The Duke, the Earl and the Captain

by Gemma Blackwood

  “I do not blame myself,” said Charlie. “I blame Rivers. And he will be made to pay for it – one way or another – you’ll see.”

  “You are alarming your sister, Everly,” said Henshaw, a note of warning creeping into his tone. This, at last, seemed to jog Charlie to his senses. He seized Alison’s hand with a roughness that made her gasp and kissed it warmly.

  “Forgive me – forgive me, dearest Alison! It is only that all the while I was at war, the thoughts which sustained me were always of Greenfields. To come home again, and sit under the old oak tree… to fish in the little river… to take breakfast in comfort and peace with that view across the hills… These were the ideas which, I believe, lent me a kind of immunity to the trials of war. I am convinced that I might have been wounded, or killed, if it were not for the certain conviction that I would return one day to Greenfields!”

  “You have your own mettle to thank for your survival,” said Henshaw. “No, I won’t say survival – your heroism, rather! You will find yourself the talk of Whitby-on-the-Water now that you are back, and that will soon distract you from your woes.”

  This seemed to touch favourably on Charlie’s pride. He gave a small, roguish smile, and looked almost like his old self. “Has there been much talk, Henshaw?”

  “Oh, it has been endless!” said Alison, pleased to find a way to distract her brother. “We have never had a war hero in Whitby before, you know. The young ladies are quite aquiver over it. I have had callers every day, inquiring when the great Captain Everly is expected home.”

  “I am afraid they will be disappointed in me,” said Charlie. “I have rather lost my taste for polite society.”

  “They will be delighted with you,” Alison insisted. “Just as delighted as Henshaw and I are to have you back with us. You are so different now, Charlie, so…” She hesitated, unable to come up with the proper word.

  “Rough?” Charlie supplied, with a knowing wink. “Wilful? Rash?”

  “Dashing,” said Alison firmly. “You have become very dashing, and no-one can help but notice it.”

  Charlie let out a burst of laughter, and Alison felt the tension ease from her shoulders. They all retired to the sitting room after dinner in what seemed to be the very good spirits she had hoped for on her brother’s return. Charlie regaled them with tales of his fellow officers’ antics, Henshaw kept his glass generously topped up with port, and Alison was satisfied that her brother’s talk of revenge against Mr Rivers was only the result of his first painful return to Whitby-on-the-Water.

  The gentlemen were still laughing together merrily when Alison took herself upstairs to bed, so she was not there to witness the queer light which came to Charlie’s eyes when the talk eventually lapsed into companionable silence.

  “I have thought it over, Henshaw,” he said, after a moment’s brooding. “I really will go to see Rivers tomorrow. My mind is made up. Only, I pray you will not tell Alison. I do not want her to be upset.”

  “I can’t see how you’ll avoid upsetting her, if your object is a duel,” said Henshaw mildly.

  “My object is Greenfields,” said Charlie. “I swear upon my life, Henshaw, I will stop at nothing to get the old place back. Do not try to dissuade me.”

  In their younger days, Henshaw, being the oldest by two years, had been the leader of their scrapes and schemes. He was not an unintelligent man, though his manners tended towards the complacent. He saw very clearly that the days when Charlie would heed his counsel were at an end. All the same, for Alison’s sake, he felt obliged to try.

  “Only consider, then, that killing Rivers will not return Greenfields to you. He has an heir of his own – that skinny little girl who used to run wild around Whitby before she and her mother packed off to London. I suppose you do not intend to call her out, too?”

  “I have no intention of killing him,” Charlie admitted, “though there is a debt of honour which must be answered. No, if I fight the old man, I will leave him breathing. It strikes me that I must be clever about this, Henshaw. I may not be known for my guile, but if I cannot rise to this occasion, upon my life…” He left this sentence ominously hanging. “Greenfields,” he muttered. “Greenfields, now and always.”

