The Duke, the Earl and the Captain

by Gemma Blackwood

  They arrived in the evening, and enjoyed a meal which by Alison’s standard was rather extravagant. Glazed ham, buttered asparagus, green peas a la Francoise, together with a spring soup and fish from the local river cooked in oyster sauce. After the plates had been cleared away, the little family of four did not adhere to the tradition of separating the men from the women. In Alison’s cosy dining room, they sat together over glasses of port and chatted until late into the evening.

  Alison, as ever, had a great store of Whitby gossip to keep them entertained. The most pertinent piece of news, however, was that of Grace’s father.

  Mr Rivers had not deemed it necessary to attend his daughter’s wedding, or even to write to congratulate her. Grace had simply thanked her good fortune that she had never grown particularly close to him. With a loving mother, a devoted husband, and a new sister and brother, it was impossible to feel abandoned. When Alison delicately alluded to the subject, Grace quickly assured her that it would not pain her at all to hear of her father’s health.

  “Please, don’t trouble yourself at all! I did not have the benefit you and Charlie had, of a father’s care through my childhood. My father did not visit me once in all the years I lived in London, and I find that, now I am estranged from him, it changes the situation very little.”

  “If you are certain,” said Alison, glancing nervously at Henshaw. “Well, in truth I do not know how you will take this latest news. You see, I’m afraid that Mr Henshaw was… less than discreet… over the contents of the interview that took place between Charlie and Mr Rivers before your marriage.”

  “Henshaw!” exclaimed Charlie. “Don’t tell me you have been infected with Whitby’s love for gossip?”

  Henshaw refilled his glass of port and answered lightly, “There were certain facts which Mr Rivers let slip that I thought had better be more widely known. I mentioned them to certain friends, that is all.”

  “You made it public knowledge that Mr Rivers led my father to bankruptcy?” Charlie guessed. Henshaw gave an elegant shrug.

  “If that is the conclusion the people of Whitby drew, that is their business.”

  “The result of it all,” said Alison, “is that Mr Rivers has not been welcome in Whitby since before your wedding day. In fact, he has found his reception so distressing that he has been obliged to move away.” She laid her hand on Charlie’s arm, a pained expression crossing her face. “I am afraid that we must endure the sale of Greenfields once more.”

  “Oh, Charlie!” gasped Grace, knowing how much the news must hurt him.

  Charlie remained perfectly still, accepting the condolences of his wife and his sister without betraying a trace of his inner thoughts. Grace noted with appreciation how different this thoughtful young man was from the firebrand who had first called on her father at Greenfields.

  “What price is old Rivers asking for the place?” Charlie asked, at length. He spoke as though he hardly cared about it at all, though they all knew better.

  “It is too much for you, Charlie,” Alison said gently. He gave a brisk nod.

  “As I supposed. And I doubt that he could possibly be induced to sell to me, in any case.”

  “The word is that it’s already been taken,” said Henshaw. “We are expecting the new occupants to arrive any day.”

  Charlie glanced at Grace. “I trespassed once on Greenfields land, the day you found me in the river.”

  She knew what he was about to ask.

  “I will gladly go back with you,” she smiled.

  Each step Charlie took brought a thousand multicoloured memories swirling back through his mind.

  The sturdy branch from which his father had hung a swing. The spot on the river where he had caught his first trout. The fencepost notched with knife marks which measured out his and Alison’s height across the years.

  A childhood full of perfect memories. An adolescence of bliss.

  He pointed out each beloved spot to Grace, and told her of the memory behind it. It did not escape him that, over the course of their trespassing visit, she had grown rather quiet.

  “Where would you like us to settle?” he asked her, as they paused in the shade of his favourite oak tree. “One day, our children will be looking back over just such memories as these. Where shall they make them?”

  “We may live anywhere you choose,” said Grace, but he knew that she was not speaking from her heart.

  “I choose the place that will make you happy,” he said quietly. “So you must tell me, Grace, so that I know where to spend my inheritance and settle.”

