“You need help. I need a wife. I don’t think I can make it any plainer.”

“No, I suppose you cannot,” Sally murmured, but made one final attempt to make the man see reason. “Admiral, you know nothing about me. You truly don’t.” It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him, but she found she could not. Coward, she thought.

He looked at her then, and his face was kind. “I know one thing—you haven’t yammered once about the weather. I suppose marriages have started on stranger footing.”

“I suppose they have,” she agreed. “Very well, sir.”

The Admiral’s Penniless Bride
Harlequin® Historical #1025—January 2011

Praise for award-winning author Carla Kelly

“A powerful and wonderfully perceptive author.”

—New York Times bestselling author Mary Jo Putney

“It is always a joy to read a Carla Kelly love story. Always original, always superb, Ms. Kelly’s body of work is a timeless delight for discerning readers.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Kelly has the rare ability to create realistic yet sympathetic characters that linger in the mind. One of the most respected…Regency writers.”

—Library Journal

Marrying the Royal Marine

“These two have seen each other at their best and at their worst. Have been tried and tested in the flames, yet come out stronger for it. I certainly enjoyed the trip.”

—Dear Author

Beau Crusoe

“Taking her impetus from Robinson Crusoe and the film Castaway, Kelly crafts the story of a shipwreck survivor readjusting to civilization…. Kelly presents a clear portrait of the mores and prejudices of the era and demonstrates how to navigate through society’s labyrinth with intelligent, sharp repartee. This alone is worth the price of the book.”

—RT Book Reviews

The Admiral’s Penniless Bride

CARLA KELLY

Available from Harlequin® Historical and CARLA KELLY

Beau Crusoe #839

[*]Marrying the Captain #928

[*]The Surgeon’s Lady #949

[*]Marrying the Royal Marine #998

The Admiral’s Penniless Bride #1025

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To my father, Kenneth Carl Baier, U.S. Navy 1941–1971.
Anchors aweigh, Dad.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Prologue

1816

The last five years had been a hard school. When Sally Paul had left the Bath employment registry with a position near Plymouth as lady’s companion, but only enough money to ride the mail coach, she had known she was heading towards pinch pennies.

As she neared the Devonshire coast, Sally owned to some uneasiness, but put it down to the fact that, after Andrew’s suicide, she had sworn never to look on the ocean again. Still, times were hard and work difficult to come by. No matter how pinch penny the Coles might prove to be, she was on her way to employment, after six weeks without.

Such a dry spell had happened twice in the past two years, and it was an occupational hazard: old ladies, no matter how kind or cruel, had a tendency to die and no longer require her services.

Although she would never have admitted it, Sally hadn’t been sad to see the last one cock up her toes. She was a prune-faced ogre, given to pinching Sally for no reason at all. Even the family had stayed away as much as they could, which led to the old dear’s final complaint, when imminent death forced them to her bedside. ‘See there, I told you I was sick!’ she had declared in some triumph, before her eyes went vacant. Only the greatest discipline—something also acquired in the last five years—had kept Sally from smiling, which she sorely wanted to do.

But a new position had a way of bringing along some optimism, even when it proved to be ill placed, as it did right now. She never even set foot inside the Coles’ house.

She hadn’t minded the walk from the Drake, where the mail coach stopped, to the east edge of Plymouth, where the houses were genteel and far apart. All those hours from Bath, cramped in next to a pimply adolescent and a pale governess had left Sally pleased enough to stretch her legs. If she had not been so hungry, and as a consequence somewhat lightheaded, she would have enjoyed the walk more.

All enjoyment ended as she came up the circular drive, noting the dark wreath on the door and the draped windows proclaiming a death in the family. Sally found herself almost hoping the late member of the Cole family was a wastrel younger son given to drink who might not be much missed.

It was as she feared. When she announced to the butler that she was Mrs Paul, come to serve as Mrs Maude Cole’s companion, the servant had left her there. In a moment he was back with a woman dressed in black and clutching a handkerchief.

‘My mother-in-law died yesterday morning,’ the woman said, dabbing at dry eyes. ‘We have no need of you.’

Why had she even for the smallest moment thought the matter would end well? Idiot, she told herself. You knew the moment you saw the wreath. ‘I am sorry for your loss,’ she said quietly, but did not move.

The woman frowned. Maybe she expects me to disappear immediately, Sally thought. How am I to do that?

She could see that the woman wanted to close the door. Five years ago, at the start of her employment odyssey, Sally might have yielded easily. Not now, not when she had come all this way and had nothing to show for it.

‘Mrs Cole, would you pay my way back to Bath, where you hired me?’ she asked, as the door started to close.

‘There was never any guarantee of hire until I saw you and approved,’ the woman said, speaking through a crack now. ‘My mother-in-law is dead. There is no position.’

The door closed with a decisive click. Sally stood where she was, unwilling to move because she had no earthly idea what to do. The matter resolved itself when the butler opened the door and made shooing motions, brushing her off as if she were a beggar.

She told herself she would not cry. All she could do was retrace her steps and see if something would occur to her before she returned to the Drake. She did not feel sanguine at the prospect; she was down to her last coin and in arrears on any ideas at all.

What was it that Andrew used to say, before his career turned to ashes? ‘There isn’t any problem so large that it cannot be helped by the application of tea.’

He was wrong, of course; she had known that for years. Sally looked in her reticule as she walked. She had enough for one cup of tea at the Drake.

Chapter One

The Mouse was late. Admiral Sir Charles Bright (Ret.) was under the impression that he was a tolerant man, but tardiness was the exception. For more than thirty years, he had only to say, ‘Roundly now’, and his orders were carried out swiftly and without complaint. True, copious gold lace and an admiral’s stars might have inspired such prompt obedience. Obedience was second nature to him; tardiness a polar opposite.

Obviously this was not the case with The Mouse. For the life of him, he could have sworn that the lady in question was only too relieved to relinquish her old-maid status for matrimony to someone mature and well seasoned. During their only visit last month, The Mouse—Miss Prunella Batchthorpe—had seemed eager enough for all practical purposes.

Bright stared at his rapidly cooling cup of tea, and began to chalk up his defects. He did not think of forty-five as old, particularly since he had all of his hair, close cut though it was; all of his teeth minus one lost on the Barbary Coast; and most of his parts. He had compensated nicely for the loss of his left hand with a hook, and he knew he hadn’t waved it about overmuch during his recent interview with Miss Batchthorpe. He had worn the silver one, which Starkey had polished to a fare-thee-well before his excursion into Kent.

He knew he didn’t talk too much, or harrumph or hawk at inopportune moments. There was no paunch to disgust, and he didn’t think his breath was worse than anyone else’s. And hadn’t her older brother, a favourite commander who helmed Bright’s flagship, assured him that, at age thirty-seven, Prunella was more than ready to settle down at her own address? Relieved, even. Bright could only conclude that she had developed cold feet at the last minute, or was tardy.

He could probably overlook Miss Batchthorpe’s plain visage. He had told her this was to be a marriage of convenience, so he wouldn’t be looking at her pop eyes on an adjoining pillow each morning. He could even overlook her shy ways, which had made him privately dub her The Mouse. But tardiness?

Reality overtook him, as it invariably did. One doesn’t live through nearly three decades of war and many ranks by wool gathering. She might have decided that he simply would not suit, even if it meant a life of spinsterhood. He knew even a year of peace had not softened his hard stare, and the wind-and wave-induced wrinkles about his mouth were here to stay.

Whatever the reason for The Mouse’s non-appearance, he still needed a wife immediately. I have sisters, he thought to himself for the thousandth time since the end of the war. Oh, I do.

Fannie and Dora, older than he by several years, had not intruded much in his life spent largely at sea. They had corresponded regularly, keeping him informed of family marriages, births, deaths and nit-picking rows. Bright knew that Fannie’s eldest son, his current heir, was an ill-mannered lout, and that Dora’s daughter had contracted a fabulous alliance to some twit with a fortune.

He put his current dilemma down to the basic good natures of his meddling siblings. Both of them widowed and possessing fortunes of their own, Fan and Dora had the curse of the wealthy: too much time on their hands.

Fan had delivered the first shot across the bows when he had visited her in London after Waterloo. ‘Dora and I want to see you married,’ she had announced. ‘Why should you not be happy?’

Bright could tell from the martial glint in her eyes— Wellington himself possessed a similar look—that there was no point in telling his sister that he was already happy. Truth to tell, what little he had glimpsed of Fan’s married life, before the barrister had been kind enough to die, had told him volumes about his sister’s own unhappiness.

Dora always followed where Fan led, chiming in with her own reasons why he needed a wife to Guide Him Through Life’s Pathways—Dora spoke in capital letters. Her reasons were convoluted and muddled, like most of her utterances, but he was too stunned by Fan’s initial pronouncement, breathtaking in its interference, to comment upon them.

A wife it would be for their little brother. That very holiday, they had paraded a succession of ladies past his startled gaze, ladies young enough to be his daughter and older and desperate. Some were lovely, but most wanted in the area he craved: good conversation. Someone to talk to—there was the sticking point. Were those London ladies in awe of his title and uniform? Did they flinch at the hook? Were they interested in nothing he was interested in? He had heard all the conversations about weather and goings on at Almack’s that he could stomach.

Never mind. His sisters were determined. Fan and Dora apparently knew most of the eligible females in the British Isles. He was able to fob them off immediately after his retirement, when he was spending time in estate agents’ offices, seeking an estate near Plymouth. He had taken lodgings in Plymouth while he searched. Once the knocker was on the door, the parade of lovelies had begun again, shepherded by his sisters.

Bemusement turned to despair even faster than big rabbits made bunnies. My sisters don’t know me very well, he decided, after several weeks. The last straw came when Fan decided that not only would she find him a mate, but also redecorate his new estate for him, in that execrable Egyptian style that even he knew was no longer à la mode. When the first chair shaped like a jackal arrived, Bright knew he had to act.

Which was why he now awaited the arrival of Miss Prunella Batchthorpe, who had agreed to be his ball and chain and leave him alone. Dick Batchthorpe, his flagship commander, had mentioned her often during their years together. Something in Bright rebelled at taking the advice of two of the most harebrained ladies he knew; besides, it would be a kind gesture to both Dick, who didn’t relish the prospect of supporting an old maid, and the old maid in question, who had assured him she would keep his house orderly and make herself small.

As he sat in the dining room of the Drake, with its large windows overlooking the street, Bright couldn’t help feeling a twinge of relief at her non-arrival, even as he cursed his own apparent shallowness. Miss Batchthorpe was more than usually plain.

He heard a rig clatter up to the front drive and looked up in something close to alarm, now that he had told himself that Miss Batchthorpe simply wouldn’t suit. He stood up, trying not to appear overly interested in the street, then sat down. It was only a beer wagon, thank the Lord.

Bright patted the special licence in the pocket of his coat. No telling how long the pesky things were good for. Hopefully, his two dotty sisters had no connections among the Court of Faculties and Dispensations to tattle on him to his sisters. If they knew, they would hound him even more relentlessly. He would never hear the end of it. He hadn’t survived death in gruesome forms at sea to be at the mercy of managing women.

Bright dragged out his timepiece. He had waited more than an hour. Was there a legally binding statute determining how long a prospective, if reluctant, groom should wait for a woman he was forced to admit he neither wanted, nor knew anything about? Still, it was noon and time for luncheon. His cook had declared himself on strike, so there wasn’t much at home.

Not that he considered his new estate home. In its current state of disrepair, his estate was just the place where he lived right now. He sighed. Home was still the ocean.

He looked for a waiter, and found himself gazing at a lovely neck. Had she been sitting there all along, while he was deep in his own turmoil? In front of him and to the side, she sat utterly composed, hands in her lap. He had every opportunity to view her without arousing anyone’s curiosity except his own.

A teapot sat in front of her, right next to the no-nonsense cup and saucer Mrs Fillion had been buying for years and which resembled the china found in officers’ messes all across the fleet. She took a sip now and then, and he had the distinct impression she was doing all she could to prolong the event. Bright could scarcely remember ever seeing a woman seated alone in the Drake, and wondered if she was waiting for someone. Perhaps not; when people came into the dining room, she did not look towards the door.

He assumed she was a lady, since she was sitting in the dining room, but her dress was far from fashionable, a plain gown of serviceable grey. Her bonnet was nondescript and shabby.

She shifted slightly in her chair and he observed her slim figure. He looked closer. Her dress was cinched in the back with a neat bow that gathered the fabric together. This was a dress too large for the body it covered. Have you been ill, madam? he asked himself.

He couldn’t see her face well because of the bonnet, but her hair appeared to be ordinary brown and gathered in a thick mass at the back of her head. As he watched what little he could see of her face, Bright noticed her eyes were on a gentleman at a nearby table who had just folded his newspaper and was dabbing at his lips. She leaned forwards slightly, watching him. When he finally rose, she turned to see him out of the dining room, affording Bright a glimpse of a straight nose, a mouth that curved slightly downward and eyes as dark brown as his own.

When the man was gone from the dining room, she walked to the table and took the abandoned newspaper back to her own place. Bright had never seen a lady read a newspaper before. He watched, fascinated, as she glanced at the front page, then flipped to the back, where he knew the advertisements and legal declarations lurked. Was she looking for one of the discreet tonics advertised for female complaints? Did her curiosity run to ferreting out pending lawsuits or money owed? This was an unusual female, indeed.

As he watched, her eyes went down the back pages quickly. She shook her head, closed the newspaper, folded it neatly and took another sip of her tea. In another moment, she was looking inside her reticule, almost as though she was willing money to appear.

More curious now than ever, Bright opened his own paper to the inside back page, wondering what had caused such disappointment. ‘Positions for hire’ ran down two narrow columns. He glanced through them; nothing for women.

He looked up in time to see the lady stare into her reticule again. Bright found himself wishing, along with her, for something to materialise. He might have been misreading all the signs, but he knew he was an astute judge of character. This was a lady without any funds who was looking for a position of some sort.

Bright watched as the waiter came to her table. Giving him her prettiest smile, she shook her head. The man did not move on immediately, but had a brief, whispered conversation with her that turned her complexion pale. He is trying to throw her out, Bright thought in alarm, which was followed quickly by indignation. How dare the man! The dining room was by no means full.

He sat and seethed, then put aside his anger and concentrated on what he was rapidly considering his dilemma. Maybe he was used to the oversight of human beings. You do remember that you are no longer responsible for the entire nation? he quizzed himself silently. Let this alone.

He couldn’t. He had spent too many years—his whole lifetime, nearly—looking out for this island and its inmates to turn his back on someone possibly in distress. By the time the waiter made his way back to his table, Bright was ready. It involved one of the few lies he ever intended to tell, but he couldn’t think any faster. The imp of indecision leaped on to his shoulder and dug in its talons, but he ignored it.

With a smile and a bow, the waiter made his suggestions for luncheon and wrote down Bright’s response. Bright motioned the man closer. ‘Would you help me?’

‘By all means, sir.’

‘You see that lady there? She is my cousin and we have had a falling out.’

‘Ah, the ladies,’ the waiter said, shaking his head.

Bright sought for just the right shade of regret in his voice. ‘I had thought to mollify her. It was a quarrel of long standing, but as you can see, we are still at separate tables, and I promised her mother…’ He let his voice trail off in what he hoped was even more regret.

‘What do you wish me to do, sir?’

‘Serve her the same dinner you are serving me. I’ll sit with her and we’ll see what happens. She might look alarmed. She might even get up and leave, but I have to try. You understand.’

The waiter nodded, made a notation on his tablet and left the table with another bow.

I must be a more convincing liar than I ever imagined, Bright thought. He smiled to himself. Hell’s bells, I could have been a Lord of the Admiralty myself, if I had earlier been aware of this talent.

He willed the meal to come quickly, before the lady finished her paltry dab of tea and left the dining room. He knew he could not follow her; that went against all propriety. As it was, he was perilously close to a lee shore. He looked at the lady again, as she stared one more time into her reticule and swallowed. You are even closer than I am to a lee shore, he told himself. I have a place to live. I fear you do not.

Early in his naval career, as a lower-than-the-clams ensign, he had led a landing party on the Barbary Coast. A number of things went wrong, but he took the objective and survived with most of his men. He never forgot the feeling just before the jolly boats slid on to the shore—the tightness in the belly, the absolute absence of moisture in his entire drainage system, the maddening little twitch in his left eye. He felt them all again as he rose and approached the other table. The difference was, this time he knew he would succeed. His hard-won success on the Barbary Coast had made every attack since then a win, simply because he knew he could.

He kept his voice low. ‘Madam?’

She turned frightened eyes on him. How could eyes so brown be so deep? His were brown and they were nothing like hers.

‘Y-y-yes?’

Her response told him volumes. She had to be a lady, because she had obviously never been approached this way before. Better drag out the title first. Baffle her with nonsense, as one of his frigate captains used to say, before approaching shore leave and possible amatory adventure.

‘I am Admiral Sir Charles Bright, recently retired from the Blue Fleet, and I—’ He stopped. He had thought that might reassure her, but she looked even more pale. ‘Honestly, madam. May I…may I sit down?’

She nodded, her eyes on him as though she expected the worst.

He flashed what he hoped was his most reassuring smile. ‘Actually, I was wondering if I could help you.’ He wasn’t sure what to add, so fell back on the navy. ‘You seem to be approaching a lee shore.’

There was nothing but wariness in her eyes, but she was too polite to shoo him away. ‘Admiral, I doubt there is any way you could help.’

He inclined his head closer to her and she just as subtly moved back. ‘Did the waiter tell you to vacate the premises when you finished your tea?’

The rosy flush that spread upwards from her neck spoke volumes. She nodded, too ashamed to look at him. She said nothing for a long moment, as if considering the propriety of taking the conversation one step more. ‘You spoke of a lee shore, Sir Charles,’ she managed finally, then shook her head, unable to continue.

She knows her nautical terms, he thought, then plunged in. ‘I couldn’t help but notice how often you were looking in your reticule. I remember doing that when I was much younger, sort of willing coins to appear, eh?’

Her face was still rosy, but she managed a smile. ‘They never do though, do they?’

‘Not unless you are an alchemist or a particularly successful saint.’

Her smile widened; she seemed to relax a little.

‘Madam, I have given you my name. It is your turn, if you would.’

‘Mrs Paul.’

Bright owned to a moment of disappointment, which surprised him. ‘Are you waiting for your husband?’

She shook her head. ‘No, Admiral. He has been dead these past five years.’

‘Very well, Mrs Paul.’ He looked up then to see the waiter approaching carrying a soup tureen, with a flunky close behind with more food. ‘I thought you might like something to eat.’

She started to rise, but was stopped by the waiter, who set a bowl of soup in front of her. She sat again, distress on her face. ‘I couldn’t possibly let you do this.’

The waiter winked at Bright, as though he expected her to say exactly that. ‘I insist,’ Bright said.

The waiter worked quickly. In another moment he was gone, after giving Mrs Paul a benevolent look, obviously pleased with the part he had played in this supposed reconciliation between cousins.

Still she sat, hands in her lap, staring down at the food, afraid to look at him now. He might have spent most of his life at sea, but Bright knew he had gone beyond all propriety. At least she has not commented upon the weather, he thought. He didn’t think he could bully her, but he knew a beaten woman when he saw one, and had no urge to heap more coals upon her. He didn’t know if he possessed a gentle side, but perhaps this was the time to find one, if it lurked somewhere.

‘Mrs Paul, you have a complication before you,’ he said, his voice soft but firm. ‘I am going to eat because I am hungry. Please believe me when I say I have no motive beyond hoping that you will eat, too.’

She didn’t say anything. He picked up his spoon and began with the soup, a meaty affair with broth just the way he liked it. He glanced at her, only to see tears fall into her soup. He held his breath, making no comment, as she picked up her soup spoon. She ate, unable to silence the little sound of pleasure from her throat that told him volumes about the distance from her last meal. For one moment he felt enormous anger that a proud woman should be so reduced in victorious England. Why should that surprise him? He had seen sailors begging on street corners, when they were turned loose after the war’s end.

‘Mrs Fillion always makes the soup herself,’ he said. ‘I’ve eaten a few meals here, during the war.’

Mrs Paul looked at him then, skewered him with those lovely eyes of hers, so big in her lean face. ‘I would say she added just the right amount of basil, wouldn’t you?’

It was the proud comment of a woman almost—but not quite—at her last resources and it touched him. She ate slowly, savoring every bite as though she expected no meals to follow this one. While she ate, he told her a little about life in the fleet and his recent retirement. He kept up a steady stream of conversation to give a touch of normalcy to what was an awkward luncheon for both of them.

A roast of beef followed, with new potatoes so tender that he wanted to scoop the ones off Mrs Paul’s plate, too. He wanted her to tell him something about herself and he was rewarded after the next course, when she began to show signs of lagging. Finally, she put down her fork.

‘Sir Charles, I—’

He had to interrupt. ‘If you want to call me something, make it Admiral Bright,’ he said, putting down his fork, too, and nodding to the flunky to take the plates. ‘During the war, I think the crown handed out knighthoods at the crack of a spar. I earned the admiral.’

She smiled at that and dabbed her lips. ‘Very well, Admiral! Thank you for luncheon. Perhaps I should explain myself.’

‘Only if you want to.’

‘I do, actually. I do not wish you to think I am usually at loose ends. Ordinarily, I am employed.’

Bright thought of the wives of his captains and other admirals—women who stayed safely at home, tended their families and worried about their men at sea. He thought about the loose women who frequented the docks and serviced the seamen. He had never met a woman who was honestly employed. ‘Say on, Mrs Paul.’

‘Since my husband…died, I have been a lady’s companion,’ she said, waiting to continue until the waiter was out of earshot. ‘As you can tell, I am from Scotland.’

‘No!’ Bright teased, grateful she was no longer inclined to tears. She gave him such a glance then that he did laugh.

‘I have been a companion to the elderly, but they tend to die.’ Her eyes crinkled in amusement. ‘Oh! That is not my fault, let me assure you.’

He chuckled. ‘I didn’t think you were a murderer of old dears, Mrs Paul.’

‘I am not,’ she said amicably. ‘I had been six weeks without a position, sir, when I found one here in Plymouth.’

‘Where were you living?’

‘In Bath. Old dears, as you call them, like to drink the water in the Pump Room.’ She made a face, which was eloquent enough for him. She sobered quickly. ‘I finally received a position and just enough money to take the mail coach.’

She stopped talking and he could tell her fear was returning. All he could do was joke with her, even though he wanted to take her hand and give it a squeeze. ‘Let me guess: they were sobersides who didn’t see the fun in your charming accent.’

She shook her head. ‘Mrs Cole died the day before I arrived.’ She hesitated.

‘What did you do?’ he asked quietly.

‘I asked for the fare back to Bath, but she wouldn’t hear of it.’ Mrs Paul’s face hardened. ‘She had her butler shoo me off the front steps.’

And I am nervous about two silly sisters? Bright asked himself. ‘Is there something for you in Bath?’

She was silent a long moment. ‘There isn’t anything anywhere, Admiral Bright,’ she admitted finally. ‘I’ve been sitting here trying to work up the nerve to ask the proprietor if he needs kitchen help.’

They were both silent.

Bright was not an impulsive man. He doubted he had ever drawn an impulsive breath, but he drew one now. He looked at Mrs Paul, wondering what she thought of him. He knew little about her except that she was Scottish, and from the sound of her, a Lowland Scot. She was past the first bloom of youth and a widow. She had been dealt an impossible hand. And not once have you simpered about the weather or Almack’s, he thought. You also have not turned this into a Cheltenham tragedy.

He pulled out his timepiece. The Mouse was now nearly three hours late. He drew the deepest breath of his life, even greater than the one right before he sidled his frigate between the Egyptian shore and the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile.

‘Mrs Paul, I have an idea. Tell me what you think.’

Chapter Two

‘You want to marry me?’

To Mrs Paul’s immense credit, she listened without leaping to her feet and slapping him or falling into a dead faint.

She thinks I am certifiable, Bright thought, trying to divine what was going on in her mind as he blathered on. He was reminding himself of his least favourite frigate captain, who spoke faster and faster as the lie grew longer and longer. Dash it, this is no lie, he thought.

‘You see before you a desperate man, Mrs Paul,’ he said, wincing inside at how feeble that sounded. ‘I need a wife on fearsomely short notice.’ He winced again; that sounded worse.

He had to give her credit; she recovered quickly. He could also see that she had no intention of taking him seriously. Her smile, small though it was, let him know precisely how she felt about his little scheme. How can I convince her? he asked himself in exasperation. I doubt I can.

‘Mrs Paul, I hope you don’t think that through England’s darkest hours, the Royal Navy was led by idiots.’

Her voice was faint, mainly because she seemed to be struggling not to laugh. ‘I never thought it was, Admiral,’ she replied. ‘But…but why on earth do you require a wife on fearsomely short notice? Now that you are retired, haven’t you leisure to pursue the matter in your own good time?’

‘I have sisters,’ he said. ‘Two of ’em. Since I retired last autumn, they have been dropping in to visit and bringing along eligible females. They are cornering me and I feel trapped. Besides, I am not convinced I want a wife.’

The look she gave him was one of incredulity, as though she wondered—but was too polite to ask—how a grown man, especially one who had faced the might of France for years, could be so cowed by sisters. ‘Surely they have your best interests at heart,’ Mrs Paul said. She seemed to find his dilemma diverting. ‘Do you require a…a nudge?’

‘That’s not the issue,’ he protested, but he admitted to himself that she did have a point. ‘See here, Mrs Paul, wouldn’t you be bothered if someone you knew was determined to help you, whether you wanted it or not?’

She was silent a moment, obviously considering his question. ‘May I be frank, Admiral?’

‘Certainly.’

‘There are times when I wish someone was determined to help me.’

She had him there. ‘You must think me an awful whiner,’ he admitted at last.

‘No, sir,’ she said promptly. ‘I just think you have too much time on your hands now.’

‘Aha!’ he exclaimed, and slapped the table with his hook, which made the tea cups jump. ‘It’s my stupid sisters who have too much time! They are plaguing my life,’ he finished, his voice much lower.

‘So you think proposing to me will get them off your back?’ she asked, intrigued.

‘You are my backup, Mrs Paul.’

Oh, Lord, I am an idiot, he thought. She stared at him in amazement, but to her credit, did not flee the dining room. Maybe you think you owe me for a meal, he thought sourly. Humouring a lunatic, eh?

‘Backup? There is someone else who didn’t deliver?’ she asked. Her lips twitched. ‘Should I be jealous? Call her out?’

She had him again, and he had to smile. In fact, he had to laugh. ‘Oh, Mrs Paul, I have made a muddle of things. Let me explain.’

He told her how in desperation because his sisters would not leave him alone, he had contacted the captain of his flagship, who had a sister withering on the matrimonial vine. ‘I made her an offer. It was to be a marriage of convenience, Mrs Paul. She needed a husband, because ladies…er…don’t seem to care to wander through life alone. I was careful to explain that,’ he assured her. ‘She agreed.’

He looked at the lady across the table from him, amazed she was still sitting there. ‘It is foolish, isn’t it?’ he said finally, seeing the matter through her eyes. ‘I have been stewing about in this dining room for hours, and the lady has not appeared. I can hardly blame her.’ He looked at his hook. ‘Maybe she doesn’t care overmuch for hooks.’

Mrs Paul put her hand to her lips, as though trying to force down another laugh. ‘Admiral, if she cared about you, a hook wouldn’t make the least difference. You have all your teeth, don’t you? And your hair? And surely there is a good tailor in Plymouth who could—’ She stopped. ‘You must think I am terribly rude.’

‘No, I think you are honest and…dash it, I have all my hair! I did lose a tooth on the Barbary Coast—’

‘Careless of you,’ she murmured, then gave up trying to hold back the mirth that seemed to well up out of her.

Her laughter was infectious. Thank goodness the dining room was nearly empty by now, because he laughed along with her. ‘What is the matter with my suit?’ he asked, when he could talk.

She wiped her eyes on the napkin. ‘Nothing at all, Admiral, if only this were the reign of poor George III, and not the regency of his son! I realise you have probably worn nothing but uniforms for years. Many men would probably envy your ability to wear garments from the turn of the century, without having to resort to a shoehorn. I am no Beau Brummell, Admiral, but there is a time to bid adieu to old clothes, even if they do fit.’

‘I was never inclined to add pounds,’ he said, trying not to sound sulky. ‘A tailor would help?’

‘Perhaps, but he won’t solve your problem of sisters,’ she said sensibly. ‘Suppose I agreed to your…er…unorthodox proposal, and you fell in love with someone? What then?’

‘Or suppose you do?’ he countered, warmed that she still seemed to be considering the matter.

‘That is unlikely. I have no fortune, no connections, no employment. I had a good husband once, and he will probably suffice.’

She spoke in such a matter-of-fact way that he wanted to know more, but knew he didn’t dare. ‘Did you tease him as unmercifully as you have teased me? “Careless of me to lose a tooth?” Really, Mrs Paul.’

‘I was even harder on him, sir,’ she said in good humour. ‘I knew him better and everyone knows familiarity breeds content.’

You’re a wit, he thought in appreciation. ‘I have no skills in searching for a wife, Mrs Paul. I never thought to live that long. I will blame Napoleon.’

‘Why not?’ she said, her voice agreeable. ‘He had his own trouble with wives, I do believe.’ She leaned forwards. ‘Admiral, I know nothing of your financial situation, nor do I wish to know, but surely a visit to Almack’s during the Season would turn up some prospects that would satisfy even your sisters.’

Mrs Paul obviously noted the look of disgust on his face, but continued, anyway. ‘If you’d rather not chance Almack’s, there is church. Unexceptionable ladies are often found there.’

‘You’d have me endure sermons and make sheep’s eyes at a female in a neighbouring pew?’

She gave him such a glance that he felt his toes tingle. ‘Admiral! I am merely trying to think of venues where you might find ladies—suitable ladies! Were you this much trouble in the fleet?’

‘This and more,’ he assured her, warming to her conversation. By God, you are diverting, he thought. ‘Mrs Paul, do you ever talk about the weather?’

‘What does the weather have to do with anything?’ she asked.

‘Good books?’

‘Now and then. Do you know, I read my way through the family library of the lady I worked for in Bath. Ask me anything about the early saints of the church. Go on. I dare you.’

Bright laughed out loud again. ‘Mrs Paul, mourning is well and good, I suppose, but why hasn’t some gentleman proposed recently? You are a wit.’

He wished he hadn’t said that. Her eyes lost their lustre. ‘It is different with ladies, sir. Most men seem to want a fortune of some size, along with the lady.’ She looked in her reticule again and her look told him she was determined to turn her wretched situation to a joke. ‘All I have in here is an appointment book, the stub of a pencil and some lint.’

The last thing you want is pity, isn’t it? he told himself. ‘So here we are, the two of us, at point non plus,’ he said.

‘I suppose we are,’ she replied, the faintest glint of amusement returning to her eyes.

‘And I must return to my estate, still a single gentleman, with no prospects and a cook on strike.’

‘Whatever did you do to him?’

‘I told him my sisters were coming to visit in two days. They order him about and demand things. Mrs Paul, he is French and he has been my chef for eleven years, through bombardment and sinking ships, and he cannot face my sisters either!’

‘What makes you think matrimony would change that?’ she asked sensibly. ‘They would still visit, wouldn’t they?’

He shrugged. ‘You have to understand my sisters. They are never happier than when they are on a mission or a do-gooding quest. With you installed in my house, and directing my chef, and having a hand in the reconstruction, they would get bored quickly, I think.’

‘Reconstruction?’ she asked.

‘Ah, yes. I found the perfect house. It overlooks Plymouth Sound, and it came completely furnished. It does require a little…well, a lot…of repairs. I think the former owner was a troll with bad habits.’

Mrs Paul laughed. ‘So you were going to marry this poor female who has cried off and carry her away to a ruin?’

Bright couldn’t help himself. He wasn’t even sure why he did it, but he slipped his hook into the ribbons holding Mrs Paul’s bonnet on her head. She watched, transfixed, as he gave the frayed ribbon a gentle tug, then pushed the bonnet away from her face, to dangle down her back. ‘Are you sure you won’t reconsider? I don’t think you will be bored in my house. You can redecorate to your heart’s content, sweet talk my chef, I don’t doubt, and find me a tailor.’

‘You know absolutely nothing about me,’ she said softly, her face pink again. ‘You don’t even know how old I am.’

‘Thirty?’ he asked.

‘Almost thirty-two.’

‘I am forty-five,’ he told her. He took his finger and pushed back his upper lip. ‘That’s where the tooth is missing. I keep my hair short because I am a creature of habit.’ He felt his own face go red. ‘I take the hook off at night, because I’d hate to cut my own throat during a bad dream.’

She stared at him, fascinated. ‘I have never met anyone like you, Admiral.’

‘Is that good or bad?’

‘I think it is good.’

He held his breath, because she appeared to be thinking. Just say yes, he thought.

She didn’t. To his great regret, Mrs Paul shook her head. She retied her bonnet and stood up. ‘Thank you for the luncheon, Admiral Bright,’ she said, not looking him in the eyes this time. ‘I have had a most diverting afternoon, but now I must go to the registry office here and see if there is anything for me.’

‘And if there is not?’ It came out cold and clinical, but she didn’t seem to be a woman searching for sympathy.

‘That is my problem, not yours,’ she reminded him.

He stood as she left the table, feeling worse than when he waited for The Mouse. She surprised him by looking back at him in the doorway, a smile on her face, as though their curious meal would be a memory to warm her.

‘That is that,’ he said under his breath, feeling as though some cosmic titan had poked a straw under his skin and sucked out all his juices. It was an odd feeling, and he didn’t like it.

With each step she took from the Drake, Sally Paul lost her nerve. She found a stone bench by the Cattewater and sat there, trying to regain the equilibrium that had deserted her when she was out of Admiral Bright’s sight. The June sun warmed her cheek and she raised her face to it, glorying in summer after a dismal winter of tending a querulous old woman who had been deserted by her family, because she had not treated them well when she was able and could have.

Let this be a lesson to me, Sally had thought over and over that winter, except that there was no one to show any kindness to, no one left that being kind to now would mean dividends later on, when she was old and dying. Her husband was gone these five years, a suicide as a result of being unable to stand up to charges levelled at him by the Admiralty. The Royal Navy, in its vindictiveness, had left her with nothing but her small son, Peter. A cold lodging house had finished him.

She sobbed out loud, then looked around, hopeful that no one had heard her. Even harder than her husband’s death by his own hand—mercifully, he had hanged himself in an outbuilding and someone else had found him—was her son’s death of cold and hunger, when she could do nothing but suffer alone. She had been his only mourner at his pauper’s unmarked grave, but she had mourned as thoroughly and completely as if a whole throng of relatives had sent him to a good rest.

There was no one to turn to in Dundrennan, where her late father had been a half-hearted solicitor. The Paul name didn’t shine so brightly in that part of Scotland, considering her father’s younger brother, John, who had joined American revolutionaries, added Jones to his name and become a hated word in England. This far south, though, it was a better name than Daviess, the name she had shared with Andrew, principal victualler to the Portsmouth yard who had been brought up on charges of pocketing profit from bad meat that had killed half a squadron.

She had no other resource to call upon. I could throw myself into the water, she told herself, except that someone would probably rescue me. Besides, I can swim, and I am not inclined to end my life that way. I could go to the workhouse. I could try every public kitchen in Plymouth and see if they need help. I could marry Admiral Bright.

She went to the registry first, joining a line by the door. The pale governess who had shared a seat with her on the mail coach came away with nothing. The bleak expression on her face told Sally what her own reception would be. The registrar—not an unkind man—did say Stonehouse Naval Hospital might still be looking for laundresses, but there was no way of knowing, unless she chose to walk four miles to Devonport.

‘It’s a slow season, what with peace putting many here out of work. You might consider going north to the mills,’ he told Sally. When she asked him how she would get there, he shrugged.

Dratted peace had slowed down the entire economy of Plymouth, so there was no demand for even the lowliest kitchen help in the hotels, she discovered, after trudging from back door to back door. One publican had been willing to hire her to replace his pots-and-pans girl, but one look at that terrified child’s face told Sally she could never be so callous. ‘I won’t take bread from a baby’s mouth,’ she said.

‘Suit yourself,’ the man had said as he turned away.

Evensong was long over and the church was deserted. She sank down wearily on a back pew. When her money had run out two days ago, she had slept in Bath’s cathedral. It had been easy enough to make herself small in the shadows and then lie down out of sight. St Andrew’s was smaller, but there were shadows. She could hide herself again.

And then what? In the morning, if no one was about, she would dip her remaining clean handkerchief in the holy water, wipe her face and ask directions to the workhouse. At least her small son was safe from such a place.

There were several prayer books in their slots. Sally gathered them up, made a pillow of them and rested her head on them with a sigh. There wasn’t any need to loosen her dress because it was already loose. She feared to take off her shoes because she knew her feet were swollen. She might never get them on again. She made herself comfortable on the bench and closed her eyes.

Sally opened her eyes with a start only minutes later. A man sat on the end of the row. Frightened at first, she looked closer in the gloom at his close-cut hair and smiled to herself. She sat up.

He didn’t look at her, but idly scratched the back of his only hand with his hook. ‘The Mouse still hasn’t turned up.’

‘You have probably waited long enough,’ Sally said as she arranged her skirt around her, grateful she hadn’t removed her shoes. ‘I don’t know what the statute of limitations is on such a matter, but surely you have fulfilled it.’

He rested his elbows on the back of the pew, still not looking at her. ‘Actually, I was looking for you, Mrs Paul. The waiter informed me that you left your valise in the chair.’

‘I suppose I did,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing in it of value.’ She peered at him through the gloom. ‘Why did the waiter think I was your responsibility?’

He glanced at her then. ‘Possibly because earlier I had told him you were my cousin, and we were on the outs, and I was hoping to get into your good graces by buying you dinner.’

‘That was certainly creative, Admiral,’ she said.

‘Dash it all, how am I supposed to approach a single female I have never met before?’ he said. She couldn’t help but hear the exasperation in his voice. ‘Mrs Paul, you are more trouble than an entire roomful of midshipmen!’

‘Oh, surely not,’ she murmured, amused in spite of her predicament. She glanced at him, then stared straight ahead towards the altar, the same way he stared.

There they sat. He spoke first. ‘When you didn’t come out of St Andrew’s, I thought you might not mind some company.’ His voice grew softer. ‘Have you been sleeping in churches?’

‘It…it’s a safe place.’

He hadn’t changed his position. He did not move any closer. ‘Mrs Paul, my sisters are still meddlers, my chef is still on strike, I can’t get any builders to do what they promised, the house is…strange and I swear there are bats or maybe griffons in the attic.’

‘What a daunting prospect.’

‘I would honestly rather sail into battle than deal with any of the above.’

‘Especially the griffons,’ she said, taking a deep breath. Am I this desperate? Is he? she asked herself. This man is—or was—an admiral. He is either a lunatic or the kindest man in the universe.

‘What say you, Mrs Paul?’ He still didn’t look in her direction, as though afraid she would bolt like a startled fawn. ‘You’ll have a home, a touchy chef, two dragons for sisters-in-law, and a one-armed husband who will need your assistance occasionally with buttons, or maybe putting sealing wax on a letter. Small things. If you can keep the dragons at bay, and keep the admiral out of trouble on land, he promises to let you be. It’s not a bad offer.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ she replied, after a long pause in which she could have sworn he held his breath. She just couldn’t speak. It was beyond her that anyone would do this. She could only stare at him.

He gazed back. When he spoke, he sounded so rational she had to listen. ‘Mrs Paul, The Mouse isn’t coming. I want to marry you.’

‘Why, Admiral? Tell me why?’ There, she had asked. He had to tell her.

He took his time, exasperating man. ‘Mrs Paul, even if The Mouse were to show up this minute, I would bow out. She’s a spinster, and that’s unfortunate, but she has a brother to take care of her, no matter how he might grumble. You have no one.’ He held up his hand to stop her words. ‘I have spent most of my life looking after England. One doesn’t just chop off such a responsibility. Maybe it didn’t end with Napoleon on St. Helena and my retirement papers. Knowing your dilemma, I cannot turn my back on you, no more than I could ever ignore a sister ship approaching a lee shore. You need help. I need a wife. I don’t think I can make it any plainer.’

‘No, I suppose you cannot,’ she murmured, but made one final attempt to make the man see reason. ‘Admiral, you know nothing about me. You truly don’t.’ It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him, but she found she could not. Coward, she thought.

He looked at her then, and his face was kind. ‘I know one thing: you haven’t wittered once about the weather. I suppose marriages have started on stranger footings. I don’t know when or where, but I haven’t been on land much in the past twenty years.’

‘I suppose they have,’ she agreed. ‘Very well, sir.’

Chapter Three

Sally didn’t object when the admiral paid for a room at the Drake for her, after suggesting the priest at St Andrew’s might be irritated to perform a wedding so late, even with a special licence. And there were other concerns.

‘I must remind you, sir, I’m not The Mouse. I cannot usurp her name, which surely is already on the licence,’ she pointed out, embarrassed to state the obvious, but always the practical one.

Admiral Bright chuckled. ‘It’s no problem, Mrs Paul. The Mouse’s name is Prunella Batchthorpe. Believe it or not, I can spell Batchthorpe. It was Prunella that gave me trouble. Prunella? Prunilla? A coin or two, and the clerk was happy enough to leave the space blank, for me to fill in later.’

‘Very well, then,’ Sally murmured.

She was hungry for supper, but had trouble swallowing the food, when it came. Finally, she laid down her fork. ‘Admiral, you need to know something about me,’ she said.

He set down his fork, too. ‘I should tell you more about me, too.’

How much to say? She thought a moment, then plunged ahead. ‘Five years ago, my husband committed suicide after a reversal of fortune. I ended up in one room with our son, Peter, who was five at the time.’

She looked at the admiral for some sign of disgust at this, but all she saw was sympathy. It gave her the courage to continue. ‘Poor Peter. I could not even afford coal to keep the room warm. He caught a chill, it settled in his lungs and he died.’

‘You had no money for a doctor?’ he asked gently.

‘Not a farthing. I tried every poultice I knew, but nothing worked.’ She could not help the sob that rose in her throat. ‘And the whole time, Peter trusted me to make him better!’

She didn’t know how it happened, but the admiral’s hand went to her neck, caressing it until she gained control of herself. ‘He was covered in quicklime in a pauper’s grave. I found a position that afternoon as a lady’s companion and never returned to that horrid room.’

‘I am so sorry,’ he said. ‘There wasn’t anyone you could turn to?’

‘No,’ she said, after blowing her nose on the handkerchief he handed her. ‘After my husband was…accused…we had not a friend in the world.’ She looked at him, wondering what to say. ‘It was all a mistake, a lie and a cover-up, but we have suffered.’

Admiral Bright sat back in his chair. ‘Mrs Paul, people ask me how I could bear to stay so many years at sea. Unlike my captains who occasionally went into port, I remained almost constantly with the fleet. We had one enemy—France—and not the myriad of enemies innocent people attract, sometimes in the course of everyday business on land, or so I suspect. My sisters have never understood why I prefer the sea.’

‘Surely there are scoundrels at sea—I mean, in addition to the French,’ she said.

‘Of course there are, Mrs P. The world is full of them. It’s given me great satisfaction to hang a few.’

She couldn’t help herself; she shuddered.

‘They deserved it. The hangings never cost me any sleep, because I made damned sure they were guilty.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘Mrs Paul, I cannot deny that I enjoyed the power, but I have never intentionally wronged anyone.’

Too bad you were not on the Admiralty court that convicted my husband, she thought. Or would you have heard the evidence and convicted, too? She knew there was no way of knowing. She had not been allowed in the chambers. Best put it to rest.

‘I have the skills to manage your household,’ she told him, when he had resumed eating. ‘I’m quite frugal, you know.’

‘With a charming brogue betraying your origins, could you be anything else?’

‘Now, sir, you know that is a stereotype!’ she scolded. ‘My own father hadn’t a clue what to do with a shilling, and he could outroll my rrr’s any day.’ She smiled at the admiral, liking the way he picked up his napkin with the hook and wiped his lips. ‘But I am good with funds.’

‘So am I, Mrs P.,’ he said, putting down the napkin. ‘Napoleon has made me rich, so you needn’t squeeze the shillings so hard that they beg for mercy! I’ll see that you have a good allowance, too.’

‘That isn’t necessary,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve done with so little for so long that I probably wouldn’t know what to do with an allowance.’

He looked at his timepiece. ‘Past my bedtime. Call it a bribe then, Mrs P. Wait until you see the estate I am foisting on you!’ He grew serious quickly. ‘There is plenty of money for coal, though.’ With his hook, he casually twirled a lock of her hair that had come loose. ‘I think your fortunes have turned, my dear.’

It was funny. The hook was so close to her face, but she felt no urge to flinch. She reached up and touched it, twining the curl further around it.

‘My hook doesn’t disgust you?’ he asked, startled.

‘Heavens, no,’ she replied. ‘How did you lose your hand? And, no, I’m not going to be frippery again and suggest you were careless.’

