Convenient Christmas Brides

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 stood. Mama whispered in Papa’s ear. He brightened, nodded, avoided Verity’s glance and spoke to the captain.

‘Captain Everard, would you consider something a little radical?’

‘As long as it does not involve mayhem.’

‘You are all hopeless,’ Verity said.

‘Just careful, daughter,’ Papa replied. Verity saw the love and concern on his kind face. ‘Captain, would you agree to... Augusta, what does one call such an ad hoc proposition?’

‘An Engagement of Convenience,’ Mama said, as calmly as if she had suggested a turn about the garden to look at roses in July.

‘What?’

Silence reigned supreme in the Newsomes’ hall, Verity too stunned to say more, Mama and Papa nodding at each other in evident satisfaction and Captain Everard... She could not define his expression.

Papa recovered first. ‘I would have no objection to that,’ he said. ‘What say you, sir?’

Verity tried again. ‘But...but... Papa, besides being unheard of, this isn’t necessary.’

Drat Captain Everard. Why did he have to lean close enough to whisper in her ear?

‘Beg pardon, Miss Newsome,’ he whispered. ‘Too many years around big guns have made me slightly hard of hearing. Could it be that you do not wish an engagement that would be temporary in nature?’

‘Oh, I...’ Hands on her hips, she glared at him. ‘See here, sir, this is unnecessary.’

‘I think it would please your parents,’ he said.

The captain turned to her father. ‘As I see it, such an engagement would suffice for the trip to Norfolk. I can escort your daughter to Hipworth Hall, assure Sir What’s-His-Name that this is my fiancée and I am headed back to sea. Perfect.’

‘Have you all lost your senses?’ Verity asked, which meant the three of them started to laugh.

Captain Everard made it worse by taking her hands in his. ‘It’s completely unexceptional. You’ll get to Norfolk, your parents won’t worry and...’

‘Captain!’

Then he delivered the statement she had no argument against.

He squeezed her fingers gently. ‘...and I can do a final service for an excellent officer gone too soon.’

‘Oh, but—’ she said, even though she knew the matter was now closed.

‘Perhaps you had better...er...pack.’

He smiled then, a huge smile that transformed his face. If she hadn’t been so irritated with him, she would have enjoyed the sight.

‘Or rather I should say, go and pack, my dearest love.’

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, but the space remaining was scarcely adequate.

Miss Newsome seated herself next to the window and he squeezed in beside her.

‘I wish I didn’t have to keep explaining myself,’ he whispered to her. ‘I didn’t reckon it would be this hard.’

‘Easily dealt with,’ she whispered back. ‘Put your bicorn in my lap and your head against my shoulder and go to sleep.’

‘I’m not tired,’ he whispered back.

‘I am. Be quiet and pretend.’

‘There’s no room for my arm,’ he said, feeling like a pouty child.

‘Put it around my shoulders,’ Miss Newsome replied. Was the woman never at a loss?

She was right. He eased his arm around her shoulders and gained enough space to wedge himself into the tight space. But his head on her shoulder? They were much the same height, so the theory was sound enough. He tested cautiously, and actually found himself relaxing. Maybe he hadn’t slept as soundly last night as he had imagined. Maybe he hadn’t slept well in weeks.

* * *

He woke up several hours later, looking around in surprise because he had actually relaxed. Miss Newsome was knitting and chatting with a woman about her age seated across from her, from the looks of her about ready to give birth.

Without raising his head from its admittedly comfortable resting place—thank goodness Miss Newsome wasn’t a skinny thing with bones everywhere—he managed a sideways glance at the little man crowding him, also asleep and leaning against him.

Such a dilemma: if he sat up, the porky fellow would likely wake up, too. Joe doubted too many men had leaned against Miss Newsome, which he privately discovered was a pleasant thing to do.

‘I could sit up, but I would wake up the man leaning against me,’ he whispered to Miss Newsome.

‘Let him be, then,’ she said. ‘I’m having no trouble knitting and you are not a burden,’ she replied. ‘In fact, if I may speak plain, I like the fragrance of your cologne. So does Mrs Black. Mrs Black, let me introduce Captain Everard. Joe, Mrs Black is the wife of a joiner and headed home after a week visiting her sister.’

‘Pleased to make your acquaintance,’ he said, ready to laugh at the incongruity of the situation, but happy to have his notion confirmed about the interesting people one could meet on the mail coach.