  She glanced up at the sky, as clear and blue as the finest summer day. “I like London.”

  “London,” Charlie repeated, with a slow smile. Grace bit her lip.

  “My friends are in London. And it is so busy there – so much to see and do. I do not think I am cut out for country life, Charlie.” She looked nervous. “Would it disappoint you very much, if I asked –”

  “I will engage your mother’s assistance in choosing us a home in London directly,” said Charlie, without a moment’s hesitation. “But it is not fashionable, I think, to spend the summer there.”

  “We must visit Alison and Mr Henshaw, of course!” The idea of being long apart from Charlie’s sister was not something Grace could consider.

  “And we will make our return to Brighton, when we fancy a spell by the sea,” said Charlie, touching her cheek with a fond hand. “And we must visit Bath, too, and take the waters!”

  “Can we afford it?”

  “Do you suppose me such a shabby manager of my own affairs that we will be short of money?” He laughed. “Oh, we will never be rich, and you will never have your father’s wealth, but we will not need it, Grace. We have something better.”

  Grace looked at him inquiringly, and he caught her up and planted a kiss on her lips. “True love, Grace – what all men desire, and no man’s money can buy.”

  They spent a long while standing in the dappled sunlight beneath the oak tree, each lost in the other’s embrace.

  It was a perfect last day in Greenfields. Grace only hoped it was enough for Charlie. She hoped that she could be enough – that, together, they would make so many beautiful memories that those of Greenfields faded into the happy past.

  They were called back to reality by the rattling of a carriage coming up the long drive. Grace’s first instinct was to hide, but Charlie caught her hand and ran to meet it. It was a rather old-fashioned town coach, with several boxes strapped to the roof. When the driver saw Charlie approaching, he slowed his horses to a halt with half the distance to the house remaining.

  The carriage door opened as Charlie approached, and a gentleman in travelling clothes poked his head out. Behind him, a woman in a blue bonnet and three curious children peered out to see what was going on.

  Charlie made a bow. “Do I have the honour of meeting the latest inhabitant of Greenfields, sir?”

  “You do indeed,” said the man. “Johnson’s the name. Henry Johnson.”

  Charlie shook his hand warmly. “Captain Charles Everly, sir, and pleased to make your acquaintance! I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion. I grew up here, you see, and I had a great desire to bid the old place goodbye before it falls into new hands!”

  “I quite understand,” Mr Johnson smiled. “Are you one of our new neighbours, Captain Everly?”

  “I shall be visiting Whitby from time to time, but my wife and I intend to settle in London.” Charlie winked at the children inside the carriage. “Let me assure you that you have made a very fine purchase. There is no better home in which to raise a family than Greenfields.”

  “Oh, I am glad to hear it!” said Mrs Johnson. “It is always so nerve-racking, arriving in a new place.”

  “You will be made most welcome, I assure you. My sister is your neighbour, Mrs Alison Henshaw, and I shall direct Mr Henshaw to call on you at his earliest convenience. The people of Whitby are a funny lot, you’ll find, but most welcoming.”

&
nbsp; “Did you say you live in London, Captain?” asked the oldest child, a bright-eyed boy of no more than twelve years. “I have always longed to see London!”

  “I’m sure you shall, in time,” said Charlie. “But for now, young man, I advise you to enjoy all that Greenfields has to offer! You will grow to love the place before you know it. And now, Mr Johnson, I have kept you long enough from the end of your journey. Good day!”

  “Good day!” chorused the Johnsons in union. The carriage door closed, and the driver clicked his tongue to the horses, chivvying them along up the driveway.

  Charlie linked his arm through Grace’s and began to walk in the opposite direction. He did not look back.

  “Do you think you will learn to love our new home as much as you have loved this place?” Grace asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. Charlie paused long enough to assure her that he was giving the question serious thought

  “I believe my childhood was the happiest on earth,” he said, at length. “Greenfields gave me so much joy. But now, I think, I have received the best gift it could have given me.”