  On that portentous note, Henshaw excused himself and left Charlie to his brooding. He passed an uneasy night, plagued by half-formed dreams of pistols and debt collectors, and woke early, resolved to try once more to drive the thoughts of injustice from Charlie’s mind.

  Early as it was, however, Henshaw was frustrated in his scheme – for Charlie had left the house before dawn.

  2

  Miss Grace Rivers had always risen early, even though in London it was thought most unfashionable. Now that she was in the countryside, in something of a state of banishment, it felt still more unfair that she had never learned the habit of lying in. Rising early meant that there was a vast stretch of daytime to be filled. Easy enough in London, where there were parties, drives through Hyde Park, morning calls, friends to visit – endless amusement. In Whitby-on-the-Water there was nothing but the contemplation of her recently-ruined happiness.

  The day before had brought a letter from her mother, as well as several from her London friends. She had at first been quite unequal to the task of writing a response, as each fresh perusal of the letters only served to drive home how very alone and miserable she was in her father’s house. Now, in the fresh light of a brand new day, she set about the task with greater resolve.

  “There is no use dwelling on misfortune,” she told herself sternly. “Let it not be said that one little disappointment has turned you into a useless, weeping ninny!”

  So she set about writing to her mother and giving as fine an account of her lack of adventure in Whitby as she could muster.

  The task absorbed her to the extent that when Mr Carlton, the butler, announced that a young man had come calling for Mr Rivers, she arose blinking from her reverie in a state of some confusion.

  “A caller? But who?”

  “Captain Everly, Miss,” said Carlton, handing her his card. “I told him Mr Rivers was away from home, but he was quite insistent on waiting for him.”

  “Captain Everly?” Grace had been disappointed to find that none of her childhood Whitby friends had deigned to call on her since her return from London. Well, that was in some way to be expected. She had only been a child when they saw her last, and now nothing at all was known of her beyond the fearful blow to her reputation that was her failed engagement to one Mr Vincent Seabury.

  The sad truth was that the young ladies of Whitby-on-the-Water were as prim and proper a set of Misses as could be found anywhere in England, and they had no intention of befriending a notorious jilt.

  “Send him in at once,” said Grace, a little too eagerly. Carlton gave her a cautionary look, as though he would rather have left the gentleman to wait alone. Grace’s low spirits and loneliness could hardly have escaped him, however, and she knew he would make no strong objection to her enjoying a little company at last. “There is nothing to worry about, Carlton. This Captain Everly must be one of the Everlys of Whitby, and if that is the case, we knew each other as children.”

  “I must warn you, Miss, the young man…” Carlton paused delicately. “To own the truth, he is in something of a temper.”

  “Doubtless he was very anxious to find Papa at home,” said Grace. “It’s nothing a nice cup of tea won’t solve. Send him in, and I will entertain him until Papa returns. We are expecting him back any moment, are we not?”

  “That is true,” admitted Carlton, still a little wary. “Well, Miss, if you insist. I will not be far off should you require any…”

  “I am perfectly capable of looking after myself, Carlton,” said Grace firmly. “I will ring for you, if you’re required. Send in the captain and send up some tea. Some of those millefruit biscuits we had yesterday will do nicely.”

  In the interval between Carlton’s departure and Captain Everly’s arrival, Grace spent a flust
ered moment patting her hair and arranging and rearranging her skirts. She wanted to give the impression of perfect poise and equanimity. If it was the captain’s object to spread news of her despair to the inhabitants of Whitby, he would be disappointed.

  The young man who burst into the drawing room was not at all the polite gentleman caller Grace had expected. He was dressed for riding, but in the most unkempt fashion. His top boots were crusted over with mud, his shirt was half-untucked, and his cravat was sadly askew. Not the sort of gentleman Grace had been used to receiving in London at all.

  Despite his rakish appearance, Grace could not help but notice that Captain Everly had considerable personal charms. His hair, though mussed, was a rich dark brown; his eyes, though wild, had a crystalline clarity to their blue depths; and his figure was well-formed and powerful.

