Louise Allen – Convenient Christmas Brides: The Captain’s Christmas Journey / The Viscount’s Yuletide Betrothal / One Night Under the Mistletoe (страница 7)

‘I can do that, sir,’ Papa said and beamed at Verity. ‘You could come, too, my dear, even though I know your opinion of beer.’

‘I might,’ she replied, surprising herself.

The ease with which Captain Everard inserted himself into their house impressed Verity, because he made it simple to include her brother into the dinner-table discussion in a way that caused her mother no pain. After a few well-placed questions, Mama started talking about Davey’s early education at the hands of the local vicar and the way he wore them down with his patient but firm insistence that the seafaring life was the career for him.

‘When he came aboard Ulysses, his excellent scores on his lieutenancy exams and good references from his captain convinced me that we were lucky to have David Newsome,’ the Captain said over the final course of fruit and nuts. ‘And so it proved to be. He was an apt student of the sea.’

They adjourned to the sitting room, since no one in the Newsome household had enough puffed-up consequence to leave the gentlemen with cigars in the dining room and the ladies engaged in idle chat elsewhere. Verity watched Mama, pleased with her eagerness to learn more of Davey’s short life on the water and hoping she would not overexert herself.

She shouldn’t have worried. Captain Everard had no trouble in reading the signals either, telling her worlds about his care of his own crew.

‘Please, Captain Everard, tell me everything you remember about my son,’ Mama said, once they were seated and she had taken out her mending.

Verity watched as the Captain’s demeanour turned thoughtful, and then amused. ‘I have such a story for you,’ he said.

Mama and Papa both leaned forward, eager as young children prepared for a treat of epic dimensions.

‘If you looked in David’s leather case, Miss Newsome, you found volumes one and four of The Mysteries of Udolpho,’ he said, settling back.

‘But no two and three,’ Verity said.

‘Nowhere in sight. We were suffering through months of blockade duty off the coast of Spain.’ He passed his hand in front of his face. ‘It’s beyond me to describe the tedium of the blockade so I will not attempt it. Morale was lower than a dungeon cell in the Tower of London. David tapped on my door one night and asked for a moment’s time.’ He chuckled at that. ‘Hell’s bells—beg pardon, ma’am—I’d have given him all the time he wanted, anything for a diversion.’

And we here in England take your efforts and our safety for granted, Verity thought, as she picked up her knitting.

‘He said he wanted to write a play for the crew to perform, based on Udolpho,’ Captain Everard continued. ‘I asked him what he planned to do about the two missing volumes, and he just waved his hand and said, “That’s a mere trifle.”’

Mama pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. ‘He said that often enough at home. Nothing daunted him.’

Verity watched the captain observe her mother, as if assessing her and not wanting to cause her undue anxiety. He must have liked what he saw, because he continued. ‘The scamp called it The Mystery of Udolpho on Short Rations, or Better Two Volumes Than None. Signor Montoni, the villain of the piece, looked and behaved remarkably like Bonaparte.’

‘Who played our hero, Sue Valancourt Brown?’ Verity asked.

‘Can you doubt?’ the Captain teased. ‘Your irrepressible brother.’ He sighed. ‘I was asked to play Emily St Aubert’s father, so was mercifully allowed to die early in this masterwork. Perhaps he assumed that, as captain, I had more important things to do, although I did not.’

Mama and Papa chuckled at that. Verity’s eyes filled with tears as they held hands, something she had not seen in months. It was as if Davey’s death had stifled all normal emotions. But here they were, holding hands as she remembered from earlier, happier times.

Captain Everard was looking at her parents, too. He smiled, but she saw no joy in his eyes. She wondered what a man like him thought of settled lives and domestic hearths, and the everyday sameness of a routine life. Did he envy it? Would it bore him? Heaven knew nothing appeared likely to ever change her ordered, quiet life.

‘Miss Newsome? Are you on a distant planet?’

Startled, she glanced at the captain. ‘I don’t know where I was,’ she said honestly, then knew she must exert herself. ‘Er...well, I would like to know who was convinced or coerced into playing the heroine, Emily St Aubert.’

‘What do you think my second luff would do?’ he asked in turn. ‘You knew him better than I did.’

That took no imagination. She only wished she could have witnessed the diplomacy required. ‘He probably found the biggest, ugliest, hairiest man on the Ulysses to play that dainty French creature,’ she teased in turn.

