by Julia Donner
“Please believe me, ma’am, this is not the worst this sailor has sustained since I took up commission. Is Harry at home?”
“Sir Harry and Lady Collyns are in London until the end of the Season. If you are a friend, we shall move you into other quarters once you are well enough to walk.”
“And may I have your name?”
“Of course. I am Mrs. Davidson, a guest. Shortly to return to Scotland.”
“Where, if I may ask?”
“Callander.”
“They say it’s beautiful country around Callander. The Trossachs. Haven’t been there. Have heard it talked about.”
The footman entered with a small tray. It held a steaming cup of broth and slice of bread. Cameron drank down half the broth, not caring about the scald. They watched in silence as he ate the bread, deliciously fresh. He handed the tray back, feeling better from the broth’s liquid warmth spreading through his system.
When he moved to stand, Mrs. Davidson stretched out her hands to stop him. “No, sir, you must rest!”
He settled back on the cot. “You said something about other quarters. I would give anything for a bath and clean bed. A real bed. It’s been hammocks and hard floors longer than I care to think about.”
She cast a worried glance at the footman. “What do you think, Mr. Betters?”
“The master keeps rooms available at all times. If we can make our way up the steps to the second floor, there is a room very near the staircase. Will that suit?”
Since Betters looked at him, Cameron answered. “Any place but this cot will do. I fear it will disintegrate under my weight.”
Betters bowed. “It shall be as you wish. Have a care when you stand. You are of a height that you will crack your head on the ceiling.”
Sensing the lady’s distress at his insistence to quit the closet, he mustered his strength to stand and was pleasantly surprised by the lack of dizziness or impediment from the presence of stitching along one side of his back. He took the stairs ahead of the lady, as a gentleman should. He could at least show that he had some knowledge of manners and was not in actuality the brute he appeared.
Loss of blood and bruised ribs took their toll by the time he reached the bedchamber. He leaned against the wall while the footman and a maid swiftly made the room ready and started a fire.
Worry in her gaze, Mrs. Davidson asked, “Are you faint from the climb?”
He pinched down a smile. “Not faint, ma’am. A bit weary is all. I am looking forward to that feather mattress.”
She shifted her attention to the activity in the bedchamber. “You have known Sir Harry from before you took up your commission?”
“Yes. I lived in this district before I went to sea. Harry and Peregrine went to Eton. I went to Winchester, but we had hols together. Made mischief in the neighborhood. He was plain Harry then. The twins and I had some famous jaunts and larks. You’ve met his brother?”
“Lord Asterly? Yes, recently, while I was in London. I regret to tell you that Sir Harry and Lady Collyns will not return until Christmas.”
“I will be gone by then. I’ll leave him a note. Ah, I see that Mr. Betters has everything arranged. Thank you, Mrs. Davidson. Perhaps we can speak tomorrow. I haven’t lived around here in a long time and would love to ask you some questions.”
“If you feel well enough, sir.”
He didn’t want to leave her for some odd reason, but was fading fast. With Mr. Betters to act as valet, he was able to do a more creditable job of bathing than dipping his handkerchief in a brook. He drank down two glasses of spring water and would have had more, but his vision started to fade around the edges. Time for sleep.
Every muscle and bone in his body cried out in relief when he settled on the soft mattress. At last, a place to sleep where he wasn’t hanging in a swaying cocoon, curled up in a corner with the rats and bilge water, or in the partial comfort of his knees bent up to accommodate a short bed. His last thought as the door softly closed was of a slender woman with a compassionate gaze. What was she doing at Rolands when Harry and his wife were absent? Questions for tomorrow. After a sound sleep, he’d start his search anew.
Chapter 3
Cameron roused from deep sleep when he moved to change position. The mattress under his back was blissfully soft, but his body ached as if he’d been kicked down a hillside layered in rocks. Half-awake, he judged that what he felt wasn’t the familiar aches and weariness sustained during and in the aftermath of battle. The letdown from the exhilaration of hand-to-hand conflict was absent. At this moment, muscle and bone felt hammered from a brawl.
