by Carla Kelly
‘What is your special occasion?’ she asked, curious.
‘Don’t have one yet.’ His arm was around her now. ‘After Trafalgar, when we towed one of the Spanish ships into Portsmouth, the entire wardroom gathered together and got stinking drunk.’
‘I wouldn’t spend any money on spirits,’ she said.
‘I didn’t, either.’ He took a deep breath. ‘We drank dead men’s liquor, Amanda. I was serving as second master on a ship of the line that was mauled during the battle. The sailing master and two lieutenants had died. I had assumed the master’s duties during the battle, so the officers included me. We drank their stored supply—dead men’s liquor.’
She turned her face into his chest, unable to help herself, which meant that both of his arms circled her now. ‘How do you bear it?’ she whispered into his gilt buttons.
‘It becomes normal life, I suppose,’ he told her, after much silence. ‘Damn Napoleon, anyway.’
The unfairness of Ben Muir’s life broke her heart. ‘So...so you don’t spend much time on land by choice? Is that it?’
‘Partly. Granted, we have little opportunity, but you might be right.’ He inclined his cheek towards hers. ‘A sad reflection, but not your worry, Amanda.’
This would never do. A cold bench on a busy footpath was no place to discuss anything and Aunt Sal needed her. ‘It is my worry,’ she said softly. ‘It should be of concern to each one of us on land who is kept safe by the Royal Navy. Let me thank you for them.’
She kissed his cheek. His arms tightened around her. She kissed his cheek again and, when he turned towards her, she kissed his lips. Right there on the footpath, she kissed a man she had known for three days, the first man she had ever kissed. She probably wasn’t even doing it right.
His lips parted slightly and he kissed her back. He made a low sound in the back of his throat that Mandy found endearing and edgy at the same time. Warmth flooded her stomach and drifted lower, all from a kiss. Good God Almighty, Aunt Sal had never explained anything like this in her shy discourse on men and women. Of course, Aunt Sal was a spinster. Mandy could probably get better advice from the vicar’s wife.
She ended the kiss, sitting back, wondering at herself, blushing hot, wanting him to leave, praying he would stay and stay. ‘I... I don’t think I know what I’m doing,’ she said and stood up.
She thought he might apologise, but he did no such thing. He shrugged. ‘I’m not certain what I am doing, either.’
They looked at each other and started to laugh. ‘Have you ever met two more bona fide loobies?’ he asked, when he could talk. He stood up and crooked out his arm. ‘Take my arm, Amanda. This path is misty.’
She did as he said. ‘That is a most feeble effort to get me to walk close to you,’ she scolded, onto him and not minding it.
‘I thought I was rather clever, for a man with no practice whatsoever,’ he said, going along with her banter.
She stopped and faced him. ‘You realise how...how odd this is. Neither of us is young, but listen to us!’
He nodded and set her in motion again. She looked at him, mature and capable, wearing that intimidating bicorn hat and sporting those curious blue dots on his neck. It was not her business, but he had to be a man with some experience with women, probably exotic, beautiful women in faraway ports. To say he had no practice whatsoever couldn’t be true, but she thought she understood what he was saying. A man paid for those women for one night, a business transaction. He probably had no idea how to court a lady.
Not that she was a lady; she worked in Mandy’s Rose. For all that, she had been raised gently by a careful aunt. He was no gentleman, either, just a hard-working Scot with ambition, who had risen perhaps as far as he could in the Royal Navy. They were really two of a kind, two ordinary people. With enough time, something might happen, but there was no time.
She also thought that he would never make another move towards her. After all, she had kissed him, not the other, more logical way round. He knew the clock ticked. Maybe he had forgotten that for a second when he kissed back, but he was a careful man, not likely to forget again.
‘You’re looking far too serious,’ he said, as they came in sight of Mandy’s Rose.
She took a deep breath, then let it out. What could she say? There would be no happy ending to this Christmas encounter because of Ben’s vile mistresses—war and time. They were gruesome harpies she could not fight.
