Marrying the Royal Marine by Carla Kelly

work to be done. Everyone around her had been affected by war, which made her concerns puny, indeed. War meant sacrifice; it was no respecter of persons. She could understand that. Obviously Colonel Junot did. When he had left her so alone, he had not looked back.
    Before she began, she needed an ally. She found her sister sitting quietly on a bench, obviously enjoying a moment of rare leisure. ‘You have a look of enquiry, dearest,’ she said to Polly, and patted the bench.
    Polly sat down. ‘I need an ally—someone who speaks English at least a little, so I can communicate.’ She leaned close to Laura. ‘What do you call these young girls?’
    ‘I’ve been calling them “little mothers” in Portuguese— pouco mães —because they have been helping me so materially with Danny. I remind them I could never do my work without their help.’ She sighed. ‘They just don’t quite believe they have any value. Learning English would be a start.’
    ‘Who can help me?’
    Laura sat back, her eyes thoughtful. ‘There is only one woman, Sister Maria Madelena. She is a dragon, but she speaks English and Spanish.’
    ‘A dragon?’
    ‘Indeed. I would say she is more Pym than Pym, without the hypocrisy.’
    The sisters looked at each other and burst into laughter. ‘Where might I find this paragon?’ Polly asked.
    ‘Try the old chapel.’
    So Polly made her way to the small chapel, which had existed since the Middle Ages. It was dark and redolent of centuries of incense, but there was a small nun, ferociously clicking the beads on her rosary, impatience evident in every contour of her compact body. She must have heard Polly enter, but Sister Maria Madelena did not turn around.
    More interested than frightened now, Polly sat down quietly on one of the few benches near the entrance. She looked around her at the simple stations on the cross and wondered how many prayers had risen through the incense-darkened ceiling, low and decidedly pre-Gothic. What did they pray about then? Polly asked herself. The Black Death? Moors at the gates?
    Finally the click of Sister Maria Madelena’s beads ended with a finality that made Polly smile, in spite of her fears at approaching Laura’s dragon. Polly jumped when the nun slapped the flat of her hand against the stone floor, as if impatient for God to smile down on the Portuguese, who had been getting the short end of some cosmic stick for so many years now. She turned around quickly and Polly swallowed. She opened her mouth to speak, but Sister Maria Madelena spoke first.
    ‘I need your help, Miss Brandon.’
    Surprised, Polly stared at her for a moment. ‘Actually, I…I…was going to say the same thing to you, Sister,’ she managed to blurt out, unnerved by the jagged scar that ran from under her wimple by her ear, across her face under her nose, cut through the corner of her mouth, and wound up on her neck, where it vanished from sight under her habit.
    She would have been almost pretty, but for the scar. Don’t stare , Polly tried to tell herself, but it was too late. All she could do was stare, and wish for the first time that she could telescope herself back through the weeks and into Miss Pym’s classroom again, where no one saw such sights.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said finally. ‘I should not stare. Please forgive me.’
    If she expected the dragon to suddenly hiss fire at her, she was mistaken. The woman smiled, or at least, it would have been a smile, except that the corner of her mouth drooped, rendered her more sad than terrifying.
    ‘Considering Our Lord, these are burdens easily borne,’ she said, the voice of practicality. ‘We have not met, but I have heard your name from the pouco mães . Sit, sit.’
    Her English was excellent, and she wasted not a moment. ‘My dear, what is it you want of me?’
    Polly had to laugh then. She needed to make up for her rudeness, and Sister Maria Madelena did not seem to be one to bamboozle. ‘You asked first, Sister,’