Chapter Nine

      Verity reached for the doorknob, but it was pulled from her grasp.

      ‘Daughter! We are at sixes and sevens!’ her mother declared, taking her by the arm as if to haul her inside. ‘Come along. There is this letter to you from Sir Percy of Hipworth Hall.’

      ‘Perhaps he is wishing us good tidings,’ Verity said, too pleased with present company to wish to bother with her future employer right now.

      ‘No. Read this,’ Mama said as she thrust the letter into Verity’s hand.

      ‘Surely it can wait until we get inside the house,’ she said, wishing her mother could show a little more countenance around company. Mama had already opened the letter. What must Captain Everard think of them?

      ‘Very well,’ she grumbled. ‘My, what poor handwriting.’

      Mama snatched it back. ‘Daughter, it says quite plainly that he wants you to arrive before Christmas. He wants you in three days!’

      Verity took it back, squinting at the spidery handwriting, blotched as if the writer never put pen to paper, or had less patience even than Mama. ‘Such poor handwriting. I can’t read it.’

      ‘Hand it to me,’ Captain Everard said. ‘I have some proficiency with illegible handwriting, as found in various logs.’

      Verity gave him the letter gladly. For a moment in her heretofore self-reliant life, she wanted someone to solve her problem for her. It was a new sensation and not unwelcome.

      ‘That’s it. He wants you in three days.’ He handed the letter back to her. He looked over her shoulder at the letter he had just returned. ‘And look here: Either this reads, “My life is in peril”, which I cannot credit, even in Norfolk, or “My wife is nonpareil”.’ He shrugged as she laughed.

      ‘Perhaps he wrote, “My wife is feral”,’ Verity quipped and they laughed together, which seemed to her ears a most delightful sound.

      Mama would have none of it. ‘Verity. Captain Everard. Do be serious!’

      Captain Everard seemed disinclined towards soberness. ‘My mother once declared me a feral child when I slurped soup from a spoon, or, heaven forbid, picked up my cereal bowl and drank the milk.’

      Another slow wink and Verity laughed some more, which did not please Mama. ‘Verity, this is a house of mourning,’ she reminded her daughter.

      ‘I know.’ Verity felt some contrition, until she remembered how much Davey would have enjoyed this exchange. ‘Davey would have tossed in his tuppence-worth, too, Mama, you cannot deny.’

      ‘No, I cannot,’ Mama said after a moment’s reflection. The notion seemed to calm her. ‘My dear daughter, you must be on your way tomorrow.’ She looked at Captain Everard with apology in her expression. ‘We so wanted to keep you here with us for a few days, sir.’

      So did I, Verity thought, hopeful her disappointment didn’t show on her face. She was too old to moon about over a possibility that no one had offered.

      Mama wasn’t done. ‘And now I must send my child on the mail coach through stormy weather and deep snow by herself to a remote location and a questionable set of strangers.’

      Verity couldn’t help noticing the interesting way Captain Everard’s dimple in his cheek could disappear and reappear when he was amused. Once those distressing black sutures were a thing of the past, he could almost be considered a handsome fellow. She saw before her a solid man, probably not inclined to flights of fancy, which made her wish for another day in his company, before he returned to war and she to her less sanguine future.

      There stood Mama, her lip quivering. Verity put her arm around her mother. ‘Dearest, you know I have no qualms about solitary travel on the mail coach.’

      Me, oh, my. It wasn’t going to be enough. Verity tried again, unwilling for their brief guest to see Mama in hysterics. ‘You know as well as I do that people are at their best during Christmastide.’

      She held her breath, hoping Mama would proceed no further than with tear-filled eyes. Where was Papa?

      Her help came from an unexpected source, considering. As she watched in big-eyed amazement, Captain Everard took her mother’s hand in his.

      ‘Mrs Newsome, would you feel more comfortable if I agreed to escort your daughter to Norfolk? It’s not that far and I am at leisure for nearly two complete weeks.’

      ‘Sir, I really don’t want to—’ she began to say, but Mama overruled Verity’s sensible reminder on the tip of her tongue that the mail coach any time of year was not generally regarded as a gypsy caravan ready to steal away unwary children or oblivious spinsters.

      ‘Captain Everard, that would relieve me greatly.’

      ‘Oh, but...’

      Captain Everard clinched the matter with a single, inarguable sentence. ‘Mrs Newsome, Miss Newsome: I would be honoured to perform one last service for my second lieutenant.’

      What could she say to that, especially when Mama threw herself into the captain’s arms? And here was Papa now, coming out of the book room, ledger in hand, only to look up in surprise when Mama explained that Davey’s captain had kindly agreed to escort their sole remaining child to the wilds of wintry Norfolk.

      Papa astounded her by putting a spoke in the wheel of Mama’s enthusiasm.

      ‘I am not convinced of the propriety of this,’ he said.

      ‘Papa, I am perfectly safe on a mail coach,’ Verity reminded him. ‘Only last summer I went from here to Brighton to see my aunt. Alone.’ She bowed to necessity. ‘If I must have an escort, I cannot think of a better one than a post captain in the Royal Navy.’

      ‘I don’t think it is proper,’ Papa insisted, which made Verity want to sink through the floor with embarrassment. To her further dismay, Captain Everard’s stunned expression changed to one verging on amusement. What must he think of them?

      ‘What would you suggest that we do?’ the captain asked. ‘I feel inclined to agree with you that she should not travel alone and...’

      ‘Captain Everard, I will be thirty years old in March,’ she said. ‘Thirty. Older than some bottles of wine.’

      ‘You look considerably younger,’ he replied, then addressed her father. ‘Sir, what would you do if a pretty lady who barely looks four and twenty argues that she is safe on the mail coach?’

      ‘Overrule her, naturally,’ Papa replied.

      ‘Papa!’ Verity exclaimed, at a loss.

      There they