by Carla Kelly
Cold inside and out, Verity bowed her head against the pelting snow. Without a word, Joe wrapped her inside his own boat cloak. ‘No sense in having you arrive frozen and half-dead on your future employer’s doorstep,’ was his only comment.
There was no need for conversation, because the carter supplied the text as he hunched inside himself and urged on his horse.
‘A teacher for Hipworth Hall? That’s a good plan, says I. Hipworth’s scamps have had free rein too long, from what I hear at the estate from my cousin the gardener,’ he said.
She returned some remark, wishing herself anywhere but here, and yet enjoying Captain Everard’s comforting presence.
‘Get along now, my beauty,’ the man continued, addressing his struggling horse first. ‘If he’s hiring you, miss, things must be perking up. Rumour says t’man has debts everywhere.’
‘Really?’ was Joe’s only comment. It was enough to keep the flow of words coming from their driver, who seemed to relish others’ misfortunes.
‘They say he’s trying to marry off his daughter for money and to that I say fiddlesticks. She’s a mousey piece and I doubt any man of sense would have her.’ He chuckled at his own wit. ‘They’d only inherit Sir Percy and Lady Hipworth, too, and I wouldn’t wish that on my enemies, had I any.’
‘Perhaps you have said enough,’ Joe told him. ‘Miss Newsome is soon to be his employee.’
‘P’raps I have,’ he agreed, ever cheerful. ‘You’ll do fine, missy. Here we are.’
She thought Captain Everard would see her inside and then leave, ready to retrace his steps towards Devon. Instead, he paid off the carter and sent him on his way.
‘Captain Everard, I have encroached on your time long enough,’ she said, even as she felt huge relief to find herself still with an ally.
‘I’m not leaving you here alone,’ he said. ‘I’m concerned.’
‘I am, too,’ Verity admitted.
Captain Everard knocked. After a lengthy wait that only let her misgivings multiply, the door was opened by what must be the butler, but who looked more like a man tried to the end of his patience.
‘Miss Verity Newsome is here at Sir Percy’s request,’ Captain Everard said. ‘She is the new educationist.’
‘Oh, my word,’ he said as he ushered them inside.
Cold and snow-covered, she stood with Captain Everard and stared at the sight of what must be all the Hipworths bickering at the end of the hall.
The captain had obviously had enough. He cleared his throat and shouted, ‘Merry Christmas!’ in what she supposed was his voice used in gale-force winds.
As one, the quarrelling family turned and stared at them. What must be Sir Percy detached himself from the group and came towards them. He looked from her to the captain.
‘’Pon my word, sir, you needn’t raise your voice,’ he said. He turned to Verity and peered closer, looking her up and down until the captain beside her stirred and opened his mouth. She put a hand on his arm to stop him.
‘I am your new educationist, Sir Percy and Lady...’ she said and waited for an introduction.
‘Lady Hipworth,’ Sir Percy said. ‘The governess.’
‘The educationist,’ Verity repeated.
‘The governess. What on earth did Lord Blankenship tell you?’
‘Oh, God,’ Captain Everard said under his breath for her ears alone. ‘We’ve fallen among thieves.’
Chapter Sixteen
Verity gave him a grateful glance, as if relieved he had said we instead of you. He looked over the shorter man’s head to see a wife, the mousey daughter the carter had mentioned and two boys of roughly three and four years. The lads were kicking each other and the daughter looked like she wanted to disappear. He could scarcely blame her.
Someone had to take charge. Since this was his usual duty, Joe sized up the situation and did precisely that.
‘Sir Percy, I assume?’ he asked and didn’t bother with the engagement-of-convenience nonsense. ‘I am Captain Everard. I volunteered to escort Miss Newsome here, as a final service to my late second lieutenant, her brother. Perhaps you could invite us in and...’
‘I didn’t hire you,’ Sir Percy said, which made Verity stir beside him and open her mouth to speak. It was Joe’s turn to put a hand on her arm.
‘No, you didn’t,’ Joe agreed. ‘Her parents and I agreed it would be a kind gesture, considering the distance and the weather.’
