Chapter Ten

      They left at the ungodly hour of six in the morning. Joe had no difficulty with early times. From the looks of his soon-to-be travelling companion and sudden fiancée, the matter was thornier. Miss Newsome was obviously not a cheerful riser.

      ‘I gather you are not a lark,’ he said and regretted his good cheer the moment the words tripped off his lips like happy sprites and crashed to the floor, victims of a frown and a pout.

      She did have lovely lips, full and nicely chiselled. Wiser now, he knew better than to venture another comment, positive or negative. Some people needed an hour or two to accustom themselves to a new day. On the other hand, he felt like a wrung-out rag after eleven in the evening. Make that ten. She would find out soon enough.

      Over breakfast, the Newsomes and Joe discussed the matter of an engagement ring while Verity ignored the three of them. She turned her attention to her baked egg, but soon gave up. Breakfast might be her favourite meal, but this morning it was gall and wormwood.

      ‘I don’t have anything even for short loan,’ Joe confessed.

      ‘You can tell anyone who asks that this is a quite recent engagement and you haven’t a ring yet,’ Mama said.

      Verity raised her eyebrows. Obviously she was not one to indulge in prevarication.

      He couldn’t disagree with her reluctance. ‘Perhaps, Mrs Newsome, but too many lies require extreme vigilance in keeping a story straight.’

      ‘And you know this how, Captain?’ Verity asked, all sweetness.

      ‘Miss Newsome, my darling, affianced dear, I was eight years old once, as hard as that is to credit. I recall a painful spanking from my mother.’

      Good God, where was his conversation coming from? Not a single member of his crew would recognise him.

      Miss Newsome seemed to take pity on him then. ‘Very well. We can say it is an engagement of recent origin,’ she conceded, after a sigh of theatrical proportion.

      ‘Which is precisely true,’ Captain Everard said, keeping his expression bland. ‘Only a mere ten hours ago I was a free, unencumbered man.’

      Miss Newsome burst out laughing. She looked in the captain’s eyes and he gazed back, perfectly calm. This was no fleet action, but he was beginning to enjoy himself.

      ‘Oh, for goodness sake. We’ll be late,’ she said. ‘Eat your eggs, Captain.’

      ‘I’d better be Joe to you, Verity,’ he told her.

      * * *

      It appeared that a fair number of Weltby’s citizens were either travelling this morning, too, or liked to see people off on a journey. To Joe’s eyes, most seemed to have no specific purpose at all.

      ‘Does everyone in Weltby bail out at Christmastime?’ he asked, genuinely puzzled. ‘What do you make of this, Mr Newsome?’

      Augustus Newsome regarded the crowd and turned back to Joe with a bland expression containing the hint of apology to it, which roused Joe’s suspicions.

      ‘I mentioned to a few people in the village yesterday that you were a genuine Trafalgar hero, come to offer personal condolences to us about Davey,’ he said.

      ‘No hero. I was merely attending to my duty.’

      Mr Newsome continued to beam at him, so Joe tried another tack. ‘We weren’t doing anything glamorous,’ he said, as the crowd gathered closer. ‘Frigates serve as repeaters in a large ship-to-ship engagement as Trafalgar was. We were just doing our job.’

      He didn’t mean to raise his voice, but there was Verity’s hand on his arm. Her touch calmed his heart, something he needed at that exact moment, because Trafalgar felt too real again.

      He dug deep and thank God the coachman was climbing into his box. ‘The real heroes are those of you who give us your sons,’ he said quietly. ‘I mean that with all my heart.’ He touched his chest. ‘Thank you from the bottom of mine.’

      Goodness gracious, now his audience was sniffing.

      ‘Are ye bound back to war, sir?’ someone in the crowd asked.

      ‘Aye, but first I have agreed to escort Miss Newsome to Norfolk,’ he said, happy to change the subject.

      Knowing looks passed from one to another, which made his face feel warm. He knew small villages because he came from one, where people shared all news because nothing important ever happened. He looked for kindness and charity in those eyes, and did not look in vain. They could imagine all they wanted over someone who was obviously a village favourite, from the kind looks coming Miss Newsome’s way. No need for him to explain himself further.

      ‘It is one last service I could perform for my second lieutenant,’ he said. ‘I do it with pleasure. Good day. I believe the coachman would like to keep to his time.’

      He held out his hand for Verity and helped her up, where four travellers already on the coach looked back at them. One rotund little fellow moved as close as he could to the window,