Marriage of Mercy Read online

  ‘I wish this war would end, so you would go away,’ Grace scolded, when she could talk. ‘You are vulgar and useless.’

  He grinned and returned to the bread he was kneading, lifting up a great length of it and whacking it on the table so hard that Lady Tutt’s companion jumped in fright.

  Not Lady Tutt. She fixed him with a stare. ‘Rudesby,’ she declared, then, ‘American.’

  Grace greased three more bread pans, idly watching Lady Tutt go through her typical ritual of squeezing off bits of bread to taste without having to pay for them. She was walking into the back room for more yeast when she heard a gasp and a gargle. Grace whirled around to stare at the spectacle of Lady Tutt clutching her throat and turning a mottled

  colour that contrasted unfavourably with puce.

  Grace stood there, stunned, but not Rob. ‘You, there!’ he shouted to Lady Tutt’s companion. ‘Slap her on the back!’

  The companion gasped, ‘I dare not!’ then turned horrified eyes on her employer, who had sunk to her knees. ‘She would turn me off without a character!’

  ‘Not if she’s dead, you ninny,’ Grace heard him growl under his breath.

  The other customers in the bakery were equally inept, whether from fear of the wrath of Lady Tutt, or from surprise. No one did anything. Grace started towards the counter.

  ‘You know, you British will never win this war,’ Rob muttered as he vaulted over the counter with one hand, pushed the lady’s companion aside, grabbed Lady Tutt around her considerable girth and administered a sharp smack to her back at the same time as he squeezed below her ribs.

  Nothing happened, except that the companion slid to the floor in a graceful faint, unable to bear the sight of her mistress so manhandled. He smacked Lady Tutt again. With an audible pop, a ball of purloined bread shot from her mouth and landed next to the cat in the window display. The cat arched its back, hissed and leaped onto the still form of the lady’s companion. Grace shooed it away and waved smelling salts under the companion’s nose, until she began to sputter.

  Rob kept his grip on the knight’s widow. ‘Breathe in and out now,’ he ordered.

  ‘I. Am. Perfectly. Capable,’ Lady Tutt began, gasping between words. ‘Unhand. Me. You. Brute!’

  Without a word, Rob plopped her on the floor unceremoniously. ‘Lady Tutt, that’s what happens when you pinch bites of bread you haven’t paid for,’ he said as he left her there. In another moment, he was kneading dough again.

  The other customers in the store couldn’t leave fast enough. I give this incident three minutes to be all over the High Street, Grace thought. She helped the companion to her feet, then turned her attention to Lady Tutt, still sitting in the middle of the bakery.

  With an awful expression, the widow stared holes through Rob’s back as he worked the bread dough. Hiding her smile, now that the emergency was so quickly over, Grace followed her basilisk gaze. Admit it now, Lady Tutt, she told herself. He has a wonderful pair of shoulders, now that there is flesh on his bones again.

  Lady Tutt held out her hand imperiously and Grace helped her up. The woman’s turban was askew and favouring one ear over the other. When the companion did nothing but stare, Grace took a deep breath—Lady Tutt had always frightened her, too.

  ‘There now, Lady Tutt. I suggest you go home and lie down,’ she said.

  To her relief, Lady Tutt signalled to her addled companion. ‘Hand me my parasol,’ she commanded, not quite up to her usual strength, but intimidating enough to elicit an audible gulp from her employee.

  * * *

  ‘And that is that,’ she told Rob when they started back to the dower house that afternoon. ‘I doubt you will ever receive a word of thanks.’

  She was silent a moment, digesting again the whole frightening business of Lady Tutt. She laughed, which made him stop in the road, put his hands on his hips in that lazy way she rather liked and tip his head slightly to one side.

  ‘All right, what’s the joke?’ he asked.

  ‘Heaven forgive me, but while you were pounding her back, I thought of six or seven people who would love to have done that.’

  ‘Grace, you are a rascal!’

  They had come to a crossroads and the rustic bench that served as a waiting place for the local bonecracker that travelled at a sedate pace between villages. He took her hand and pulled her down beside him.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you—recently, Lady Tutt said something about you “slipping”.’ He didn’t quite look at her. ‘What did she mean?’

