“Dunno,” the youth admitted after a few moments of an awkward attempt to sling a saddle across the animal’s broad back. Cullen intervened and tossed the boy a few coins. “I’ll take it from here, lad.”
After carefully attaching his saddle bags which held extra shirts, drawers, and a spare jacket, as well as an assortment of medical supplies, he and Heracles departed the stable in search of Mrs. Taylor’s orchard.
Wills stood before Captain Still, struggling to remain stoic, the very portrait of a young man who’d just lost his father and was now leaving the only life he’d known for the last ten years. “I regret to inform you, Sir, that I’ve taken a position as an assistant to Dr. Partlow, an acquaintance of my father, who has a practice in Peterfield.”
The captain, who had been seated when young Morton entered the cabin, stood and came around his chart-littered desk to stand near the young man. “Wills, I’ve known you since you were a child. Are you sure you’re ready to leave the ship and face the world on your own? I know you’ve had some differences with Dr. MacCloud, but surely, your feelings might change with time. He’s a good man.”
“Yes, I must leave as soon as possible.” Wills gave the captain a clipped answer, eager to end the exchange. The small space between them was thick with tension and unspoken words which were tearing their way through Wills’s gut like a finely honed scalpel.
“I—.” The expression on Captain Still’s face said he had a lot more to say but was tamping the words down. He finally uttered, “Godspeed, lad,” and shook the young man’s hand.
The young physician’s assistant turned to leave the cabin and picked up a bag leaning next to his sea chest in the companionway. He dreaded the next part of the journey like a condemned prisoner’s last walk from Old Bailey to a hanging outside Newgate.
Shoulders squared, Wills hoisted his sea chest to one shoulder and walked away from the docks toward the streets of Portsmouth to find a hackney cab for hire.
A few miles out of Portsmouth, Cullen soon discovered Heracles did not quite live up to his illustrious name, but was a decent road companion all the same. The moody beast had been moving at a canter for awhile, but suddenly slowed, whipped his head around, and stopped.
Cullen slewed forward and then pulled hard on the reins. What the devil? Heracles pranced sideways and snorted. Suddenly, a fox strutted across the road with three kits in parade behind her. After waiting what seemed an eternity for the little family to slip into the thick underbrush of the Hawthorn hedge, Heracles finally deigned to move on.
“What kind of Greek hero are you?” Cullen leaned forward and in spite of his annoyance at the delay, couldn’t help rubbing his stubborn mount’s neck. He shook his head and urged the animal back to a respectable trot. He knew the tower of St. Peter’s could not be far. He’d been on the road for over two hours. Once he spied the church, the Peterfield Inn would be his next stop. He and his unpredictable mount needed a short respite from the road, and their own crotchety company.
When at last the coaching inn courtyard hove into view, Cullen slid down from Heracles’s considerable back and handed him off to a groom just as the post coach from Portsmouth rolled to a stop. He’d considered taking the coach, which would go all the way to London, but had decided instead to hire mounts along the way, to clear his head before facing his aunt. And riding solo would save him a number of hours, versus taking a mail coach.
The horn sounded before the coach rumbled into the courtyard, and there was a flurry of activity as travelers dismounted. A young woman and her mother exited the coach deep into a loud argument about whether they would eat in the tavern, or hire a private room. A ridiculous hat laden with fake fruit and flowers balanced atop the young woman’s brassy blonde curls while her mother’s face was barely visible beneath a bonnet with side flaps so large, surely the woman lacked sufficient peripheral vision to safely navigate the few steps into the inn.
Cullen hesitated a bit longer to allow the crowd of travelers time to alight and find their way inside. He was still observing the comical, squabbling mother and daughter when he nearly missed the last person off one of the outside seats on the coach.
She wore a drab, outdated traveling dress and reminded him a bit of a forlorn crow. Tall for a woman, she took long, deliberate strides and seemed oblivious of her unfashionably short skirts, showing a bit of stocking above the tops of her sensible walking boots.
