Marriage of Mercy

He stood in the doorway, just looking at the simple but pleasant room. ‘Believe me when I tell you it is humiliating to be full of lice and fleas. I haven’t been so uncomfortable since my childhood.’

Her curiosity piqued, Grace had to know more. ‘Fleas and lice on Nantucket?’ she teased in turn.

The amusement in his voice was evident. He laughed softly, even as he sat down heavily on the bed. ‘Nantucket? Comes with sand fleas, too. But I told you last night I was born in England. I’m one of those Americans that England insists can only be English, because I was born here. This is what you get for choosing Rob Inman, officially branded a troublemaker. You may wish to surrender my parole to someone else.’

‘How could I possibly collect my thirty pounds a year, if I did?’

‘Only thirty pounds to watch me?’ The captain’s eyes were closing. ‘I fear you are not being paid well enough for the aggravation I will be.’

It was a disquieting thought. She watched him as he drifted to sleep, wondering just how much trouble one parolee could be.

She left him then, sound asleep. It troubled her to watch a man wilt so fast and so she told Emery belowstairs, as he continued to unpack the shabby goods Lord Thomson thought should furnish the dower house, now that a prisoner of war lived there, along with a baker’s assistant awarded the princely sum, per annum, of thirty pounds.

‘Why is Lord Thomson so intent upon punishing me for a mere thirty pounds?’ she asked Emery.

The old retainer only shrugged and folded another tattered dishcloth into a drawer.

She toyed with the idea of telling Emery of the switch in Dartmoor Prison, then decided against it. It would serve no purpose to tell anyone who ‘Captain Duncan’ really was. She wouldn’t tell the Wilsons, either, she decided, as she walked to Quimby, knowing Rob would sleep through the afternoon.

‘He is rail thin and weak,’ she told them both as she stood at the familiar kneading table again.

‘Worms, more like,’ Mrs Wilson said. ‘I have a dose of black draught that will shift ‘im.’

Grace smiled, her equilibrium restored by the mere act of stirring a recipe she knew so well. ‘I’d rather wish the black draught on Lord Thomson! He took everything out of the dower house before Mr Selway and I returned from Dartmoor and replaced it—when forced to—with the worst rubbish from the attics!’

‘A double dose of black draught for Lord Thomson,’ Mr Wilson said with a laugh as he watched her. ‘Enough to keep him in the necessary and out of your business!’

Trust the Wilsons to cheer her up, she decided as she hurried to the greengrocer to buy food to tempt the American’s appetite. Mr Selway had smoothed her path with the local merchants. She ordered food and timidly told the proprietor to direct the receipt to Philip Selway, Esq., Exeter, Postal Box Fifteen. The man didn’t even blink. ‘Aye, Gracie,’ he told her. ‘That solemn-looking solicitor gave us strict orders about your invoices.’

So it went at each store she visited; everyone was curious about Captain Duncan. Grace resigned herself to being part of the most interesting thing that had happened in Quimby since Quentin Markwell, Exeter’s own notorious highwayman, had galloped through town a century ago, pausing to steal the vicar’s smallclothes from his washing line.

She returned to Quarle in good humour, at least until she saw Lord Thomson watching her out of an upstairs window, his glare evident even from some distance. ‘Surely it is but a matter of months until this poor man is gone,’ she muttered. ‘Lord Thomson, be a little less odious, if you can.’

Grace’s irritation at the marquis did not improve when she entered the dower house. Emery was waiting for her, sitting on one of the rickety chairs in the small foyer and looking uncharacteristically glum.

‘We’ve lost him already, Gracie,’ he said.

‘Impossible,’ Grace retorted, trying to hide her sudden fear. ‘I left him asleep upstairs before I went to the Wilsons. He was too weak to move.’

‘He’s moved, Gracie. Trouble is, where?’

Chapter Eight

Why in heaven’s name did I ever agree to this parole? Grace asked herself as she quickly set down the purchases she had brought with her—choice dainties to tempt that wretched man’s appetite. The constable will shoot him on sight? Only if I don’t beat him to it, she thought grimly.

‘He can’t have just vanished, Emery,’ she stated, hands on her hips. ‘He could barely walk!’

‘Perhaps we are underestimating him,’ Emery offered.

‘Or he’s only trying to fool us so he can escape,’ Grace snapped back. ‘Where on earth would he go?’ She sat down on a rickety chair in the entrance hall. ‘Is there not a chair in this silly house that doesn’t list?’

She was silent then, listening to herself: querulous, testy and complaining. She sighed. ‘Emery, I wish you would smite me when I complain.’

He recoiled. ‘Never! That would go against every bit of butlering I can think of. Which ain’t much,’ he added philosophically.

She couldn’t help smiling, despite her worries. ‘Don’t you know you should humour a lunatic?’ she teased. ‘If I am not imposing, would you please even off these chair legs?’

‘Consider it done,’ the old retainer told her.

She stood outside for a long moment, wishing herself calm, even as she wanted to smack Lord Thomson and throttle Rob Inman. Where was he? She berated herself again for choosing Rob Inman, out of all the miserable American prisoners she could have selected. She walked to the modest circle drive in front of the dower house, totally at a loss. Emery had thought the parolee would have no trouble blending with the seamen that walked about Plymouth, but he would have to get there first. Plymouth was not close, especially for someone teetering just this side of starvation.

If you’re found, you will be shot, you wretched man, she thought, walking into the road, but not ready to pass the manor house again, not with Lord Thomson watching her. She rubbed her arms, chilled at what would happen to him if the marquis had even an inkling that the captain had left the house unaccompanied.

‘Where would I go, if I were you?’ she asked out loud. ‘You’ve said you like the wind on your face.’

And then she knew and realised she had better be right. Looking about to see if Lord Thomson was in sight, Grace hiked up her skirt and ran towards the highest point of land on his property. It wasn’t much of an elevation, but just enough of one to tempt someone homesick for the sea, who might think he could see Plymouth Sound from its height. She used to walk there occasionally with old Lord Thomson, when he’d had the strength, because he or one of his ancestors had put a bench at the top.

Sure of herself now, she hurried to the high point, rehearsing in her mind what she would say to Rob when she found him. To her amazement and growing fear, he was nowhere in sight. She even stood on top of the bench, the better to scan the countryside.

Defeat settled on her shoulders like a blanket. He hadn’t been in her charge for much more than a day and she had already lost him.

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