An Unwilling Alliance

by Lynn Bryant

  Roseen nodded. Kelly looked at her father. “If your father has no objection, would you ride with me tomorrow? I’m going up to the house to meet with Moore to discuss what needs to be done and to look over some stock with him. Some company would be good.”

  Roseen was caught and she knew it. Her father was nodding his approval and she could come up with no reason to say no which would be believable. She nodded mutely and the captain smiled, bid her goodnight, and left the room with her father. Roseen watched as the two maids came to clear the table of the remains of their meal and wished she could throw something. She did not object in principle to a day in the company of Captain Kelly. She enjoyed riding and the weather was promising to stay fine. But she was very aware that appearing beside him while he was organising his house and estate was going to suggest something rather more than a casual acquaintance. She made her way to her room thoughtfully. As exasperated as she was, she had a reluctant admiration for Captain Kelly’s strategy. She wondered what her father had said to him and if he knew anything about the rejected suit of Lieutenant Edward Barton.

  ***

  The room allocated to Captain Hugh Kelly was undoubtedly the best guest room. Hugh closed the door on his attentive host with some relief and surveyed the room appreciatively. It was large and well furnished with some nice pieces in solid oak. He particularly liked the look of the four poster bed with heavy damask curtains since the windows in Mr Crellin’s elegant house seemed to be as ill-fitting as in most other Manx houses against the ever-present wind, and although the day had been warm there was a chill to the room. Hugh was accustomed to long nights soaked to the skin and fighting against a raging storm at sea, but he was a man who saw no particular reason to be uncomfortable when he did not need to and he was looking forward to a restful sleep.

  His luggage had been unpacked by one of Crellin’s servants and he undressed and slid into bed, drawing the curtains on the side of the draughty window and lay back thinking about the evening. It had been pleasant enough although Crellin’s very obvious enthusiasm for a potential match with his daughter had made Hugh, who had a lively sense of humour, want to laugh aloud at times.

  He was not so sure that the girl herself shared her father’s enthusiasm for the idea, which might prove to be a pity because she was prettier than Hugh had expected. He had not met Crellin before today although he had exchanged several letters with him and he was not at all averse to the idea of a marriage with the daughter of a prominent local merchant and a member of the House of Keys, the Manx parliament.

  Hugh shifted against the pillows. He spent much of his time sleeping in cramped bunks and a bed with enough room for a man of his inches to stretch out was a luxury. A decent bed for the master bedroom at Ballabrendon was high on the list of purchases he intended to make. He wondered if, with only a few short months of furlough and a good deal to do in the time, he would manage to persuade the prickly daughter of Mr Josiah Crellin to share it with him. He was not sanguine about his chances but the idea of it definitely brought a smile to his face. He had arrived back on his island home after almost fifteen years absent at sea with the money to purchase a house and land and a woman to occupy them.

  Hugh was realistic about his prospects and he knew that they were good; considerably better than when he had left the island on a British frigate at the age of sixteen, his father dead in a drunken stupor on Castletown quay and the tenant farm on which he had been raised gone, to the landlord who had evicted him. Hugh could hardly blame the man. Cretney had watched the land go to rack and ruin as his tenant drank himself senseless after the death of his wife, and he had at least taken the trouble to offer the man’s young son work on his own estate.

  Hugh had refused with the stubborn pride of a grieving boy and had chosen the navy instead. He was an excellent sailor, having been going out with the fishing fleets since he was very young as a way of supplementing his father’s dwindling income. He had found that the life suited him very well, had enjoyed the comradeship and proved himself worthy of an officer’s commission. At twenty-nine, in command of a frigate, he had fought under Moore against the Spanish in the action at Cape Santa Maria and was in command of the same vessel late the following year at Trafalgar. His new command was to be a larger ship, a French vessel captured just after Trafalgar and currently being refitted in the dockyards at Yarmouth.

  It had seemed the right time to be thinking of his future and with several months to spare and an impressive bank account due to prize money and intelligent investments, he had written to his mother’s cousin who was an advocate in Castletown asking him to look about for a suitable estate. He had not expected to get such a quick reply and he was slightly shocked to discover that the Cretney estate, where he had spent his boyhood, was vacant and for sale with the drowning of the only son which probably brought on the seizure which had killed the elderly landowner.

  It had been an easy decision. The heiress was married and in England and had no wish for a Manx estate and the house and lands were good although probably in need of some work. Hugh had written back telling Quilliam to close the deal and had written to Isaac Moore, his boyhood friend who was currently employed as a clerk in a shipping firm, asking if he would act as land agent and help him bring the property into order.

  He had mentioned, casually to Quilliam his hope of someday being able to marry and raise a family. Money, a looming problem of his childhood, was unlikely to be a barrier. He had done very well out of the navy, a combination of very good luck at being present and active during a number of very lucrative actions and of good management of the prize money he had received.

