“I practiced my penmanship in letters to you. Page after page, filled with details of my life at sea, and full of longing for you. It really is too bad your mother never sent them to you. They were masterpieces, those letters, worthy of Byron himself. No, don’t laugh, they were pure poetry, I swear it.”
“I’d give anything to have read them, Sam. But I never got them and assumed you were dead until you walked up to me that night at the theater. I thought you were a ghost. An angry ghost. Lord, I was so ashamed for you to find me like that.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You did not put on a show of shame, as I recall.”
“No, I flaunted my circumstances proudly in hopes you would go away. I couldn’t go back and change things, I couldn’t reclaim a virtuous life, so I knew I could never be with you. It was too late for that. The best thing would be a clean break. So I made it easy for you to leave.”
“And set me on a new course.”
“Did I?”
“You planted a new level of ambition in me. I was determined to prove that I would never stoop to…well, that I could make a fortune without, um, compromising my honor. I even found myself a rich wife.” He shrugged. “I doubt I’d have married in such an all-fired hurry if I hadn’t still been smarting from learning you’d become some other man’s mistress.”
He spoke of the artist, James Benedict, but they both knew he meant more than that. Dear Sam, he still could not bring himself to name what she’d truly been. But she had never imagined that her career had pushed him into marriage.
“It was not a love match, then?” she asked.
“Not at first, but it was a good match. Her father was a planter in the West Indies where I’d spent a lot of time. Somehow I managed to convince him that I had a bright future and would be a worthy husband to his daughter. She was a pretty girl, and I was very fond of her. That affection grew into something deeper over time. I loved her. She was a good woman, my Sarah.” Sam smiled wistfully, and Wilhelmina knew he still felt her loss.
“You sent for me, Your Grace?” Smeaton stood at attention beside the alcove, awaiting her pleasure. He held a small silver tray with her traveling writing set and a sheet of paper. The writing case was open, and a silver nib was screwed onto the slender sterling pen, ready to use.
Wilhelmina turned to Sam, reluctantly drawing her hand away from his. “If you will excuse me for a moment, Sam, I will just write a quick note.” She nodded for Smeaton to place the tray on the table. He did so, then took the two steps back down and waited stoically, never giving away any hint of surprise that she had made such an odd request.
Covering the sheet with her arm so the words could not be seen, she scribbled a few lines, blew on it, folded the sheet in half, and held it out for Smeaton. “Please take care of this for me.”
He stepped back up to the table, retrieved the tray and the note, and said, “Will that be all, Your Grace?”
“Yes, Smeaton. I will leave all the arrangements in your capable hands.”
“Your Grace.” He bowed sharply and took his leave.
“I’ve seen that face before,” Sam said, his gaze following Smeaton out of the room.
“He acts as my butler in London. Perhaps you remember him from the time you came to visit me there.”
“Ah yes, when I was on leave in ’99, when all London was still basking in our victory at Aboukir Bay six months before.”
“Considering our previous encounter, you could have knocked me over with a feather when Smeaton gave me your name.”
He lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “I’m not sure why I came. I had seen you from a distance at a reception for Nelson, and some imp of mischief compelled me to see you again. To show you how I’d prospered.”
“You lost no time in telling me about your lady wife.”
“I will confess to you, Willie, that it pained me to see you again, and to see you with no less than a duke on your arm. I thought how equally ambitious we were, you and me. My competitive nature compelled me to boast to you of my successes: my fortune, my rise in the ranks on display in the white lapels of my new lieutenant’s uniform, my new home in Sussex, my rich wife, and my strapping son.”
“It pained me, too, Sam, to see you again. And to hear of your wife and son. Oh yes, that was a blow. I kept thinking how it might have been me, tucked away on that Sussex estate with you.”
“You did?”