  ‘I don’t have to tell you,’ Grace said quickly, angry at him.

  ‘Damn right,’ he replied agreeably. ‘It’s not my business.’ He took her hand. ‘But I have some idea, and, well, your English is so good.’ He chuckled. ‘It can’t be worse than my story.’

  She turned her hand and he released her immediately. You have some nerve, she thought, wondering why his good opinion mattered even slightly to her. Mind your tongue, Grace, she told herself, after another long minute. As she sat there, Grace realised that she had never told her story to anyone, not even the Wilsons—at least, not the whole story.

  Maybe it boiled down to this: she could say nothing and the social disgrace would be her uncomfortable secret from a man she would never see again after a few months. Or she could speak, with courage. He had done that—couldn’t she be as brave?

  ‘Not worse, just humiliating,’ she said finally. ‘Papa was a baronet and he had a lovely estate mortgaged to the hilt. Retrenchment was not in his vocabulary. He could have sold his estate and lived quietly in Bath on the proceeds, after paying his debts.’ She stopped, unable to continue.

  Rob put his arm around her, and she didn’t pull away this time. ‘You could see every red flag and he could see none, I suppose.’

  She nodded, dabbing her eyes with her apron, breathing deeply of its comforting yeast and cinnamon. ‘I would suggest some economising measure and he would give me such a wounded look.’

  Suddenly shy, she glanced at Rob. There was nothing on his face but concern. ‘Mama died years earlier. I can’t help wondering if she felt some relief…’

  ‘Go ahead, Gracie,’ he said, his eyes kind. ‘There were probably moments when you hated your father for being so careless of your own future.’

  ‘I did! I did!’ she burst out. ‘I wanted him dead so I could try my hand at salvaging the family name, at least. If we had sold some land and practised strict economy, I would still have a home.’ She scrubbed at her eyes fiercely, almost daring him to say anything. ‘Perhaps I could have married…’ She let the thought drift away, because it was too intimate to share with a man.

  He remained silent, his arm firmly about her shoulders. For the smallest moment, Grace wondered what it would be like to drop her burdens at someone’s feet other than her own. It passed.

  Her offhand remark must have puzzled him. ‘You can’t marry?’ he asked. ‘Seems a waste of a pretty woman.’

  She glanced at him, pleased and shy at the same time. Her mama had called her pretty, but that was what mothers did.

  ‘Rob, just think, no one from my original social sphere would ever stoop to marrying me, because…because I have “slipped”, as Lady Tutt so crudely put it. And no one from the sphere I live in now would ever assume to court someone from the gentry. It isn’t done.’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ Rob said, after considering the matter. ‘You’d fare a lot better in America.’

  ‘Dan, I am twenty-eight, here or there!’ she declared, laughing at the absurdity of it.

  He slapped his forehead in mock vexation. ‘An antique! What was I thinking?’

  She never anticipated what he would do next. Without a word, he kissed her so quickly she almost wasn’t sure he had done it.

  ‘No problem there,’ he said. ‘Your lips work. You’d do well in America.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ she said as her face flamed.

  ‘Am I too coarse for a baronet’s daughter?’ he asked just
as quickly. ‘I’ll watch myself.’

  Grace sighed inwardly, uncomfortable. How to whitewash over a kiss? ‘And I’m a dunce,’ she said, keeping her voice light. ‘What’s so special about America?’

  ‘Name me another place where a poor wretch from the Pool of London could ever be a sailing master who owns his own home.’ His smile was tinged with sadness. ‘Or where said indentured servant—I was a slave!—could ever hope to marry a merchant’s daughter.’

  ‘That’s what Elaine was?’

  ‘Aye.’ His shoulders slumped. ‘I caught her fancy. What a blessing she was.’

  It was simply said and told her worlds about his heart. They continued walking in silence, shoulders touching occasionally as they strolled along.

  * * *

  The silence lasted through dinner, a simple meal of soup and rolls brought from the bakery and eaten belowstairs. I have slipped, indeed, Lady Tutt, she told herself, as Emery ate with them. She looked at him with satisfaction, counting the old yard man safe because she had helped him avoid the workhouse.

  Her satisfaction would have continued all evening, if Lord Thomson hadn’t banged on the door with his walking stick.

