Carla Kelly - A Regency Officer's Wedding

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.