The Captain Claims His Lady

by Annie Burrows

  She bit down on her lower lip, which had started to wobble. And wrapped her arms about her waist. And though his arms were round her, too, it felt as though a distance had crept in between them.

  * * *

  The next thing she knew, daylight was streaming in through a door that had been flung open with a bang. And the familiar outline of Grandfather stood silhouetted against it.

  Nobody said anything for a moment or two. During which period she became aware she’d turned over in her sleep so that she was snuggled up against Harry with her head tucked underneath his chin. It had only been for warmth, naturally, but to an outsider, their position, naked as they were, must look utterly scandalous.

  ‘I think we can forget about the money, under the circumstances,’ said Grandfather, confusingly. ‘You will be married as soon as you can get hold of a licence.’

  Harry tensed. Just before he bit out, ‘Of course, sir.’

  And it hit her, then, like a...like a saltwater wave to the face, that he’d never intended to marry her. All the courtship, all the following her about the place, had all been merely a ruse to find out what Cottam was doing and what his weaknesses were.

  Only now, because Grandfather had found them in bed together, he was not going to be able to wriggle free.

  Nan, who must have been sitting by the fire, got to her feet. ‘So romantic it was, your honour,’ she said to Grandfather. ‘The way Miss was swooning in his arms as he carried her to my door.’

  It hadn’t been romantic. There was nothing romantic about almost drowning, after spending hours listening to a madman gloating about how he planned to do away with you.

  Nothing romantic about being used as a...as a...well, she wasn’t sure what the term was, but Harry had definitely been using her.

  ‘It wasn’t romantic,’ Lizzie began to object. Only to wince as Harry pinched her arm gently.

  ‘Not now,’ he breathed into her ear.

  But surely, he wanted this notion of Grandfather’s nipped in the bud, before he ended up shackled to her for life?

  ‘But, Grandfather...’

  ‘Not now,’ growled Grandfather. ‘Captain Bretherton can explain just exactly how you wound up here, to me, in private.’ There was a hint of a threat to his tone.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘My thanks to you, Nan,’ he then barked, ‘but you have played your part. I must get my granddaughter home now, as quickly as possible.’ Then he came and sat down on the crude stool beside the simple bed upon which she was lying. ‘Lizzie,’ he said in a softer tone. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’ He reached out a hand that was trembling, to brush a hank of salt-encrusted hair from her face. ‘When you vanished, I had the militia out, searching for you. My only hope was that, since Captain Bretherton had vanished as well, you were together, somewhere. And he would rescue you.’

  ‘He did,’ she said. ‘The smugglers—’

  Once again, Harry stopped her. ‘Do not upset yourself by speaking of your ordeal, not now. You need to rest. To recover.’

  ‘Yes, and you, young man, need to go outside and get some clothes on,’ said Grandfather sharply. ‘And leave my granddaughter to do the same, in privacy. Close your eyes, Lizzie,’ he said sharply, as Harry sat up and scrambled out of the bed. As if he couldn’t get away from her fast enough. ‘Your man is outside with clothing and such for you, Bretherton. The messenger this good lady sent told us in what case you were found.’

  Lizzie closed her eyes, groaning inwardly. It would be all over the area by now that she’d been carried to Nan’s cottage by a naked man. And if anyone knew anything about how to help people get over a dunking in freezing sea water, they’d guess she’d just spent the night in the same bed with him, too. The chances she could free Harry from the necessity of marrying her were getting slimmer by the second.

  ‘Lie still,’ said Grandfather, when she made one last effort to sit up and fight for Harry’s freedom. She flopped back, exhausted, without saying a word. For the truth was that she did feel awfully light-headed. And her limbs and back ached from just that one attempt to sit up.

  ‘Get a move on, man,’ said Grandfather irritably, when Harry seemed to hesitate by the door. ‘And, Lizzie, you keep your eyes closed. Decency! Harrumph! Let us have some decency to proceedings.’

  Which was the sort of stupid thing people described as locking the stable door after the horse had bolted. For one thing, she’d been pressed up against every inch of Harry’s naked body, all night long.

