He clapped his arm around her shoulder and her hand went around his waist. “You’re awfully free with your charms,” he teased, and by all that was holy, it felt good to tease.
“Oh, shut up,” she said in a gruff voice. “May we kindly stumble home now?”
He wished she meant what she said. She would go to her chaste side of the street, and he to the other. With any luck at all, no one would need him for the rest of the night, except his usual assortment of demons and dead men. “Very well, if we must.”
“I have neglected Mrs. Aintree fearfully,” he said as they strolled along.
“No fears. Rhona Tavish is a remarkable nurse,” Olive said. “I find that quite a relief.”
“Coward.”
“Truer words were never spoken,” said the bravest lady he knew. “When you feel able—and it had better be by noon—Lady Telford wants you to peruse the corporation papers that her solicitor has drawn up. Charlie MacGregor—Doug, he is a brilliant leader—wants to hold a meeting with the shipwright and the men who have agreed to work in the yard.”
“Are you my secretary?”
“Mostly I am your friend. Good night.”
Chapter 31
With no more fanfare thanthat began the best summer in Olive Grant’s memory. The two journeymen and one apprentice arrived, stiff and rumpled, on the local bonecracking carriage, young, experienced, and ready to do battle in a long-abandoned shipyard. Even though nothing was ready yet, Homer Bennett and his Devonport crew repaired the faulty mainmast yardarm on the fishing boat, Homer’s face set and determined, which told Olive everything she needed to know about the man’s commitment.
When the boat was repaired, everyone in Edgar went to the funeral for Brian Hannay. The Church of Scotland was crammed to capacity for the first time in years, according to the bewildered minister. Scots and Englishmen mourned together the loss of a good man. They stood shoulder to shoulder, filled with a resolve that Olive had not seen in Edgar in years.
Douglas sat next to Olive. She saw the sorrow on his face and understood only the tiniest part of his suffering for every patient of his that he could not save. He took death personally, and Olive prayed for his comfort, as wellas comfort to Brian’s wife and children. He was in his own little world until she took his hand and held it until the funeral ended.Propriety be hanged, she thought, filled with her own resolve.
Immediately after the funeral, Homer Bennett and Andrew Pine took that same bonecracker to Glasgow. When they returned in a week with contracts for lumber, masts, and rope, Mrs. Bennett had settled into their house overlooking the yards, and the Devonport builders had their own quarters, more rudimentary, but carrying the promise of steady meals at the tearoom.
Homer Bennett, an immensely capable man, had insisted the Highlanders wear blue canvas trousers and cotton shirts, which meant the Telford Boat Works corporation hired all the needlewomen in Edgar to cut and sew. “This way, I know their clothes won’t catch on anything.” He gave Olive a solemn wink. “Besides, Miss Grant, I’ve heard tales about what Scots do or do not wear under those kilts. Don’t want any such injuries, not this man.”
Douglas, the traitor, just laughed, and Olive felt her face go crimson.
The need for good workmen’s shoes meant that Edgar’s cobbler had too much work, so he hired another cobbler from Gatehouse of Fleet. And this meant the new cobbler and his wife needed a place to live, which meant the fledgling corporation hired more men and women work. Andrew Pine had whispered to Homer that his wife was wanting to come north too. Could they find a place in Edgar?
In no time, another of Lady Telford’s empty houses was rented out and prepared for Mrs. Pine, who, from the looks of her as she got off the carriage, was going to put Douglas to work in a few months. “I am discovering that delivering babies is the best part of my job,” Douglas said as he eyed Mrs. Pine’s gentle rotundity.
“Cobblers, seamstresses, house cleaners, kitchen help,retired surgeons: All of this means extra pay all around,” Olive announced to Douglas one evening when he slid into the tearoom after everyone else had finished for his own bowl of something and excellent bread. “And you’re busier than you want to be, Doug.”
He was Doug now, but only to her. Doug nodded and leaned back in his chair at a precarious angle. “That’s how it works, Miss G.” He rubbed his hands together and she saw the happiness on his face. “Do you know, I was even paid in coin for a baby I delivered today in Wigtown no less, and piles I tended. Not the baby’s. Pardon that, Miss G.”
“Did Rhona Tavish assist?” she asked, determined not to be overly embarrassed by plain speaking. “She went to Wigtown with you?”
“She did,” he said. “I had to convince Mrs. Aintree that I couldn’t do without her, and she reluctantly gave permission. By the way, Mrs. Aintree can move her fingers just a little. We might eventually have full recovery there.” He stretched his arms over his head, and she could almost feel his satisfaction. “I intend to sleep tonight. If you chance to see anyone heading toward my house in the middle of the night—providing you are awake—shoot them for me.”
As it turned out, Olive would have had to shoot herself. Lately, she was awake long past her usual bedtime, nothing new of itself even though the reason was. No more for her the sleepless nights, worrying for her own future as her legacy from Papa dribbled away. The tearoom had become the dining hall for the Telford Boat Works, which had meant hiring another cook and two girls to assist Maeve in the scullery and in serving hearty meals three times a day to workers and families.
True, Olive contrived just as hard to squeeze every penny until it yelped in pain—she would always be frugal. The difference was she knew there were more pennies.What wasn’t covered by the penny each worker and family member gave her for every meal was cushioned by her generous monthly allotment, spelled out so specifically by Douglas Bowden in the corporation bylaws.
She stayed awake now because she found herself alternating between the euphoria of love and its irritation. Since that memorable kiss in her garden, Doug had not attempted another such liberty. He teased her, told her his worries for Edgar, and strolled with her arm in arm to watch the steady work of a forgotten shipyard turning into a business again, but he did not kiss her.
She had no experience with love, beyond that of child for parent, but she knew, as sure as it rained every morning, that she was in love with Douglas Bowden. At first she had wondered about her faint uneasiness when the man was nowhere in sight, followed by the great lifting of her heart when he came through the door of the tearoom, more and more now in the company of others. He always gave her a wink and never minded when she bullied him about eating more, or wearing the same shirt over and over, or any number of little things. He had become essential to her peace of mind. If that wasn’t love, then she would never understand the emotion.
She realized quickly, no ignorant lass she, that he was still determined to move on in search of the perfect place for his medical practice. She saw it in his eyes as he stared at the progress in the shipyard, calculating just when things would move on their own and he could decently leave.
He even ticked off the progress on his fingers one night, after the evening meal was done and tidied, and she had a moment’s leisure to sit in her “wee parlor,” as he liked to tease her, and knit.
“Mrs. Aintree stopped me today on the street just to show me how well her fingers moved,” he said, his feet propped on the fender of the unlit stove. Olive loved theway he could relax so completely and so quickly, probably a result of taking advantage of every leisure moment aboard ship. “I set her some hand exercises, and she is diligent in doing them, for which I credit Rhona Tavish.”
He leaned over and touched her arm, lowering his voice at the same time, even though Maeve and her assistants were long abed. “The shed is empty now, and Mrs. Aintree blushed to tell me that the Tavishes are sharing a bed again.”