  Grace smiled, knowing what he was about to tell her. “And what is that, my love?”

  Charlie looked at her. In his eyes was such an expression of admiration that her breath caught in her throat. “It brought me to you, Grace. And you are more than I ever dreamed of having.”

  He opened the gate at the end of the driveway, and they left Greenfields behind forever.

  Amelia and the Earl

  1

  What on earth was there for a single woman of five and twenty, a woman who had long since given up hope of attracting a husband, a woman with no fortune to speak of and no acquaintance to visit, to do in Bath?

  This was the question which occupied the mind of Miss Amelia Dane as she unpacked her belongings in the little house she and her elderly aunt had taken on Trim Street. The moment she set foot in the bustling streets, full of the fashionable feathered hats and high-hemmed dresses of society’s finest, she had been overcome with homesickness for her small and unremarkable Berkshire village. In Chapton there were no Assembly Rooms, filled with a great press of people whom Amelia did not know and could not be introduced to. Chapton had no Pump Room and there was no requirement for fine clothes or witty conversation during the simple task of drinking mineral water. Chapton was small, Chapton was quiet, Chapton was by many measures dull – and that was precisely what Amelia wanted.

  The one thing the village of Chapton did not possess was the miraculous healing properties of Bath’s hot spring waters. It was to benefit from these that Amelia’s aunt had made the uncomfortable journey across the country and had rented a small house in this most unfashionable corner, which was all that she could afford. Neither she nor Amelia were blessed with a surplus of money, and while their little income was more than sufficient for a secluded village life, Amelia feared they would soon feel the pinch now that they were in England’s most fashionable resort.

  How different it might have been if her aunt’s health had declined when Amelia was younger! Amelia would never wish illness on her dear relation, but she could not help but feel that she had suffered from a life which did not allow for travel except in grave necessity. She had never spent a Season in London or gone to Brighton to see the beach. Her circle of acquaintance in Chapton had barely grown since her earliest childhood – and it had never been large. What might have taken place if she had entered the Assembly Rooms as a young debutante of eighteen? As far as Amelia knew, she had never been a great beauty… but did that mean she would have remained unmarried if she had only been given the opportunity to truly enter society?

  Fortunately, she was not the sort to waste time ruminating on the sorrows of the past. Amelia had long since left behind her youthful ideas of romance and marriage. She enjoyed her quiet, untroubled life. She valued the company of the aunt who had been both mother and father to her since her earliest years. All the time that was not spent assisting Aunt Gladys and accompanying her to take the waters, Amelia would pass as she did at home – in needlework, drawing, and brisk walks to take in the beauties of summer. She had no cause to mourn her lack of acquaintances, for she simply had no need of them.

  She intended to pass a very pleasant summer in Bath indeed.

  “I am quite recovered from the journey,” Aunt Gladys remarked while they took tea in the Trim Street house’s cramped little drawing room. “Indeed, I would much rather be moving about than sitting down any longer. It is better for my joints, you know, to move a little every now and again.”

  Amelia, too, was feeling the need to stretch her legs and breathe the fresh air after the long time spent travelling. “What do you suggest, Aunt?”

  “A short walk will do us both a world of good. I have a mind to get to know the area as quickly as possible, for as you know, I have very little knowledge of Bath.” Aunt Gladys had visited only once, as a young girl, and so was quite as much a stranger to the town as Amelia herself. “I have heard the Sydney Gardens are excessively pleasant at this time of year. Do you feel up to it, my dear? I do not want to tire you.”

  Amelia could not help but smile. It was very like Aunt Gladys to be solicitous over the state of everyone else’s health, with little regard for her own painful joints. “I will be very pleased to accompany you, Aunt. If either of us should grow tired along the way I am sure I will be able to find us a sedan chair to ease the way home.”

  “What extravagance!” laughed Aunt Gladys. “We truly are in holiday spirit, I see!”