  When those crystal eyes fell on Grace he gave a great start, as though she were not at all what he had suspected. He looked at her almost suspiciously and did not speak for some time. Grace waited politely for him to introduce himself, though the impertinence of his stare left her in danger of blushing.

  “You must be Captain Everly,” she said, when it became clear that he was not going to follow the proper forms. “I am Miss Grace Rivers. I’m very pleased to meet you.”

  “Gracie?” he repeated hoarsely. “Little Gracie?”

  Her frown seemed to jog him back to himself. He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it still further, and extended his hand eagerly. “But we have met already, Miss Rivers! We used to swim in the river as children, don’t you recall?”

  “I recall very little of my time in Whitby,” she admitted. “I was only seven years old when I left.”

  “Yes, and I must have been nine or ten. I am Charlie, Miss Rivers – Charlie Everly.” A sudden grin lit his features, taking away some of the wildness. “I am quite put out that you do not remember me. Is it the beard? My own sister hardly recognised me yesterday, and it has only been – what – three years since I saw her last!”

  “You have been away at war, I think?”

  A grimness passed across Charlie’s face, as fleeting as a passing cloud across the sun. “Yes. You’ve heard, then, that I am Whitby’s first war hero?”

  “Forgive me,” Grace admitted. “I have been… sadly out of society since I came from London. All I know is what my father has told me.”

  “No taste for country gossip?” asked Charlie, taking the closest seat to Grace’s sofa without being invited to sit down. “I can’t disagree with you there. The world is a wider place than the people of Whitby understand!”

  “Indeed,” said Grace, who, in truth, had rarely left London and knew very little of the world and its wideness. The maid came in at that moment with the tea tray, and she occupied herself with pouring out two cups and ascertaining whether Captain Everly preferred one lump or two.

  “Carlton tells me you were most distressed to find Papa not at home,” she said, once everything was comfortably arranged. “He was called away yesterday on a matter of business, but we expect him back at any moment.”

  Charlie’s expression changed in an instant. His mouth pinched shut, and his rather heavy set of eyebrows lowered angrily. Grace instantly understood that she had misspoken, but in what way she could not imagine.

  “Your father’s business is what concerns me,” he said. His attention now turned from the examination of Grace’s face to a wistful perusal of the drawing room, its furniture, its stuccoed ceiling, and the delightful window with its view across the hills. Abruptly, he set down his tea cup and marched across to this window, almost as though he intended to leap through it and escape into the grounds. “Ah! You have made some changes here, I see!”

  “I have had very little to do with it,” said Grace, watching him nervously. “I have not been in Whitby above two weeks – all the modifications were of Papa’s choosing.” A realisation struck her. “But of course!” she gasped. “It was a Mr Everly who sold Papa this house, was it not?”

  “My father,” said Charlie, still gazing from the window. Grace thought she detected a broken note in the pronouncement, but without seeing his face, she could not be sure.

  “It must be very strange to see the old place in new hands,” she suggested delicately.

  “Strange indeed.” Charlie turned back to her, an odd light in his eyes. “Trust little Gracie Rivers to understand these complicated matters! I remember you were clever – cleverer than me, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “Please, not Gracie,” she entreated him. “No-one has called me that for years.”

  “Forgive me.” He took his seat beside her again. “We are no longer children. That much is plain. Grace, then?”

  Grace rather felt she did not know him well enough, but the enticement of having one friend in Whitby was too much to resist. “If you please, Charlie.”

  He had left off his sad examination of his childhood home. His gaze now had returned to its first object: Grace’s face and form. She wished he would not look at her in that way. Even Vincent had never done so. Then again, as it turned out, Vincent had been in sad need of a little more attachment to his betrothed…

  “So, you are old man Rivers’s daughter and heir,” said Charlie softly. “No entail on the estate? Entails are dashed tricky things.”

  “That is a little personal, Charlie.”

  “You cannot deny me an interest in the future of Greenfields. The feelings I have for this place…” Charlie glanced down at the floor, confounded. “They are inexpressible. Quite inexpressible.”

