by Erica Vetsch
In spite of whatever misgivings she might have, she had offered him hospitality. Was that too done from a sense of duty and recalling what Rich would have wanted, or was it a demonstration of a generous nature?
Lady Mamie Richardson had welcomed him as if he were a long-lost son. Her delight had seemed genuine, and to his utter surprise and discomfort, she had hugged him. The warmth of her gesture had thickened his throat and roughened his voice. As she squeezed him, she had even whispered in his ear how thankful she was for his coming. When was the last time someone had embraced him? He couldn’t recall.
“What are your plans now that peace has been declared?” Lady Richardson toyed with her lorgnette, twisting the attached ribbon idly. The elderly woman hadn’t eaten much of the dinner, but she seemed in control of her mental faculties. Charles hadn’t known what to expect of Rich’s mother based upon Lady Sophia’s letters, whether she might be doddering and vague. But this woman was kindness itself, even when he repeated the story of how Rich had suffered his wounds. “Will you see your family?”
Her reception and forgiveness heaped coals of fire upon his head.
“I will return to London and continue to assail the Admiralty to give me a new posting. I have family in Devonshire, though we are not close.”
His cousin, the jackanapes, had all but scuttled Charles’s naval career from afar. What had possessed him to try to kill the Prince Regent? Their uncle must be nearly apoplectic to have such a scoundrel as a nephew. The earl’s view of Charles had always been derogatory, but at least Charles had never attempted regicide.
Be that as it may, the odds of him getting a captaincy anytime soon were bleak. It was probably wrong to pray for another outbreak of war, but war seemed to be the only path back to a command.
“If you don’t get a ship, what will you do?” Lady Sophia asked. Her demeanor to him was perfectly proper but a trifle distant. He didn’t blame her. He doubted he would be as composed in her place.
“I will probably apply to the East India Company for a captaincy of a merchant vessel.” Though it would be a last resort. He was a navy man to his core. He had worked every day for over two decades to reach his current rank, and he wouldn’t quit without a fight. Captaining a merchant vessel would seem a flat end to a fine career.
“Have you no prospects on land? I would think you would have had enough of the navy and war. Rich felt it his duty to serve his country, but he intended to come home the moment peace was declared and never take up arms again.” Lady Sophia placed her hand on the stem of her goblet, rotating the glass and watching the lamplight wink off the ruby liquid inside.
Had she any idea what a picture she made?
Charles shrugged. “I’ve known no other life since I was a lad. I put to sea at twelve. Through study and experience, I made my way up through the ranks. It was a difficult climb, and I hope my career isn’t terminal at captain.”
“To sea at twelve?” Lady Richardson shook her head. “So young. Did you run away to join the navy then?”
“No, madam. I am the son of a sailor, and it was both his expectation and my wish. I am most comfortable at sea.” He paused, looking around the pleasant dining room. “However, your hospitality has its appeal. The food is better, and the company excellent.” He raised his glass to them, dipping his head a bit. It would be unkind to make them think he wanted to be elsewhere, though he most fervently did. He hadn’t discharged his full duty to Rich yet, and he wasn’t certain how to go about it.
When the meal concluded, the ladies offered to leave him to after-dinner port and cigars, but he didn’t like port, and he didn’t smoke. “I’ll join you, if I may. Or I can take myself upstairs to my room if you’d rather be on your own this evening?” He stood first and pulled out Lady Richardson’s chair.
“We won’t banish you unless that’s your preference.” Lady Sophia picked up the candelabra from the table. “It is our custom to spend our evenings with some reading and conversation. You may join us if you wish.”
He offered his arm to Lady Richardson and followed Lady Sophia across the hall to the drawing room. The candlelight created shadows that danced and jumped with Lady Sophia’s movements, and in her wake Charles could smell a light lemony perfume. Far removed from the smells aboard ship, to be sure.