“But I quickly realized it would never have been like that for us. If you hadn’t been taken by that press gang, we’d have carried on as planned, living in a one-room cottage near the sea with a slate roof, no glass in the windows, and the constant smell of fish permeating the stone walls. Neither of us would have found our fortunes. I was as determined in the competition as you, Sam, determined to show that I had reached higher. And so I flaunted my jewels and my duke. And more.”
“And the last time I saw you…” He paused, and a pained look crossed his face. “I was back home for a long stretch, and both our lives had taken new turns. I was widowed and you had married your duke.”
“We’ve come a long way,” she said, “on our separate paths. At sixteen, I could never have imagined this life, where I have rank and fortune and want for nothing.”
“Yes, it’s ironic, is it not? That a dreaded press gang should change both our lives for the better?”
Chapter Three
Sam glanced out the window and was astonished to see sunshine. When had the rain stopped? He’d been so entranced with Willie that he hadn’t noticed. God, it was good to see her again, and finally to speak of all the things that had kept them apart. It had been almost twenty-five years since they’d spoken at such length. Yet somehow, despite all that had happened, despite the opposite paths their lives had taken, despite hateful words spoken by both of them long ago, they had fallen into easy conversation as though they’d never been estranged, getting through even the most painful subjects without constraint. Like old times.
Perhaps their lives had come full circle, and with the wisdom of age and the forgiveness of time they could now be together again. At last. They were both unmarried. And the air between them crackled with unspoken desire. It was almost as though it was meant to be, their meeting like this.
Except that it could not be. Some sadistic fate had brought them together just at a time when he was not entirely free. If it was not so cruel, it would be laughable.
But Sam was not laughing.
“The rain has stopped. I’m afraid I must be on my way.” He rose from the bench, reached for his greatcoat and hat on a nearby peg, then walked around the table to Willie’s side. He lifted her hand from where it rested on the table, took it to his lips again, and then kept hold of it while he spoke. “It has been an unexpected pleasure, Willie, and absolutely splendid to see you again. I don’t get to London often, so we may not run into each other for another ten years, who knows? But I wish you well, my girl.” The old endearment came easily to his lips, which brushed her hand once more before releasing it.
A frown puckered her brow. “Must you leave? It has been such a long time since I’ve seen you and there is so much to catch up on. So much more to say. Could we not share a dinner? For old times’ sake?”
The look on her face almost made him change his plans. That, and the way her fingers touched the edge of her neckline, drawing his eyes to the soft swell of her bosom. Was she flirting with him, trying to seduce him into staying? The very idea made his groin tighten, and his heart pitch and roll in his chest like a sloop in a high wind. He forced himself to say, “I’m afraid I cannot stay. I am expected at the home of friends, only a few hours north, near Clophill. I can get there before dusk if I set out now.”
“Surely they will not mind if you are late.” Her fingers continued to play with the lace at her bosom. “They will understand that the rain delayed you.”
He looked down and brushed a speck of lint from his sleeve, unable to meet her blue eyes. “I am expected,” he said. “Expected
to…” His voice trailed off, and he gave a shrug. “I’m sorry, Willie, but I must go.”
“They must be very important friends that you are so determined not to disappoint them.”
He did not look up, and an awkward silence fell between them. Their easy camaraderie was gone. Damn. He might as well tell her the truth and be done with it.
Finally, he said, “They are a family I got to know while in the East Indies. John Fullbrook was chief aide to the governor of Penang, but has retired to his family estate in Bedfordshire, near Clophill. His son is a good friend, Captain Fullbrook of the Valiant. And…there is a daughter. Mary.”
“Ah.” She gave him a rueful smile. “So you are to marry again?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps. It is, I believe, expected. It is why I have been invited.”
“You sound reluctant. Not exactly the eager bridegroom.”
“No, I am ready to make an offer. Mary is a fine woman. And I have been alone these eleven years. With the wars over, I am content to settle down in Sussex and get to know my land. I am ready to be married again.”
“Well, then. I must wish you happy.”
“I haven’t made an offer yet, Willie.”
“Then I wish you luck.”
He smiled sheepishly. “Thank you.”