He pulled his hook through the curl, patted it against her cheek and grinned at her. ‘You do have a mouth on you, Mrs Paul. Most people are so cowed by my admiralness that I find them dull.’

‘I am not among them, I suppose. After your taradiddle about being my cousin, I think you are probably as faulty and frail as most of humanity.’ She sat back, amazed at herself for such a forthright utterance. She had never spoken to Andrew that way, but something about Charles Bright made him a conversational wellspring as challenging as he was fun to listen to.

‘Touché!’ He looked down at his hook. ‘I was but a first mate when this happened, so it has been years since I’ve had ten fingernails to trim.’

She laughed. ‘Think of the economy!’

He rolled his eyes at her. ‘There you go again, being a Scot.’

‘Guilty as charged, Admiral.’

‘I wish I could tell you it was some battle where England’s fate hung in the balance, but it was a training accident. We were engaged in target practice off the coast of Brazil when one of my guns exploded. Since it was my gun crew, I went to lend a hand.’ He made a face. ‘Poor choice of words! The pulley rope that yanks the gun back after discharge was tangled. I untangled it at the same time it came loose. Pinched off my left hand so fast I didn’t know it had happened, until the powder monkey mentioned that I was spouting. Mrs P, don’t get all pale on me. We had an excellent surgeon on board, almost as talented as the smithy who built me my first hook.’

‘You never thought about leaving the navy?’

‘Over a hand? Really, madam.’

‘How do you keep it on?’

She was hard put to define his expression then. She could have sworn there was something close to gratitude in his eyes, as though he was pleased she cared enough to ask such a forwards question.

‘Apart from eight-year-old boys, you’re the first person who ever asked.’

‘I’m curious.’

‘I’ll show you later. There’s a leather contraption that crosses my chest and anchors to my neck.’ As she watched, he tilted his head, pulled at his neckcloth and exposed a thin strap. ‘See? If ever my steward is gone or busy, you might have to help me get out of it. Are you any good at tying neckcloths?’

‘I’ve tied a few,’ she said.

‘Good. You might have to tie more. Beyond that, I’m not too helpless.’

‘Helpless is not a word I would ever use in the same breath with your admiralness.’

‘What a relief that is, Mrs P,’ he said. ‘Where were we?’

‘Something about you?’

‘Ah, yes. I was born forty-five years ago in Bristol. My father was a successful barrister who could not understand why I wanted to go to sea. He made arrangements and I shipped aboard as a young gentleman at the age of ten. My older sisters are Frances—I call her Fan, or Fannie—and Dora, who follows where Fannie leads. Both married well and both have outlived their husbands, which means I am ripe for meddling from them.’ He shuddered elaborately.

‘Any interesting avocations, now that you are retired?’

‘Not yet. Mrs Paul, your eyelids are drooping.’ He stood up. ‘I will retire now and leave you to your chamber. Do you think nine of the clock tomorrow morning is too early to bother the vicar at St Andrew’s?’

‘I should think not.’ She looked up at him, a frown on her face. ‘You don’t have to go through with this, you know.’

‘I believe I do.’ He bent down then, and she thought for one moment he was going to kiss her. Instead, he rubbed his cheek against hers, and she smiled to feel whiskers against her face. It had been so long. ‘Mrs Paul, you need help and I need a wife. I promise you I will cause you no anxiety or ever force myself on you without your utmost consent and enthusiasm, should you or I ever advance this marriage into something more…well, what…visceral. Is that plain enough?’

It was. She nodded. Then he did kiss her, but only her cheek.

‘Very well, then, Admiral. I will be an extraordinarily excellent wife.’

‘I rather thought so,’ he said as he went to the door and gave her a little bow. She laughed when he kissed his hook and blew in her direction, then left the room.

‘You are certainly an original,’ she said quietly. She sat at the table a few minutes longer, eating one of the remaining plums, then just looking at the food. It was only the smallest kind of stopgap between actual dinner and breakfast, but she had not seen so much food in front of her in years. ‘What a strange day this has been, Admiral,’ she whispered.

She didn’t sleep a wink, but hadn’t thought she would, considering the strangeness of her situation. She spent much of the night debating whether to tell her future husband that her married name was Daviess, but decided against it, as dawn broke. He knew her as Mrs Paul, and what difference could it make? She had resolved several years ago not to look back.

When the ’tween-stairs girl made a fire in the grate and brought a can of hot water, Sally asked for a bath, hoping the admiral wouldn’t object to the added expense on his bill. When the tub and water came, she sank into it with pleasure.

She left the tub after the water cooled. With a towel wrapped around her, she pulled out the pasteboard folder from her valise and extracted her copy of the marriage lines to Andrew Daviess, and his death certificate, reading again the severe line: ‘Death by own hand.’ Poor, dear man. ‘Andrew, why didn’t you think it through one more time?’ she asked the document. ‘We could have emigrated to Canada, or even the United States.’

With a sigh, she dried herself off and stood a moment in front of the coal fire. The towel fell to the floor and she stood there naked until she felt capable of movement. She looked in the mirror, fingering her stretch marks and frowning over her ribs in high relief when she raised her arms. ‘Sally, you’ll eat better at Admiral Bright’s estate,’ she told her reflection. ‘You are just an empty sack now.’

She was in no mood to begin a marriage with someone she did not know, but there didn’t seem to be anything else to do. She dressed quickly, wishing she had a better garment for the occasion. She shook out a muslin dress from the valise, one she had worn many times, and took it and the pasteboard folder downstairs. She left the dress with the parlour maid, asking that someone iron it for her, then let herself out of the Drake.

It was still early; no one was about in the street except fishmongers and victuallers hauling kegs of food on wheel-barrows. From her life in Portsmouth as Andrew Daviess’s wife, she knew he had been efficient in his profession, even up to the shocking day he was accused by the Admiralty of felony and manslaughter in knowingly loading bad food aboard ships. In the months of suspended animation that followed, she had seen him shaking his head over and over at the venality of his superior, whom he suspected of doctoring the all-important and lucrative accounts to make the errors Andrew’s alone. He could prove nothing, of course, because his superior had moved too fast.

And finally Andrew could take it no longer, hanging himself from a beam in their carriage house, empty of horses since they could no longer afford them and pay a barrister, too. He left no note to her, but only one he had sent to the Lord Admiral proclaiming his innocence, even as his suicide seemed to mock his words.

Now the whole matter was over and done. She knew that by marrying the admiral, who had no idea what a kettle of fish he had inherited and with any luck never would, her life with Andrew Daviess was irrevocably over.

When she arrived at St Andrew’s, the vicar was concluding the earliest service. She approached him when he finished, explaining that in another hour, she and a gentleman would be returning with a special licence.

‘I am a widow, sir,’ she said, handing him the pasteboard folder. ‘Here are my earlier marriage lines and my late husband’s death certificate. Is there anything else you need from me?’

The old man took the folder and looked inside. ‘Sophia Paul Daviess, spinster from Dundrennan, Kirkcudbright-shire, Scotland, age twenty-two years, 1806’. He looked at Andrew’s death certificate, shaking his head, so she knew he had read the part about ‘Death by his own hand’. He handed the document back. ‘A sad affair, Mrs Daviess.’

‘It was.’

‘And now you are marrying again. I wish you all success, madam.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ She hesitated. ‘For reasons which you must appreciate, I have been using my maiden name, rather than my married name.’

He walked with her to the door. ‘I can imagine there has been some stigma to a suicide, Mrs Paul.’

If you only knew, she thought. ‘There has been,’ was all she said.

‘Those days appear to be ending. I’ll look forwards to seeing you again in an hour.’ The vicar held out his hand. ‘If you wish, I can enter this information in the registry right now, so you needn’t be reminded of it during this next wedding.’

It was precisely what she wanted. ‘Thank you, sir.’

As she returned to the Drake, she looked up to the first storey and saw the admiral looking out. He waved to her and she waved back, wondering how long he had been watching and if he had seen her leave the hotel.

When she came up the stairs to the first floor, he opened his door. ‘You gave me a fright, Mrs Paul, when I knocked on your door and you weren’t there. I reckoned you had gone the way of The Mouse, and that would have been more than my fragile esteem could manage.’

‘Oh, no, sir. I would not go back on my word, once given,’ she assured him.

‘I thought as much,’ he said, ‘especially after the ’tween-stairs maid said you had left a dress belowdeck to be ironed.’ He thumped his chest with his hook, which made Sally smile. ‘What a relief.’

‘I went ahead to the church with my marriage lines and Andrew’s death certificate. I thought he might want to see them and perhaps record them. Such proved to be the case.’

‘So efficient, Mrs Paul,’ he murmured. ‘I shall be spoiled.’

Not so much efficient as ashamed for you to see that certificate, she thought. Oh, seek a lighter subject, Sally. ‘That’s it, sir. I will spoil you like my old ladies—prunes in massive amounts, thoroughly soaked for easy chewing, and at least a chapter a day of some improving literature such as, such as…’

‘I know: “The prevention of self-abuse during long sea voyages”,’ he joked, then held up his hand to ward off her open-mouthed, wide-eyed stare. ‘I do not joke, Mrs P! You would be amazed what do-gooders in the vicinity of the fleet think is important.’

She laughed out loud, then covered her mouth in embarrassment that she even knew what he was talking about.

‘I was a frigate captain then. I preserved a copy of that remarkable document and asked all my wardroom mates to sign it. The purser even added some salacious illustrations, so perhaps I will not let you see it until you are forty or fifty, at least.’

She couldn’t think of a single retort.

‘What? No witty comeback?’ There was no denying the triumph in his eyes.

‘Not to that, sir,’ she admitted. ‘Perhaps I will not read you improving chapters of anything.’

She was spared further embarrassment by the ’tween-stairs maid, who brought her ironed dress upstairs and shyly handed it to her. Admiral Bright gave the little girl a few coins before she left.

Sally went into her own room and put on the dress, but not before wishing it would magically turn into a gown of magnificent proportions. Just as well it does not, she scolded herself as she attempted to button up the back. I don’t have the bosom to hold it up right now.

She also remembered why she hadn’t worn the dress in ages. By twisting around, she managed to do up the lower and upper buttons, but the ones in the middle were out of reach. She stood in silence, then realised there was nothing to do but enlist the admiral. She knocked on the door. She felt the blush leap to her face, even as she scolded herself for such missish behaviour, considering that in less than an hour, she was going to marry this man.

‘Admiral, can you possibly tackle the buttons in the middle of this dratted dress? Either that, or call back the ’tween-stairs maid.’ She looked at his hook and frowned. ‘Oh, dear. I forgot.’

Admiral Bright was obviously made of sterner stuff. He came into her room and closed the door behind him. ‘What? You think I cannot accomplish this simple task? Who on earth do you think buttons my trousers every morning? Turn around and prepare to be amazed.’

She did as he said, her cheeks on fire. He pressed the flat curve on his hook against her back to anchor the fabric, then pushed each button through, his knuckles light against her bare skin.

‘No applause needed,’ he said. ‘Turn around and stop being so embarrassed.’

She did as he said. ‘You’re going to wish The Mouse had showed up.’

‘No, indeed, madam. I have something for you, and you will have to manage this yourself.’

He took a small sack out of his coat front and handed it to her. ‘I got this in India. It should look especially nice against that light blue fabric.’

Holding her breath, Sally took out a gold chain with a single ruby on it.

‘You can breathe, Mrs Paul,’ he advised. She could tell by his voice how pleased he was with her reaction.

‘I wish I had something for you,’ she whispered as she turned the necklace over in her hand.

‘Considering that this time yesterday, you thought you were going to be tending an old lady with skinflint relatives, I am hardly surprised. Come, come. Put it on. I can’t help you with the clasp.’

She did as he said, clasping the fiery little gem about her neck where it hung against her breast bone. Suddenly, the old dress didn’t seem so ordinary. She couldn’t even feel the place in her shoes where the leather had worn through.

‘It’s not very big, but I always admired the fire in that little package,’ he told her, half in apology, partly in pride.

She could feel the admiral surveying her, and she raised her chin a little higher, convinced she could pass any muster, short of a presentation at court. All because of a little ruby necklace. She touched it, then looked at Admiral Bright. ‘You deserve someone far more exciting than me,’ she said.

He surprised her by not uttering a single witticism, he whom she already knew possessed many. ‘You’ll do, Sally Paul,’ he said gruffly and offered her his arm. ‘Let’s get spliced. A ruby is small potatoes, compared to the favour you’re doing me of shielding me for evermore from my sisters!’

Chapter Four

They were married at half past nine in St Andrew’s Church, where some three centuries earlier, and under different ecclesiastical management, Catherine of Aragon had knelt after a long sea voyage and offered thanks for safe passage. Sally could appreciate the mood and the moment. When the vicar pronounced them husband and wife, she felt a gentle mantle of protection cover her to replace the shawl of lead she had been carrying around for years. She couldn’t have explained the feeling to anyone, and she doubted the admiral would understand. She was too shy to expand on it, so she kept the moment to herself.

Truth to tell, she hoped for better success than Catherine of Aragon. After the brief ceremony, when the young vicar chatted a bit mindlessly—obviously he hadn’t married a couple with so little fanfare before—Sally couldn’t help but think of her Catholic Majesty, gone to England to marry one man, and ending up a scant few years later with his brother, Henry.

She mentioned it to the admiral over breakfast at the Drake. ‘Do you not see a parallel? You came here to marry The Mouse, and you ended up with the lady’s companion. Perhaps Catherine of Aragon started a trend.’

The admiral laughed. ‘If it’s a trend, it’s a slow-moving one.’ He leaned forwards over the buttered toast. ‘What should I call you? I’ve become fond of Mrs P, but now it’s Mrs B. And I had no idea your name was actually Sophia, which I rather like. How about it, Sophia Bright?’

She felt suddenly shy, as though everyone in the dining room was staring at the ring on her finger, which seemed to grow heavier and heavier until it nearly required a sling. ‘No one has ever called me Sophia, but I like it.’

‘Sophia, then. What about me? You really shouldn’t persist in calling me admiral. Seems a bit stodgy and you don’t look like a midshipman. Charles? Charlie?’

She thought about it. ‘I don’t think I know you well enough for “Charles”. Maybe I’ll call you “Mr Bright”, while I think about it.’

‘Fair enough.’ He peered more closely at the ring he had put on her finger in the church. ‘It’s a dashed plain ring.’ He slid it up her finger. ‘Rather too large. H’mm. What was good enough for The Mouse doesn’t quite work for you.’ He patted her hand. ‘You can think about my name, and I can think about that ring, Sophia.’

Now I am Sophia Bright, where only yesterday I was Sally Paul, she thought as she finished eating. No one will know me. While he spoke to the waiter, she looked over at her new husband with different eyes. There was no denying his air of command. Everything about him exuded confidence and she felt some envy.

He was certainly no Adonis; too many years had come and gone for that. His nose was straight and sharp, but his lips were the softest feature on his face. Such a ready smile, too. He reminded her of an uncle, long dead now, who could command a room by merely entering it. She began to feel a certain pride in her unexpected association with this man beside her. After the past five years of shame and humiliation, she almost didn’t recognise the emotion.

He had no qualms about gesturing with his hook. If he had lived with the thing since his lieutenant days, then it was second nature, and not something to hide. She looked around the dining room. No one was staring at him, but this was Plymouth, where seamen with parts missing were more common than in Bath, or Oxford. This is my husband, she wanted to say, she who barely knew him. He is mine. The idea was altogether intoxicating and it made her blush.

He had hired a post chaise for the ride home. ‘I…we…are only three miles from Plymouth proper. I suppose I shall get a carriage, and that will mean horses, with which I have scant acquaintance,’ he told her. ‘It’s going to be hard for me to cut a dashing figure atop a horse.’ He shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know a good horse if it bit me…which it will, probably.’

Sally put her hand to her mouth to keep in the laugh. With a twinkle in his eyes, the admiral took her hand away. ‘It is a funny image, Sophia,’ he said. ‘Go ahead and laugh. I imagine years and years of midshipmen would love to see such a sight. And probably most of my captains, too.’

He fell silent then, as they drove inland for a mile, over the route she had taken on foot only yesterday. How odd, she thought. It seems like years ago already, when I was Sally Paul.

He was gazing intently out the window and she wondered why, until the ocean came in sight again and he sat back with a sigh. He misses it, she thought, even if it is only a matter of a few miles.

‘You miss the ocean, don’t you?’

He nodded. ‘I thought I would not. After I retired, I spent some weeks in Yorkshire, visiting an old shipmate far inland—well, I was hiding from Fannie and Dora. What a miserable time! Yes, I miss the ocean when I do not see it.’ He looked her in the eye. ‘Did you ever meet a bigger fool?’

‘Probably not,’ she replied, her voice soft, which made the admiral blush—something she doubted he did very often. ‘It it amazing what revelation comes out, after the ring goes on.’

‘I suppose you have deep, dark secrets, too,’ he told her, good humour in his voice, as if he could not imagine such a thing.

He had come closer to the mark than was comfortable, and she wished again she had told him her real married name. It was too late now. She would have to hope the matter would never come up. Sally returned some sort of nonsensical reply that she forgot as soon as it left her lips, but which must have satisfied the man. His gaze returned to the view out the chaise window.

‘I do have a confession,’ he said, as the post chaise slowed and turned into a lane which must have been lovely at one time, but which now was overgrown and rutted.

It can’t be worse than my omission, she thought. ‘I’m all a-tremble,’ she said, feeling like the biggest hypocrite who ever wore shoe leather.

He chuckled, and touched her knee with his hook. ‘Sophia, I promise you I do not have a harem in Baghdad—too far from the coast—or an evil twin locked in the attic.’ He didn’t quite meet her gaze. ‘You’ll see soon enough. How to put this? I didn’t precisely buy this property for the manor.’

He had timed his confession perfectly. The coachman slowed his horses even more on the last turn, and then the estate came into view. What probably should have been a graceful lawn sloping towards a bluff overlooking a sterling view of Plymouth Sound was a tangle of weeds and overgrown bushes.

The admiral was watching her expression, so Sally did her best to keep it entirely neutral. ‘It appears you could use an entire herd of sheep,’ she murmured. ‘And possibly an army equipped with scythes.’

She looked closer, towards the front door, and her eyes widened. She put her hand to her mouth in astonishment. Rising out of a clump of undergrowth worthy almost of the Amazon was a naked figure. ‘Good heavens,’ she managed. ‘Is that supposed to be Venus?’

‘Hard to say. You can’t see it from here, but she seems to be standing on what is a sea shell. Or maybe it is a cow patty,’ the admiral said. He coughed.

There she stood, one ill-proportioned hand modestly over her genitals. Sally looked closer, then blushed. The hand wasn’t over her privates as much as inside them. The statue’s mouth was open, and she appeared to be thinking naughty thoughts.

‘I think this might be Penelope, and her husband has been gone a long time,’ Sally said finally.

She didn’t dare look at the admiral, but she had no urge to continue staring at a statue so obviously occupied with business of a personal nature. She gulped. ‘A very long time.’

‘No doubt about it,’ the admiral said, and he sounded like he was strangling.

I don’t dare look at him, else I will fall on the floor in a fit of laughter, and then what will he think? Sally told herself. And then she couldn’t help herself. The laughter rolled out of its own accord and she clutched her sides. When she could finally bring herself to look at the admiral, he was wiping his eyes.

‘Mrs Bright, you would be even more shocked to know there was a companion statue on the other side of the door. Let me just say it was a man, and leave it at that.’

‘Wise of you,’ she murmured, and went off in another gust of laughter. When she could muster a coherent thought, Sally realised it had been years and years since she had laughed at all, let alone so hard.

‘What happened to…ah…Romeo?’ she asked.

‘My steward—you would probably call him my butler—whacked him off at the ankles. I suppose he hasn’t had time to get around to the lady.’

The admiral left the post chaise first. She took his hand as he helped her out. ‘I can scarcely imagine what delights await me indoors,’ Sally said.

‘Oh, I think you can,’ was all he would say, as he put his hand under her elbow and helped her up the steps. ‘Careful now. I should probably carry you over the threshold, Mrs Admiral Sir Charles Bright, but you will observe the front steps are wobbly.’

‘I shall insist upon it when the steps are fixed.’

‘Oh, you will?’ he asked, and then kissed her cheek. ‘Hopefully, our relationship will continue after your first view of the entry hall.’ He opened the door with a flourish. ‘Feast your eyes, madam wife.’

The hall itself appeared dingy, the walls discoloured from years of neglect, but the ceiling drew her eyes upwards immediately. Her mouth fell open. She stepped back involuntarily and her husband’s arm seemed to naturally encircle her waist.

‘At the risk of ruining my credit with you for ever, Sophia, I saw a ceiling like this once in a Naples bawdy house.’

‘I don’t doubt that for a minute!’ she declared, looking around at a ceiling full of cupids engaged in activities the statue out front had probably never even dreamed of. ‘Over there…what on earth…? Oh, my goodness.’ Sally put her hands to her cheeks, feeling their warmth. She turned around and took her husband by the lapels of his coat. ‘Mr Bright, who on earth owned this house?’

‘The estate agent described him as an earl—the sorry end of a long line of earls—who had roughly one thing on his mind. Apparently, in early summer, the old roué used to indulge in the most amazing debaucheries in this house. After that, he closed up the place and retreated to his London lodgings.’

She couldn’t help herself. She leaned her forehead against her new husband’s chest. His arms went around her and she felt his hook against her waist. ‘There had better be a very good reason that a man of sound mind— I’m speaking of you—would buy such a house, Admiral Bright.’

‘Oh, dear,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘Not two minutes inside your new home and I am back to “admiral”.’ He took her hand. ‘Yes, there is a good reason. Humour me another moment.’

She followed where he led, her hand in his, down the hall with its more-than-naughty inmates high above, and out through the French doors into the garden, which was as ill used as the front lawn. Beyond a thoroughly ugly gazebo was the wide and—today—serene expanse of the ocean. It filled the horizon with a deep blue that blended into the early summer sky. Sea birds wheeled and called overhead and she could hear waves breaking on the rocks below. In the distance, a ship under full sail seemed to skim the water as it made for Plymouth.

The admiral released her hand. ‘One look at this and I knew I would never find another place so lovely. What do you think, Sophia? Should I tear down the house and rebuild?’

She turned around and looked at her new home, sturdy with stone that might have once been painted a pastel; elegant French doors that opened on to a fine terrace; wide, floor-to-ceiling windows that would be wonderful to stand behind, when the day was stormy and still the ocean beckoned.

‘No. It’s a good house. Once a little—a lot—of paint is applied.’

‘My thoughts precisely. I got it for a song.’

She had to smile at that. ‘I’m surprised the estate agent didn’t pay you to take it off his hands! Have your sisters been here?’

‘Once. Fannie had to wave burnt feathers under Dora’s nose, and they were gone the next morning before it was even light. I confess I haven’t done anything to the house since, because they assured me they would never return until I did. Until now.’ He sighed and tugged her over to the terrace’s stone railing, where they sat. ‘It worked for a few months, but even these imps from hell weren’t strong enough to ward off the curse of women with too much time on their hands. Fannie is planning to redecorate in an Egyptian style, and Dora tags along.’

‘When?’

‘Any day now, which is why my cook is on strike and…’ He put his hook to his ear, which made her smile. ‘Hark! I hear the thump-tap of my steward. Here he is, my steward through many a battle. John Starkey, may I introduce my wife, Mrs Bright?’

Yesterday, she might have been startled, but not today. From his peg leg to his eye patch, John Starkey was everything a butler was not. All he lacked was a parrot on his shoulder. If he had opened his mouth and exhibited only one, lonely tooth, she would not have been surprised. As it was, he had a full set of teeth and a gentle smile, even a shy one. She looked from the admiral to his steward, realising all over again that these were men not much used to the ameliorating company of women.

But his smile was genuine. She nodded her head. ‘Starkey, I am delighted to make your acquaintance. Is this the strangest place you have ever lived?’

‘Aye, madam.’

‘But you would follow the admiral anywhere, I take it.’

He looked faintly surprised. ‘I already have, Mrs Bright,’ he replied, which told her volumes about a world of war she would never know. It touched her more than anything else he could have said.

‘Starkey answers the front door, polishes my best hook—and any other silver we might have lying around—decants wine with the best of them and never considers any command too strange,’ the admiral said. ‘Starkey, the naked woman in the front yard will have to go. Lively now.’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’ He knuckled his forehead. ‘I ran out of time.’ He bowed to them both and left the terrace. In a few minutes, Sally heard the sound of chopping.

‘I’m low on servants,’ he told her as he got off the railing and started for the French doors. She followed. ‘That will be your task. Go back to Plymouth and hire whomever you think we need.’

She walked with him slowly back down the hall, neither of them looking up. He paused before a closed door. ‘This is my—our—library.’

‘Wonderful! I was hoping the house had one.’ Sally started forwards, but the admiral neatly hooked the sash on the back of her dress and reeled her in.

‘Over my prone and desiccated corpse, Sophia,’ he said. ‘If you think these cherubs are…ah…interesting, you’ll be fair shocked by the walls in here. And the books. And the busts.’ He winced. ‘I’ve never seen such a collection of ribaldry under one roof. The earl seemed to prefer illustrations to words.’

‘My blushes,’ Sally said.

‘Mine, too, and I consider myself a pretty normal navy man.’ He laughed softly. ‘The old earl has me beat! I looked through one book and found myself darting glances over my shoulder, hoping my mother—she’s been dead nearly forty years—wasn’t standing close enough to box my ears and send me to bed without any supper.’ He removed his hook from the back of her dress. ‘I’m not a man who believes in book burning, but I’m going to make an exception, in this case. We’ll make an evening of it.’

He continued down the hall, and she followed, shaking her head. He stopped before another door. ‘Speaking of meat…this is the way belowdeck to the galley.’ He straightened his shabby coat. ‘In case you are wondering, I am girding my loins. My cook is down there—don’t forget he is on strike.’

Sally stared at the door, and back at her husband. ‘Is he that terrifying?’

‘Let us just say he is French.’ He peered closer. ‘Right now, you are probably asking yourself how on earth you let yourself be talked into marriage to a certified lunatic and life in a house of, well, if not ill repute, then very bad art.’

He started to say something else, but he was interrupted by a crack from the front entrance and the sound of bushes shaking. ‘I think Penelope has more on her tiny mind now than Odysseus’s continued absence,’ Bright murmured. ‘I will choose discretion over valour, and not even ask what you think of all this.’

You would be surprised, Admiral, she thought. I have never been so diverted. Sally took his arm and opened the door. ‘I think it is time I met your cook.’

Chapter Five

‘His name is Etienne Dupuis, and I won him with a high card after the Battle of Trafalgar,’ the admiral whispered as they went quietly down the stairs. ‘He was the best cook in the fleet, but he can be moody at times.’

‘This is one of those times, I take it,’ Sally whispered back. ‘Why are we whispering?’

‘He told me if I ever allowed my sisters here again, he would leave me to Starkey’s cooking and return to La Belle France.’

‘And would he?’

‘I don’t intend to find out.’ His lips were close to her ear, and she felt a little shiver down her spine. ‘Let us see how charming you can be, Mrs Bright.’

They came into a pleasant-sized servants’ hall. Thankfully, there were no cupids painted on these walls, but all was dark. The Rumford didn’t look as though there had been a fire lit for several days.

‘I think we’re too late,’ she whispered, not minding a bit that the admiral had pulled her close. ‘See here, sir, are you more afraid than I am?’

‘Absolutely,’ he told her. ‘You didn’t know you had married the coward of the Blue Fleet, did you? Good thing there was no Yellow Fleet. Stay close, Sophia. He threw a cleaver at me once.’

‘Goodness! In that case, I think I should stay far away!’

He took her hand and towed her further into the kitchen. ‘Etienne? I want you to meet my wife. She is the kindest creature in the galaxy.’

Sally smiled. ‘You don’t even know me,’ she whispered into his shoulder.

‘I think I do,’ he told her, raising her hand in his and kissing it. ‘You’ve been here twenty minutes at least, and you haven’t run screaming away from this den of iniquity I purchased. I call that a kindness. Etienne? She’s nothing like my sisters. Can we declare a truce?’

The admiral nodded towards the fireplace and a high-backed chair, where a little puff of smoke plumed. The man in the chair—she could see only his feet—didn’t move or say anything. He cleared his throat and continued to puff.

‘He’s more than usually stubborn,’ Bright whispered.

‘He sounds very much like the old ladies I tended,’ Sally whispered back. She released her grip on the admiral. ‘Let me see what I can do.’ She couldn’t help herself. ‘What is it worth to you, sir?’ she teased.

Before he spoke, the admiral gave her such a look that she felt her stomach grow warm. ‘How about a wedding ring that fits?’ he asked at last, with the humorous look she was used to already, the one that challenged her to match his wit.

‘Solid gold and crusted with diamonds,’ she teased. ‘And an emerald or two.’

Sally picked up a chair at the servants’ table and put it down next to the high-backed chair. She seated herself, not looking at the little man. ‘I’m Sophia Bright,’ she said.

There was a grunt from the chair, but nothing more.

‘Honestly, how can my husband even imagine you can work in this place, with no pots-and-pans girl, and no assistant? What was he thinking? And his sisters? That’s more than even a saint could endure. I shouldn’t be surprised if you have already packed your valise.’

Another puff. Then, ‘I have been thinking long and hard about packing.’

‘I could never blame you,’ she said, shivering a little. ‘Do you have enough bed covering down here? I believe it would be no trouble to find a proper footstool for your chair. I will go look right now.’

That was all it took. The little man got up from his chair and bowed. ‘Etienne Dupuis at your service, Lady Bright. Bah! What would I do with a footstool?’

‘Make yourself more comfortable?’ she asked, keeping her voice innocent. ‘And I will worry about you, shivering down here in the dark.’

In a moment, the chef had pulled down the lamp over the table, lit it and sent it back up. He shook coal into the grate and lit it, then turned to the Rumford. ‘Would madam care for tea?’

‘I’d love some, Etienne, but I know you are a busy man and it isn’t time for tea yet. Besides…weren’t you about to pack?’

‘I will make time,’ he said, bowing graciously again and ignoring her question. ‘I shall have Starkey serve tea on the terrace.’

‘That is so kind of you,’ she said, not daring to look her husband in the eyes. She could see that he had not moved from where she had left him. ‘Perhaps some tea for the admiral, too.’ She leaned closer in a conspiratorial manner. ‘Poor man. It’s not his fault that he has such sisters.’

‘I suppose it is not,’ the chef said, busying himself in the pantry now. ‘They order me about and tell me what to do in my own kitchen! Me!’

Sally tisked several times and frowned. ‘Not any more, Etienne. I am here.’

‘You think you can stop them?’ he asked, waving his hands about.

‘I know I can,’ she answered simply, mentally shouting down every qualm rattling around in her brain. ‘There are no limits to what I would do to preserve the sanctity of your kitchen.’

Dupuis stopped and blew a kiss in her direction. He looked at the admiral. ‘Sir! Wherever did you meet such a gem?’

‘In a hotel dining room, Etienne. Where else?’

The chef laughed and smiled in conspiratorial fashion at Sally. ‘He is such a wit.’ He made a shooing motion with his hands. ‘Zut, zut! Upstairs now!’ He drew himself up. ‘Etienne Dupuis will produce!’

Sally clapped her hands. ‘You are everything my darling husband said, and more! In future, perhaps you would not mind showing me at the beginning of each week what you plan for meals? Just a little glimpse.’

He bowed elaborately this time. ‘I will bring my menus upstairs to your sitting room each Monday. And you might be thinking of your favourite foods.’

Lately it has been anything, Sally thought. I am just partial to eating again. ‘An excellent arrangement,’ she said. ‘This, sir, is your domain.’ She nodded to him, turned on her heel and rejoined her dumbfounded husband. ‘Come, my dearest, let us return to the terrace. I believe I saw some wrought-iron chairs there.’

With a smile, Bright held out his arm to her. ‘Amazing,’ he murmured. ‘My dearest?’

‘He is French and we are newly married. Do you have a better idea?’

The admiral glanced back at the chef, who was watching them, and put his arm around her waist. ‘I rather like it. Sophia, peace is suddenly getting interesting. I thought it never would.’

What he said, whether he even understand or not, went right to her heart. She impulsively put her hands on his shoulders. ‘I do believe I understand you now.’ She said it softly, so Etienne would not hear. ‘You’ve been at loose ends.’

He would have backed off, but she had him. His eyes narrowed. ‘You’re sounding a little like my sisters, Sophia.’

‘I probably am,’ she answered, on sure ground. ‘I am a female, after all. They reckoned you needed a wife. I reckon you just need a purpose. The war is over.’

It sounded so simple that Sally wondered if he would laugh at her nonsense. To her horror at first, tears filled his eyes. ‘My goodness,’ she said softly, when she recovered herself. ‘I’m not so certain you knew that.’

He said nothing, because he couldn’t. She took a handkerchief out of her sleeve and quickly wiped his eyes. ‘There now. We will have to brush old leaves and bird droppings, and heavens knows what else, off those chairs.’

The admiral said nothing as they walked down the hall, but he refused to release her hand, even when Etienne was not around to watch. On the terrace, he sized up the situation and found a piece of pasteboard to brush off the leaves from two chairs. He indicated one with a flourish and she sat down.

That’s what it is, she thought, as she watched him tackle the wrought-iron table. He needs a purpose. I do hope he doesn’t regret his hasty marriage already, because I still need a home.

He sat down beside her. ‘I have never seen anyone deal so quickly with Etienne, and I have known him for years. How did you know what to do?’

‘I believe I discovered the key when I was lady’s companion to what I will charitably call crotchety old women. All they ever needed was someone to listen to them. I listened.’ She put her hand on the admiral’s arm. ‘Don’t you see? In all his years of war and loss, and humiliation, I suppose, at being won in a card game, Etienne’s refuge has been his kitchen. If something threatens it, he goes to pieces.’

The admiral looked at her, making no move to draw away from her light touch. ‘I should just humour him?’

‘What do you lose by humouring him? I doubt he makes many demands.’

He reflected a moment. ‘No, he never has, really.’ He leaned forwards. ‘How do you propose to keep my sisters out of his kitchen?’

‘I’ll bar the door if I have to,’ she replied. Challenged by this man, she leaned forwards, too, until their noses were nearly touching. ‘This is my house, too, now, unless you’ve changed your mind already.’

She sat back then, suddenly shy, and he did the same, but with a half-smile on his face. ‘Change my mind?’ he said. ‘When you have declared that you will be a buffer for my chef, and probably even for me, as well? Only an idiot would change his mind.’

He closed his eyes and turned his face to the sun. ‘Peace,’ he said finally. ‘Sophia, I have missed out on everything in life because of Napoleon—a…a…wife, family, children, a home, a bed that doesn’t sway, clean water, fresh meat, smallclothes not washed in brine, for God’s sake, neighbours, new books from lending libraries, Sunday choir—you name it. I didn’t know how to court, so look what I did.’ He opened his eyes, looked at her and hastily added, ‘About that, be assured I have no regrets, Sophia. One doesn’t become an admiral of the fleet without a healthy dose of dumb luck.’

She was silent a long moment, looking out to sea, wondering what to make of the events of the past two days that had changed her life completely. ‘Perhaps my luck is changing, too.’

‘Count on it, wife.’

She was not so confident to take his assurance for fact. The last five years had shown her all too clearly how swiftly things could change. But then, she reasoned later, why could they not change for the good, too? Maybe the admiral was right.

They spent a pleasant afternoon on the terrace, drinking Etienne’s fragrant tea and eating the biscuits he brought out later, warm and toasted from the Rumford, which must have sprung back to life as soon as they had left the kitchen.

Sally was content to sit on the terrace, even in its shabby, unswept state, because the view was so magnificent. Also, she had no wish to enter the house again. As she sat, she began to think about the ramshackle garden in front of her.

‘Herbs would be nice,’ she commented.

‘Herb’s what?’ he teased.

She rolled her eyes. ‘Were you this much trouble to your sisters when you were young?’

‘Probably.’ He looked where she was looking. ‘Funny. All I see is the ocean and you see the land.’

‘Herbs right there in that closest weedy patch. Lavender, thyme, rosemary. Etienne will thank me. I would put roses there. The possibilities are endless.’

Clouds gathered overhead. When the rain began, the admiral held out his hand to her. ‘Looks like we are forced to go inside. May I suggest the bookroom? I think it is a place the old earl seldom entered, because he never decorated there.’

He was right; the bookroom was bereft of statues or cupids behaving badly. After indicating a chair, he sat down at the desk and took out a sheet of paper. Sally moved closer and uncapped the inkwell. The admiral nodded his thanks, then took up the pen and rested his hook on the paper to anchor it.

‘First things first, Sophia. Name it.’

‘More servants. I will ask Etienne what sort of staff he requires. We should have a downstairs maid, an upstairs maid and a ’tween-stairs girl. Gardeners. Would Starkey like a footman?’

‘Probably. We need painters with copious buckets of paint.’ He stopped and leaned his elbows on the desk. ‘Sophia, how to we find these people? On board ship, I spoke and everyone jumped.’

‘We need a steward—someone who knows the area who can find these people for us.’

He wrote, still frowning. ‘Starkey might think I am infringing on his territory. Still, how do I find a steward?’

Sally thought a moment. ‘We pay a call on your neighbours.’

‘What, and poach from them?’

‘You are a trial, Admiral. I wish I had known this yesterday.’

His lips twitched. ‘I’m not doing this on purpose. I’m out of my depth here.’

‘I repeat: tomorrow we will visit your closest neighbours. You will leave your card, explain the situation—I am certain they are already well aware of what this house looks like—and throw yourself on their mercy. If you are charming, they will provide assistance.’

‘And if I am not?’

‘You are charming, Mr Bright.’ She felt her cheeks grow warm when he looked at her. ‘Do you even know who your neighbours are, sir?’

‘The one directly next to us is an old marquis who seldom ventures off his property. A bit of a misanthrope, according to the real estate agent.’

‘Any other neighbours?’

He gestured vaguely in the other direction. ‘Across the lane is Jacob Brustein and his wife, Rivka. He’s the banker in Plymouth who partners with William Carter. Or did. I think Carter has been dead for years, but the name always gave Brustein some clout. My sisters were appalled.’

She considered this information. ‘Tomorrow morning, we will visit your neighbours.’

He looked at his list. ‘Don’t you need a maid to help you with your clothes?’

Sally shook her head. ‘The dress you saw me in, in the dining room, one cloak, a shawl, a nightgown and this blue dress constitute my wardrobe.’

He dipped the pen in the inkwell. ‘One wardrobe for the lady of the house and suits for me. Then you will need a lady’s maid. A laundress, too?’

She nodded, feeling the pinch of poverty again, even though she sat in a comfortable room. ‘I’m sorry to be a burden.’

He waved the list to dry the ink. ‘Burden? Look at all this sound advice you have given me.’ He reached across the table for her hand. ‘Sophia, pay attention. I am only going to say this once, since the subject of money seems to embarrass you. As much as I disliked Napoleon, I grew rich off of him. This paltry list won’t make much of a dent. It won’t, even when I add a carriage and horses, and a coachman, and someone to clean—whatever you call it—from the stables.’

‘Try muck.’

The admiral tipped back his chair and laughed. ‘Very well! Muck. I can see that your principal task will be to smooth my rough edges.’

‘Very well, sir.’

Starkey knocked on the door, then opened it. ‘Dupuis wanted me to tell you that dinner is served in the breakfast room. I have covered the scabrous paintings.’ He closed the door, then opened it again. ‘Penelope and Odysseus are gone,’ he intoned. ‘Or maybe she was Venus and he a typical sailor.’

Sally stared after him. ‘This place is a lunatic asylum,’ she said, when Starkey closed the door.

‘Not quite, dear wife. You have a worse task ahead, one I won’t even bother to immortalise on paper. You must find me something useful to do.’

That will be a chore, she thought, as she removed her clothes that night in the privacy of her own bedroom. Starkey had made the bed at some point in the evening and lit a fire in the grate, which took away the chill of the rain that continued to fall.

Dinner had been sheer delight. On short notice, Etienne had prepared a wonderful onion soup and served it with homely pilot bread, a menu item she remembered well from the days when Andrew would bring home his work and pore over the Royal Navy victual list, as she sat knitting in their tidy bookroom.

She had felt shy at first with Charles, spending so much time in the company of a man she barely knew, but who was utterly engaging. Thinking to put her at ease, he started telling stories of life at sea—nothing designed to horrify her, but stories of travel to lands so far away she used to wonder if they were real, when she was a child. He told them with gusto, describing the purgatory of being a ‘young gentleman’, a thoroughly unexalted position below midshipman, when he was only ten.

She must have looked askance at such a rough life for a mere child, because he stopped and touched her hand. ‘Don’t worry. I will never send our children to sea so young.’

He had continued his narrative, probably not even aware of his inclusion of her in his life, and she knew better than to say anything. She found herself listening to him with all her heart, filled with the pleasure of something as simple as conversation. She realised she had been hungry for it, after years of tending old women who liked to retire with the chickens. A lady’s companion didn’t quite belong in the servants’ hall, and certainly not in the master’s sitting room. There had been too many nights spent in solitude, with too much time to miss her son and agonise over her husband’s ruin. This was different and she relished the admiral’s company.

He had said goodnight outside the door to her chamber. ‘I’m across the hall, if you need anything,’ he said, then turned smartly on his heel, looking every inch the commander, and probably not even aware of it.

You don’t know what else to be, do you? she thought, closing the door. As for what I need, it isn’t much, Admiral. When you are destitute, you quickly discover how much you don’t need, or you die.

She sat cross-legged on her bed, bouncing a little, pleased to feel the comfort of a mattress thicker than a bandage. She had hung on to the mirror-backed hairbrush Andrew had given her one Christmas, and applied it, after she had taken all the pins from her hair.

She turned over the brush and looked seriously at her face, noting the anxious eyes and thin cheeks, and wondering again why Admiral Bright had even paused to look at her in the dining room. All she could think was that the poor man was desperate for a wife, and when The Mouse didn’t materialise… Well, whatever the reason, she would do her best to smooth his passage on land.

She was in bed and thinking about pinching out the candle when he knocked.

‘Sophia, I forgot something. Stick your hand out the door.’

Mystified, she got up and opened the door a crack. ‘Why on earth…?’ she began.

He had taken off his coat, removed his neckcloth and unbuttoned his shirt; she could see the webbing of straps against his neck that bound his hook to his wrist. He held out a piece of string.

‘I’m determined to do something about that ring that you kept taking on and off during dinner. Did it end up in the soup?’

What a sweet man you are, she thought. ‘You know it didn’t! I can surely just wrap some cloth around it and keep it from slipping off,’ she said. ‘You needn’t…’

‘Mrs Bright, I won’t have my wife stuffing cloth in her ring. What would our unmet neighbours think? Besides, it was my choice for The Mouse. Somehow, it just isn’t you.’

She opened her mouth to protest, but he gently laid his finger across her lips. ‘Mrs Bright, I am not used to being crossed. Retired I may be, but I like my consequence. Hold out your ring finger like the good girl I know you are. Lively now.’

She did as he said. How could she not? He handed her a small stub of a pencil and draped the string across her finger.

‘I don’t have enough hands for this,’ he muttered. ‘Just wrap it around and mark the right length.’

Sally did, touched at his kindness. Their heads were close together, and she breathed in his pleasant scent of bay rum again. ‘There you are, sir.’ She handed him the marked string and the pencil.

He stepped back. She stayed where she was, her eyes on his brace. ‘May I undo that for you?’

‘Why not?’ he said, leaning down a little. ‘Do you see the hole in the leather? Just twist and pop out the metal knob. Ah. Perfect. I can do the rest, but it’s hard to grasp that little thing.’

‘That’s all?’ she asked.

‘Simple enough with two hands, eh? Oh, you can undo my cufflinks, too. This pair is particularly pesky.’

She handed him the cufflinks. ‘Goodnight, sir. Let me know if you need help in the morning.’

He smiled his thanks and went back to his room, closing the door quietly behind him.

She fell asleep easily after that, making it the first night in years she had not rehearsed in her mind all the anguish and humiliation of the past five years. ‘Trust a houseful of naughty cupids and vulgar statues to distract me,’ she murmured to herself. ‘Lord, I am shallow.’ The notion made her smile and she closed her eyes. ‘Pretty soon I will think I actually belong here.’

She woke hours later because she knew she was not alone in her room. She lay completely still, wondering, then turned over.

Staring at her from the other pillow was a face so wrinkled that her mouth dropped open. He was watching her and grinning, and there didn’t seem to be a tooth in his head. She tried to leap up, but he grasped her wrist and gave it a slobbery kiss.

‘It’s been a long year, missie,’ he said.

Sally screamed.

Chapter Six

Retired though he was, Admiral Bright knew he was destined never to sleep at night with both ears at rest. Not even when he resided on his flagship, and had little role in the actual workings of it—leaving that to his captain—could he sleep calmly at night. No, it was worse then, because his command was an entire fleet and he held even more lives in his hands.

