Unlikely Heroes (St. Brendan Book 3) Read online

  “On the dock stood a sight to behold, a real Spanish grandee. He had gold epaulets and sparkly stuff everywhere else except possibly his crotch. Spaniards do have a certain elán.”

  He paused for what Able could only assume was dramatic effect. Good Lord, he thought. Tell your tale.

  “Bless my soul if he didn’t look exactly like you, with twenty-plus more years on’m.”

  Able stopped, his brain utterly silent. As he waited out the unusual silence inside his head, he began to hear, faintly at first, the rapid beat of two hearts. With a conviction that made him suck in his breath, he knew it was his father and mother in the act of creating him. He had heard it before, but now he knew who it meant.

  “Francisco Jesus Domingo y Guzman, el Conde de Quintanar,” he said with conviction.

  Angus gaped at him. “You know?”

  It was Able’s turn to feel frosty impatience. This news was something to share with Meridee, not a man whom he was beginning to like a little more, but nothing else. He tamped down his own irritation.

  “Last year, Captain Rose took me upstairs to Trinity House’s storage rooms and showed me a small portrait of the Count of Quintanar. That’s who you saw.”

  “Well, blow me,” Angus said, making his vulgarity sound almost reverent. “I think he must be your father.”

  “I believe you are right,” Able replied. “Awkward, isn’t it?”

  Angus recovered himself and shrugged. “I suppose there are stranger things, although at the moment I can’t think of any. How in the world…”

  Able shrugged this time. “Who knows? Captain Rose told me that years ago, Spain sent a delegation to England to consult with shipwrights. You know, back when our two countries were not at odds.”

  “You’re from Dumfries?”

  “Aye.”

  “How did the count get to Dumfries?”

  “How would I know?”

  Angus laughed, cutting through the odd tension. “I thought you knew everything.”

  “Apparently not.”

  They started walking again. “I shouldn’t think the world needs to know this little tidbit,” Angus said finally.

  “I would agree.” Aye, let me mull this around and see how little I like it, Able thought, with some curdling of his usual good temper.

  Angus opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “There is one other matter probably of more importance than your somewhat unusual origins.”

  So now you think you know what is more important for a bastard who has wondered all his life about his origins? Able asked himself. “Hmmm?” was the best he could do.

  Ogilvie took his arm. “I was privy to a conversation at Admiralty only yesterday.” He looked away. “I hardly know how to tell you, because I know it will not be welcome news to Meridee, at the very least.”

  “You have my full attention,” Able said quietly. He could feel his odd and spectral mentors gathering close, listening in, breathing on his neck. What a nuisance they were.

  “We have reached that time of national emergency,” Angus said, with none of his usual posturing or superiority. “I believe you will be recalled to the fleet in a matter of days.”

  Chapter Five

  This was not the moment for the government to rip him from Meridee and St. Brendan. “This is the wrong time,” he blurted out, startled, even angry, because usually his cranial visitors had a way of alerting him to bad news. They had failed him.

  “When is war ever convenient?” Angus retorted.

  “Never,” he said, sick at heart. “And here we are. I educate and send some young men to their deaths. You follow spies into dangerous places.”

  “…and my hands are bloody,” was Ogilvie’s equally quiet comment. “I’m weary of that and I fear we have only begun this war.”

  “I see at least ten years ahead,” Able said, continuing their slow amble. “Napoleon will move on Spain and we must counter him there on land and sea. I see tedious blockade duty and many ship-to-ship encounters.”

  “I doubt our armies can match Napoleon’s,” Angus said.

  “Perhaps not yet. We haven’t found the right commander. We will.”

  Angus stopped again. “Your brain should be studied, perhaps after you are dead,” he joked, at least Able thought it was a joke. “Do you think the Conde de Quintanar is as wickedly smart as you?”

  “Let’s ask him, shall we, Captain Ogilvie?” Stop, Angus, Able thought. This is my life to ponder.

