“Not now. I have work to do here,” Ogilvie said. He backed into the shadows, then came forward again. “How about it, laddie? Will you know what to do if you come face to face with the Spaniard in the frame?”
Chapter Eleven
“And that was my trip, Meri. Hector Rose told me I would know what to do, should I meet my father. Our beloved friend Captain Ogilvie didn’t sound so certain.”
“Oh, him,” Meridee said. She knew her husband was precisely where she wanted him, and she snuggled close, thinking of the months ahead when he would likely not be so available. She could also tell that Able had no idea what he would do. Her decisive genius sometimes floundered, and she loved him all the more for it.
She listened for more conversation, but he was done for the night, worn out with travel and trying to sleep in a post chaise. She heard deep breathing beside her, his hand relaxed and heavy on her hip now.
She turned over to face him. They hadn’t bothered to close the draperies, so she admired him, envying his long eyelashes. As she watched, his dear face grew slack, making him look older than his twenty-nine years. She wondered how Nick Bonfort was faring in Plymouth at Carter and Brustein, with his note asking the whereabouts of Harry Ferrier. Her heart told her Nick was too young for such an assignment, but her head overruled her heart. Nick’s service was needed by his country. How was a lad to train for the fleet if he was coddled? And hadn’t Able sent him off with a bit of advice? “Initiative, my boy, initiative.”
Meridee woke up before Able stirred, and before Ben started talking to himself in the next chamber. Ben had begun that when he started speaking in full sentences at age seven months. At first he seemed to play with words, rhyming them and giggling to himself, trying out language and finding it to his liking. Now he had graduated to what sounded like answers to questions posed by…someone. She didn’t want to know who that someone was, but she was heartily tired of Greek mathematicians.
She cinched her robe tight and went downstairs, happy to admire the neatness and comfort all around. She had made a good, calm home for her man, who had awakened her an hour or so ago by nuzzling her neck and refreshing her thoroughly, before returning to deeper slumber. Goodness what a lover.
She stood at the window, looking down at St. Brendan’s, thinking of the students and teachers. Soon enough, Grace St. Anthony née Croker would arrive by coach to begin her day teaching lower grade mathematics, and whatever odd assortment of subjects her agile brain agreed to. Lately, Meridee’s heart went out to her dear friend as she paused at the top step each morning and gave herself a little shake, before squaring her shoulders and entering.
Nothing was worse in Meridee’s mind than a good man gone. St. Brendan’s had already lost students to the war, first among them Jan Yarmouth, whose death had devastated her husband. She knew Able could have easily died in the takeover of the prisoner of war hulk last year. She yearned for him to stay safe at school and let others do the adventuring and fighting, but she had no voice in the decisions of men and war.
She also could not overlook Able’s occasional restlessness that took him to the edge of the seawall to stand there and watch the harbor, as if wishing to join the increasing number of warships sailing to war. She had confided to him her inadequacy to do for him what such a man of blinding intelligence probably craved. He had turned serious and assured her she was precisely what a man like him required. “You make my world bearable by being here and building a home of order for us both,” he told her once, and she believed him. So far, the sea was a reasonable mistress in her demands.
“This is the life I chose,” Meridee said softly as she heard steps behind her and turned to see her two favorite men eyeing her. She kissed them both. “Ben, are you starving?”
“Gut foundered,” he assured her.
She rolled her eyes at his cant, but what could a mother do, when her son listened to Gunwharf Rats? And like his father, never seemed to forget anything? “Put on your clothes, wash