He was out of bed before his wife even finished the scream, looking about for something to help her, from what, he had not a clue. Nothing wrong with his reflexes. By the time she screamed again, he had found his cutlass in the dressing room. Frustrated with a missing hand, he shoved the cutlass under his arm and yanked open the door.

Simultaneously, her door opened, too. He heaved a quick sigh to see her on her feet, even though her eyes were wide with terror, and something more. She threw herself into his arms and the cutlass clattered to the floor. She was awfully easy to grasp and hold on to, much as he already was beginning to suspect she would be.

‘What in God’s name…?’ he began. He tried to pick up the cutlass, but she wouldn’t turn him loose. He patted her. She felt sound of limb, so he left the cutlass where it lay, and held her close, not minding a bit.

She burrowed in closer, babbling something that sounded like words; her brogue didn’t help. He put his hand on her chin and gave her a little shake, which brought her up short.

‘Hey, now. Slow down. You’re all right.’

He was gratified to know that all his years of command weren’t a total waste. She stopped talking and took a deep breath, then leaned her forehead against his chest.

‘I think I killed him! And he’s so old!’

He blinked. He couldn’t have heard her right. ‘Sophia?’ he asked. ‘What did you say?’

With an exasperated exclamation, she left his embrace, took his hand and tugged him into her chamber. ‘Admiral, he was just…there! His head on the other pillow! I thumped him with my candlestick, but when I took a closer look…I’ve murdered an old man!’

‘Good God,’ was all he could think to say.

She climbed on her bed, affording him a marvellous glimpse of her legs, then flattened out on her stomach and peered over the edge on to the side closest to the wall. She looked back and gestured to him impatiently, so he joined her, lying there with his feet dangling over one side, looking where she pointed. A true antique lay on the floor, tangled in the bedclothes. His eyes were closed and a bruise rose on his forehead.

‘Do you think he’s dead?’ Sophia whispered.

Maybe the old man on the floor heard her, because he groaned and opened his eyes. ‘Was it something I said?’ he managed to croak. ‘You never did anything like that before.’

Bright glanced at Sophia, who stared at the old fellow. ‘Who…who…on earth are you, and what were you doing in my bed?’

The man held up his arm and Bright helped him into a sitting position. ‘Listen here, this is my wife’s bedroom,’ Bright said. ‘I think I’ve a right to know what is going on.’

The man gently touched the knot on his forehead, winced and looked at the two of them, watching him from the bed. ‘This is the right house, and I know this is June 10th. What, pray tell, are you two doing here?’

Bright looked at Sophia, who had gathered herself together into a tight ball on her pillow. ‘My dear, maybe you were right about this being a lunatic asylum.’

The old man began to wave his arms about. ‘For God’s sake, help me to a chair,’ he insisted. ‘Do I have to remind you it is June 10th?’

Sophia took one arm and Bright took the other, and walked him to a chair by the fireplace, where he sat down gratefully. ‘I could use some water,’ he said.

Bright had to smile when Sophia picked up the carafe at her bedside and started to sprinkle the old gentleman with it.

‘No! No! You silly piece! I want to drink it!’ he declared, his voice still weak, but testy. ‘It’s June 10th!’

‘June 10th?’ Bright echoed. ‘Is June 10th the night when lunatics and drooling idiots in Devon come out of the moor? This is a private dwelling and you have accosted my wife.’

The man stared at them, looking from one to the other and back again, like a tennis match in the court of France. ‘This is the manor of Lord Hudley, is it not?’

‘No, it is not. I bought it two months ago from his estate.’

The little man seemed to deflate further before their eyes. ‘His estate? He is dead?’ He choked out the last word in a way that sounded almost theatrical.

‘These six months or more,’ Bright said. He pulled up the other chair and gestured for Sophia to sit in it. After a long look at the old man, she did. ‘I believe he died in Venice after too much vino, which landed him in the Grand Canal, with nary a gondola in sight.’

‘That would be totally in character,’ the old gentleman said. ‘I wonder why I was never informed?’

‘Are you a relative?’ Sophia asked.

Even in the dim light, Bright could see that her hands were shaking. He put his hand over hers and she clutched him.

Bright wasn’t sure the old boy heard her. He sat back and closed his eyes again. ‘Hudley’s gone?’

‘I fear so,’ Bright said gently. ‘Now, if you wouldn’t mind tell us the significance of June 10th?’

The little man seemed to gather his tattered dignity about him like a dressing gown. ‘You can’t imagine how I used to look forwards to June 10th.’

‘Perhaps I could, if I had any idea what June 10th was.’

‘Hudley held the most amazing debauches here,’ the old man said, his voice almost dreamy. He glanced at Sophia, who glared back. ‘This is my bedroom, missy! Hudley always had my favourite Cyprian tucked right in here.’

Sophia gasped. Bright glanced at her, amused, as her mouth opened and closed several times. He looked back at the old fellow, new respect in his eyes.

‘I know this is rude, but how old are you?’

‘Eighty,’ he said with some dignity, and not a little pride. ‘I have been attending Hudley’s debauches for forty years, every June 10th.’ His eyes got more dreamy, obviously remembering some of the more memorable ones. ‘Do you know—are you aware—that a Cyprian can swing from the chandelier in the library?’ He held up a cautionary finger. ‘But only one unencumbered with clothing. Small feet, too.’

‘I don’t doubt you for a minute, sir.’

What a prodigious old sprite, Bright thought in astonishment. He could feel Sophia’s eyes boring into the back of his nightshirt. I’m going to be in such trouble if I don’t cease this line of enquiry, he thought. ‘I doubt seriously we will ever need to test the strength of the chandelier,’ he said, knowing how lame he sounded. ‘Perhaps we should introduce ourselves? I am Sir Charles Bright, retired admiral of his Majesty’s Blue Fleet. This is my wife, Lady Bright.’

The old man inclined his head as graciously as though he addressed his retainers. ‘I am Lord Edmonds, and I live in Northumberland.’

No wonder you looked forwards to a visit to Devonshire, Bright thought. I would, too, if I lived in Northumberland. You probably dreamed about this all year. ‘I suppose that would explain why you never heard of Lord Hudley’s demise.’

Lord Edmonds was in the mood to reminisce. ‘Sometimes one, sometimes two, sometimes—’

‘That will do, Lord Edmonds,’ Bright interrupted, grateful that the dark hid his flaming face and unwilling to look Sophia in the eye.

Edmonds was unstoppable. ‘You’re a navy man. Don’t tell me you never…’

He floundered, but was rescued by an unexpected source. ‘Lord Edmonds, more to the point right now, how did you get into this house?’ Sophia asked, her hands folded demurely in her lap now, and looking far too fetching in her nightgown, with hair all around her shoulders.

Thank the Lord the old boy was diverted. Maybe he could also see in Sophia what was not lost on Bright. ‘Simple, my dear. Hudley secreted keys all over the terrace. I found my key—mine is under the little statue of Aphrodite with her legs…well, you know…out by the roses.’

‘Oh,’ Sophia said, her voice faint. ‘And there are keys everywhere?’

‘Everywhere,’ Lord Edmonds agreed cheerily. ‘We never had trouble getting in.’

This was the moment when Charles Bright had his first brush with what one of his captains—after a trying time ashore with a pregnant wife—used to call ‘marriage politics’. The fact that he recognised the moment made Bright’s heart do a funny thing. He knew his ship’s surgeon would call such a thing impossible, but he felt his heart take a little leap. Nothing big, but there it was. I can laugh because I want to, and this antediluvian roué is harmless, he thought, or I can think of Sophia, and that sudden intake of breath. Choose wisely, Admiral.

He took a deep breath, knowing that if he laughed, he might as well have waited another day or two for The Mouse. ‘Lord Edmonds, that worries me. Would you mind spending the night here—in a different room, of course—and walk around the gardens with me in the morning?’ He touched Sophia’s cheek, humbled at her tears. ‘I…I won’t have my wife alarmed like this again.’

He swallowed and looked at the woman making herself so small in the chair next to the old man. ‘My dear, I will never let anything like this happen again.’

She only nodded, because Bright could tell she couldn’t speak. The fear in her eyes reminded him how little he knew about women. Bright had no qualms about thanking the Lord for small favours to a man who, mere days ago, would have laughed. I just learned something, he thought, as he smiled at her with what he hoped was reassurance. Pray I remember it.

‘I can recall some of them,’ Lord Edmonds said.

‘Very well, then. How about you and I go belowdecks and see if my chef won’t mind providing us some tea? You might as well go back to bed, Sophia,’ he said. ‘I’ll find a bedroom for our…uh…guest.’

‘Oh, no,’ she declared, getting to her feet. ‘I’m not staying up here by myself!’

Etienne didn’t seem surprised by his early morning visitors; Bright hadn’t thought he would, considering the odd hours they were both familiar with from life in the Channel Fleet. He rubbed his eyes, looked Lord Edmonds over, and even provided some ice chips in a towel for the bump on his head.

Sophia had retreated to her room long enough to find a dressing gown as shabby as her nightgown and twist what looked like a wooden skewer into her mass of hair, pulling it back from her face. He found his own dressing gown, and she had kindly tied the sash without being asked.

She stuck right by his side down the stairs, which gave him the courage to drape his handless arm across her shoulder, hoping it wouldn’t disgust her. It didn’t. She let out a long breath, as though she had been holding it, and gave him a quick glance full of gratitude.

They sat downstairs in the servants’ hall for more than an hour, listening to Lord Edmonds, more garrulous by the minute, describe in glowing detail some of the more memorable revelries in the quiet building. As the clock chimed three, he gave a tremendous yawn. ‘I am ready to hang it up,’ he announced. His eyes turned wistful. ‘Forty years. My dears, when you live in the land of chilblained knees and sour oatmeal, a toddle down to Lord Hudley’s was always an event to look forwards to.’ He winked at Sophia, who by now was smiling. Glancing back at Bright, he said, ‘She’s a tasty morsel. Where did you find her?’

‘In a hotel dining room,’ Bright said, which seemed to be the best answer. Sophia laughed, which told him he had chosen right again.

Lord Edmonds looked at them both, obviously wondering if there was a joke unknown to him, then shrugged. ‘I just need a blanket and a pillow,’ he said, then brightened, ever the optimist. ‘You could let me sleep in the library.’

‘Absolutely not,’ Bright said firmly. ‘My steward has already prepared you a chamber in the room next to me. After breakfast in a few hours, you and I will tour the grounds.’ He held out his hand and wiggled his fingers. ‘I’ll thank you for your key now.’

Lord Edmonds sighed, but surrendered the item. He followed them up the stairs, muttering something about ‘how stodgy today’s youngsters are’, which made Sophia’s shoulders shake. ‘He thinks we are young people,’ she whispered to Bright. ‘Should we be flattered?’

‘I know I am,’ he whispered back. ‘Sophia, you must admit he is a prodigious old goat, to think he was going to thrill some Cyprian! Pray God I am as hopeful, at age eighty.’

‘I don’t have to admit anything of the kind,’ she shot back. ‘I hope you two finds lots of keys tomorrow morning!’

He left Sophia at her door and escorted Lord Edmonds to his. He stood in the middle of the hall, uncertain what to do. The evening had already turned into something disturbingly similar to watch and watch about when he was a lieutenant: four hours on and four hours off, around the clock, at the good pleasure of the gods of war. He looked at Sophia’s door, wondering if she would sleep.

There was a wing-back chair in the hall, rump sprung and removed from one of the bedchambers. He pulled it to Sophia’s door and sat in it, making himself comfortable with his cutlass across his lap. No telling what a randy old goat would do, he reasoned, especially one so intimately acquainted with a ne’er-do-well like Lord Hudley.

He settled himself and closed his eyes.

‘Is that you, Charles?’

She sounded like she was crouching by the keyhole.

Charles, eh? he thought, supremely gratified. ‘Aye, Sophie, my fair Cyprian.’

She opened the door a crack. ‘I think I am safe enough,’ she said, but he caught the element of doubt in her voice. ‘And I am not your “fair Cyprian”,’ she added, for good measure.

He winked at her and closed his eyes. When she still stood there, he opened one eye. ‘Sophia, it’s been many a year since anyone has questioned me.’

‘I’m not one of your lieutenants!’ she flared.

Temper, temper, he thought. It makes your eyes awfully bright. ‘That’s true,’ he said agreeably. ‘You’re oceans prettier. Goodnight, Sophie. If you stand here arguing with me in your bare feet, I will only conclude that war was more peaceful than peace.’

She let out her breath in a gusty sigh. ‘This is a strange household.’

‘I can scarcely wait to see what tomorrow brings.’

She surprised him then, padding back inside her room, then returning with a light blanket. She tucked it around him, cutlass and all, all without a word. The door closed quietly behind her.

When Sally awoke, the rain was gone. She lay there a long moment, her hands behind her head, relishing the quiet. She was hungry, but without the familiar anxiety. She sniffed. Etienne apparently didn’t let his Gallic origins get in the way of an English breakfast. Of course, he had been cooking in the fleet since Trafalgar. She could dress at her leisure, and go downstairs to breakfast on the sideboard. There were no demanding old ladies, no employers to dread, no fears of being turned off and no quarrels about her begrudged wages.

She lay there, knowing she would give it all up for one more moment with Andrew, before the Lords of the Admiralty hounded him to death; another chance to walk with Andrew, Peter between them, as they held his hands and skipped him across puddles. She thought about the two loves of her life, then did something she had never done before: she folded the memory into her heart and tucked it away. There was no pain this time, only a certain softness in knowing how well she had loved, and how hard she had tried.

Sophia dabbed her eyes with the sheet and sat up, listening to voices on the lawn. She went to the window and threw open the casement to look out on the glory of the ocean. She rested her elbows on the sill, eyes merry as she watched Lord Edmonds—looking small and frail in the morning light—and her husband walk among the overgrown bushes, stopping now and then to retrieve keys.

What had frightened her so badly last night made her smile this morning. ‘You didn’t really have to sleep outside my door last night, Charles,’ she said out loud, knowing he couldn’t hear her. ‘But thank you, anyway.’

She turned around and stopped, while the tears came to her eyes again. She must have slept soundly, because the blanket she had tucked around her husband was draped over the foot of her bed. The cutlass lay inside the entrance to her room, as though daring anyone to disturb her. She put the blanket around her shoulders, wishing for that elusive scent of bay rum. All her thoughts yesterday had been of how foolish, how weak she had been to allow a good man to feel so obligated that he would marry her, when he probably could have done so much better.

Her thoughts were different this morning. She relished the notion that of all the people in the world, she had encountered someone who cared enough to help her.

She went to the window again, this time to look at her husband only, walking and listening to an old man. She closed her eyes and opened them. He was still there; she hadn’t imagined him.

Chapter Seven

Lord Edmonds would probably have stayed all week with very little encouragement, but he was gone before lunch, sent on his way in a post chaise which Starkey had engaged, after a short walk to Plymouth.

Bright escorted Lord Edmonds to the chaise and helped him in. He returned to stand beside her on the step, put his arm around her for obvious show and waved to the old bounder.

‘That’s it, that’s it, go away, Lord Edmonds,’ he said out of the corner of his mouth as he smiled and waved.

‘You’re quite good at that,’ she commented. ‘You know, looking as though you are sorry to see him leave.’

‘I’ve had plenty of practice with any number of members of parliament and lords in their chamber who thought they knew more about the management of the fleet than I did,’ he told her. ‘And lately, my sisters have given me ample reason to wish them to the devil.’

She turned to go back inside and stopped. ‘I can’t face that hallway again.’

‘I can’t, either. Let’s go down to the beach.’

She went with him in perfect agreement. He helped her down the wooden steps to the sand below, where the tide was out. As she watched, perched on a well-placed rock, he went to the edge of the tide and threw in ten keys, one at a time, sending them far out to sea.

‘They’ll sink in the sand or be carried further out,’ he told her, wiping his hand on his trousers. He sat beside her on the rock, waiting a moment before he spoke, as though choosing his words. ‘During our walk in the garden, I had told the old rascal that we were newly married. He wondered why we were sleeping in separate chambers.’

‘Oh, dear,’ she murmured.

‘I politely told him it was none of his business. Still…are we going to lie to my sisters? I own it makes me uneasy to prevaricate any more than I already have. Any thoughts?’

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him her real last name, and what had caused her to use her maiden name. One or two breathless sentences would explain the matter, except that she knew the moment for confession has passed. Anything now would paint her as the worst sort of opportunist, and she couldn’t face more recrimination, not after the last five years. ‘No thoughts, really,’ she said, feeling the blush and slow burn of the hypocrite scorch her breasts and face. Maybe he would put it down to the delicacy of the subject.

‘I had planned to tell Fannie and Dora precisely why I was marrying The Mouse, but that would have caused The Mouse humiliation. I know. I know. I should have thought of that before I hatched this silly scheme. Maybe it shows you the level of my desperation.’ He turned to look at her directly. ‘So what are we? Long-lost lovers, or a marriage of convenience? Do we lie or tell the truth?’

She wondered if he was reading her mind, because his eyes had hardened in a way that gave her the shivers. She couldn’t look at him.

He sighed and returned his gaze to the ocean. ‘I just gave you my admiral look, didn’t I? I fear it is second nature, Sophia. If I tell the truth, that’s just humiliation for you, isn’t it?’

She nodded, thinking of times in the past five years she had been humiliated, from the ringing denunciation of her late husband by the Admiralty lords, to the quick glances of former friends, only to have them avoid her, until she disappeared into cheap lodgings.

He was waiting for her to say something. ‘I think you should tell the truth,’ she said, her voice low. ‘Just get it over with. Maybe they will leave you alone then. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?’

He seemed struck by that notion, which surprised her. ‘I suppose it is,’ he said finally, and he sounded disappointed, as though something had changed, but she couldn’t see it. ‘I’m sure you are right. Still…’

After a long, long silence, he nudged her shoulder. ‘Maybe I can manage one more lie,’ he said at last as he stood up and offered her his arm again. ‘Why should you be embarrassed again?’

‘I don’t mind,’ she told him.

‘You should,’ he said. ‘After all, you’re the wife of a retired admiral now and someone of consequence.’

‘I’m a penniless lady’s companion!’ she said, feeling anger flare, where before there had been embarrassment. ‘Who are we fooling, when it is just the two of us?’

He stopped then, took her hand from his arm and clapped his arm around her shoulders for a brief moment, as though trying to squeeze a little heart into her. ‘No, you’re Lady Bright. Humour me. Lady Bright. Sounds perky, doesn’t it?’ He grew serious, matching her mood. ‘We’ll think of something.’

When? she wondered as they went into the house. She made a point to look up at the ceiling, with all the naughty cupids. This kind man has married me. I need to start proving my worth, she told herself. She returned her gaze to the man beside her. ‘Charles, it is time we took the bull by the horns. This house must be painted, and soon.’

‘I know. The neighbours, is it?’

‘The neighbours. We will visit them and ask for advice. We will throw ourselves on their mercy and see if we can poach a bailiff.’

‘Madam, why didn’t I think of that?’

‘Simple,’ she told him. ‘You are used to commanding people. Now it is time to grovel and plead for help. I am going to change into my one other dress and my ugly but serviceable walking shoes.’

‘Just near neighbours,’ he told her a half-hour later, as they went down the front steps.

Sally peered into the bush by the front door. Penelope the Statue was now recumbent, and Starkey was busy on her with a sledgehammer, pounding her into smaller chunks to haul away. ‘That’s a good start,’ she said. ‘We are moving towards respectability.’

‘I wonder if lemon trees would grow in this climate,’ her husband said as they walked down the weed-clogged lane. ‘I would like lemon trees flanking the door.’

‘We can ask our nearest neighbour.’ Sally pointed to the end of the lane. ‘The banker?’

‘Yes. The estate agent apologised over and over for that particular neighbour. He feared I might take exception to settling in the vicinity of a Jew. I assured him I could stand the strain. Hypocrite!’

They came to the end of the lane. ‘Now we stop and look both ways,’ he said, amusement in his voice. ‘Such a quiet neighbourhood! Come, my dear, let us visit our neighbour.’

The lane was far tidier than their own, which the admiral pointed out to her with some glee. ‘I expect the man would like our rutty mire to look more like his entrance. I think the estate agent had it all wrong, Sophie dear; we are the liability.’

‘Speak for yourself, Charlie,’ she teased, happy to see him in more cheerful spirits.

‘Let us be on our best behaviour. You say Jacob Brustein, founding father of Brustein and Carter, is banker to half the fleet? I love this man already.’

He knocked on the tidy door, then pointed to the small box beside the door. ‘It’s a mezuzah, Sophie. If we were Jewish, we would put a finger to our lips and then touch it.’

Sally looked around with interest and envy. While not as large as the ramshackle house across the road, it was everything the admiral’s was not. From the honey-coloured stone, to the trellis of yellow roses, to the delicate lace of the curtains in the front room, she saw perfection. I am too impatient, she thought, as she watched a cat in the window stretch and return to slumber. This effect is achieved over the course of many years.

The door was opened by a pleasant-looking housekeeper. The admiral removed his hat. ‘I am Admiral Bright and this is my wife, Sophia. We have come to call on Mr Brustein, if he is available to visitors.’

‘Come inside, please,’ she said, opening the door wider. Sally could hear the faintest of accents. ‘I will see.’

The housekeeper left them standing in a hall lined with delicate watercolours. ‘This is elegant,’ Sally whispered.

‘Makes our place look like an exhibitioner’s hall,’ the admiral whispered back. ‘At least the parts that don’t look like a brothel.’

‘Hush,’ she whispered, her face flaming. ‘Behave yourself.’

A moment later she heard footsteps, light but halting, and turned to see a leprechaun of a man coming towards them, leaning heavily on a cane, his face lively with interest. He wore a suit even older than her husband’s, and a shawl around that. White hair sprang like dandelion puffs around his head, except where it was held in place by a skullcap. As he came close, she saw that he barely came up to her shoulder. She curtsied; he gave her an answering bow.

‘Well, well. It’s not every day that an admiral comes to call,’ he said, his accent slightly more pronounced than the housekeeper’s. ‘And his pretty lady.’

Charles bowed, then held out his hand. ‘Sir, I am lately retired and I think I am your nearest neighbour. Admiral Bright at your service. This…um…pretty lady is my wife, Sophia.’

‘Charming. Admiral, you have an account with me.’

‘Along with most of the fleet, I think,’ Bright said. ‘Two months ago, I bought that excuse for an estate that has probably been offending your eyes—not to mention your sensibilities—for decades.’

The old man nodded. He gestured them into the sitting room, where Sally had seen the lace curtains. The cat in the window opened one eye and then the other, then left the window to twine around Jacob Brustein. He gently pushed the cat away with his cane. ‘Go on, Beelzebub. If you trip me up, I’ll be less than useless.’

Sally picked up the cat, which went limp in her arms and started to purr.

‘He is the worst opportunist in Devon,’ Brustein said, indicating the sofa. ‘But he brings me mice every day, thinking I am unable to catch my own. One cannot ignore benevolence, in whatever form it takes.’

They sat. Jacob nodded to the housekeeper, who stood at the door, and she left. ‘You have come calling?’

‘We have indeed,’ Bright said. ‘My wife assures me that is what people do on land. Since I have spent the better portion of twenty years at sea, I must rely on her notions of what is right and proper.’

Brustein turned his kindly gaze on her. ‘Then you are probably in good hands.’

‘My thoughts precisely,’ Bright replied.

Sally was spared from further embarrassment by the arrival of the housekeeper, this time with tea and small cakes. She set the tray down in front of Sally, who looked up to smile, and noticed tears in the housekeeper’s eyes. I wonder what is wrong? she thought. She glanced at the old man, who seemed to be struggling, too. Uncertain what to do, she asked, ‘Wou-would you like me to pour, Mr Brustein?’

He nodded and wiped at his eyes.

‘I hope we have not come at a bad time,’ Bright said. ‘We can come another day.’

With that, Brustein took out a large handkerchief and blew his nose vigorously. He tucked it back in his coat, and settled the shawl higher on his shoulders. ‘This is an excellent day. You will understand my emotion when I tell you two that you are my first neighbourhood visitors.’

Sally gasped. ‘Sir, how long have you lived here?’

‘More than thirty years, my dear.’ He indicated the tray in front of her. ‘Would you pour, please? As for the cakes…’ he shrugged ‘…I suppose it is too early for such things.’

It was, but Sally decided she would tug out her fingernails by the roots, rather than embarrass the man. ‘They are very welcome, Mr Brustein.’ She picked up the teapot, determined not to barter with the old fellow’s dignity for one second. ‘One lump or two, sir?’

Brustein looked around elaborately. ‘The housekeeper would insist I get nothing but one. Since I do not see her, three.’

She did as he asked, then looked at her husband, who watched Brustein with a certain tenderness in his eyes that surprised her. ‘And you, Charles?’

He shook his head. ‘None. Just tea. And one cake.’

Their host noticed this exchange. ‘You have not been married long, if your wife does not know your tea habits, Admiral.’

‘True,’ Bright said, accepting the tea from her. ‘Peace allows a man certain privileges he never enjoyed before, or so I am learning, eh, Sophie dear? No one ever visited you? Well, the old rogue across the road was no bargain, so you were none the poorer there.’

‘People have always been willing to bank with us,’ Brustein said, after a sip. ‘But visit?’ He shrugged.

‘I’m embarrassed for my other neighbours,’ Bright said. ‘Shame on them.’

Brustein shrugged again, holding his hands out in front of him in a gesture more eloquent than words. ‘But you are visiting me now, are you not?’

‘We’ll come back, too,’ Sally chimed in. ‘I like your house.’ She laughed. ‘I like any house that doesn’t have naughty cupids on the ceiling!’

Brustein’s eyes widened. ‘I had heard rumours.’

‘All true,’ Bright said. ‘I assure you that I bought the scurrilous place for the view!’

Between the two of them, Sally and her admiral spent the next few minutes describing—in muted tones—the result of one old rogue’s hobbyhorse. The tea level lowered in the pot and the cakes vanished one by one. When they finished, Brustein told them of his arrival in England in 1805 from Frankfurt-am-Main at the request of his cousin, Nathan Rothschild, who had begun his British sojourn in Manchester as a cloth merchant.

‘When Nathan got into the London Exchange, he needed more help, but I found life more to my liking in Devonshire.’ Brustein sat back, and Sally was quick to position his ottoman under short legs. ‘Thank you, my dear. Admiral, she is a treasure!’

‘I know,’ Bright said softly, which made Sally’s face go warm. ‘And she blushes.’ He smiled at her, and was kind enough to change the subject. ‘Do you still go into the office, sir?’

‘Once in a while. I have turned the business over to my sons, David and Samuel. William Carter died several years ago, and we bought out his family. We’ll keep the respectability of the Carter name, though.’

He pulled out a pocket watch then, and gave the Brights an apologetic glance. ‘I must end this delightful gathering,’ he said, the regret obvious in his voice. ‘My wife, Rivka, is not well, and I usually spend most of my morning with her. She will wonder where I have gone.’

‘We wouldn’t dream of keeping you any longer,’ Sally said quickly.

The Brights stood up. Brustein struggled to join them, and the admiral put a hand under his elbow to assist. Jacob Brustein took his arm with no embarrassment.

‘You’re a good lad,’ he said. ‘Can the fleet manage without you?’

‘It had better,’ Bright said, pulling up the shawl where it had slipped from the old man’s narrow shoulders. ‘More shame on me if I didn’t lead well enough to make a smooth transition.’

Brustein hesitated at the door to the sitting room. ‘I wonder—could you both do me a small favour?’

‘Anything,’ Sally said and Bright nodded.

‘My Rivka, she is confined to her bed. It would mean the world to me if you could visit her in her room.’ He patted Sally’s hand. ‘For years, she would prepare tea and cakes for visitors who never came.’

Sally could not help the tears that started behind her eyelids. I did not think I had another tear left, after all that has happened to me, she thought in amazement. ‘Nothing would make us happier,’ she replied, as soon as she could talk.

Helped by one of them on each side of him, Brustein led them upstairs and into an airy room with the windows open and curtains half-drawn. A woman as small as he was lay in the centre of her bed, propped up with pillows. Brustein hurried to her side and sat down on the bed, taking both her hands in his. He spoke to her in a language that sounded like German to Sally. The woman opened her eyes and smiled.

‘Ah, we have company,’ she said in English. She glanced at her husband, her eyes anxious. ‘You gave them tea and cakes?’

‘Delicious tea and cakes,’ Bright said.

Sally took his hand, because his voice seemed almost ready to break. ‘Your husband was the perfect host,’ she said.

Rivka Brustein indicated the chair. ‘Sit, pitseleh, sit,’ she whispered, looking at Sally. ‘Tell me about your new home.’ Her gesture was feeble, but she waved away her husband. ‘Jacob, show this handsome man your collection of globes. I want to talk to the nice lady.’ Her soft voice had a measure of triumphant satisfaction in it that lodged right in Sally’s heart. Wild horses couldn’t have dragged her away.

Twenty minutes was all Rivka Brustein could manage. Her eyes closed and she slept. Gently, Sally released her hand and put it on the snowy coverlet.

She opened her eyes. ‘You’ll come back?’

‘I’ll come back.’

‘Will you read to me?’

Why weren’t the old ladies I tended as sweet as you? Sally thought, as she blew Rivka a kiss from the doorway. ‘I’ll bring a book you will enjoy,’ she said, wondering if anything in her own library—the one the admiral had declared off limits—was fit to read. ‘I’ll find something.’

Rivka slept. Sally closed the door quietly behind her.

Chapter Eight

‘Thirty years, and no one from this neighbourhood has ever visited,’ the admiral murmured as they left the Brustein manor. He looked back at the house to Jacob, who stood in the door. ‘I have to wonder now what revelations are waiting for us at our other nearest neighbour’s domain.’ He patted her hand, which was crooked in his arm. ‘You’re a good girl, Sophie.’

‘I am as shocked as you,’ she said. ‘Such a nice old couple.’ She looked ahead to the much more substantial estate barely peeking through the foliage. ‘Who lives here?’

‘We will probably be above ourselves here, so mind your manners,’ he teased. ‘The estate agent told me Lord Brimley resides here through the summer. He is a marquis, no less.’ Bright stopped. ‘The name rings a bell with me, but I cannot remember why. Brimley. Brimley. Perhaps we shall see. Are you game for another house?’

She nodded. ‘This is certainly more enjoyable than trying to avoid staring at walls in our…your…house.’

He started walking again, then gave her a sidelong look. ‘You were right the first time, Sophie. For all its warts, it is our house.’

I wish I felt that way, but you are kind, she told herself. She wished her face did not feel so hot. Hopefully, the admiral would overlook her embarrassment. ‘That notion will take some getting used to.’

‘Indeed it will.’ He sighed. ‘And we are no further along towards solving the dilemma of finding mechanics to remodel.’

‘And paint,’ she added. ‘Gallons of paint.’

He chuckled and tucked her arm closer. ‘Paint, aye. If I were on my flagship, I would bark a few orders to my captain, and he would pass my bark down the chain of command until—presto!—it was painted.’

Lord Brimley’s estate loomed larger than life, compared to the more modest Brustein manor. They walked slowly down his lane, admiring the faux-Italian ruin that looked as though it had been there since the Italian Renaissance. ‘D’ye think Michelangelo did a ceiling inside the gazebo?’

She nudged him. ‘You know he did not!’

‘Rafael, then. Perhaps Titian?’

‘Oh, you try me!’

He laughed and tucked her hand closer. ‘Let us behave ourselves.’ He leaned down to whisper in her ear as they climbed the shallow steps to the magnificent door. ‘Now if this is a house of the first stare, the butler will open the door even before we… Ah.’

Sally couldn’t remember when she had seen so much dignity in a black suit. Instinctively, she hung back on the last step, but the admiral pulled her up with him.

‘I am Admiral Sir Charles Bright, recently retired,’ her husband said, not in the least intimidated by the splendour before him. ‘This is my wife, and we have come calling upon Lord Brimley. I have recently purchased the Hudley estate, which abuts this one.’

The butler ushered them in, but did not close the door behind him, as if there was some doubt they would be staying long. Bright gave her a sidelong wink, which sorely tried her.

‘I will see if Lord Brimley is receiving callers,’ the butler said. He hesitated one slight moment, as if wondering whether to usher them into an antechamber, at the very least. He must have decided against it. He unbent enough for a short bow and turned smartly on his heel.

‘We don’t rate the sitting room,’ the admiral whispered. ‘I think mentioning “Hudley estate” might have been my first mistake. Perhaps I should have added that Penelope and Odysseus are no longer in heat at the front entrance.’

Sally gasped and laughed out loud. ‘Admiral Bright, I cannot take you anywhere!’

He merely smiled. ‘Madam wife, I am a pig in a poke. I thought it best not to mention the fact until after our wedding. Imagine what surprises await you.’

She would have returned a sharp rejoinder, except the butler returned and indicated in his princely way that they should make themselves comfortable in the sitting room.

‘Our fortunes seem to be shifting ever so slightly,’ Bright murmured when the butler left them alone there. ‘Brimley. I wish I could remember.’

They waited a long while, long enough for Sally to overcome her terrors and walk around the room, admiring the fine paintings. When the admiral began sneaking looks at his timepiece, the door opened to admit Lord Brimley himself. She glanced at her husband, but saw no recognition in his eyes.

‘I am Brimley,’ the man said, inclining his head towards them. ‘Admiral Bright, accept my condolences in the purchase of that miserable estate.’ He smiled at them both, but there was no warmth in his eyes. ‘I can only assume that since you have a wife—and a lovely one, I might add—that you intend to paint the rooms.’

‘I do, my lord, since I wish to keep my wife,’ Bright said. ‘As a seaman not long on land, though, I am a bit at a loss how to find workers.’

‘You need a proper steward.’

‘My wife thinks I need my head examined,’ Bright said frankly. ‘But the view…oh, the view. Can you see the ocean from your estate?’

The marquis did not answer for a long moment. Sally watched in surprise and then consternation as a whole range of emotions crossed his face. ‘I rejoice, Admiral, that I cannot,’ he said finally, as though each word was tugged from his mouth by iron pincers.

She glanced at her husband, noting his frown. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

‘The ocean is not to everyone’s taste, I imagine,’ she said, filling the awkward void.

‘It is not to mine.’

The embarrassing silence was filled by the return of the butler and a maid, who deposited a tray on the small table between them. The marquis indicated Sally should pour, and she did.

They sipped their tea. When the silence was nearly unendurable, the marquis turned slightly to face Admiral Bright. ‘You do not know who I am?’ he asked, his tone frigid.

‘My lord, I do not.’

‘Perhaps you will know this name: Thomas Place.’

Admiral Bright set down his tea cup with a click. ‘I know that name as well as my own, my lord. Was he your son?’

‘My only child.’

‘Lieutenant Thomas Place, Viscount Malden,’ Bright murmured. He stood up and walked to the window and back again, the marquis’s eyes on him. ‘He made sure that none of us would use his title, so he was Mr Place to me. I had to bark at him a time or two, but he was a good lad. I was his captain.’

‘I know you were, Admiral,’ the marquis said, rising to join Bright by the window. ‘I have followed your career with some interest.’ He looked at Sally, and she could see only infinite sorrow in his eyes now. ‘Lady Bright, I hated your husband for nearly twenty years. Until three years ago, as a matter of fact.’

Sally looked at both men, her eyes wide. She tried to interpret her husband’s expression, except that there was no expression now, only the uncompromising gaze of a man caught off guard and righting himself by the greatest of efforts. She rose, or tried to, except that the admiral had returned to her side and was gently pressing down on her shoulder with his one good hand.

‘No fears, my dear,’ he said and leaned down to put his cheek next to hers, for a brief moment. She found the sudden gesture reassuring beyond words and relaxed. He lightened the pressure on her shoulder, but did not remove his hand.

‘Say on, my lord,’ he said, his voice firm and very much in command.

As Sally watched, horrified, the marquis seemed to wilt before her eyes. Her husband must have noticed it, too, because he returned to the man by the window and put his hand under his arm to support him. Without a word, he led the marquis back to his seat. Sally did rise then, and went to sit beside Lord Brimley. If he were one of my old ladies, I would do this, she thought, as she quickly removed her bonnet, set it aside and took a napkin from the tray. As he watched her, his eyes dull, she dipped it in the tea and dabbed gently at his brow. ‘There now, my lord. Do you wish me to summon your butler?’

Her simple act seemed to rouse him. He shook his head. ‘No. No. Bedders would only act like my old maid aunt, and worry me to death.’

‘Your wife then, my lord? Should we summon her?’

‘My dear, she is dead these past three years. And that is what I need to tell your husband.’ He patted the seat on the other side of him. ‘Sit down, lad,’ he ordered, as though there were many more years between them.

‘I…uh…I really don’t know what to say, my lord,’ Bright began, looking mystified.

‘Of course you do not. You never knew us.’

They were both silent. Sally yearned to jump into the conversation. She fought down a fierce urge to defend her husband, an urge so strong that it startled her, considering the briefness of their acquaintance. She looked down and noticed her hands were balled into fists. She glanced up at her husband, who had been watching the gesture, again with that unreadable expression.

The marquis spoke, looking at her. ‘Lady Bright, my son served under your husband on the…the Caprice…was it not? I thought I would never forget. Considering how many years have rolled over the matter, perhaps it is not so surprising.’

‘The Caprice. My first command. We took the ship to the Antipodes. We were not at war with France or Spain then, and our assignment was to ferry a naturalist—one of Sir Joseph Banks’s protégés—to find something called a fairy tern.’

‘You were successful, I believe, at least according to the last letter I ever received from my boy.’ The marquis’s voice broke on the last word, and Sally felt her heart turn over. She took his hand. He offered no resistance to her touch.

‘Yes. We accomplished our orders and were returning to Plymouth,’ Bright said. ‘We needed to take on food and water, so we docked at Valparaiso, not knowing that Spain and England were at war again.’

He paused and gazed out the window for a long moment. ‘And there my boy died in the fight that followed, as you clawed your way out of the harbour,’ Lord Brimley said. He looked at Sally then. ‘Do you have sons, my dear?’

‘None living,’ she whispered. Bright reached across the marquis to touched her hand.

‘I am sorry for you both,’ Lord Brimley replied. ‘I know the feeling. If I thought I could do it and not collapse, I would summon Bedders to fetch the letter of condolence your husband wrote to me, twenty-three years ago. I can quote it: “I am relieved to be able to inform you…”’

He could not go on, but Bright could. ‘“…that your son’s death was quick and painless.”’

The words hung in the room like a powerful stench. The old man raised his head again. ‘Was it a lie? Did you lie to me at such a moment?’

Sally let out the breath she had been holding, her eyes on her husband. She could almost hear the tension in the room humming like a wire stretched taut and snapped.

‘I did, my lord.’

The marquis must have been holding his breath, too, because it came out in a sudden whoosh that made Sally jump. ‘I thought you had, and I hated you for it. I thought you a coward for not having the courage to tell the truth about the last moments of a sterling lad dearer to my heart than any other creature on earth.’

Bright said nothing. He looked at the floor as though wishing it would open and swallow him. It was Sally’s turn to reach across the marquis and touch his hand.

‘Do you want me to tell you?’ he said finally.

‘I thought I did,’ the marquis admitted. ‘When I heard you had retired—oh, yes, I have followed your career—I wanted to ask.’ He shook his head. ‘Not to confront you or berate you, mind you; not after what happened three years ago. But just to know.’

‘What changed your mind three years ago?’ Bright asked.

‘My wife died,’ the marquis said simply. ‘Naturally I was at her bedside through the long ordeal.’ He looked at Sally, tears in his eyes. ‘She was a dear old girl. Do you know what her last words to me were?’

Sally shook her head. He turned his attention to the admiral. ‘Look at me, Bright! Her last words on this whole earth were, “Thank God my boy did not suffer. Thank God!” With a smile so sweet, she slipped from my life.’

He cried then, grasping both their hands. ‘I knew it was a lie, but that lie had sustained my dear one through years of what probably would have been unbearable torment, had she known the truth. I had no idea, until that moment. I decided then that I would not hate you any longer, Sir Charles.’

The quiet in the room was unbroken until the butler opened the door quietly, then closed it. The marquis sat back then, patting their hands. ‘I never thought to have this moment to tell you, at least until the estate agent shared the news of the estate sale. He thought I would be pleased to have good neighbours. And I am.’

Sally looked at her husband, astounded at his composure. Who is this man I have married on such short notice? she asked herself again.

‘I don’t know what to say, my lord,’ Bright said at last. ‘Would you like me to tell you how he died? I have never forgotten.’

The marquis gave him a shrewd look. ‘I doubt you have ever forgotten how any of your men died.’

‘I have not,’ Bright said simply, with the smallest catch in his voice.

‘I thought I wanted to know. For years, I thought I did.’ The old man shook his head. ‘Now I think it does not matter. He is at peace.’

Bright nodded. ‘Let me tell you that he was brave. My surgeon and I sat with him throughout the entire ordeal. That is no lie. He suffered, but he did not suffer alone. Mercifully, towards the end, he went into a coma and was no longer conscious. Any of us in the fleet would have envied the conclusion, my lord, and that is no lie.’

The marquis nodded, and sipped his tea in silence. When he spoke again, he addressed the admiral in a kindlier tone. ‘Look here, lad. What you need is a good steward to make all those onerous arrangements.’ He made a face. ‘I have been in that house a grand total of once, and never took my wife there. You are obviously married to a tolerant lady.’

‘I am realising that more as each day passes,’ Bright said, with a sidelong look at Sally that pinked her cheeks. ‘I fear my credit will not last for ever, though, no matter how charming she thinks I am. A good steward, eh?’

‘Yes, indeed.’ He leaned towards Bright. ‘If you don’t think I am an old meddler, I may have such a fellow. He’s been the under-steward here for several years and I think he is chafing to advance. May I send him your way? On approval, of course.’

‘My lord, I would be honoured.’ He touched Sally under the chin with his hook, which made her smile. ‘And my dear lady would be relieved.’

The marquis turned almost-fatherly eyes on her. ‘Lord, how she blushes! I didn’t know anyone blushed any more.’

They stayed a few more minutes. The admiral shook his head at staying for luncheon. ‘We have overstretched our welcome, Lord Brimley,’ he said in apology. ‘I did want to meet my neighbours, though.’

‘And you will both return, I trust,’ the marquis replied as he rose to his feet. He smiled at Sally, taking her by both hands. ‘Can you not convince your husband to stay for luncheon?’

Sally looked at the admiral, but he shook his head. ‘Not this time, my lord. Please do ask us again, though.’

Bright was silent after they left, looking neither right nor left until they were out of sight of the manor, and any prying eyes. When they turned the bend in the lane, he suddenly sank to his knees. His hat fell off as he leaned forwards. Astonished, Sally knelt beside him, her hand across his back. To her horror, he began to sob.

There was a roadside bench not far from the lane. Murmuring nonsensicals to him, she took him by the arm and helped him there, where he leaned back, his face pale and bleak. ‘You couldn’t manage one more minute there, could you?’ she asked.

He shook his head as the tears streamed down his face. He seemed not to mind that she saw them. What do I do? she asked herself, and then knew the answer. Without a word, she gathered him close to her, saying nothing because she had no words to ease his pain, only her body. She held him close and smoothed down his hair.

‘You haven’t forgotten one of them, have you?’ she asked.

He shook his head, unable to speak. She sat there, the admiral as tight in her arms as she had ever held her son. As she breathed the pleasant scent of his hair, it occurred to Sally that during the whole of his terrible ordeal with the lords of the Admiralty, Andrew had never let her console him, as she consoled this man she barely knew. And look what happened to you, Andy, she thought, as she held Admiral Bright. Maybe you should have done what this man is doing. Look what we have lost.

Chapter Nine

‘You must think me a very big fool,’ the admiral said, his voice still muffled against her breast.

‘I think nothing of the kind,’ she said gently. Truth to tell, she had felt the calculus around her heart loosen a bit. ‘I cannot imagine the burden you have carried through all those decades of war.’

He sat up, taking a handkerchief from his coat pocket. ‘I’m an attractive specimen,’ he murmured, not looking at her. ‘Do I wipe my eyes or blow my nose?’ He cursed unguardedly. ‘Pardon me.’ He pressed the cloth against his eyes, then blew his nose. ‘He caught me broadside, Sophie. I had no idea who Lord Brimley was.’

He looked at her then, embarrassment colouring his cheeks. Without even pausing to think, she touched his face. So quick she barely felt it, he kissed her palm.

‘Wasn’t I the kind man to marry you to lift your burdens?’ he said. ‘Oh, the irony. I don’t suppose you knew what you were getting into.’

‘Did you?’ she asked. Does anyone? she asked herself, feeling suddenly greener than the greenest bride.

They sat there in silence. ‘Penny for your thoughts, Sophie,’ he said finally. He stood up and pulled her to her feet, offering her his arm again as they turned towards their own manor.

She had no idea how to put into words what she was feeling, or if she even understood the emotions that tugged at her like a ship swinging on its anchor. ‘I suppose you are thinking that life on land is complicated.’