‘She’s a spinster rising thirty, or so Lord Blankenship told me,’ the man said, as if Verity weren’t even there. ‘Wouldn’t think she’d require an escort.’
You, sir, are an abomination, Joe thought, as he bit back every word he wanted to utter, the kind of words that had quailed midshipmen and sufficiently chastened lieutenants on all seven seas.
‘I suppose you are expecting us to put you up tonight?’
‘It would be a kindness, Sir Percy,’ Joe replied, wanting to grab the man’s scrawny neck and wring it until he squawked. ‘Once Miss Newsome is settled here, I will take my leave.’
‘That will be tomorrow,’ Sir Percy said. ‘I’m not running an inn. Very well, come inside. Fowler, take their bags upstairs somewhere.’
Captain Everard removed his cloak and took off his hat and held them until it became obvious no one was going to relieve them from him. He draped them over a chair in the hall and helped Miss Newsome from her cloak. She could barely look at him, so great was her humiliation.
‘Say the word, Verity, and we’re out of here,’ he muttered under his breath.
‘Where would I go?’
‘Home with me,’ he said without thinking, he who had no home except his frigate. ‘I mean, well, Kent.’
‘Not without an attempt here, sir,’ she whispered back. ‘I need to earn my living.’
Not with these nincompoops, he wanted to say. Maybe he did say it, because Verity’s eyes opened wide.
‘And you need to be at Lord Nelson’s funeral in less than two weeks,’ she reminded him. ‘Perhaps they’re having a bad day. That happens around Christmas, I am told.’
He looked at the Hipworths, who had drawn themselves together, as if closing ranks against the enemy. He had seen that sort of behaviour aboard ships, when the fo’c’sle crew sniped at each other and promised all manner of bodily harm, only to draw into a unit when confronted by an officer. He doubted supremely that the Hipworths ever had a good day. A cursory glance suggested they enjoyed making themselves uncomfortable and, by extension, all others nearby. It was a quick assessment, but he was good at those.
Standing close to Verity, he waited as the elder Hipworths whispered to each other. The result was Lady Hipworth extending her hand in a gesture as theatrical as it was phony.
‘Do join us for dinner, unless you have already eaten,’ she said, then negated whatever hospitality she had attempted by adding. ‘We weren’t informed of your early arrival.’
Verity took up the gauntlet then and Joe had to give her credit for remarkable forbearance. ‘Sir Percy sent a letter requesting that I arrive before rather than after Christmas, which is why I am here now,’ she said, all the while keeping a firm grip on his arm.
‘Yes, I did,’ Sir Percy told his wife when she gave him a fishy stare. ‘Didn’t want us to be discommoded if the weather turned foul.’
Joe couldn’t help himself. ‘Sir Percy, wouldn’t it have been a kindness to allow Miss Newsome one more holiday with her parents, after the recent loss of their son and her brother at Trafalgar?’ he said.
His question met with blank stares.
A great silence seemed to settle over all of them until the lady of the house renewed her invitation to dinner. ‘We are going in now, Captain. Join us, please,’ she said, with a sigh of resignation. ‘You may come, too, this time, Miss Newsome, but ordinarily the governess eats below stairs with the serv
ants.’
‘Governess? I had thought I was to be a teacher to these sons and your daughter,’ Verity said. ‘Lord Blankenship told me....’
‘He was mistaken,’ Lady Hipworth said. ‘You will be paid twenty pounds a year for your service tending to our darling sons.’
The darling sons had resumed kicking each other. Captain Everard had to hand Verity the palm. He was ready to kick everyone.
‘Your daughter, then? I will teach her.’
‘She knows enough,’ Sir Percy said. ‘We’re planning an advantageous marriage soon.’
‘My congratulations,’ Captain Everard said smoothly.
‘As soon as we find a juicy match for her,’ Lady Hipworth told him. ‘Let’s eat. The food is getting cold.’
