Carla Kelly – The Surgeon's Lady (страница 2)

A door down the corridor opened, and an older woman came out. She was small and thin, her expressive face full of sharp planes and angles, but Laura could not overlook her brown eyes. This must be Nana’s grandmother.

“Mrs. Massie?” she inquired. “I am …”

She didn’t even have to say. The innkeeper grasped her by both arms.

“I wondered if you would come,” she said simply. “Nana has nearly given up.”

The woman must have realized how presumptuously she was behaving, because she dropped her hands from Laura’s arms and stepped back to curtsy. Don’t stop, Laura wanted to say. No one has ever touched me kindly.

There was something in Mrs. Massie’s eyes that demanded equal frankness. “I hadn’t the courage to come,” Laura said. “I could not believe that Eleanor, Nana, would really want to meet me. Not after what I did.”

“She was nearly beside herself with excitement when she and the captain returned here from Bath in March,” Mrs. Massie said. “‘Sisters, Gran, imagine,’ she told me.”

Laura didn’t know how it happened, but the innkeeper had her by the hand and was leading her into a small sitting room off the corridor. “Where is Nana, please?”

She astonished herself by bursting into tears when Mrs. Massie told her the captain had settled Nana in Torquay, a half day’s drive east. She astonished herself further by leaning against Mrs. Massie until the woman was grasping her shoulder and murmuring, something like the crooning of parent to child.

Her whole story tumbled out, how her father had sold her to Sir James Taunton to pay his creditors; how her husband had tried to fix a child on her; how she had faithfully tended the old man through his final illness; how humiliated she was by what had happened. Through it all, Mrs. Massie held her close, offering her apron for Laura to dab her eyes.

“It is my shame to bear,” Laura said, when she could speak.

Laura stayed in the protecting circle of Mrs. Massie’s arms. “No shame. You didn’t have a Gran to run to, did you?” she said.

“No, I didn’t have a Gran.”

“You do, now.”

Laura slept soundly that night, burrowed deep in Nana’s bed, with its homely sag. The room was light when she woke up, but she contented herself with lying still, hands behind her head. She looked around the room, noted a shaving stand and mirror, and reminded herself that Nana had shared her small bed with a husband.

Well, Nana, you were spooned in with the captain, she thought. No wonder I am to be an aunt. Sir James had never been inclined to share her bed, content merely to use her and leave her. Laura doubted that her sister and the captain had separate bedchambers in their home in Torquay.

The Mulberry’s keepers waved her off from the front walk and Laura blew Gran a kiss before she settled back in the coach. She wished the road had followed the coastline, but there were glimpses of Devon’s lovely coast. A brisk wind blew, so the water sparkled and danced.

Then they were in Torquay, where she could practically breathe in the magnificent sweep of Torbay, with its warships at anchor there, too, and tidy houses rising from the coastline in pastel terraces. As gulls wheeled and scolded overhead, she began to wonder why anyone would want to live inland.

When she reached Nana’s home, it was as Gran has described it: two and a half stories of sturdy stone with a pale blue wash and red roof. A captain could see that roof from the Channel, Laura thought. He could probably even keep it in his mind’s eye for months on the blockade.

The post chaise came to a stop on the neatly graveled driveway in front of the door. Not wasting a moment, Laura opened the door, put down the step and was knocking on the front door before the coachman barely set the brake. The door opened on a generously built woman rather than a butler, who asked her to state her business, in that soft burr of the Southwest Coast that Laura had detected in Gran’s speech.

“Lady Taunton from Taunton, here to visit my sister, Mrs. Worthy.”

“Well, well! Come this way,” the woman said. “Things are at sixes and sevens right now, what with the news, but …” She was silent then, which from the look on her face, must have been a difficult thing. “Mrs. Worthy can tell you everything.”

This is a bad time, Laura thought with dismay, as she entered the sitting room. There was Nana, obviously, sitting between another comfortable-looking woman and a man in uniform who, with his short brown hair and bright blue eyes she could see even from the doorway, must be related to the woman. They had the same air of comfort about them.