  For another, even if she opened her eyes and ogled him, she wouldn’t be able to see all that much. Just a blurry outline.

  Still, Harry meekly did as he was told and, since Grandfather got up and barrelled out after him, she was left alone in the hut with Nan.

  The man who’d brought Harry’s clothes had also brought a selection of her things. Or Cook might have bundled them up for her.

  Though they didn’t feel like hers any longer. She wasn’t the same girl who’d worn them before. She’d had her eyes opened, both about the Reverend Cottam and Captain Bretherton.

  Captain Bretherton. Funny, in the sea, she’d thought of him as Harry. Had thought of him as Harry right up to the moment when she’d started putting on her clothes.

  Only now she couldn’t do it any longer. Because he wasn’t the man she’d thought he was. The man he’d wanted her to believe he was. He was a...a sort of thief taker, or something. A man who’d been on a mission to root out the evil that had been lurking in Peeving Cove.

  And having heard Mr Cottam boasting about his evil deeds, she could—at least a part of her could—grudgingly see why he’d gone to such lengths to expose and defeat him. Indeed, Captain Bretherton was fully justified in using whatever means at his disposal.

  And, having reached that very sensible, level-headed conclusion, she promptly burst into tears.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Before she’d fully got her tears under control, Sergeant Hewitt came striding into Nan’s hut, wrapped her in a blanket and swept her up into his arms. He settled her into Grandfather’s carriage and placed her feet tenderly upon a hot brick. Before she had time to ask what had become of Captain Bretherton, he’d closed the door on her and ordered the coachman to set off.

  Grandfather really did want to get her home and as quickly as possible.

  * * *

  When they arrived, Cook came bustling out of the house and would have swept her upstairs, had her legs not given out the moment she got out of the carriage. Once again, Sergeant Hewitt came to the rescue, carrying her upstairs and into her room.

  But this time, not before she’d glimpsed a second carriage bowling up the drive.

  ‘Don’t you fret about your young man,’ said Cook, in between removing her shoes and tucking a mound of blankets over her. ‘That feller Dawkins will see to him.’

  ‘Is that what all the noise is about?’ While Cook had been getting Lizzie settled, she’d heard what sounded like a herd of elephants in riding boots trampling up the stairs and along the landing to the little-used guest wing.

  ‘That’s it. Brought all his things from the Three Tuns the minute we got news you’d come out of the sea in Whitesands Bay. Oh, miss,’ she said, sitting down suddenly and clasping her hands together. ‘When Billy rolled up, right as rain not an hour after you’d gone out looking for him, and then you disappearing... Lord, how I boxed his ears!’

  ‘It wasn’t his fault.’

  ‘No, but he told me about what had gone on in the night. And if he’d never got mixed up with that lot, you would never have gone a-searching for him, and none of this...’ she waved her arm at the mound of bedclothes covering Lizzie ‘...would have happened. And I didn’t know what to tell your grandfather...’ She wrung her hands.

  ‘What did you decide on, in the end?’

  ‘I daren’t tell him nothing. And all
night, I’ve been afeard I’d sent you to your death...’ The woman burst into tears. ‘Well, that’s that, I dare say,’ she sniffed, wiping her nose on her apron. ‘I’ll lose my job anyhow.’

  ‘No, you won’t.’

  ‘You mean, you won’t tell your grandfather how you ended up almost getting done in by Bolsover? Coz that’s what happened, ain’t it?’

  ‘I...’ Lizzie paused. She really didn’t want to add yet another secret to the mountain which already felt as if it was crushing her. But what good would it do to get Cook into trouble?

  ‘What story,’ she asked, hesitantly, ‘is going about, at the moment? About why I was in the boat with Bolsover and his men? And Reverend Cottam?’

  ‘Well, nothing yet. I don’t think nobody else knows. So far. Your grandfather has just been ranting up and down the moors, getting the militia out and threatening to wring Captain Bretherton’s neck if he’s allowed any harm to come to you. But we’re bound to get visitors today, wanting to find out how you ended up on the beach without a stitch of clothing.’

