It Happened One Christmas: Christmas Eve Proposal / The Viscount's Christmas Kiss / Wallflower, Widow...Wife!

‘Do you have a good place to think?’

Tom gave Ben a half-smile. ‘We can agree that I’ve never done much of that before. I’ll find a place, sir.’

‘I’ll be back tomorrow and we’ll continue,’ Ben said. ‘Give the matter your attention, because it does make a difference.’

I can give myself the same advice, Ben thought, as the midshipmen closed the door quietly behind him. They were inland here, but Ben had two sandwiches and biscuits. He could walk to higher ground and find a spot to see the ocean he was starting to miss.

He gathered up his charts and tools, then just sat there in the library. The sofa was soft and maybe he could lie down for a nap. No one ever came in the library and his eyes were starting to close. Amanda Mathison, get thee behind me, he thought, with some amusement at his own folly. ‘You’ll forget her in a week,’ he muttered.

Mostly now, he wanted a nap.

Ben woke to the sound of angry voices. He sat up, startled, until the fog cleared and he realised the altercation wasn’t going on there in the library. He tried to remember if there was side door to the manor where he could escape without notice.

He opened the door and peered down the hall. No servants lurked anywhere, which told him they had chosen discretion, too. The voices were so loud that he knew no one would hear him even if he stomped through. He should leave right now.

And he would have, if he hadn’t recognised Mr Cooper’s deep bass voice from the choir last night. The solicitor must have read the folded paper and gone directly to Walthan Manor. Still, the matter wasn’t his business and Ben knew it. He started past the book room, then stopped, when Lord Kelso roared out Mandy Mathison’s name like a curse.

Ben leaned towards the door. He had never eavesdropped in his life, but here he was, with no plans to move until he learned more.

‘You cannot force me to honour this damned codicil!’ Lord Kelso shouted.

‘It is the law, my lord,’ Mr Cooper said, his voice much softer, but distinct.

‘Only you and that damned sailing master know!’

‘The vicar witnessed it. I cannot just ignore a matter of the law, Lord Kelso.’

‘Others do.’

‘My lord, I am not amongst them.’

How will you feel if Lord Kelso flings open the door right now? was Ben’s last thought before he sprinted to the side door. He stood on the lawn, furious at Lord Kelso, then suddenly worried for Amanda.

He wasn’t much of a runner, considering his life spent on the confines of a frigate, but he ran to Venable, passing a surprised carter. He dashed into Mandy’s Rose, then threw himself in one of the chairs, breathing hard and feeling every second of his thirty-one years.

Amanda came out of the kitchen. She took one look at him, snatched up a cloth napkin and pressed it to his sweating forehead. He gasped and took her hand, pulling her into the closest chair.

‘Ben, my goodness. What in the world…?’

He said nothing until his breathing settled into an approximation of normality. Amanda had made no effort to let go of his hand, so he tightened his grip. ‘We need to see the vicar right now,’ he told her.

‘What…why?’

‘It’s that paper I gave to Mr Cooper last night. Lord Kelso, damn his eyes, and Mr Cooper were in the middle of a mighty argument and your name came up. The vicar knows something. Will Aunt Sal mind if I drag you away?’

‘I’ll ask.’

She released his hand then and darted into the kitchen. When she returned, she had taken off her apron and the scarf was gone. She was trying to tie back her hair, with little success because her hands were shaking.

Oh, Lord, he thought, disgusted with himself. Was I using my quarterdeck voice? I’ve frightened her. ‘Amanda, I didn’t mean to shout. Here, let me do that.’

She handed him the tie and turned around promptly. He was almost less successful than she was, because her hair felt like Chinese silk in his hands and she smelled of soap, ordinary soap. He felt himself growing warm and then hot over soap. Good God, indeed. He tied up her hair, grateful he had not removed his cloak.

She threw on her coat and made no objection when he held her close as they hurried to St Luke’s.

* * *

‘He’s in his study,’ Vicar Winslow’s wife said as she opened the door. Ben saw all the curiosity in her eyes, followed by the expression of someone who never pried into clerical matters.

If the vicar was surprised, he didn’t show it. Ben knew they couldn’t be the first couple who had ever burst into his study. The vicar showed them to two seats, then sat behind his desk.

