It Happened One Night

by Stephanie Laurens

  “Did you love him?”

  “The dear man laid the whole world at my feet. He cared more for me than for what people would think of him. Of course I loved him.”

  “Were there…difficulties? Socially, I mean.”

  “Was I accepted in society? Not entirely. I never will be. But I had rank and fortune that could not be denied, and many doors were opened to me, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes with kindness. I have made wonderful friends who accept me, unsavory past and all, and that has given me the greatest happiness.”

  It was an extraordinary story. Sam was glad she had told him, at last. He understood her now, he thought, and admired her more than ever.

  “How has life been for you since the duke passed away? What have you been doing? Not sitting home in your widow’s weeds, I have no doubt.”

  “No, I have been out of full mourning for over three years. I still enjoy being out with people, and keep a very full social calendar. But I do some charity work as well. I’m a trustee of the Benevolent Widows’ Fund, which has been a gratifying experience for me, in so many ways. I found some of my dearest friends in working with the Fund, high-ranking, respectable ladies who never once showed scorn for my low birth and notorious career. I was just visiting one of them, Lady Thayne, in Northamptonshire. She recently presented her marquess with a healthy baby boy, and I have just come from the christening. Can you imagine: I was the godmother!”

  “Godmother to a future marquess? Good God, Willie, you really have changed your life around. And charity work? How noble of you, my girl. And what else?”

  She arched an elegant eyebrow. “Who else, do you mean? Still judging me, Sam?”

  “No, no, I was just wondering if…” He hunched a shoulder and shook his head, never finishing his thought aloud. The thought she had read so clearly.

  “You want to know if there is another man in my life.”

  He flashed a sheepish grin. “You can’t blame a fellow for being curious. You’re still a damned fine-looking woman, Duchess. There must be gallants of all ages cluttering your doorstep.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Just like that time you came to call and elbowed your way to the front of the line?”

  “No, I didn’t mean that. I know you are not in that life anymore. But that doesn’t mean all the men of London have been struck blind. You will always draw the appreciative glance, Willie. And more, I should think.”

  She smiled again and said, “Such blatant flattery, Sam. No, don’t apologize. I like it. I will confess that it pleases me all the more because it comes from you. And no, I have not led the life of a nun, as you well know. But I am older now and find that I quite enjoy my own company. I no longer feel the constant need for a man at my side. Or in my bed. There have been one or two since Hertford’s death. The last one was so besotted that I fully expected an offer from him—an offer of marriage—but it wasn’t long before a younger, prettier woman caught his eye, and he fell out of love as quickly as he’d fallen in.”

  “I’m sorry, Willie.”

  “Don’t be. It was a fling, nothing more. I would never have married him.”

  A fling. She had the occasional fling. But would she want to have one with him?

  Sam wondered where the devil that idea had come from, and quickly put it out of his mind. It must have been that kiss. He ought never to have kissed her. He was on his way to make an offer to Mary Fullbrook that very evening. Now was not the time to be kissing another woman and thinking of flings, even for old times’ sake.

  And yet…

  Chapter Four

  A movement across the square caught Wilhelmina’s eye, and she looked up to see a man rolling a wheel toward the Blue Boar. It must be Sam’s wheel. Damnation. So soon? Things were going so well between them—he had kissed her!—and she hated to think of him leaving now.

  Sam noticed the wheel, too, and said, “Ah, no doubt that is mine. It must have been an easy repair to be done in just over an hour. We should head back to the inn so I can be on my way to Clophill at last.”

  “And Miss Fullbrook.”

  “Her, too.” He stood and took her hand to help her up, then frowned at the greatcoat they’d been sitting on.

  “Oh dear,” she said. “I hope it is not ruined.”

  He picked it up and shook it out. “No, it has been through worse. Just a bit creased here and there, nothing serious.” He did not put it on, though, but draped it over one arm instead, offering the other to her.

  “I’ve enjoyed our afternoon, Sam,” she said as they walked back to the inn. “Are you sure you cannot stay? We could have dinner together. I do not have high hopes for the food, but the company would be welcome.”

  “Ah, Willie, I wish I could. It has been a delightful surprise to see you again, and finally to have a chance to talk with you, really talk, not just polite conversation. But I am expected at Clophill. I am late enough as it is. I’m sorry, my girl.”

  For the merest instant, she had an urge to plead with him to stay, but she did not wish to appear so abjectly, and un-characteristically, needy. The broken wheel had been a blessing, the perfect excuse to keep him with her a little bit longer. But there was nothing now to stop him from leaving. She forced a smile and kept her voice even. “No need to apologize. You must not disappoint Miss Fullbrook and her parents.”

  She accompanied him to the stables, skirting puddles of mud that had been churned up by the tracks of carriages, creating a crisscross of deep ruts in the yard. Wilhelmina almost slipped more than once, and held on tightly to Sam’s arm.

  One of the ostlers stood with the wheelwright, examining the wheel. Sam released her arm and walked over to join the two men. “Is it ready to go?”

  “Yes, it’s good as new, Cap’n. We can—” The ostler stopped, his eyes grew wide, then angry. Raising his voice, he shouted, “Benjie Lovitt, yer young fool, get them animals outa my yard!”

  Just then, two enormous pigs came running into the stable yard, with more speed than one would expect from such behemoths—and on muddy ground, too—followed by a young boy waving and shouting for them to stop. Wilhelmina barely had time to form the thought that mud was apparently second nature to the pigs when one of them came to a screeching, sliding halt, smack into Sam’s wheel, knocking it to the ground, then crushing it beneath its hooves as the pig stepped over it. His porcine partner in crime simultaneously plowed straight into Sam, knocking him off balance so that he lost his footing and fell backward on his bum.

  It had happened so fast, Sam seemed stunned speechless as he sat in the mud, his eyes round with disbelief. Wilhelmina pressed a hand to her mouth to hide the laughter that threatened to overtake her. The ostler continued to yell at the boy, who continued to yell at his pigs as he tried to round them up, though they seemed more interested in exploring the carriages lined up in the yard. The wheelwright began cursing about the state of the wheel he’d taken such care to repair. Every ostler and stable boy came out to see what all the commotion was about, some of them shouting at the boy, some trying to help him control the pigs, and others doubled over in laughter. And Grissom came running out from the inn yard, arms flapping, aghast to find his customer in the mud, and began shouting at all and sundry for causing harm to the good captain.

  It was a scene straight out of a farce, Wilhelmina thought. Or a Hogarth painting.

  “Get those bloody animals away from my curricle before they do any more damage!” Sam’s booming voice finally brought a halt to all the shouting. Seated in his mud puddle, he bellowed out orders to the boy, the ostler, and the wheelwright, in an authoritative voice that brooked no reproach, making it clear he was not amused, and that they had better look sharp in rectifying the situation.

  Wilhelmina thought this must have been what it was like to be dressed down on the quarterdeck by Captain Pellow. What a formidable man her Sam had become. Formidably desirable, even plopped down in the mud.

  Grissom helped Sam to his feet and launched into a stream of obsequiou
s apologies. Sam dismissed them with a wave of his hand as he gazed down in disgust at his ruined pantaloons and coattails. Finally, he looked up and caught Wilhelmina’s eye. Her hand still covered her mouth, for she was having trouble suppressing the mirth that gurgled up from her throat. Sam glanced down again at his mud-covered clothes, then back up at Wilhelmina, and broke into laughter. That was all she needed for her own merriment to burst forth, and the two of them stood in the stable yard and laughed and laughed.

  Grissom, his glance darting from one to the other, offered a tentative chuckle. When their laughter had eased a bit, the innkeeper jumped into the breach and said, “Come inside, Captain, and let’s get you cleaned up. The wheel can be repaired again, though I’m told it will take longer this time since more spokes are broken and the rim is bent. Blasted pigs! Begging your pardon, Your Grace. It’s getting on to dusk, so you’d better stay the night, sir. I’ll see about a room for you and have Mrs. Grissom see to your clothes. We’ll find you something clean to wear in the meantime.”

  Sam directed Grissom to retrieve his portmanteau from the boot of his curricle so he could change into his own clothes. Wilhelmina accompanied him back to the inn, where she found Smeaton in the hallway, eyebrows raised in question. Wilhelmina nodded and shot him a wink, then turned her attention to the innkeeper’s wife, wild-eyed with outrage at what had happened, muttering under her breath about that wretched boy and his pigs. She offered to give up her own bedchamber for the captain, as there was only one small attic room available. But Sam would have none of that and accepted the tiny room with gratitude. “I am accustomed to cramped quarters on ship,” he said, “so any hole in the attic will suit me fine.”

  Mrs. Grissom thanked him and took his muddied greatcoat and hat, promising to have them cleaned. “And I’ll send up a chambermaid to take away your dirty clothes. We’ll take care of ’em, don’t you worry. You’ll have ’em back all cleaned and dried by tomorrow morning. Now, if you’ll follow me…”

  Before heading off for his attic room, Sam turned to Wilhelmina and smiled. “Looks like I’ll be able to share dinner with you after all.”

  “I’m glad, Sam.” It was too soon to part. She wanted a few more hours with him. That was all. Just a few more hours. It was selfish of her, but there it was. Miss Fullbrook would have to wait another day for her offer. For tonight, Sam would belong to Wilhelmina. Or so she hoped.

  Sam looked across the table, laden with platters of roast mutton, game hens, potatoes with butter sauce, pickled onions, French beans, and crusty bread. Mrs. Grissom had done her best to compensate for the mud and the pigs and the cramped attic room by making sure he did not also go hungry. Sam had dug into the hearty meal with relish, but noticed that the duchess ate very little.

  “What’s the matter, my girl?” he asked. “You do not like Mrs. Grissom’s cooking? No doubt you have become accustomed to finer cuisine.”

  She looked up and smiled. “I employ a French chef who would swoon at the sight of that leg of mutton and those soupy potatoes. In fact, he often travels with me, but since we were visiting Lord and Lady Thayne, who keep an excellent chef, I sent him on a well-deserved holiday.”

  “And so you are forced to endure a plain meal without elegant French sauces or exotic seasoning. Poor Willie.”

  She laughed. “I am not so spoiled as all that. I can manage an indifferent meal from time to time. I’m just not very hungry.”

  “The food may seem indifferent to you, Your Grace, but after so many years of salt pork out of a beer keg and hardtack biscuits that could chip a tooth—once you’d first banged them on the table to chase out the weevils—I can assure you that a good English roast leg of mutton is nothing short of heaven to me.”

  His comment steered the conversation back to tales of Sam’s life at sea, which seemed to fascinate her. Wilhelmina peppered him with questions throughout the meal, and even the grinding monotony of the blockade began to take on a more adventurous turn in the telling. She showed a particular interest in his rise through the ranks, something even she recognized as unusual for an impressed seaman.

  “I had been sub-lieutenant until Aboukir Bay when more officers were needed,” he said, slicing an apple into sections and offering her one. “I had the honor of serving as a full lieutenant in that great battle, under Captain Lewis of the—”

  “The Alexander.”

  His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “How do you know that?”

  Willie clicked her tongue. “Really, Sam, do you think I do not read? The Battle of the Nile was second only to Trafalgar in importance. It was written about in great detail in all the newspapers and magazines. I even decorated my drawing room in the Egyptian style. It was all the rage.”

  “But how did you know that I served on the Alexander? Surely a pup of a lieutenant was not mentioned in the Morning Chronicle.”

  “I saw your name in the navy lists.”

  He gazed at her in astonishment. “You read the lists?”

  She smiled sheepishly. “I have followed your career ever since you showed up alive, and full of vinegar, that night at the theater, five years after I thought you’d died. I know you sailed on the Alexander, then the Pegasus, I believe. You were given command of the Libra, and one more I think, but the Dartmoor was your first post ship, as full captain. And your last ship was the Cristobel.”

  Sam sat back and stared at her. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “You see, I never forgot you, Sam. You carried a piece of my heart, whether you knew it or not, and I always liked to know where it was.”

  His own heart swelled a little and flooded him with warmth. “You never cease to surprise me, Willie. With your full life—the salons, the gaiety, the luxury—I never imagined you spared a thought for me.”

  “You have never been far from my thoughts, Sam. Just as you said earlier this afternoon, one never forgets one’s first love.”

  Her words moved Sam more than she could possibly imagine, and the fact that she had followed his career so closely must mean that she still cared for him, even a little, despite all that had happened between them. But it was the way she looked at him when she said it, the melting heat in her eyes, that was almost his undoing.

  He looked around at the other occupants of the room. A group of four men sat at one end of a long table, laughing and talking loudly, clanking their tankards together as they proceeded to get drunk. A quieter pair at the opposite end played a game of backgammon, and two elderly chaps had pulled chairs close to the hearth, where they sat and dozed. A middle-aged couple of matching stout proportions in one of the other alcoves silently shared a large currant pudding.

  Sam and Willie had been private enough in their own alcove, but there were some things he wanted to say, and do, without the possibility of an audience. He could not in good conscience ask to go to her bedchamber, though God knew he wanted nothing more. Since his own room was little more than a garret with a narrow bed and a thin pallet, the best he could do was to take her outside, into the moonlight.

  She accepted his invitation, and within a few minutes, under the bright full moon, they were seated on an old tomb in the churchyard where they had walked earlier. He wanted to kiss her again, but kept thinking of tomorrow and Miss Fullbrook and her family’s expectations. But that was tomorrow. For tonight, he was with Willie. And she looked so beautiful in the moonlight that he was not sure he would be able to keep his hands off her.

  Every time he’d seen her, even that first time when he was so furious and heartsick at how she had degraded herself, he’d still wanted her. He’d wanted to possess her, body and soul, just as he had at eighteen. But too many others had possessed her, and his pride—and pain—would not allow him even to consider it.

  Until ten years ago, when he’d been prepared to toss aside all his fine scruples for her.

  And here he was now, wanting her again, on fire for her again, and a whole new set of scruples niggled at the edges of his conscience. Those scruples kept him t
alking. Talking was safer than kissing. And so their conversation, which had continued with few interruptions since shortly after noon, the conversation that had been more than twenty years in the making, continued as they sat side by side on the tomb of some poor unknown soul.

  “Tell me about Tom,” she said.

  He smiled, and was sure his pride gleamed bright in his eyes. “He’s a wonderful boy. A young man, I should say. He’s nineteen, and already a lieutenant making a name for himself in the lists. He was active in the blockades, and is now in the East Indies, the Java Sea.”

  “Do you see him often?”

  “Not often enough. The problem with a naval career is that one is never in one place for very long. I missed so much of his childhood. After his mother died, he went to live with her sister’s family in Somerset. But he was sea-mad even then, and bristled at being away from the shore. He wrote plaintive letters begging to be taken aboard ship, to train for a midshipman’s berth. I finally capitulated when he was twelve. Within two years he was wearing a midshipman’s jacket. And passed the lieutenant’s exam when he was seventeen. His will be a more traditional career than my own. He will no doubt achieve admiral before he’s forty.”

  She smiled wistfully. “You should see your face when you speak of him. You are such a proud papa.”

  He laughed. “I am indeed. He’s a good son. A good-looking boy. As tall as me, though still too thin. All elbows and knees, long-legged and lanky.”

  “Just like his father was at that age.”

  Sam smiled and nodded. “He even has my coloring. Not a trace of poor Sarah in him, except now and then about the mouth. I wish we’d had more children, perhaps a daughter with Sarah’s fair coloring. But it was not meant to be, I suppose. And what of you, Willie? Any children tucked away somewhere?”

  Her face paled slightly, save for two bright splashes of color high on her cheeks, and he felt her stiffen beside him. A frown marked her brow, and Sam knew he had said the wrong thing. They had once talked, in the way young lovers do, of having a brood of perfect children, pretty little girls and mischievous boys. Willie had wanted children. But perhaps she had discovered she was barren. Or had lost a child. Or, because a child would have been an inconvenience in her style of life, she might have had children and given them away to be raised by others. Whatever the reason, he had certainly trod on unwelcome ground. Damnation. He would have bitten off his tongue if he could, for he might have just ruined a near-perfect evening with his clumsy inquiry.