only been a post captain for two years, he had commanded men for many more. Something in Ratliffe’s tone did not ring true.
“Would you do me the favor of staying at the Mulberry Inn—that’s the name of it—during your time in Plymouth? Look things over and let me know how things are with Eleanor.” He leaned closer. “I am certain a few days would suffice to get the drift of matters. I could not bear it if Eleanor has fallen on hard times.”
“I usually stay at the Drake, my Lord,” Oliver temporized. “My sea chest is there already.”
Ratliffe sighed again, which only irritated Oliver. He was ready to say no, when the viscount shifted his position, and there was Eleanor Massie smiling up at him from the desk. Captivated in spite of himself, he wondered how an artist could capture such youthful promise in so small a space. A moment earlier, he might have just felt old. Now