“May I walk out with you? I’d like to enjoy a bit of sunshine after such a gloomy day.”
“Of course. Though it’s likely to be muddy. And chilly.”
“I’ll dash upstairs for a shawl and my old half boots. They are not remotely stylish, I warn you, but eminently practical and impervious to mud. Perhaps I’ll have a walk about the village after I wave good-bye as you drive away.”
He backed down the steps and held his hand out to her. She took it and allowed him to guide her to the main floor. When they stood together beside the alcove, mere inches apart, he suddenly realized—or remembered—how small she was. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder. It somehow made her seem younger, as though she was still that sweet girl in Cornwall. Except that she smelled like a woman. She wore a spicy, slightly musky fragrance that reminded him of some of the exotic plants he’d seen in the East Indies. For an instant, he wanted to wrap himself up in that fragrance, to taste it on her skin.
It was a good thing he was leaving. Sam was very close to making a fool of himself. Again.
Instead, he gave her his arm and escorted her out of the public room, which was only half filled now. He’d been so wrapped up in Willie that he hadn’t noticed how many customers had left.
“I’ll only be a few minutes,” she said when she left him at the bottom of the stairs. “I’ll look for you in the yard.”
Sam shrugged into his greatcoat, put on the cocked hat he still wore even when not in uniform, and walked outside. The main entrance to the Blue Boar opened onto the inn yard, just beyond the arched carriage entrance. His boots scrunched in the wet gravel of the yard as he made his way toward the stables in the rear.
His curricle was one of several vehicles parked beneath a long, simple, open-front structure beside the stables that served as a carriage house. Two ostlers were standing nearby, one of them gesturing at Sam’s curricle.
“Look lively, lads,” Sam said in his booming quarterdeck voice as he approached. “I need this rig made ready to go. If you’ll be so good as to harness my team, I need to be on my way.”
One of the ostlers touched his cap and said, “Clemmons, at yer service, Cap’n. This here be yer curricle?”
“It is. Now, if you’ll see to bringing ’round the horses, I’d appreciate getting this ship ready to sail.”
“Beggin’ yer pardon, Cap’n,” the ostler said, “but you got yerself a problem here.”
“What problem?”
“Me and Jim, here, was just talkin’ ’bout it. Looks like yer left wheel’s broke. See, this here spoke is clean split from the hub, and the next one be loose. Can’t put no weight on this wheel without bringin’ the whole carriage down.”
Sam bent to examine the wheel. Damn and blast. The wheel was shot. The ostler was right; there was no way it could be used. “How in the name of Old Harry did this happen while I was inside tipping a tankard? The wheel was fine when I drove in.”
“Yer sure ’bout that, Cap’n?” Clemmons asked. “Might’ve come loose when it hit a rut. Roads here ’bouts get right pockety with the rain.”
That was certainly true. He’d had the devil of time negotiating ruts and potholes along the last stretch of muddy road, and once or twice had taken a fairly hard bounce. It had been pouring buckets when he turned into the Blue Boar’s yard, and he’d flung the reins to an ostler while he dashed inside. He might not have noticed anything wrong in his haste to get out of the rain. But it wasn’t like him not to notice something as obvious as a broken wheel. He rather suspected it was one of the ostlers who’d been too rough in handling the curricle in the flurry of activity that brought so much unexpected custom to the stables.
“I suppose it must have been a rut,” Sam said, skewering both men with a glare that had sent many a midshipmen scurrying with fear, “though I still find it hard to imagine how I didn’t notice the wheel had split.”
“Happens often enough, Cap’n,” the second ostler, Jim, said as he tested the other spokes. “Most folk don’t notice nothin’ till it’s too late an’ the carriage turns ’em top over tail. It’s lucky we noticed it afore yer drove off an’ tossed yerself in a ditch.”
“Yes, well, I thank you for your keen eye. Now, what—”
“We can get it fixed up fer yer right an’ tight in no time,” Jim said. “Wheelwright’s just across the green. I’ll take it over meself and have a couple o’ new spokes fitted up. Shouldn’t take long.”