  Lizzie’s cheeks heated. ‘I don’t think anyone needs to know anything we don’t wish to tell them, do you?’

  They exchanged a look, loaded with meaning.

  ‘I could say,’ Cook suggested hesitantly, ‘you’re too overset to talk straight. People will come up with their own notions, but once you and the Captain tie the knot, the gossip will soon die down.’

  ‘Ah...’ Lizzie began.

  But Cook was patting her hand, and looking much more cheerful. ‘The doctor will be here soon, to tell us how to get you well, but I’ve water heating for a bath to get all that nasty salt off your skin and out of your hair,’ she said, bustling away to the door. ‘Since he’ll probably tell me we oughtn’t to wash your hair, lest it bring on some kind of fever, we’d best get you done quick. And then by the time he gets here you can be sitting up in bed sipping some nice hot broth, which he surely cannot have any objection to me giving you.’

  A bath did sound good. As did sipping some hot broth. And she had no argument with going along with the fabrication that she was too overset to talk about her ordeal.

  * * *

  In fact, for the rest of the day, every time the door knocker sounded and another set of visitors was turned away, she felt nothing but relief. She really wasn’t up to talking to anyone. She didn’t even have the energy to argue with the doctor, when he decreed she must stay in bed for a day or so and avoid any more excitement. Normally, being confined to her room would have felt like a punishment. But for once, all she wanted to do was drink broth and doze. She’d learned her lesson about skipping breakfast. A girl never knew what would happen later on in the day, not with men like Cottam and Bolsover in the area.

  Not to mention Captain Bretherton.

  She wondered if he’d received the same orders from the doctor, since the man had gone along the corridor after leaving her room, rather than going straight downstairs. If so, it meant there might be time, before he went and got a licence, to speak to him and find a way to prevent him having to marry her. Because she had no wish to end up shackled to a reluctant groom.

  * * *

  When night came round, as Lizzie had done nothing all day but doze and sip broth, sleep did not come with it. Every time she shut her eyes, her mind was assailed by a variety of horrible scenes. If it wasn’t enormous shadows chasing her down dark tunnels, it was leaden limbs that wouldn’t move no matter how hard she strove. Or creeping cold making it an effort to breathe. Or the faces of men sinking below the waves, a trail of bubbles streaming from their silently screaming mouths. Even when she jerked awake, the nightmarish feeling didn’t leave, because the throbbing in her cheek, where Bolsover had struck her, reminded her that it had all been real.

  And there were no strong arms to hold her, no warm chest to burrow into. It was all she could do not to get out of bed and creep along the corridor, and climb into bed with Captain Bretherton.

  Only that would be the end of any chance they might be able to wriggle out of marriage.

  And he’d probably think she was doing her utmost to trap him.

  So she sat up and wrapped her quilt round her shoulders, and tried to think of something else. Sunshine and meadows, and blue skies...anything but the sea and the dark, and the crushing feeling of being trapped underground with a gang of ruthless cut throats.

  * * *

  When morning came, so did the news that Bolsover’s body, along with the other three men who’d been rowing their boat, had washed up in Whitesands Bay. And then, as soon as it reached an acceptable hour for visitors to call, call they did. In droves.

  ‘So many people coming to wish you well,’ Cook panted when she bustled upstairs with a tray at midday.

  They were more likely to be driven by rampant curiosity than concern for her. It wasn’t every day that a smuggler as notorious as Bolsover met his end in such mysterious circumstances. They’d naturally wonder how a boat full of expert sailors could have capsized in a dead calm. Especially after she, too, had been involved in a ‘boating accident’.

  She wished she knew what tale Grandfather was giving out.

  She wished she could talk to Captain Bretherton.

  In fact, she didn’t see why she shouldn’t. Cook and Sergeant Hewitt and Grandfather were all busy seeing to her so-called well-wishers. Nobody was paying her any attention. Nobody would notice if she just slipped along the corridor.

  She set her tray aside, and swung her legs out of bed. Her head felt fine until she put her weight on her feet. And the dizziness passed fairly swiftly.