As he settled Lady Richardson into a chair, he knew he should stop shilly-shallying and do the thing he had been tasked to do. It wasn’t in his nature to shirk a duty, and putting this particular one off as long as he had chafed. “Ladies, I had a threefold reason for visiting you. The first was to express my condolences and sorrow for your loss. The second was to relay to you how Rich came by his fatal injuries. The third still remains.”
Lady Sophia had placed the candelabra on a side table and now used one of the tapers to light the wall sconces. She paused, looking over her shoulder, the soft golden light making her eyes appear larger. She seemed to be begging him to say nothing more that would hurt her.
If only he had that option. He was honor bound to fulfill his promise to Rich. If only his friend had not given him this duty.
Charles swallowed and took a breath in through his nose. “When Major Richardson passed away, he left in my possession his sea chest. He charged me with returning those things to your keeping and delivering a final message.”
Lady Sophia’s hand lowered, and she paused before placing the candle back into its holder. “A message?” Each word was trimmed in pain but also eager longing. “I would have any word from Rich that you possess.”
“Major Richardson asked me to tell you that he was thinking of you, Lady Sophia, when he left this world. He asked me to tell you that he loved you very much.”
She inhaled sharply, her hands pressing against her midriff. Her lips trembled, and she blinked hastily, looking away.
He hated causing her more grief. Perhaps once the sharpness of her pain subsided, she would be comforted by her lover’s last words. Later she would no doubt be glad she had Rich’s things, but for now they would probably only remind her of what she had lost. “My coachman brought Rich’s sea chest to my room. Would you prefer me to bring it downstairs?”
Lady Richardson studied Lady Sophia, and when she didn’t speak, shook her head. “I think it would be best if it was taken to Sophie’s room. She’ll want to look through it in private.” Her smile was kind. “You can see to the chore when we head upstairs for bed.”
Lady Sophia nodded. She had subsided onto the arm of the settee next to Lady Richardson, and the two held hands, as if drawing strength from one another. The younger woman’s face was as pale as a topgallant in the moonlight, and he had the oddest urge to put his arms around her and shield her from pain. Which was ridiculous. He had no notion how to comfort a woman, and as he was the cause of her pain, she would surely reject any solace he might offer.
He stood before the fireplace, his back to the mantel, his hands clasped behind him. “I must ask, is there anything that you, Lady Sophia and Lady Richardson, need? Any way that I may be of service to you?” He wouldn’t mention the promise Rich had begged of him, as he didn’t want them to think he inquired only out of duty. He would have asked in any case. He owed them that much and more.
The ladies looked at each other, and Lady Sophia shook her head slightly.
Lady Richardson nodded. “Captain Wyvern, that is most kind of you, but we need nothing.” She reached into a small basket at her side and withdrew yarn and needles. “We are most content here at Primrose.”
“Perhaps your finances? I am a wealthy man. Captains are given the lion’s share of any prizes taken at sea, and the Dogged was a successful hunter. Is there someone in charge of your finances to whom I might speak?” It was bad manners to speak of money, but for Rich’s sake, he must.
Lady Sophia’s back stiffened. “Captain, if we needed any help in that quarter, my brother, the Duke of Haverly, is more than capable of assisting us.”
Her voice could have come straight from the North Sea.
The spark of indignation in her eyes relieved his spirit. That independent streak would be of good use to her in the coming months.
“I mean no offense.” He wished there was range in the drawing room to pace. This room with all its feminine furnishings hemmed him in as neatly as the gunwales of a rowboat. If only he could stride the quarterdeck of the Dogged with space to think and breathe. “I feel it my duty to aid you in whatever way I can. I am indebted to Major Richardson and to you.” He spread his hands.
“How are you indebted to us?” Lady Sophia asked, still stiff. “You owe us nothing. Rich absolved you of debt, and we can only do the same.”
Heat crept up above his collar, and he shifted his weight. Dare he say that her letters had been the only bright spots in many months of sea duty? That her epistles had kept him sane while in the hospital? How much he had looked forward to hearing even the bits that Rich chose to share in the wardroom?
“You have offered hospitality and welcome where I didn’t expect it. Though from your letters, I should have.”