‘But what are you thinking?’ he persisted.

‘Precisely that,’ she said, a little surprised at him. ‘I don’t know that I was even thinking about myself.’

‘Thank you, then,’ he replied. ‘I doubt I deserve such attention.’

She was happy he seemed content to walk in silence. I think I have learned something this morning, she told herself as she matched her stride to his—not a hard matter, because they were much the same height. Maybe I am learning that my troubles are not the only ones in the world.

It was something to consider, and she wanted a moment alone to think about it. To her gratification, the admiral asked if she wouldn’t mind spending the afternoon by herself, as he wanted to go down to the beach and think about things. ‘Not at all,’ she told him. ‘Shall I ask Starkey to serve you luncheon on the beach?’

He nodded. ‘Have him put it in a hamper. You don’t mind?’

‘I just said I didn’t,’ she assured him. ‘Charles, if we are to rub along together, you need to take me at my word.’

‘I suppose I must,’ he agreed.

She ate her luncheon on the terrace, which Starkey had swept clear, then went upstairs to count the sheets in Lord Hudley’s linen closet—prosaic work that suited her mood. Thank goodness he had an ample supply was her first thought, then she blushed to think of all the activity on all the beds in the manor, at least once a year, when he held his orgies. No wonder he had sheets, and good ones, too. It was the same with pillowslips and towels. The old rascal practically ran a hotel for geriatric roués just like him.

The admiral hadn’t returned by dinner. After a solitary meal in the breakfast room, she asked Starkey about it.

‘He likes his solitude, ma’am, when he’s troubled,’ Starkey said.

She could tell by the look he gave her that Starkey considered her at fault for the admiral’s mood. Let him think what he will, she decided, after an evening alone in the sitting room, where she made lists of projects for the house and tried to ignore the cupids overhead, with their amorous contortions.

To her bemusement, she did not sleep until she heard Bright’s footsteps on the stairs. She sat up in bed, her arms around her knees, as she heard him approach her door, stand there a moment, then cross the hall to his own room. She lay down then, wondering if he had changed his mind about their arrangement. She knew he was embarrassed about his tears and doubted he had ever cried in the presence of anyone, much less a woman. ‘Well, I cannot help that,’ she murmured prosaically, as she composed herself for sleep.

She wondered if she would sleep, considering last night’s adventure with the old gentleman from Northumberland. Hopefully, he was well on his way home. What was that he had called her—‘his fair Cyprian’? She smiled to herself, pleased that for one night at least, she was not thinking of ruin or poverty, or where her next meal was coming from.

She woke in the morning to the sound of noise downstairs, and men talking and laughing as they hammered. She sat up and rubbed her eyes at the same moment the admiral tapped on her door.

‘Come in, sir,’ she said, wishing for a small moment that her nightgown was not so thin from repeated washings.

She shouldn’t have worried. In his nightshirt and dressing gown, the admiral was as shabby as she was. It was an elaborate gown, though.

‘My stars, did you find that in the court of the Emperor of Japan?’ she asked, by way of greeting.

He carried a tea cup and saucer. She noticed he had not put on his hook yet, and his left sleeve hung over his wrist.

‘You’re close,’ he said, as he nudged the door shut behind him and came to her bed. To her surprise, he told her to shift her legs and sat down. He handed her the cup. ‘I was given this bit of silk and embroidery by the Emperor of China, whose name I cannot at the moment remember, but who had a fondness for the otter pelts I had brought him from a quick raid up the coast of New Albion. I have no idea what those Yanks call it now. But that was years ago, and it is scarcely fit for more than the dust bin.’

Amused, she sipped her tea. He watched her, a smile in his eyes. ‘You look extraordinarily fine in the early morning,’ he said. ‘I didn’t know your hair was so curly.’

‘I usually have it whipped into submission by this time,’ she replied.

‘Well, that’s a shame,’ he told her. ‘I rather like it this way.’ He touched one of her curls, wrapping it around his finger. He didn’t seem at all uncomfortable and she decided she liked it.

She wasn’t sure why he had come into her room, because he seemed content to just sit on the bed while she drank her tea. She heard a thump from downstairs, grateful that it gave her something to ask him.

‘Sir, what is going on down there?’

Her question seemed to remind him. ‘Aye, madam wife, I did have a reason to come in here. Lord Brimley is not wasting a moment to help us. He has sent over an army of workers who are, as we speak, rigging up scaffolding in the sitting room, with the sole purpose of ridding us of randy cupids.’ He leaned closer and again she breathed his bay rum. ‘Mrs Bright, think how pleasant it will be to embroider in your sitting room and not worry about what those imps are doing overhead.’

She could tell his mood had lifted. ‘You feel better,’ she said.

He leaned even closer until his forehead touched hers. ‘I do, madam. Thank you for allowing me solitude.’

‘You only have to mention it and I will understand,’ she said softly, since his face was so close to hers. ‘That is our arrangement.’

Maybe an imp had escaped from the carnage in the sitting room below. For whatever reason, the admiral raised her chin and kissed her lips. ‘I’m not very good at this, but I am grateful for your forbearance,’ he told her, when his lips were still so close to hers.

On the contrary, he was quite good. In fact, she was disappointed that he did not kiss her again. He’s learned that somewhere in the world, she thought, as she sat back, careful not to spill her tea into his lap, since he sat so close.

And there they sat, eyeing each other. Sally felt herself relax under his gaze, which was benign. The imp must have still been in the room, because she found herself saying, ‘I like it when you bring me tea in the morning.’

‘I like it, too,’ he said, his voice as soft as hers, almost as if he felt as shy. ‘It could become a habit.’ He dispelled the mood by flapping his empty sleeve at her and getting to his feet. ‘If you are equal to the task, I thought we would abandon Chez Bright today and go to Plymouth. The under-steward that Lord Brimley sent is a paragon, and he so much as informed me in such a polite way, that I am a supernumerary.’ He ruffled her hair, which made her laugh. ‘So are you, madam. If we intend to cut a dash in the neighbourhood, we had better get ourselves some clothing that doesn’t brand us as vagrants or felons.’

‘I am certain you do not pay Starkey enough,’ Sally told Bright as they settled back into a post chaise that the butler had arranged to convey them to Plymouth.

‘You are most likely correct,’ he replied. ‘To show you the total measure of his devotion to me, he even enquired to find the most slap-up-to-the-mark modiste in Plymouth. His comrades in the fleet would never believe such a thing. Starkey is normally quite a Puritan.’

He hoped his wife would pink up at this news, and she did, to his pleasure. Amazing how a woman teetering on the other side of thirty could blush at the mention of a modiste, and still manage to maintain her countenance in a roomful of cupids doing things some people didn’t even do behind bolted doors. He did not pretend to understand women. Looking at the pretty lady seated across from him, he thought it politic not to try. Better to let her surprise him with her wit, and most of all, her humanity. He was beginning to think the most impulsive gesture of his life was shaping into the best one.

The first thought on her mind, apparently miles ahead of new clothes, was to seek out a bookshop. ‘I want to find something to entertain Mrs Brustein,’ she explained, as he handed her down from the chaise. ‘I intend to visit her as often as I can, and read to her.’

Even on the short few days of their acquaintance, he already knew it would be fruitless to pull out his timepiece and point out that they were already late to her modiste’s appointment, but he tried. She gave him a kindly look, the type reserved for halfwits and small children, and darted into the bookshop. Knowing she had no money, he followed her in, standing patiently as she looked at one book, and then another.

He knew he had been attracted by her graceful ways, but his appreciation deepened as he admired the sparkle in her eyes. He wasn’t entirely certain when the sparkle had taken up residence there, but it might have been only since early morning, when he had screwed up his courage and knocked on her door, bearing tea. His dealings with women had informed him early in his career about the world that few women looked passable at first light. Sophie Bright must be the exception, he decided. She was glorious, sitting there in bed in a nightgown too thin for company, if that was what he was. The outline of her breasts had moved him to kiss her, when he wanted to do so much more.

And here she was in a bookshop, poring over book after book until she stopped, turned to him in triumph and said, ‘Aha!’

He took the little volume from her and glanced at the spine. ‘Shakespeare and his sonnets for an old lady?’

‘Most certainly,’ his wife said. ‘I will love them until I die, and surely I am not alone in this. Have you read them, sir?’

He wished she would call him Charles. ‘Not in many years,’ he told her. ‘I am not certain that Shakespeare wears well on a quarterdeck.’

She surprised him then, as tears came to her eyes, turning them into liquid pools. ‘You have missed out on so many things, haven’t you?’ She had hit on something every man in the fleet knew, and probably few landsmen.

‘Aye, madam wife, I have,’ he said. He held up the book. ‘You think it is not too late? I am not a hopeless specimen?’

She dabbed at her eyes, unable to say anything for a moment, as they stood together in the crowded bookshop.

He took her arm. ‘Sophie, don’t waste a tear on me over something we had no control over. I saw my duty and did it. So did everyone in the fleet.’ He paused, thinking of Lord Brimley’s young son, dead these many years and slipped into the Pacific Ocean somewhere off Valparaiso. ‘Some gave everything. Blame the gods of war.’

She is studying me, he thought, as her arm came around his waist and she held him close. I try to comfort her and she comforts me. Did a man ever strike a better bargain than the one I contracted with Sally Paul? Bright handed back the book. He gave her a shilling and returned to the post chaise, unable to continue another moment in the bookshop and wondering if there was any place on land where he felt content.

Maybe he was not so discontent. He watched his wife through the window as she quickly paid the proprietor, shook her head against taking time to wrap the sonnets in brown paper and hurried back to the chaise.

‘I’m sorry to delay you,’ she said, after he helped her in. ‘I don’t intend to be a trial to a punctual man.’

He held out his hand for the book. ‘Do you have a favourite sonnet?’ He fanned the air with the book. ‘Something not too heated for a nice old lady?’

To his delight, she left her seat on the opposite side of the chaise and sat next to him, turning the pages, her face so close to his that he could breathe in the delicate scent of her lavender face soap.

‘This one,’ she said. ‘Perhaps Mr Brustein will want to read this one to her: “Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws, and make the earth devour her own sweet brood…”’ She shook her head. ‘It’s too sad.’

He brushed away her fingers and kept reading. ‘Sophie, you’re a goose. This is an old man remembering how fair his love once was, but that doesn’t mean he’s sad about the matter.’ He kept reading aloud, thinking of the woman beside him, wondering how she would look in twenty years, even thirty years, if they were so lucky. I believe she will look better and better as time passes, he thought. ‘Sophie, Mrs Brustein cannot argue with this: “Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong; My love shall in my verse ever live young.”’

Charles looked at his new wife, the hasty bargain he made without much thought, beyond an overpowering desire to keep his sisters from meddling in his life. Shakespeare could say it so well, he told himself. You will always be young, too.

She looked at him in such an impish way that he felt the years fall away from him, too, much as from the sonneteer. ‘There, now,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t Shakespeare read better at forty-five than he did when you were ten and forced?’

She was teasing him; at the same time he was wondering if he had ever felt more in earnest. I will frighten her to death, he thought. This is a marriage of convenience. ‘You know he does!’ Charles handed back the book. ‘You and Mrs Brustein can sniffle and cry and wallow over the verses, and I doubt a better day will be spent anywhere.’

Sophie tucked the book in her reticule. He thought she might return to her side of the chaise, but she remained beside him. ‘Perhaps when we finish the sonnets, we will graduate to Byron. I will wear thick gloves, so my fingers do not scorch from the verse,’ she teased. She nudged his shoulder. ‘Thank you for buying this.’

‘Anything, my dear wife, to further our connections in the neighbourhood,’ he said. ‘After years of riotous living coming from that house we laughingly call home now, we have a lot of repair work to do.’

As the chaise stopped in front of Madame Soigne’s shop, he knew he had been saved from blurting out that he would prefer she read to him. A man can dream, he told himself, picturing his head in Sophie’s lap, while she read to him. A pity Shakespeare never wrote a sonnet about old admirals in love. No, well-seasoned admirals. I can’t recall a time when I have felt less ancient.

She hesitated in the doorway, hand on the doorknob, and looked back at him, which must have been his cue to join her and provide some husbandly support.

‘Cold feet, madam wife? I expect you to spend lots of money. In fact, I am counting on it.’

Still she hung back. ‘A few days ago, I didn’t even have any thread to sew up a hole in my stockings.’ She let go of the doorknob. ‘You know, if I go to a fabric warehouse and buy a couple of lengths of muslin, I can sew my own dresses.’

Charles put her hand back on the doorknob. ‘You don’t need to! Don’t get all Scottish on me.’ He turned the knob and gave her a little boost inside, where Madame and her minions stood. From the look of them, they had nothing on their minds except the kind of service it was becoming increasingly obvious that his wife was not accustomed to. Sophie looked ready to burst into tears.

He took her about the waist with his hooked arm, which gave him ample opportunity to tug off her bonnet with his bona fide hand and plant a kiss on her temple. ‘You can do this. Be a good girl and spend my money.’

He left her there, looking at him, her face pale. He turned to the modiste, who was eyeing Sophie with something close to disbelief. ‘She’s Scottish and doesn’t like to spend a groat. Whatever she agrees to buy, triple it.’

‘Charles!’

He liked the sound of that. He tipped his hat to her and left the shop.

Chapter Ten

When he returned, all measured for shirts and trousers and coats, Sally was waiting for him inside the shop, calmer now and drinking tea. She watched him through the window with Madame Soigne.

‘I don’t know how one man can appear so pleased when he knows I have been spending his money,’ she commented.

The modiste looked through the window, where the admiral was getting out of the post chaise. ‘How can you tell he is pleased?’ she asked, squinting. ‘He looks rather stern to me.’

‘The way his eyes get small and kind of crinkle,’ Sally said. ‘The lines around his mouth get a little deeper.’

‘If you say so,’ Madame replied dubiously. She brightened. ‘Bien, you would know, would you not? He is your husband, and you have had years and years to study him.’

Good God, Sally thought, setting down the cup with a click. I have known the man three days and she thinks we are an old married couple? This is a strange development. ‘I…I suppose I have,’ she stammered, not sure what else to say.

The door opened. She felt a curious lift as his eyes got smaller and he smiled at her. He nodded to the modiste. ‘Did she spend lots and lots of my blunt, Madame?’ he asked. ‘Mais oui! Just as you wished,’ the modiste declared, and ticked them off on her elegant long fingers. ‘Morning dresses, afternoon dresses, evening dresses—she would only allow one ball gown—a cloak, a redingote, sleeping gowns, a dressing gown…’

‘When might these garments be ready?’ He handed over a wad of notes so large that Sally couldn’t help a small gasp.

Madame tittered and accepted the king’s ransom gracefully. ‘Oh, you seamen! I will put all my seamstresses to work. Soon, Admiral, soon!’

Bright bowed. ‘Madame Soigne, if you had been Napoleon’s minister of war in the late disturbance, he would not have lost.’ He held out his hand to Sally. ‘Come, my dear. We now have to search for enough domestics to puff up our consequence in the neighbourhood. Madame Soigne, we bid you good day.’

There didn’t seem to be any point in sitting across from him, not when he held her arm and plopped her down beside him. Besides, she had a confession. ‘I had better make a clean breast of it,’ she told him, as the chaise pulled away from the curb. ‘Madame Soigne also sent for a milliner and a shoemaker.’

‘I am relieved to hear it,’ he remarked. ‘I call that efficiency.’ He must have used her wry expression as an excuse to keep his arm around her. ‘You sound like a tar on shore leave! Spend it all in one go and chance the consequences!’

‘I call it a huge expenditure,’ she lamented.

He refused to be anything but serene. ‘Sophie dear, your duty is to rid me of sisters. That is no small task and it will require ammunition. You are dealing with ruthless hunters, who will stop at nothing. I consider you a total bargain.’

She looked at his face, noticed the crinkles around his eyes. ‘You are quizzing me! I think you are shameless.’

He threw back his head and laughed. ‘You think I exaggerate?’

‘I know you do,’ she said, trying not to smile. ‘Were you this much trouble in the fleet?’

‘This and more, but I achieved results,’ he assured her. ‘I do believe I will add to your duties, as well, my dear, since you feel I have done too much by clothing you in a style to suit my consequence. You’re going to be charming the Brusteins with Shakespeare and helping slap my house into submission. Yes, you may find me something to do, while you’re at it. Can you see me sitting on my thumbs this winter?’

‘I cannot,’ she agreed. ‘I believe I will earn that wardrobe!’

He hugged her tighter, then released her. ‘Laugh like that more often, Sophie. It becomes you.’

‘I am not so certain I had much to laugh about,’ she said frankly.

‘Then maybe your fortunes have turned,’ he said, equally frank.

Maybe they have, Sally decided, after luncheon at the Drake. She knew they had, when they came to the employment registry, and there sat the same pale governess she had shared the bench with only days ago. I could still be sitting next to her, she thought, giving the woman a smile.

Her smile turned thoughtful. She took her husband by the arm, which made him look at her with an expression that made her stomach feel deliciously warm. She walked him outside, grateful they were much the same height, so there was no need to tug on his sleeve like a child.

‘Charles.’ His name still sounded so strange on her lips, but she knew he enjoyed it. ‘Charles, that lady is an out-of-work governess. She came with me on the mail coach from Bath, and see, she is still sitting here.’

‘Times are hard,’ he pointed out. ‘After the tailor measured me—Lord, but he got personal with my parts—I walked down to the harbour and found any number of seamen begging, or leaning against buildings and trying not to beg. Peace is well enough, I suppose, but it certainly throws people out of employment. Do we need a governess? Is there something you are not telling me?’

Sally knew he was quizzing her, but she felt a wave of guilt pass over her, as she wished it was not too late to tell him her former name. He was teasing her, but his eyes were kind. All I can do is go on, she told herself.

‘I know we have no need of a governess! When my clothing comes, I will need a dresser.’ She leaned closer to him, not wanting to be overheard. ‘May I at least ask her if she is interested in the position? I know how she feels, sitting there. I wonder if she is as hungry as I was.’

‘Certainly you may ask her.’ He walked a few steps with her, away from the registry. ‘And you might as well know I hired several of those seamen on the docks to help Starkey do whatever it is he does so well; peel potatoes for Etienne, if he needs it; and assist my new steward in ridding the house—our home—of cupids in flagrante.’ He patted her hand. ‘I suppose we are both easy marks. Too bad I didn’t know about this character flaw in you sooner.’

She leaned against his shoulder. ‘Yes, Admiral! I suppose one of us should be surly and grim, to make this marriage a success.’

‘Admiral, is it?’ He winced elaborately, then grew serious. ‘Sophie, there were months on end, maybe years, when I was grim. As for surly, you may ask any number of my subalterns. I hope those days are over. I know how much those men on the docks sacrificed for England. It gave me a real pleasure to hire them.’

She nodded. ‘Then I suppose we are two fools. I will go ask her.’

‘Suppose she cannot iron or make good pleats?’ he asked, back to his light-hearted remarks.

‘Then you will have to love your useful wife wrinkled,’ she retorted, pinking up as she said it. ‘I can show her how to iron,’ she added honestly. ‘I have never had a dresser.’

Her name was Amelia Thayn. After a long look at Sally, during which her eyes filled with tears, she nodded. ‘Lady Bright, I am no expert with clothing. I am a governess.’

‘I know that. I have never had a dresser before. I suggest that we will figure this out as we go along. And if you wish to keep looking for governess positions, while you are working for me, I have no objections.’

‘You would do that?’

‘Of course she would. My wife is kindness personified.’

Sally looked at the door, where her husband stood. So are you, she thought. ‘It seems only logical,’ she told Miss Thayn. ‘I know you would rather be a governess, but these are hard times.’

They settled on a wage, and Sally left Miss Thayn there to collect her thoughts while she spoke with the employment agent about an upstairs maid, a downstairs maid, a maid of all work and a laundress. He promised to select the best he had and send them to her tomorrow. When she returned to the antechamber, the governess was ready to go.

‘I owe a shilling to the landlady at the Mulberry Inn,’ she said, keeping her voice low, as red spots burned in her cheeks. ‘There is also the matter of…of several books I have pawned.’

At least you were not sleeping in churches, Sally thought, as they stood in the antechamber, as close to tears as her newest employee.

Admiral Bright came to her rescue. He handed several coins to Miss Thayn, who stumbled over her gratitude. ‘Call this a bonus for coming to work in a den of iniquity! Settle up your affairs and come to the registry by nine of the clock tomorrow. This post chaise will conduct you and our other female workers to our house. You will be in charge.’ He turned to Sally. ‘My dearest, explain our home to this nice lady while I talk to the coachman.’

She did and was rewarded with a faint smile. ‘The house is being painted, but it will require more paint in more rooms, I fear,’ Sally concluded, as the admiral returned to them and helped them into the post chaise. ‘Now we will take you to the…the Mulberry, you say?’

‘I can walk there, I assure you,’ Miss Thayn said.

‘What, and not allow us to puff up our consequence?’ Bright said. ‘Really, Miss Thayn!’

Subdued into obedience by the admiral’s natural air of command, which Sally knew she could never hope to alter, should she be given that task, Miss Thayn unbent enough to lean back in the chaise. She closed her eyes and gave a long sigh that sounded suspiciously like profound gratitude.

They deposited Miss Thayn at the Mulberry and listened to more profuse thanks. When they started east towards the coast, they passed a shabby inn rejoicing in the name of the Noble George. Sally took her husband’s hand. ‘Please stop here a moment.’

The admiral leaned out the window and spoke to the coachman. ‘Now what, my dear?’ he asked. ‘It must be something clandestine. You’re looking rosy again, Lady Bright.’

‘Charles, you are the limit,’ she said. ‘When I was looking so hard for work myself, I came here to ask if they needed kitchen help.’ She put her hands to her warm face. ‘The landlord was a horrible man. He leered at me and told me if I wanted to work in his kitchen, he would turn out his little pots-and-pans girl and make room for me, if I wanted to supply other…services.’

‘Bastard,’ the admiral said mildly. ‘I’m only being so polite because you really don’t want to hear what I’m actually thinking. Shall I call him out and hit him with my hook? A few whacks and he would be in ribbons.’

‘No! I want to hire that child to help Etienne. No telling what other demands that odious man has placed on her.’

‘How old do you think she is?’

‘Not above eight or nine.’

‘Good God. I’ll go in with you,’ he said, his face dark.

He did, glowering at the landlord in probably much the same fashion he had cowed faulty officers, during his years as admiral. Sally felt considerable satisfaction to see how quickly the man leaped to Admiral Bright’s mild enough suggestion that he produce the pots-and-pans girl immediately, if he knew what was good for him. As she waited, and the landlord hemmed and hawed, and looked everywhere but at the admiral, Sally reminded herself never to get on the ugly side of her husband.

When the girl came upstairs, grimy and terrified, she seemed to sense immediately who would help her, and slid behind Sally, who knelt beside her. The landlord tried to move forwards, but Charles Bright stepped in front of Sally and the scullery maid.

‘That’s far enough,’ he said. His voice was no louder than ever, but filled with something in the tone that made the landlord retreat to the other side of the room.

Slowly, so as not to frighten the child, Sally put her hand on a skinny shoulder. ‘I am Lady Bright and this is my husband, Admiral Sir Charles Bright.’

The scullery maid’s mouth opened in a perfect O. She gulped.

‘I have been hiring maids to work in my house. I need a scullery maid, and think you would suit perfectly.’

‘M-m-me?’ she stammered.

‘Oh, yes. You might have to share a room with another maid in the servants’ quarters. Would that be acceptable?’

‘A room?’ she asked, her voice soft.

‘Yes, of course. Where do you sleep now?’

The little girl glanced at the landlord and moved closer to Sally. ‘On the dirty clothes in the laundry,’ she whispered.

Sally couldn’t help the chill that ran through her spine. In another moment, Charles was beside her, his hand firmly on her shoulder.

‘We’ll do better than dirty clothes,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’

She shrugged, and scratched at her neck. ‘General, they called me Twenty, because they thought I wouldn’t live too long in the workhouse.’

Sally bowed her head and felt Charles’s fingers go gentle against her neck.

‘We’ll find you a good name, Twenty,’ he said. ‘Will you come with us? Don’t worry about him. Look at us.’

‘I’ll come,’ she whispered.

‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘Now, is there anything you want to fetch from your…from the laundry room? Lady Bright will go with you, if you’d like.’

‘Nuffink,’ was all Twenty said. She tugged at her over-large dress and patted it down with all the dignity she could muster. ‘I’m ready now.’

‘Very well, my dear,’ Charles said, his voice faltering for only a split second. ‘Go with this extra-fine lady to the chaise out front. I will have a few words with your former employer. Go on, my dear.’ He glanced behind him at the landlord. ‘I promise not to do anything I will regret.’

That worries me, Sally thought, If you thrashed him, I doubt you would regret it. She shepherded the scullery maid into the street, quickly boosting her into the chaise, where she looked around, her eyes wide.

‘Cor, miss,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve never ridden in one of these!’

‘We’re going a few miles away to my husband’s estate, where you will work for a French cook. He will treat you very well. So will we.’ Sally could barely get the words out, as she watched tears slip down the child’s face, leaving tracks through the grime.

She smelled abominably, but Sally hugged her and sat close to her. In a few minutes, her husband joined them. He sat opposite them.

‘Twenty, I asked your former employer for your back wages. He was a little forgetful at first, but eventually he remembered that he owed you this. Hold out your hands.’

He poured a handful of pence in the astounded child’s hands. They spilled through on to her dress, which she stretched out to receive them. ‘When we get home, I will ask Etienne to find you a crock to keep them in.’

She nodded, too shy to speak, and edged closer to Sally, who put her arm around the girl. Finally, it was too much, and she burst into noisy tears. Disregarding her odour and dirty clothes, Sally pulled her on to her lap, whispering to her until she fell asleep. When she slept soundly, Sally put her on the seat and rested the scullery maid’s head in her lap.

‘That landlord told me she hadn’t earned a penny because she kept breaking things and stealing food,’ Charles said, his voice low. ‘Perhaps Wilberforce should look closer to home, if he wants to see the slave trade.’ He leaned forwards and tapped Sally’s knee with his hook. ‘You’re quite a woman, Mrs B.’

She looked at him, shabby in old civilian clothes years out of fashion because he had never been on land for most of two decades. His hair could have used a barber’s shears, and he probably hadn’t been standing close enough to his razor this morning. There was steel in him, and a capability that made her want to crawl into his lap and sob out every misery she had been subjected to, like Twenty. All those years at sea, spent protecting his homeland, seemed to be reflected in his eyes.

‘Thank you,’ was all she said.

Starkey was aghast to see what they had brought home with them, but Etienne didn’t bat an eye. In no time, he had water heating for a bath. When the water was ready, and Twenty eyeing it with considerable fear, he appeared with a simple dress.

‘This was in a trunk in the room I am using,’ he said. ‘Here are some shears. Hold it up to her and cut it to size. That will do for now.’

‘Etienne, you’re a wonder,’ Sally said, as she took the bit of muslin and wondered which Fair Cyprian had worn it.

Twenty’s protests died quickly enough, when she saw there was no rescue from a bath, followed by a pine tar block that barely foamed, but which smelled strong enough to drive away an army of lice. Her hair was already short. Trapping the towel-draped scullery maid between her knees, Sally trimmed and then combed her hair until it was free of animal companions.

Dressed in the hand-me-down, Twenty stood still for a sash cut from a tea towel, and then whirled in front of the room’s tiny mirror. She stopped and staggered after too many revolutions, and flopped on the bed, giggling.

‘I’ll have something better made for you soon,’ Sally told her.

‘I couldna ask for more, miss,’ she said, and it went right to Sally’s heart. I’m not sure I could, either, she thought.

There were two small beds in the little room. While Sally made up one, over Starkey’s protests that he could do it, Twenty sat at the table in the servants’ hall and ate a bowl of soup, not stopping until she had drained it. Sally looked over to see Etienne struggling with his composure as he handed her a small roll, and followed it with two more. When Twenty finished, she yawned, moved the bowl aside and put her head on the table. In less than a minute, she slept. She woke up in terror and cried out when Starkey picked her up, but settled down when Sally took her in her arms and carried her into the little room. She sat beside the bed until Twenty slept.

‘She doesn’t have a name, Etienne,’ Sally said, when she came into the servants’ hall. ‘She is your pots-and-pans girl. You should name her.’

‘Vivienne, after my sister?’ he said decisively. ‘Vivienne was her age when she died. It is a good name.’

‘Very well. You can tell her in the morning.’

She went upstairs slowly, tired in body, but more in mind. Etienne said he would bring supper soon, but she craved company more than soup or meat. She looked in the sitting room and up at the ceiling, which had been painted a sedate soft white.

‘Starkey said it’s only the first coat,’ the admiral said from the sofa, where he sat with his shoes off and his feet out in front of him. ‘You can tell them tomorrow what colour you would like.’

It was utterly prosaic, but she burst into tears anyway, and soon found herself burrowed in close to the admiral, his arm about her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she managed to gasp, before a fresh wave of tears made her shoulders shake.

‘Oh, belay that,’ he murmured. ‘Is she going to be all right?’

She nodded, taking the handkerchief he held out with his hook. ‘I don’t know. Can we send for a physician tomorrow? When she was in the bath, I noticed her private parts… Oh, Charles, they’re all inflamed. Do you think that horrible man…?’ She couldn’t say any more. He held her close.

‘The physician will sort her out,’ he said, his voice hard. ‘Too bad I cannot have that man flogged around the fleet until the skin comes off his back in tatters.’

She shuddered. ‘You’ve done that?’

‘That and more, and for less offense, Sophie,’ he said. He put his hand over her eyes, closing them. ‘Don’t think about it. The best thing that happened to Twenty was you.’

‘Her name is Vivienne. Etienne named her.’

She sighed, happy to close her eyes behind his hand. He kissed the top of her head and cradled her against his chest.

‘It’s a tough world, my dear,’ he said.

‘Not here, not in this decrepit den of thieves,’ she said softly. ‘I’d like a very soft green in this room. Of course, that might require new furniture.’

She felt him chuckle, more than heard him.

They were sitting like that, close together, heads touching, when Starkey opened the door and cleared his throat.

‘Sir, your sisters are here.’ He paused, and closed his eyes against the horror of it all. ‘They have brought Egyptian furniture.’

Charles groaned. ‘Oh, Lord, there you go—new furniture.’

Chapter Eleven

Sally tried to sit up, but her husband had anchored her to him. She heard his intake of breath and looked at the door to see two ladies staring back, their mouths open, their eyes wide.

‘Charles,’ one of them wailed. ‘What have you done? And without our permission!’

‘My sisters,’ the admiral said in a flat voice. He released Sally and got to his feet, holding out his hand for her. ‘Sisters, my wife.’

The ladies in the doorway continued to stare. Finally, the younger one spoke and it was not a pleasant tone of voice.

‘Charles William Edward Bright, What Have You Done?’

Dear me, she really does speak in capital letters, Sally thought. She glanced at her husband, who had turned bright red. ‘Breathe, dear,’ she murmured.

He cleared his throat. ‘Fannie and Dora, I have somehow managed to find myself a wife without any assistance.’

Now what? she thought, eyeing the women. They were noticeably older than their little brother, and from the angry looks they darted at her, obviously considered themselves the last court of appeals for their little brother.

Charles tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and towed her to the door. ‘Fannie and Dora, let me introduce Sophie Bright. We were married in Plymouth recently. Dearest, the one on the left is Fannie—more properly Mrs William Thorndyke—and the other one is Dora, more properly Lady Turnbooth. Their husbands have predeceased them, and they have ample time on their hands.’

‘The better to provide our little brother with the guidance he requires on land,’ Fannie said, not acknowledging Sally’s curtsy.

‘You have taught me well,’ Charles said smoothly. ‘I managed to find a wife on my own.’

‘She’s from Scotland!’ Dora burst out. To Sally’s chagrin, she buried her face in her handkerchief and the feathers on her bonnet quivered.

‘Dora, it’s not another planet,’ her brother said, with just the merest hint of exasperation in his voice.

‘Oats! Mildew!’ Dora exclaimed, which made Charles’s lips twitch, to Sally’s amusement.

‘I speak English,’ Sally assured them. ‘Won’t you please have a seat? I will inform our chef of your arrival.’

‘You needn’t bother,’ Fannie said in the brusque tone of someone used to commanding the field. ‘I know how to handle French cooks. I will go down there and tell him what is what. I have done it before.’

Sally glanced at her husband. This is one of those duties you have outlined, she thought. Let us see if I can earn my keep. ‘Mrs Thorndyke, that is my responsibility.’

Fannie didn’t surrender without a fight. ‘He is French! I can handle him.’

‘So can I,’ Sally said, grateful they could not see her heart jumping about in her breast. ‘Do have a seat and visit with your brother.’ She couldn’t help herself. ‘I know he has been expecting your company.’

Shame on her. Sally set her lips firmly together as Charles struggled manfully to turn his guffaw into a cough. ‘Bad lungs from all that cold weather on the blockade,’ he managed to say. She closed the door behind her, but not before he gave her a measuring look.

She leaned against the door for a moment. When she composed herself, she noticed a rough-looking man in the foyer. ‘Yes?’ she asked, wondering where he fit into the picture.

‘I gots a wagonload of furniture,’ he said, with no preliminaries. ‘Nasty black dogs to sit on—Lord ’elp us—a statue of a bloke wearing a nappy. ’E walks funny, too, one leg in front of t’other.’

A pharaoh would have been right at home with our over-eager Penelope beside the front door, she thought, wishing Charles were there for this delicious interview. ‘Just leave the dogs and statue in the wagon.’

The man revolved his battered hat in nervous hands. He eyed the sitting-room door with something close to terror. ‘Them gentry morts will ’ave my ’ide if I don’t unload.’

‘And I will, if you do,’ she said sweetly. ‘What a dilemma.’ She took a firm stance. ‘This is my home.’

Looking at the delivery man, she was struck by the fact that it was her home, lascivious cupids and all. She considered the shabby man before her and felt her resolve slide away. There cannot be much between this man and a workhouse.

‘Wait here.’ She returned to the sitting room, and gestured to her husband, who was sitting between his sisters, both of whom were talking at the same time. He looked up, relieved, when she called his name and came into the hall, closing the door behind him.

‘Your timing is exquisite. You are obviously my deus ex machina,’ he told her.

‘I continue to be an expensive one.’ Sally explained to him about the delivery. ‘If he doesn’t deliver the Egyptian furniture, I doubt your sisters will compensate him for his efforts. I don’t want that on my conscience, but I also do not want wooden jackals or pharaohs keeping either of us up at night or frightening the help.’

The admiral thought a moment. He looked at the delivery man, who continued to revolve his cap in his hands. ‘Behind this manor is a stable. My man Starkey can show you. Unload the furniture there. What is your fee?’

The man named it and Charles paid him. ‘That was simple enough, Sophie,’ he said, after the man had left. ‘Too bad I cannot unload my sisters there, too.’ He eyed her. ‘What is causing that wide-eyed stare, Sophie? Did I not pay him enough?’

She couldn’t help the stare. She had never met anyone like him. ‘Charles, you solved this problem in less than thirty seconds! I am stunned, that is all.’

‘Quick decisions are a lifetime habit, my dear,’ he told her, all serenity. ‘It seems I made a quick one a few days ago.’

So he had. All she could do was look at him, her mouth open, until he gently reminded her to ‘go belowdeck and alert my crew’.

She did as he asked, but not before he took her hand, bowed over it and kissed it. The door to the sitting room opened. He looked her in the eye and pulled her close to whisper in her ear, ‘We are madly in love, or so I have told my sisters. Tell Etienne to bring up some soup, cold if he can manage it, and nothing else. It will offend his Gallic pride, but hopefully encourage my sisters to leave tomorrow.’ He took the moment to kiss her cheek. ‘Now. Back I go to the lion’s den.’

Etienne was not a slow man; he understood precisely what Sally wanted. ‘I will even put in too much salt and burn the bottom of the pan.’ He sighed. ‘I wouldn’t commit such a desecration, if this were not a worthy cause, Lady Bright. There might even be some mouldy bread in the bin.’

She heard pans in the scullery and looked in to see Twenty—Vivienne—washing dishes. The child looked up and smiled. ‘I’m not tired any more, mum.’

Sally felt tears prick her eyelids. I think we have all wandered on to a good pasture, she thought, as she nodded and returned upstairs, where Starkey waited to tell her he had prepared two rooms for her sisters-in-law. ‘I moved your clothing and other items into the admiral’s room, as well,’ he told her, his face impassive.

‘But…’

He easily overrode her. ‘Admiral Bright commanded it. After all, you are newly married, and there is a pretence to maintain, isn’t there?’

There was something in the dry way he spoke that told her volumes about his feelings. She felt her face grow hot, but she spoke calmly. ‘Yes, there is, Starkey,’ she said, keeping her voice steady even as her stomach churned from the arch look he gave her. ‘We know this charade is to spare him his sisters, and so we shall.’

I do not have an ally there, she told herself as she entered the sitting room again. Two cold faces turned to glare at her, but there was the admiral, looking nothing but relieved.

‘Sophie, dearest, I have been telling my sisters—our sisters now, eh?—that you and I have been faithful correspondents for several years, since the death of your husband in battle.’

Oh, my goodness, she thought. We’re creating a monster.

‘I wonder you did not say anything in your letters to us, brother,’ Fannie told him, looking far from mollified. ‘We could have visited…uh…Lady Bright in Bath.’

And then the admiral was looking at her, too, his eyebrows raised hopefully. She had no choice but to prevaricate. ‘It was a matter of some delicacy,’ Sally said finally. ‘Surely you understand.’

Sceptical looks assured her they did not, but she had no idea what to say next, except, ‘Etienne informs me that there is only soup. We will not be fully staffed until some time late tomorrow.’ She held her hands tightly together, so they would not shake. ‘We have arranged for you to sleep here tonight, and will wish you Godspeed tomorrow, when you leave.’

Mercifully, dinner was short. There was only so much attention to attach to leek soup, especially lukewarm soup with the flavor of burned pot competing with rancid butter. The hour in the sitting room seem stretched as taut as India rubber. It came to a merciful conclusion after one of Admiral Bright’s more gory stories of sea battle, followed by shipwreck, starvation and imprisonment. ‘And that, dear sisters, rounds out my career as a midshipman,’ Bright told them as Fannie waved ammonia under Dora’s nose until she sneezed. ‘Unless you wish to hear about that regrettable instance of cannibalism.’ Dora yanked the ammonia out of Fannie’s hand and held it closer to her nose. ‘No? Another day, then. Perhaps when you return in a month or two. At Christmas?’

What could they say?

Her head was pounding by the time the sisters closed the doors to their respective rooms, one of which had been hers. She only hoped Starkey had removed all trace of her presence. Admiral Bright seemed to take it all in his stride. He opened the door to his room wide.

‘Starkey informs me there are no other beds in the place, Sophie.’

She glared at him. He staggered back as if she had shot him, which made Sally put her hand to her mouth to squelch her laughter. She let him tug her inside.

‘I know, I know. It seems strange to me that the former owner could have had only three beds on this floor, considering how he used this property. Perhaps no one was particular. There are soft rugs in the empty rooms.’

Sally gasped. ‘What won’t you say?’ she asked. ‘Better I should ask, what did you say to them?’

‘No more than you heard,’ he told her. ‘I didn’t have time to fashion a great big whopper. Sit down, Sophie. I won’t bite.’ He patted the bed, where he sat.

She pulled up a chair from its place in front of the fireplace and sat there. ‘So we have maintained a correspondence of some four or five years’ duration.’

‘Indeed we have. You were the soul of rectitude, and I was busy in the fleet. We scarcely set eyes on each other in all that time, but after a visit to Bath after Waterloo, one thing led to another, and here we are.’

‘Do they really believe you?’ she asked.

‘I hope so.’

‘You could have told them the truth. Maybe it would have been best.’

He began to unbutton his shirt. One button seemed to hang up in the fabric, so she sat beside him and undid it for him. He undid the cufflink on his handless arm, and held out the other arm so she could undo that cufflink.

‘I considered it, but why should I embarrass someone who is doing me a favour? I remain convinced that once my sisters see I have managed to tie the knot without any more meddling from them, they will get bored and leave me—us—alone.’

‘You know them better than I do,’ she said doubtfully.

‘I’ve been long years away from them, too,’ he replied, as he pulled the shirt collar away from the harness and looked at her.

Without a word, she twisted the small metal tab that held it together.

‘Help me off with my shirt, will you?’ he asked, bunching up the fabric in the front.

She did as he asked. Holding the shirt, she watched as he shrugged out of the harness, exposing his maimed arm. He set the harness and its attached hook on the night stand by the bed. He held up his arm.

‘You can see it was a clean amputation. The surgeon marvelled at how neatly that rope had separated me from what was obviously an accessory, since I seem to manage well enough without it.’

She looked at his arm, feeling the hairs on her neck raise, and then settle. ‘Does it ever hurt?’

‘It did when it happened. God, the pain. And then I swear I could feel my fingers. Wiggle them, even.’ He smiled at her. ‘It never hurts now.’

He went into his dressing room. She pulled the chair back to the fireplace and sat there. When he came out, he was in his nightshirt. He plopped down in the chair next to her, putting his bare feet on the ottoman. He took her hand, running his fingers lightly across her knuckles.

‘I have put you in a bad spot. After all the nonsense, and political manoeuvring—yes, even at sea, God help us—and constant vigilance, all I wanted when I came onshore was to be left alone, and my sisters wouldn’t allow it.’ He didn’t even seem to be aware that he had raised her hand to his cheek. ‘I think they meant well, but they will never understand that I just want to be left alone. I married you as a buffer, but that is hardly fair.’

She thought about what he was saying, even as he rested the back of her palm against his cheek. She felt the motion acutely, and the slow warmth spreading upward from her belly. He seemed unmindful of his action. I know my place, she reminded herself. A gentle resistance to his touch made him release her hand and look at her, apology in his eyes.

‘What’s the matter with me?’ he asked suddenly. ‘I am forty-five years old, long thought to be a sensible man, and I am telling lies—real prevarications—right and left. I don’t understand myself right now.’

He leaped up from the chair, stalked into his dressing room again, and returned with his threadbare robe. He frowned, looking into the distance, as he tied an expert bow one-handed, then sat down again.

To lighten the moment, she looked at his robe. ‘Please tell me you didn’t order another robe from the tailor today,’ she said. ‘I rather like that shabby thing.’

‘I didn’t,’ he told her. ‘It never occurred to me.’ He got up again and started to pace. ‘Did you ever meet such an idiot?’

He seemed to be expecting an answer. She considered the question as he paced. ‘You are forty-five and you have spent most of your life at sea…’

‘…where life was much simpler,’ he grumbled. ‘I swear it was!’

‘Let us consider this. Life at sea. Oh, yes, there was a war on, wasn’t there? It might have been difficult. You buy a house with cupids, just for the view.’

By now he was listening to her. He leaned against the fireplace, his eyes starting to disappear into a smile.

‘Horrors! You marry a widow on woefully short notice.’

‘Perhaps that was a smart idea,’ he said, getting into the mood of her gentle teasing.

‘The issue is still unresolved, sir.’

‘And I am afraid of two domineering women. Sophie, I was an Admiral of the Fleet!’ He began to pace again.

She looked at him then, studied his face as he stared back at her. She observed his grey hair, his prematurely lined face and the restless way he stalked from one small space to the other, the area defined by a crowded deck.

‘I conclude that you never had a chance to be young, Admiral.’

He stopped and frowned, mouthed ‘Admiral’ to her amusement, walked another length and back, then sat down again. ‘You could be right.’ He started to hold her hand again, but thought better of it. ‘It’s a little late for a childhood now.’ He almost smiled. ‘You are stuck with rather a poor bargain, Sophie.’

‘I beg to differ! You got rid of the Egyptian furniture. The cupids are fading.’

‘Lord almighty! Dare we hope that my sisters will be gone tomorrow?’

He seemed more at peace now. His eyelids began to droop.

‘I think we dare hope,’ she said, keeping her voice soft. ‘Go to bed, Admiral.’

He closed his eyes. ‘Not unless you join me. I promise to keep my hand to myself.’

‘I can sleep in this chair.’

‘Nonsense. You’re almost as tall as I am. It will take a master mechanic to straighten you out in the morning if you attempt it. You’ll have your own room again, Sophie. Don’t give me grief over this.’

She had no intention of arguing further, not with her own eyes closing. ‘Very well. I will change in your dressing room and you will mind your manners.’

He was asleep when she came out of the dressing room, flat on his back with his maimed arm resting on his chest. I don’t mind this, Sally thought, as she watched him a moment. She carefully pulled back the coverlet and slid between the sheets with a sigh. What a long day it had been.

She was careful not to move towards him, staying on her side of the bed and listening to his regular breathing. The homely sound of another human being eased her heart. She thought of all the days, weeks and months she had slept alone, worrying herself about money and shame until she woke as tired as she had been when she went to bed. This was different. True, the sisters were just down the hall. There were so many cupids left to paint over. Vivienne needed a physician. Other servants were coming.