‘Same here,’ Mrs Black said. She shifted a little and winced, obviously finding not a single bit of comfort in her gravid state. ‘We’ve been wondering, your wife and I, where you got that fragrance. She said you’re newly back from Trafalgar.’

‘Oh, but...’ Miss Newsome began saying. ‘I should explain...’

Oh, worse and worse. Mrs Black was labouring under a not surprising misapprehension, since he had made himself at home against Miss Newsome, with his arm around her shoulder and his fingers drooping perilously close to her bosom. Joe didn’t know a great deal about social niceties, but he strongly suspected that even a fiancé would not sit this way. Mrs Black had made the logical connection. If he said anything, fiancé or not, she would probably be aghast.

‘I was at Trafalgar and newly back,’ he said quickly. ‘I haven’t had enough time to tell Verity all my stories.’

He could explain to Verity later why he was continuing an understandable error. ‘My crew had an opportunity to relieve the officers of the captured Ildefonzo of some personal possessions. I am the dubious beneficiary, but I like lemon, too.’

‘Poor, deluded men,’ the joiner’s wife said in sympathy. ‘Couldn’t you stop the looting?’

‘Joe... Captain Everard...was unaware of it,’ Miss Newsome said, as smoothly as if she lied every day. ‘You can see that he had a dreadful wound to his face.’

‘That’s the whole story,’ Joe said, well aware that it was fiction—calling it a story was no stretch. He had bought the cologne at Gibraltar, where they docked for enough repairs to limp them home. ‘Spoils of war, Mrs Black, and nothing more.’

Apparently satisfied, Mrs Black continued her own knitting and Verity returned to the sock in her lap. Considering discretion the better part of valour, Joe pretended to be asleep.

* * *

When they arrived in Whistler, he happily escorted Mrs Black from the mail coach and wished her well with her upcoming blessed event. She touched his heart by kissing his cheek and thanking him for his role at Trafalgar.

‘Please tell Mrs Everard how mindful England is of her family’s sacrifice,’ she said.

‘I will,’ he said and that was no lie.

He helped Verity down next because the coachman had announced a noon stop. He laughed inside at the contrition on her face and waited for her apology, which wasn’t long in coming.

‘Captain, I had no idea she would assume we were married,’ she whispered. ‘I never had a chance to mention our engagement and I didn’t want to embarrass her.’

Her lips nearly tickled his ear and he found the sensation beguiling and far from unpleasant. ‘No fears, Verity,’ he said. ‘If the others on the coach continue their journey, we have no choice but to continue the charade.’

‘It’s perhaps regrettable, but no hardship,’ Miss Newsome said. ‘We looked even more casual than an engaged couple, didn’t we?’

‘Decidedly ramshackle on my part, but I have to say that your shoulder is comfortable.’

‘And your arm around me equally so,’ she said quietly. ‘But that is travel on the mail coach, eh?’

Chapter Eleven

The charade continued, because the round man remained aboard.

‘There is one problem with lying,’ Verity whispered as they tried to make themselves comfortable for the continuation of the journey.

‘Only one?’ he teased.

‘Wretched man,’ she said with some feeling. ‘We have to remember our lies so we do not misspeak.’

‘Heaven forbid,’ Joe said, enjoying this journey more by the minute. Blockade life bored him so badly that even this gentle misdemeanour amused him excessively. Still, a man should explain himself.

‘When we followed Villeneuve and the Bucentaure from Toulon, and thence to Trafalgar, you could have sliced our enthusiasm with a sharp knife and made a sandwich of it,’ he whispered. ‘Every one of us happily traded the boredom of the blockade for sea action.’

‘Even my brother?’ she asked without a falter.

‘Especially Davey. He was eager for action. That is life at war.’

Her tears did not surprise him. He put his arm around her and touched her head until she rested it on his shoulder this time. Her bonnet poked his eye so he removed it and placed it in her lap. Nothing was easier than inclining his head against hers and giving her his handkerchief.

He met the sympathetic looks of the new riders on the mail coach with honesty, or as near as. ‘I am Captain Everard. I served at Trafalgar and my dear...wife’s brother died under my command,’ he said. ‘Forgive us, please.’

He would have told the simpler lie, but the silent little man had not quitted the coach. What else could he do? The engagement of convenience that had seemed so plausible and foolproof in the Newsomes’ sitting room had not lasted for the smallest portion of the journey.