  Nothing had come, as yet, of the capture of the Spanish treasure ships at Cape Santa Maria. Under normal terms, ships captured at sea were the property of their captors, who received the full value of the ships and cargo in prize money. However, since officially Britain and Spain had not been at war at the time of the action, the Admiralty Court ruled that the three ships were the possession of the Admiralty and that all revenue would revert to them. The four Spanish ships had sailed from the new world laden with silver and gold coin, gold ingots, sacks of wool, bars of tin, pigs of copper, seal skins and oil. A proportion of that had gone down with the Mercedes, the one ship to have been sunk but the remaining ships and cargo had been worth a small fortune. The lawyers would take a proportion of it, Hugh knew, since they were currently arguing his case along with the other officers and men who had fought the action, but he was fairly sure that a share of some kind would eventually come his way and he could afford to be patient.

  Quilliam was very obviously delighted with his cousin’s unexpected prosperity and had suggested a number of local investments. Hugh had agreed to some cautious dabbling in the local shipping and merchant trades with firm instructions to stay away from the slave trade. Slavery was over, with the act of abolition about to be passed, but Hugh was under no illusions that there would be attempts by some merchantmen to find ways around the act. He wanted no part of it, partly because he had no need of illegal ventures and partly because he had twice been obliged to board a slaver, and the sights and smells he had encountered would remain with him all his life.

  He had received an enthusiastic response to his investment from Mr Josiah Crellin who had written to him welcoming him to his Board and inviting him to be his guest for a few weeks on his arrival on Mann. Mr Crellin had pointed out that none of them knew the condition of the big house up at Ballabrendon which had been empty for more than two years now, and while it was being set to rights, Captain Kelly might be more comfortable in his house in Malew, just outside Castletown.

  Captain Kelly, smelling a rat, had written to his cousin and had received a reply just before setting out on the first leg of his journey home. Mr Crellin had two children, a son now married and soon to become a father, and a daughter of twenty-one, an heiress in her own right and a girl in need of a husband. Mr Quilliam wrote in cautious approval of the match in principle. Mr Crellin was an impo
rtant man in Manx society, owned two prosperous estates and ran a very successful shipping firm with no known slaving connections. The girl was young and healthy and Mr Quilliam knew nothing against her other than that she was rumoured to be something of a tomboy when she was younger.

  Hugh had shrugged his shoulders and written a pleasant letter accepting Mr Crellin’s kind invitation. It committed him to nothing and if he and Miss Crellin found they had no liking for one another there was no need to take the matter any further. He wanted to be married but he was in no particular hurry and although he did not require romance as part of the contract he did require compatibility and he was very willing to wait until the right female presented herself.

  Hugh thought again about the girl he had met at supper. At twenty-one she was probably younger than he would have liked, almost ten years his junior and presumably as sheltered as most girls who had spent their life on the island. That presented no problem; he wanted, when his days in the navy were done, to come home to Mann and settle on the island he loved. He had travelled all over the world and he was glad of his wandering life which had shown him so much and earned him a respectable fortune, but nowhere else gave him the sense of security and belonging that he felt coming in to Derbyhaven on the packet and seeing the mellow stone of Castle Rushen rising up against a steel grey sky with fresh white clouds scudding ahead of a fierce breeze.

  He had thought to look for a slightly older bride, possibly even a young widow, a woman young enough to give him children but old enough to be sensible. If he decided to marry now, before returning to sea, he had no way of knowing when he would next be able to return home and the woman he married needed to understand that certainly while the war was still going on, he would put his duty and his career first. He wondered if Crellin’s young daughter would be able to understand his need for stability and a wife he could trust.

  On the other hand she was very attractive with the dark hair and eyes that he always associated with his own people and a warm olive skin which was almost Mediterranean. He liked the way she held herself, with a confidence which seemed unusual in a young girl, and he liked her voice, touched with the Manx accent of his childhood. She was not traditionally beautiful; her face was slightly pointed and there was a determined cast to her jawline which set her apart from the round-faced prettiness of so many young women. She was tall and looked strong and watching her covertly through the candlelight at supper, Hugh had been conscious of an unexpected stirring of desire which had not been part of his plans at all.

  Hugh smiled at the thought, turning over and settling himself to sleep. He was old enough and practical enough to select a bride for reasons other than a pair of dark eyes and an excellent figure. But it did not stop him, as he drifted off, from imagining how Roseen Crellin would look naked in the candlelight.

  Chapter Two

  Hugh had always been an early riser and years of awakening to the dawn bell had made it impossible for him to remain asleep late, no matter how tired he was. He lay still in bed for a while, listening to sounds from outside which suggested that the day started early in Josiah Crellin’s house. A tap on the door made him sit up.

  “Come in.”

  The door opened and Hugh grinned at the skinny thirteen year old form of his cabin boy, Brian, bearing a heavy enamel jug of water.

  “Morning, sir. Thought you’d be awake.”

  “It sounds as though I’m not the only one,” Hugh said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “You comfortable enough?”

  “Yes, sir. Nice people. Getting fed well.”

  “That’s lucky, given your appetite, you greedy young bastard.”

  “Need anything else, sir?”

  “No, get yourself off and get some breakfast. Is Mr Crellin up?”

  “Not seen him yet, sir, but his man tells me he breakfasts early.”

  “I’ll wash and shave and go down then.”

  “Want me to help you shave, sir?” Brian said hopefully. It was a skill he was keen to learn, but Hugh shook his head with a grin.

