the bed and sat down, reaching for the Bible. Impatient with herself, wishing she had a brain like her traitor husband’s, she stared at blurry pages. She didn’t hear the door open, but Able sat beside her next, his arm around her.
She was no fool. She could have leaned away. She could have pushed him away. Instead, she burrowed closer. “Where does it say… someone mourning for her children? I have to know.”
“The Jeremiah version or the St. Matthew one?” he asked sharply.
“Don’t, Able, please don’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
She knew he didn’t need the Bible; he had memorized it on one voyage or another, but she wanted more. “Tell me in your own words,” she demanded.
“What?” he asked in mock astonishment, which lightened her heart. “You prefer me to the Lord?”
“At times,” she replied. “I know you know all verses by heart because your brain has no choice. Tell your brain I want you, not some dusty prophet.”
She watched his face, hoping she hadn’t offended his weird genius. When he smiled, she knew better. “Rachel won’t let herself be comforted, because her children are gone.”
“I’m going to miss Nick,” she managed. “I miss them all, but Nick… You understand.”
“I do, lady of my heart. Imagine leading them into danger, as I do.”
She took a deep breath, amazed that she hadn’t considered his view. “Shame on me for whining,” she said softly.
She let herself be gathered in his arms. He gently pulled her down beside him until she rested her cheek against his uniform buttons. He gave her his handkerchief and she tucked it under her cheek. This was his best uniform; he didn’t need tearstains on it.
“No shame there, Meri. You love your Gunwharf Rats, too. Remember the next verse?” he asked. He put the damp handkerchief over her nose. “Blow.”
She did as he demanded and felt slightly better. Maybe she should lighten this dark moment she had brought on them both. “I know it doesn’t say ‘blow.’”
He chuckled. “Meri, what a mother you are. This is what Jeremiah wrote in the next verse.”
“Your words, please.”
“They’ll return from enemy lands. For the sake of argument, let us add seas. Most people never think of that verse, but I do. It keeps me going. Will it keep you going?”
Would it? She kissed his cheek. “I believe it will.”
“I know it will, because you are Meridee Six, mother of many, wife of one, and my heart of oak.”
Chapter Twenty-one
The Mercury sailed two days later in early September with the tide and the wind from the right quarter, blowing them toward Spain. Meri and Ben saw them off from the Gunwharf, Nick standing beside the woman he called Mum, looking not even slightly sad, because he had his own sea duty ahead in mere weeks.
Even Smitty had been properly impressed when informed that Nick’s duty would see him aboard the HMS Victory, the flagship of Lord Nelson himself. “Good God, Nick!” he had exclaimed in his inimitable Smitty way, “Who do you know?” That made all the Gunwharf Rats laugh, Able included. They knew they didn’t know anybody.
“Smitty, sometimes you just get lucky,” Able told his Mercury sailing master later that evening. “It so happens that the admiral’s secretary is drowning in paperwork and needs an organizer to stack, file and collate.”
“That would be Nick,” Smitty agreed. And still being Smitty, he had given Able a long look. “We Rats don’t get lucky often, though. Master Six, did you get lucky?”
Oh, my word did he ever. How to tell someone like Smitty? He could have described Sir B’s mentoring, or Captain Benjamin Hollowell’s willingness to take a chance, but that wasn’t the supreme stroke of luck. “I did, Smitty,” he said finally, and found himself hard put not to struggle. “I got lucky the day this half-pay bastard caught the eye of Meridee Bonfort. Since then, I don’t know a richer man than I.”
“A woman makes that big a difference?” Smitty asked, sounding younger than usual, which made Able feel surprisingly paternal toward this young-old Rat.
“She understands me,” Able said, unable to think of a better answer, and if truth be told, a little surprised that all the geniuses inhabiting his skull couldn’t suggest anything better. Perhaps he was right. “She’s pretty, too,” he added a bit feebly, which made Smitty laugh.
He regarded the Mercury’s young sailing master, seeing Smitty as an equal as he saw Jamie MacGregor, an earlier St. Brendan alumnus now serving well in the fleet. “Smitty, the luckiest thing you have