Sam tossed him a few coins and thanked him. Another delay meant he would likely not reach Clophill until after sunset, but it couldn’t be helped. He turned to walk back to the inn, and when he entered the yard saw Willie coming toward him, wrapped in a large Paisley shawl and wearing sturdy brown boots that somehow managed to look fashionable on her. She smiled as she stepped carefully on the slippery gravel, and there was something about that smile and the way her eyes seemed to dance with mischief—another flash of the Cornish girl lurking beneath the worldly sophisticate.
“You are looking at me with the oddest expression,” she said when he reached her side.
“Because you remind me of a girl I once knew.”
She laughed and cocked her head to one side, peeking up at him from beneath the brim of her bonnet. “Was she pretty, this girl?”
“The prettiest girl I ever saw. She was beautiful. And still is.”
“Sam! You will make me blush. At my age. But where is your carriage? I have come to see you off.”
“You will have to wait a bit. It seems I’ve got a broken wheel and it must be repaired.”
“Oh, what a bother. But at least we can spend a bit more time together. That is, if you’re not bored to death with me already.”
He took her hand and tucked it in the crook of his elbow. “I shall contrive to stay awake if you will walk with me a while. Since we’re both dressed for outdoors, and the sun is shining again, let’s see what Upper Hampden has to offer.”
Wilhelmina bit back a smile as they strolled through the carriage way toward a small village green. She had hoped he would stay. In fact, she hoped Sam would remain at the Blue Boar for the night. She wasn’t ready to give him up just yet. It was selfish, to be sure, but, dear God, it was pure pleasure just to look at him. And to remember those long-ago days in Cornwall when she thought she would die for loving him.
But this was not the gangly youth she’d once known. When he was a boy, Sam had grown tall seemingly overnight. Unaccustomed to his new long limbs, he was sometimes rawboned and clumsy in his movements. Now he had impeccable posture and a sure-footed grace—no doubt a result of years of shifting his weight against the rolling decks beneath him. And he had filled out rather nicely
over the years—broad-shouldered and solid. Just the way she liked a man. In his greatcoat and hat, he was a large and formidable presence. And sinfully attractive.
Wilhelmina never played games with herself where men were concerned. There was no sense in denying it: She wanted Sam. One night together might heal a world of hurt between them. She could be honest with herself about it, but she was not ready to be that forthright with him. If there was any seducing to be done, Sam would have to take the lead. She did not want him to see her as a seasoned courtesan, skilled at seduction. That would only serve to reopen old wounds. No, it would have to be a simple coming together of a man and a woman who’d once loved each other.
They had made a good start today in coming to terms with all that had torn them apart, and kept them apart, for so many years. There was still much to be said, and, God and Smeaton willing, time to say it. Afterward, if they gave in to a mutual attraction—and there was no doubt it was mutual; no one knew how to read a man’s interest better than Wilhelmina—it would be a final act of healing. A closing of the circle of their lives.
Then he could go off to his Miss Fullbrook and make his offer.
In the meantime, she would enjoy being at his side, having her arm in his, as they explored what little there was to see in the tiny hamlet of Upper Hampden.
It was a pretty, picturesque village enveloped on all sides by dense woodlands, now brilliant with the colors of autumn. Houses were scattered in clusters off the central green, mostly black and white half timbered, some with thatched roofs, some with red tile. An ancient weather-beaten cross stood in the center of the green, flanked by two enormous beech trees, their bright red and darker orange leaves spreading in wide masses of graceful branches over the green.
They spoke of inconsequential matters as they walked past a bakery, a cobbler, a blacksmith, a grocer. They spoke of favorite books and plays as they wandered out to a nearby mill, sidestepping puddles and mud, and of Sam’s travels as they entered the lych-gate of St. Mary’s, the broach-spired old church at the north end of the village.
It Happened One Night Page 28