  “No. I’m trying to make a good impression here, not turn up looking like a poorly skinned rabbit. You can practice on me when we’re back at sea and nobody gives a damn how I look. Are my boots clean?”

  “Yes, sir, I’ll bring them up.”

  Hugh presented himself at the breakfast table in riding clothes. He had purchased his horse, a cloudy grey gelding with two white socks, in Ireland on his way back home and had replaced the unpronounceable Irish Gaelic name with MacLir, the name given to the ancient Manx sea god. When he left to join his new ship, he would leave the horse in the charge of Isaac Moore, his boyhood friend who had accepted the post of land agent for the Ballabrendan estate, but it was good to have a horse of his own after many years of hiring and borrowing when he needed to ride.

  He found his host seated at the head of the table. On one side of him was a middle aged plump woman dressed in widow’s black and on the other side was his daughter, dressed in a dark grey riding dress with a froth of white lace at her neck. Hugh bowed, smiling, and Crellin waved him to a seat.

  “Sit, Captain, and eat. Good to see you up early. You didn’t meet my sister yesterday. Mrs Mary Faragher - she’s lived with me since her man died and takes care of my daughter.”

  “How do you do, ma’am? Miss Crellin - good morning.” Hugh took his seat. “The fact that you’re dressed for riding gives me hope that you’re favouring me with your company today.”

  Roseen Crellin lifted her determined chin. “Why not? It’s a fine morning, Captain.”

  “And looking finer all the time,” Hugh said, and was amused at her slight flush. She was very confident for a young woman, with none of the die-away airs which he tended to associate with girls looking for a husband. He would have said, in the abstract, that he was looking for a pleasant, well-behaved girl who would make his life easier, but he was honest enough to admit that there was something about Josiah Crellin’s strong-minded daughter that he found very attractive. It added a spice to his courtship that he had not expected.

  She joined him outside after breakfast and he watched appreciatively as the groom helped her up onto a lively bay. He was big for a woman to ride and Hugh kept an eye on her as they left the carriage drive but her competence reassured him that she knew what she was doing with the horse. She turned him up the road and Hugh fell in beside her.

  “You know the estate, I believe?” he asked.

  “I do. Josh Cretney was a good friend of my brother’s; our families were in and out of each other’s houses all the time.”

  Hugh felt a slight qualm. “I didn’t realise that. Are you all right with this? If it will upset you, we can ride for a while and I’ll escort you back and go alone.”

  Roseen shot him a surprised glance. “No, I’m fine. It’s been two years or more. I was sad, but it’s good that the house is sold. And they’d be happy it’s to a Manxman. Although you’ll not be settling yet awhile, I understand?”

  Hugh shook his head. “I’m going back to sea,” he said. “I’ve been given command of a new vessel. She was a French prize, renamed the Iris, a third rater.”

  He was conscious and slightly embarrassed by the pride in his voice. She was quick enough to pick it up and smiled over at him, but there was no mockery in her expression.

  “And that’s a step up for you?”

  He laughed, liking her for her understanding. “It is. I’ve commanded every size of ship below it, including a few that were barely seaworthy. There are more officers than good commands, Miss Crellin, so I’ve made myself useful in places that the better-born officers with good connections would scorn to go. And it’s finally paid off. A ship of the line, and a good one. She’s being refitted over in Yarmouth.”

  “Congratulations, Captain.”

  “Thank you. For your encouragement and for not making me feel like a coxcomb for my pride in it. Are you ready for a gallop, this lad is itching for a good run and we’re on open country
for a few miles.”

  She shot him a smile, looking suddenly relaxed and natural. “Gladly, although I doubt Bridget will come close to your speed.”

  She kept up very well, nevertheless, as he gave his mount his head over the rough hillside. It was a warm day, the sky a brilliant blue without the covering of cloud which he usually associated with the island of his birth, and high up on the hills a bird of prey was circling lazily as though it could hardly be bothered to hunt. They had turned off the road early and took a direct route, skirting the hills above Colby. Eventually as the ground grew steeper he slowed to a walk, letting MacLir find his own way among the gorse and heather and she pulled up beside him, flushed and laughing.

  “He’s very quick. And so sure-footed.”

  “He is. Irish bred, but I’m told there’s Scotch in his family history as well. Those sturdy little ponies.”

  Roseen studied the horse. “You can see it across his chest, he’s very strong, isn’t he? Lovely, though.”

  Hugh’s eyes were on her face. “So are you, Miss Crellin.”

  She blushed, looking suddenly much younger, and Hugh wished he had not said it. He was aware that he was not particularly fluent in his dealings with the opposite sex. He had been very young when he went to sea, socially as awkward as most boys and touchier than most about his humble origins and the sorry circumstances of his father’s death. Years with the navy had both completed his education and given him a good deal of confidence. He was comfortable now in the highest company, had dined at table with lords and even the occasional royal; had learned to dance and to make small talk. But he had never really learned how to flirt, having never seen the necessity of it. Sexual pleasure was easy enough to come by for a man with money in his pockets but he had formed no lasting connection with any woman and had not seriously considered matrimony until now.