Ben condensed the story as much as he could. ‘I could hear Mr Cooper assuring Lord Kelso that he was not above the law,’ Ben concluded. ‘He said that since you had witnessed the codicil, it was valid.’ He glanced at Amanda, whose eyes looked so troubled now. ‘Would you tell us what is going on? I don’t trust the earl.’

‘Wise of you,’ Winslow said finally. He focused his gaze on Amanda, who leaned forward. ‘My dear, old Lord Kelso summoned me to his bedside the day before he died. Said he wanted to make a little addition to his will.’ He took a deep breath. ‘He was determined to leave you one thousand pounds, to make amends of a sort. I suspect the family’s treatment of you was preying on his soul.’

Amanda gasped and reached for Ben’s hand. He happily obliged her, twining her fingers through his. ‘I…I wouldn’t take it!’ she said.

Why the hell not? Ben wondered to himself. Sounds like the least the old gent could do.

‘And so I told him,’ Winslow said. ‘I knew you would refuse such a sum.’

‘I have to ask why,’ Ben said.

Amanda gave him such a patient look. ‘I neither need nor want money from that family. Aunt Sal and I have a good living without Walthan money.’

‘I’ve been put in my place,’ he said with a shake of his head.

‘No, Ben,’ she said. ‘You’re not the only proud person in the universe.’

And I thought I knew character, he told himself, humbled. Previously a man without a single impulsive bone in his body, Ben took her hand, turned it over and kissed her palm. She blushed, but made no effort to withdraw her hand.

‘I stand corrected, Amanda Mathison,’ he said. He thought about the vicar’s words. ‘What did you do, Vicar?’

‘I convinced the old fellow to leave you one hundred pounds instead,’ Reverend Winslow said to Amanda. His expression hardened. ‘Apparently even that is too much for the new Lord Kelso.’

The three of them sat in silence. ‘What should I do?’ Amanda said finally. ‘I don’t even want one hundred pounds, especially if it comes from Lord Kelso.’

‘Would you allow him to think he can trump the law?’ Ben said.

‘No!’ She shook her head, then did what he had wanted her to do again, since their walk to church. She leaned her forehead against his arm. In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought, and put his arm around her.

When she spoke her voice was small and muffled in his cloak. ‘It makes me sad to think that my mother once loved such a hateful man.’

Good Lord, he still had his hat on. Ben tossed it aside, and moved his chair closer so he could lean his head against hers. He could see Amanda was on the verge of tears and he still wasn’t close enough. She would never be close enough. The thought filled up the bleak shell that war had turned him into and ran over.

‘For all that he is wealthy and titled, I think the years have not been kind to your father,’ the vicar said. ‘Yes, his father annulled the marriage of your parents and pointed him towards the current Lady Kelso.’

‘He’s a weak man,’ Ben said, feeling weak and helpless himself. ‘A stronger man would have stood up to his father, defied him and stayed married to your mother.’

‘You know Lady Kelso,’ the vicar said to Mandy with a shake his head. ‘I try not to speak ill of anyone, but…’ Another shake. ‘And his children seem not to be all that a doting father would want.’

‘That’s sadly true with Thomas,’ Ben said. ‘He’s not promising. I hear he has a sister.’

‘Violet,’ Mandy said, which reminded Ben of the two failed London Seasons. ‘You blame Lord Kelso’s distemper on disappointed hopes?’

‘I do,’ Ben said, thinking of his own kind father in too-distant Scotland. ‘I wish you could meet my father.’

Tears filled her eyes, and filled him with sudden understanding. You want a father, he thought, as wisdom bloomed in a vicar’s parlour, of all places for a seafaring man to get smart. I could hope you might want a husband some day—me, to be specific—but you need a father.

Ben sat back, shocked at his own thoughts. Me? A husband? As the vicar stared at him, Ben considered the matter and realised that he had talked himself out of nothing. War didn’t matter; neither did nonsense about not burdening a wife with fear as she waited for a husband who might never return. He thought of all the brave husbands and wives who took bold chances in a world at war and loved anyway. He was the worst kind of fool, a greater fool than any pathetic midshipman. He had tried to fool himself.

‘So sorry, Amanda. I didn’t mean to make you cry,’ he said. Angry with his ineptitude, he disentangled himself from the weeping woman, picked up his hat and left the study.