‘You’re frowning.’

She gasped and turned her head, then closed her eyes as Charles Bright, her convenient husband, smoothed the lines between her eyes.

‘Go to sleep, Sophie. Dream that we are both a little more intelligent in the morning.’

She rolled on to her side, away from him, trying to decide what was different. She listened to the admiral’s even breathing again. I am not worrying alone, she told herself. That is the difference.

Chapter Twelve

Some time in the middle of the night, Charles Bright had a nightmare. He never shouted out in his sleep, but Starkey told him once that he muttered to himself and flailed about. He must have done both, but he didn’t open his eyes. He started when a hand touched his back. As he lay there, surprised and disoriented, the hand began to gently massage his shoulder. He wanted to roll over, or say something, but he lay there quietly, enjoying the sensation of sharing his bed with a woman. It had been a long time. He couldn’t remember when he had last spent an entire night in a woman’s bed, and this was his wife. He smiled to himself and went back to sleep.

He woke at his usual time, but it was a better awakening than most. He gave all the credit to Sophie Bright, who had tucked herself in tight and draped her arm over his chest.

He knew she had begun the night with her back to him, and about as far away as she could get in the bed without tumbling off. He vaguely remembered the gentle feel of her hands on his back, when he had gone through his usual nightmare rigmarole. But here she was. He couldn’t see her face, because her brown hair was spread all over his chest.

Her breasts were warm against his side. He wanted to run his hand down her arm, but he knew it would wake her up and probably alarm her. He could look, though, and it pained him that her arms were so slim. Have you been living on air, lady? he asked himself. He had learned, early in his association with his chef, not to burden him with over-attention, but it wouldn’t hurt to go belowdeck soon and engage Etienne in a conspiracy to use more butter, milk and cheese and other such ingredients so dear to a French chef’s palate.

It scarcely surprised him that he felt himself growing hard. A man would have to be made of sterner stuff than he was to resist what lay in his arms. What amused him was the fact that he couldn’t remember a time in recent years when he had felt that way in the morning. But then, war and life had intervened, and he would blame them. Any romance he had enjoyed was most generally accomplished at night, and then followed by a return to the dock and a ferry out to his flagship. He hated to feel furtive out of what was a man’s normal desire, but he had learned quickly enough that admirals were not supposed to have such passions; at least, if his captains were to be believed. It was a damned nuisance to be a good example.

During the worst of the crisis, after he reached flag rank, he had been continuously at sea for six years. He envied his dashing frigate captains, who could leave the fleet and return to land, now and then, for whatever extracurricular activity they could sandwich in between naval assignments. The ocean was well and truly his home, and there were few women there.

But here was this pretty lady, his wife, and he had already assured her that this would be a marriage of convenience. I am a dolt, he thought, with a certain wry humour. I’ve encouraged her to keep my sisters far distant. When they leave this morning, there’s no excuse to keep her in my bed.

Thoroughly dissatisfied with himself, Charles lay there feeling sour until his anatomy returned to its usual state of somnolence. Then he carefully edged himself out of Sophie’s slack embrace. She turned her face up to him like a flower seeking sunshine, but did not open her eyes. She let out a soft sigh of satisfaction that went to his heart as almost nothing else could have. How ill used this lovely person had been, how trampled on. And why would any man married to her ever have even contemplated suicide, much less committed it? He couldn’t fathom it.

After a wrestle in his dressing room about whether to garb for the day, or just pad down to the breakfast room for a cup of tea for Sophie, he put on his well-worn dressing gown and opted for bare feet. Perhaps his sisters weren’t up yet. And if they were, too bad.

Fannie and Dora were already seated in the breakfast room, and looking none too pleased. He glanced at the side table, and hid his smile. Etienne Dupuis had exerted himself to one pitiful pot of porridge. He sniffed. His chef had burned it, too—excellent man. He took tea and joined his sisters.

Fannie wasted not a minute in telling him what she thought. ‘Charles, your cook is more than usually pathetic!’

He sipped his tea. ‘Fannie, give my chef a chance. He has no staff yet. You’ll both be so much better off back in London, until we get things sorted out here.’ He engineered what he thought was an arch, knowing look. ‘Besides, my dears, Sophie and I would like a little privacy. You understand, I am sure, having once been newly married yourselves.’

Dora blushed and nodded, but Fannie only set her lips in a tighter line, which reinforced his suspicion that the late Mr Thorndyke was no Romeo. ‘I wish I could tell you that I believe your story about a long correspondence with…with…’

‘My dear wife,’ he supplied, feeling much the little brother.

‘Your wife, but I am sceptical.’

Might as well bring out the big guns. Charles levelled a look at his older sister that he had spent a lifetime perfecting to use on wayward captains. ‘Believe it, Frances,’ he said, clipping off each word. ‘I tried in many ways to tell you I have not been interested in any of the beauties you have thrown my way, and that I was entirely capable of finding a wife. If you fault me for not telling you about my…longstanding attachment to Sophie, I believe it is the right of every man to do those things for himself.’

He couldn’t make it any plainer. Charles went to the sideboard and poured another cup of tea. ‘I am going to take tea to my wife. All I ask is that you give us a few weeks of solitude.’

It pained him to hurt their feelings. He looked at his sisters, remembering how they had mothered him when all three of them were not so old, and their own mother had died. It had been a trying time, and these dear do-gooders had eased his childish heart.

‘Give us a little time,’ he said gently. ‘When you come back in a while, there will be more servants, better food and hot water on demand. My dears, we’re just not ready to entertain. It’s as simple as that.’

Dora nodded, but glanced at Fran, who still looked stony. Dora opened her mouth to speak, but thought better of it, deferring, as always, to her old sister. Charles watched them for some sign of understanding, but found none in evidence, as he left the room.

At least the tea was still warm. He stood outside his own door a moment, wondering whether to knock, then tapped on the door with his wrist.

‘Come in. You shouldn’t have to stand on ceremony outside your own door!’ Oh, hell. He would have to put down the cup to turn the handle. ‘I’m bringing you tea and I cannot open the door,’ he said, embarrassed. ‘Maybe it is true that many hands make light work. I’d settle for two, now and then.’

He heard light footsteps and the door opened on Sophie’s bright face. ‘Sorry. You intend to spoil me this morning, too?’ she asked.

‘Maybe I have started a tradition,’ he told her, as she climbed back in bed. The outline of her hips against the much-washed flannel captured his eyes. Too bad she was so quick.

Sophie slid over far enough to allow room for him to sit, which flattered him. In fact, she patted the mattress and drew her legs up close to her chest. He sat down and handed her the tea, which she accepted with a smile that made his heart thud in his chest.

Sophie sipped and looked at him over the rim of the cup. ‘I was hoping you would bring me tea.’

There were no blushes this time; they were just two people in a room with each other. What had happened last night? Had his nightmare, as unspectacular as it always was, given her yet another purpose in his life?

‘I hope I didn’t bother you with my restlessness last night.’

She shrugged. ‘When I was younger and certainly more foolish, I read a very bad novel, where the hero thrashed and cried out and walked in his sleep, then ended up on the castle’s parapet, ready to jump. All you did was mutter a little and try to sit up.’ She rested her hand for the smallest moment on his wrist. ‘Heavens knows you must have had more traumas than anything a female novelist could conjure. Those stories you told your sisters last night are probably only the mild ones, fit for ladies.’

‘They are. I doubt even you are ready for the perils of masts falling in the midst of battle, or the sight of your gallant husband—still possessing both hands—swimming below the waterline in shark-infested waters to plug a sail into a hole. Sophie, mine was quite a career.’

She gave him that appraising look again, so totally turning all her attention to him that he felt unbelievably flattered.

‘Very well, what?’

The moment he spoke, he realised something had happened in their relationship. He didn’t think she was aware of it yet, but he was, acutely so. He suddenly felt at ease with this woman he barely knew, as though they were confederates. It was the most intimate moment of his life, and he wasn’t even touching her. Her eyes were deep pools, and he felt completely at home, swimming in their depths. ‘What?’ he asked again.

‘I know what will occupy your time,’ she said, resting her chin on her updrawn knees and still mesmerising him with the intensity of her gaze. ‘Your memoirs.’

He was not thinking of stuffy memoirs, not with her so close. ‘Sophie, who on earth would read the blasted thing?’

She gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Your men, anyone in England with blood in his veins. Me! I would read them. Oh, my goodness, I would.’ She straightened her legs and took him by the arm. ‘I will help you. You can dictate them to me.’

He relished her hold on him. ‘Madam wife, you are all about in your head.’

He said it softly, because he was leaning closer to her. He kissed her and found her lips as soft as he thought they might be. She drew back slightly; he knew he had startled her. She only moved her hand from his arm to the side of his neck and returned his kiss.

In another moment, she had relaxed against the pillows and he was bending over her, pressing against her, their arms around each other, her hands splayed across his back. She sighed when the kiss ended, but continued to hold him close until someone knocked on the door and then opened it. She gasped in his ear.

Starkey stood there, shocked. For just a millisecond, his expression turned so dark and disapproving that Charles sucked in his breath. The look was gone as quickly as it came. Perhaps Charles had imagined it.

Starkey closed the door part way, averting his gaze. ‘Beg your pardon, Admiral,’ he said, his voice wooden. ‘I usually help you with your harness about now.’

Her face crimson, Sophie sat up, her hands in her lap, her glorious lips tight together now. What a position to be in, Charles thought, angered at Starkey’s blunder. ‘You do usually help me,’ he said, wishing he did not sound so brusque. ‘Let that be one more job you need not worry about, unless I specifically ask. Knock and wait from now on, for God’s sake.’

It came out hard and mean. I can smooth it over later, Charles thought, looking at Starkey’s wounded expression as the door closed. He turned his attention to Sophie and blundered again.

‘I didn’t mean to do that,’ he said, standing up, unwilling to look at her. He did take a little glance and saw the hurt in her eyes, as brief as Starkey’s. ‘But I also said this would be a marriage of convenience, did I not?’ he asked, instantly angry with himself. Why had that come out so harsh?

‘You did say that,’ Sophie replied in a small voice. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You have nothing to apologise for.’ He got up and went to the door, except there was nowhere to go.

Sophie must have realised the same thing. He knew he had hurt her feelings, because she wouldn’t look at him. ‘I’ll be dressed and out of your room in a moment,’ she told him, her voice small.

She was as good as her word. He stared into the fireplace, wishing there was no one in his house except Sophie. The workmen were back in the rooms downstairs, moving around scaffolding and painting the stupid ceiling. Charles listened to other mechanics overhead in the attic, thumping for rotten boards and calling to each other. His sisters were on the prowl somewhere, ready to take umbrage the moment anyone offered any.

Sophie let herself out quietly. He heard the barest rustle of her skirt and looked around to see the back of her head as she closed the door.

‘I am practically certifiable,’ he declared to the door. He thought of the days he had sat at his desk at sea, considering thorny problems of cannon range, weather gauge, victuals going bad, water rationed, enemy close, crew sick—all the tasks he had to bend his mind to, every day of the war. The only thing on his mind right now was a woman, a subject almost foreign to a man so often at sea.

He had not imagined she had returned his kiss. In terms of days, she was a veritable stranger, but a lady about whom he had strong instincts. His quickness of mind had never failed him through decades of war. Charles took heart. I made no mistake in the dining room of the Drake, he thought. What he hadn’t bargained on was how quickly she would touch his heart, body and mind.

‘Sophie Bright. You’re married to an idiot with one thing on his side—time. I believe I have the weather gauge, too. I cannot lose.’

He started to dress, then realised he needed to summon his testy servant and ask for help with the harness, since Sophie had fled the scene. He would ask Starkey’s pardon and begin again.

I learned something this morning, he thought. He went to the bell pull, when he heard the front door close. It didn’t precisely slam, but it closed loud enough. He looked out the window and there was his dear wife, walking down the weedy lane with some purpose in her stride. She had a book in her hand, but he was mostly interested in the way her skirt swayed from side to side.

‘Ah, my dear, you are going to read to Rivka Brustein,’ he told her retreating figure. ‘A wise thing. Return when you are calm. My sisters will be gone, hopefully, and I will have thought this campaign through.’

Chapter Thirteen

Sophie slowed her steps as she approached the Brusteins’ manor. Her face still felt hot from the embarrassment of Starkey seeing them like that. Or was it from the flush that flooded her chest after positively enjoying Admiral Bright’s kiss? Andrew had been a slight man, frail, almost, especially in the last few months of his ordeal with Admiralty House. Clasping the admiral in her arms had been a new experience. He was a bigger man and she had found herself enjoying the weight of his upper body as he had begun to press down on her. It was a new sensation.

‘Oh, Lord,’ she whispered, putting her hands to her face. Sally Bright, thank goodness you did not press up against him and sleep in his arms last night, she thought. Considering their arrangement, so calmly worked out in that pew at St Andrew’s Church, that would have been the outer limits of the role her husband had carefully outlined. True, she had patted him back to sleep, but anyone with half a brain would have done that.

She closed her eyes against the feeling that had taken such possession of her with that impulsive kiss. It had to be impulsive; surely he had no design to do such a thing. And why on earth did she kiss him back? Look where it led! All she had wanted to do then was undo that knot on his shabby robe and tug up his nightshirt.

She tried to consider the whole sequence rationally. It had been actually more than five years since she had been refreshed by a man. In the last year of his too-short life, Andrew had been too distracted to consider her a source of consolation. She didn’t want to think about the admiral, because she felt herself growing warm in places where she had felt warm so little in recent years. Was it just that she wanted a man, or did she want that man?

Instinctively, she put her legs closer together until her knees touched, then managed a small laugh. ‘You are such an idiot,’ she reminded herself, keeping her voice low. At least I did not throw myself on him last night, Sophie thought, as she crossed the road and started down the much tidier lane to the Brustein manor. That is a relief.

The same cat was luxuriating in the same front window when she knocked. The housekeeper smiled to see her this time, though, and Jacob Brustein clapped his hands together like a child when she said she had come to read to Rivka Brustein.

‘We were both hoping you were serious when you suggested that very thing,’ he told her, as they walked upstairs. ‘Your husband is elsewhere occupied?’

She told the old gentleman about Charles’s sisters. ‘They have wanted to manage him to the furthest degree, since he retired from the navy,’ she said, as they went into Rivka’s room. ‘I believe he is trying to delicately manoeuvre them out of the house now.’

‘And you thought it politic to be elsewhere,’ Brustein said.

‘They think I am a gross interloper,’ she whispered.

‘Relatives!’ he replied. He touched his heart. ‘Who would have them?’ He came close to the bed and touched his wife’s cheek. She opened her eyes. ‘Rivka, my love. Look who has come to read to you!’

Jacob sat beside his wife a few minutes. He smiled when Rivka made a feeble shooing motion with her hand.

‘This is for the ladies, Jacob! Find yourself something to do.’

With a wink at Sophie, he left the room quietly. Rivka turned her attention to Sophie. ‘My dear girl. If you will leave the book here, I will make him read to me tonight, the old lover!’ She folded her hands. ‘But for now, you read.’

Sophie needed no more urging to begin with her favourites. When she finished those, she noticed that Rivka had closed her eyes, so she sat there silently, wondering whether to continue. After a long silence, Rivka spoke without opening her eyes. ‘Do continue. Sometimes my eyelids are heavy, but I am listening.’

Sophie opened the little volume at random this time, and began reading. ‘“When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies.”’

Sophie closed the book, her heart racing. Good God, that is I, she thought. She sniffed back tears, grateful that Rivka’s eyes were closed.

She hadn’t reckoned on the little lady in the bed, who opened her eyes and reached out her hand to capture Sophie’s wrist. Her touch was as light as a bird’s wing.

‘Pitseleh, what on earth is the matter?’

There was no way Sophie could keep it in, not with such kindness in the old woman’s voice. She let the story come out about her marriage of convenience, and how she had so nearly thrashed the whole thing that morning with what started as a simple kiss. She couldn’t tell the whole, sorry tale, thinking it best to leave out Andrew’s suicide. The admiral’s marriage of convenience to a destitute widow was bad enough. ‘Mrs Brustein, I am a failure at this marriage already and we are barely married!’

‘Sophie! I may call you that, eh?’

Sophie nodded. ‘Of course you may, Mrs Brustein. And if you have any advice…’

‘My dear Sophie, I did not see my beloved Jacob’s face until he raised my veil during our wedding. Was I terrified? Of this you may be certain. Did I learn to love him?’ She wrinkled her nose, which made Sophie smile. ‘We have four sons, two daughters—God bless them all—and he still sings to me at night if I ask him. Jacob has a lovely voice. Your admiral—is he a good man?’

‘The very best,’ Sophie replied, without hesitation. ‘He could have done much better than me, I think.’ She felt her face begin to flame. ‘He…he made it quite clear from the outset that this was to be a marriage of convenience.’

Rivka managed an elaborate shrug. ‘Minds can change, dearie.’ She chuckled. ‘Men like to think they do not need changing, so that must be our little secret.’ Her tone became more reflective then, wistful even. ‘We learned to love each other, and now I wish there were many more years ahead.’

‘Surely there will be, Mrs Brustein.’

‘You’re a dear, but let us be realistic.’ She touched Sophie’s hand again, more emphatic this time. ‘Do not waste time! We have so little of it.’

Those were good words. Sophie considered them as she walked home, teetered on the brink, then poured water on the whole matter by reminding herself that theirs was a marriage of convenience arranged by two rational people—one seeking a haven from poverty and the other eager to avoid meddling sisters. She would have to overlook the pleasant way Charles Bright smiled when he looked at her and forget about her admiration of someone who could make such swift decisions and not look back with regret. She knew it was the mark of a confident man, a leader. She had nothing to show for herself except a certain dogged ness in times of crisis.

‘Sophie, you can run his house and help him with his memoirs,’ she said, employing that doggedness as she walked up the weedy lane. She stopped to look at the house when it came into view. Mechanics were crawling over the roof now, one and then another coming out of a hole near the chimney, looking for all the world like the four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in that dratted pie. As she stood there, she heard glass break. ‘Bedlam,’ she said.

Starkey met her in the foyer. ‘The painters pushed a scaffold through the French doors. The sisters are no more,’ he announced.

‘Good God, did Charles shoot them?’ she exclaimed.

‘Really, ma’am,’ he said, looking down his long nose at her, ‘I should warn you that you have no allies there.’

‘I believe that was patently obvious, Starkey.’ And I doubt I have an ally in you, either, she thought. ‘We can invite them back later, when the house is put back together again. Perhaps they will forgive me for being an encroaching mushroom and monopolising their brother.’

‘If they will come,’ he said ominously, bowed to her and stumped away on his wooden leg, still looking piratical and a little wounded now.

And you despise me because you think I am usurping your place with your master, she thought. This was all supposed to be so simple, but it is not.

Vastly discontented, she went in search of her husband. The painters in the drawing room looked at her with guilty expressions when she peered in. Yes, they had indeed sent a scaffold through the French doors. She sighed and moved on.

She found the admiral in the library, high up a ladder, throwing down books. Some of the small sculptures in the room were covered. The ones still exposed made her gasp.

‘I tried to turn them around, but any direction is an eye-opener,’ he said, as he pitched another book towards the centre of the room. He gestured to the bookshelves. ‘I do believe that Lord Hudley bought every book the Vatican ever condemned.’ He looked at her. ‘Sophie, dear, should we just put a match to this whole place?’

She was tempted to tell him yes. She would have, except that he had just called her ‘dear’, even without any sisters around to bamboozle. She thought of a young and terrified Rivka, looking at an equally terrified Jacob when he raised her wedding veil.

She sat down. The sofa was comfortable and the fabric of excellent quality. ‘No. This is a wonderful sofa. I like this sofa.’

He stared at her as though she had lost all reason.

‘It suits me quite well, so you cannot burn down the house. Besides that, I can sit here and see the ocean, which is precisely why you bought this abomination in the first place. Really, Charles, you need to look past the…’

There was another crash from the sitting room.

‘…little difficulties.’

‘Sophie, you have lost your mind,’ he said mildly, as he started down the ladder. ‘Driven mad by my sisters, this house, who knows what?’

He sat beside her on the sofa; he even bounced a little, which made her turn away because she had to smile.

‘It is a good sofa. Let’s keep the house.’

They looked at each other then. Sophie thought she started first, but Charles was a hair-trigger second.

‘I really should apologise—’

‘Please overlook—’

They stopped. They looked at each other. I don’t care what you say, she thought, her gaze not wavering. You simply could not have been a terror to your men and an ogre in the fleet.

He spoke first, his eyes on her. ‘I propose that we overlook what happened this morning.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘I already recognise that sceptical expression of yours.’

‘My thoughts precisely.’

Charles might have said he would overlook that early morning kiss, but then he put his arm around her. He gave her a quick squeeze, which she thought was possibly more brotherly than husbandly, but only by a tiny degree. ‘Onward, madam.’ He released her, but his arm still rested along the top of the sofa that neither of them, apparently, could do without. ‘My sisters have gone. I have agreed to invite them for Christmas, or when the remodelling is done—whichever comes first. The physician is belowdeck with Vivienne.’

Sophie stood up quickly. ‘I should be with her.’

‘You should.’ He took hold of her skirt and gave it a slight tug. ‘No need to take the stairs two at a time, though. The servants also arrived. I believe Miss Thayn is sitting with her.’

‘That is a relief!’

Truly, it was. When Sophie went to the servants’ hall, her new dresser was sitting close to Vivienne. She watched them both for a small moment before they noticed her, pleased with Miss Thayn’s attention to the young girl, who kept her eyes on the table. The physician was putting away some tools of his trade in his black bag. He looked up at Sophie.

‘You must be Lady Bright.’

‘Mrs Bright will do,’ she replied, suddenly shy, with the other servants listening. She looked around the room, realising that she had never seen so many domestics in one place. All this for two people, she thought.

‘Welcome to Admiral Bright’s manor.’ She wished she did not sound like a child trying to play the lady of the house. ‘Things are a little rough right now, but we’re glad you are here.’ She looked for Starkey. ‘You’ve already met Starkey, I am certain. Do believe me when I tell you he is totally in charge.’

She looked at each servant in turn, seeing nothing there but a desire to please. ‘Starkey, they are yours.’ She turned her attention to the physician. ‘Sir, perhaps we could speak upstairs.’

He nodded, patted Vivienne on the head and followed her to the foyer. She apologised that there was no room in which to receive him. ‘Sir, what can you tell me about my little scullery maid?’

The physician had a grandfatherly air to him, which Sophie imagined must have been good for business in the neighbourhood. It pained her to see his face grow solemn, then harden into an expression far from benign. ‘Lady Bright, she has been interfered with.’

‘Poor child,’ Sophie murmured. ‘I thought that was so.’

‘Poor child, indeed,’ he said.

‘Is there anything…?’

‘Just feed her well and treat her kindly. It will probably seem like a novel approach to the child. I expect she will thrive here.’ He shook his head, serious. ‘I cannot tell you what the final effect is. We may not know for years, but I am hopeful.’

He went to the door and opened it. ‘There is no point in accusing the landlord. He would only deny it. We’ll carry on and hope for the best. If you were hoping for some sort of redress, I am sorry to disappoint you, Lady Bright.’

It’s no more than I ever expected of justice, she thought, remembering her husband’s trial. ‘I did not expect much,’ she told him. ‘I do appreciate your kind attention, though.’

He bowed himself out and left her standing in the foyer. She sat down and did nothing to stop the tears from coursing down her cheeks, not sure if she was crying for innocence cruelly used or her own discomfort with the law.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and started, looking up to see her husband, book in hand. He knelt beside her chair. ‘Is it all too much, Sophie?’ he asked.

How kind he was to ask. She dried her eyes and told him what the physician had said. ‘He said there was no point in trying to get the landlord charged,’ she told him, her voice muffled in the cloth square. She started to cry again.

Charles picked her up and sat in the chair with her in his lap. She thought about her resolve not to be a trial to the man, then turned her face into his coat and sobbed. His hand was gentle on her hair, stroking it. He said nothing, but she didn’t need words. When she finished crying, she sat up and blew her nose. ‘I cannot imagine that sort of terror,’ she said, her face still muffled in his coat. ‘Wondering if he would bother her this or that night, after a long day of overwork. There is no justice, is there?’

‘Precious little, at times,’ he said, his lips close to her ear. ‘Thanks to you, though, those bad times are over for Vivienne.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘I suppose I shouldn’t do that, and it’s one more thing to overlook, but I think you need a kiss on the head.’

She managed a watery chuckle. ‘I suppose I did.’ She looked at the book he held. ‘Can that be the only book from Lord Hudley’s library that is fit to read?’

‘Precisely. I wanted to show it to you for that very reason.’ He held it out from her. ‘A History of the Roman Republic. I suppose he bought it for the chapter on the rape of the Sabine women, but even that was a somewhat prosaic affair, or so I have read elsewhere. Imagine what a disappointment that was to the old roué.’ He snapped the book shut. ‘This, wife, is the foundation and cornerstone of our library to come. Start making a list of your favourite books. The statues and busts are on their way out, as we speak, so you can make your list in the library.’

‘What about the books?’

‘They are headed for the beach, where we will enjoy a monstrous bonfire tonight.’ He shifted and she got off his lap. ‘I am headed belowdeck to give a proper welcome aboard to our servants, and provide the usual rousing speech I gave to countless ne’er-do-wells in my command, officers included. You make your list and we will call it good.’

Sophie did as he said, sitting on the sofa she had declared so comfortable, a tablet in her lap.

She stopped for luncheon when it was brought to her, a fragrant, steaming consommé liberally dotted with croutons and accompanied by fresh fruit. Etienne was making up for his miserable breakfast—the kind guaranteed to drive away meddling sisters—and raising her spirits. The glazier came from Lord Brimley’s estate next door, and soon the French doors were put to rights again. By the time the painters left the sitting room as the sun began to slant in the west, all had been restored. She took a few minutes to enjoy the simplicity of a ceiling covered with paint only, hiding a multitude of sinful cherubs. She sighed—only six or seven rooms to go.

Dinner was a ragout, served on the terrace, which had been swept clean by one of Starkey’s new assistants. Eager to please, the ’tween-stairs maid—not much older than Vivienne—waited in the doorway as they ate, whisking away plates as soon as they finished.

Charles finally patted his stomach. ‘Sophie, you must agree this place has some possibility now.’

She wiped her lips on a napkin and nodded to the child hovering close by. ‘Do you think I could send Miss Thayn to the workhouse—?’

‘Poor thing, what has she done? And so soon?’ he interrupted.

‘Wretch! I meant that she could go there to find us two more ’tween-stairs maids.’

Charles folded his arms and gave her his full attention. She was used to his searchlight expression now and merely smiled back, remembering other domestic conversations with Andrew, before their lives were ruined. I could like this again, she thought. I really could.

‘I think Etienne will be happy to instruct one of them in culinary arts and Starkey can turn the other one over to the upstairs maid.’

‘Would that be the domestic who was going through the linen closet with such determination? I kept moving when I passed the closet, because she looked ready to take an inventory of my clothing.’

‘The very one,’ Sophie said calmly. ‘I have the distinct impression she does not suffer shabby genteels gladly. Only think how much our stock will rise when we are adequately clothed!’

He shuddered in mock terror. ‘I am still amazed how complicated life on land is. And you think we need two more maids to help her terrorise us?’

‘No, Charles. It will get two more orphans out of the workhouse.’

‘That’s important to you, isn’t it?’ he asked, after a long pause.

‘More than you’ll ever know.’

He took her hand and kissed it, then quickly set it back in her lap. ‘Overlook that,’ he told her.

‘Certainly,’ she said serenely.

As the shadows lengthened on the terrace, he didn’t touch her again, but she was so mindful of his presence. She decided that was part of being an admiral. Consciously or unconsciously—probably the latter by now—he made his presence known by simply being there. What a reassurance he must have been to the fleet.

When it was nearly dark, one of Starkey’s underlings torched the pile of books on the beach. ‘Ah ha,’ Charles said. He took her hand and pulled her up. ‘Let’s go watch the blaze up close. I like a good blaze, as long as it’s not in my ship.’

He helped her down the wooden steps to the beach, and did not release her hand. ‘Overlook that, too,’ he said, as he led her closer to the bonfire. ‘Sand is notoriously unstable.’

It was a stunning bonfire. Sophie looked back at the house to see the servants standing on the terrace, watching. Standing close to Miss Thayn, Vivienne was clapping her hands and jumping up and down, which made Sophie smile. She gestured with the hand that the admiral held. He turned around and smiled, too. ‘It appears Vivienne has an ally in Miss Thayn. Do you reckon Miss T. knows anything about being a dresser?’

‘I’m not certain that I care,’ Sophie said. ‘I am just glad she’s employed.’ She gestured again with the hand that the admiral wouldn’t turn loose. ‘And those men you hired.’

He put her hand close to his chest. ‘I doubt they know a weed from a daffodil. Like you, I’m not certain I care, either. Oh, I should tell you this: that eager under-steward that Lord Brimley so kindly sent to us on approval—I believe his name is Crowder—has agreed to become my official steward.’

‘And not Starkey?’

‘He’s my indoor man. I’ve given Crowder carte blanche to repair that little house that must have been a dower house and use it for his own. He even said he wouldn’t mind some of the Egyptian furniture. He was careful to qualify.’

Sophie laughed and turned back to the bonfire. ‘And here I thought you were going to add the jackals to the flames!’

He tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow now. ‘Things have a way of working out, Sophie.’

He seated her on a convenient bench-sized piece of driftwood and joined Starkey by the wooden stairs for a discussion that appeared to require some gestures and conversation that his hold on her would have impeded. She owned to a feeling of discomfort, watching Starkey, who seemed to be arguing. Perhaps I will have time to win Starkey over, she thought. It will be about the same time that pigs fly, I fear.

But anything was possible. She turned her attention to the fire again, watching Lord Hudley’s dirty books crackle and snap and float into the night sky like so many fiery dandelion puffs.

‘Quite a sight, eh, missy?’ she heard near her elbow. ‘Where does ol’ Double Hung want me to stow ’is bottles this year?’

She leaped to her feet and stared at a scruffy figure with an eyepatch and no more than one or two teeth in his mouth, which made spitting a wad of tobacco a convenient exercise. The missile whizzed past her shoulder and landed in the fire.

She knew better than to scream this time. ‘H-hold that thought,’ she said and started towards her husband, who was looking in her direction now. ‘Charles, we have a visitor.’

‘Like a moth to a flame, missy,’ the man said, spitting the remainder of his wad into the bonfire. ‘I’m a businessman! Be a good little piece o’ muslin and summon your old squeeze. That’s a good whore.’

Chapter Fourteen

Sophie ran to her husband and grabbed him around the waist. ‘Overlook this!’ she stammered and tried to burrow under his armpit.

‘Sophie, I didn’t know you cared,’ the admiral teased, then looked where she pointed. ‘What felon and miscreant is this? We seem to attract a motley crew.’

Keeping his arm around her, Charles walked closer to the bonfire again. ‘Ahh,’ he said finally, in a drawn-out exclamation that had equal elements of surprise and amusement in it. ‘As I live and breathe, Leaky Tadwell! I thought you had been hanged years ago. You would have been, on my watch.’

Sophie tugged on her husband’s arm. ‘You know that man?’

‘I would only admit it to my nearest and dearest,’ he replied. ‘Leaky Tadwell. Sophie, my love, let me present the most worthless seaman in any navy,’ he said in a musing tone of voice. He looked beyond the fire to the water’s edge. ‘You have a cutter. Stolen from some ship, I don’t doubt. To what do we owe this pleasure?’

The scruffy man bowed elaborately. ‘Admiral Bright?’

‘The very one. Probably the only one,’ Charles said. He kissed the top of Sophie’s head. ‘Don’t worry, wife. We’re as safe as if we had good sense.’

Tadwell straightened up and knuckled his hand to his forehead, where he vigorously tugged the greasy bit of hair under a watch cap that looked old enough to have grown to his scalp.

‘Who? Who? Who?’ Sophie stammered.

‘I married an owl,’ the admiral replied, more to himself than Tadwell.

Safely corralled in Charles’s arms—she didn’t know how it happened, but he had both arms around her now, pressing her close—Sophie stared at the man by the fire. She watched his expression, which by now was registering more suspicion than surprise.

‘’Old on now, Admiral. Where is Lord Hudley?’

‘He’s extremely late, Leaky, for your information.’

The old vagabond yanked off his watch cap and wiped it across his face, unleashing the powerful fragrance of unwashed hair that made Sophie flinch. ‘I’ll say ’e is! I’ve been waiting ’ere since June 10th for the bonfire!’ He squinted closer at Sophie. ‘And what’re you doing clutching a whore, Admiral? I thought you was the fleet’s good example.’

Sophie gasped. He sounded so self-righteous that she forgot to be afraid. ‘I am his wife, you grotty bag of sorry bones!’

‘I think I love the way you roll your r’s,’ her husband told her. ‘Oh, say that again.’

‘You are certifiable,’ she declared.

‘No, no, “grotty bag of sorry bones”. Please, Sophie.’

She burst out laughing, which had the effect of making Tadwell back up this time, and look at them both suspiciously.

‘Something ain’t quite right,’ he said. ‘Where’s ol’ Double Hung?’

‘I don’t ever want to know how Hudley got that name,’ Sophie murmured.

‘Maybe that’s the secret of his way with Fair Cyprians, two or three to a bed, and all that,’ her husband said. ‘Leaky, when I say “late”, I mean dead. Spoon in the wall. Toes cocked up. I bought this misbegotten estate a few months ago.’

‘I didn’t know,’ Tadwell said. ‘Hmm.’

And there they stood, looking at each other. Sophie was the first to speak. ‘Why are you here, and why is June 10th important to you?’

He made a grand gesture then with both arms stretched out that made Sophie want to gag again. He cast a hurt look at the admiral. ‘After the navy turned me off without a character, I been smuggling the good stuff from France.’

‘“Without a character”… You old rummy!’ Charles exclaimed. ‘Last I heard, you were flogged and stripped and left in Montevideo, hopefully to die.’

‘Where a kindly old priest took me in. Got religion, I did.’ Tadwell looked at Sophie, and his tone was a wheedling one. ‘A man’s got to earn a living, I says.’

She felt her husband’s soundless chuckle, as he held her tight. ‘Let me understand this, Mr Tadwell—’ she said.

‘Don’t be formal. Leaky,’ he interrupted.

‘Leaky, then. You sneak French wine to the Devonshire coast and leave an order for Lord Hudley’s annual bacchanal, when he lights a bonfire on the beach?’

He nodded to her and gave the admiral a squinty look. ‘You’re a bit sharper than yer old man, missy. That’s it. I must say, you outdid yourself this year. That’s some blaze.’

‘The party is over, and so is the war, Leaky,’ Charles reminded him. ‘You don’t need to sneak it in, you old felon.’

Tadwell gathered what dignity he could. ‘Maybe I like the spirit of the thing, Admiral!’

Charles shifted Sophie so he could look at her face. ‘Wife, have you looked at the wine cellar here? Are we low?’

She felt her lips twitch. If I look him in the eye I will fall down on the sand and laugh like a hyena, she thought.

‘Oh, dear, I think we must be quite low, if my love is unable to speak,’ he said, with no more than a quiver in his voice. ‘It’s all right, dear. Don’t trouble yourself over this. I’ll ask this old boozer to leave us what he would have left Hudley. I’ll even pay him, although I should alert the Sea Fencibles.’

‘Not necessary, Admiral!’ Tadwell exclaimed in such ringing tones that Sophie had to look around at him. ‘Lord Hudley always paid me before delivery!’

‘He obviously had more faith in you than anyone in the Royal Navy. I’m astounded.’

Tadwell grinned. Sophie shuddered at the bits of tobacco hanging to his few teeth. ‘Tell me where you want it and I’ll be gone as fast as green corn through a goose!’

Charles gestured over his shoulder. ‘See that man there? The one with a peg leg? The one who is fifty times the sailor you could ever hope to be? That’s Starkey and he will tell you where to put it.’

Tadwell nodded. ‘Pleasure doing business wi’ you, Admiral.’ He sketched what could only charitably be called a bow. ‘And Mrs Admiral, I didn’t mean to call you a whore.’

Still in the safety of Charles’s arms, Sophie watched the bottles nestled in straw end up stacked on the sand. Starkey marshalled his forces and they carried the wine indoors. Tadwell watched until the last bottle was gone, then tipped his watch cap to Sophie. In another minute, the smuggler worked the sails and the cutter vanished into the darkness.

The admiral watched, then turned back to the fading bonfire. ‘It’s a damned good thing we don’t have to light another fire tomorrow night, Sophie. No telling who would show up on the beach.’ He still held her hand, so he slapped the flat of his hook against his chest. ‘I don’t think I’m up to another visit from the Leaky Tadwells of the world.’

They walked slowly to the stairs and back on to the terrace, where the servants remained, Miss Thayn taking care of Vivienne.

‘Lady Bright, do you need any help getting ready for bed?’ Miss Thayn asked.

Sophie shook her head. ‘Thayn, you and I will have to sit down tomorrow and discuss your duties. So far, my wardrobe doesn’t amount to anything that can’t be ignored with impunity! May I depend upon you to make sure that all the female domestics have places to sleep? When the attic rooms are repaired some will go there.’

‘You may depend upon me, ma’am. Goodnight.’

There was a welcome brass can of hot water in her room, which made her sigh with pleasure. Everything had been replaced after Fannie vacated that morning, which only caused a small sigh, and then a personal scold as she reminded herself that her convenient marriage was getting all too comfortable. Still, after she put on her nightgown and carefully hung up her shabby dress, Sophie felt herself at surprisingly loose ends. She sat in the armchair by the fireplace, listening to the younger maids laughing and talking, going upstairs to their shabby rooms under the eaves. Charles said the workmen would be working in the attic tomorrow, repairing the roof and refurbishing the servants’ quarters.

She couldn’t help envying the girls their companionship, forged so quickly after only a day in the same household. She had seen them only briefly, but their small glances in her direction spoke volumes about their relief at employment. She knew the feeling precisely and it warmed her to provide security to at least a few, when so many were hurting. Sophie knew her husband felt the same way about hiring his few helpers from the docks.

She listened for Charles’s footsteps on the stairs—funny how quickly she could recognise them. When she heard them, she knew he was accompanied by Starkey. The men spoke in low tones, but there was laughter, and she suddenly envied Starkey the comradeship, much as she knew he had envied her, earlier in the day.

‘Charlie, you don’t need me tonight to unharness you,’ she said softly as she got up from the chair. She liked to kneel by her bed and pray—it was a habit from practically her babyhood, one encouraged by a Presbyterian mother. She knelt, but could think of nothing to say. She ended up just resting her head on the mattress, closing her eyes and then saying ‘amen’ after her knees started to ache.

Maybe there was something in the calmness of moonlight. Maybe there was a certain honesty that comes when even a plaguey house was still, and the mind had time to roam. After a few hours of fitful sleep, Sophie woke up. She sat up, realising she had forgotten to close the curtains. Moonlight streamed in and fell across her bed. She went to the window, leaned out and took a deep breath, then watched the light play across the ocean.

She took a coverlet from the end of the bed and made herself comfortable in the window seat, the better to watch the water. She thought through what she would say to Miss Thayn in the morning, and how she would let Starkey take the lead—it was his right—in managing household affairs. She never had more than two servants, anyway. She would do what Charles Bright asked of her—find him ways to keep busy, at least until he could decide whether or not life on land was to his choosing.

There was only one problem she foresaw. Sitting there in the moonlight, comfortable and well fed with no one around to question her, she knew she was falling in love with her convenient husband. She had felt the same way after she met Andrew Daviess, who had come down from the University of Edinburgh with her brother, Malcolm, who now lived in remote Bombay, courtesy of the East India Company.

Probably like most young women, if her mother was to be believed, Sophie had wondered if she would know when she was in love. She did, when she met Andrew. It was as though all her nerves hummed some new tune. Ordinary things looked better than usual. Ever practical, all she wanted to do was see his dear face again. He couldn’t write to her; that would have been improper. All she could do was wait and see if he had felt anything in her presence. If she never saw him again, it would be silent suffering on her part. By some miracle, if he felt the same way, he would come back. He did.

Under the kindness of the moon, Sophie admitted to the same emotions now, even though she’d thought she would never feel that way again. Her life had felt over, after Andrew’s funeral. And when Peter died, even as he had looked at her so trustingly to make him better, it was as though she had been handed a teaspoon to dig her own grave, minute by hour by day by week by month by year. She had been a woman with nothing to look forwards to.

Here she was, making plans again, all because a man sorely tried by his sisters had done a breathtakingly impulsive thing. She was determined to give Charles Bright no cause for regret, even if he never felt anything more for her than kindness. She wanted to analyse her feelings, wondering if they were more gratitude than love. To be sure, she was grateful, but was that all?

Tired finally, she got back into bed and slept soundly.

She didn’t hear the maids making their way downstairs in the early hours, and she barely registered the arrival in her room of more hot water. The sun woke her finally, bright and hot. She lay on her back, contemplating the ceiling and filled with gratitude that Lord Hudley had felt no need to deck the ceilings upstairs with anything more complicated than plaster whorls.

Men with heavy shoes were tramping upstairs again. Soon they would be banging away at the roof, measuring and sawing. Charles was probably on the terrace, watching his outside army haul away the ashes from the book burning. She had noticed already how he liked to stand with his hands clasped behind him, as though he still trod a quarterdeck. And there would be Starkey, waiting for his orders. It was too much to hope that he would bring her tea again.

Then she heard him on the stairs and her heart started to beat faster. Maybe it was another worker, she told herself. Maybe it was even Miss Thayn, eager to find out her duties for the day. She held her breath, waiting for a knock, and let it out slowly when it came.

She was out of bed in a flash, opening the door. There he stood, smiling good morning. All she wanted to do was throw her arms around him and never let go. Instead, she held the door open, then closed it softly behind him, hurrying back to bed and making the coverlet straight.

He was already dressed. He set the cup and saucer on the nightstand and sat down on the bed, as he had for the last two mornings, watching her and saying nothing until she had sipped from the cup and pronounced it good.

‘You’re a sleepyhead this morning,’ he said. ‘The ’tween-stairs girl said you were still asleep when she brought in the hot water.’ He ruffled her hair. ‘Are you turning into a layabout?’

‘I didn’t sleep well,’ she admitted.

‘I didn’t either,’ he said, looking out the window.

‘Worried about this work in progress you purchased?’

‘Maybe that’s it.’ He sighed. ‘Now the head builder says it would be wise to replace two of the chimneys.’ He patted her leg, and she wondered if he was even aware of what he was doing. ‘Watch your head when you come down the stairs. They’re painting the ceiling in the main hallway now. Etienne wants to show you his menus for the week, and Miss Thayn is pacing up and down in the sitting room, ready to tackle whatever you have for her.’

Sophie held very still. His hand still rested on her ankle and she didn’t want to move and remind him. She was so close to reaching out and caressing his face that she had to remind herself to breathe. ‘Wh-what are we going to do with all these servants?’

‘I don’t know. Let’s close up the house and ship out to Capri.’

‘I think you’re restless on land.’

‘I know I am, Sophie dear. I’d give almost anything to walk a quarterdeck about now.’

So that was it. She moved her leg slightly and he remembered where his hand was. ‘Excuse me. You can overlook that, can’t you?’

She nodded. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have retired.’

‘It was time. Finished with that?’ He hooked the cup handle neatly out of her grasp and set it back in its saucer. ‘I had seen all the blood flowing from the scuppers, eaten all the mouldy bread and gelatinous water, and smelled all the bilge I ever wanted to. After twenty years of war, and a total of almost thirty-five years in the Royal Navy, I was sick to death of it.’

‘Oh, my,’ she said. ‘But you still bought a manor that juts out into the water. I don’t believe there is a room in this house without a sea view.’

‘I made sure of that sea view from every window. I still love the ocean. I always will. Maybe I’m more full of contradictions than a tightly wound woman.’

She had to laugh at that. ‘No you’re not! You just need to figure out what to do with the rest of your life.’

‘True.’ He got off her bed and went to the window. He looked at her for a long while, then returned to sit beside her. He took her hand. ‘Sophie, I never thought to survive the war. I doubt any man in the fleet did. Do you realise that we officers and men sleep in our coffins at sea? If I had died in action, they would have weighted me down with cannonballs, sewed me into my sleeping cot and chucked me over the side.’ He put her hand to his cheek. ‘Only Nelson was small enough to fit into a butt of brandy and return to land!’ He smiled. ‘We will agree he was a bit more of an icon, too.’

He looked at her hand, but did not let go of her. ‘Well. Something works in a man’s mind, when he sleeps in his own coffin and spends every livelong day in the tension of battle.’

‘Every day?’ she asked, keeping her voice soft, not wanting to interrupt the flow of his thoughts. Andrew had never been one to open up with problems and she found herself deeply moved by this practical stranger. Except that he was no stranger. Maybe from the moment he sat down in that pew at St Andrew’s, he was no stranger to her. ‘Even during the slow times at sea?’