  Grace opened the door. ‘Lord Thomson?’

  ‘The only one.’

  She couldn’t bring herself to invite him in, but he came in, anyway. ‘Where’s my uncle’s bastard?’ he asked, with no preamble.

  ‘Right here,’ Rob said, coming to stand beside Grace.

  Lord Thomson drew himself up. ‘Most people address me as “my lord”.’ He glanced at Grace—just a quick glance, but she felt suddenly unclean. ‘Even bakery drudges.’

  ‘You’ll wait a long time for me to say milord,’ Rob replied. ‘And she’s no drudge.’

  Don’t, she wanted to warn Rob, but he didn’t need a warning. He stood there, eyeing the marquis, until the smaller man looked away.

  Neither man spoke and no one moved, until Lord Thomson reached into his inside pocket. ‘What should appear upon my doorstep a few minutes ago but a missive from Lady Tutt, Quimby’s biggest mushroom. She labours under the misconception that Lord Thomson harbours bastards under his roof. Stupid woman.’

  Rob frowned at the marquis’s vulgarity. ‘Ladies present,’ he murmured.

  ‘No, there aren’t.’ Lord Thomson opened the letter. ‘It seems she wants your attendance upon her tomorrow afternoon, to thank you for saving her life.’ Lord Thomson looked at Rob through his quizzing glass. ‘I heard about that little charade from my butler. Really, was it necessary for you to save her life? Think of the years of pretension we could have all been spared, if you had let her choke.’

  He was trying to get a rise out of his poor relation, but Rob ignored it. ‘I may be a bastard, but I don’t read other people’s mail,’ the parolee said.

  It was said cheerily enough, but Grace clearly heard the steel behind the words. Lord Thomson did, too, evidently. He threw the letter at the American, turned on his heel and left. The effect was muted somewhat by the fact that the front door he had left open behind him had quietly closed during his brief audience in the foyer. He hit the door with a smack and sat down abruptly.

  Rob was too wise to laugh. He picked up the letter. ‘Stay as long as you like,’ he said. ‘It’s your dower house.’ He left the foyer whistling ‘Yankee Doodle’.

  Lord Thomson leaped to his feet and yanked at his waistcoat, which had ridden up. He put a shaking hand to his nose, which was beginning to bleed. He gave a plaintive bleat at the sight of his own blood, then twisted the doorknob, jerking it viciously until it opened.

  ‘Some day you’ll wish that hadn’t happened,’ he snarled and slammed the door behind him.

  ‘I’m ahead of you, Lord Thomson,’ she murmured as she heard him stomp down the gravelled driveway. ‘I already wish it.’

  Chapter Twelve

  It must have been the marquis’s parting shot. Lord Thomson and the marchioness were gone the next day, leaving only a skeleton staff, according to Emery who announced their departure. ‘I have my sources,’ was all he would say, which amused Grace.

  ‘Is this better or worse?’ Rob asked, as they stood in the driveway, watching the carriage. He shook his head. ‘Captain Cameron used to tell me, “Don’t poke the bear”, whenever I was inclined to get into a brawl with someone who could thrash me.’

  ‘We didn’t poke the bear,’ Grace argued. ‘He poked himself.’

  ‘It’s all the same, to a ninny like that,’ the parolee said. ‘What should we do? I am uneasy.’

  They looked at each other. ‘You need a haircut,’ Grace said, after a long perusal.

  Rob smiled at that. ‘What an adroit change of topic,

  Gracie!’ He reached over and touched the worry lines between her eyes. ‘And you need not fear so much for me,’ he told her. ‘It’s not worth thirty pounds of anxiety per annum. Tell you what, cut my hair and I’ll shine my shoes and we’ll visit Lady Tutt after work.’

  She nodded, shy again. ‘Maybe we should visit Mr Selway in Exeter. I would like his opinion about the odious Lord Thomson.’

  ‘I’ve been wondering why we have not heard from him. Maybe you’re right. Haircut first, then Lady Tutt and maybe Mr Selway, if we’re still worried.’

  His hair was easier to cut this time; not that it had changed much, but she felt more relaxed, so close to him. They went onto the lawn by the kitchen garden again and Grace snipped away, enjoying the opportunity to stare at his face, under the guise of making sure he was even on both sides. She tugged on the hair by both ears to make sure it matched. He sat still as she evened up the red-gold hair by his ears. ‘I never move when women fidget around my ears with sharp objects,’ he told her.