The woman stopped short of the door to the inn and waited while one of the inn’s servant boys in the courtyard retrieved her luggage from the boot of the stagecoach. She directed him to a carriage on the street outside the inn where the driver took the small trunk, a sea chest in fact, and stowed it behind his seat.
When she walked by Cullen, he snatched a glimpse of extraordinary gray eyes. In a passing moment so brief, he later would wonder if he’d imagined it, he thought he saw a glimmer of recognition flash before she lowered her eyes beneath impossibly thick, soot-dark lashes. And then she was gone.
Willa settled into the hard, uncomfortable squabs of the hack cab Dr. Partlow had hired for her. She cautioned the flutter of hope in her stomach against expecting too much, but she’d latched onto the letter he’d sent like a lifeline. She’d read over and over the few lines in his spare, cramped penmanship inviting her to leave the ship and join him in Peterfield as an assistant in his practice.
She’d opened her plain gray reticule several times during the stagecoach journey to touch the folded piece of paper. She’d met Dr. Partlow only once, when he’d invited her and her father to join him for tea at an inn in Portsmouth a few years before.
He was a bit younger than her father, but the two of them had talked for hours, mostly ignoring her presence. And now she had no idea what to expect, but she suspected working with him could be no worse than continuing the charade of appearing to be a man while tolerating the new Scottish surgeon.
She’d had an epiphany of sorts when she began to wonder what her life would look like in two years, or five. She doubted she could fake her way into medical studies at Edinburgh, but did not have the heart to go on with the half life of assistant to a high-in-the-instep Scotsman who looked down on her lack of official education. Her experiences at sea were at least equal to what he’d seen, and she’d had to deal with injuries and illnesses on a much larger ship than those of the African Squadron.
Although her father had doted on her and protected her ever since the death of her mother, he’d assumed she would always stay by his side and be his silent, obedient assistant, invisible to the rest of the world. During his final days, he’d even suggested she go to Dr. Partlow for help in the event of his own demise.
And now, she had the invitation. He’d initiated the contact. She opened her reticule again and fingered the single page of the letter. He knew her worth. She could not practice as a physician on her own, but she could become a valuable partner for his practice. They could help each other. She was not coming to him as a poor orphan. She could earn her keep.
Just then, the driver guided the pair of grays into a long drive lined with sturdy oaks. The branches swelled and met in a heavy green arch above them, with a bit of light filtering through from the cloudy skies. In a small corner of her heart, Willa wished for a little more from life. If only the sun would burn through the clouds. She took a deep breath and accepted the driver’s offer of assistance to help her to the ground. He left her chest next to the gate and headed back toward town.
The front door of the house exploded open and a mass of children raced toward her. She tried a quick count and stopped at six. Her heart sank, and she had a moment of dizziness when she realized two of the girls in her original count each had a smaller child clinging to her.
One small boy pushed forward and tilted his chin belligerently. He narrowed his eyes and accused, “You’re our new governess. You’ll be gone in a few weeks just like all the rest.” He turned and stomped back toward the house.
One of the rosy-cheeked, older gir
ls in an apron came close and gave a clumsy bow after placing a toddler on the ground. “Don’t listen to him. He doesn’t like anyone. I’m Annalise. I’ll show you your room.”
“I’m here to see Dr. Partlow. There must be some mistake. I am not a governess. I’m a physician’s assistant. Is the doctor at home?”
The young woman gave her a pitying glance and scooped up the wayward toddler. Willa could not discern the gender of the small child because of the trailing, outsized dress.
“Papa is gone. He’s always gone. You can wait in the parlor. I’ll send in some tea, because you will wait a very long time.”
“Where is your mother?”
“She’s dead,” Annalise said, and headed back toward the house, balancing the child on her hip. “She died when he was born.” The girl pointed at the little one she carried.
“I’m so sorry. Was she ill?”
“No. She was exhausted. She just gave up.”
The girl looked back one last time toward Willa’s sea chest sitting unceremoniously by the front gate where the hired driver had deposited it. “My brother, James, will be out in a bit to get your chest and take it up to your room in the attic.”