‘Even then. We sent men up into the crosstrees to watch for foreign sails, but I don’t know a commander worth his salt who was not always looking, too. Oh, God, wife, when you command a whole fleet, that vigilance is magnified exponentially. My mind is tired and I still pace. How can I forget?’

Sophie knew she would never question what she did then, if it was to be the only time or the first of many. Rivka said I should think with my heart, she told herself, as she gently extracted her hand from his and got up. She saw the disappointment in his eyes, but she knew it wouldn’t last, not when she crossed to the door and turned the key in the lock.

She could hardly feel her bare feet on the carpet as she walked back to the bed, unbuttoned her nightgown and slowly dropped it. She could feel her face begin to flame, but she kept her eyes on his, noting how they took in her nudity. He began to breathe more quickly. She touched his head and moved close to him. He rested his cheek against her bare belly. She felt his eyelids close.

‘There now,’ she murmured. ‘There now.’ I wish I weren’t so thin, she thought. I wish a lot of things right now.

After a long moment, he opened his eyes and looked up at her. His hand went to the buttons of his shirt and then to his harness. ‘Help me out of this,’ he ordered, his voice sounding almost rusty.

She did as he said, sitting beside him, helping to free him of his shirt and then undoing the clasp at his neck, which held the harness together.

A modest woman, Sophie had never done this in broad daylight. As she helped Charles undo the buttons on his already bulging trousers, then climbed back into bed, she thought of all the times in the last year of his life she had wanted to comfort Andrew and he had rejected her. When her head was pillowed on the admiral’s arm, and his fingers were gently tracing the outline of her breast, she didn’t think about Andrew any more.

Chapter Fifteen

Charles had one rational thought, before instinct reigned. Was I playing on her sympathies? he asked himself, as he familiarised himself with his wife’s body. Maybe he had worked on her kind heart. He needed what she obviously wanted to do; more than that, he wanted her.

‘This is going to be a hard action to overlook,’ he told her, his lips against her ear.

‘Please.’

He could have resisted nearly anything except please, spoken so softly in his ear, but with an undercurrent of desire and demand that he didn’t know women possessed. What an ignorant man he was! He had bedded women in many ports, some of low degree, especially when he was a young lieutenant, and others of more exalted pedigree, as he ascended in rank and power. They had all been willing—he was not a man to force an issue—but he couldn’t recall one who had initiated lovemaking.

Sophie was different in all ways. As she began to stroke him, and murmur words more like music than words, he knew she wanted to soothe his agitation, and was ready to do it in time-honoured fashion, probably ever since the first man had gone to sea, suffered and whined to his wife on returning. At the same time, he sensed her own needs, a widow of five years with little outlet for her own passion. She knew precisely where to touch him; for one small moment, he envied her late husband for all his years with her. I have come late to this party, he thought, as he put her lips on her breast and felt her heart thundering against her ribcage. Better late than never.

He knew there should be niceties, but this was different. Even as he prepared to kiss his way around her breasts, Sophie was already trying to squirm under him. Fine, then. He was totally ready, barring any last-minute reservations on anyone’s part.

When he entered her, Sophie let out a breath she must have been holding for months, so long it seemed to go on. Her arms and legs were tight around his body, her legs crossed high on his back as she moved in perfect rhythm with him. Flexible, he thought, as he held her close. He thought she might object to how tightly he held her, until she murmured ‘so safe’ in his ear, and he realised how terrifying her life had been for years. If a man covering her took away a few of her own demons, then he could hold her that way.

She had lashed herself to him, leaving him with a feeling of such relief, and he hadn’t even climaxed yet. It was as though she was trying to exorcise years and years of war with her body. Considering the length of the war and its intensity, his mind told him this was an impossible task. But as she began to breathe deep and run gentle hands across his shoulders, he felt crusty layers of sorrow and terror, dished out in equal measure, begin to slough away.

He wasn’t as gentle as she was, and he knew it, but his only qualm was for her fragility. She was too slim for his liking, and he hadn’t even had time to begin a campaign with Etienne to pack a little more substance on to her frame. He tried to rise up on his elbows a time or two, but that only brought a tighter grip on his back. So be it, then. She wanted to bear his weight and he swallowed his qualms as he drove into her relentlessly and was rewarded with a moan she made no effort to stifle, as she tried to turn herself inside out in her climax.

A man of considerable patience, he bided his time until a second shudder shook her slender body, then he bowed over her for his own release, so sublime a surrender that he felt tears starting behind his eyelids. It was as though his wife had drained every ounce of weariness from him, taking it into herself and welcoming him with her own release.

She had not released him with her legs. He had no objection to kissing her hair at her perspiring temples, then her open mouth and then burying his face in the curls that tangled around her neck. She smelled faintly of talc, a scent he discovered he quite fancied.

‘Sophie, Sophie,’ he murmured. ‘Kindly inform me if I am hurting you.’

She was too busy to answer him, continuing her movements, slower now, but no less imperative. He was diminishing, but made another effort, which was rewarded with a groan, and then complete relaxation of her legs, as though someone had tugged out all her bones, leaving her a soft pile. She opened her eyes and he was again smitten with the depth of them, as brown as good coffee. He kissed her again, tickling her tongue with his, which brought a low laugh to Sophie. She gently bit his lip and tried to shift her legs, which he took as a signal to move so she could draw a substantial breath.

Sophie settled herself next to him, still tucked close to his side, her cheek against his chest. After a moment, he felt tears on his chest. He raised up on his elbow and put his palm under her chin. ‘Hey, none of that,’ he said softly.

‘I don’t know what got into me,’ she said finally.

‘I did.’

He had hoped she would think that bit of ribaldry funny, but she put her face down into his chest again, so he could not see her eyes.

‘What you must think of me,’ she said. ‘I’ve never done anything quite that forwards before.’

‘I didn’t think you had,’ he told her, kissing the top of her head, ‘and I’m the one who suggested a marriage of convenience. What must you think of me?’

She opened her mouth to speak, but a knock on the door closed it. Her eyes went wide and she sat up, grasping a sheet to cover her. ‘Y-yes?’ she said tentatively.

‘It’s Miss Thayn. The post chaise is here for me now. You’ll need to tell me precisely what you want, Lady Bright.’

Mostly I want all of you servants to disappear, Charles thought.

‘I’ll be downstairs in just a minute, Thayn,’ Sophie said.

‘May I assist you in dressing?’ she asked through the door.

‘No! No!’ Sophie said quickly. ‘I mean…I’m quite capable. Just wait for me downstairs.’

She had to look at him then, and he saw the misery in his wife’s eyes replace the pleasure in what he had done for her. She kept the sheet high, which would have seemed ludicrous to a cynic, which he was not. The gesture touched him and gave him the tiniest bit of insight into the character of women, this one in particular. Sophie Bright—he could think of her as no one but Sophie Bright now—was a modest woman. Just because he knew that she could burn like straw, she was still a modest woman.

Maybe that was the contradiction of women. He was a worldly enough man, but this sudden knowledge was a priceless glimpse into the depth of another person, one growing more important to him with each breath she took. War had put him in the grip of powerful emotion nearly all of his life. He thought he could imagine nothing more compelling. He looked at his wife, truly bone of his bone now. Even though he could see there was some rough weather ahead, he found himself nearly giddy with love, the most powerful emotion of all.

This was obviously not the time to divulge such a statement. She would not believe him, or think he was merely trying to placate her and soothe over what had been as shattering a release to her as to him. Truly, how it was possible to plunge into such intimacy in so short a time would have baffled him, too, as it obviously did her, except for one thing—he knew the full power of strong emotion. War had been his tutor. How much better was love, than war. He could tell her later.

‘Sophie, be easy about this,’ he said.

She sat still, probably listening for Miss Thayn’s footsteps to recede. She couldn’t meet his eyes. ‘My late husband used to tell me that my abiding fault was an impulsive nature.’

Well, damn the man, Charles thought, feeling a real spark of anger at the wretch who had rendered Sophie’s life a misery by one monumentally selfish act.

‘Please believe me, I never thought beyond the moment I dropped my nightgown.’ She put her hand to her face, still keeping that grip on the sheet. ‘I shouldn’t be so impulsive.’

Think carefully, he ordered himself. ‘I know precisely why you did it, Sophie,’ he said. ‘You didn’t think one moment beyond my comfort. Thank you for that. I needed what you gave me.’ No need for her to know—and maybe she didn’t even really know—how great had been her own need. ‘I do feel better.’ By God, he thought, even a suit of armor would have felt release. Sophie is more powerful than she has any clue.

She looked at him then, her face rosy. ‘I think I need to know you better before I…’ She faltered, unable to continue.

‘Do that again?’ he asked simply.

She nodded. ‘Only a drooling fool could overlook it,’ she told him.

He smiled then, pleased with even this tiny return of her good humour. ‘Sophie, go get dressed. You already know I can button you up the back as good as Miss Thayn. And you’d better re-harness me before you go belowdeck.’

Respecting her modesty, Charles turned his back to her, giving her an easy escape to her dressing room in her nakedness. When the door closed quietly behind her, he rolled over and searched for his smallclothes and trousers.

He was buttoning his trousers when she opened the door, dressed but still flushed. ‘I got all of them except two,’ she said.

She came to the bed, and for one moment he hoped she would drop her clothes again. Instead, she turned around. He rested his handless arm against her back and pushed in the buttons with his fingers.

‘Your turn,’ she said. ‘Now, where did I…?’

She got down on her knees and looked under the bed. It was all he could do not to run his hand across her hips. ‘My goodness, how did it get there?’ she said, pulling out the harness.

She still had difficulty looking him in the eyes. She concentrated on putting the leather straps together and anchoring them with the clasp. He quickly slipped the hook and socket in place, second nature to him, and raised his arms so she could lower his shirt over them. The cufflinks went on quickly. As he watched her, she went to her dressing table and shook her head over the tangle of hair.

‘Just run a brush through it and pull it back with a tie,’ Charles suggested. ‘In fact, if that was all you ever did with it, I’d be happy. You look good that way.’

She looked at him in the mirror. ‘Men.’ It said the world.

She went to the door, but he stopped her with a question, something he’d wanted to ask, maybe for years before he knew her. He almost felt shy asking.

‘One thing, Sophie.’ He held up his hook. ‘Does it disgust you to look at my arm?’

She frowned at him, as if wondering how simple he was. ‘Of course not, Charles. Makes you look distinguished. So does that grey on your temples.’ She leaned her head against the door, giving him that solemn appraisal he felt inclined to enjoy, because it was so flattering. ‘You’ll always look like a hero.’

Then she was gone, hurrying down the stairs. Charles lay back in her bed, enjoying the fragrance she had left behind. The sheets were probably a disgrace. If he bundled them up carefully, the upstairs maid wouldn’t be any wiser. He listened, heard no one stirring and quietly let himself out of Sophie’s room and back into his own, across the hall.

Charles hadn’t reckoned on Starkey being so silent, even though he had known his body servant for years. Was that accusation in the man’s eyes as he sat so primly on a straight-backed chair by the door? Good God, what had Starkey heard of the sexual tumult across the hall?

Not a word passed between them. Starkey gave him a cool, measuring look just skirting the boundaries of insolence. Starkey’s gaze broke away first, so determined was Charles not to yield the quarterdeck to a servant.

Charles said only one thing. As he reflected on the matter later, only then did he realise it was most certainly the wrong thing.

‘As you were, Starkey,’ he said sharply.

Starkey left the room in total silence, head high and without a backwards glance.

Sophie remembered to watch her head in the corridor, which was now in the hands of the painting crew. She watched them a moment, until her heartbeat returned to normal and the high colour in her face subsided.

As she waited for calm, Sophie decided to rationalise the earlier event of the morning. Heaven knew the admiral seemed willing to do precisely that. She closed her eyes as she remembered Charles’s body so heavy and comforting on hers, more welcome than rain to a parched land.

She squeezed her eyes even tighter shut, thinking of her abandonment in his arms, her disinclination to silence, her groans as he so effortlessly brought her to climax, not once, which at least toyed with marital decorum, but three times, which painted her as a wanton, almost.

She opened her eyes. Charles had in no way indicated any disgust at her behaviour. She knew she had refreshed him completely. The softening of his face when he left her body, and the way he had wordlessly encouraged her to nestle under his arm and rest her head on his chest, spoke of nothing but his own relief and great heartedness.

I tried to nurture and was nurtured in turn, she thought, as she smiled at the painters on their scaffolding and ducked into the sitting room, where Miss Thayn waited. Charles is right; we should just leave it at that for now.

Almost like a young bride, Sophie wondered only briefly if her own sexual ease showed. Surely not. There was no way Miss Thayn could see beyond what Sophie hoped was her calm demeanour. Still, Sophie knew, deep down in the core of her body, that she had never offered herself so eagerly, not even with Andrew, and been so amply rewarded.

After exchanging a few pleasantries with Miss Thayn, Sophie decided on a course of action that, if peculiar, seemed to suit them both.

‘Thayn, I want you to go to the workhouse and acquire us two more orphaned girls. I believe we can find enough employment of a light nature to occupy them.’

‘I am certain we can,’ Miss Thayn agreed. She hesitated only a moment. ‘Thank you for hiring me.’

‘I could do no less,’ Sophie replied. ‘As you well know, I have sat on hard benches in employment registries.’ She looked down, wondering how much more to say. ‘I will explain more of this to you later.’

‘Only if you feel inclined, ma’am,’ Thayn told her. ‘As for me, I am happy to help. I have worked so many years for the wealthy and seen little enough gratitude for what I do. Your home feels different.’

Home, is it? Sophie thought. This sorry, ramshackle residence? Home. That was food for thought.

‘Thayn, think of the good we can do. If we find we cannot fill all their hours with work—and I suggest we not try too hard to do that—I will depend upon you to fill their time with lessons.’

Thayn nodded, her eyes bright with understanding.

Sophie laughed. ‘It appears you will still be a governess here. Do you mind if your pupils are society’s dregs?’

There was no overlooking the affection on the governess’s face. I have found an ally and an altruist, Sophie told herself, pleased.

‘Ma’am, think of the great good you can do.’

‘We, Thayn, we,’ Sophie amended. ‘Let us go to the bookroom. The admiral said he would leave a letter there for you to present to the workhouse beadle and sufficient funds to grease his palm, should he quibble.’

Tired, but triumphant, Thayn returned at the end of the day with two urchins as thin of face as herself. Over tea on the terrace, where Sophie had sat most of the afternoon, watching Charles sitting on driftwood at the beach, his eyes on the ocean, they compared notes. Thayn told Sophie she had struck such a frugal bargain with the beadle, happy to have two more mouths off his hands, that she had enough of the admiral’s money left to purchase several bolts of cloth to make serviceable dresses and aprons for all the domestics now in Admiral Bright’s employ.

‘I confess to being no dresser, ma’am, but I can sew,’ Thayn said, as she finished her tea. ‘Your upstairs maid informs me that she is adept with a needle, as well.’

‘Have these little girls names?’

‘One is Gladys, and the other I will call Minerva, after my mother, if that is agreeable to you,’ Thayn said. She could not help herself then. ‘Ma’am, what kind of a country values children so ill as to not name the ones who might not survive babyhood?’

‘Ours, apparently,’ Sophie murmured. She gazed at the admiral on the beach, longing suddenly to go to him because he looked so lonely. ‘Oh, I should tell you—the attic rooms are finished. May I put you in charge of assigning the female staff to wherever you think best?’ She laughed, noting with a softness in her heart that the admiral turned around at the sound of her voice. ‘Hopefully they will not mind ugly Egyptian furniture! The steward couldn’t use it all.’

Miss Thayn joined in her laughter, but sobered quickly enough. ‘Ma’am, I can imagine that it will far exceed a pallet on the floor.’

‘It will,’ Sophie agreed. ‘And now, Thayn, perhaps I had better check out my other responsibility on the beach.’

Sophie felt her heart begin to hammer in her breast as she walked down the few steps to the beach. The men had cleared away all evidence of the bonfire, but there the admiral sat. He had paced the sand for a while, then adjourned to a prominent piece of driftwood. Her heart went out to him, a man misplaced on land, weary of the sea and not totally convinced either place was his choice now. I must remind him of his memoirs, she thought, if we can overlook…other matters.

He put his arm carefully around her waist. ‘Sophie, I set the rules about this marriage of convenience, didn’t I?’

‘You did,’ she agreed, wishing she did not sound so wary, wishing she had the courage to say what she was thinking, even as she marvelled at the speed with which she found herself in love. Could he ever understand that? Would he just think it was her gratitude, and not a love that was beginning to almost take her breath away? But she had to explain herself, even if it made her blush. ‘I wanted to comfort you,’ she said simply. ‘It’s a good way.’

‘It worked,’ he told her, sounding almost as shy as she felt.

‘I know,’ she replied, her voice soft. ‘You’ve been so kind to me and that was my aim.’ She took a deep breath, knowing she had never spoken so plainly to a man in her life. ‘Let me say this: neither of us is inexperienced. I don’t know about other women, but I comforted myself, too, by what I started.’

‘Good for you,’ he whispered.

I like that, she thought. ‘I think I know your body now.’

‘It’s a basic one,’ he agreed, half smiling. ‘So is yours, but there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?’

‘Yes, most certainly,’ she replied, feeling more brave. ‘I want to know your mind, too.’ She hesitated.

‘Go on,’ he encouraged.

‘If we don’t know each other’s minds, then how dare we proceed? The result would not be happy.’

He seemed to consider the matter, his arm still around her waist. ‘I believe you are right.’ He released his grip on her. ‘Sophie, I know a lot about uncharted waters. We sail slowly, always sounding the depth.’

She thought she understood him, but saw a lee shore looming. If he is to know my mind, I have to tell him my real name, and why I said nothing earlier, she thought. I have to. Would now be the time?

She opened her mouth to speak, but the admiral was ahead of her.

‘May I still bring you tea in the morning?’ He asked it so gently that she hadn’t the heart to express herself further.

‘You know you may,’ she said quietly.

‘But just tea,’ he said in haste, and the moment to confess was gone, because she had to smile and shake her head over their situation. He laughed and nudged her shoulder. The branch creaked louder, then snapped, sending them both to the sand.

Sophie laughed, and felt disinclined to rise, especially since her husband was laughing, too. How do these things happen? Her head was pillowed on his chest again, but he did nothing more than hold her. The afternoon was warm. She breathed deep of the sea this time, finding it to her liking, where she thought it never would again.

‘Sophie dear, what is my remedy for life on land?’ he asked her finally, rising and helping her to her feet. He dusted sand off the back of her dress and she had only the slightest suspicion that his hand lingered overlong on her hips.

You’re a sly one, husband, she thought, amused. ‘We already covered that. Your memoirs, sir,’ she reminded him. ‘We will begin tomorrow.’

Again there was that half-smile, plus a look of faux-resignation. ‘Very well, wife. After morning tea, it will be the bookroom. What danger can we run into in there?’

Chapter Sixteen

Sophie slept soundly and didn’t wake up until her husband knocked on her door. She noticed with some suspicion that he wasn’t wearing his hook. His eyes followed her gaze and he smiled beatifically.

‘Wife, you are so suspicious,’ he scolded, his voice mild as he handed her the cup and saucer, and let drop the hook and harness on the end of her bed. ‘I’ll have you know Starkey requested a few days’ shore leave, which, he reminded me, is overdue. You’ll have to help me with my ironworks for the next few mornings.’

First came the ritual they were accustomed to now. She slid over to make room for him and drank her tea. He leaned against her legs and even started to put his hand on her hip, but changed his mind. It was all she could do to keep a straight face.

‘Wife, I have cleared the deck in the bookroom,’ he announced as she sipped, his hand chastely in his lap, to her amusement. ‘I have located paper, pen and pencil, whichever you prefer. I will endeavour to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, except, possibly, where shore leave is concerned. Can’t have you thinking I am a total cad.’

‘Wretch!’ she said mildly, putting down the cup and drawing up her knees, so he had to straighten up. ‘Your scandalous past is none of my business.’

‘I suppose it is not,’ he agreed. ‘No scandal, dear. From Trafalgar to 1811, I was either milling about in the channel, or dragging my fleet into the Mediterranean, to see what mischief we could do to Boney’s sailors.’

‘You know you would do it all again in a minute, if called upon,’ Sophie ventured, watching his face.

He surprised her. ‘As to that, I wouldn’t swear on a Bible. Land has its attractions.’

They looked into each other’s eyes. Sophie felt herself growing warm again in that region south of her belly that had received such exercise only yesterday, and at about this time. She felt her delicate parts start to melt again as her brain suggested in no uncertain terms that she look away. With some reluctance, she focused her attention on the softly blowing curtain over her convenient husband’s shoulder. Good Lord, the man has broad shoulders, she thought.

A knock on the door simplified her efforts to abide by whatever it was they had agreed to yesterday; she still wasn’t sure.

‘The timing in this house is wretched,’ she was sure her husband muttered as he got to his feet and opened the door.

He turned his frown into an instant smile as he held the door open for one of the new workhouse girls, eyes wide and staring, who carried in a brass can of hot water.

‘I…I…wasn’t sure which door, your excellency,’ she whispered, nearly overcome with terror. ‘I…I…tried t’em all.’

Sophie beckoned to the child. ‘You did very well… Minerva? Gladys?’

‘Minerva, mum,’ the child whispered.

Charles took the brass can by its bale and lifted it from her grasp. ‘That’s a heavy assignment,’ he said. ‘Let’s put it here on the floor by the wash basin. My madam is quite able to lift it when she needs it.’ He winked at Minerva. ‘My dear, a simple “Admiral” will suffice. I’m not as exalted as a bishop, and probably a tad more profane.’

Minerva only nodded and stared, then remembered to curtsy, as she backed towards the door. She paused and looked into the distance, as if trying to remember what came next. Her eyes lit up and she looked at Sophie again. ‘Will there be anything else, mum?’ she asked. ‘Or you, your excel…excellent Admiral?’

‘No, no, my dear,’ Sophie replied, forcing down her laughter. ‘You might tell Etienne that I will be down for breakfast in half an hour.’

It was the reply Minerva wanted, apparently. With relief in her eyes, she bobbed a curtsy and beat a hasty retreat. Charles closed the door and leaned against it, dipped his head and laughed softly. When he looked at her again, he wearing that dratted half-smile Sophie was finding so hard to resist. ‘Maybe we should send the servants to Capri instead of us. The painting is nearly done in the hall now, and most of those naughty cherubs are now under paint. This house could actually be liveable, provided we don’t get any more visits from the Leaky Tadwells of the world.’

He came back to her bed, took off his shirt and held out his harness. ‘Buckle me up, my dear. No telling who will barge in next. I haven’t heard from the Admiralty Lords in recent months, but they might be in the vicinity.’

She did as he asked, not even trying to hide her smile. When she finished, he kissed her cheek and put himself back into his shirt. She buttoned him without a word, wondering if he would peck her cheek again and disappointed when he did not. After tucking in his shirt tails, he went to the door.

‘I’ll be ready in the bookroom when you finish breakfast.’

‘I won’t be long,’ she assured him, ready to fling back the coverlet, then deciding against it, because her nightgown had hiked up during the night.

‘Take your time over breakfast, Sophie dear. I hope you won’t think me a managing old husband, but I have encouraged Etienne to use a liberal hand with the butter and cream.’ He scratched his head with his hook. ‘It, uh, came to my attention about this time yesterday that you might want a little more padding in various venues. Ciao, esposa. Linger over breakfast.’

He was gone then, but not before she saw his grin. ‘You, sir, are a complete rascal,’ she murmured as she got out of bed and shook down her nightgown. And you, Sophie, need to ask Minerva to bring you cold water with chunks of ice in it, she scolded herself.

She had no difficulty lingering over breakfast, with buttery croissants and porridge with the clotted cream Devonshire was so renowned for, topped with raspberries. She was further encouraged by the folded note her husband had left by her place: ‘If you don’t try some of that cakey stuff with cheese on it, Etienne will go into a deep decline. Trust me: this is not something you want to witness. You should have seen him after the Battle of Basque Roads, when I had the temerity to tell him I was too busy for breakfast. Your loving and deeply concerned spouse, His Excellency, The Admiral Who Must Be Obeyed.’

You are going to bully me with kindness, Sophie thought, as she tucked into breakfast.

There was no putting off the bookroom, especially since it had been her suggestion as a means to keep the admiral occupied. Sophie reminded herself it was one of the conditions of their marriage—not that anyone was precisely keeping the conditions, she reminded herself, as she dabbed her lips and rose with what she hoped was resolution.

When she timidly opened the door, he stood by the window, rocking back and forth on his heels, as if impatient to begin. He turned around when he heard the door open and there was that half-smile again.

‘I trust you did eat some of those…those…’

‘Cheesy things?’ she asked. ‘They were delicious. Soon I will not be able to fit into those lovely clothes you have paid for.’

‘Where are those, by the way?’

‘Patience, patience,’ she admonished as she looked at the desk. ‘It takes time to sew dresses.’

She just stood there, unsure of where to sit. He indicated the desk. ‘Sit yourself down, wife, and roll up your sleeves. I intend to do enough pacing about for both of us. Let me know if it makes you dizzy.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Where should I begin?’

She did as he said, squirming to make herself comfortable. In a moment he was kneeling by her chair and reaching under the seat to turn a screw.

‘There now. That should allow your feet to touch the deck. Another turn?’

‘One more.’ His head was practically in her lap. For some absurd reason that totally escaped her, she wanted to touch his hair. She thought of yesterday morning, when she had twined her fingers in his hair and felt her face go red. She told herself resolutely to admire his ears, think of anything but how pleasant had been that sensation, especially since her first climax had peaked when her hands were in his hair. Heavens, Sophie, have a little temperance, she scolded herself.

Thank goodness he stood up then. Trouble was, he didn’t move from her side. And horrors, he put his hand on her shoulder, giving her neck a quick caress with his thumb. She couldn’t help the small sigh that escaped her. Pray God he hadn’t heard it. She had never felt so finely tuned to another person in her entire life.

‘Where should I begin?’ he asked softly.

Oh, gracious, keep your hand on my neck, she thought. Start there. ‘Oh. Oh. I think at the beginning, don’t you?’ she managed to say.

‘Do you have a sore throat?’ he asked. ‘You sound a little strangled.’

He moved his hand from her neck and she cleared her throat. ‘It’s just an early morning frog,’ she said.

‘Well, then. Get your pen ready. I was born in Bristol in 1771, youngest child and only son of a barrister…’

And so the morning went. Sophie felt herself relaxing as she concentrated on the page in front of her. The admiral had thoughtfully provided a number of pencils, which proved more rapid than dipping nib in ink, over and over.

After a short time, Sophie knew it would take some effort to achieve efficiency. She blamed herself. In his matter-of-fact way, what her husband told her held her spellbound. More than once he had to remind her to take his dictation.

He seemed to be swallowing his impatience as she struggled to write what he said, when all she wanted to do was ask questions. He must have realised it when she gasped as he told her his father had sent him to sea at age ten, then burst into tears.

‘See here, wife, I know I told you earlier that I went to sea at ten,’ he exclaimed, throwing up his hands and ceasing his contemplation of the fireplace. ‘Come, come. You’re such a watering pot over the mundane matters of my maritime career. Oh, hang it, Sophie! I know I have a handkerchief somewhere.’

He did, and he produced it, after taking her hand and plopping her down on his lap on the sofa, where she leaned against him and bawled. ‘You’re a silly widgeon,’ he said a few minutes later, his tone much softer. ‘It’s always been that way in the navy. Sophie, you have the softest heart. How else is the navy going to train officers fit for command but to start them early? Sophie, Sophie.’

‘You were just a baby,’ she managed, when her tears had subsided and she was content to rest against his broad chest.

‘Ten? My dear, don’t tell a boy that!’ His arms tightened around her. ‘Mind the hook. It’s on your port bow,’ he cautioned, which made her chuckle in a watery way.

She sat up and blew her nose. ‘Didn’t your father want you to be a barrister?’

He brushed her hair from her eyes, anchoring it behind her ear. ‘I had a better father than most, I think. He could see I spent all my time at the docks, watching the ships and begging for my own pinnace.’ His eyes softened with the memory, and then he gently pulled her back against his chest. ‘My mother cut up stiff, just like you are doing.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘She cried, but she packed my first sea chest and sent me off to join the fleet heading for the American War.’

‘The American War? You’re not that old,’ Sophie declared into his suit coat.

‘Beg to differ, my dear. It was 1781, and I got in on the tail-end of the navy’s humiliation by the French at Yorktown. Call it the Battle of the Capes. I spent it rushing notes from Captain Graves to his lieutenants on the gun decks.’

And dodging dead bodies and slipping on blood and gore, he thought. I would never do that to a child of mine. He held her out again and looked her in the eyes. ‘Sophie, I’ve never been so frightened, but I also never wanted to be anywhere but on a quarterdeck for the rest of my life.’ He put her off his lap. ‘Now, sit at the desk and write that, will you?’

She did exactly that. Charles knew that if he held his convenient wife on his lap for many more minutes, he would end up locking the door, clearing off the desk and having his way with her in the bookroom, of all places. It took all his will to set her on her feet again and announce that he had some business elsewhere in the house.

After he had walked around the house, down to the beach and back, admired the painting in the last room on the main floor that needed it, he thought he could look in on her with complacency. She sat at the desk, tongue between her teeth, frowning at the paper as she wrote. Why would a woman look so attractive doing that? he asked himself. Oh, hang it, Admiral, he thought in disgust, as far as you are concerned, Sophie Bright would look attractive scrubbing pots in the kitchen, up to her elbows in grease. You are a no-hoper.

There were worse things, he decided, as he came into the bookroom. To his relief, Sophie was her cheerful self again. She held out the paper with a flourish. ‘I think I have captured the essence of your experience,’ she told him as he came closer. ‘Here. Read it.’ She sat back in his chair, her lovely eyes on his face, confidence in every line of her posture. She was a far cry from the frightened woman sitting in the dining room of the Drake.

She was right. He read it over again, pleased at her distinctive way with words. He sat on a corner of his desk and put the page back in front of her. ‘I couldn’t have said it better, Sophie.’

He noted how she blushed at his kind words. You are pleased by so little, he thought. Perhaps that is because you have had so little.

She was still regarding him. She clasped her hands in front of her on the desk, reminding him forcefully of himself at sea and in command of a fleet.

‘Speak, oh great one,’ he teased, which made her laugh.

‘This is how we should proceed, if you’re agreeable,’ she said, speaking so thoughtfully and without even the slightest idea how lovely she looked. ‘You’ll give me the bare bones of the tale and I will ask you questions. When we have finished, I will write your story the way I see it. You can change whatever you want, of course.’

He could see no reason why not to do it her way. ‘I think you have hit upon an excellent division of labour, my dear! I will blather on about my naval career and you will do all the work. Perhaps I will show you some of my deadly dull memos to the fleet and you will see what a wise idea that is.’

‘Lazy wretch,’ she told him, which almost made his toes curl with pleasure.

‘It’s your idea, cara mia,’ he said, holding up both arms.

They ate lunch on the terrace. Charles didn’t want her out of his sight, no matter what he had said about observing the niceties and thinking about matters before rushing ahead. She simplified his afternoon by declaring her intent to visit across the lane with the Brusteins.

‘Let me provide an escort,’ he said.

She had no objections. She didn’t mind when he offered his good arm, and she took it, taking her sweet time down their long driveway, where his yard crew attacked the weeds under the watchful eye of his steward.

‘Crowder tells me that tomorrow there will be a gravel wagon here to eliminate the more egregious potholes,’ he told Sophie. It was super-ordinary conversation, but it warmed him. He remembered his parents talking about fabric and ribbons for their daughters, or the price of good wool, when they sat together over breakfast, so many years ago. They were long in their graves, so he could only wonder if his father had enjoyed those mundane moments with his mother.

‘I think you should ask Crowder about replacing that banister on the steps leading down to the beach,’ she told him. Her arm was tucked close into him.

‘I will do that,’ he said. ‘What would you think about bluebird boxes on the back lawn?’

Maybe it was the way he said it, but Sophie stopped and laughed. ‘If only your men could hear you now,’ she murmured. ‘I would love bluebird boxes, your excellency.’

She was teasing him and fair game, so he ruffled her hair. The next thing he knew, she was in his arms. She gave him a quick hug, then released him, to his disappointment.

Overlook that, he almost said, but he didn’t, because he knew they had gone beyond the silliness of that. As he ambled beside his wife, neither of them in a hurry, he suddenly knew that he would never be happy anywhere but where she was. There was so much he wanted to say, but that cautionary angel of his, the one that had kept him from many a lee shore, reminded him of his words from yesterday. We will think this through, he repeated. We will be thoughtful, reasonable, mature adults. Maybe.

With a rueful shake of his head, Jacob Brustein told them that Rivka was asleep. They sat with him in the sun-warmed parlour for tea, mainly listening, as the old financier admitted that his dear wife spent much of the time sleeping.

‘She loves to see you, Sophie,’ he said, holding out his cup for more tea. ‘If you could visit in the mornings, I think you would find her more alert.’

‘That is what I will do, then,’ Sophie said as she poured. She smiled at Charles and he felt his own heart lift. ‘The admiral is writing his memoirs. There is no reason why we cannot do that in the afternoons.’

‘None at all,’ he agreed.

Brustein beamed at him. ‘Admiral! You are going to favour the world with your account of our late misfortunes as playthings of Napoleon?’

‘Sophie thinks such a work will occupy me. I cannot see it being of much interest. I was no hero, just a persistent thorn in the Corsican’s side—one of many.’

Brustein drank his tea, and then gazed with bright eyes at Sophie. ‘Your children will appreciate the story, Admiral Bright. When they reach those trying years before adulthood, it will remind them that there was life in the old fossil, eh?’

The old fellow smiled at the modest way Sophie had looked away, her face rosy at his offhand mention of children. ‘Sophie, too bad there are no adventures in the life of money lenders! My children have to love me just because. The admiral here has more going for him.’

Charles couldn’t resist a sidelong look at his wife. She was a tender soul and he knew it. The idea of children took hold in his brain then, and he swallowed against the emotion. He had never thought to survive the war. There had been bitter moments when he was younger and gripped by the reality that Napoleon had the ordering his life, which left no room for a family. He was fated to be a sea-going machine, answerable only to Admiralty House, where wives were unofficially frowned upon because they tended to soften the hard edges needed to fight a world war.

In a short week, things had changed. He had no chart now to make a path for him through a matrimonial sea that he had blunted from the beginning. He might argue that he caught Sally Paul in a vulnerable moment. She had sensibly turned him down once. Only in her desperation had she agreed to a marriage of convenience. They had gone far beyond the limits, but as he sat in Jacob Brustein’s parlour, on edge and uncertain, he began to grasp just how much he loved the woman beside him.

They could say what they wanted about thinking the matter through. He looked at Sophie, who had engaged the old man in conversation. Some day, perhaps he could tell her about the point of no return. It came on every voyage—that day when trouble came and a commander had to weigh the option of turning back or plunging forwards. Turning back often meant they could run out of victuals and water and die. Going ahead was an equally unknown quantity.

Sophie, my love, we have enjoyed each other’s bodies and we cannot return to our convenient marriage, no matter what we might say to each other, he thought. You are a naïve female, if you think this is possible. We have passed that point of no return. Our voyage is now in the hands of fate.

He wished he felt more confident.

Chapter Seventeen

Whether she knew it or not—and how could she?— Rivka Brustein gently ruled their days now. It was a mild dictatorship. She was an old woman—a dying one—who took pleasure from having Sophie read to her. He had no objection. Sophie usually returned from those morning visits with a smile on her face.

‘Charles, you should come with me and listen to Rivka talk about her childhood in what she calls the shtetl in Hamburg. Sometimes I think I could listen to people, take notes and write everyone’s life story,’ she told him in the bookroom, as he assumed his usual opening position at the fireplace.

‘My dear, I haven’t been on land long, but I do think confidences between the ladies are for their ears only! Besides, if you took notes on everyone, you wouldn’t have time for me,’ he added impulsively.

‘Their stories would all come after yours,’ she assured him. She smiled at him and he felt his heart melt. ‘Now, where are we?’

Lord, who knows? he thought. Ah, but you are speaking of my memoirs, are you not? ‘Let me see—we’re at Camperdown, are we not? I was a lieutenant then, and back on the Bedford. Things looked bleak for a while, but only a while.’ He grinned at her. ‘I love to beat the Dutch!’

‘Ah, yes,’ she said. She looked up, her eyes bright. ‘You don’t like to be on the losing side.’

‘I hardly ever was,’ he replied. He thought a moment, embarrassed. ‘That sounds so prideful.’

‘It’s the truth, though,’ Sophie said, and finished a note to herself before looking up. ‘You’re not one to lie.’

He noticed how suddenly she became quiet then, turning even a little pale as she bit her lip.

‘Sophie? Are you all right?’

She looked up quickly, the confusion on her face still there until she seemed to will it away. ‘I am fine. Just had a thought. It’s nothing. Pray continue. You were on the Bedford again at Camperdown.’

And so it went. After Charles spent a morning alone, chafing because Sophie was not there, they ate lunch on the terrace unless the weather was inclement—and it was a glorious summer in Devon—then adjourned to the bookroom. He narrated a portion of his life’s work, usually while walking up and down in the room, while Sophie took notes and asked questions.

More than ever, he realised what a soft heart she had, which required that he stop now and then to sop up tears at his ill treatment from the French when he was captured once, or assuage her anguish when his ship went aground in foul weather. She didn’t seem to take exception to the kiss he generally planted on her head or cheek after such trauma.

He discovered they could rub along pretty well, generally overlooking their previous, massive indiscretion, until the morning she returned from the Brusteins to find her dresses delivered. After she had expressed such remorse when he had laid down what she considered such a large sum of money at their initial purchase, Sophie hadn’t mentioned the expected wardrobe. He wondered if she was a little relieved at the non-appearance of the multitude of dresses and other furbelows. Out of sight, out of mind, perhaps.

But there they were, stacked in neat bandboxes and pasteboard in the foyer where she could not fail to see them. Charles was watching for her from a front window. He had started doing that one morning when he had worked quickly through whatever had to be done, and found himself out of sorts because Sophie Bright wasn’t on the premises. He could think of nothing else that was making him crabby—his stomach was full, his smallclothes didn’t pinch.

After that, he had begun to look for her return. He observed how she usually idled down the driveway, which was now neatly gravelled and weeded to a fare-thee-well, stopping sometimes to talk to his steward, who was supervising the planting of bed upon bed of flowers. At other times when no one was around, she stopped to blow her nose and wipe her eyes. He knew he shouldn’t feel light-hearted at those moments, because they generally meant that Rivka Brustein was having a bad morning. The fallout from such sad tidings meant Sophie never objected when he put his arm around her. When she put an arm around him and leaned into his chest, his cup ran over.

He hadn’t reckoned on what new clothes would mean to a woman who had spent too many years living on the fringe. He hadn’t poked about among the clothes—no man was that brave—but out of idle curiosity, he did lift the lid on a bandbox to see what the ladies were wearing on their heads these days. The bonnet that met his appreciative eyes was straw, with a green ribbon and bouncy little green-dyed feathers that would look especially good on a woman with brown hair and brown eyes. He applauded her choice and congratulated himself for money well spent.

When he saw her dawdling towards the house close to luncheon time, he couldn’t resist opening the front door and motioning her in. It flattered him to see her eyes light up, especially since she had no idea what lay in store for her. He flattered himself to think she was pleased to see him.

‘Your finery awaits you, madam wife,’ he said as he opened the door wider with a flourish.

She frowned, and he realised she had forgotten all about the clothing from Madame Soigne’s.

‘Your dresses, Sophie,’ he reminded her.

Her eyes wide, her hand to her mouth, she hurried past him and went to her knees by the pasteboard boxes. With his pocketknife, he slit the string and she opened the first box, and then the next, her breath coming more rapidly. With fingers that trembled now, she shook out a deep blue dress—a shade not far from the Pacific in mid-ocean—and held it up to her.

‘Oh, Charles,’ she breathed.

He had thought, tender soul that she was, that she might burst into tears. She came close to him and turned around. ‘Unbutton me,’ she ordered, her voice filled with excitement.

He was happy to oblige, moving in close and taking an appreciative breath of her sun-warmed hair, courtesy of a particularly brilliant July day. ‘Right here in the hall?’ he was foolish enough to ask, biting his tongue and suppressing a groan when he realised what a ninny he was.

He could have cried when she turned around and laughed softly. ‘Silly me,’ she said.

He was about ready to clobber himself with an imaginary stick when she totally floored him by grabbing his hand and towing him after her into the sitting room. She closed the door. ‘In here,’ she said, her voice urgent, her eyes bright.

He did as she asked, releasing each wooden button on her shabby dress. Her chemise underneath was shabby, too. He stood close enough to see where she had sewn the lace back on, feeling some pride to know that probably included with the new clothing were chemises that needed no refurbishing. He wondered if she had succumbed to the new fashion of underdrawers, but knew he would never have the courage to ask, even if it was his business, which he suspected it wasn’t.

The little vertebrae that delineated her spine still stood out in painful relief. He admired the pale brown freckles on her shoulders, remembering how they looked on her breasts, when they had been so intemperate last month.

Considering himself a paragon of virtue, given the degree of temptation he felt, Charles pulled the dress down so she could step out of it, her hand on his shoulder. She was fairly dancing about in her excitement, which made him think of her delight, more than of her body. She was like a child, which told him volumes about her skimping and sacrifice through some harrowing years.

He folded the old dress over the sofa back and turned around to see her enveloped in the new dress, her hands upraised. Without requiring direction, he tugged it down over her breasts until her face emerged. He didn’t think he had ever seen her happier.

As if his thought communicated itself to her, she grew sober, or tried to. ‘You must think I am a fearfully vain creature to get so excited about clothes,’ she said, turning around so he could button her up.

‘No, not really,’ he said, entirely truthful. ‘Any man standing between his madam and a new dress had better be wary.’

‘You do think I am frivolous,’ she said.

He could tell she was not fishing for denial because he already knew that was not something Sophie Bright indulged in. He pressed the hook against the fabric and began to button her. ‘I think you have not had new clothes in a very long time.’

‘I haven’t,’ she said, her voice as soft as a child’s. She looked over her shoulder at him and he saw the tears in her eyes.

Charles kissed the corner of her eyes where the tears were forming, the saltiness making him acutely aware of how human she was and how she had suffered. She leaned her head against his shoulder and he knew that only an idiot certifiable in all of England’s shires would not take her by the shoulders, turn her around and pull her close, her dress half-buttoned. His hand slipped in the convenient gap and rested on that pleasant junction where her hip met her waist. To his delight, her arms went around his neck. He was disappointed when she didn’t kiss him, but she did something better, laying her cheek alongside his—they were much the same height—and breathing into his ear.

‘You are a good, good man, Admiral Bright,’ she whispered.

She pulled away then and turned around so he could continue buttoning her. He did, a smile on his face, then turned her around.

‘You’ll do, Mrs Bright,’ he said, his voice gruff with emotion that seemed to be creeping into his life, now that he was landbound and the war over.

She went to the mirror over the fireplace, tugging the puffy sleeves into place, and straightening the collar. She turned around twice, looking down to admire the flounce like a little girl. His heart full, Charles could see her as a small child, doing precisely that. Or a daughter of our own, he thought, enchanted at the idea—one he had never entertained before—of a dark-haired child dipping and swooping in circles. It was heady stuff, and it pleased him as much as watching his wife.

‘Another one?’ he asked, not wanting to break the spell.

Eyes bright, she nodded. ‘There was a pale yellow muslin. Just for summer. Can you find that?’

He could and did, marvelling at the softness of the fabric and how small it seemed in his hands. When he came back to the sitting room, closing the door again, she was all elbows, awkwardly trying to undo the buttons on the blue dress. Putting the yellow muslin over his shoulder, he took over the task until she had stripped down to her chemise again. He could see her dark nether hair through the washworn chemise, and the outline of her long legs backlit by the sun pouring in the window. While the sight aroused him, it also made him mindful of her innocent pleasure in new clothes and the trust that seemed to be developing between them.

‘Arms up now,’ he said as he lowered the simple frock over her head. ‘These are tiny buttons. Is there a shortage of mother of pearl we don’t know about and dressmakers are economising?’

‘Charlie, it is à la mode,’ she said.

Good Lord, his wife had given him a nickname. He smiled at her, thinking of the times his officers had called him ‘Capital Charlie’, but only—supposedly—out of his hearing. He had thought them silly; coming from his wife, it was endearing.

She reached behind her, touching his fingers as she tried to do up the buttons. For just a moment, she clasped his fingers in hers, then continued on to the buttons she could reach.

He completed the buttoning expedition, took her by the shoulders and moved her towards the mirror again. ‘This is a keeper, Sophie,’ he told her. ‘I think primrose is your colour.’

She smiled at him in the mirror, made a little face just for him, then clasped her hands in front of her. ‘I do like it. Madame Soigne is a miracle worker.’

‘She had a lot of good material to work with, and I don’t refer to fabric. Sophie, you’re a beauty.’

