The Captain's Frozen Dream

by Georgie Lee

  He withdrew his hand and straightened, calling to mind the anger and desolation of the morning he’d awakened alone to give him the impetus to leave.

  * * *

  Katie closed the door and leaned her forehead against the cool, pitted wood.

  ‘I told you he’d help you,’ Aunt Florence gloated as she sat at the table and poured herself some thin tea.

  ‘I don’t know why, there can’t be any benefit in it for him.’ Unless it was solely to vex his uncle. Given the things he’d told her his uncle had done to his parents, she couldn’t blame him for wanting to spite the man. She very much wished she could.

  ‘He did it because he still feels for you and you gave him a reason to fight for you again.’ She waved Katie over to the table, setting a cup of tea at her place.

  ‘You’ve read too many novels if you believe that’s true,’ Katie scoffed as she sat down, rubbing the back of her hand, the impression of Conrad’s kiss as strong as the small callous on her finger from where she’d gripped the pen all day.

  Her aunt laid a small plate with a stale slice of cake in front of Katie. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure, my dear. In fact, I would say you can now give up all this business of going off to America.’

  Katie pushed the cake away, too distracted by everything that had happened today to eat. ‘I can’t.’

  Aunt Florence nearly dropped her tea cup. ‘But you can’t think to leave now.’

  ‘He agreed to help me, that’s all. Nothing else is settled, not my career as a naturalist, acceptance by the society, and certainly not any future with Conrad.’ There wasn’t one. At Heims Hall, she’d nearly risked becoming like her mother and getting herself with child, seeing herself forced into marriage to keep from bestowing the title of bastard on an infant. If it hadn’t been for Conrad’s restraint, who knew what tragedy might have befallen her. ‘London might be enamoured with him, but it doesn’t mean Mr Barrow won’t fling him to some other obscure corner of the world as soon as a ship is available. He’ll be gone and I’ll be forgotten, again.’

  Aunt Florence gave a disapproving snort. ‘He may leave, but he won’t forget you. He didn’t last time.’

  No, he hadn’t. The image of him kneeling before her at Heims Hall and telling her how he’d dreamed of her in the cold came rushing back, stirring up the guilt she’d helped settle with her research. It’d been cowardly to run out on him, abandoning him just as her mother had abandoned her, instead of staying and explaining, facing him like a mature woman. Now was her chance to make some amends for her mistake, though she had no idea how. While she needed everything from Conrad, he needed nothing from her. There was no reason she could see for why he’d changed his mind, nor was there any way to make him forget the hateful way Mr Rukin had looked at her, or to stop him from hearing all the rumours whirling around her. She’d caught the suspicion in his eyes today, the look as painful as when he’d tossed her from his house this morning.

  ‘Don’t make the same mistake your parents made,’ her aunt warned as she finished her tea.

  ‘You mean becoming too obsessed with my work to see anything or anyone around me, like my father did?’

  ‘Things not going well between your parents wasn’t all my brother’s fault,’ Aunt Florence chided. ‘After all, he wasn’t the only one consumed with a passion for the past and dead things. Your mother had her obsession just like he did.’

  Katie picked up her tea and took a sip, wrinkling her nose at the bland, sugarless brew before setting it down. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, well, she had her faults, too.’ Aunt Florence coloured, then rose. She took up the wooden tray next to the table and began stacking empty plates on top of it, the china rattling as she worked with a speed that made Katie suspicious. ‘But I don’t like to speak ill of the dead.’

  She didn’t press her aunt for more. It wasn’t the first time Aunt Florence had made a cryptic comment about Katie’s mother, only to retreat from it with smiles and pleasantries when Katie asked for more details. Even if her aunt one day decided to explain, it wouldn’t help. There was nothing Katie could do to change the past, and there were other, more ominous ghosts she needed to stare down in the coming week.