An unwanted memory flared, filling his head with the mayhem of ship boarding, men shattered by cannon shot and flying splinters, the damage from twelve-pounders at close range, decks slippery with blood, shouts and screams of the injured, the groans of a vessel grievously wounded.
A question brought him back to the present. “Cameron Bradford? Squid, is that truly you under all that hair?”
The voice came from someone nearby, standing close to the bed. Pretending sleep, Cameron reached in slow stealth for his knife, but found only muslin bedcovers. His eyes flew open. He readied to leap, then belayed his attack.
A grandly attired gentleman stared down at him, smirking, unafraid, and utterly unthreatening. Golden hair fell in tousled waves over an intelligent brow. What could be seen of his eyes gleamed with curiosity and good humor behind tinted spectacles. He stood with his thumbs tucked into the pockets of a dashing silk waistcoat. Cameron blinked at its splendor and the relief that he was no longer an infidel captive of an Algerian pirate.
The gentleman staring down at him looked familiar, then realization penetrated his sleep-fogged head. “Harry?”
“Well, now, Squid, it’s about time you woke up. Never thought you’d grow up to be a lay-about.”
Cameron squinted in disbelief. “Collyns? Seedy, is that really you?”
“In the flesh, old thing. What the blazes happened to you? Other than becoming the hero of the county.”
“I’ve done nothing to account for heroism.”
“Died at sea. Valiant death for king and country, but you do look a fright with all that hair on your head twisted every which way. What have you done to yourself? You look bloody well knocked about.”
Cameron hoisted up onto his rump and gave his head a furious scratching. “Can’t say the same about you, Seedy. Quite a change from the scruffy lad I ran about with. Don’t know how you recognized me with all this beard.”
Harry strolled to the window. The drapes had been drawn back to allow the weak light of a gloomy day inside. Cameron rubbed his face. He’d been so soundly asleep that he hadn’t wakened from the rattle of curtains being drawn.
Staring out the window, his childhood friend murmured, “Things have changed considerably in your absence. Circumstances and all that business of time marching on. It must be nigh on a decade since I saw you last.”
“Bit more than that, and you’re married. How wonderful for you, Harry.”
Turning a bit, Harry smiled over his shoulder. “Immensely so. You might try it for yourself.”
Cameron exhaled a rueful laugh. “If you hadn’t noticed, I’m not exactly suitable.”
“Dished up, are you?”
“Until I find what is left of my prize money.”
“Not to worry, Squid. I’ll stake you a monkey and my man, Phipps, will have you fitted out in all of a moment. Phipps!”
Cameron opened his mouth to explain that five-hundred pounds was far more than he needed when a spindly, prim gentleman’s gentleman stepped in from the dressing room. The valet sashayed forward until he spied Cameron in the bed and stepped back with a gasp. He whispered, a not subtle aside, “Sir Harry, there is a beast in yon bed.”
“Stubble it, Phipps,” Harry ordered through a pursed grin.
Cameron knew his friend well enough from their childhood that Harry was having fun at his valet’s expense. The prissy Phipps looked
ready to have an apoplexy over the thought of having anything to do with the shambles Cameron had allowed himself to become.
Visibly drawing deep for courage, Phipps lifted his thin nose and bowed to his employer. “As you wish, sir. But we will require clothes. I believe there was talk below stairs of burning the jacket he arrived in. There was damage to it that could not be remedied. Blood-drenched, for one thing.”
Harry removed a spec from his valet’s shoulder. “What nonsense you talk, Phipps. I have plenty of clothing lying about. Have someone bring down the trunks. Choose from whatever is left.”
Appalled, Phipps craned his neck to inspect his shoulder. “But, sir, the men servants have taken most of your castoffs, uncouth lot.”
“You might want to cover that jealousy, Phipps,” Harry taunted before saying to Cameron, “Poor Phipps is continuously irked that he is unable to gain enough weight to wear my castoffs. They end up with those he considers lesser beings.”
“How distressing,” Cameron said to the valet still invested in the search for offensive passengers or specs of lint.
Harry sent Cameron a conspiratorial grin before he poked Phipps on the arm. “Now, see here, Phipps, there must be something left in the boxes. Sort through my present wardrobe, if needs be. He’ll require the sleeves being let down, but the waistcoats should fit in a haphazard fashion. I know this fellow. He won’t care if it’s not up to snuff, will you, Cam?”