She turned around, her hands still clasped, her face animated. He thought of a parched flower suddenly drenched in a spring rain. ‘I’ve never been accused of that before.’

‘Not even by your late husband?’ He had to ask.

She shook her head.

‘Well, then, he never saw you in yellow. Here. Turn around. Madame said something about a burgundy dress. I want to see that one.’

She could barely hold still for him as he unbuttoned her dress. As the tiny buttons fell away from the fabric, he found himself unable to resist kissing each small vertebra of her spine. She shivered, then made the smallest sound of satisfaction, something like a moan, but more of an exhalation of breath with a gentle sound attached to it.

When he encountered the chemise, he pulled it down, taking heart when Sophie pulled the unbuttoned dress from her shoulders and then unbuttoned her chemise in the front. It fell to her waist. Applauding his restraint, he concentrated on another kiss of her spine, then gave up all caution. He gently reached around to knead her breast. For the first time in years, he yearned for two hands. She leaned back against him, the back of her head against his shoulder. It was easier than anything to kiss her neck, even as he lowered his hand to her belly and then further down.

Her breath coming more rapidly now, Sophie stepped out of the yellow dress. Fully aroused, he turned her around then, pressing her body into his. Her hands went to the buttons of his trousers as she tilted her pelvis forwards, ready to receive him standing up, as impatient as he was.

The door opened then. Looking over her shoulder as she made inarticulate sounds and released the last of his trouser buttons, he saw the horrified face of Starkey, who must have just returned from his leave of absence. Transfixed, Charles watched as his servant’s eyes widened and then narrowed into tiny slits before he closed the door as quietly as he had opened it.

Mortified, Charles felt the breath leave his body as palpably as if Starkey had strode across the room, yanked Sophie aside and punched him in the guts. He leaped back and began fumbling at his buttons, even as Sophie tried to undo the string to his bulging smallclothes.

‘No!’ he said, and it came out with far more force than he intended. ‘No, no,’ he repeated, his voice much softer, even though he knew the damage was done.

He couldn’t look her in the face, but he had no choice, not unless he wanted to turn away and humiliate her further. Her face was red and so were her breasts, which she was quickly covering now with trembling fingers. Not bothering to button her chemise, she snatched up her old dress. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured, her voice barely audible. ‘I thought you wanted… Oh, forgive me.’

As he stood there, struck dumb with what Starkey had witnessed and miserable that his own intemperance had put her in a place where he should be the one making apology, his wife buttoned her dress as quickly as she could with shaking fingers. She looked around for her shoes, which had come off at some point. With another inarticulate cry—this one of shame and not of pleasure—she gave up trying to find them. After a quick glance at his face and one more strangled, ‘So sorry’, she fled the room barefooted. She must have raced to the stairs, because he heard her pounding up them only moments later.

Nothing in his life had prepared him for a blunder as monumental as this one. He stood there in the middle of the sitting room, willing himself to calm. He looked down with shame, as his passion slid away as rapidly as it had come. When his hand was steady again, he buttoned his trousers. He didn’t want to look in the mirror, not and see what horror the experience had probably etched on his face permanently. Trafalgar had turned his hair grey almost overnight; Basque Roads had aged him. He raised his eyes to the mirror, disgusted with himself.

Other than an unnatural pallor on his cheeks, he looked the same. Funny how the worse thing—humiliating the woman he was just about ready to love for ever—left no mark on him. He sat down, his legs unable to support him. Sophie was the injured one. He—they—had assured each other that time needed to pass to consider and reconsider this overnight marriage he had levied on her. He could not overlook that her eagerness to couple equalled his, but still, they needed to think it through. And then he had compounded the matter by his reaction to Starkey. No one could fault him for that; the last thing in the world he wanted was for his dearest girl to realise another had witnessed what was his alone to see.

‘What do I do?’ he asked himself, taking another look in the mirror.

He was momentarily distracted by the painters, rattling their buckets and laughing as they left the room across the hall where they had been working. He listened to them traipse down the hall, probably headed belowdeck for lunch. Good God, who could eat at a time like this?

It was simple what he had to do—talk to Starkey and then lie to Sophie. He had to lie; it would destroy her to know what the servant had seen. He looked in the mirror again and straightened his neckcloth. He had rebuttoned his fallfront trousers wrong, like a young boy in a hurry to get back to play after a call of nature. Vexed with himself, he did them up properly, took a deep breath, then another, and opened the door, Sophie’s two beautiful dresses draped over his arm. He folded them neatly into the pasteboard box and looked up to see one of the housemaids watching them.

‘Please get Minerva and Gladys to help you take these upstairs to Lady Bright,’ he said.

She curtsied and he continued down the hall. As though it were hot to the touch, he stared for a long moment at the doorknob to the servants’ quarters. With another deep breath, he opened it and went down the stairs as if mounting a flight of rude boards to a guillotine. What on earth could he say to Starkey, who had been his confederate in all his agonising over the The Mouse, and his determination to contract a tepid marriage of convenience? That narrowing of his servant’s eyes had contained nothing but contempt. Who could blame him?

Well. I am the master here. I am the admiral, Charles told himself, as he descended the stairs at glacial speed. He is my servant and he must bend to my will.

He knew Starkey would be waiting for him in the servants’ hall and he was not disappointed. When Charles opened the door, his longtime servant looked up with an unreadable expression on his face. Their eyes met and held. With a barely perceptible turn of his head, Charles indicated Starkey’s room. The man rose at once and went to the door, holding it open for him.

There were two chairs in the small sitting room. They both sat down. Knowing it would be folly to avoid looking at his manservant, Charles stared him in the eyes.

‘I wish you had not opened that door.’

Starkey was a long time in replying. ‘Aye, Admiral,’ he said finally, ‘and I must say I wish you had never contracted an alliance with someone you barely know.’

Charles glared at him, startled right down to his shoes at his servant’s impudence. ‘How dare you?’ he demanded.

Starkey leaned forwards, greatly reducing the space between the two men. ‘Admiral, I have known you for twenty years. These past six months, you have been going through considerable perturbation about your meddling sisters.’ He put up his hand. ‘Admiral, those are your very words.’

‘Starkey…’ he began, then stopped. It was true; Starkey had been in his confidence since the beginning of the whole business. He waved his hand. ‘Go on. Tell me what you think.’

His servant sighed. ‘When you settled on Miss Batchthorpe, you at least knew her brother well, and you paid her a respectable visit, spelling things out clearly.’

‘I did.’

Starkey threw up his hands. ‘And then…and then…you come back here and you’re married to a complete stranger! And what do you tell me that very night, but that it is still a marriage of convenience. Admiral, I have eyes!’

Charles had nothing to say for a long moment. He leaned forwards, resting his elbows on his knees, so he would not have to look at Starkey, because he felt himself growing angry at the man’s cheek, this man he had known far, far longer than Sophie Bright, who was probably sobbing her eyes out right now. Still, it would not do to anger his servant, particularly when he was so convinced he was right. He couldn’t placate him; that would be a bigger folly. He would only explain himself once.

‘Starkey, have you—’ he stopped. Asking Starkey if he had ever been in love would only compound his weakness in the eyes of his servant. He was still the master ‘—have you ever had occasion to doubt my judgement?’

It was Starkey’s turn to squirm a bit in his chair. ‘No, sir,’ he said finally.

Charles felt himself on slightly firmer ground. ‘Even when you didn’t understand what my whole intent was, in matters of the fleet?’

‘No, sir, no, indeed! That was none of my—’ He stopped. When he resumed, his voice had a dull tone. ‘—my business. Sir.’

‘Neither is this,’ Charles concluded quietly. He stood up. Starkey remained seated. Charles frowned at this small act of insubordination, but put it down to his servant’s discomfort. ‘We will say nothing more about it. You’ll have to trust me to know what is my business alone, much as you would have trusted me with the ships and men in the fleet.’

Starkey leaped to his feet then, his hands balled into fists. ‘Sir! Begging your pardon, but you don’t know anything about her!’

Charles never thought he would have to dress down this man who had served him so faithfully through nearly an entire war, a man who had never given him cause for anger, so obedient had he always been. With all the force and power of his office, he glared at the man, stared him down and reduced him to nothing. ‘As you were, Starkey. As you were! Don’t ever forget again who you are.’

He turned on his heel and left the room. As he went up the stairs, his heart sore with abusing as faithful a man as any who had ever taken orders from him, Charles could not shake the feeling that he had committed a terrible wrong. He’s right, you know, no matter how you gloss it, he forced himself to admit. You really don’t know her very well.

Chapter Eighteen

It might have been a bright and glorious summer, but Sophie’s hands were icy. Or maybe her face was so red hot from embarrassment that they seemed cold by comparison. She put her hands to her face and left them there, trying to warm them with her humiliation. Her eyes were dry; she was beyond tears, wondering how she could live in the same house with a man who had rejected all she really had to give him.

She squeezed her eyes shut, replaying in her mind what had happened in the sitting room. He had kissed her first, his lips on her spine, and then his hand on her breast, and more. Surely, after their first coupling when she had burned like tinder, he knew how he aroused her. And then when he turned her around and pulled her so tight against him, it was obvious they had worked each other into a high state.

She put her hands over her eyes, but she could not dismiss that mental picture of him so eager for her that he was ready to take her right there in the middle of the sitting room. She gasped as her traitor loins began to grow warm again, just thinking about it. There, at luncheon time, in the middle of the sitting room, she would have done anything he asked, because she loved him.

She loved him. She took her hands away from her face and placed them in her lap. Thank goodness she had not said those words to the admiral, especially not when his next gesture had been to thrust her away as though she was a drab from an alley in Plymouth, come to lure him next to a wall for a fast lay worth a brass coin. With some distaste, Andrew had told her about women like that in seaports. Sophie wrapped her arms around her body and shivered. What must Charles think of me? she asked herself.

Then why did he begin it? She had no answer to that.

She had huddled herself into a little ball on her bed, unwilling to move, when someone knocked on the door.

‘Mum? Mum?’

It was the little girls. She opened the door to see them standing there with her lovely new clothes, the garments she never wanted to see again.

‘Thank you, my dears,’ she said with what she hoped passed for real gratitude. ‘You may set those in my dressing room.’

They did as she asked; her heart heavy, she watched them through the open door. In spite of her distress, Sophie had to smile when Minerva opened one of the hatboxes and took the tiniest peek. The others gathered around for a look, too, and Gladys even jumped up and down.

‘Lovely, aren’t they?’ she asked, as the little ones came into her bedchamber again. ‘When you go downstairs, please ask Thayn to come up some time this afternoon and put them away.’

They bobbed three uneven curtsies, which made her smile again. She had to ask. ‘Vivienne, just what is Thayn doing downstairs?’

Vivienne came closer, her eyes bright. ‘She’s giving us lessons. Mum, did you know that Vienna is the capital of Austria?’

‘I have heard that whispered about. What else is she doing?’

Vivienne glanced at her confederates. ‘Monsieur Dupuis is teaching her how to cook!’

They giggled and Sophie had to smile again. ‘I think there is more to this story!’ she declared. ‘Go ahead now. If Etienne can spare a moment, please tell him I would prefer to have luncheon in my room and not on the terrace.’

‘I cannot face the admiral,’ she whispered, as the door closed. ‘Not as long as I live.’

She had seldom felt less like eating. She sat in the window seat, looking out at the ocean and wondering why on earth she had ever agreed to marry Charles Bright. She was a practical woman and the answer was quickly obvious. ‘You were persuasive and I was desperate,’ she told a pair of seagulls, squabbling on the terrace banister.

She wrapped her arms around herself. I would be in the workhouse now, if it weren’t for Charles Bright, she reminded herself. It was true; despite the irregularity of the whole business, she was legally married to a man who had made certain requests in return for his protection. She was to keep his sisters at bay with her presence, or at least until they had resigned themselves and meddled no more. She had decided on her own to occupy the admiral with his memoirs. He had not asked her to become Lady Bountiful to the neighbours, or entertain a houseful of hopeful guests seeking a vacation on the Devonshire coast. He expected her to run his household and offer no particular impediments.

Sophie considered the matter in her rational way and decided she could manage the situation on one condition: the admiral had to remember what he had asked of her in St Andrew’s Church, when she was at her worst.

She put her face down into her knees. I still don’t want to look him in the eyes for ten years at least, she thought. Maybe twenty.

She raised her head and leaned back, thinking of Andrew. Devil take the man! I had a comfortable husband once, who made no demands. Still… She looked out at the ocean again. Andrew was tidy, meticulous in his duties, which involved columns and columns of figures and items. He was quiet, predictable and as ordinary as she was, until ruin faced him, and he could not exert himself to fight harder, even when he was completely in the right. What’s done is done, she reminded herself. I will do what is asked of me.

A course of action, once decided upon, always put heart in her body, and it did so now, or at least until there was a metallic tap on her door. She felt her heart race again. If he had tapped on the door with his hook, that was because he carried something in his other hand. Oh, Lord, it was probably her luncheon. If I do not open the door for him, there is no way he can get in, she thought. It would be too hard to set down a tray one-handed without dropping it. She sat where she was and he rapped again.

‘Sophie? I come bearing food and there is even a scone you can throw at me.’

Lord, what a hopeless man. I still don’t want to see him. She sat where she was for a moment more, then the traitor better angel of her nature, as alluded to by St Matthew, gave her a prod. As the crow flies, the door was about fifteen miles from the window seat, but she traversed the distance and opened it.

‘I was coming up anyway, and Etienne was using up all the help in the kitchen.’

He looked her in the eye and she had no choice but to return his gaze, not if she expected to continue living in his house. She was relieved to see no maddening half-smile on his face, but only real contrition, which brought the tears bubbling to the surface again. She sobbed out loud, put her hand to her mouth and retreated fifteen miles to the window seat again.

Charles set the tray down on the table between the chairs, steadying it with his hook. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes to see him pick up a scone and carry it to the window seat, where he offered it to her. ‘Here. If Etienne were a terrible cook, it would be rock hard. It’s damned fluffy, but you’re welcome to throw it. Come on.’

She snatched the wretched biscuit from his hand and threw it at him. She missed, which made him laugh.

‘That’s all the chance you get, Sophie dear.’ He reached in his pocket. ‘Here’s another handkerchief. Blow your nose, wipe your eyes and forgive me. You can do that in any order you prefer. Defer it, if you want, but I recommend a good snort.’

She glared at him and blew her nose. Better get it over, she thought. ‘I thought you wanted me in the sitting room.’

‘I did,’ he replied with no hesitation, even though his face reddened. ‘Sophie, didn’t you hear those painters rattling down the hall with their buckets? I was fair terrified one of them would look in the room.’

She couldn’t remember any noise from the painters. Of course, she hadn’t been precisely listening by then, not with his over-eager carcass pressed so meaningfully against hers. Another moment or two, and she would have been down on the sofa in an activity not common in most sitting rooms.

‘I…I don’t recall any noise, but really, Admiral, perhaps we need to examine just what a marriage of convenience is.’

There. She had said it. She was almost afraid to look into his eyes. When she did, there was only a thoughtful expression.

‘You’re right, of course.’ He scratched his head with his hook, which never failed to make her smile, even though she looked away this time, so he would not see it. ‘I haven’t been doing too well.’

Best be generous. ‘I haven’t either,’ she said in a whisper. ‘It just all seems rather sudden.’

‘No argument there.’ He sat down in the window seat, too.

‘You don’t know me very well.’

He frowned at her words, as though remembering something. ‘No, I don’t. To be fair, you don’t know me, either.’

But I do, she thought. You’re kind and charming, and probably all the man I could ever want.

The realisation startled her. Sophie, are you the easiest trollop in England or does love sometimes work in odd ways? she asked herself. ‘What a wretched state of affairs this is!’ she burst out. ‘Please, sir, no memoirs this afternoon.’

She hadn’t wanted to say that, because she knew it hurt him. She didn’t know if she would have had the courage to face him so soon after such an embarrassing blunder, but there he was, trying to make amends.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice softer this time. ‘I don’t quite know what to do.’

He stood up then and patted her head. ‘Never mind, Sophie. I need to pay a visit to Lord Brimley this afternoon and thank him for his under-steward. Tomorrow, maybe?’

She nodded. ‘And…and if Lord Brimley invites you to dine with him tonight, don’t tell him no.’

She did hurt him then; she could see it in his eyes. He left the room without a backwards glance, closing the door firmly behind him.

They didn’t resume the memoirs for a week. By the end of it, Sophie was hard pressed to remember a longer stretch of days. It was as though the astronomer royal had found an error in celestial accounting and chosen that week to even out the whole universe. Charles still brought her tea each morning, but he merely set it on her night table, spoke a few pleasantries that sounded rehearsed, then left it to her to drink alone.

She still spent her mornings with Rivka Brustein, going so far as to sob her heart out on her knees by the bed. The old woman’s gentle hand on her head had been Sophie’s balm in Gilead. She had not told Rivka what had brought about this gust of tears, and it hadn’t mattered. ‘Men are a separate species,’ was Rivka’s comment. ‘It will pass. Look at me. Married forty years.’

Lunch on the terrace was better. There was always something to comment on, considering that the repairs on their wretched house seemed to grow exponentially with every new revelation of real estate felonies and misdemeanors.

‘There is a name for a house like this,’ he told her over lunch on the terrace, at the end of that awful week. ‘Money pit. I’m pouring pounds sterling down a rat hole.’

Sophie could commiserate. She felt like apologising for the leaky roof, the crumbling chimneys, the squeaks in the stairs and the way the water puddled in the laundry room—why must women apologise for everything?—but resisted the impulse. She hadn’t bought the place.

‘Tear it down and begin again,’ she suggested.

‘Where would we live?’

There was something in the way the sentence came out of his mouth that bathed her face like a gentle rain storm in summer. He was thinking of her, even as she was sulking.

‘Under a downspout in the Barbican,’ she said, which made him smile, and then laugh.

Impulsively, she picked up a scone and threw it at him, hitting him this time. He threw one back at her and missed, which made her laugh for the first time in what seemed like eons.

They took up the memoirs again that afternoon.

August was a strange month, spent anticipating Charles’s knock on the door each morning. He had taken to sitting with her again while she sipped her tea. First he drew up a chair beside the bed, and then, towards the end of the month, she patted the space beside her on the bed and he sat there again, careful not to touch her.

He accompanied her a few times to the Brusteins’ estate, even visiting Rivka, when Sophie told him over dinner that she particularly wished to hear his stories of the war. Sophie tried to buttress him against Rivka’s growing frailty, but even her caution had not prepared him for the feeble woman who lay there, scarcely able to raise her hand when he came into the room.

‘She has altered since we first visited,’ was his comment as they left the house, arm in arm.

‘I tried to prepare you,’ Sophie said.

‘It is hard to ever do that adequately, isn’t it?’ he replied. ‘Jacob seemed to be holding up.’

Sophie nodded, but with no conviction. ‘Charles, people just show their best face for company.’

‘Do we do that?’ he asked her.

She didn’t reply. Of course they did. A week earlier, they had been visited by several of his former frigate captains from the Blue Fleet. Shy at first, but not concerned that any of them would know her, Sophie had made herself small about the place. By the evening meal, served on the terrace because the weather was still so fine, she was laughing at their stories and basking in her own glow when Charles insisted on reading portions of his memoir to them, and pointed her out as the real author.

‘I just tell her a few old stories, and some home truths about life in the fleet, and she makes me look so good,’ he declared. ‘Every vain, peacocky admiral should have such an amanuensis.’ He raised his wine glass to her. ‘Wrong word, I suppose. She is the true author of my life.’

The way he said it made her blush, and then steal looks at him throughout dinner. I am the author of your life? she thought that night as she prepared for bed. He couldn’t have really meant that. His own life had been so exciting, so vital to England’s very life. What did she do but put his thoughts and words on paper? Still, she had difficulty getting to sleep that night, warm with his praise and wanting more.

All was going well belowstairs. Thayn had been quick to organise her beautiful clothes, putting her skill for precision and propriety to good use in the dressing room. Sophie could see that her heart was in the kitchen. At first she thought it was for her little pupils, for that is what Miss Thayn called them. The principal maid had proved to be an excellent choice and she willingly put Minerva and Gladys to work, teaching them how to work. Vivienne was reserved for Etienne, who delighted in teaching her his skills.

But it was obvious to anyone with eyes that Etienne’s principal student was Miss Thayn herself. Even Charles noticed it. ‘Sophie dear, I think my chef is in love,’ he mentioned over dinner a few nights after the frigate captains had left.

‘I am certain of it,’ Sophie replied.

‘Should I say anything? Do anything?’

‘No, Charlie. Trust the French,’ had been her calm reply, which made him shout with laughter and rub her head—she hadn’t been able to cure him of that.

There was a fly in the ointment. To be truthful, Sophie might have been imagining the matter; perhaps she was too sensitive. It seemed to her that Starkey had given himself leave to turn a cold shoulder to her. Not that she minded; there were moments when he seemed to give her long, measuring stares that caused unease to grow within her.

Perhaps she was interfering with his role as overseer of the manor and its domestics. She screwed up her courage one morning to apologise to him, if she was assuming a role in the management of the household that stepped on his toes.

‘No, Lady Bright, you are not encroaching,’ he had replied. Something in his words made her gulp and wonder if he meant precisely the opposite.

‘If I am, please let me know,’ she had managed to say, even as she sensed his unspoken condemnation, ‘I wouldn’t for the world usurp your place here.’

‘Wouldn’t you?’ he murmured. She felt her cheeks burn, because this wasn’t the Starkey who had greeted her in May.

‘Certainly not,’ she said, relieved then when Charles called him away for some trifling service. The measuring look he gave her as he left made her blood run in chunks. She decided Starkey was not a servant to cross and tried to avoid him.

Sophie debated whether to mention the matter to Charles. After chewing it over in her mind, she chose not to. After all, master and servant had been in each other’s company and confidence for years and years before she arrived so unexpectedly on the scene. She resolved to give Starkey no reason to feel any disgust.

As August turned to September, with its shorter days and hints of glorious autumn on the horizon, Sophie contented herself with the knowledge that she was well and truly in love with Charles Bright. Since their disastrous encounter in the sitting room, he had taken no liberties with her body, beyond touching her arm, or rubbing her head, which only made her laugh. She had begun to touch him, too, just a gentle hand on his arm. He made no mention of it, but she saw how his eyes seemed to grow warm when she touched him.

Maybe it was her idea, maybe it was his, but they had taken to walking along the shore after dinner. He told her more about his world-ranging career—some of the foolish things he had done as a young gentleman, or maybe as a midshipman, of the peal the sailing master had wrung over his head when he miscalculated sextant readings.

They often walked hand in hand as he told her of foreign ports and strange scenes she could only imagine. When she hesitantly began to tell him of her childhood in Dundrennan, he had kissed her hand and then tucked it closer to his body.

‘You’ve never told me much about yourself, Sophie,’ he said. ‘I’d like to know more.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him about Andrew Daviess, and his horrible falling out with the victualling board. Some part of her reasoned that she could probably keep it a secret for ever and he would be none the wiser. The other part of her, the part that was growing in love as each day passed, assured her that keeping such a secret from the man she adored was a betrayal.

The matter rested until the afternoon he embarked on another side of his career. They had sailed on all the seas by now, and were approaching the end of the endless war. He sat on the other side of the desk from her, his feet propped on the edge of it, leaning back in the chair. The first time Starkey had caught him doing that, the servant had sucked in his breath, then glared at her, as though she had led the admiral astray from his typical impeccable posture.

‘Should I include some of my less unpleasant duties?’ he asked.

She leaned forwards across the desk, laughing. ‘Charlie, I haven’t thought any of your life story has been as casual as that of a country squire! There is worse?’

‘Yes, to my mind,’ he replied. ‘My duties occasionally included courts-martial, or other wicked dealings exposing the frailties of men who should have known better.’

She listened and took notes, asking a few questions, as he recalled some of the more colourful courts-martial. ‘Some were repentant, others less so. Now and then a poor sod would protest his total innocence, even though all evidence weighed against him.’

He moved his feet from the desk and leaned towards her. ‘I suppose I disliked them the most.’

‘Care to add an example, or shall we move on?’

He was in a reminiscing mood. ‘There was one case, rather a famous one. Perhaps you have heard of it. The superintendent of the royal victualling yard in Portsmouth was caught knowingly kegging up bad food to feed to unsuspecting seamen on long voyages.’

The pencil slipped from Sophie’s fingers. She managed to stifle her gasp as she searched under the desk for it.

He stopped, his voice casual. ‘Did you find the pesky devil? I shall ask Starkey to cut you some new pencils for tomorrow. Well, as I was saying, this was a truly egregious case. This fleet was heading to the Caribbean. The men on the three ships with the bad food dropped like flies. Nearly the entire squadron was devastated.’ He peered at the bare sheet of paper in front of her. ‘Am I going too fast?’

Numb, she shook her head. Her breath started to come in little gasps and she felt herself going light in the head. He looked closer at her, a frown on his face.

‘My dear, you look as though you’ve had a bit of bad beef yourself!’

‘It—it—it is nothing,’ she managed to stammer. ‘May—maybe the sun was little warm on the terrace.’

‘It’s raining,’ he gently reminded her. ‘We ate in the breakfast room.’

‘Oh, yes.’ She shook her head, trying to clear it, even though she knew there was nothing that would clear it ever again. Good God, were you there at the trial? She could barely think it. ‘Yes, we did. Go on.’

She tried to pick up the pencil, but it fell from her fingers again. A smile on his face now, Charles picked it up and tucked it in her nerveless fingers. ‘Sophie, you have such a soft heart! It was a bad business, though. So many men died, and in such agony, and all because a glorified clerk was greedy. I’ll never forget the pleasure I had in looking at…at…what was his name? Andrew…Andrew Daviess— God damn his eyes—when the First Lord pronounced him guilty, I think we all cheered. Certainly the spectators did. But what do you know? The weasel hanged himself before we could do the job!’

Chapter Nineteen

I’ve been pushing this dear lady too hard, Charles thought, as his sweet wife put her head down on the desk. Maybe the stories were too hard, but still, she had fared better when he described Trafalgar in all its blood and terrible human toll.

‘I’m sorry, my dear. Did Etienne serve you a bad egg this morning?’ He laid his hand on her head. ‘Sophie, maybe you should go lie down. Here, let me help you up to your room.’

Wordlessly, she let him put his arm close around her, offering no objection when he kissed her cheek. For a heartbreaking moment, she clung to him, then bent forwards, as if her insides ached. ‘Should I call a physician?’ he asked, alarmed, as he helped her to her bed, put up her feet and started on her shoes.

‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘No, I’ll be fine soon. Just let me alone for a while.’

He finished removing her shoes and did what she said, after sitting next to her a moment more. He put his hands to the buttons on her dress front, the pretty burgundy dress he most admired, even more than the primrose one, and began to undo them, until she stopped him by putting her hand over his.

‘I can manage,’ she said.

He stood up. He kissed his hook and blew in her general direction, which never failed to draw laughter from her. This time, she only gazed at him with bleak eyes, then closed them, as though the pain was too great.

‘I’m sending Starkey for the physician,’ he told her.

She sat up then. ‘I don’t need a doctor, Charles. Believe me, this will pass.’

He felt increasingly reluctant to leave the room. ‘Sophie…’

‘No, Charles,’ she said. ‘Not now. Please.’

He spent an uncomfortable afternoon and evening, dining by himself and disturbed by Starkey, who took the news of Sophie’s illness with no interest. He seemed even to smirk. Surely Charles was mistaken. Starkey would never be so cruel. When he mentioned Sophie’s sudden illness to Thayn, the dresser had assured him she would tend to his wife. When he saw her later, Thayn said Sophie was just tired. ‘Admiral, I wouldn’t worry.’

He did worry; he couldn’t help himself.

After a restless night in which he paced his room and went across the hall several times to listen at Sophie’s door, Charles took her tea to her, praying she would be better.

She was, to his vast relief, sitting up in bed with her usual smile. Well, close enough to her usual smile. There seemed to be a shadow in her face now; he could explain it no better than that. She made room for him on the bed, and had no objection when he told her they would end the bookroom sessions for a few days. Maybe a week, if she felt it was too much.

‘Thank you, Charles,’ she told him as she sipped her tea. ‘I…I…oh, maybe I have been worried about Rivka. Maybe I should stay longer there and see if I can help dear Mr Brustein.’

‘That’s a capital idea, my dear.’

As they sat looking at each other, neither saying a word, he could not avoid seeing the sorrow that lingered in her eyes. Heaven knew Rivka meant a lot to her, a lady with no close family remaining. ‘I think she needs you, my love,’ he said, not realising the endearment had slipped out until her eyes widened.

‘Which reminds me,’ he began, reaching into the small pocket inside his coat, ‘maybe this will brighten your day a little.’

The ring he had ordered earlier in the summer had arrived by yesterday’s post, the one to replace the plain band he had decided was completely appropriate for The Mouse, but not really enough for Sophie Bright, the dearest star in his evening sky. He took the small pouch by his hook and opened it with his finger.

The ring slid on to the bed and lay there gleaming. Sophie gasped and put her hands to her face. She began to sob and he took a deep breath, unable to interpret these tears. Surely this wasn’t making her more sad? Was it too much? Too garish? Good Lord, why was there not a manual for husbands?

‘Sophie, tell me you like it,’ he asked finally.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, making no move to touch it. Perhaps it was his imagination, but she seemed to shift herself in the bed, as though to move out of the ring’s orbit. ‘The ring I have is perfectly suitable.’

She sounded so Scottish that he smiled. ‘Maybe for The Mouse, but not for you. You distinctly said you wanted diamonds and emeralds.’

‘I was teasing you,’ she said, even as she edged further away. ‘You’re such a kind man, Charles, but really, after all the expenses on this house, I just…can’t.’

‘You’ll have to,’ he told her, using his admiral’s voice, maybe the one that had persuaded her in St Andrew’s Church; heaven knew he had persuaded a generation of indecisive midshipmen. ‘It’s made just for you. Besides, at the risk of making you love me for my money alone, I can afford this bauble. Really, I can. Hold out your hand like a good girl.’

He gave her no choice, taking her hand—God Almighty, why did she tremble?—and resting it on his hook, while he gently removed the too-large ring she had wrapped thread around. She uttered an inarticulate sound when he put the diamond-and-emerald treasure on her finger. It fit perfectly.

‘Made for your hand, Sophie, and none other. Thank you for being my wife. It’s been quite a summer. Let us see what autumn and winter bring, eh?’

She made no objection when he put his arms around her and drew her close. Her arms tightened around his neck, one hand gentle on his hair. He drew away slightly and kissed her. She kissed him back with a fervour that ignited him.

He didn’t take the trouble to remove his hook, getting up only to lock the door, and then returning to her side. She had removed her nightgown and lay there, watching him, her eyes roving over his body as though she was trying to memorise everything about him, from his grey hair to his stockinged feet. His trousers came off quickly enough—he and the hook were old friends—but she helped him with his smallclothes, then pulled him as close as she had that first time in June, enveloping him in the strength of her embrace. No part of her body was inaccessible to him as he explored her with his eyes, his hand, his lips.

Then it was her turn. He yearned to enter her, but she held him off long enough to render him practically spineless with her hands that could rove as slowly as his. And with twice the economy, he thought, with a smile that made her look at him so close that her eyes seemed crossed, and ask, ‘What, Charlie?’ He craved the gentle way she settled herself inside him finally.

‘I love you, Sophie,’ he spoke into her ear as she bent over him moments later, gasping in climax, her heart pounding so loud into his chest that it felt like another heart in his own body. Maybe this was what the Bible meant by bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. There was a lot he hadn’t understood before, stunted as his life had been by Napoleon, damn him to hell. He thought of the years he had been deprived of a woman’s love, and then set it all aside as peace came into his heart for the last and final time. He gave her all he had and she accepted it with her whole body.

They lay peacefully together through much of the morning, making love again, then resting naked on top of the covers, hands together when they slept. Awakening, he toyed with her breasts and then settled his hand lower on her belly. She moved his hand lower and he knew what to do. He pleasured her all the ways he knew how, and they probably would have stayed in bed all day, except that Thayn finally dared to knock. Sophie rose up on his body. ‘Yes?’ she asked, still rocking her pelvis, holding his hand to her breast.

‘Ma’am, Mr Brustein… He sent a servant…said you should come,’ the dresser said from the other side of the door.

Sophie left his body far more quickly than she had entered it, running to the wash stand and washing herself in a hurry, her face set in a mask now, one that spoke of responsibility ignored. ‘Oh, Charles, suppose she is worse,’ she said, as she let him button her into his favourite burgundy.

‘Then you will comfort her,’ he said, kissing the back of her sweaty neck. ‘Hand me your hairbrush.’

She sat still at her dressing table while he brushed her hair. She tied it quickly into a knot on the top of her head, something he liked especially. She showed him worried eyes in the mirror. All he could do was kiss her cheek and whisper in her ear, ‘Sophie, no fears now.’

She shook her head. With a backwards look and a kiss blown in his direction, she hurried down the stairs. He never even heard the front door close. When he went to his own room and looked out the window, she was running down the lane, holding her dress high so she would not trip.

He bathed and dressed thoughtfully, grateful down to his toes that she had recovered from whatever malady had touched her so acutely yesterday. As he buttoned his vest, he decided that when they resumed his narrative, he could omit those sordid courtroom scenes. No need for the world to have cause to remember a scoundrel as full blown as Andrew Daviess.

The afternoon wore on, and then she returned, walking slowly, her head down. He ached for her already, because every line of her body drooped. When he leaned out of the open window and called her name, she looked up, scrubbed at her eyes, then started running towards him. Her arms opened when he swung wide the front door and took the steps in quick time, gathering her into his arms as she sobbed.

She felt almost light in his arms as he carried her into the sitting room, putting her on the sofa, then kneeling beside her. He held her while she cried, then later that night he held her again in his bed this time. She had started the night in her own room, but finished it in his. They had done nothing more than cling to each other, until she finally relaxed in slumber more exhausted than restful.

They made slow love in the morning light, dousing sorrows in their joy in each other. She seemed not to want to let him go. She made his heart complete and whole when she finally whispered in his ear, ‘Charles, I love you. I have for so long. This has been the worst marriage of convenience in the history of the galaxy.’

He laughed and agreed, loving her with every fibre of his body, his mind and, most of all, his heart. If there was a luckier man in England, Charles knew he would never meet him.

Trust Madame Soigne to include a black dress among the lovely things his wife had ordered. As she dressed, Sophie told him, ‘She said every lady should have a black dress. Oh, Charles, I didn’t want to wear it so soon!’

Hand in hand, they walked down the long drive where now the leaves were falling, those that were not still clinging in all their orange-and-red glory to limbs ready to shake them free and prepare for winter. ‘Another season is turning, Sophie,’ he said. ‘Do you know, it has been twenty years since I have seen falling leaves?’

She stopped and looked at him, tears in her lovely eyes. He knew in his heart they weren’t tears for Rivka Brustein, but tears for him, because of all that he had missed. The knowledge humbled him and made him love her more. She put her gloved hand to his cheek, caressing it, then continued her sedate walk beside him, as he hoped she would walk beside him for ever.

They paid their respects to the Brusteins. Rivka had already been buried in the family ground behind their estate, because there was no Jewish cemetery closer than London, and custom demanded speedy burial. David Brustein, Charles’s man of business in the Plymouth office, had explained this in low tones. The old man’s other sons were there, too, grouped around their father. Jacob accepted their condolences, then patted the seat beside him for Sophie. He took Charles by the hand.

‘Thank you, Admiral, from the bottom of my heart, for loaning me your dear wife these past few months.’

‘I couldn’t have kept her away,’ he said, seeking for a light touch. ‘Not brave enough to try. So much for England’s warriors, eh?’

The younger Brusteins smiled. The old man’s voice grew stronger then, and he did not release Charles’s hand. He half-rose from his seat, helped by his sons, the intensity in his eyes almost startling. ‘Your neighbourhood visit to us last spring meant more to my dearest than you will ever know. All those years we waited, Rivka and I! Thank you. There is nothing I would not do for either of you. Please remember that.’

‘We will,’ Sophie said, when Charles found that he could not speak. ‘Won’t we, my dear?’

He nodded. Sophie tried to rise, but Jacob held her there. He looked at Charles.

‘Admiral, may we borrow her a little longer? My daughters-in-law have begun to gather Rivka’s clothing into bundles. Could she assist them?’

Charles looked at Sophie and she nodded. ‘You may have her as long as you need her today. I’ll bid you good day, though.’

He touched Sophie’s cheek, nodded to the others and left the house in mourning, black fabric draped everywhere and swathed around the door. He walked slowly back across the road and down his own lane, stopping when the house came in view. Sophie hadn’t decided if she wanted the exterior stone painted, but she had readily agreed to the lemon trees on either side of the front door.

He looked again and frowned. There was a post chaise pulled up to the circle driveway. He could see some sort of lozenge on the door panel, but could not decipher it until he came closer. He stopped again when it became clear, curious now, wondering what business Admiralty House had with him. He assured the lords when he left London that he was not open to returning to the fleet.

Starkey met him at the door, a smug look on his face that caused Charles some disquiet. The man had changed in the few months since their encounter after the sitting-room event. He appeared monumentally self-satisfied about something; what, Charles had no idea.

‘You’re back from the funeral,’ Starkey said, peering around him. ‘And your…wife?’

I’ll have to talk to him about impertinence, Charles thought. Never thought I would. ‘Mr Brustein asked Lady Bright to stay behind and help.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Starkey, I believe you might still want to address me as Admiral, or sir, when you finish a sentence. Or perhaps I misheard you. Maybe that was it. Heaven knows I have been a few years before the guns.’

Starkey looked fuddled, which Charles found secretly pleasing. ‘Aye, sir. Beg pardon, sir.’

‘Who is here?’

‘Sir Wilford Cratch, Admiral.’

Charles handed Starkey his hat and shrugged out of his overcoat. ‘Wilford? He is still secretary to the First Lord, is he not?’

‘Aye, sir. He’s waiting for you in the sitting room.’

Hours later, Sophie walked home slowly, every bone in her body tired. Helping the younger Brusteins’ wives pack Rivka’s effects had worn out her mind even more. She fingered the paisley shawl that Jacob himself had put around her shoulders, telling her that Rivka told him to make sure she received it.

Sophie stopped in the long drive, looking up at the first stars, grateful beyond measure for the Brusteins’ love, for Charles’s love. He was probably watching for her now, ready to open the door and welcome her back into his arms. It wasn’t going to be easy, but she knew she had to tell him about Andrew and try to explain why she had not said anything sooner. It couldn’t wait now, not after she had confessed her love for him. He would understand.

The front of the house looked dark. She frowned and hurried faster, wondering why none of the servants had thought to light the lamps. She turned the handle on the door, but it would not open. She tried again, then knocked, her heart in her throat. She knocked again, alarmed, but heaved a small sigh when the door opened.

Starkey stood there. He did not move when she tried to enter. She stared at him, aghast at his insolence, but not reassured when he moved slightly aside, so she could barely edge past him. ‘Starkey, where is my husband?’ she asked, when he just stood there grinning at her.

He gestured with his head. ‘In the bookroom. Knock hard.’ He turned on his heel and left her in the empty hall.

Sophie took off her cloak slowly, leaving it on a chair by the front door, which Starkey hadn’t bothered to close. She removed her bonnet and set it there, too, great disquiet growing in her stomach. Where was everyone? Her footsteps seemed to thunder as she walked the length of the hall to the bookroom. She stood a moment to collect her jumbled thoughts, then opened the door.

Her husband looked at her, his expression blank. She stared in horror at what he was doing—ripping to pieces the memoir that she—they—had laboured at and laughed over all summer. The sound was so obscene that she put her hands to her ears.

‘Close the door.’

Unnerved, she did as he said, then sat down in a chair closest to the door because her legs would not hold her. Eyes huge in her head, she watched him methodically rip the memoir to shreds, then rise and throw it in the fire with such force that she gasped.

Still he said nothing. He sat again at the desk and took a closely written sheet out of an envelope on his desk bearing the crest of the Royal Navy. She had seen the crest often enough in her home in Portsmouth with Andrew.

He pushed it towards her, as though he didn’t even want to touch the paper when she did. ‘I don’t understand,’ she began. ‘What is wrong, Charles?’

‘Read it.’

She picked up the sheet and sat down again. The light was not good, but she had no urge to move closer to the lamp by her husband. Sophie began to read. She felt the blood drain from her face, and then the words came at her in small chunks as though the admiral were hurling them at her. She dared only one look at him as she read, but that was enough; his expression was wintry.

There it was, spread out before her in totality: the polite introduction, the news that the First Lord wished to strenuously warn him about his wife, the former Sally Paul, who was in reality Sally Daviess, widow of as rank a criminal as ever served the navy. She could hardly breathe as she continued down the page, which listed all her late husband’s crimes and misdemeanours and stated that his wife had disregarded the Admiralty’s admonition that she inform them always of her whereabouts. Since they had never recovered any of the money Andrew Daviess had stolen, she must have secreted it somewhere.

She took a deep breath, and then another, her eyes beginning to smart as she read the final paragraph, warm in its approbation of John Starkey, who had taken it upon himself to ferret out this information and relay it to the First Lord. ‘Your manservant has saved you from terrible shame and ruin. We trust you will compensate him accordingly. What you do with that woman is your responsibility.’

Not daring to look at her husband, Sophie set the letter back on the desk. She shivered.

‘Have you nothing to say?’

She had never heard a colder voice, not even when listening through the doors during her husband’s trial. Was this the same man who had told her he loved her, only that morning? She had deceived him and now her folly had come home to roost in terrible consequence.

She cleared her throat and tried to speak, but nothing came out. He slammed his fist on the desk and she jumped.

‘Say something!’

She slowly raised her eyes to his, deriving tiny satisfaction that he looked away first, until it struck her that she had shamed him in front of his peers and his subordinates and he could not stand the sight of her. Her heart in her shoes, she realised it didn’t matter what she said.

‘What can I say?’ she managed to tell him. ‘You have already condemned me. If I tell you there is more to this than you think, you won’t believe me.’

She hung her head and rose to her feet, feeling older than dear Rivka, now dead, and wishing herself beside her in the coffin.

‘How can there possibly be more?’ he asked, his tone so full of scorn that she knew he did not expect an answer.

She had to try. ‘There is. If you would let me—’

He slammed his hand on the desk again and she stopped, her heart in her mouth, so great was her terror.

‘Get out.’

‘Charles…’

She shrieked when he threw a paperweight at the door where it shattered, covering her with glass. She heard him shove back his chair, but she was out of the door then and running down the hall. Rivka’s paisley shawl tore as she caught it on the newel post and she left it there, desperate to escape to her room, where she could at least turn the key in the lock.

She collapsed in a heap inside her door, reaching up to turn the key. She sat there huddled into a ball until she felt her breath return to normal. She listened for his footsteps, and slowly willed herself into calm as the upstairs hall remained silent.

Sophie crouched there, afraid to move, numb with Starkey’s betrayal, mentally whipping herself because she had not been brave enough to reveal the whole story sooner. She had thought Charles would never know. She had not reckoned on a servant’s jealousy.

When she felt strong enough to rise without falling down, she unbuttoned her dress, jerking away the two blasted buttons she could never reach. She took off the dress, holding it away from her so she would not get any more glass shards on her. She carefully shook her head over the wash basin, listening to the shards tinkle into the bowl. She dabbed at her face, grateful the glass had not penetrated her skin beyond a few places around her mouth.

She sat at her dressing table, taking the pins from her hair and then brushing it, stopping once to sob out loud, thinking of the moment only yesterday when Charles had brushed it for her. She grabbed the brush and dragged it through her hair ferociously until all the glass was gone, along with her anger.

What remained was sorrow of the acutest kind, a pain as deep as though someone had rammed a spike into her back, then twisted it up and down her spine. She sat there a long moment in her chemise, shivering and looking at her face, her expression desolate. I loved that man, she thought. God help me, I must have loved him practically since our wedding. Now he thinks I am lower than dirt. I wish I had died with you, Peter and Andrew. We would still be a family.

She went into her dressing room to get the dress she had been wearing when she sat so alone in the dining room at the Drake, a woman with no expectations. She put on the dress, then took it off again and removed her lovely chemise, standing there naked until she remembered where she had left her old chemise, the one she had patched and repatched. It felt almost like an old friend and she sighed. Her old dress went on again, and the patched stockings and shoes with a hole in the toe.

When she had dressed, she went to her writing table and took out several sheets of paper. She knew he would not listen to her. Perhaps he would read a letter, telling him that when they met and she introduced herself as Sally Paul, it was only what she had done for five years without a thought. If he had not proposed and she had not accepted, she would never have thought another thing about it, so acclimated she was to her maiden name again. It was an honest mistake. Her folly lay in saying nothing later.

She could explain that in a letter. There probably was no point in declaring how much she loved him, but she might anyway. He would likely destroy the letter without reading it. She could probably say whatever she wanted.

She began to write. It occupied her most of the night. And then she was gone.