Chapter Four
After a bit of hot, honied tea, a hearty bowl of stew, and a thick, crusty chunk of bread, Cullen faced his fellow traveler, Heracles, and the road ahead with a bit more of a philosophical attitude.
Yes, it was a helluva ride yet ahead of him to the clan’s townhouse in Mayfair where his aunt awaited him. But he owed the woman at least the favor of his presence and perhaps he could take a look at what ailed her before he headed back along the same tedious journey home to the Arethusa.
Home? Yes, the huge, creaking, forty-gun frigate would be his home for a number of years, he realized with a sinking heart. The tour of duty to the St. Helena station was a long one, considering the time required just to arrive there and return. The island serving as gaol for Napoleon was more than five thousand nautical miles away, in the middle of the Atlantic, between the coasts of Africa and South America.
Action was unlikely, considering how many times the Royal Navy had quashed the many attempts to seize the captive French madman and re-take control of France.
On his way to the inn’s stables to rejoin Heracles, he passed a young woman in mourning clothes, her face pinched and pale. A flash of memory of the other crow-like young woman he’d seen earlier alighting from the coach scorched through his brain. And then, erratically, the vision of young Morton in innocent sleep, his dark hair splayed across his pillow also shot across Cullen’s mind’s eye. Cullen shook his head hard and took Heracles’ reins from the groom leading the beast toward him. Only a few hours on the road and already he was hallucinating. While he still had control of most of his faculties, he’d best move on toward the Three Pigeons Inn at Guildford for the night before heading on to London in the morning.
Willa surveyed her tiny quarters at one of the front dormer windows. A lumpy straw mattress covered an old cot. Annalise, however, had provided a pile of lavender-fresh linens for the bed and a reasonably clean pillow.
“The boys haven’t had a lesson for over a month, and I’m afraid they’ve been running wild whenever father isn’t here.” The girl sighed. “Which is most of the time.”
Willa said nothing for a few minutes, the silence stretching out between them like blank pages in a diary. What kind of monster would force a young woman, a child really, like Annalise, to care for so many children on her own?
When Dr. Partlow had come to Portsmouth several years before to meet with her father, Willa had been only eighteen. He’d seemed a reasonable, kindly man then. What in God’s name could have happened during the intervening years to turn him into the architect of his huge family’s distress? His wife had died, probably sometime less than two years before, judging by the age of the babe bouncing at Annalise’s hip.
Finally, Willa spoke. “What leads you to believe I am in fact a governess?”
Annalise gave her a queer look. “You are Miss Morton, aren’t you? Father said you’d be arriving today to take charge of the children.”
Instead of denying the preposterous claim, Willa continued more out of curiosity than anything else. “What happened to the last governess?”
Annalise’s face reddened, and she leaned down to kiss her little brother’s downy blond head.
“She wasn’t happy,” the girl finally revealed. “She argued with Father, and he sent her away.”
“Will your father be home in time for afternoon tea?”
“Probably not. Lady Portman is confined, awaiting her first child. He said not to expect him back until tomorrow.” Annalise hid her face from Willa again while she wiped at a smudge on the tiny boy’s forehead.
“Very well,” Willa said. “I will wait until I discuss my duties with the doctor. I would not presume to serve as a governess, since I have no idea how to go about teaching children. I am, as I explained before, a physician’s assistant.”
This time when Annalise lifted her face to Willa, there were tears in her eyes. She said nothing more, but fled with the child on her hip, down the narrow attic stairs.
In spite of her anger, Willa fought to tamp down feelings of guilt about not being what the Partlow children needed. When the doctor returned, she would straighten out the misunderstanding.
After years at sea, Cullen had forgotten how demanding riding long distances at a canter could be. His lower back and thigh muscles were complaining, loudly. Every hour or so he would get down from Heracles’s broad back and walk him for a few minutes.