The food was cold, but Captain Everard couldn’t blame the staff. He had seen sullen looks aboard any number of ships as he made his way up the seniority ladder. On ships of war where the captain was a martinet and heartily disliked by one and all, he had noticed that those serving had ways of making life miserable for those served. He doubted it was any different on land, if he was correctly interpreting the surly expressions on the faces of the domestics probably working at Hipworth Hall because there was no other employment nearby.
The two boys, one Edward and the other Hector—which seemed an appropriate name for the one doing the bullying—kept up their sniping throughout the meal. The daughter, who mumbled that her name was Clarinda, mostly stared at her plate and kept her own counsel.
They were joined mid-meal by a youth who slouched in, looked around and seated himself next to Verity. It wasn’t lost on Joe that there was a chair next to the lad’s father where he could have sat.
‘My son Gerald,’ Sir Percy said, ‘back from Gonville and Caius.’ He laughed. ‘Sent down a bit early for the holidays two weeks ago, eh, lad?’
The boy grunted.
‘This here is Miss Newsome, who is going to organise your little brothers,’ Sir Percy said. ‘And this is Captain Everard, Royal Navy.’
Gerald seemed to take an interest. He leaned across Verity, who leaned back, trying to keep her expression neutral. ‘Taken lots of prize ships, sir?’ he asked.
What did a man say to that? He heard Verity’s gasp at such impertinence, even as Joe wondered how it was possible to raise feral children in the nineteenth century. He had heard stories of little ones found in the woods and supposedly raised by wolves, but as a natural sceptic he had discounted them. Maybe it was possible.
‘I’ve done well enough,’ was all Joe offered. His finances were his business alone.
Gerald wasn’t done with him, apparently, which made Verity stiffen and set her lips in a tight line when the imposing mushroom leaned closer to her. Under cover of the table, Joe touched her hand, which made the high set of her shoulders relax, to his relief.
‘I hear there’s money to be made in the fleet,’ Gerald said. ‘Could you put in a good word for me? There must be lots of openings for officers, after Trafalgar.’
That was his limit. Joe pushed back his chair and rose to his feet, taking Verity with him. He thought she might object, but she stood beside him. In that moment, confronted by awful people, he knew his course.
‘Miss Newsome and I will leave at daylight,’ he snapped. ‘This is no place for humans.’
Sir Percy gave his son a filthy glance. ‘Sit ye down, Captain Everard! We are men of the world, are we not? I’ll pay Miss Newsome thirty pounds a year, which she seems to think I promised. Maybe she can pound some wisdom into Edward and Hector. Calm yourself, sir.’ He glanced out the window. ‘Besides, it is snowing and I doubt you can go anywhere tomorrow.’
I can try, Joe thought grimly. ‘Only if there will be no more hurtful comments,’ he said, turning his fiercest quarterdeck stare upon Gerald, who shrank back and starting playing with his table knife.
‘I was only teasing,’ the lad whined. ‘Didn’t mean nothing.’
‘Keep your remarks to yourself,’ Joe said. ‘Did no one ever tell you it is rag manners to lean across someone?’
Gerald left the room. Joe did not mistake the sigh of relief that seemed to rise from everyone. Good God, does this frippery bunch of mushrooms fear that little weasel? he asked himself, aghast. He was going to advise Verity to push a chair underneath the doorknob in her room tonight.
He exchanged glances with Verity. Her face, normally rosy, which provided such a lovely contrast to her black mourning, had gone chalk white, her eyes huge in her face.
What else could possibly go wrong? he thought, feeling helpless, an unusual emotion for him. Can tomorrow come soon enough?
Chapter Seventeen
It was easy to plead exhaustion from travel and ask directions to her room. Verity sank down on the bed, appalled at the situation she found herself in. Joe was ready to take her home tomorrow, or she could dig in and stay.
She knew she was a good educationist and she knew she had plans for herself. She knew Captain Everard had far too much responsibility to concern himself too long about the welfare of someone he had met only a week ago. The world was at war and he was needed by his nation. He had been kind to stand up for her, but she knew she needed to stand up for herself.
