Convenient Christmas Brides: The Captain’s Christmas Journey / The Viscount’s Yuletide Betrothal / One Night Under the Mistletoe. Louise Allen
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could she do but assure him she understood? Because he seemed to expect it, she also pasted a pleasant smile on her lips and told him not to worry about her. He left her classroom relieved and justified; she seethed inside, angry because the world was not a fair place for ladies.
Her father had taken her dismissal with remarkable calm; her mother, in agony over Davey’s death, heard her not at all. Mama did question her two weeks later, when Verity stayed home from what would have been a school day. When Verity told her again, Mama patted her hand. ‘You can mourn here with me, Daughter,’ she said. ‘Besides, you do not need to earn your bread. Papa is able to provide, as long as he is alive.’
After then, what? she wanted to ask her parents. Papa earned a modest living that had sufficed, probably because for all of Mama’s flyaway airs, she had a remarkable ability to rein in expenses. The Newsome household probably even resembled the taut ship that Davey, in letters home, said Captain Everard ran.
Now Davey was dead, a promising career gone. In the course of things, he likely would have married and set up his own household, which, he had assured her, would always have room for his only sibling, should she never marry, as seemed the case now.
As she waited for Captain Everard’s arrival on that late December day, Verity chafed on several accounts. The death of her brother had rendered her as sorrowful as her parents, who mourned their son and comforted each other. She mourned her brother feeling much more alone, sorry for his passing above all, but sad that his death had diminished her own future.
The matter seemed dismal beyond belief, but for her parents’ sake, she stifled her emotion; they had enough to worry about. David Newsome, as bright and promising a lad as anyone in Weltby had known, had been consigned to the deep off the coast of Spain, fish food and out of reach. She also stifled her unreasonable anger that Admiral Nelson’s body had been returned to England in a keg of spirits, to be buried in the coming January with high honours in St Paul’s Cathedral. Everyone else was slid off a board into the sea. There was no grave where Mama could plant flowers.
I want what I cannot have, Verity thought, as she went to the sitting room, the better for her to spot a post chaise pull up and deposit a captain with a box of all that remained of David Newsome, Second Lieutenant, late of the HMS Ulysses.
Papa had said they could offer the captain a bed for the night and so they would. Perhaps he could tell them something of Davey at sea, before her dear brother faded from everyone’s memory except the memories of the three people who had loved him best.
She forced her unproductive thoughts to the sitting room, which had been decorated for Christmas with only a modest wreath over the fireplace. Mama had decided that ivy garlands on the banister in the hall were too much this year. Verity had waged a polite battle with her mother that resulted in the removal of the black wreath from the front door. The thing had grown more distasteful by the hour to Verity.
Braced for Mama’s tears, she had removed the odious wreath and thrown it in the compost heap. To her relief Mama only nodded, sniffed into her ever-present handkerchief, and let the matter rest. Verity wondered if she dared search for ivy, because the banister cried out for it.
Any day now, she knew she had to take some interest in her wardrobe, considering that, following Christmas, she was to show herself at Hipworth Hall near Sudbury in Norfolk. Relief expressed on his homely face, Lord Blankenship had announced that he had found her employment as an educationist to Sir Percy Hipworth’s children. Lord B. had informed her that Sir Percy was a baronet of some pretension, but nevertheless a ‘good fellow, once his bluster is stripped away’. His offhand remark that the Hipworth children were no better or worse than you might expect did not ease Verity’s mind.
The promised salary was adequate, but only just, and Sir Percy’s letter had also included passage on the mail coach. ‘He says he will have a dogcart there in Sudbury for you, which I consider a good beginning,’ Lord Blankenship had told her.
To Verity it seemed like the barest of courtesies. Had her future employer expected her to walk with her baggage to wherever Hipworth Hall found itself? Suppose it was raining or sleeting?
Verity Newsome, you are feeling sorry for yourself, she scolded. Positions of any kind for ladies of a certain age—hang it all, you are nearly thirty—didn’t spring forth unbidden from the brow of Zeus. True, she could remain at home in idleness, but that had even less appeal to a capable woman. To Norfolk she would go.
Dusk was fast approaching. She told her worries to go on holiday until she felt more inclined to deal with them and returned her attention to the window.
And there he was. Not for ordinary mortals was the bicorn of a post captain, which made the man walking up the lane with a swinging stride appear considerably taller than he likely was. He wore a dark cloak and had slung a duffel on his shoulder. She smiled because he looked like a man home from the sea and maybe not too happy about it.
The smile left her face. He carried a smaller grip, one she recognised. Davey Newsome had come home, too.
Joseph Everard raised his hand to knock, but the door opened before he needed to. He found himself looking at an older female version of his second luff, down to lively eyes and curly black hair.
‘You bear a remarkable resemblance to your brother,’ were the first words out of his mouth. He could have smacked his forehead for his idiocy when those brown eyes, so like Davey’s, filled with tears.
‘I’m sorry. That was clumsy of me,’ he said. ‘I am Captain Everard of the White Fleet, your late brother’s commanding officer. May I come inside?’
‘Of course you may,’ the woman said quickly. ‘How clumsy of me! You’ll think we never have visitors.’
‘Not at all, Miss... Miss Newsome, is it?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t actually arrive in a coach and four with post boys, did I? I like to take the mail coach and so I walked from Weltby.’
She ushered him inside, let him unsling his duffel like the common seaman he suddenly felt himself to be, then helped him from his boat cloak. With a start, he realised he was being organised by a woman used to management and, by God, it felt surprisingly good. With the heavy cloak slung over her arm, she handed it to a maid who had stopped at the sight of so much naval splendour, here in quiet Kent.
Or maybe it was the crosshatch of black stitches that still ruined whatever looks he had imagined were his. He had taken off the blamed plaster in hope that the air might prove more useful to its healing. He might even apply goose grease tonight as he prepared for bed back at the inn.
‘Your hat, Captain?’ Miss Newsome said and held out her hand.
He doffed it and gave it to her, hoping that his hair wasn’t sticking up on the side. He had never given his wretched cowlick much thought before, but for some reason, it mattered, standing in the hall of David Newsome’s childhood home. At least he had the good sense not to lick his fingers and try to tame the thing. Certainly there were worse physical afflictions.
His bicorn overwhelmed the maid, who gave him a plaintive look. ‘Just rest it on its side,’ he told her. ‘It won’t bite.’
The girl grinned at him and darted away, in spite of the fact that his boat cloak threatened to trip her.
‘I...er...assume you don’t see too many navy men in Weltby,’ he said, wishing he knew more about polite conversation. ‘At least the servants don’t.’
‘No, indeed, Captain Everard,’ Miss Newsome said, her eyes on his stitches. ‘A Trafalgar souvenir?’
Joe knew better than to say that the same flaming mast that crashed to the deck and killed her brother managed to shoot a splinter through his cheek. ‘Aye, it was. Should’ve healed by now, but for several weeks the surgeon couldn’t decide whether to suture it or leave it alone. He finally decided to stitch me up.