‘What do I do, Reverend Winslow?’ Mandy asked.

‘I suggest you go after him.’

‘Indeed, I will,’ she said calmly. ‘I mean the one hundred pounds?’

‘Accept it.’ The vicar gave her his own handkerchief. ‘It will drive Lord Kelso to distraction if you do. Sometimes that is half the fun.’

‘Vicar!’

‘My dear, I am human.’

She strolled along, grateful for the mist because she could keep her hood up and lessen anyone’s view of her teary eyes. She watched the sailing master ahead, moving along at a substantial clip and probably castigating himself because he thought he had made her cry. Maybe he had, but she couldn’t blame him for having a father who took an interest in his son.

‘Sir, you have eighteen days and a visit to Scotland is not out of the question,’ she said softly. Eighteen days. She stood still on the path, feeling hollow all of a sudden. What if he did go to Scotland? What if he gave up on Thomas Walthan and really did go to Scotland?

It hardly mattered. If he went to Scotland, he would not return here, but would go to Plymouth to spend the next three weeks dealing with rigging and ballast and what all. And then the Albemarle would return to the blockade and she would never see Benneit Muir again, end of story. ‘This is most unsatisfactory,’ she said, even as she knew that where he went and what he did must recede from her mind’s eye, just as surely as he was becoming a small figure in the distance.

She sat on one of the benches placed here and there around Venable by some benefactor. She had much to do at Mandy’s Rose and had promised a quick return to help prepare dinner, but suddenly it didn’t matter. The enormity of her upcoming loss rendered her powerless to take one more step.

Sailors only come to go away, she tried to remind herself, but her heart wasn’t having it. She thought he admired her; all signs pointed that way, at least. She was beginning to understand that he would never act on a man’s impulse, because he plied a dangerous trade with no end in sight. Their generation had been born to war and like everyone else—there were no exceptions—it would influence their lives until death and destruction and one man’s ambition ran its course. They were like chips of wood tossed into a stream and driven at random towards the ocean, powerless to change course.

She stared at the ground, then closed her eyes, wondering just when the pleasure of a good night’s sleep had become a distant memory. She yawned and her own cheery nature resurfaced. You are facing a life crisis and you are yawning, she thought as she yawned again.

She heard someone approach. She knew everyone in the village and she didn’t relish explaining her tears. But these were familiar shoes. She had seen them under one or other of the dining tables for the past three days. She looked up at Ben Muir.

His face solemn, he sat beside her. It was only a small bench and now they were crowded together. To accommodate matters, he draped one arm across the back of the bench, which meant she had to lean towards him.

‘There now,’ he said. ‘I looked back and saw you sitting so melancholy.’ He peered closer and she saw that he had freckles, too. ‘One hundred pounds isn’t a bad thing, Amanda.’

‘Certainly not,’ she said, almost relieved that he had nothing more serious to say. Relieved or disappointed? This man could irritate me, she thought, then smiled. What a ninny she was. He was only being kind.

‘You can tuck the money away for a special occasion. That’s what I would do.’

He stretched his legs out and crossed them, which had the effect of drawing her closer. Mandy knew she should get up. The hour was late and Aunt Sal didn’t like to prepare for the dinner rush by herself. She allowed herself to incline her head against the sailing master, which proved to be surprisingly comfortable, almost a refuge from worry over a dratted inheritance.

‘What is your special occasion?’ she asked, curious.

‘Don’t have one yet.’ His arm was around her now. ‘After Trafalgar, when we towed one of the Spanish ships into Portsmouth, the entire wardroom gathered together and got stinking drunk.’

‘I wouldn’t spend any money on spirits,’ she said.

‘I didn’t, either.’ He took a deep breath. ‘We drank dead men’s liquor, Amanda. I was serving as second master on a ship of the line that was mauled during the battle. The sailing master and two lieutenants had died. I had assumed the master’s duties during the battle, so the officers included me. We drank their stored supply—dead men’s liquor.’

She turned her face into his chest, unable to help herself, which meant that both of his arms circled her now. ‘How do you bear it?’ she whispered into his gilt buttons.

‘It becomes normal life, I suppose,’ he told her, after much silence. ‘Damn Napoleon, anyway.’

The unfairness of Ben Muir’s life broke her heart. ‘So…so you don’t spend much time on land by choice? Is that it?’