  They continued in silence to Bartleby Bakery. Angus turned to Able and held out his hand. “Let me wish you well.” They shook hands. Ogilvie looked toward St. Brendan’s down the street and across from Able’s house. “D’ye think Lady St. Anthony will continue to instruct there?”

  “I would be amazed if she didn’t,” Able replied. “She’s a born teacher and she abhors idleness and aimless little boys.”

  Ogilvie nodded. “I like a determined woman.”

  “So do I.”

  With a nod, the shorter man built like a tree stump continued toward St. Brendan the Navigator School. Able watched him, still unable to make him out. Perhaps Meridee had some clues. He glanced into the bakery window.

  Ezekiel Bartleby had already boxed up the dessert in question, plus treacle biscuits. From the look on Smitty’s face, the redoubtable lad had tried and failed to force the baker to take the coins. Able knew Smitty never cared much for failure.

  He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, pleased that he did not flinch. “Smitty, down the street, I see a one-legged tar propped against the building. He can use the coins, since our baker is a hard man to convince.”

  “Aye, master.”

  “When you’re done, Mrs. Perry probably has hot bread with butter waiting in the kitchen.”

  “Could we take some to the beggar?” Nick asked. “I never cared much for hunger.”

  “Nor I,” Smitty said. “We can convince Mrs. Perry.”

  “I daresay you can,” Able said.

  Smitty nodded and gestured to Nick, who followed with a grin. Able watched them go, pleased as always how good Smitty was at commanding others. Nick followed him without question.

  “Thank you, Ezekiel,” Able said as he took the parcel. “Every little bit helps.” Able gave the baker a small salute and hurried home to Meridee, his heart lighter.

  He saw the boys down the block, squatting beside the beggar, handing him the coins and then talking. He hurried up the steps, sniffing warm bread when he opened the door. This meant a stop in the kitchen, where Mrs. Perry handed him the well-buttered heel, his favorite slice, and gave him the next piece for Meridee.

  “Two lads will be in here soon to petition some bread for a beggar,” he told her.

  “He might like a sandwich,” Mrs. Perry said, and turned to the pantry. “Maybe two.”

  “You’re a wonder,” he said. “Thank you for helping us, of late.”

  “Where would we be, if left to our own devices?” She pointed to the door. “She’s holding Ben in the sitting room. He’s asleep.” Able watched her expressive face. “Master Six, she looks content.”

  “Good.”

  He ate the heel, then eyed Meri’s piece. Mrs. Perry scowled at him, and suddenly, things felt right again. He gave her a wink and walked to the sitting room, opening the door quietly in case both mother and son were asleep.

  Mrs. Perry was right. Meri was awake, but he saw her contentment. She pursed her lips at him, which told him worlds about her mood. He kissed those pursed lips, which opened into a far more satisfactory kiss, and sat beside her on the sofa.

  “I can carry him upstairs for you,” he whispered.

  “In a minute. I like this,” she said softly. “It’s nice for his brain to be less busy.”

  Able handed her the buttered bread, removed his shoes and propped his feet on the ottoman, tickling her bare toes, which made her smile. She ate the bread. “Just what I needed.”

  “Mrs. Perry seems to know.”

 
“So do you,” she said. She licked her lips, then nodded. “You may take him upstairs.”

  Able carefully extracted their son from Meri’s arms and bedded him down in his room next to theirs. He looked in the empty chamber that had belonged to Jean Hubert, their escapee from a prisoner of war hulk in the harbor, who had inexplicably decided to leave them, after many months of service to St. Brendan’s. Jean had left behind a magnificent pen and ink drawing of the Loire River valley, and a note thanking them for their hospitality. Cheeky Frenchman.

  The door to Nick and Smitty’s room was open. He peered in, mainly to assure himself that it was shipshape, then returned to the sitting room. Meri’s eyes were closed, the sock she was darning on the floor. He picked it up, smiling at her tiny stitches, and set the sock, one of his, back in the never-empty mending basket.

  He sat down, and in the peace of their sitting room, admired her loveliness. He thought that’s what he did. When he opened his eyes, shadows had lengthened across the room and she was eyeing him.