‘I’ll probably recover,’ she told him. She gave his arm a squeeze, let go and hurried into the restaurant, late enough for Aunt Sal to scold.
He followed her inside, then walked up the stairs to his room. He didn’t come down for dinner, but she heard him walking back and forth, back and forth. She worked quietly, distressed to her very core, uncertain, angry because until Ben Muir came into her life, she had known nothing would ever change. She and Sal would work and provide for themselves, and live a comfortable life, one better than so many could hope for.
Everything and nothing had changed. She would lie in bed a few more weeks, wondering what she would do if he tapped on her door long after Sal slept. When Master Muir left, all would return to normal, except down in that deepest recess of her heart. She would never be the same again, but how could that matter to anyone except her?
In growing discomfort, she listened to his footsteps overhead. He walked slower now and paused often, perhaps looking out the window into darkness.
‘What is the matter?’
Guilty for just standing still when there were tables to clear, Mandy turned around to face her aunt. She shook her head, tried to swallow down tears and failed miserably. She bowed her head, pressed her apron to her eyes and cried.
Tears in her own eyes, her aunt put her arm around Mandy’s waist and walked her into the kitchen. She sat her down and poured tea.
I can’t tell her how I feel about Ben, she thought, mortified. Thank God her father had given her an excuse that might brush past a careful aunt’s suspicion. ‘I told you about Ben finding that piece of paper in Lord Kelso’s library.’
Sal nodded. ‘I know he went with you to the vicar’s, but you were gone so long.’
Careful here, Mandy told herself and sipped her tea. She told her aunt about the codicil that her grandfather had written the day before he died and which the vicar witnessed. ‘He wanted to give me one thousand pounds, but Reverend Winslow said that would only frighten me. He settled on one hundred pounds and the vicar witnessed it. I am to receive one hundred pounds I don’t want.’
Sal laughed and poured herself some tea. ‘It’s not the end of the world! You looked as though you’d lost your best friend and the world was passing you by!’
Exactly, Mandy thought.
‘Into the counting house the legacy should go, until you need it,’ Aunt Sal said. She started to clear the tables, then stopped. ‘This will make you laugh, but I was afraid you...’ she pointed over her head ‘...were starting to fall in love.’
‘Heavens, Auntie! How can you imagine such a thing?’ Mandy asked, as her insides writhed. Head down, she stacked the dinner plates.
‘Silly of me,’ her aunt confessed. ‘I can’t imagine a less likely match.’ She set down her dishes and rubbed her arms. ‘They seem like marked men, almost, working in wooden ships and facing enemy fire. What does that do to someone?’
* * *
What does that do to someone? Mandy asked herself as she washed dishes later. It’s killing me.
To her relief, Sal had taken a bowl of soup and basket of bread upstairs. Mandy stopped washing when she heard laughter overhead, then washed harder, grateful that the sailing master wasn’t mourning over something that wasn’t there. It remained for Mandy to chalk this up to experience, a wonderful experience, yes, but only that.
Sal came downstairs a few minutes later, a smile on
her face. ‘Such a droll fellow,’ she said. ‘He told me how your eyes widened at the idea of one hundred pounds and how you protested.’
‘I suppose I did,’ she said and made herself give an elaborate shiver that made her aunt’s smile grow. ‘I reckon I will have to make an appearance at Walthan Manor, unless Mr Cooper can arrange this in his office.’
‘We can hope, my dear.’ Sal kissed her cheek, while Mandy prayed she wouldn’t pick up the scent of lemon soap from someone else’s cheek.
Nothing. Obviously the fragrance had worn off, if it was ever there in the first place.
Sal started drying the dishes. ‘It’s odd, though,’ she mused. ‘Remember how he said he wanted peace and quiet to read that dread book of mathematics? Well, there it was still on his bedside table, still un-slit. And after I left the food and we chatted, he went to the window when I left the room. I wonder what he is thinking?’
‘Maybe that he really should be in Scotland for Christmas to see his father,’ Mandy said. She nudged her aunt. ‘Not everyone has a father like mine!’