  Chapter Six

  ‘Miss Vickers is back in London and you’re helping her. Those are odds I wouldn’t have wagered on six weeks ago, or even yesterday.’ Henry slipped the white clay pipe between his teeth, then plucked a reed from the holder and leaned forward to light it in the fire.

  ‘We both would’ve lost that bet,’ Conrad muttered from beside him as he watched his friend and lieutenant straighten and light the pipe. As the smoke curled around his face, it slid over the black glove covering his left hand, the one which failed to hide the absence of the smallest finger and the shortness of the three beside it.

  Conrad jerked to his feet, the sight of his maimed friend unsettling him as much as the salty taste of Katie’s skin still lingering on his lips.

  ‘So, what did she do to get you to change your mind?’ Henry smiled wryly as he shook out the reed, then tossed it in the grate.

  ‘I assure you, it was nothing so pleasurable.’ Conrad fingered the globe beside his chair, rocking it back and forth and making the metal holding it squeak. A few weeks ago he’d have upbraided his friend for such a ribald remark against Katie; tonight he wasn’t sure if he should defend her or curse her. When he’d awakened today he hadn’t expected to find himself once again embroiled in her life, or wondering if everything he’d heard about her since returning to London was true.

  ‘Then why?’ Henry crossed his ankle over his knee, his left hand hidden in his lap.

  Conrad rose and wandered to the window. After leaving Katie, he’d sought solace here at the Navy Club, eager for the company and cheer of his friend and fellow officers, but calm continued to elude him. He picked up a dagger-like letter opener lying on the escritoire next to the window and flicked the dull tip with his thumb. ‘I feel responsible for her.’

  ‘Seems to me she relinquished your responsibility for her when she ran away.’

  His friend was right, Conrad knew it and yet he couldn’t accept it any more than he’d accepted that he and his men were doomed once Gorgon slipped beneath the water. ‘You know I don’t give up on anyone so easily.’

  ‘And there are twenty men here in London who thank you for it.’

  Conrad set the dagger down. ‘It should have been twenty-one.’

  Henry took a long drag of his pipe before releasing the smoke in rings over his head. ‘It was his choice, Conrad, not yours.’

  ‘But I could have done something or at least realised what he was leaving the tent to do.’

  ‘No one could have guessed it.’

  Beyond the window, the rain fell steadily, pouring off the eaves of the building to strike the pavement below. Dripping water sounded different here without the snow to muffle the drops. He was sick of cold and wet and damp, he wanted summer and warmth as badly now as last winter. ‘Mr Barrow omitted Aaron’s death when he published my report.’

  ‘Will you include it in your book?’

  ‘I will, if I ever finish it.’

  ‘You aren’t going to give all England what they crave? Tales of glory on the ice.’ Henry threw out his arms in mocking exuberance, revealing again his maimed hand.

  ‘It wasn’t glory.’

  ‘No, it was hell.’ Henry took another drag of his pipe, the smoke momentarily obscuring his face.

  ‘And I’m tired of reliving it, especially for all the fops and green girls in society.’ Conrad dropped back into his chair by the fire and spun the globe. He could easily be one of those men, his mind at ease and never troubled by duty to his crew and the Discovery Service. Uncle Jack had left him the means to spend his evenings in such vapid pursuits, but Conrad wasn’t lazy enough to
fritter away his life the way his cousin Preston had done. It was the biggest trait his mother had instilled in him, the desire to do something of merit instead of sitting idle. Nor did he intend to spend his days poring over the past and writing it out for all of London to admire. Let them risk their lives in search of knowledge instead of reading about it from the cosy safety of their homes.

  ‘Mr Barrow won’t be pleased when you fail to deliver his desired book,’ Henry reminded him.

  ‘So he told me the other day, but I’m not his trained monkey.’

  ‘Yes, you are, we both are, or we wouldn’t be here.’ Henry didn’t wear the mantle of their fame, or the weight of their experiences in the north, any easier than Conrad did. All the fawning of the other officers, ladies and even the Naturalist Society members made fresh for them both the suffering they longed to forget. ‘Now that you’ve cursed Mr Barrow, what will you do about Miss Vickers?’

