Convenient Christmas Brides. Louise Allen
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hour since you directed Captain Everard upstairs,’ Mama said. ‘I am past ready to pour tea and listen to stories about Davey. You are certain you told him one half-hour?’
‘Positive, Mama,’ Miss Newsome said. ‘I’ll knock on his door.’
Verity went upstairs and stood outside the door a moment before she worked up the nerve to knock. She tapped and listened. Nothing. A second knock yielded the same result, so she turned the handle quietly and peered inside.
Captain Everard lay spread out on the bed, trousers and waistcoat unbuttoned and neckcloth askew. He was barefoot. He had somehow tacked his stockings to the fireplace, hung there to dry. He looked completely relaxed, flat on his back, hands spread out, snoring softly.
She had seen Davey sleep a time or two, but never a full-grown man with whom she could claim no relation. He intrigued her because he was handsome in a rugged sort of way, not like a solicitor or country gentleman who did nothing more strenuous than tend to other people’s genteel business.
This was a man of the sea; she could tell by the fine lines around his eyes caused by exposure to scouring winds and salt water. His hair was ordinary brown, but with flecks of grey in it. One of Davey’s letters had referred to Captain Everard as the Old Man, but she doubted him much over forty. When she remarked on it to her father, Augustus Newsome had told her that was the common navy term for captain. ‘And that, dear daughter, exhausts my entire knowledge of the maritime profession,’ Papa added.
She had no business to stand there gawking. Strange how he could look capable, even as he looked vulnerable. She watched his expression, which seemed to change as he lay there. He frowned, he sighed audibly, spoke as though he were giving an order, then settled back into deeper slumber. She hadn’t the heart to wake him.
Before she left the room, she quietly put a few more lumps of coal in the grate, then covered him with a light throw from the chair by the fireplace. Perhaps she shouldn’t have tucked the coverlet by his side, because as she straightened up, he opened his eyes, hazel ones, and looked at her as if he wondered where he was.
‘Captain, I didn’t mean to...’
‘’Pon my word, Miss Newsome, I never oversleep.’
They spoke at the same time, stopped, laughed, then spoke again. ‘Beg your...’
‘Such rag manners, ’pon my word.’
He put up his hand finally, but beyond that, remained as he was, stretched out and comfortable. Verity thought that singularly charming, for some reason.
‘I obviously overslept, Miss Newsome,’ he said, not moving. ‘Please extend my apologies to your mother and tell her I will be down directly.’
Verity made an executive decision. ‘Stay where you are, Captain. You look comfortable and would probably go back to sleep if I left you alone.’ She went to the door, grateful she had not closed it. ‘We keep country hours, so dinner is at six.’
He laughed softly, turned over and went back to sleep as she stood there.
* * *
Awake, alert and with his hair combed—he did have an amusing cowlick—Captain Everard presented himself downstairs at six o’clock. With a bow, he greeted them and said, ‘Now, where was I?’, which made Mama laugh, a sound Verity had not heard since news of Davey’s death.
Dinner was sheer delight, somewhat to Verity’s surprise. Captain Everard’s first impression as a cut-and-dried, strictly business sort of man was perhaps not accurate. Had oversleeping in a soft bed rendered him more casual? He asked a few questions about Papa’s business and even seemed interested when her father launched into detailed description of his duties as chief steward of Lord Blankenship’s various holdings in this part of Kent.
‘I noticed oast houses,’ Captain Everard said, as he passed the beef roast to Verity. ‘Do you make your own beer on the property?’
‘We call them hop kilns here in Kent,’ Papa corrected. ‘And, yes, we do. If you have time tomorrow, I could take you to our brewery.’
‘I will go gladly,’ Captain Everard said. ‘Please tell me it is a good, dark beer with a woody taste.’
‘I can do that, sir,’ Papa said and beamed at Verity. ‘You could come, too, my dear, even though I know your opinion of beer.’
‘I might,’ she replied, surprising herself.
The ease with which Captain Everard inserted himself into their house impressed Verity, because he made it simple to include her brother into the dinner-table discussion in a way that caused her mother no pain. After a few well-placed questions, Mama started talking about Davey’s early education at the hands of the local vicar and the way he wore them down with his patient but firm insistence that the seafaring life was the career for him.
‘When he came aboard Ulysses, his excellent scores on his lieutenancy exams and good references from his captain convinced me that we were lucky to have David Newsome,’ the Captain said over the final course of fruit and nuts. ‘And so it proved to be. He was an apt student of the sea.’
They adjourned to the sitting room, since no one in the Newsome household had enough puffed-up consequence to leave the gentlemen with cigars in the dining room and the ladies engaged in idle chat elsewhere. Verity watched Mama, pleased with her eagerness to learn more of Davey’s short life on the water and hoping she would not overexert herself.
She shouldn’t have worried. Captain Everard had no trouble in reading the signals either, telling her worlds about his care of his own crew.
‘Please, Captain Everard, tell me everything you remember about my son,’ Mama said, once they were seated and she had taken out her mending.
Verity watched as the Captain’s demeanour turned thoughtful, and then amused. ‘I have such a story for you,’ he said.
Mama and Papa both leaned forward, eager as young children prepared for a treat of epic dimensions.
‘If you looked in David’s leather case, Miss Newsome, you found volumes one and four of The Mysteries of Udolpho,’ he said, settling back.
‘But no two and three,’ Verity said.
‘Nowhere in sight. We were suffering through months of blockade duty off the coast of Spain.’ He passed his hand in front of his face. ‘It’s beyond me to describe the tedium of the blockade so I will not attempt it. Morale was lower than a dungeon cell in the Tower of London. David tapped on my door one night and asked for a moment’s time.’ He chuckled at that. ‘Hell’s bells—beg pardon, ma’am—I’d have given him all the time he wanted, anything for a diversion.’
And we here in England take your efforts and our safety for granted, Verity thought, as she picked up her knitting.
‘He said he wanted to write a play for the crew to perform, based on Udolpho,’ Captain Everard continued. ‘I asked him what he planned to do about the two missing volumes, and he just waved his hand and said, “That’s a mere trifle.”’
Mama pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. ‘He said that often enough at home. Nothing daunted him.’
Verity watched the captain observe her mother, as if assessing her and not wanting to cause her undue anxiety. He must have liked what he saw, because he continued. ‘The scamp called it The Mystery of Udolpho on Short Rations, or Better Two Volumes Than None. Signor Montoni, the villain of the piece, looked and behaved remarkably like Bonaparte.’
‘Who played our hero, Sue Valancourt Brown?’ Verity asked.
‘Can you doubt?’ the Captain teased. ‘Your irrepressible brother.’ He sighed. ‘I was asked to play Emily St Aubert’s father, so was mercifully allowed to die early in this masterwork. Perhaps he assumed that, as captain, I had more important things to do, although I did not.’
Mama and Papa chuckled at that. Verity’s