Chapter Four
Life resumed its normal course in the next few days, as normal as anything was before Christmas. Aunt Sal spent more time sitting with clients in the dining room when the meals were done, planning Christmas catering, and one party at Mandy’s Rose itself.
Mandy continued fixing extra sandwiches for the sailing master to take to Walthan Manor and let him tease her about her legacy, still not forthcoming. Perhaps her father had changed his mind. Ben didn’t linger over dinner any more and spent time on solitary walks. She was usually in bed before he returned, but never asleep. Her heart sad, she heard him pace back and forth in his room. She wondered if he was trying to wear himself out so sleep would come. She convinced herself that he was wishing for Scotland and his father. ‘I would want to be with my father, if I had a good one,’ she whispered into her pillow, trying to drown the sound of pacing on boards that squeaked.
* * *
In the next week, a solemn-faced fellow in livery delivered a note to Amanda Mathison, requesting her presence at Walthan Manor at eleven of the clock. She nodded her acceptance to the servant, then hurried into the kitchen.
‘Here it is,’ her aunt said, after she read the note.
‘I would rather go to Mr Cooper’s office,’ Mandy said, then tried to make a joke of it. ‘I doubt my father will invite me to luncheon with him.’ She sat down, struck by a sudden thought. ‘I have never seen him up close. Aunt, did he ever lay eyes on me?’
‘I can’t recall a time,’ Aunt Sal replied. She fixed a critical eye on Mandy. ‘I wouldn’t wear Sunday best, but perhaps your deep-green wool and my lace collar will do.’
Mandy changed clothes, her eye on the clock. The simple riband she usually wore to pull back her hair would have to do. She looked down at her shoes that peeped from under her ankle-length dress, grateful she had blacked them two days ago, when she was desperate to keep busy so she would not think about kissing the sailing master. It hadn’t worked, but at least her two pairs of shoes shone.
Her aunt attached the knitted lace collar with a simple gold bar pin. She indicated that Mandy should turn around so she did, revolving slowly.
‘I believe you will do, my love,’ her aunt said. ‘Hold your head up. Use my woollen shawl. Heaven knows it only goes to church on Sundays. This will be an outing.’ She settled Mandy’s winter hat square on her head.
‘I don’t even remember when you grew up,’ Aunt Sal said. ‘Could it be only yesterday?’
‘I grew up quite a few years ago, Aunt,’ Mandy teased. ‘You know very well that I will be twenty-seven soon.’ She fingered the fringe on her aunt’s shawl. ‘With the money—let’s think about a little holiday at Brighton this summer. We can close the Rose for a week and visit the seashore.’ She recognised Aunt Sal’s worry frown. ‘We’ll be frugal. We have never had a holiday. We are long overdue.’
Mandy took a deep breath and started for Walthan Manor. The morning mist had broken up enough for weak sunshine to lighten the normally gloomy December. Soon she would have to hunt the wild holly and ask the butcher prettily for some of the ivy on his house. She had finished the stockings she had knitted for Aunt Sal, useful stockings. She had wrapped them in silvery paper the vicar’s wife had found in the back of a drawer.
Mandy wished she had something for the sailing master. If she hurried, she could knit him stockings, too, because stockings weren’t a brazen gift. Maybe he would think of her upon occasion. She knew she would never forget him.
Her courage nearly failed her at the long row of trees, with Walthan Manor at the far end. The leaves were gone now and no one had raked them into piles for burning yet, which suited her. She left the drive and walked through the leaves, enjoying the rustle and remembering leafy piles in the vicar’s yard. He had never minded when she stomped through the church leaves, because Mandy’s Rose had only three windows and two storeys in a row of buildings. There were no leaves to run through, so he had shared all of God’s leaves at St Luke’s with one of his young parishioners.
I could never leave Venable, she told herself, her heart full. There would never be a reason to, which suited her. Why she sighed just then puzzled her. Maybe Brighton this summer would be the perfect antidote for the sudden melancholy that flapped around her like vultures around the knacker’s yard.
