Chapter Three

D evonport – Late October

Blast and damn, but Luke Wainwright did not have time for an old maid aunt. Her letter came to the drydock with the usual mail, which was much more important to him. It was simple to slip her letter to the bottom of the pile, knowing it could keep until he went home.

Home, hardly. It was just a house where he lived with his daughter Sally. Home meant a wife who in some mysterious way made everything better, simply by her presence. Clarissa had been dead six years, almost since Sally’s birth. Her father, a ship builder, had taught him everything he knew, except how to manage without a wife.

From his blueprint-filled office at Magleby not for them the two and three-decker builds. All the same, no one could lay a keel and send a smaller frigate down the ways faster and better than M guilt drove him to it as did a reminder of his inadequacy only last night.

He had been walking past St. Michaels, his head full of a million details concerning the latest frigate. His mistake was ducking inside to sit a moment in solitude with no one asking him stupid questions, or demanding his time for a trivial argument.

It must have been choir practice. They were attempting to sing “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Let Nothing You Dismay.” All that ran through his overworked brain was how on earth anyone could be merry in this year of 1809? Colonel John Moore was dead at Corunna and full-blown war had come to Spain, as Napoleon sent in his generals. Luke sat there in silence, ashamed of himself and sad. By the time the carolers did their best and finished, he wondered if he was turning into a sour man, old before his time.

“Papa?”

He looked down at his pretty child – thank God Sally looked like Clarissa – and asked himself if a few days in Liddiard would cause the ship underway, demanding his attention, to come crashing down from its stays. The idea was ludicrous. His second in command was steady and knew how to keep the men sawing and hammering. Liddiard was less than half a day away. He could take a post chaise, look over his aunt’s situation, and dismiss the encroacher – what was her name? Mary – close up the shop if things were out of control, and take Aunt Luella back to Plymouth.

“I’m going to Liddiard to rescue my spinster aunt,” he told his daughter, surprising himself. “You’ll be fine here for a few days.”

She gave him a bleak stare, and then her lip started to tremble. “It’s only a few days,” he pleaded, wanting solitude. When she sobbed into his sleeve, he altered his sudden plans. “Oh, dash it. You can come, too.”

He saw relief in her eyes that gave him something else to worry about. He wasn’t an attentive parent and Sally needed him. God Almighty, everyone needed him. He sighed and resolved to do better.

“Certainly you can come along. You’ve never met my Aunt Luella.”

“Is she good to little girls?” Sally asked, which gave him more cause to worry. He dismissed it, reminding himself that his daughter lacked for nothing. She had food, clothing, and people to look after her.

“Good? We shall see,” was the best he could do. It sounded lame to his ears.

“Papa, you say that when you mean no,” Sally murmured, already turning away.

What a craven lump he was, what a poor excuse for a father. God certainly needed to rest this merry gentleman, who was letting everything dismay him.

“We’re both going,” he said firmly.

He decided it would be a surprise visit, the better to see just what sort of trouble this Mary Whoever was causing. His father-in-law’s only comment was, “Lad, you should’ve done this sooner. I can manage. What’s a toothache, after all?”

“Are you sure, Father Magleby?” Luke asked. Poor man. His father-in-law must have the worst teeth in Devonport.

His father-in-law laughed. “Believe it or not, I knew how to run this drydocks before you came along! Go save your aunty.”

In midafternoon, a mere three days after he received his aunt’s disturbing letter, the post chaise dropped him and Sally off in front of the little shop with its cryptic sign, “Notions.” Aunt Luella never was one to use two words when one would do. And look, the sign appeared to have been touched up and painted a bright blue. All Luke could hope for was that the painter hadn’t cheated her, too.

He peered in the display window, which, to his surprise, was sparkling clean to a fare-thee-well, and not dingy with road dust and rain spots. Hmm. He saw inside the shop, where a woman in a preposterous bonnet was pointing to something inside the glass case next to the counter. Someone behind the counter was reaching inside.

“Papa! A cat!”

Sally pointed this time. Sure enough, an orangeish feline of no small proportions slept in the center of a wooden bowl of yarn. He stared, remembering how much Aunt Luella hated cats, and so she had told him on one of his obligatory visits, when his uncle still lived and Mama insisted he take an interest in old relatives that interested him not at all.

“Please may we go inside?” Sally asked. He nodded, and she darted ahead, which set the doorbell tinkling.

He followed more slowly, then stopped. He took a closer look at the skeins of embroidery thread and packets of pins in the window display. Interspersed with a dainty cup on its side with thimbles pouring out, and tiny scissors used in some sort of needlework that was a mystery to the manly mind, were miniature landscapes. Ordinary, prosaic crayons looked like the medium. How could someone do such detail and remain sane? he asked himself. He stared, and felt himself beguiled by the order around him. The window display was perfection.

The bell tinkled again when he entered the shop. Sally had already planted herself in front of the sleeping cat, which opened its eyes and stretched. He heard the clink of coins as they passed from one hand into the hand of the shop clerk who had straightened up and slid the glass cabinet shut. Was this Mary Cooper?

She was a pretty thing, but too slim, a contrast with the customer, who was overstuffed and overdressed. Her dark hair was braided, with the braids done up smoothly and held in place somehow. Luke was no arbiter of fashion and its trends, but he knew this style was an old one. She wore a dark blue dress and white apron with a pinafore top. He had to admit that the overall effect, from head to heels, was charming. She was neat as a pin.

“May I help you, sir?” she asked. “Something for your wife?”

He heard the West Country burr he was familiar with from all of his drydock workers. She was plain and simple Devon. Generally an honest man, he had to admit he saw only kindness in her eyes.

“No,” he said. “I’m Miss Wainwright’s nephew from Plymouth,” he heard himself saying. “She wrote about a tyrant bullying her in her shop and I wanted to see such a spectacle with my own eyes.” Good Lord, couldn’t he stop? Apparently not. “I’m her only living relative, and I don’t want her cheated.”

The light went out of her eyes and he hated himself.