Laura knew she was not familiar with naval uniforms, but this one was different than most: plain, with no epaulets and only gilt buttons. The insignia on his upstanding collar was unusual, too, with its double row of gilt-embroidered chains.

“Lady Taunton,” the housekeeper announced.

The man in uniform stood up when he saw her and bowed, but Laura had eyes only for her sister, who looked as though she had been crying.

There was no denying she had come at a bad time. Her instinct should have propelled her backward, but not this time, and not in this room, not with her sister sitting there, her eyes widening. Laura stepped forward, her hands out.

“Nana,” was all she said.

Nana rose from the sofa as though pulled up by strings. In a gesture that looked automatic to Laura, she put her hand on her belly, almost as a gesture of reassurance.

“Laura?” she said, and there was no mistaking the strength in her voice, even behind the quaver.

Laura felt the world’s weight leave her shoulders. Thank God you have not called me Lady Taunton, she thought, as she crossed the room.

Nana met her halfway, throwing her arms around Laura. She pressed herself close until Laura could feel the softness of her belly. Nana was shorter than she, so she rested her head against Laura’s bosom. The most natural thing in the world was for Laura to kiss her hair, which she did, as she locked her arms around her sister.

“Oliver told me you would come. He said I had to be patient,” Nana murmured in that same lilting, West Country burr. “Laura.”

Laura remembered Pym’s determination to give Eleanor Massie a well-bred accent, and her pique at never quite erasing the burr from the pretty child’s voice.

Her words were for Nana only, so she whispered them. “Sister, it took me three months to work up the nerve. What a fool I was.”

Nana drew a shuddering breath, then held herself off to look at Laura, from her stylish bonnet, to her impeccable traveling dress to her elegant half boots, then back to Laura’s hair, the color of her own. She gave it a gentle tug.

“When we were at the academy, I used to think you were the most beautiful creature in the whole world,” Nana said. She laughed out loud, a delightful sound that traveled to every corner of Laura’s heart. “I should have known we were related!”

Laura couldn’t help laughing. “You’re still a scamp,” she said, taking her sister’s hand.

Just then Nana remembered the others in the room, the man still standing.

“Mrs. Brittle, Surgeon Brittle, this is my sister, Lady Taunton.”

Suddenly, it was too much. Laura felt Nana sag, but the man was quicker. In a moment he had seated Nana on the sofa, and stepped back so Laura could join her. He poured a glass of water and handed it to her sister.

“Drink that and lean back,” he told her. “Deep breath.” Nana obeyed him without question.

Laura looked from the man to his mother, which served to give Mrs. Brittle leave to speak.

“My son is a surgeon,” she said. “He’s newly arrived from Jamaica.”

That would explain the handsome tan. She wouldn’t have called him good-looking, but the mahogany of his complexion seemed determined to cover the defects of sharp nose, thin lips and hair so short she wondered at first if he was bald. On the other hand, if Lt. Brittle was not the most handsome man she had ever seen—even in his glory days, her late husband was worth a second look—the surgeon had magnificent shoulders, the kind commonly associated with road-mending crews. Laura was impressed and puzzled, in equal shares.

“They came in force to bring me bad news,” Nana said in her forthright way.

“No, merely it-could-be-worse news,” the lieutenant contradicted. “The good news is that Captain Worthy can swim.” Nana relaxed further under the calmness of his gaze.

Laura watched him, interested, as the sheer force of his personality seemed to steady them. Mrs. Brittle said he was a surgeon. For years, she had seen many a physician up close, but never had she observed a better example of bedside manner, and from a mere surgeon in the Royal Navy. So much for the day’s surprises.

“Swim?” Laura asked. “I am in the dark.”

Nana took her hand and started to speak, but couldn’t. She looked at Mrs. Brittle, who took up the narrative without a pause.

“My husband is the sailing master on the Tireless, Lady Taunton,” she said. “He sent us a message by way of a coastal ship. The Tireless was on the receiving end of a real donnybrook by Ferrol Station.” Her voice hardened. “It wasn’t a fair fight, but Captain Worthy never backs away. The Tireless limped into Plymouth Sound and sank last night.”