  “That is natural,” said Grace. “It was good of you to come, though it must cause you some pain.”

  “Good of me?” Charlie’s lip curled into a smile. “But you do not know what business I intend to broach with your father.”

  As though Charlie’s ominous words had summoned him, Mr Rivers’s carriage was at that moment heard approaching on the drive. Charlie jumped to his feet, standing in the poised, attentive way that bespoke a military man. Grace waited with every appearance of patience, though she had begun to feel a dreadful foreboding.

  Mr Rivers appeared in the room presently, his habitual frown only deepening when he saw his daughter’s guest. “Is it wise to be entertaining, Grace? In your circumstances?”

  “Papa, this is Captain Charles Everly,” said Grace, doing her best to ignore the harsh words. Her parents’ estrangement meant that her father had never had the chance to know her well; doubtless his crusty demeanour was only the result of the new pressures of fatherhood. “He is one of the Everlys of Whitby-on-the-Water, recently of Greenfields itself –”

  “I know who he is.” Mr Rivers gave Charlie an irritable glance. “You have your father’s look about you, Captain.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Was it a compliment?” Mr Rivers pulled off his driving gloves and flapped his hand in Charlie’s direction. “Carlton tells me you wanted a word with me in private.”

  “If it pleases you, sir.”

  “I can’t say it does please me. All the same, you’d better come through to my study. I had the old library taken out, you’ll see. Got rid of those blasted shelves. I prefer a simpler room, myself.”

  Grace saw Charlie flinch under these words, but he mastered his reaction with admirable speed. “I shall be interested to see what you’ve done with the place, sir.”

  Just before Charlie left the room, he turned and gave Grace an unmistakable wink. The meaning of this completely eluded her.

  When Carlton glanced into the room, he found Grace walking up and down in a state of agitation.

  “Do go and listen at the door, Carlton!” she begged him. “I have the most abominable feeling in my stomach whenever I imagine what they could be saying!”

  “Have you your smelling salts at hand?” Carlton asked, smoothly ignoring her suggestion of eavesdropping. Grace fixed him with a look of astonishment.

  “Smelling salts! Do you think I am made of porcelain? I’ve no need f
or smelling salts.” She sat on the sofa and began twisting her skirt in her hands anxiously. “There was something about that young man, Carlton. When he spoke of his childhood at Greenfields, the look in his eye… There is a violence in him.”

  “I am given to understand he has recently returned from the war, Miss Rivers.”

  “Yes,” said Grace distractedly, “yes, perhaps that’s what it is.” She gave herself a little shake. “I never met a man who had so much strange energy about him – so much potential to do – well – something, at least!”

  “I’m sure nothing will come of it,” Carlton reassured her. “It seems to me perfectly natural that a young man freshly home would want to check in on his old haunts. Now, then –”

  But the rest of the butler’s sage advice was lost, as at that moment Mr Rivers came back into the room. A broad smile was fixed firmly on his lips, though it sat there most unnaturally. His eyes, however, remained as Grace had always known them: grey and stern.

  “Here’s a pretty fix for your troubles, my wayward girl!” he said, clapping Charlie on the back as they entered the room together. “Grace, Captain Everly has just done you the honour of asking for your hand.”

  Grace was so astonished that she hardly knew what to say. She stared from her father’s queer smile to Charlie’s faintly nervous one. “What do you mean by this?” She rose from her chair, wondering whether perhaps she ought to have asked Carlton to fetch her some smelling salts after all. “You are making fun of me,” she said bitterly. “I will not stand for it. This joke does not amuse me at all.”

  Charlie stepped forward to block her path out of the room. “It is not a joke, Grace. I would not dream of joking on such a subject.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Am I to believe that, after a single meeting and a brief childhood acquaintance, you have become so infatuated with me as to ask for my hand?”

  “Believe whatever you like. I have made a serious offer.” Charlie lowered his voice. “Your father has given me to understand that you are not in a position to refuse.”