Margaret took off her eye shade and went behind the bar. "A drink should drive away that terrible memory," she said. "Scotch?"
"Black rum, if you have it."
"Coming right up. That's a pirate's drink, though. Although when you come right down to it, you do look like a freebooter."
Hall had his foot on the bar. "Better smile when you say that, Pard," he said.
She smiled out of the side of her mouth and laughed. "Here's to Captain Kidd," she said, raising her Scotch.
"This is good rum."
"Wait. I can improve it." She reached below the bar for a small wooden platter and a lemon. Deftly, she carved off a slice of thick skin, twisted it above an empty glass, dropped the peel into the glass and covered it with rum. "Try it this way."
"It is good. So you're a bartender, too!"
Margaret refilled her own glass and sat down on the edge of a wheeled settee. "Right now I'm farmer, bartender, chambermaid and cook. If you must know, outside of the dogs in the yard and the horses in the shed, we're the only living things within five miles. All my help is in the next town celebrating some saint's day or something."
"You'll manage to survive," Hall smiled.