“Not in the least, but I shouldn’t want you to sustain embarrassment due to a visitor under your roof in last year’s coat.”
Harry smirked. “What a sad creature you are, Cam, thinking yourself a wit. I beg to inform you that the jackets from the attic are from last summer, not last year.”
Cameron winced after a laugh. He tenderly investigated a bruise on his side with cautious fingertips. “Bravo, Seedy. You finally did it.”
The valet was waved on his way as Harry inquired, “Achieving what?”
Dropping his legs over the side of the bed, Cameron answered, “When we were lads, you vowed you were going to one day be rich enough to have a dozen new coats made every month. Perhaps I shouldn’t call you Seedy any longer.”
Harry smiled thinly and called out, “Phipps, what the devil is taking you so long?”
From the other room, Phipps trilled an unintelligible reply, and Cameron asked, “Harry, is that your dressing room?”
“One of them,” Harry replied with a slight smile that negated his pretense of sublime boredom.
“Don’t tell me that they’ve put me in your own bed. There must be over a dozen bedchambers in this house.”
“T’was mine at one time. Happens that it’s the closest to the stairway, so they dropped you in here.”
“But I shouldn’t like to have put you out of your own rooms.”
Harry negated that with a negligent wave. “Not at all. My wife and I are so unfashionable as to share a bedchamber. Certainly not de rigueur, but charming and convenient, n’est-ce pas?
Phipps waltzed in with four coats draped over his arm. He laid them with reverence on the coverlet. “I’ve selected four colors that would suit. We shall know better when you are barbered. You don’t wish to keep the facial hair, do you, sir? It’s not quite the thing.”
“I’m Bradford, Phipps. Plain mister, and I leave everything to your excellent judgment.”
Phipps preened and tittered a modest disclaimer. After a little bow, the valet turned, squinted at Harry. He paused to crow over his shoulder before returning to the dressing room, “Some people have enough sense to regard my opinion.”
Cameron slid a glance at Harry, who was smirking again. “Lud, Harry, you’re a scary one.”
Still smiling at his valet’s retreat, Harry said, “Saw what I was up to, eh?”
“I haven’t lived this long ignoring ill winds. Your man considered me beneath his dignity to dress. You gave me the opening to turn him about.”
This time Harry’s grin showed his fine teeth. “I knew you’d turn him around eventually. You are a born encourager. Haven’t forgotten it. So is my Ollie.”
Since he’d been put to bed without clothes, Cameron tugged a sheet free to wrap around his torso. “Ollie?”
“Lady Collyns, my Olivia. Used to call her Livie, but Ollie annoys her, so had to stick with that. You’ll adore her. Everyone must. She’s the reason we returned to Rolands earlier than planned and discovered you. Ollie used the excuse that she wanted to assist Mrs. Davidson in her medical studies. The truth is that she doesn’t much care for London society.”
The carpet felt lush under his feet when he stood. He peeked under the bed. “Where do the better houses keep their pisspots nowadays?”
Harry strolled to the door. He nodded his head in the direction of the dressing room. “Phipps is no doubt waiting with a warmed, wet cloth in hand.”
Cameron barked a laugh. “Christ, Harry, I’ve spent the last eight years below decks with stinking sailors. Fourteen inches, hammock to hammock, crammed together like salted cod. Not sure I can deal with an accommodating manservant until I reacclimatize.”
Harry opened the door, performing that simple movement with panache. “No need to guard your privates, old man. He’ll just hand it to you, not wipe. You’re not the bloody king, after all. Looking forward to seeing your face, Squid.”
Cameron conjured up what he hoped was an evil grin. “Stuff it, mate.”
Harry chuckled as he closed the door, and Cameron confronted the dressing room door. Heaven help him. But it had to be done. He feared his head might be inhabited with fleas.
Chapter 4
Four hours later, Cameron was directed to a withdrawing room decorated in dazzling blues. Vases from the Orient graced tabletops, the mantel and the top of a curio filled with fragile blown glass pieces. Great swaths of silk and brocade flowed from the tall windows. