Christmas Belles

by Susan Carroll

  "Oh, good morning, Miss Chloe," the sailor said with a respectful nod and his broad grin.

  Her spirits somewhat subdued, she took a deep breath and greeted the steward, hastening on to frame her apology. "It was a beastly thing I did last night, giving you such a dreadful fright, and I am so very sorry."

  "Not at all, miss. 'Twas a capital jest. No need to look so down just for having a bit of fun. As for frightening me, bah! I knew it was you all along." The burly seaman leaned forward in conspiratorial fashion. "Though I did think there was a moment there when you gave the captain quite a turn."

  "You know, I believe there was." Chloe pressed her hand to her lips to stifle a giggle, and Doughty chuckled heartily. As he stood aside to permit her to enter the breakfast parlor, she dimpled into a mischievous smile.

  It was a smile she checked as she realized that Trent was already seated within and must have overheard this exchange. He quirked one brow in quizzical fashion.

  "Of course, none of it was amusing at all," she said quickly. "And I'd never do it again."

  Doughty agreed and beat a hasty retreat, closing the door behind him. Trent's lips twitched, but he rose respectfully at Chloe's entrance. She waved him back down.

  "No, don't get up, Cap—Will. You mustn't let your breakfast get cold."

  As she moved to help herself from the dishes assembled on the sideboard, Chloe could not help stealing a sidewise glance at him. He was clad in tight-fitting breeches and a dark blue frock coat that sported none of the glitter of his uniform. Yet he still presented a commanding presence, his dark hair swept back in flowing waves. He was handsome enough to make any maid's heart pound a little harder. Perhaps Emma truly was reconciled to the prospect of marrying him. Chloe knew that if the choice had been hers---

  She checked her thoughts, which were both wayward and improper. Lowering her gaze, she fixed her attention upon securing herself a bit of toast and a cup of tea. She managed to compose herself by the time she returned to the table, although she shyly ducked her head when Will held her chair for her. It would have astonished her to learn that he was also feeling the absence of his usual composure. He found it difficult to admit how eagerly he had been awaiting her appearance. He had spent a restless night, deeply troubled by the feelings she had aroused in him with that innocent kiss under the mistletoe. But he had managed to convince himself it was all right. She was going to become his sister, and it was the proper thing to entertain some fondness for her.

  Indeed, it would have been impossible not to be fond of Chloe. Trent had never seen anything so charming as the way she had apologized to Mr. Doughty. Her soft, honey-colored curls framing her delicate face, those wide blue eyes so contrite. With such a look, a man could forgive her anything, Trent thought, even to sinking his ship to the bottom of the Channel. England had plenty of boats; there was only one Chloe.

  Astonished by the foolish notions flitting through his brain, Trent concentrated upon his plate, which was heaping with eggs and a large grilled beefsteak. He ate with gusto until he became aware that Chloe was staring at him. Flushing a little, he lowered his fork.

  "You'll have to excuse me if I seem a perfect glutton," he said. "After so long at sea, when breakfast is often a hard biscuit alive with weevils, something like this seems like pure ambrosia."

  "Oh, don't apologize," Chloe said, moving to refill his coffee cup. "I didn't mean to stare. It was only so pleasant for once to see you really enjoying something."

  "Do I really seem that much of a dull old stick?"

  "No, only surpassingly serious. I would wager you have already forgotten you are supposed to be on holiday and have arranged some sort of grim schedule for today."

  "Naturally, I had planned to meet with Mr. Martin, and then there are accounts to be gone over—" Trent broke off with a guilty laugh. "And what plans have you formed for your day, ma'am?"

  "Me?" Chloe leaned against the back of her chair, her eyes becoming dreamy. "I intend to do something of great importance. I am going outside to make footprints in the snow, and then if I can bully Agnes into going with me, I shall go skating on the pond."

  "I fear you have little chance of that. I believe Agnes has already barricaded herself in the library with a most ponderous-looking tome."

  "And Lucy and Mr. Lathrop have gone riding." Chloe gave a disconsolate sigh. "And Emma never skates."

  "In any case, Emma is already engaged in interviewing prospective housemaids by my insistence. I looked at your sister's hands and was appalled to see how chapped her fingers are becoming from all her work in the kitchens."

  Chloe only nodded. An image rose in her mind of Trent examining Emma's hands, and she could fancy how tenderly he must have done so. The thought produced a curious and wistful ache in her heart.

  She was rather glad of the diversion provided by Polly and Old Meg entering the breakfast parlor. Chloe reached eagerly for the small purse she had brought with her. It was Boxing Day, a time customarily set aside for rewarding the service of one's family retainers, and none deserved it more than these loyal and faithful friends.

  But as she started to spill into her hand the bright shillings she had so carefully saved, the elderly cook and pert housemaid were already making their curtsies to the captain.

  "Begging your pardon, Captain." Old Meg beamed. "We didn't wish to intrude upon your breakfast, but Polly and me could wait no longer to thank you for your generous gift."

  "Truly," Polly gushed. "I never had five pounds all at once in me life before."

  Five pounds? Chloe felt her own smile waver. The hoard of shillings clutched in her fist seemed pathetic by comparison, and she whisked them under the table.

  Trent looked exceedingly uncomfortable to be the recipient of so much gratitude. He accepted all the thanks in his usual stern fashion. When the two women had gone, he turned to regard Chloe.

  She feared her chagrin must have showed in her face, for he asked anxiously, "Did I do something wrong? I heard Emma speaking of Boxing Day this morning, and I thought it was the proper thing to do—"

  "Oh yes, very proper," Chloe said, attempting to stuff the shillings back into her purse. But a few escaped to roll across the table and settle near Trent's coffee cup.

  As he returned them to her, she saw his eyes light with comprehension.

  "You should have gone ahead and made your gift, Chloe," he said.

  Chloe affected a shrug. "What would shillings be compared to pounds?"

  "A great deal more when given out of love instead of duty."

  His perception both touched and astonished her. "I thought you didn't believe in love," she could not help reminding him with a tiny smile.

  "I don't recall ever saying that, ma'am." Despite his gruff tone, he smiled back at her.

  On an impulse, she reached across the table, covering his hand with her own. "Oh, Will, forget about your stuffy meeting with Mr. Martin. Come skating with me instead."

  He laughed. "I have never been on skates in my life, Chloe."

  "That doesn't matter. I am sure you could learn easily. After all, you must be very agile, the way you sailors go climbing about among all that rigging."

  "It has been a good many years since I have been obliged to do anything like that, my dear. A captain only has to stroll about the deck, getting fat and lazy while he bellows out orders."

  Chloe ran a skeptical and admiring gaze over Trent's lean, muscular frame. "I can't imagine you ever strolling. The bellowing, however--"

  Trent cut her off firmly. "Besides, I have no skates."

  "Papa's are still about somewhere. I am sure they would fit you."

  Although Trent continued to shake his head and laugh at her mad proposal, Chloe detected a certain wistfulness in his eyes She did not know why she continued to press him. Perhaps it was because she was haunted by the image of a lonely young boy who had spent far too many of his holidays standing to attention aboard the deck of a ship.

  Squeezing his hand, she peered up
at him through the thickness of her lashes. "Oh, please," she said.

  "You only want to see me make a great fool of myself," he grumbled, but Chloe sensed him weakening.

  "Very well," he said. "But you must promise not to laugh at me."

  Chloe, concealing a grin of triumph, gave him her most solemn promise.

  The pond that stood just beyond the stables at Windhaven normally played host to a brood of fat, white ducks and a badger family that crept out of the woods to drink. But winter had finally rendered the water into a sheet of ice as smooth as a lady's looking glass.

  Bundled up in her best green coat, Chloe glided along, the wind whipping beneath her bonnet and stinging her cheeks a bright pink. She whirled about in a circle before turning to check the captain's progress.

  Trent smothered an oath as his feet flew out from under him for the third time. He slid across the frozen surface on the back of his heavy frieze jacket. Chloe brought her gloved hands up to her mouth to stifle her merriment.

  Sprawled at her feet, Trent glowered up at her. "You gave me your promise, madam."

  "Aye, I did, and I am not laughing." Chloe gasped on a chuckle. Balancing firmly on the blades of her own skates, she extended one hand to help him up. "'Tis only you do look a trifle undignified. I cannot help imagining what your friend Mr. Lathrop might say."

  "At your peril, you breathe a word of this to him or anyone else," Trent said with a mock growl. He regained his footing but still appeared most unsteady. As he cautiously moved one skate forward, Chloe clung to his arm, trying to help by giving him a small push.

  She panted at the exertion of helping to balance Trent's large frame "Now I know what you captains must go through when you try to launch a ship."

  After another tentative glide, Trent started slipping again, but this time, as he went down, he clung to Chloe, taking her with him. He landed on his back once more, his arms banding about Chloe, causing her to fall on top of him. With a soft gasp, she raised up a little, trying to shake the hair from her eyes. "You did that on purpose," she said.

  Trent's mouth curved into a mischief-laden smile. "A good captain always goes down with her ship, my dear."

  Chloe tried to be indignant but failed, dimpling at him instead. Her face was so close to his, she could actually feel the warmth of his breath against her cheek. She became aware of other things as well, the frieze jacket that seemed to carry with it the salt tang of the sea, the liquid silver of his eyes, the solid feel of his body beneath her.

  A tingling sensation worked through her veins. Feeling shy and confused, Chloe made haste to scramble out of his arms. Trent struggled to a sitting position.

  "A wise captain also knows when to strike his colors," he said. Bending one leg forward, he began to undo the strap of his skate.

  "You cannot give up that easily," Chloe cried. "Is this the spirit that won Trafalgar?"

  He shot her a disgruntled look, but by dint of much coaxing she got him back on his feet. Trent suddenly thought of a dozen reasons why they should return to the house, a hundred pressing matters requiring his attention, but Chloe refuted them all.

  It took the better part of the morning and several more tumbles before he learned to maintain his balance. But Trent was possessed of a natural athletic grace, and although he grumbled that "this was worse than acquiring one's sea legs," he was soon keeping pace with Chloe, threatening to have her clapped in irons if she attempted to twirl him in a circle.

  They linked arms, skating in companionable silence, round and round the pond, blowing out breathy clouds of steam as they glided forward in perfect rhythm. The snow-trimmed pines, the hedgerows, and the frost-capped stables passed by in a blur of white.

  "Are you getting cold?" Trent asked, tucking her arm more snugly beneath his, pressing her hand within his own.

  "No, not a bit of it." Chloe tipped her face up to the cloudy, gray sky, feeling as warm as though she were basking in a flood of sunlight. "It's a glorious day. I haven't felt this happy since I can scarce remember."

  "Aye," Trent agreed quietly. He was not given to such rushes of feeling, but he knew what she meant. He was filled with a sense of contentment as sweet as it was rare.

  "You are skating very well now," she said. "Are you not glad I persuaded you to try it?"

  "It's pleasant enough when one remains upright, rather like sailing before a good strong wind."

  Chloe fell silent a moment, then astonished him by asking, "What is it like, Will, being aboard your ship all the time?"

  "Well, Gloriana is a ship of the line with three decks and eighty-seven cannon—"

  "I don't mean that," she said with one of her delightful trills of laughter, "Tell me what it feels like."

  Chloe had a habit of asking a man the most confounded things. If any other lady had posed him such a fool question, he would have found some curt but polite way to dismiss it. But for Chloe, he caught himself struggling to oblige her with an answer.

  "Well, at times life at sea can be hard, sometimes even monotonous, but there is always…" His voice trailed away as he began to consider sights and sounds he had always taken for granted, but he achieved a kind of wonder as he tried to describe them for Chloe. How fresh the wind blew out at sea, how it sang through the rigging, how diamond-hard and bright the stars appeared on a clear night, the way the salt spray could sting one's cheeks. He spoke of how humble a man often felt surrounded by nothing but sea and sky, how frightened when the waves turned black and pounded against the side of the ship, the deck heaving beneath one's feet, how exhilarating that feeling of riding out a storm, besting it.

  "It all sounds prodigiously exciting," Chloe said. She peeked up at him from beneath the brim of her bonnet and added hesitantly, "But I fear Mr. Doughty doesn't like sailing as well as you do. He told me how he came to be on your ship. He didn't want to be impressed into the navy."

  "Few men do," Trent said wryly, a little amused to hear the burly seaman had made Chloe his confidante. "Would Mr. Doughty have preferred being hanged for smuggling?"

  "No. He is grateful his life was spared. But he misses his home and his poor gray-haired old mum."

  Trent had to choke back a laugh, for Chloe looked so mournfully serious. The phrase about the "old mum" had to have been Doughty's own, echoed unconsciously by Chloe. The old rascal certainly had been pitching it rum to the girl.

  "I fear what Doughty misses most is his old free-booting way of life," Trent said. "A little naval discipline will do him no harm."

  "But to be forced to serve for so many years! That seems rather harsh for just smuggling a very tiny drop of brandy."

  "Aye, just a drop or two. Only five hundred kegs."

  "I don't care. I think he has been punished enough. If he hates being in the navy and wants to go home—"

  "Chloe," Trent interrupted. He halted their progress around the pond long enough to direct an intensely serious look at her. "It is kind of you to take an interest in Mr. Doughty's welfare, but you shouldn't encourage him to lament his lot. He might become tempted to do something that he shouldn't. Desertion is a serious crime."

  "Yes, but—"

  Trent laid his fingers gently against her lips to silence her. "You must allow that I know best in matters regarding my own crew. Your meddling in Doughty's affairs could only bring disaster, Chloe. One should never attempt to interfere in someone else's life."

  "You mean like I tried to do with you and Emma?"

  "Well, yes."

  She pulled a face and then sighed. "Perhaps you are right. I shall make a greater effort not to be so--- so busy." But even as she made this vow, she looked far from convinced. She lapsed into silence, and they resumed skating. Trent half feared that his rebuke, even gentle as it was, might have destroyed the newfound harmony between them.

  But Chloe quickly recovered from any chagrin she might have felt and once more began to pelt him with questions about life in the navy. She wanted to hear about some of his own exploits, his ambitions, e
ven his dreams.

  Trent could not remember ever having been persuaded to talk so much about himself before, especially to a lady. If Chloe's interest had appeared at all coy or feigned, he would have stopped at once, feeling like the greatest fool.

  But she halted in front of him, catching up both his hands in her eagerness to hear more, her eyes alight as she drank in every word. He found himself confessing to thoughts and aspirations that would have caused his grandfather, the old admiral, to roll in his watery grave.

  "And after working so hard to make a ship seaworthy, training your crew to perform all the maneuvers to perfection until you and they are almost at one with the ship, it seems the most damnable folly, the most senseless waste, merely to become the target for cannon fire. When this blasted war is over, it has always been my dream to have done with the navy and ..."

  "And?" Chloe urged when he hesitated.

  "And to outfit my own ship, a three-masted frigate, with a handpicked crew, to sail all the way around the world, to have the leisure to really explore some of those faraway places like the West Indies or Barbados."

  "Or Jamaica?" Chloe breathed.

  "Perhaps even the Orient."

  "Oh," she lamented. "Why is it that men get to do all the exciting things and have all the adventures?"

  Trent laughed. "I have heard of some merchant captains who take their ladies with them and adorn their cabins with all the comforts of home."

  "Oh, Will. That would be wonderful. I—" The sparkle in Chloe's eyes dimmed. "I don't suppose Emma would much care for that."

  "No," Trent said slowly, "I don't suppose that she would."

  Chloe suddenly felt very self-conscious. She carefully disengaged her hands from Trent's grasp.

  "It must be very hard to be a sailor's wife," she said, "when your husband is gone so much of the time at sea."

  "I assure you that Emma will always be well cared for—" Trent began hastily.

  "I don't doubt that she will. I never supposed it would be as difficult for her as it is for Sukey Green, and yet—" Chloe swallowed. She had told Trent she would stop meddling, but it was a promise she was finding difficult to keep. "As hard as it has been for Sukey, she once told me of the one thought that sustains her. No matter how far away her Tom might be, his heart is always left with her."