“My letters?” Her delicate brows rose, accentuating the heart shape of her face.
“Lady Sophia, I read your letters to Rich … Major Richardson … when he could not read them for himself. And before that, he shared from them occasionally aboard ship. He described you as warm and generous, willing to extend grace and constantly caring for others.” He stopped, lest he give too much away. “I do not think the major’s assessments were wrong.”
Lady Richardson nodded, reaching over to pat Lady Sophia’s hand. “That describes you beautifully, dear. A treasure.”
“It’s you who are the treasure, sweet Mamie. You find good in everybody.” Lady Sophia squeezed Mamie’s hand and rose from the arm of the settee to take a seat in a chair before the fire.
Charles cleared his throat, trying to nudge the topic back to his aiding the two women. “Surely there is some way I might serve you?” How could he fulfill his promise to Rich to look after them if they wouldn’t take anything he had to offer? How could he do right by the woman whose letters had meant so much, who had sacrificed for her country as surely as her betrothed had, if she turned aside his efforts?
Late that night, as he lay awake in Rich’s house, having eaten at Rich’s table and conversed with Rich’s mother and fiancée, he chided himself. What had he thought would happen? That he would roll up in his carriage, dispense condolences and cash, and then depart with a clear conscience, debt discharged?
He reached for a small object on the bedside table. Even if that had been true, he had foregone a clear conscience in one impulsive moment tonight. Before he had carried Rich’s sea chest to Lady Sophia’s room, he’d opened it and removed one item.
The rain had ceased, and before he’d climbed into bed, he’d opened the drapes. He held up the item now, turning it so the moonlight fell full upon it.
The miniature of Sophie that had been Rich’s most treasured possession.
He’d been wrong to take it. It didn’t belong to him. He’d known it the moment he’d removed it from the chest. The stain on his integrity robbed him of sleep. He should return it to her, though he couldn’t imagine how without causing much embarrassment.
He could just leave it on the bedside table and let it be a mystery as to how it had gotten there. But that was the coward’s way out. And for all his faults, he was no coward.
Tomorrow he would front Lady Sophia, beg her pardon and forgiveness once more, and hand her the painting. He would then depart and never see Lady Sophia again.
He was a fool. His thoughts chased one another, doubling back and circling, but always returning to the same point.
His future and Lady Sophia’s lay far apart, and try as he might, he would never be able to repay all he owed her.
CHAPTER 3
WAS SHE READY to open the lid—literally and figuratively—on that part of Rich’s life?
Sophie lay on her side, awakened early, as sunrise filtered into the room and cast a warm glow on the wooden chest. The box sat in the middle of the rug, scarred, dented, the metal latches in need of a polish.
Rich’s sea chest. All that he had taken with him or accumulated in his days at war. His name, rank, and company stenciled on the chest, though faint from wear.
Captain Wyvern had brought the chest to her room last night.
Captain Charles Wyvern.
He was exactly as Rich’s letters described him. Punctilious, proper, and reserved. A man of order and duty. He was well mannered for all that he’d been brought up aboard ships, but he didn’t seem at ease. Of course, how could he be when he carried such burdens?
How was she supposed to feel? Was the captain really at fault? He hadn’t fired the bullet that killed Rich. And if the captain’s telling of events was to be believed, Rich had admitted that he should have been the one to clear the ship of combatants.
If she believed in the sovereignty of God, was there any such thing as an accidental death? Was it God’s will that Rich die?
And how did that fit with her belief that God was good? If God was indeed good and God was sovereign over all, why did bad things happen to His children? Where was justice if good people died for nothing?
She pushed the covers aside and swung her feet out, burying her toes in the rug. She wasn’t ready to work her way through that particular mental maze, and she would also leave the chest unopened for now. The contents belonged to a Rich she hadn’t known well, the military man, the Royal Marine. She would rather hold close the memories of Rich as she knew him, the dashing, handsome neighbor, always laughing, who had loved her and appreciated her and asked her to be his wife. She didn’t want to overlay those memories with whatever the chest contained.
