‘Can we really be happy in a convenient marriage such as this one will be? There is so much at stake, especially for the children.’
Grace raised her chin and gazed so kindly into her eyes. ‘I know you have both chosen well. Marriages are just as likely to succeed for convenience as for love.’
‘There isn’t much time for love during war,’ Anna pointed out.
‘No, there isn’t. However, you never knew his Cathy. She was a bonny lass and they were deep in love.’
‘Do you think…?’ She trailed off, not really wanting to finish her thought.
‘Just be yourself,’ Grace said gently.
‘Lately, I’ve been wondering just who I am. I’m a little low on courage at the moment.’
Grace smiled. ‘Low on courage? When you crossed the lobby and sought me out after that pernicious dealing with the estate agent, I saw something in your eyes.’
‘Abject terror?’
‘Far from it,’ Grace said firmly. ‘That day, I saw a little lady with the heart of a lion.’ She chuckled. ‘Since this is the Royal Navy we’re talking about, perhaps a heart of oak.’
Chapter Seventeen
Some heart of oak. One day into the crossing of the English Channel, if Neptune himself had risen from the depths and stabbed her with his trusty trident, Anna would have considered it a blessing.
For two days she would have welcomed death. It passed on the third day because of a combination of things. The first was a gallon jug—so it seemed—of a liquid so evil that it could not have been devised by the hand of man, except that it was.
‘Here you are, Miss Fontaine,’ Captain Carlisle informed her sympathetically. ‘The bosun’s mate claims the recipe has been handed down from father to son since before the pharaohs. Drink it.’
She drank, amazed that it seemed to curl up in her stomach and purr.
The other matter might have been the real reason she decided to live. ‘Allan is desperate with grief,’ Captain Carlisle told her. ‘He fears you are going to die and leave him and Pru alone.’
So, Anna appeared on deck in the early afternoon, looked around and pronounced it good. The relief in Allan’s eyes was even better than the Elixir from Hell. The Captain brought overa folding canvas chair and guided her into it. She held out her arms to Allan and tucked him close.
‘I was just seasick,’ she said soothingly. ‘I wonder if your father ever gets seasick?’
‘Surely not, Missy,’ he said quickly.
‘I will never be seasick again,’ she promised him.
The sloop sailed down the length of the blockade of coastal France and Spain. As the weather warmed, Anna found herself on deck frequently, sitting in the canvas chair, her face to the sun. She felt all the tension and uncertainty of winter shrug philosophically and take leave. With Allan often asleep on her lap, she gave herself time to mourn the loss of her brother, and wonder what lay ahead with Captain Beattie.
Eight days out, an even smaller ship hailed them and hove to, a waterproof packet tossed aboard and delivered to Captain Carlisle.
The Captain spoke of the matter that evening after supper in the wardroom, where officers ate, and where they did, too. He tapped the side of his glass to get their attention. He held up the letter he had received. ‘Apparently our old friendLa Guerreis roving about, gentlemen,’ he said.
‘La Guerre?’ she asked, confident enough among the officers to speak.
‘She’s a ship much like Captain Beattie’s French-builtSwallow,’ he explained. ‘She roams the Mediterranean like a bully, but usually that area closer to France.’
‘Now you see her, now you don’t,’ another officer said, too cheerfully to reassure Anna.
‘There will be gunnery practice tomorrow morning first thing.’ The Captain nodded to Anna and the children. ‘It will be a little noisy.’
She was routed out early in the morning by the Captain himself. ‘Dress quickly, Miss Fontaine,’ he said. ‘Follow me.’
He led her down a narrow ladder and into a tiny space at the bottom of the ship, where she felt the stronger motion of water against the hull. She looked around at barrels and crates.
‘The bread room,’ Captain Carlisle told them. ‘If—and mind you, this is a bigif—we find ourselves beset and under enemy fire, Miss Fontaine, I want you to hurry down here with the children.’
