Page 12 of Doing No Harm (Carla Kelly’s Regency Romances #5)

He saw a small dry dock, something familiar to him from years of pulling into Plymouth and Portsmouth, where the dry docks had been massive and always full of ships in various stages of construction or repair.

This one lay idle and empty with its two brickworked cradles, or graving docks, and bilge blocks and hinge-shores holding up nothing.

The gates of one coffer dam were closed and sound, though, allowing no water inside the enclosure.

Also closed tight was what he assumed was the machine shed, probably housing pumps and wheels and stays that could be thrust from the brick frame cradling the infant ship and kept level so the builders could do their work.

He walked onto the dock, peering down at the brickwork, impressed with its soundness.

The dry dock with its way, down which a finished vessel would slide into the sound, would never have been large enough for a frigate or a ship of the line, but he knew a yacht or a similar-sized craft could be built most handily here.

Where was everyone? Was this what Olive Grant wanted him to see? Did she expect him to wave a wand and have a work force appear?

The fishing fleet was coming up the bay’s estuary now.

He watched the boats with their clouds of seagulls.

Soon the herring and whatever else was caught in these waters would be swung onto the dock and into troughs, where people such as Tommy and his mum would clean, scrape and gut, and prepare for larger markets.

The gulls would hang about for the scraps and the day would end.

There appeared to be no other revenue source in Edgar. No wonder the little village was on starvation rations. This still isn’t my problem , he assured himself.

True or not, he walked back more slowly, savoring the sight of the pretty little village still keeping up appearances, rather like an old lady from a good family who had fallen upon hard times.

He stopped at the dock to watch the first boat swing its nets over the gunwales, where the catch was guided into the troughs.

Women and children stood ready with their knives.

He thought he would buy some fish for Miss Grant, maybe as a peace offering for being stupid and unmindful.

It couldn’t hurt. He made his way carefully down the slippery ladder.

He recognized the first woman because he had removed a fish hook from her little son’s wrist. She had brought the squalling, squirming lad to Miss Grant’s Tearoom the evening of that first long day.

It had been the work of mere seconds to poke the barb the rest of the way through (not a popular option), cut it off, and withdraw the shank.

“I’d have done it meself,” the woman had assured him, “but I was worried about them wee blood channels.”

“Vessels,” he had corrected automatically. “’Twas wise of you to bring him to me.”

The boy had given him a kick in the shins for his pains, something Douglas was not used to from his years in the fleet, but it hurt less than his eye or his ribs did now.

The fishmonger had been less pleased with her son, but it was easy enough to convince the woman that the kick was a natural reaction from a little boy who didn’t understand strangers messing with his arm.

Her name. Her name. What was her name?

She seemed to know what he was thinking. “’Tis Mary,” she said, as she picked up a knife as wicked as any blade he ever owned.

“How did you know I couldn’t remember?” he asked, curious.

Her answer both put him to shame and gave him a resolution. “Not many folks take an interest in us Highlanders,” she said with no malice. “We’re easy to forget, but it’s Mary Patterson.”

“I stand reproved and corrected,” he told her. “Mary, how is your boy?”

“In trouble as usual again, but with no shooting red streaks, which you told me to look for,” she replied promptly .

“Then you’ve done the job,” he replied. “Mary, I know you’re busy, but I have a question.”

“Then ask it,” she said, her eyes on the fish piling up.

“That dry dock. What happened?”

She gave him that patient look that seemed to be the sole purview of women. Miss Grant had already used it on him a time or two. “I’ve only been here two years, with the other Highlanders, but it was Boney.”

“Napoleon? I don’t understand.”

“Captain over there says it was a bonnie dry dock, with some twenty men working, and a few boys,” she told him as she picked up the first fish. “War comes, and they could make more money in Glasgow shipyards.”

“All of them?”

“Aye. The ones who didn’t leave for t’dry docks took the king’s shilling, or joined your own Royal Navy, or were bludgeoned into service by the press gangs.”

He understood Edgar’s bleak prospects, but he had to ask. “And no one returned?”

Mary shrugged and her hard eyes softened for a brief moment, so brief that he would have missed it, if he hadn’t been concentrating on her face, determined to remember her name now. Just that little glimpse into her heart told him she had lost someone to the war.

“No one returned. All dead or working elsewhere.” She gave him a shrewd look then. “I’ll wager you went to sea because of Boney too.”

“Sort of,” he told her, coming closer. “My mam died and Da was too busy for me. I was twelve.”

She gave him a look of empathy that bound them together—ordinary folk, whether surgeon or fishmonger. “Ye understand then. It was our lot, too, same as yours.” The look turned faraway and reminded him of Tommy Tavish. “?’Course, we were driven from our homes. Didna want to come here.”

She had reduced all his years and skills to her own level. Cooper’s son or fishmonger, maybe this was his village. He nodded to her and started up the ladder, uneasy with the idea because he had no plans to stay.

“Hold there a moment, sir,” Mary said, widening the gulf again with “sir.” A few quick strokes, a rustle of paper, and she handed him two gutted fish, neatly packaged and bound with twine.

“I shouldn’t.”

Her expression dared him to refuse. “Ye fixed my wee lad,” she reminded him. She waved her wicked knife in front of her, reminding him forcefully of the times he had done the exact same thing to threaten squeamish sailors.

Douglas took the fish from her.

“It’s not enough, is it?” she asked, and he heard the anxiety in her voice.

“Quite enough, Mary,” he told her, wondering where, on a simple stroll through a village, he had picked up a lump in his throat. “I’m paid in full.”

With a wave of her hand, speckled now with iridescent fish scales, she turned back to her work.

“I am not staying here,” he muttered under his breath, fully aware that his resolve was almost as slippery now as the waterfront. Tommy Tavish needed to heal quickly.