The interludes gave him a chance to get on the beast’s good side with chunks he’d cut from the apples retrieved in the hurried visit to Mrs. Taylor’s orchard in Portsmouth. He would leave Heracles to rest in Godalmin at the stables of the Swan Inn, and leave with a fresh mount in the morning.
Cullen had stayed at the Swan many times over the years after infrequent returns to Portsmouth. Most of his service before the African Squadron had been with the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean fleet. Times in port had been rare, except for when his ships put into Freetown to re-settle rescued slaves, or to deal with the prize court.
The only reason he’d returned now was that his crew had been awarded a prize ship, Captain Bellingham’s Black Condor. The damages from the fight to claim her were so extensive that the Admiralty had ordered them back to the Royal Naval Yard at Portsmouth, instead of having her patched up at Freetown.
One of the spars had suffered a direct hit during the battle and had to be replaced. Part of the wait was the time required for the wood to soak in one of the curing ponds at Portsmouth. The trip back from Africa had been lengthy, using the sail canvas sparingly to preserve the weakened mast.
When he sighted the village church spire, he leaned forward and assured his heroic mount, “Respite awaits, my friend, if only you can forge up one last hill.”
Heracles’s ears flicked, and he quickened his pace to a bumpy trot.
When at last they entered the inn courtyard, Cullen slid down and pressed some coins into a groom’s hand. “Give this old fellow your best bag of oats.”
Willa awoke from a deep, black sleep. Maybe it was the quiet sound of the coverlet being lifted, or, more likely, the shock of a cool night breeze filtering onto her bare legs through the cracked, drafty attic windows.
She sat up suddenly and jerked the tattered quilt back from the dark figure sitting on her cot. So shocked and disoriented was she to wake to find an apparition pulling aside her bedclothes, she reverted to her shipboard male persona. “Sir—I would thank you to unhand my person.”
In the fleeting moment when the dark figure hesitated, she reached to the floor near the wall for the heavy branch she’d found in the yard earlier in the day. Heaven only knew who dared to interrupt her slumber, but she did not care. She struck a hard blow to the apparition’s shoulder and was rewarded with a moan followed by an indignant shout.
“Oy! Stop—it�
��s only me, Willa — Dr. Partlow. I meant merely to comfort you in your mourning for your father.”
Several wild possibilities flitted through Willa’s mind. No one would take the word of a young woman over that of a respected town physician. If he chose to say she was in an addled state of mind over her father’s death, she might well end up in an asylum for the insane. Willa’s innate sense of self-preservation forced her to project a sense of calm.
She was certain, beyond a doubt, no reasonable gentleman would extend sympathies in the dead of the night, unannounced, to a barely clad female. She also feared, a sour certainty in her belly, the position offered in the doctor’s practice was probably a ruse. His offer had had nothing to do with her skills as a physician’s assistant. She would pretend innocence of his intent and bide her time long enough to come up with a new plan. She would have to leave as soon as possible.
Thank Hera she’d been unsettled enough by his pack of unruly children to stow the branch as a cautionary tool for self-defense.
Finally, she lowered the coverlet, rose from her cot, and drew a heavy, dark blue wool shawl from the back of the only chair in the spare room, one with a gaping hole in the seat caning.
After firmly wrapping the shawl around her night dress, Willa said, “I very much appreciate your concern, Doctor. Perhaps we should continue this discussion over a cup of hot tea in the kitchen?” She strode toward the rough steps leading toward the lower level of the house, not giving him a chance to respond.
When she turned to back down the steep stairway and grasped a hand rail, he leaned close and squeezed her hand before following her down the steps.
Cullen had finally arrived in London and returned his second mount of the trip to the stables at the Swan Inn on Piccadilly. His mother’s MacKenzie Clan kept a townhouse at Number Fourteen Berkley Square. He covered the distance from Piccadilly easily on foot, glad to have the chance to stretch his legs after nearly twelve hours in the saddle during his hurried journey from Portsmouth.
Pride Of Duty: Men of the Squadron Series, Book 2 Page 3