Hefting the handle at one end of the trunk, she pulled it over to the bed and pushed it underneath. She had the long days, months, years here at Primrose to deal with the past. For now she needed to dress and go downstairs to see that breakfast preparations were underway.
Captain Wyvern would be leaving this morning, and she and Mamie would see him off properly—as Rich’s friend. Yesterday’s revelations had been a shock, but she would behave as the gracious hostess she had been trained to be and do her duty by their guest.
Sophie needn’t have worried about breakfast. Mrs. Chapman had everything under control, and the housekeeper shooed her out of the kitchen. “Go and fetch the captain for breakfast. He was away outside nearly an hour hence.”
Reluctantly Sophie ventured out the back door, inhaling the heady scent of wildflowers and dew on the grass. In spite of her heavy heart, the freshness of the morning buoyed her spirits. Though it was most unladylike, she stretched her arms above her head, rolling her neck. More than loosening her muscles, her spirit seemed to stretch and relax a bit.
“It’s more colorful than I imagined from your letters. And wilder.”
The captain strode down the path toward her, his hands in his pockets, hatless. The breeze had tousled his hair, making his visage less severe. His coat was tucked into the crook of his elbow, and the wind fluttered his white shirtsleeves. As if suddenly aware of his casual dress, he shrugged into his navy coat and fastened the buttons.
Part of her resented his venturing into the back garden, her special place. Some of her most precious memories of Rich had been created here, and she didn’t want to share it with anyone, especially Captain Wyvern.
He stopped beside her, looking up the hill at the riotous hues waving and bobbing. “I don’t know the name of a single bloom, but they were friendly enough to greet me anyway.”
He shrugged as if embarrassed to share something so frivolous, but Sophie liked the sentiment, in spite of herself. The flowers were friendly and no respecter of persons. It took nothing away from her to share them. A bit of chagrin tinged her thoughts at being so churlish as to want him away from there.
“I don’t know the names of all of them myself. Mamie is the one you should talk to if you want to be educated about flora. She planted mo
st of these.” Sophie brushed a stray hair from her cheek. “If you are prepared to break your fast, everything is ready.”
He offered her his arm, and she took it, surprised that for such a thin man, he was well muscled. Perhaps wiry was the word? She supposed a life at sea kept one fit.
The table was set for two, and as the captain seated her, she said, “Mamie has a lie-in most mornings, and Mrs. Chapman takes up a tray for her.”
“You take excellent care of Lady Richardson.” The captain cut his ham in precise squares. “You are a credit to Rich.”
“Mamie takes excellent care of me, and it is no trouble to be her companion.”
“Still, not many young women your age would wish to be tethered with the responsibility of an elderly woman. It’s admirable.”
Sophie shook her head. “She’s my family. Though the tie that bound us, that would have made us legally relatives—” She set her toast on her plate. “Though that is no longer possible, we’re still family. I consider her my mother-in-law, and I love her. Duties are not burdens when they are performed out of love.”
The captain nodded, then took a decisive breath, as if making up his mind about something. “Lady Sophia, there’s something I must tell you before I take my leave.” He reached into his coat pocket, color climbing his cheeks, and withdrew his fist. “I fear I gave in to impulse last night—”
The front door banged open, and footsteps clattered in the hall. He stopped, his fist resting on the edge of the table.
Frowning, Sophie pushed back her chair. The captain rose to his feet, placing his hand back into his pocket and then withdrawing it. More footsteps echoed on the flagstones, and loud voices.
“I’ll see who it is. Please finish your meal.” Only her mother would barge into the house as if she owned the place, though by the sounds of it, she’d brought an army with her. Sophie girded up her mind for the confrontation.
But it wasn’t her mother storming through the hall. A man and a woman stood there, eyeing the murals, running their hands along the banister, shaking the newel post. The woman’s bonnet framed her face, crowding her curls around her cheeks as if she’d been stuffed in there, and she carried a furled parasol under her arm like a baton. The man, thin of legs and arms but portly about the middle, had a bit of duck about his walk, exuding self-importance.