‘Partly. Granted, we have little opportunity, but you might be right.’ He inclined his cheek towards hers. ‘A sad reflection, but not your worry, Amanda.’

This would never do. A cold bench on a busy footpath was no place to discuss anything and Aunt Sal needed her. ‘It is my worry,’ she said softly. ‘It should be of concern to each one of us on land who is kept safe by the Royal Navy. Let me thank you for them.’

She kissed his cheek. His arms tightened around her. She kissed his cheek again and, when he turned towards her, she kissed his lips. Right there on the footpath, she kissed a man she had known for three days, the first man she had ever kissed. She probably wasn’t even doing it right.

His lips parted slightly and he kissed her back. He made a low sound in the back of his throat that Mandy found endearing and edgy at the same time. Warmth flooded her stomach and drifted lower, all from a kiss. Good God Almighty, Aunt Sal had never explained anything like this in her shy discourse on men and women. Of course, Aunt Sal was a spinster. Mandy could probably get better advice from the vicar’s wife.

She ended the kiss, sitting back, wondering at herself, blushing hot, wanting him to leave, praying he would stay and stay. ‘I…I don’t think I know what I’m doing,’ she said and stood up.

She thought he might apologise, but he did no such thing. He shrugged. ‘I’m not certain what I am doing, either.’

They looked at each other and started to laugh. ‘Have you ever met two more bona fide loobies?’ he asked, when he could talk. He stood up and crooked out his arm. ‘Take my arm, Amanda. This path is misty.’

She did as he said. ‘That is a most feeble effort to get me to walk close to you,’ she scolded, onto him and not minding it.

‘I thought I was rather clever, for a man with no practice whatsoever,’ he said, going along with her banter.

She stopped and faced him. ‘You realise how…how odd this is. Neither of us is young, but listen to us!’

He nodded and set her in motion again. She looked at him, mature and capable, wearing that intimidating bicorn hat and sporting those curious blue dots on his neck. It was not her business, but he had to be a man with some experience with women, probably exotic, beautiful women in faraway ports. To say he had no practice whatsoever couldn’t be true, but she thought she understood what he was saying. A man paid for those women for one night, a business transaction. He probably had no idea how to court a lady.

Not that she was a lady; she worked in Mandy’s Rose. For all that, she had been raised gently by a careful aunt. He was no gentleman, either, just a hard-working Scot with ambition, who had risen perhaps as far as he could in the Royal Navy. They were really two of a kind, two ordinary people. With enough time, something might happen, but there was no time.

She also thought that he would never make another move towards her. After all, she had kissed him, not the other, more logical way round. He knew the clock ticked. Maybe he had forgotten that for a second when he kissed back, but he was a careful man, not likely to forget again.

‘You’re looking far too serious,’ he said, as they came in sight of Mandy’s Rose.

She took a deep breath, then let it out. What could she say? There would be no happy ending to this Christmas encounter because of Ben’s vile mistresses—war and time. They were gruesome harpies she could not fight.

‘I’ll probably recover,’ she told him. She gave his arm a squeeze, let go and hurried into the restaurant, late enough for Aunt Sal to scold.

He followed her inside, then walked up the stairs to his room. He didn’t come down for dinner, but she heard him walking back and forth, back and forth. She worked quietly, distressed to her very core, uncertain, angry because until Ben Muir came into her life, she had known nothing would ever change. She and Sal would work and provide for themselves, and live a comfortable life, one better than so many could hope for.

Everything and nothing had changed. She would lie in bed a few more weeks, wondering what she would do if he tapped on her door long after Sal slept. When Master Muir left, all would return to normal, except down in that deepest recess of her heart. She would never be the same again, but how could that matter to anyone except her?

In growing discomfort, she listened to his footsteps overhead. He walked slower now and paused often, perhaps looking out the window into darkness.

‘What is the matter?’

Guilty for just standing still when there were tables to clear, Mandy turned around to face her aunt. She shook her head, tried to swallow down tears and failed miserably. She bowed her head, pressed her apron to her eyes and cried.

Tears in her own eyes, her aunt put her arm around Mandy’s waist and walked her into the kitchen. She sat her down and poured tea.