  Conrad propped his elbows on his knees and rubbed his temples, weary of her, exploration, everything. ‘I’ll help her as she’s asked and afterwards we’ll go our separate ways.’

  ‘Like hell you will. You never give up on people, not even Boatswain James when he got in the rum and tried to mutiny. I’d have left him out in the snow to die, but not you.’

  Conrad tossed his friend a smile. ‘Good thing for you and the other men I don’t give up.’

  Henry held up his pipe in salute. ‘Good thing.’

  ‘Captain Essington.’ A footman approached, white-faced as if he’d seen a ghost. ‘The Marquis of Helton requests your presence in the south parlour.’

  Conrad jerked up straight in his chair. ‘Why was he admitted? He’s not a member.’

  ‘He’s the Marquis of Helton,’ the footman answered, as if it was all the excuse the man needed to barge into a private club and demand a meeting with one of its members.

  Conrad could send back his refusal. His uncle, no matter what his pedigree, had no more right to enter the Navy Club than Conrad did to enter White’s and demand an audience with the Duke of Marlborough. However, if his uncle deigned to come here so soon after returning from the Continent, and in the rain no less, in search of Conrad, it must be for an interesting reason. For the first time in his life, Conrad was curious to hear what his uncle had to say.

  Conrad settled back into his chair. ‘Tell Lord Helton he may join me here if he wishes to speak.’

  The footman blanched at having to relay such a message, but like a well-trained sailor he obeyed, moving off to deliver the news.

  Henry rose and made for the door. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I have no desire to encounter Lord Helton.’

  Conrad laced his hands in his lap and stared into the dancing fire. ‘To be honest, neither do I.’

  He didn’t have to wait long for the Marquis of Helton to appear at the sitting-room door.

  Conrad didn’t stand or bow; the man didn’t deserve his respect. Instead, he watched his uncle stride into the room with a regal arrogance Conrad despised. Yet for all his airs, there was no mistaking how much he’d changed since Conrad had last seen him riding in Hyde Park two years ago. Lord Helton’s grand stature was marred by a new thinness about his chest and a marked hollowness around his mouth which increased the narrow jut of his chin. Dark circles hung beneath his eyes, but he stood as erect as ever, staring down at Conrad with as much malice as he had when Conrad was a boy.

  Conrad almost felt sorry for him, thinking grief the reason for the change in his appearance. He hadn’t thought the man human enough to feel so deeply the loss of his only child.

  ‘I see you’ve returned from the Arctic and are once again the famous explorer.’ Helton sneered the word explorer as he always did, as if everything without a title, a grand house or an esteemed legacy was beneath him. It killed what little sympathy Conrad harboured for the man.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘A touch of civility, as befitting a future marquis.’

  ‘If the company is not to your liking, you may return to the gilded hallways of White’s.’

  ‘Not until we’ve talked.’ Helton lowered himself into the chair across from Conrad’s, perching on the edge as though the cracked leather would ruin his Jermyn Street breeches. He rested his hand on the gold handle of his walking stick, the metal point digging into the rug between his feet. ‘I’ve come to discuss your future since providence has seen fit to take my son and make you my heir.’

  Conrad didn’t bother to offer his condolences. His cousin had never been good for anything other than molesting maids and torturing cats. ‘I assume you’re no happier about it than I am.’

  ‘You’ve assumed correctly.’ A wicked cough seized his uncle. He drew from his coat a white handkerchief and pressed it to his mouth as he fought to regain his breath. Through the older man’s thin fingers, Conrad noticed the small spots of blood staining the fine linen. So it wasn’t grief which had changed him, but something more sinister. The sight of it made Conrad wary. A wounded polar bear was more lethal than a healthy one.

  ‘You could marry again, produce another heir,’ Conrad offered, pitying whatever young lady the marquis might set his sights on.