  Silent, he watched her face, pleased to see a certain game quality now. He held out his hand to her and she came to him, curling up in his lap and resting her head against his chest.

  “I want to be happy again.”

  He held her closer, kissing her hair. “We will be.”

  She smelled of lilac talcum and little boy, a combination that made him smile and then chuckle. “What’s so funny?” she asked in that gruff voice of hers she used when she felt playful. He could have gone down on his knees in gratitude to hear it again.

  “You are.” He sniffed around her ear then bit her ear lobe most tenderly. “You smell of lilacs and Ben.”

  She laughed and settled herself closer. “Headmaster Croker dropped by to say that you and I have been invited to the reading of Sir B’s will tomorrow. It will be held in his chambers.”

  “Us? I’ll wager you that our friend is leaving a tidy sum to St. Brendan’s.”

  Meri nodded. “I doubt I am essential to any such reading, but Thaddeus Croker insisted.” She sat up. “This is strange. He specifically requested that Smitty come with us.”

  “Is it so strange?”

  “I wonder,” she said, making herself comfortable again. “I watched him during the funeral, dour Smitty who looks older than his years. He…he..you’ll think this absurd…”

  “Try me.”

  “There are times he reminds me of Sir B,” she said in a rush, as if aware how silly that sounded, and wanted to get rid of the idea in a hurry.

  “He reminds me, too.”

  “Is this even possible?” she asked, after looking around to assure herself that Smitty and Nick were nowhere near.

  “Of all people, you and I know that anything is possible.”

  He kept the thought through dinner, which was subdued, until Meri started speaking of more memorable moments with Sir B, some of them humorous. This led to Able’s stories of life at sea with Captain St. Anthony, when Able was a mere sprout and learning his craft, granted, faster than most.

  Ben ate a good meal, then settled on his father’s lap as Able read from Euclid in the original Greek, which made Meri roll her eyes and return to her darning. The long, painful day of sending a grand navy man off to his eternal watch had mellowed into a typical evening at the Sixes, almost as if they had permission to return to normal. Nick and Smitty commandeered the dining room table to spread out their next day’s assignments, complain about too much extra work, and demolish the rest of that loaf of bread, well-buttered.

  The boys went to bed in good spirits. Meri read to them as she always did – she reasoned they were never too old for that and no one complained – while Able did the same with Ben in his little room. “My boy, let me start you off with Xenophon,” he said, hunkering down with his son. “Do you want the English or the Greek?”

  “Greek, Papa,” Ben said. “I should sound out some of the words, shouldn’t I?”

  You’re seventeen months old, Able thought. I wonder what your grandfather would think of you, that man near the Santísima Trinidad. “Yes, you should. You try and I’ll help if needed.”

  A page or two sufficed for the night. Ben tugged at his eyelids and his respirations slowed. “Goodnight, sweet boy,” Able whispered. He thought of his own harsh days in the Dumfries workhouse, grateful with every fiber of his being that his son would never know that life. No one would ever chastise Ben for reading early, for knowing too much.

  Able heard Meri in their room, but he went downstairs as usual, checking all the doors, doing the slow walk that remained a cherished holdover of his sailing master duties at sea. From quarterdeck to gundeck to fo’c’sle and back, he used to walk. Now the slow walk reminded him how much he missed the sea.

  And yet, if Angus Ogilvie was correct, his time at St. Brendan’s was coming to an end, at least until the current national emergency passed. He would be recalled to the fleet because Napoleon Bonaparte felt himself ready to conquer England. How on earth could he tell Meri?

  Chapter Six

  Meridee knew what her man was doing, because Mrs. Perry had told her a year ago how he walked through their house, perhaps even wishing himself at sea again. She smiled to herself as she sat in bed, wondering if he had any idea that she knew how much he wanted to return to sea. Some sixth sense of her own, not as stunning as her husband’s mental equipment but yet there, nevertheless, had alerted her.