The dry crackle kept her company all the way to the gravel half-moon driveway that fronted the manor. She had never been so close before and she sighed with the loveliness of the grey stone and white-framed windows. Certainly there must be grander estates in Devonshire, but this was so elegant, despite the small-minded people that lived within. She looked at the ground-floor windows and saw the sailing master looking back at her, his hands behind his back. On a whim she regretted immediately, she blew him a kiss. He was far too dignified to do anything of the sort in return, but his head went back in what she knew was silent laughter. Obviously her half-brother was in the room, probably sweating over charting a course.
She knocked and the door was opened immediately by a grand personage that might even be the butler, although something told Mandy that the butler himself wouldn’t open a door for her. At least the man bowed her in and didn’t tell her to find the servants’ entrance. Whether the supercilious look on his face was worth one hundred pounds, she couldn’t have said. Think of Brighton in summer, she reminded herself. Aunt Sal deserves a holiday.
With a motion of his hand, he indicated she was to follow him down the hall. He didn’t slow his pace, so she hurried to keep up.
Mandy stopped for a moment at the grand staircase, because a young woman had started down from the floor above. She hadn’t seen her half-sister Violet in several years, not since the time Violet and Lady Kelso stopped in Mandy’s Rose for tea. She wanted to say hello, but there was nothing in the look Violet gave her that suggested she would respond. Two London Seasons, Mandy thought, feeling suddenly sorry for the young lady who glared at her down a nose too long, in a face designed by a committee.
The servant Mandy decided was a footman opened the door and she entered a small room lined with ledgers and a desk so cluttered that it lacked any evidence of a wooden surface. There sat her father.
She had seen him a time or two from the dining room window of Mandy’s Rose, once on horseback, but generally in a barouche in warm weather and a chaise in winter. The years had not been gentle to his features. His red complexion suggested he drank too much, as did the myriad of broken blood vessels on his nose.
The nose was familiar; she looked at it when she gazed in the mirror: a little long for general purposes, but thankfully not as long as his other daughter’s nose. Beyond that, she saw little resemblance.
Elbow on the desk, his chin in his hand, Lord Kelso appeared to be studying her, too, perhaps looking for a resemblance to the young woman
he had loved so many years ago. Mandy knew she bore a pleasing likeness to the miniature that Aunt Sal kept on her bedside.
‘My lord?’ she asked, when the silence continued too long.
Mr Cooper was on his feet. He took her hand and led her to the chair beside him, squeezing her fingers to either calm her or warn her. She could not overlook his serious expression and vowed to make this interview brief. The air seemed charged with unease.
The silence continued. Mandy leaned forward, ready to rise if no one said anything. Glancing at the solicitor’s deep frown line between his eyes did nothing to reassure her.
After a put-upon sigh from the earl, Mr Copper cleared his throat. ‘Miss Mathison, you are no doubt aware of the codicil to your...grandfather’s will that the sailing master found.’
‘Yes, sir. Master Muir told me about it and took me to see the vicar, who had witnessed the codicil. Reverend Winslow explained the ma—’
‘A damned nuisance,’ the earl said, glaring at her.
‘It is the law,’ Mr Cooper said with firmness. He looked at Mandy. ‘Lord Kelso has agreed to the hundred pounds.’
She nodded, afraid to speak because she saw the warning in the kindly man’s eyes. In her mind, I should leave, warred with, I’m no coward.
With a great show of ostentation, Lord Kelso rummaged on the desk and finally picked up the document right on top. ‘Pay close attention. “Lord Kelso, James Thomas Edwards Walthan, earl, agrees to pay Amanda Mathison, his daughter, one hundred pounds, at the rate of five pounds annually for the next twenty years, if she will come to Walthan Manor and petition for it.” Sign here.’
Mandy’s mouth went dry. She swallowed and blinked back tears at the humiliation.
‘My lord, what did I ever do to you to deserve this?’ Her own words startled her, even as she started to rise, eager to leave the presence of a man who was no father at all.
‘Sit down!’ he shouted and slammed his hand on the desk, which only caused the inkwell to tip over. He stared at the spreading stain, his face as pale as milk, then changing to an unhealthy brick red.