I can’t tell her how I feel about Ben, she thought, mortified. Thank God her father had given her an excuse that might brush past a careful aunt’s suspicion. ‘I told you about Ben finding that piece of paper in Lord Kelso’s library.’

Sal nodded. ‘I know he went with you to the vicar’s, but you were gone so long.’

Careful here, Mandy told herself and sipped her tea. She told her aunt about the codicil that her grandfather had written the day before he died and which the vicar witnessed. ‘He wanted to give me one thousand pounds, but Reverend Winslow said that would only frighten me. He settled on one hundred pounds and the vicar witnessed it. I am to receive one hundred pounds I don’t want.’

Sal laughed and poured herself some tea. ‘It’s not the end of the world! You looked as though you’d lost your best friend and the world was passing you by!’

Exactly, Mandy thought.

‘Into the counting house the legacy should go, until you need it,’ Aunt Sal said. She started to clear the tables, then stopped. ‘This will make you laugh, but I was afraid you…’ she pointed over her head ‘…were starting to fall in love.’

‘Heavens, Auntie! How can you imagine such a thing?’ Mandy asked, as her insides writhed. Head down, she stacked the dinner plates.

‘Silly of me,’ her aunt confessed. ‘I can’t imagine a less likely match.’ She set down her dishes and rubbed her arms. ‘They seem like marked men, almost, working in wooden ships and facing enemy fire. What does that do to someone?’

What does that do to someone? Mandy asked herself as she washed dishes later. It’s killing me.

To her relief, Sal had taken a bowl of soup and basket of bread upstairs. Mandy stopped washing when she heard laughter overhead, then washed harder, grateful that the sailing master wasn’t mourning over something that wasn’t there. It remained for Mandy to chalk this up to experience, a wonderful experience, yes, but only that.

Sal came downstairs a few minutes later, a smile on her face. ‘Such a droll fellow,’ she said. ‘He told me how your eyes widened at the idea of one hundred pounds and how you protested.’

‘I suppose I did,’ she said and made herself give an elaborate shiver that made her aunt’s smile grow. ‘I reckon I will have to make an appearance at Walthan Manor, unless Mr Cooper can arrange this in his office.’

‘We can hope, my dear.’ Sal kissed her cheek, while Mandy prayed she wouldn’t pick up the scent of lemon soap from someone else’s cheek.

Nothing. Obviously the fragrance had worn off, if it was ever there in the first place.

Sal started drying the dishes. ‘It’s odd, though,’ she mused. ‘Remember how he said he wanted peace and quiet to read that dread book of mathematics? Well, there it was still on his bedside table, still un-slit. And after I left the food and we chatted, he went to the window when I left the room. I wonder what he is thinking?’

‘Maybe that he really should be in Scotland for Christmas to see his father,’ Mandy said. She nudged her aunt. ‘Not everyone has a father like mine!’

Chapter Four

Life resumed its normal course in the next few days, as normal as anything was before Christmas. Aunt Sal spent more time sitting with clients in the dining room when the meals were done, planning Christmas catering, and one party at Mandy’s Rose itself.

Mandy continued fixing extra sandwiches for the sailing master to take to Walthan Manor and let him tease her about her legacy, still not forthcoming. Perhaps her father had changed his mind. Ben didn’t linger over dinner any more and spent time on solitary walks. She was usually in bed before he returned, but never asleep. Her heart sad, she heard him pace back and forth in his room. She wondered if he was trying to wear himself out so sleep would come. She convinced herself that he was wishing for Scotland and his father. ‘I would want to be with my father, if I had a good one,’ she whispered into her pillow, trying to drown the sound of pacing on boards that squeaked.

In the next week, a solemn-faced fellow in livery delivered a note to Amanda Mathison, requesting her presence at Walthan Manor at eleven of the clock. She nodded her acceptance to the servant, then hurried into the kitchen.

‘Here it is,’ her aunt said, after she read the note.

‘I would rather go to Mr Cooper’s office,’ Mandy said, then tried to make a joke of it. ‘I doubt my father will invite me to luncheon with him.’ She sat down, struck by a sudden thought. ‘I have never seen him up close. Aunt, did he ever lay eyes on me?’

‘I can’t recall a time,’ Aunt Sal replied. She fixed a critical eye on Mandy. ‘I wouldn’t wear Sunday best, but perhaps your deep-green wool and my lace collar will do.’