still so angry at my brother for wasting his life and causing our late mother such grief that I couldn’t do it.’” Able looked at Smitty. “Lad, he was human.”
“Sir B never suffered in a workhouse, did he?” Smitty asked quietly, all the bitterness in plain view.
“No, but have some charity.” Able indicated the letter. “I believe he did the next best thing. Tell us exactly how you got here.”
The words spilled from the usually taciturn boy. “One day a kitchen girl slipped me a folded-up note. It was unsigned.” He looked at the letter. “Same handwriting. Sir B’s handwriting.”
“What did the note say?” Meridee asked, when Smitty remained silent.
“Told me to run away to St. Brendan’s in Portsmouth on Saints Way,” he replied promptly. “I ran away the next day.” He looked from Meridee to Able. “You know the rest, Master Six.”
“So do we all now, Smitty.”
Grace St. Anthony came closer, her expression pensive. “Meridee, didn’t I say my husband took some secrets to the grave? Smitty, I had no idea.” She pressed a handkerchief to her eyes. “I knew there was something more than pain bothering him in his last weeks, but he never told me. Sir B sent that unsigned note to you three years ago, because he couldn’t bear to deal with it any other way.”
“He was a coward,” Smitty said, his words a condemnation.
“He was human,” Grace repeated, her voice kind. “I hope you understand that someday.”
“Never.” Smitty shook his head. “I know my father wasn’t a good man, either. He never gave Mam enough money to live on and we starved.”
He said it simply, but his eyes showed all the hunger, and the longing worse than hunger. “I had two meals a day in the workhouse and that was better.” He shook his head, as if trying to dislodge a worse memory. “I couldn’t do nothing about the tormentors, though. I was too small then and they...” His expression took on a more Smitty aspect, the look of someone with scores to settle even now, and no way to do it. “I grew, though, I did.”
“What’s done is done. I have scores to settle, too, and no way to do it.”
Smitty started to say something, then stopped, as if recalling himself to the moment. “Does anyone understand us, Master Six?”
“As long as we understand each other, does it matter? Let’s go home, Smitty,” Able said. “We need to strategize on how to fulfill Sir B’s wish that we turn the Jolly Roger into a warship, a messenger.”
“Name her the Mercury.”
Meridee watched Captain Ogilvie join them, after a bow to Grace St. Anthony. Where had he come from? She hadn’t heard a door open.
“The winged messenger of the gods?” Able asked.
“The very one.” Ogilvie bowed a second time to Grace and included himself in the conversation. “We will ask you, Lady St. Anthony, to christen the Mercury.”
She waited for Grace to put the upstart Captain Ogilvie in his place, but she did not.
“I will do that gladly,” she said simply. “There is a condition, Captain Ogilvie.”
“Only name it,” he replied.
“Able will have someone in mind to teach in his stead,” she said. “Could you please locate Jean Hubert? We still need his draftsman skills and his language instruction.”
“You think I can find a Frenchman who has obviously, ahem, jumped ship?”
“I am certain of it.”
Meridee watched with real glee as the two of them stared each other down. To her further delight, Captain Ogilvie looked away first.
He bowed to the new widow. “Very well,” Angus said. “Give me a few days.”
Chapter Eight
Finding Jean Hubert took a mere three days. When Angus Ogilvie sent Able a cryptic note – “expect JH anytime”- even Able had to grudgingly admit that Angus Ogilvie was at the top of his game, however questionable it might be. Who knew? He also admitted to Meri that he liked seeing that spark of interest return to Grace’s eyes when he showed her the note after class. “She likes the rascal, same as we do.”
It was evening now, with Smitty and Nick Bonfort at their usual spot in the dining room, finishing homework. Able held Ben on his lap as his son sounded out words in Isaac Newton’s masterpiece, Principia Mathematica, the English version. Unperturbed by all the genius around her – what a woman he had married – Meri knitted a sock.
“Who should show up in my trigonometry class this afternoon but Jean Hubert, looking none the worse for wear, the scoundrel,” Able