  Amelia resolved to watch her aunt’s progress very carefully. One trip in a sedan chair would not break the bank, but they did not have the funds to support many such indulgences. It would be far more sensible to walk both there and back.

  Sydney Gardens was a well-kept and elegant little park in the heart of Bath. The slow pace which Aunt Gladys’s health required gave Amelia ample opportunity to take in the orderly herbaceous borders, the ancient and leafy trees, and the sound of birdsong which gilded the edges of the tranquil afternoon.

  She had only just remarked to her aunt that the park possessed a wonderfully peaceful atmosphere when the silence was abruptly shattered by a wail of pain and a series of cries for help.

  “Oh! It is broken! Don’t touch it – no! Oh, I cannot walk at all! What are we to do? Help!”

  It was the voice of a young girl – almost a child’s voice. Amelia hurried towards the sound, rounding a border thick with flowering hydrangeas. She came upon a sorry sight indeed.

  Two young women were sitting upon the ground, one with an expression of agony upon her face and emitting the cries of distress which had called Amelia to the scene, and the other alternately lifting her companion at the waist – eliciting further sobs of pain – and waving her arms about in frantic despair.

  “Whatever is the matter?” asked Amelia, rushing towards them. “Have you been robbed?”

  Two nearly identical faces, bright-eyed and curly-headed, turned towards her. Evidently the pair were sisters, both possessed of upturned noses and bonnets trimmed heavily with ribbon. The injured girl was a year or so younger than the other by her looks, and could not have been more than sixteen.

  “Now see what you have done, Caroline,” said the elder sister sternly. “You are drawing all the world towards us with your terrible fuss.”

  “It was your fault, Isobel!” wept Caroline. “You were going much too fast! It is a wonder my neck is not broken as well as my ankle!”

  Isobel rose to her feet, brushing dust from her skirts, and appealed to Amelia with a tone much less severe than she had used on her sister. “Please, Madam, might you help us? My sister has turned her ankle and we fear it is broken.”

  “Let me take a look,” said Amelia, kneeling beside Caroline and lifting her skirts to reveal the ankle in question. “Don’t be distressed. I should be very surprised if you have broken it on a lovely flat path like this.” She took out her own handkerchief and passed it to the girl.
<
br />   “We were running,” sniffed Caroline, dabbing at her eyes. “It was all Isobel’s fault – she was racing me!”

  “I certainly was not!” Isobel folded her arms crossly. “I am much too old to play such childish games.”

  “Oh! You think you’re such a fine lady now that you are all of eighteen!” Caroline fired back. Amelia, unnoticed, was turning the ankle this way and that.

  “It is a little swollen,” she said, more to cosset Caroline’s feelings than because she thought it was greatly injured. “But I am sure it is not broken. Have you a carriage nearby, or any way of getting home without walking on it?”

  “Our brother Banfield will be waiting for us in his carriage,” said Isobel. “I will go and fetch him at once, if I might prevail on you to wait with my sister.”

  “Certainly,” said Amelia, giving her a reassuring smile. “A most excellent plan.”

  “Thank you, Mrs – oh, I am so sorry. I have not introduced myself and I do not know your name.” Isobel was paralysed by her lack of manners. “I – I –”

  “I am Miss Amelia Dane, and I am very pleased to meet you,” said Amelia, rubbing Caroline’s back as the girl began flexing her ankle and whimpering.

  “Lady Isobel Russell. Likewise.” Isobel bobbed a hasty curtsey as Amelia’s aunt rounded the corner behind her.

  “Hello, Aunt,” said Amelia from the ground beside Caroline. “May I introduce Lady Isobel and Lady Caroline Russell? This is my aunt, Miss Gladys Dane.”

  Aunt Gladys’s eyebrows rose to the cloudless sky at the sight of Caroline weeping on the grass. “Delighted,” she said faintly.

  “Now, Lady Isobel, I think you ought to fetch your brother as quickly as possible. We must get Lady Caroline up and into the carriage as soon as we can.”