‘You can do this, Verity,’ she told herself. The odious Gerald would be returning to Gonville and Caius College, once the holiday was over, although how he managed to gain admittance in the first place to one of Cambridge’s premier colleges she could not fathom. Obviously the family had plans for...for...what was her name? The quiet, cowed little thing had done nothing more than stare at the food on her plate during the entire, agonising meal. No matter what her parents arranged for her, it couldn’t be worse than remaining one moment longer than necessary in such a household.
As for Edward and Hector, she knew little boys. She had taught more than a few who were high-spirited when they came to her in Lord Blankenship’s estate school and who learned and matured. She had no doubt she could manage them, provided their parents let her.
I have to weather it, Verity thought. Why would any academy of note hire me to teach if I could not prove myself?
She looked around the room and was not disappointed. She could unpack in the morning. If she could weather a few years here and keep alert for better positions, she could manage.
She looked towards the door when she heard steps and voices. Loudest was Sir Percy, apologising for his gormless offspring, almost as if he wanted to placate the captain, heaven only knew why.
She settled the matter in her mind. When the door closed and the single set of footsteps faded, she had convinced herself to make the best of a bad business. Her resolve lasted until someone tapped on her door.
Cautious, not wanting to see the dreadful Gerald leaning in and leering at her, she asked, ‘Who is it?’
‘Joe. Let me in,’ came back the whisper she wanted to hear, if she was honest with herself.
She opened the door. He had removed his shoes, which made her smile and wonder how much practice he had sneaking about in manors. Little, she imagined.
He closed the door quietly, leaned against it and folded his arms. ‘What’s it to be, Verity?’
‘I will stay,’ she told him quietly. ‘If I am to advance, I need this position.’
‘You can find another. Let me ask among my brothers in the fleet.’
You have no idea how tempted I am, she thought, even as she shook her head. He was too busy for this.
‘Joe, you have fulfilled all obligations to my family,’ she reminded him. ‘I can manage two little boys.’
She didn’t think she could look him in the eye and stared at the carpet. He put his finger under her chin and made her look at him.
‘Come with me tomorrow,’ he said and kissed her forehead.
He put his arms around her and she only hesitated a moment before doing the sam
e to him. She tried to tell herself it was a brotherly embrace, but even she could not stretch that little fable. If only he wouldn’t rub his thumb against the nape up her neck, which felt soothing and electric at the same time.
This would never do. ‘Captain, you have done so much for me and I know there is a great deal on your mind,’ she said as she disengaged herself from his embrace. He had never held her tight, so it was not difficult. ‘I will manage here. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your concern.’
He smiled at that and backed away. ‘Miss Newsome, you are an independent lady, able to function on your own without a man’s protection, aren’t you?’
‘I need to be, considering my spinster state,’ she said, wishing he would go away, but enjoying, as always, his mild banter. She could pay him in the same coin. ‘I enjoyed being Mrs Everard to all and sundry on the mail coach, but you have duties and so do I.’
He took it in good grace, making her promise to stick a chair back under her doorknob. ‘I wouldn’t trust anyone in this house.’
‘You shouldn’t either,’ she teased, on safer ground. ‘Did you see how Sir Percy’s eyes lit up when his horrid son mentioned prize money? Be careful or he will try to foist his poor daughter on you.’
‘When pigs fly, mum,’ he teased back. ‘Goodnight.’
She laughed and closed the door, grateful he could tease and thankful he would not be troubled much longer by worries which must seem trivial to him in the extreme. Someone who commanded a frigate had more on his mind than defending a spinster from toadies.
No one had bothered to put any coal in the grate in her room, which surprised her not a bit. In the morning she would have to make the acquaintance of the cook and housekeeper, if there was one, and figure out her place in this decidedly ramshackle household.
She changed and crawled into bed, drawing herself into a little ball, already wishing for spring when it was still two days to Christmas.
* * *
She had closed her eyes and must have slept, but not soundly, because a small tap on the door across the hall woke her immediately. She cocked her head and listened, wondering what she was hearing. There it was again, a distinct tap.