Chapter Twenty

Charles remained an angry man for a long time, sitting in the bookroom and staring at the dent on the door where he had thrown the paperweight. He listened for any sounds from upstairs, but there were none, not even footsteps. He nearly rang for Thayn to check on her, but set his mind against it. I am the wronged party, he thought, in high dudgeon. By God, I will not go snivelling above deck to determine her welfare.

He stayed in the bookroom and seethed, when he wasn’t fairly choked with the shame of having a visit from Sir Wilford Cratch—Cratch, the old man milliner!—who came only to sniff, judge and condemn, and who even went so far as to scold him—Charles Bright, a respected admiral of the fleet—for his unfortunate choice in females. Just the thought of this yanked Charles out of his chair to stalk around the bookroom.

As the hours passed, he began to regret the paperweight and his devilish aim. He meant to do nothing more than throw the blamed thing against the wall, but he had nearly hit her with it. No wonder she had nearly torn down the door in her desperation to escape from the bookroom.

Escape from him, more like. By midnight, Charles was up and pacing again, this time in shame for what he had done. Suppose he had actually struck her with the paperweight? The damned thing lay in thousands of pieces now. It would have fractured her skull. Just the thought of that brought him up short. He stood in front of the fireplace—cold long hours since—as some better portion of his brain reminded him—sotto voce, thank God—that this was a woman he had made love to with fierce abandon only that morning, and who had returned his love with equal fervency.

Come to think of it, nothing had prepared him for the depth of her love, if that’s what it was. Considering how anger consumed him, this wasn’t a notion he cared to entertain for any longer than it took to consider it. He resumed his restless pacing, but stopped again, dumbfounded by the blatant fact that only that morning, she had told him she loved him.

‘And you threw a paperweight at her,’ he said out loud, as the clock struck two. ‘What were you thinking, idiot?’

He remained still. At no point since his last view of her terrified face had he heard a single noise from above. What if he had killed her? What if a shard of glass had entered her eye? Good God, she could be lying in a puddle of blood. She could be blind.

Charles opened the bookroom door and ran down the hall. He stopped at the stairwell, looking up into the darkness. He had heard the servant girls go upstairs to bed earlier, but there was no light in the hall. The whole house seemed to be on edge and silent, afraid of him. He sat down and removed his shoes, tiptoeing up the stairs to stop outside her door. Nothing. He listened, his ear close to the door panel, and thought he heard the faintest scratching. He couldn’t tell what she was doing, but at least she wasn’t dead. He went down the stairs again, stopping once when he stepped on glass fragments that went into his stockinged foot. He cursed and removed the glass, not even wanting to think about the paperweight.

The bookroom seemed so small. He went to the fireplace, staring down at the edges of the manuscript that he had ripped to pieces and thrown into the flames. Only tiny scraps remained. He picked up one charred corner, where only a few words were visible in her pleasing handwriting. Why did I do that? he asked himself. All that work. All those hours she took my scattered ramblings and turned them into a fine document. We were nearly done.

He sat down in his chair again and put his head down on his desk, pillowed in his hand. He had no intention of ever apologising—he was by far the wronged party, after all—but he could be generous enough to take a cup of tea to her in the morning. By God, that was more than most men would do, when so put upon, tried and wronged. I’m doing that wretched woman a favour, he thought. His eyes closed and he slept.

Charles woke after dawn, cross and creaky from sleeping in a chair. His discomfort was her fault, too. Since she had been doing the writing, he had adjusted the chair to her height. While close to his height, there was just enough difference to cause a backache of monumental proportions. God’s wounds, the trouble she has been to me, he thought. I’ll fetch her tea this morning, but ever after, it’s her responsibility. She knows where the breakfast room is.

Breakfast was ready. He frowned at Etienne’s usual excellent spread on the sideboard, especially the cheesy, cakey things that Sophie enjoyed so much. Maybe he would take her one of those, along with the tea. It wasn’t a peace offering, mind you, no such thing, but she did like them. He had noticed yesterday morning when they lay twined together that her bones had more covering to them. Her face wasn’t so thin any more, either, but more round and smooth, the way a goodly nourished woman’s face should look. And it had never hurt that she was such a pretty thing, too.

He glanced at the mirror over the sideboard and frowned at his bloodshot eyes and whisker-shadowed face. That was bad enough, but he could almost see Sophie’s terrified expression again, reflected in the breakfast-room mirror. He looked away, uncomfortable with the view.

He left the room, carrying Sophie’s tea and breakfast, uneasy because the hall was still so silent. Usually he felt like he was tripping over servants, but no one was about. They’re afraid of me, Charles thought. Well, he could probably hear Sophie out. She would apologise again, and he would be magnanimous; maybe even forgive her some day.

Charles knocked on the door, surprising himself by the eagerness he felt to hear her footsteps crossing her room and the door opening on her sunny face. He liked the untidy way her hair curled about her face. He could almost feel the glory of it when he buried his face in her neck and served her every bodily need, along with one or two of his own.

There were no footsteps. He knocked again, pensive this time, and willing to be understanding. She was going to make him set down the cup and saucer and turn the handle himself. Perhaps she deserved her irritation over his behaviour, no matter how well deserved his reprimand had been.

Still nothing. Balancing the cup and saucer, he slowly lowered them to the floor, then turned the doorknob. The room was empty, the bed not even slept in. The black dress she had worn to the Brusteins’ lay in a circle on the floor, as if she had just stepped out of it. Maybe she was in her dressing room. He opened the door and took a long look before closing it and leaning against it. He glanced around the room. One of the little girls had brought the brass can of hot water. He went to it and touched it. Still hot. Where could Sophie be?

He went to the fireplace, still swept clean from yesterday morning’s little fire. Head down, he was forced to remember that last night before she came home, and after Sir Wilford had left, he had ordered the upstairs maid not to lay a fire. You’re a spiteful bastard, he thought, looking at the clean hearth.

When he sat down in the chair by the fireplace, he saw the sheets of paper on her writing desk. He leaped to his feet and sat at her desk, horrified to see both of her wedding rings resting on the folded sheets—the one good enough for The Mouse, and the other fit for the beloved wife of an admiral. Good thing he was sitting down; Charles felt all the air go out of his lungs.

She had written his name on the folded paper. As he stared in disbelief at it, he realised what had caused the scratching sound in the early morning hours. He picked up the letter, several pages thick. His hand shook as he opened it, to see her salutation, ‘Dearest Charles’.

He couldn’t continue looking at the words, and glanced at the wire wastebasket instead, overflowing with nearly blank sheets of paper. He fished them out; open-mouthed, he stared at all the salutations she had considered and discarded: Dear Charles, My Love, Dear Admiral Bright, Dear Sir Charles. His eyes teared up at Dear Charlie. He swept the pile back into the wastebasket.

He sat a moment, working up his nerve, then took the letter back to the chair by the fireplace. He couldn’t even get through the first paragraph without dabbing at his face. ‘Dearest Charles,’ she began, ‘I apologise for wasting all of your good writing paper, but I wasn’t certain how to start this. I suspect you won’t even read it, but just throw it in the fire, so it hardly matters what I say. I should have thought of that before I wasted the paper.’

He put down the letter, scarcely able to breathe, then picked it up again. She began by begging his pardon, but urging him to understand that hers was an honest mistake. ‘When you introduced yourself in the dining room, I naturally replied my name was Sally Paul, because I had been using my maiden name for five years. It would never have mattered, but you chose so impulsively to propose, and I so impulsively accepted, never thinking about the thorny business of my name, and the scandal attached to it, until the next morning. Fearing you would not understand, I went early to the vicar at St Andrew’s and gave him my deceased husband’s death certificate to record, ahead of our wedding. I should have said something then to you, but I felt the moment had passed when such a confession was appropriate. And truly, Charles, I did not want to go to the workhouse. That was to be my destination, had you not found me in the church that night.’

Me or the workhouse, Charles thought. Dear Lord in heaven, she had no choice. ‘Oh, Sophie,’ he whispered. He kept reading, even though each line of the missive seemed to grind into his flesh like the shards of the paperweight. ‘For a while, I thought my deception would do no harm. You plainly spelled out that ours was to be a marriage of convenience, something to keep your meddling sisters at bay while you did whatever it was you were inclined to do. I am still not certain what that is. I did want to uphold my part, and reckoned that writing your memoirs would be useful. I wish you had not destroyed the manuscript. I put a lot of myself into it.’

Charles wasn’t a man easily made ill. He had stood on plenty of bloody decks with bodies and parts of bodies around him and never blinked. This was different; this was worse, because his memoirs had become her labour of love. He might as well have ripped her heart from her body and thrown it on the flames. Setting down the letter, he barely made it to the washbasin before he vomited. He wiped his face and went to the door, closing and locking it, before returning to her desk.

His eyes wet, Charles continued, sobbing out loud at her sentence on the next sheet: ‘The situation changed completely when I fell in love with you. I knew then that a true wife would not keep such a confidence from her husband. I can understand your anger. But please believe me, I meant you no harm.’

‘You’re kinder than I am, Sophie,’ he muttered, when he could speak. ‘I cannot condone my rage. It was shameful.’

Numb now, and practically forcing himself to breathe, Charles read on. Sophie had changed to the subject of her late husband. ‘That man you so quickly dismissed as a glorified, greedy clerk and a weasel was never given a fair trial.’

Willing to be reasonable now, Charles read through her account of Andrew’s felony—his suspicions that his supervisor, Edmund Sperling, brother of Lord Edborough, one of the Admiralty Lords, was raking money from the victualling department by countermanding Andrew’s invoices for proper supplies and seeing that substandard food went into the kegs. ‘Sperling pocketed the difference. He was well known to have gambling debts a-plenty. Andrew remembered daily visits to the victualling yard by Sperling’s creditors.’

Charles set down the letter and rubbed his eyes. He could think of other chicanery from men who thought to line their pockets at the navy’s expense, but this case went much higher than all of them. No wonder no one felt inclined to believe a lowly superintendent. He continued Sophie’s letter, where she wrote of his despair, and his earnest effort to bring Sperling to account. ‘My husband was too trusting, Charlie,’ Sophie wrote. ‘He took Sperling’s own forged and altered notes and invoices to the man himself, thinking he would see the error of his ways and make it right. Sperling took the notes and invoices and they were never seen again. When accountants finally uncovered the scheme, after all those unfortunate men were dead of food poisoning, Sperling had no trouble casting all the blame on Andrew.’

Charles took the letter and went to the window, sitting down and leaning back against the little pillow Sophie had placed there, because this was one of her favourite places in their house. He opened the window, almost desperate for the comforting smell of the sea, even though the air was chilly. He took several deep breaths and returned to the letter. Sophie described the trial, which he remembered well. He sighed, thinking how troubled his wife had been the day he had brought up the matter for his memoirs, and his own rude remarks about her late husband. She was not allowed in the courtroom, but sat outside day after day, as her husband was excoriated, blamed, condemned and sentenced.

‘He hanged himself in an outbuilding behind our home. One of our neighbours found him. The Admiralty was furious with him, so his body was taken and hanged again, then burned. Surely you remember this,’ she wrote. ‘I don’t know where they dumped his ashes; they were never given to me.’

He did remember the sorry affair, and he remembered his anger that the coward Andrew Daviess had got off so easy. ‘God help me, Sophie,’ he murmured.

There was more to read, even though he was reading through a film of tears now. She said she truly had been deceptive, as far as Admiralty House was concerned, because they had charged her to keep them informed of her whereabouts. ‘Since none of the money Andrew had supposedly stolen was ever recovered, they were convinced that I knew where it was, and would some day retrieve it. Charlie, would I have let my beloved son starve to death if I knew where any money was? Ignorant men. Changing my name kept them from hounding me. I would do it again, so I shan’t apologise for that, too.’

You needn’t apologise for anything, Charles thought. His arms felt too heavy to hold the letter, but little remained now to read. He continued, and broke his heart in the process: ‘When you told me to get out, please be assured I left as fast as I could. I only took with me what I came with, so all your possessions remain in this house. Whatever you choose to believe, believe this: I love you with all my heart. I will never trouble you again, but please know that wherever you go in the world, there is one woman who will always love you. I suppose that is my cross to bear. Your dreadfully inconvenient wife, Sarah Sophia Paul Daviess Bright.’

An arrow pointed to a postscript on the back. He turned it over to read, ‘Please, please do not dismiss any of the servants. I know you complain about tripping over them, but they have nowhere to go. My sins should not reflect upon them. S.B.’

He bowed his head over the letter, folding it even smaller because he could not bear to see her familiar handwriting. He had become so used to it, from all their days in the bookroom, when she patiently listened and questioned, then spent most of her evenings writing his story. It was all in ashes now, much like his marriage. Disgusted with himself, he looked in her dressing room again. All her beautiful clothes were hanging there in silent reprimand. He went to the burgundy dress, his favourite, and sniffed the fabric. It smelled like her. He stood beside it a long time.

Before he left the room, he went to the desk again. There was another sheet of paper there, folded like the letter, and with Sophie’s familiar handwriting, but yellowed with age. He read her note: ‘Before Andrew took all the incriminating documents to Sperling, I kept back this one—I suppose I was not as trusting as my husband. We showed it to a barrister, but he said it would have no value in a court of law, since the defendant’s wife had procured it.’

He opened it, seeing the familiar invoice form from the victualling yard that had crossed his own desk thousands of times. What Sperling had done became perfectly obvious to him, but Sophie was right. No judge would ever allow the admission of such a document. Poor Sophie. Poor, naïve Andrew.

The letter and document in his hand, he went downstairs, then down the next flight to the servants’ hall. Well, that explained where everyone was. From Minerva the youngest, to the two old tars he had rescued from the docks and employed in yard work, they sat there, silent and watching him. Starkey was at their head, looking so pleased with himself.

Charles drew himself up and minced not a single word. ‘You all know what has happened. Lady Bright has left. I don’t know where she has gone, but I need to know. If any of you have even the slightest clue, please tell me.’

He looked around, hopeful. His servants looked back, silent.

‘Does anyone know? None of you saw her leave?’

Silence still. That is Sophie, he thought. She made sure no one knew anything, so I could not turn my wrath on them.

‘Very well. Go about your duties, please. Starkey, I’d like a word with you. The beach.’

It was more than a word. It was many words, none of them spoken until his long-time servant had read Sophie’s letter. Starkey tried to stop, but Charles thrust the letter back in his face. ‘Read it, damn your eyes!’ he shouted, not caring if the wind sent his words back to the house, where his staff was already frightened.

When he finished, Starkey tried to rise from the driftwood stump, the same one Sophie had sat on when they made their way to the beach so many times that summer. Charles clamped his hook against his servant’s shoulder, caring not the slightest when the man winced.

‘What made you think to meddle in my affairs?’ he asked, when he had regained some control. He lifted his hand and Starkey rubbed his shoulder.

‘You didn’t know anything about her, sir.’

Charles nodded. ‘True. Tell me something, Starkey. Did you really think I needed your help with a wife?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Then explain yourself.’

Starkey was silent. Charles looked at him. ‘Tell me what you did. All of it.’

Starkey looked down at his shoes.

‘All of it!’ Charles shouted.

Starkey couldn’t speak fast enough then. Words tumbled out of him as he told Charles of visiting the vicar at St Andrew’s Church, and seeing the parish record listing Andrew Daviess as Sophie’s husband. ‘I remembered him. I figured you were being diddled, sir. That’s it! Honestly! I went to Admiralty House and they were glad to hear what I had to say.’

‘Did you mention this matter to anyone else?’

Starkey hung his head even lower. ‘Your sisters,’ he muttered.

‘Good God! What were you thinking?’ Charles ex claimed.

‘I told them what had happened and swore them to secrecy. I…I…knew the Admiralty was going to come down hard on Lady Bright.’ He began to cry then. ‘I told them…oh, God, I told them to be patient. That they would have their brother back again soon.’

Charles closed his eyes, speechless.

‘I’m sorry, sir! I’m sorry!’

Charles took a moment to collect himself. ‘Starkey, you have fed me a mean dinner, on top of the generous helping of remorse I can lay claim to, for my own actions. There is a strong possibility that Andrew Daviess is innocent. I remember Edmund Sperling. Lord Edborough had given him various positions at Admiralty House and none of them took. The man was hopeless. I intend to inquire into Sperling’s business, Starkey, but first I must find my wife.’

Starkey nodded. ‘I can go to Admiralty House and—’

‘I think not,’ Charles said. ‘What you can do is clear out your rooms and get out of my sight. I’ll give you your year’s wages, but damned if I’ll furnish you a character, since you have none.’

He said it kindly enough, but he meant every word. Starkey opened his mouth to protest, but Charles just shook his head. After another moment’s reflection, he turned on his heel and made his way back to his house—full of servants, but more empty than a beggar’s bowl.

Chapter Twenty-One

Charles wasted no time in sending out his yard staff to look for Sophie. They were resourceful seamen, down on their luck because peace has interfered, but they knew Plymouth as well as anyone. She hadn’t been gone too long, and it was three miles to the Barbican, the seaport’s centre.

‘You know what she looks like,’ he told them. ‘Describe her. Ask around. She’s probably going by the name of Sally Paul again.’ God knows she isn’t using my name, he thought.

He took his pride in his hands and walked next door to Lord Brimley’s estate, unburdening himself to the old man, who was surprisingly sympathetic. He thought long and hard about stopping to see Jacob Brustein. Carriages were coming and going from the manor, but he decided against troubling him with news that a friend of his dear Rivka was gone from his life. He could tell Jacob later, when all the mourners had returned home.

The servants crept around quietly while Charles paced the floor in the sitting room, choosing that room to worry in, because he had a clear view of the road. Maybe he was as naïve as Andrew, God rest his soul. He hoped to look up and see Sophie walking down the long drive, ready to return and give a second chance to a man who didn’t deserve one.

By nightfall, he knew she wasn’t coming. Starkey was gone, so he instructed his remaining yardman to build a bonfire on the beach. He sat there until Leaky Tadwell appeared, cheerful, interested, and ready to sell him more smuggled liquor.

‘That’s not it, Leaky. My wife is gone,’ Charles said, almost surprising himself with his willingness to confide in a complete scoundrel.

‘Scarpered off, did she?’ Tadwell asked. Charles was surprised at the degree of sympathy in his voice. ‘You probably do need more spirits. I can lay me mitts on a Fogale Milano that will make you disremember that you ever had a wife.’

‘Leaky! No!’ Charles sighed. ‘I…I broke her heart and she left me.’

‘Begging your pardon, Admiral, you have a lot to learn about gentry morts. She was a pretty thing.’

This was not going well, but Charles had no intention of scaring away a perfectly good source. ‘Leaky, it’s this way: you know everyone in Plymouth.’

‘Devonport, too,’ Tadwell added.

‘Devonport, too. I want you to make discreet inquiries. Here. I’ve written a description of her. Just ask around. If anyone has seen her, let me know.’

Tadwell took the sheet and looked at it doubtfully. ‘Can’t read, Admiral. Otherwise, it’s a great plan.’

Charles counted to ten and took back the sheet. ‘I’ll read it to you. “Looking for a woman calling herself Sally Paul, or Sally Daviess”. Can you remember that?’

Tadwell gave him a wounded look. ‘Pray continue, Admiral. I ain’t in me dotage.’

‘Indeed not. She is nine or ten inches taller than you, Leaky. Her hair is brown and so are her eyes. She is of slim build, but not markedly so. She has the most wonderful Scottish accent.’

Tadwell nodded, and repeated what Charles told him. ‘I remember all that, sir, from my earlier glimpse of her. But how else does she stand out? A lisp or a cackling laugh, like ol’ Nosey?’

Charles shook his head. ‘No, nothing like the grand duke. She’s a quiet woman who will do nothing to draw attention to herself.’

Tadwell took off his greasy watch cap and scratched his hair. ‘You’re not making this easy, Admiral.’

‘I know, Leaky. Do your best.’

So it went, the rest of that dismal autumn. He wrote to Dundrennan, and other Lowland cities and towns in Scotland, begging for news of such a woman. Nothing. The yard men returned empty-handed. Leaky Tadwell ranged the coastal towns, coming back with no news. When Charles thought to visit Jacob Brustein, the knocker was off the door. A note to David Brustein in Plymouth enquiring about Jacob’s whereabouts informed him that his father had gone to visit a daughter in Brighton.

By Christmas, he could no longer fool himself. Sophie Bright was true to her word, Charles had to admit, even though it caused him unbearable anguish. She had said she would not trouble him again and she meant it. He spent one long evening in the bookroom, writing letters to Dora and Fannie, explaining the situation and begging to just let him alone.

His Christmas present to Miss Thayn was to offer her the title of housekeeper, which she accepted. Miss Thayn’s present to him was to ask for two days off so she and Etienne could be married. He gave his consent most willingly, even though he could not overlook the envy he felt at another couple’s happiness.

When the Dupuis returned from Plymouth, he gave Madame Dupuis the keys to his manor, keeping only the key to his wine cellar, which he took belowstairs, settling in for the month of January in a single-minded attempt to drink the shelves bare. He only glared at Etienne when his chef tried to coax him upstairs for meals, and was impervious to his new housekeeper’s tears. He drank and wallowed, drank some more, grew shaggy and started to stink.

His rescue came from a wholly unexpected source, one he never could have imagined, which was why he probably paid attention.

The day had begun much like the ones preceding it. He woke up in the wine cellar, his mouth dry and his stomach sour. His head was lying in someone’s lap, someone soft. For a small heartbreak of a moment, he thought it must be Sophie, come to save him from himself. When his vision cleared, he saw it was his sister, Dora, she who lived in Fannie’s shadow and who had never in her life issued an opinion of her own.

‘Dora?’ he asked, hardly believing his eyes. ‘Dora?’

‘The very same,’ she replied, cradling his crusty head in her arms. ‘Charles Bright, It’s Time To Stop.’

Charles tried to smile at her, but his lips were cracked and starting to bleed. There you go, speaking in capital letters, he thought, remembering how he had described her to Sophie. He cried, uncertain whether they were a drunkard’s tears, whether it tore his heart to think of his wife, or whether this was real relief that his sister had come to save his life.

He knew he was disgusting, but she held him close, crooning to him, wiping his tears with a lace handkerchief that smelled of lavender and other civilised things. He rested in her arms, thinking of how she and Fannie had looked after him when their mother died, he still a small lad, not even old enough to go to sea.

‘Fannie?’ he asked finally, hoping that one-word sentences could suffice, since he couldn’t manage more.

‘We Have Had A Falling Out,’ she said, her voice as gentle as her fingers in his greasy hair. ‘She thought you should suffer, especially after the way you treated us. I begged to differ. Politely, though, always politely.’ She laughed, sitting on the floor in that cellar slimy with his vomit, holding him close. ‘What a shock that was to her system! We parted and I came here. From the look of things, not a minute too soon. Charles, let me help you upstairs. We have some work to do.’

She could no more lift him out of the cellar than turn cartwheels down St James’s Street, but a loud halloo brought the yard men running. They carried him to his bedroom, Dora right behind, admonishing them to have a care. He thought to protest when she stripped him naked and had the yard men help him into the tub, where she rolled up her sleeves and washed his hair first. She scrubbed away a month of filth from his body, scolding him all the while in her soft voice, the one that he used to think so irritating, but now was the sweetest sound he had heard in months.

All five feet of her, Dora cleaned him up, dried him off and popped him into a nightshirt. He was asleep before she tiptoed from the room.

He had slept around the clock and woke up ravenous. Dora shook her head at all his suggestions for the meal he wanted—a loin of beef the size of a dinner plate and a pound or two of potatoes—and spooned consommé down him instead, followed by toast and tea. After a day of this stringent regimen, she enlisted Minerva and Gladys to carry up the beef and potatoes. She watched every bite he took, looking at him over her knitting. The pleasant click of her needles soothed his battered heart. He slept again.

The room was empty when he woke up. One of the little maids must have brought hot water, because the familiar brass can stood on the washstand next to the basin. His hook was nowhere to be seen, but he didn’t need it, anyway. What he needed was to see if he could stand up again.

Mission accomplished, after several tries, one of which sent him lurching towards his dressing room. He made a course correction that would have pleased his first sailing master, dead these many years, and managed to tip enough hot water into the basin to scrape away at his face.

It wasn’t a good job. His month-long growth needed kinder attention than he could provide, but it would do. He patted on the bay rum, wincing when it collided with the little nicks he had administered in his pursuit of a smooth face again. Still, the effect was creditable. Now, where were his clothes?

Dora knocked and came into his room when he was sitting on his bed, contemplating his hook and harness, which someone had stashed in his dressing room. She was a quick learner. ‘Now you’re armed again,’ she said when she snapped the last clasp into place.

He never knew her to make a joke before, and it warmed his heart. To show his gratitude, he even let her button his shirt.

She told him luncheon was being served in the breakfast room today, and allowed him to take her arm as he escorted her to the table. When he finished eating and folded his napkin, she cleared her throat.

‘Charles, it is time you visited Admiralty House.’

‘Dora, along with your other attributes, you are also a mind reader.’

Two nights later, Charles was installed in a handsome bedchamber at Dora’s town house on a quiet side street near St James’s Park.

‘Stay as long as you like,’ Dora told him, handing over a front-door key. ‘My servants are as old as I am, and I wouldn’t dream of keeping anyone up to await your return, should you choose to visit a Den of Dissipation.’

‘I think I will confine my efforts to Admiralty House,’ he said, pocketing the key. He sighed and looked out the window.

‘I can come with you, if you like,’ Dora said, her lip trembling.

You would fight tigers for me, sister, he thought, and it humbled him. He kissed her forehead. ‘Dora, you’ve done everything I need. I couldn’t ask for more. I’m in your debt for ever.’

He left the next morning while the other inmates still slept, and walked through St James’s Park. Snow had fallen in the night, and the bare trees reminded him of Sophie’s little book of sonnets, which she had left behind with everything else he had ever bought her. Until he went down to the cellar for a drink and never came up, he had been working his way through the sonnets.

‘“Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang”,’ he murmured, looking at the small lake. He knew the sonnet by heart, but had no wish to continue. He did anyway, settling in his mind that he might never see Sophie Bright again. ‘“To love that well which thou must leave ere long”.’

He continued east across the park to Horse Guards and Admiralty House, smiling to see it, thinking of all the times he had strode its halls, first as a lieutenant seeking a ship when none was to be had, on through the intense, gory years of his captaincy, and then the exalted state of his admiralty, when all doors opened to receive him. He was one of the anointed, one of the chosen, in the same league—well, no one was—with Horatio Nelson himself. What was it worth to him now? Less than dust.

By the time he approached the familiar entrance, London was open for business. He was dressed in his civilian clothes, but felt some small twinge of pride when he was recognised at once by the captains who waited for an audience, much as he had done. He revelled a moment in genuine happiness, greeting old friends and hearing new tales of a much slower peacetime navy, one not destined to shower down the honours and terrors of the long war. Charles smiled to himself to see young captains chafe at inaction. Be careful what you wish for, he thought.

His request to speak to the First Lord brought an immediate response. He scarcely had to wait a moment in the First Lord’s office before he was bowing to Lord Biddle and then shaking his hand. Pleasantries were awkward; it was obvious that old Biddle knew very well what had transpired in Admiral Bright’s private life. At least he kept his opinions to himself, dancing around them by asking about his manor and other approved subjects.

When the only safe topic left was the weather, Charles held up his hand. ‘My lord, I have no desire to encroach upon your valuable time. May I ask, is Lord Edborough available? I have something particular to ask him.’

Biddle shook his head. ‘Charles, you have missed him by mere months! He retired just before Christmas.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘You are in luck, actually. I saw him only yesterday at Lord Brattleton’s crush in honour of his whey-faced daughter. Don’t laugh; it was purgatory. I believe you will find him at his residence.’ Biddle looked in a drawer and extracted a memo pad, scribbling on it. ‘Here is his direction.’

‘Thank you. Before I visit him, I would like to look at the transcripts of the trial of Andrew Daviess, supervisor of the Portsmouth victualling yard. It was in March of 1811, I believe.’

Lord Biddle sat a long moment, choosing not to meet Charles’s glance.

‘I am certain the transcripts are here, Lord Biddle,’ Charles insisted, when the silence stretched on too long. ‘I have every right to see them. I was there.’

‘I cannot produce them.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘They no longer exist.’

‘Oh.’ His heart dropped to his ankles as Charles continued to regard the First Lord, whose face had turned quite red. ‘They just disappeared? Took a powder? French leave?’

‘Precisely.’ The First Lord leaned forwards across his desk, his expression forced and hearty now. ‘Charles, you know as well as any of us how the world works. There is no record of that trial.’

The glib words seemed to carom off every surface of Charles’s brain. ‘No record?’ he repeated, not overly concerned that his voice was rising. ‘I wasn’t really there? I didn’t testify? I heard no accusations hurled at whom I think—no, whom I know now—was an honest man? Nothing?’

They could probably hear him in the anteroom. He knew his voice could carry over a hurricane. But there was the First Lord, looking all disapproving now, prissy even, narrowing his eyes and probably wishing one of his favourite admirals to Hades. For the life of him, Charles could only think of what Dora would probably say at a moment like this.

‘You should be ashamed of yourself, Lord Biddle. Good day.’

None of the officers waiting in the anteroom looked at him when Charles hurried from the building. He hailed a conveyance, one of many loitering about the government offices on as dreary a day as he had ever encountered.

The carriage couldn’t go fast enough to suit him, but as he stood before Lord Edborough’s elegant house, he knew his was a fool’s errand. If Andrew Daviess had found no satisfaction, neither would he. Standing under the porch at Admiralty House, it had come home forcefully to him that the might of the Royal Navy extended far beyond the world’s oceans. It had the power to ruin lives with total impunity. He could almost see poor Andrew Daviess attempting to make his puny claims against men who would crush him without remorse. The man had never had a chance.

Charles was shown into Lord Edborough’s sitting room and spent nearly an hour waiting. He employed his time well, watching the rain run through a ruined downspout across the street, and looking at men and women hurrying down slick walkways. Mostly he thought of Sophie, wondering how she was, and whether she watched the rain fall, too.

‘Admiral Bright! To what do I owe this great honour?’

He turned around to see Lord Edborough, a prosy man he had always liked well enough. More pleasantries followed, tedious in the extreme, now that he was bursting to talk. Unable to endure one more minute, he interrupted.

‘My lord, I will be brief. Five years ago, the Royal Navy brought charges of graft, corruption and foul play against the supervisor of Portsmouth’s victualling yard, a man named Andrew Daviess. I have reason to believe your brother was the guilty party.’

Lord Edborough was silent.

‘You do have a brother, do you not?’ Charles said, tried to the limit.

‘I do, or I did,’ Lord Edborough said finally. ‘He has been dead these three years.’

Charles sat down without being invited to do so. ‘Your brother ruined Andrew Daviess. His widow and small son were turned out to fend for themselves. The boy died and the woman was reduced to paupery.’ He handed Lord Edborough the original forged and erased invoice that Sophie had kept back. ‘This is potent evidence of his chicanery, but not enough to satisfy any court of law bent on covering up malfeasance. Take this, my lord. Tear it up. Burn it. It’s the last bit of evidence against your foul brother, may he rot in hell. No court in the land will touch it. Your dirty secret is safe as houses. Good day.’

He made it to the door before Lord Edborough spoke. ‘Admiral Bright, one moment.’

Charles turned around, not caring if he frightened the older man with the grimness of his expression. No need to worry, though. Lord Edborough’s visage was more bleak.

Lord Edborough chose his words carefully. ‘He was a weak one, was Edmund. Always in debt. None of us in the family approved of his actions.’

‘Then he was guilty,’ Charles said, his voice scarcely above a whisper.

Lord Edborough confirmed nothing. ‘He was my brother, Charles, for good or ill.’

‘But…’

‘He was my brother,’ the viscount repeated. ‘If you attempt any action, I will come against you with all the force of the law.’ He began to rip the invoice into tiny pieces, viscerally reminding Charles of Sophie’s manuscript that he had shred in front of her horrified eyes. ‘You have no proof. I will never tell a court of law what I have just revealed to you, Admiral Bright. Good day.’

Chapter Twenty-Two

Dora begged him to stay, but Charles was adamant.

‘I have neglected my estate too long,’ he told her as he slid the last clean shirt into his valise.

‘Give me a few weeks, and I will send you an invitation to visit,’ he told her after breakfast, as she stood outside with him. ‘You’ll be fair amazed at the transformation our—my—house had undergone. There is nary a naughty cupid in sight.’

On dreary days like today, he longed to stride a quarterdeck in some southern latitude.

Two nights in public houses had convinced him how weary he was of travel. On the third day, the coachman was willing to drive him right to his door, but the prospect of a house without Sophie in it trumped his weariness. Inventing some errand that could not be postponed, he asked to stop at the Drake for luncheon. He could complete his journey once he had eaten. No one paced back and forth in his sitting room, pining for a glimpse of him. His time was his own.

Apparently, his time was also the Drake’s. He placed his order, but the waiter returned once and then twice, bearing the unwelcome news that the hotel had exchanged hands only a week ago, and things were not as they should be. Charles shrugged and went outside in the rain to advise his coachman to come inside, too, or find a better public house.

He sat down at his usual table again, unable to prevent his eyes from straying to that table to the front and left where he had first seen Sally Paul. It was foolish of him to think that his heart hurt, but it did. He rubbed his chest, resolving not to give the Drake his patronage any more.

A man sat in Sophie’s spot, rattling through the newspaper, and casting angry glances at his timepiece. With a monumental oath, the man folded his paper, whacked the table with it, then left the dining room. An elderly lady taking tea nearby jumped in her seat and uttered a little shriek.

When no one came to straighten the table the irate man had deserted, Charles retrieved the newspaper. Making himself comfortable, he read the news, boring in the extreme, now that warships rode at anchor, or had been placed in ordinary. He finished the paper and refolded it, then unfolded it and turned to the back page, that section Sophie had been studying with such intent when he noticed her, and found he could not look away.

Notices were few; jobs were still scarce. He looked down the paper to the legal announcements, several of which had originated from Brustein and Carter’s office three streets over. His eyes widened and he read them again.

On the face of it, there was nothing remotely interesting about a landowner searching for a lost relative, someone to whom he owed money. It was the writing that grabbed his attention and refused to let go, taking him back to the best moments last summer, when Sophie had laboured over his puny life story, infusing it with her own wit and skill. He read the announcement again; it was Sophie’s writing.

He looked to the bottom of the announcement, with the initials D.B.—David Brustein, to be sure. Charles let out the breath he had been holding when he saw the lowercase s.b., following a slash. He stood up, unmindful of everything in the dining room. It couldn’t be. He was imagining things. He read another similar announcement from D.B./s.b., and one more, this one S.B./s.b. Although the subject in all three announcements was pedestrian in the extreme, the words were not.

‘You’re still using my name,’ he said out loud. He looked at the elderly lady with the tea and pointed at the announcement. ‘She’s still using my name!’

The woman glared at him and snapped her fingers to summon a waiter—probably to throw him out of the Drake—but he was already out the door, walking fast up the High Street, the newspaper still clutched in his hand. He passed several officers he had known for years. They hailed him; he ignored them. And then out of breath, he was standing before the modest door proclaiming Brustein and Carter.

He stood there a moment until he was breathing normally, then opened the door.

It was the same office he had always visited. In fact, he had stopped in before his trip to London, speaking as he always did to either David or Samuel Brustein, his men of business, now that Jacob had retired. He had chatted with David as he withdrew money, only last week.

Everything had changed now, even though it all remained the same: the dark panelling, the Turkish rug, the overstuffed chairs, the most junior clerk looking at him politely, waiting to honour whatever request he had.

‘Admiral Bright? How may we help you today?’

He willed himself to remain calm as he stood in front of the clerk’s desk. He indicated the announcements. The clerk looked at him, interest in his eyes. ‘Yes?’

‘Where is Sophie Bright?’ he asked softly, when he wanted to rip the door to the interior offices off its hinges and run down the hallway, looking in all the cubicles this time, and not just David or Samuel’s offices.

The clerk was silent. He adjusted his spectacles and stood up. ‘Let me get Mr David Brustein.’

‘I’m coming with you.’

‘No, you’re not,’ the clerk replied crisply. ‘Sir! Just wait here, please.’

I can be patient; I can be civil, Charles told himself as he said down, then stood up immediately, as David Brustein opened the door, straightening his neckcloth. He was a short man like his father and Charles towered over him.

‘Mr Brustein, where is my wife?’

He said it softly; he knew he did. The last thing he wanted to do was terrify Sophie, if she was within hearing distance.

Brustein sat down on the edge of his clerk’s desk, effectively blocking the interior door, even though it was patently obvious that Charles could toss him aside like a skittle. ‘She’s here,’ he said. ‘How did you find her?’

Charles sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were wet. And as he looked at the younger man, he saw Brustein’s eyes welling up, too.

‘Admiral? How did you find her?’

Wordlessly, Charles pointed to the announcements in the newspaper.

‘I don’t quite—’

‘David, I would know Sophie’s style of writing anywhere.’ He tapped the initials. ‘And there it is: s.b. for Sophie Bright. Please. Let me talk to her.’

Brustein nodded just as the door opened and Samuel came out, obviously curious to know what had taken his brother to the reception room during the busiest part of the day. The brothers spoke together in Yiddish, and Samuel went back inside.

‘He will ask Mrs Bright if she wishes to speak to you.’ David stood up then, no taller than ever, but exerting a certain command. ‘If she does not wish to speak to you, you will have to go.’

‘Aye, lad,’ he replied.

He could be patient. His pride was gone, his faith in the Royal Navy well nigh shattered after sifting through a mountain of duplicity. As he waited, he knew that if Sophie Bright would not see him, he would will the house to her and take ship for South America. She would never want for anything, and he would want for everything. But as the Lord Admiral had so smugly exclaimed, that was how the world worked.

The door opened. Charles’s face fell to see Samuel, and no one behind him. Was it to be Montevideo or Rio de Janeiro? He didn’t care.

‘Admiral? Why don’t you follow me?’

Dumbly, he turned towards the door leading to the street. David Brustein stopped him, his hand on his arm.

‘No, Admiral. Follow Samuel.’

Sophie was perched on a stool behind a tall desk, her hands clasped in front of her, her face pale. With a gesture, Samuel cleared the room of the other clerks at their desks. Charles stood in the doorway, afraid to move one step closer.

‘I read one of the Brusteins’ legal announcements. It sounded…’ he gulped ‘…it sounded remarkably like your writing, Sophie.’

She watched his face, not wary, but solemn.

‘Charles…are you well? You look thin. Surely Etienne is still in your employ. And Starkey, too, I suppose. Please tell me that Miss Thayn still—’

‘Starkey is long gone,’ he said, coming closer, but not too close. How beautiful she looked in the strong light coming through the double windows, the perfect setting for scribes. Her face had a gentle glow to it that he hadn’t noticed before. He hadn’t seen her in five months, come to think of it. ‘I dismissed Starkey the day you left.’

She nodded.

‘The others? I have to tell you, Miss Thayn is no more.’

‘Charles! I was so hoping you would—’

‘Steady as she goes, Sophie! She and Etienne decided to tie the knot. Miss Thayn is no more.’

She laughed at that. ‘You wretch!’ she scolded, and he had to gulp again and look away.

‘The girls are fine, and Vivienne is planning to cook for me, so Etienne and Amelia can go away for a few weeks.’ He hesitated, putting all his eggs in one fragile basket. ‘You never decided on a good colour for the exterior.’

‘Pale blue, I should think,’ she said, getting off her stool and coming around the corner of the desk. ‘It will look good against the lemon trees.’

He stared at her gently rounded belly, then dropped to his knees. She was in his arms in a moment, gathering him close as he pressed his face into her belly. Her hands rested on his head, and then she knelt, too, holding him close. ‘You’re too thin,’ she said. ‘Tell me you weren’t sick!’

He could only shake his head and gather her closer. As he did so, he felt the baby move, probably in protest at such close quarters in an already confined space.

‘I never dreamed I would be a father,’ he said many minutes later, when she had left off kissing him, and her hands were gentle on his back now. ‘That was something so out of reach I never thought…’

‘Think again, Charlie,’ she told him, leaning on him to stand on her feet again. ‘I believe it was that morning before we went to pay our respects to Jacob Brustein.’ She tugged at his hand and he stood up, only to clasp her close, as their son or daughter protested with another high kick. Sophie laughed softly. ‘Or it could have been the morning or two before that, or maybe…’

‘We weren’t much good at convenient marriages, were we, my darling?’ Charles said.

She walked him to the door, opening it to see both Brusteins and the clerks waiting with an air of expectation. ‘Gentlemen, I didn’t mean to take you away from your accounts.’

David gestured to his own office. ‘Go in there and talk,’ he said. ‘Sam and I will walk down to the Drake for tea.’

‘The service is terrible there,’ Charles said, before Sophie closed the door to David’s office and pulled him into her lopsided embrace again. ‘You’ll wait for ever.’

He sat down, pulling her on to his lap. ‘You walked to the Brusteins’ that morning.’

Sophie nodded, resting against his chest. His hand went to her belly as though it belonged there. ‘I didn’t know where else to go, and Mr Brustein had said I could always depend on him. With all the carriages coming and going, I knew I’d get away.’

‘I am so sorry,’ he said, his voice betraying only a tiny portion of the anguish he felt.

She nestled closer, and her words were muffled in his overcoat. ‘For a long time, you were just one more person who had hurt me.’

‘I know. What changed?’

She thought about it. She gave that small sigh with the little sound to it, and he realised how he had been craving to hear that again. ‘Well, the baby, to be sure. I had no idea how you would feel about a child from my body, not after—’

‘Sophie, don’t even think it. I was cruel and you didn’t deserve the way I treated you.’

He held her close until she stirred in his arms. ‘I knew I would do anything to keep my baby safe. I’m not certain when it happened, but one morning I woke up and realised that if I never saw you again, mine would be a life not worth living.’ She toyed with the button on his overcoat. ‘But I had no way of knowing how you felt, so there the matter rested.’

‘You left behind a persuasive letter, my love,’ he told her. ‘After I finished drinking all the liquor in the cellar, and after Dora dried me out and—’

‘Dora? She Did What?’

He played with her curls that had come loose from her chignon. ‘Sophie, you’re speaking in capitals, just like Dora. It’s true, and it can keep. More to the point, I went to Admiralty House and received the royal circumlocution. Would it surprise you to know that all records and transcripts from Andrew’s trial have disappeared? Poof. Just like that.’

‘Now we will never know.’

‘Think again.’ Cuddling her close, he told her about Lord Edborough’s confession of sorts. ‘He assured me I could never prove anything in a court of law, and he is right. Edmund Sperling is dead, though, if that is any consolation.’ He sighed. ‘A few months ago, when I was so proud and stupid, I wanted to see Sperling get his just deserts before a heavenly tribunal.’

‘But not now?’ she asked, her hands warm inside his overcoat now.

‘No, my love. When I was younger, I wanted justice. Now that I am older, I yearn for mercy.’

He went back to his manor alone, but with a smile on his face. David and Samuel had both cut up stiff when he wanted to whisk his darling away from them that very hour. They reminded him that quarters were approaching, and they needed his gravid, beautiful wife for another week of work. ‘She has made herself indispensable to us,’ was David’s last argument.

He could understand that completely. From the moment she gave him her startled consent to wed, Sarah Sophia Paul Daviess Bright had worked her own little magic on him. He thought about asking her what she was planning to do, if he hadn’t found her, then decided he didn’t care. Maybe some day she would tell him.

When he got home and made himself comfortable in his favourite chair in the sitting room—he still hated to go into the bookroom—he took out her little book of sonnets and turned to the twenty-ninth. For five months, he had never got beyond the first few lines about disgrace, and bootless cries, and troubling deaf heaven. Now his eyes roved lower. He smiled and mouthed the words, ‘Haply I think on thee’, then on to ‘thy sweet love remembered’, until he was content as never before, even if his dear one—dear ones—were still in Plymouth.

At any rate, they were until a carriage pulled up in front of his house. He put his finger in the book to save his place and looked out the window. ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘Sophie, you’re so impulsive. Some day I will tell our children you proposed to me, because you just couldn’t wait.’

He opened the door and stood there as the coachman helped her soft bulk from the vehicle. From now on that would be his office, and a good one it was, but he was content to watch her from the only slight distance that would ever separate them again.

The coachman unloaded her modest valise, climbed back aboard and tipped his hat to them both. She stood there, looking at him, her hand just naturally resting on her belly. She was obviously well acquainted with their child within. He had some catching up to do. He went down the steps and picked up her valise, then took her arm.

She stood there a moment, looking at the house. ‘Yes, light blue. When will we have lemons? I would like one right now.’

Charles laughed and kissed her cheek. ‘Decided not to stay and help the Brusteins?’

She carefully picked up his left arm and draped it around her shoulder, keeping his hook at a distance. ‘I was miserable as soon as you left and they fired me.’

He shouted with laughter and gathered her close.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-7956-2

THE ADMIRAL’S PENNILESS BRIDE

Copyright © 2011 by Carla Kelly

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