  She tapped his cheek with the flat part of the scissors. ‘How often has that ever come up in your life?’ she teased back.

  ‘Alas, not often enough,’ he said. He started to take her hand, then must have changed his mind. ‘You never finished your story yesterday. Did you just go to the Wilsons and offer to work for them? Tell me.’

  There was a low stone wall by the chair. She sat there, the shears in her lap. ‘The lawyer read the will and, in almost the same breath, sold the house, its contents and the land to a brewer from Bristol. And there I was, homeless.’

  ‘No relatives? No one?’

  She shook her head. ‘Mama’s family had disowned her when she married Papa. She was the daughter of an earl and no one on that side of the family ever enquired after me.’

  Rob tipped his chair back. ‘It’s hard enough for a young man to strike out on his own. You were eighteen?’

  She nodded. ‘I thought about throwing myself on the mercy of the district’s better families, but I just couldn’t.’ She shrugged. ‘The Wilsons had always been kind to me, even when I couldn’t pay their bills. I went to them and offered to work for nothing, to pay off Papa’s debt.’

  ‘You indentured yourself.’

  She glanced at him, startled. ‘I suppose I did. I worked for two years, then Mr Wilson pronounced the debt paid. He was kind enough to hire me then.’

  ‘You just walked into the bakery and laid it all out?’

  She looked him in the eye then, admiring the brightness of his blue eyes, and the intelligence—or was it shrewdness?—that gazed back at her. ‘Not as dramatic as crawling across a deck to wipe a captain’s shoes, I suppose, but there was a similar measure of desperation…’ She couldn’t say any more.

  ‘Neither of us had anything to lose, did we?’ he asked, but his question didn’t need answering.

  He held out his hand to her and she took it. Again she had that curious feeling of laying her burden down, even if Rob Inman was as powerless as she was; more so, even, because he was a prisoner of war. She squeezed his hand, released it and stood up. Better not get used to his kindness, Grace, she told herself. It can’t last beyond a peace treaty.

  * * *

  They were both quiet on their walk into Quimby. Halfway to the village, h
e took her hand, which made her heart hammer in her chest.

  ‘I have a confession, Grace,’ he said. ‘Ever since I started working at the bakery, I’ve been wondering how I could escape and make my way to Plymouth.’

  She stared at him. He released her hand. ‘It’s true. I’m desperate to shake the dust of England off my shoes. When you chose me in Dartmoor, I knew I could escape, especially after I saw the only things standing in my way were you, a doddering old man and a maid from the manor who thinks I’m handsome.’

  Grace swallowed. So do I, she thought.

  ‘But I can’t. Lord Thomson would come down on you like a mallet on a teacup. You’d lose your thirty pounds a year and…’

  ‘I will probably lose that anyway,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’ He took her by both shoulders, after looking around to make sure no one watched. ‘I can’t promise I won’t run. Who knows what might happen? But you chose me, Gracie, you’re stuck with me until this war ends.’

  He pulled her close then, doing it gently, gently as though he wasn’t sure what she would do. She hesitated only a second, then gratefully rested her head against his chest.

  ‘You can lean on me, Gracie,’ he told her. ‘You’ve been managing alone for too long and I know that gets tiresome. Comrades, then, until this war is over?’

  She closed her eyes, breathing in the fragrance of his shirt, and nodded. ‘Until it’s over.’

  ‘And I promise not to kiss you again,’ he told her. ‘After all, you’re a baronet’s daughter and we know where I came from.’

  * * *

  But how do you un-choose someone, when a war ends? Grace asked herself as they worked side by side in the bakery that day. She glanced at Rob occasionally, noting how serious he was. He chewed on his lip as he kneaded the bread, banging it harder on the boards than usual, and looking at her now and then, a frown on his face.

  I must assure this good man that I really don’t require looking after, Grace thought. He needn’t worry about me, after he is back in America.

  The thought of America made her pause, hands wrist-deep in the dough. Was it really possible to start from scratch there? It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if Nantucket had a bakery, but she stopped herself in time.