‘Precisely, my dear,’ he said. ‘The Ulysses happens to rejoice in a cook with a peg leg and a patch over one eye. He hawks continually and we only pray he does not do it over the porridge. You’d have thought he was born for the role. I dare even Mrs Radcliffe herself to find a better Emily.’

Mama burst into laughter, which made Papa tighten his grip on her hand and carry it to his lips for a kiss.

You are a master, Verity thought, as she allowed herself to relax and let Captain Everard carry them all aboard a wartime frigate presenting a comedic version of the first novel she ever stayed up all night to finish, suffering along with Emily and Madame Cheron, and a host of characters transformed somewhat in the HMS Ulysses version because the middle two volumes were missing.

‘And that was that,’ the captain concluded. ‘All the ships in our vicinity on the blockade took turns rowing over for an evening of entertainment, courtesy of your remarkable son, Mrs Newsome. Lord St Vincent himself took me aside and told me how lucky we were to have such a lovely Emily.’

He looked around the sitting room and she saw it through his eyes. A shabby, cosy room—a better word than small—with outdated wallpaper and old furniture. She wondered what he was thinking.

She knew soon enough and it warmed her heart. ‘By God, Mr and Mrs Newsome, you are kind to let me visit for a day or two,’ he said. ‘I can’t recall the last time I was in an actual home.’

Mama’s eyes filled with tears, but Verity felt only relief. She wasn’t crying for Davey this time, but a solitary frigate captain sitting in her parlour and sipping sherry.

‘Davey would want you here,’ Mama said.

And so do I, Verity thought.

Chapter Seven

‘I’m not certain I have ever met braver people than your parents,’ Joe said, after Miss Newsome’s parents said goodnight. ‘I cannot recall a time when grieving parents have invited me back to talk about their son.’

‘I’ll admit I was surprised, as well,’ she said. She handed him a candle. ‘Goodnight, Captain Everard, and thank you again for agreeing to stay a few days with us.’

She waited for him to go up the stairs before her. When he stood there, she headed towards the kitchen. To his own surprise, he decided to follow her.

‘Wait up, if you please,’ he said. ‘Are there any of those tea cakes left?’

He wasn’t hungry; he wanted to spend more time in Miss Newsome’s orbit. The odd lethargy troubling him since Trafalgar was starting to lift. In telling the Newsomes about Davey’s life instead of his death, he felt more energised, more optimistic. Once the Ulysses was repaired and back to blockade duty, maybe things wouldn’t be so dreary.

‘I confess it,’ he told her as they headed to the kitchen. ‘I love cake. Cake in any form, even stale cake. Cake.’

She smiled as Joe had hoped she would, throwing off some years and cares of her own. ‘Is that the first thing you ask for, when you reach port?’ she asked and, to his ears, she sounded interested.

‘Water first, a big pitcher of it. Clean water that came out of a well and not a wooden keg,’ he said.

‘And then cake?’ she prompted, when he wondered why he was rattling on, at least, rattling on for him.

‘Aye, cake, two or three layers if it is available, with lots of icing, the gooier the better,’ he said and followed her into the pantry. ‘I swear there were times in the South Pacific as a midshipman that I would have killed for cake.’

Miss Newsome laughed and reached for a breadbox. ‘No need for carnage,’ she said as she took out a plate of tea cakes. ‘Will these do?’

‘Aye, they will.’

‘Come then, Captain. The pantry is a little crowded.’

True, it was, but he hadn’t minded proximity to Miss Newsome. He followed her into the servants’ dining room and sat down where she indicated.

Miss Newsome put a plate in front of him and set a place for herself, too. ‘Eat as many as you want, sir, but save one for me. I like the plain icing.’

Since they were small, he set four on his plate, careful to leave several plain cakes for his late-night hostess. She ate with relish and made no comment when he finished his four, eyed the plate and appropriated the remaining four.

She seemed to look for signs he was ready to retire, but saw none. She must have been wondering how to entertain him.

He had the same thought, because he gave a self-conscious laugh and shook his head. ‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘I am depriving you of sleep just because I enjoy the novelty of sitting somewhere with no demands on my time: no emergencies brewing, no bosun grousing about shiny new sailors who won’t stop puking every time the ship yaws and no surgeon fretting because we have run low on medicinal spirits and who in God’s name is drinking it?’