  ‘I’m too old to risk leaving the title and estate to the fate of a squalling baby.’ He stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket. ‘I need a man, one strong enough to assume control of the Helton assets, take his seat in the House of Lords and bring honour to the family name.’

  ‘Honour? Is that what you call your merciless bullying? If so, then I have no interest in furthering your legacy.’ Conrad crossed one ankle over his knee, facing his uncle’s determination with a carelessness Lord Helton had always detested. It was the one weapon he’d possessed against the marquis as a boy and it still held the power to taunt the wicked man.

  ‘What about your own legacy, Captain Essington?’ Helton countered, the sound of Conrad’s title on his uncle’s tongue as eerie as the calls of whales vibrating through the hull of a ship.

  ‘I’ve already secured it.’ He spun the globe on the stand next to him, then jammed his thumb against the white expanse at the top, bringing it to a rattling halt. ‘In spite of everything you ever tried to do to ruin it.’

  ‘Yes, you have, but through sheer brute force, not brains. You won’t be young and strong for ever.’

  Conrad flexed his hand, disturbed by how close to the mark his uncle had come with his attack.

  ‘When you’re too feeble to chase after your invisible meridians, what will you do then?’ Lord Helton continued, his lip curling in disgust. ‘Sit in your study and regale small children with your past glories?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be the first.’ Conrad shrugged, his false glibness at odds with the truth. The long faces of the older officers who haunted the Navy Club and told any man who’d listen stories of their past exploits came to mind. However much he hated his uncle for pointing it out, it was his future, assuming the cold or a tropical disease didn’t kill him first.

  The image of Katie standing in his study at Heims Hall, her eyes filled with fear for what might be, cut through him, and his mortality settled against his shoulders like his epaulets. He caught a glimpse of what Katie saw and how she’d been right to doubt their future. At moments like this, Conrad doubted it, too.

  ‘As a powerful man with the ear of other powerful people, you can see to it expeditions are better funded so men like yourself will be well provisioned,’ Lord Helton continued.

  There was some truth in the proposal, enough to nearly tempt Conrad and make him as disgusted with himself as he was with his uncle. ‘According to Mr Barrow, I can already persuade people to fund expeditions based on my reputation, not my ability to intimidate.’

  ‘By bowing and scraping, begging and pleading? Follow me and you won’t have to demean yourself or the Helton name in such a manner.’

  C
onrad leaned forward and caught the faint yellow in the whites of Helton’s eyes. ‘I wouldn’t follow your example if it meant finding the Northwest Passage.’

  ‘Then you’re a fool. With my guidance, you could become one of the most powerful men in England, able to step into my place and continue to cloak the Helton name in honour and rewards. Women of rank will hurl themselves at you and you can choose a marchioness of privilege and influence instead of some peasant who picks through the dirt like a mudlark.’

  Conrad levelled a hard glare at his uncle. ‘I’ll thank you not to address Miss Vickers in such a way.’

  ‘You should thank me for driving her from London. She isn’t worthy to bear the Helton name.’

  ‘You haven’t driven her away. In fact, she just returned this morning.’ He said nothing of their broken engagement, unwilling to give the old man the satisfaction of learning he’d won. He’d figure it out in his own time.

  ‘You’re like your father.’ Helton grimaced, trilling his long fingers over the handle of his walking stick. ‘Wasting your strength and effort on someone so obviously beneath you.’

  Conrad jerked to his feet and stared down at his uncle, wanting to thrash him for the insult to his mother and what he’d done to Katie. ‘And you’re a tired old man, full of hate and bitterness. If you think to savage Miss Vickers’ reputation again, I’ll see to it you regret it.’

  ‘Don’t you dare threaten me.’ Helton shoved himself up to meet Conrad.

  ‘Attack Miss Vickers again and I’ll tell society the truth behind my father’s illness and how you’re to blame for it, and his early death.’

  The wrinkles around Lord Helton’s eyes smoothed as his lids opened wide with his shock. ‘You have no proof of it.’