  She wrapped a warm shawl round her shoulders, thrust her feet into some thick socks and shuffled along the corridor until she reached the best guest room. After knocking briefly, she darted inside.

  Only to run full tilt into Dawkins.

  ‘Ah, miss, you shouldn’t be in here,’ he said apologetically.

  ‘But—’

  ‘The Captain is as well as can be expected,’ he said, ushering her backwards out of the door. At which point Lizzie flushed. She hadn’t spared his health a thought. He’d seemed far less affected by the cold of the water than she. After all, he’d carried her up the beach, hadn’t he? And felt like a furnace all night long. And got out of bed and gone outside to get dressed, while she’d needed Nan to help her fumble her way into some clothes.

  It was only when she was back in her room that she wondered why he hadn’t spoken to her. Why she hadn’t had any sense he was even in the room at all.

  Had he already set off to fetch that licence Grandfather had demanded he procure? Oh, surely there must be some way to prevent a wedding going ahead? If only she could just talk to him.

  But he was as far from her reach as if he’d been still staying at the Three Tuns.

  * * *

  That evening, after Cook brought her tray, there was another knock at her door. Her heart leapt, in the hope it might be Captain Bretherton.

  And sank when she saw it was, instead, her grandfather.

  ‘Bearing up, are you?’ he asked gruffly.

  She was still trying to form an acceptable way of telling him she was not going to be party to marrying Captain Bretherton against his will, just because she’d spent the night in bed with him—without a stitch of clothing between them—when he gave a small cry of distress.

  ‘Your face,’ he grated and shook his head.

  Her hand flew to her cheek. ‘Does it look so very bad?’ She’d avoided examining the bruise too closely. But then she’d never been one to gaze at her reflection for very long.

  ‘If that villain was not already dead, I’d...’ He worked his hands over the head of his cane, rather than finishing his sentence.

  It sounded as if Captain Bretherton had told Grandfather how they’d ended up in a boat with Bolsover, if he knew how she’d come by the bruise on her
face. Which meant she could speak freely.

  ‘Grandfather, I really am unharmed...mostly unharmed. This is just a bruise. Could I not leave my room now? I feel sure that I would recover more quickly if I could be busy during the day, rather than sitting here brooding over it. And I really do need to speak to Captain Bretherton...’

  ‘Hmmph. Brooding. Well.’ He bowed his head.

  ‘Please, Grandfather,’ she said meekly, knowing that to confront him would only set his back up and make him dig his heels in. ‘I am not used to being idle. And with Captain Bretherton staying, I’m sure Cook would appreciate some help about the place.’

  ‘Yes. Yes. And your wedding is going to make a lot of work. A lot of work.’

  ‘Well, and that is another thing,’ she said. But he kept right on talking as if she hadn’t said anything at all.

  ‘Lord and Lady Rawcliffe will be arriving within a day or so. Thought it best they stay here, rather than at the Three Tuns, what with the Reverend Cottam being her brother. She will want to be here when his body finally, ah...’ He shifted from one foot to the other. ‘Poor girl won’t want to have to put up with the likes of Jeavons at a time like this. So have put it about that they are honoured wedding guests.’

  Well, that would certainly explain to the locals why Grandfather was suddenly filling his house with guests, when everyone knew how much he valued his privacy. He was turning the focus away from the crime and towards her wedding. A wedding which she couldn’t permit to go ahead.

  However, if she said she wanted to help with the arrangements, at least she would have the freedom of the house again. And she could surely find some opportunity to have a frank discussion with Captain Bretherton and untangle their future in a way that would satisfy everyone.

  ‘I had better come downstairs tomorrow, then, and help with preparing a guest room.’

  ‘Rooms. Because we will also be expecting a Lord and Lady Becconsall.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘They are friends of, ah, all concerned.’ He then mumbled something incoherent into his moustache and made a speedy exit. Leaving Lizzie rather puzzled. Although it didn’t take her long to wonder if somebody was using the pretext of throwing her a wedding to gather a group of people together under one roof, in such a way that their true purpose could remain hidden.