She hurried to the kitchen, where the Durands were drinking their morning tea. ‘Madame Durand, that American has left us!’
They ran into the sitting room, Anna right behind. ‘I came in here…’ She turned to the Marine. ‘Private Bartleby, did you hear anything?’
If she was the talented Sarah Siddons, then the Marine was Edmund Keane, Drury Lane’s other darling. He groaned, sat up and rubbed his eyes. ‘I had a bad night,’ he said, pointing to his bandage, where blood oozed onto his wrist. ‘It won’t stop bleeding.’
Anna stared at the blood, and the odd whiteness of his face, the genuine look of a man in distress. She had no trouble bursting into tears, theatrical or not. The only thing that kept her functioning was his slow wink just for her.
‘You are a rascal,’ she said under her breath, when Madame Durand turned to her husband and spoke in rapid-fire French.
‘But I am so damned good-looking,’ he whispered back. ‘Let’s see how cleveryouare.’
So that was it? Wretched man. She glared at him, then, ‘Madame Durand, please help. He is bleeding most profusely!’
That brought the response she prayed for. The housekeeper backed away. ‘No, no! Hector and I must search the grounds for that American!’ They ran from the room.
‘Cowards,’ David muttered.
Anna sat beside him on the cot. ‘What did you do to your arm?’
‘Nothing much. I stuck myself with this little penknife,’ he told her, pulling it from under the sheet. ‘Just a little poke. It has already stopped bleeding. Wipe it off after you smear it around a bit on the bandage. That shouldkeepher away.’
‘And what, pray tell, did you do to your face? You look like a dead man.’
‘That good? Excellent. Allan had a stick of white chalk in his little drawing kit. He’s copying that portrait of Admiral Collingwood over there, and I swiped it.’
‘What should we do now?’
‘We wait,’ he said simply. ‘If you’re the praying type, you might encourage the Lord God Almighty to speed the foretopman on his way.’
It was a long, long day. Anna watched as Hector with surprising energy flogged his pony cart towards Port Mahon itself, more lively than she had ever seen him. She had no difficulty weeping and wringing her hands until even Madame Durand took pity on her and made her sniff smelling salts.
‘Do let me know what Monsieur Durand learns in the port,’ she begged as she batted away the assault of the smelling salts, nasty things. ‘That awful Captain Tyler will blame me because I did not tend to his wretched sailor!’
Pru and Allan were regular rocks of Gibraltar. She calmly told them that the other invalid had decided to leave, and the Durands were hoping to find him. This was one time even Pru didn’t need to know what was going on, and perhaps for Anna to remind herself that the stalwart girl was truly a child.
To keep him occupied, she asked Allan to continue his chalk drawing of Admiral Collingwood. ‘I think he will like that,’ she told him.
This seemed like a good time to introduce Pru to embroidery, something Anna had no patience for, but had dutifully learned when she was Pru’s age. ‘We will begin with French knots,’ she said. It quickly became a tangled mess, which gave them both the giggles. They blamed it on France, and laughed some more.
Two more days passed. Allan focused on adding Bounce the dog to his drawing, when he wasn’t weeding the kitchen garden for Madame Durand, who took Anna aside after that first morning to whisper that Hector had learned the rascal had stolen someone’s sloop.
‘We won’t see him again,’ Anna agreed, sounding irritated, when inside she was collapsing with relief. Billy Whitlow had done what he’d said he would.
Two days. It felt like two years. At the end of the second long day she sat beside the Royal Marine, now pretending to run a fever, which kept Madame Durand further away from him. Another smear of chalk helped.
After tucking the children in bed, she returned to her vigil beside his cot. ‘David, I have no patience with time,’ she admitted. ‘Don’t laugh, but I keep wishing for some way to keep in touch with my husband.’
‘You’re a wishful thinker.’
‘I told you it was ridiculous. Still…’ she sighed ‘…I miss him. I worry.’
‘Talk to me,’ he said, and she did, telling him of the death of her brother after Trafalgar, how she had met her husband at his most desperate time, the scandal in Plymouth, and the kindness of Grace Fillion at the Drake.
She wasn’t about to tell him how much she loved her husband. He knew enough. ‘It’s your turn,’ she said after the clock struck midnight.
He told her he had been a sergeant in the Royal Marines, knocked down to private because he had married a girl from a Plymouth counting house. ‘She’s a grand lass, but I broke a rule. Marines may not marry without permission, and it is seldom granted.’ He sighed. ‘I should have been court-martialled and hanged, but your husband intervened. I am in his debt.’
She knew what to tell this man, sorrowing in front of her. ‘You’re repaying that debt now by keeping me from utter despair,’ she said frankly, barely able to choke out the words. ‘Where is your wife now?’
