Marriage of Mercy by Carla Kelly

Author:Carla Kelly
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2012-07-14T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

The sign was up by mid-morning the following day. Mr Wilson carried two dozen doughnuts to the coffee house. When he returned, he had an order for two dozen each day, except Sundays.

‘And there I was, showing them how to dunk a doughnut in coffee,’ he said. ‘I feared for a moment that Squire Redd would burst into tears.’

‘Why?’ Rob asked.

‘He served in New York City during that late unpleasantness when your country declared its independence,’ Mr Wilson explained. ‘He told me his whole regiment left the city with heavy hearts, because the Dutch cook wouldn’t come along with them.’

Rob laughed, and Grace felt her heart turn over. He is enjoying this, she thought.

* * *

Was it the sign? The little boys from yesterday? Lady Tutt? The bakery soon filled up with interested customers, ready to sample the wares. Grace had always been intrigued how quickly news could pass from house to house.

‘It’s that way in Nantucket,’ Rob said to her as he rolled a half-dozen of the nutmeg-flavoured doughnuts in oiled paper and handed them to the vicar’s wife, who had condescended to visit the bakery herself. ‘Thankee, ma’am. Tell your friends, if you please. If you have any,’ he muttered under his breath after the vicar’s wife looked down her long nose at him and left the shop. ‘Aye, news travels just as fast back home. Something happens at one end of Orange Street, and before you can say Jack Robinson, the miller on the hill has heard it!’

* * *

The doughnuts were just a memory before noon. Rob mixed another batch and set the dough to rise while he and Grace went to the tinsmith’s shop to request the fabrication of two doughnut cutters. Rob perched on the edge of the smith’s workbench and sketched the cutter in the wood with a piece of charcoal. He had brought along the sole remaining doughnut for the smith, who ate it in two bites and promised to have the doughnut cutters ready in the morning.

The smith studied the simple diagram on his bench. ‘What do ye do with the little hole that’s left over?’

Rob ran his tongue over his lips. Grace laughed inside to watch the tinsmith’s expression. ‘The doughnut hole is probably the best part. A handful of those and a glass of milk, and I guaran-damn-tee ye that nothing will go wrong for the rest of your day.’

The smith and the sailing master laughed together, all because of doughnuts. Grace beamed at both of them. The smile drained from her face when they left the smith’s and saw Smathers across the street, his arms folded as he watched them.

‘Now let us look for Emery,’ Rob whispered to her, his eyes lively. ‘Ah, there he is, trying to hide behind that elm. He’d be more successful if there were less Emery and more elm.’

He waved cheerfully at Nahum Smathers, who glowered back. ‘Testy fellow,’ he murmured. ‘I wish I knew why my continuing presence at Quarle was such a burr under the saddle to Lord Thomson.

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