  It might have been all the hours he and the St. Brendan boys spent on Sir B’s yacht, the Jolly Roger, sailing around the Isle of Wight, and even taking messages to Plymouth. He always came home so happy, smelling of brine and tar. What else could she believe? The sea was a mistress she could live with.

  She heard his footsteps on the stairs, listening as he took another look at Ben, then turned their doorknob.

  She shouldn’t feel shy, but she did, because she was Meridee and modest. He smiled at her, stretched and took off his shoes first. When he started on his trouser buttons, she thought this might be the moment to stand up and let her nightgown fall to the floor.

  He watched her, his eyes appreciative. His smile grew, but he came no closer.

  She stepped out of the silky pile around her feet. There were always going to be stretch marks, thanks to Ben. Her breasts had suffered some loss of firmness and her waist certainly couldn’t be spanned by her husband’s hands yet or even again, but did it matter? The light in Able’s eyes suggested that the answer was an emphatic no.

  “My love, we need some solace, you and I,” she said and held out her arms.

  “How did I ever manage without you?” she asked later, when the room stopped twirling about. “Granted, life was simpler as a spinster. Also deadly dull.”

  He laughed his nighttime laugh, the one she only heard in bed, two parts edgy and one part sleepy. “I’ve wondered how I ever managed without you.”

  “Come now, Able, I am no fool,” she said, settling in, preparing for sleep. “I know you were a man of experience before we married.”

  “It’s not the same,” he assured her. “Those were for need and lust, after far too long at sea. You’re different.”

  “Oh, you don’t need me and lust a little bit?” she teased. “Have I been misinterpreting those looks of yours?”

  “Not at all,” he assured her. “My word, woman. There are times I have lusted so intensely in the… the kitchen, that I am surprised I didn’t back you into the pantry and have my way with you next to the flour bin.”

  “Oh.” She couldn’t think of anything profound to say to that artless statement.

  “’Oh?’ That’s the best you can do?” he teased in turn, this man of hers.

  “Oh my,” she teased back.

  This was probably her best opportunity, before they both relaxed further into slumber. “If you know me so well, Master Six, then you must know that I am well aware you are holding something back from me.”

  He was silent a while, and she almost second-guessed herself. But no, she knew
that look of uncertainty, that look of wondering how to tell her bad news. “I hope this is not something I will hear soon enough from someone else,” she said, then rubbed his chest.

  He put his hand over hers. “You know me. I cannot hide anything from you.”

  “Tell me straight up with no bark,” she said. There was enough light in their room to see that he smiled at her slang.

  “Blame Captain Ogilvie and his sources!” he began. “Very well: he has word that I will be recalled to the fleet at any moment, because we have reached that moment of grave national crisis.”

  “There is never a right time, is there?” she asked. “I need you here.” Too bad that armies and navies care not a whit about men who fight and women who wait.

  “I have been wondering when this would happen,” she said. “Haven’t you?”

  He pulled her on top of his body as he would a coverlet. This bore an odd similarity to their recent lovemaking, but she could tell he was deadly serious in a different way. “I have no choice, my love.”

  “I know.”

  She rested her head on his chest. I must savor every moment with this dear genius of mine, she thought, as she drifted to sleep.

  When she slept – God, how he loved it when she blew bubbles on his chest – Able moved her off him carefully, unwilling to wake her. He watched her face, noting the fine lines around her eyes. He saw all the strength in her, as well as her vulnerability. If something happened to him, where would she go? What would she do?

  Euclid, if you have any suggestions, don’t hang back please, he thought.

  He waited for a response, and it came, sounding reluctant, even surly. She banished me from your bedchamber, he heard, from that first voice inside his head, years ago. He smiled at the petulance.

  The others began to stir inside, van Leuwenhoek with a sigh and shake of his head. Newton appeared detached, which was no surprise. He had never enjoyed the delight, pleasure and care of a wife. He didn’t expect any advice from Antoine Lavoisier, the French chemist who had lost his head to the recent revolution, and whose wife had been his lab partner. Able wondered if Lavoisier was aware that his wife had remarried last year. He thought it prudent not to consider the matter too intensely, the French being so prickly.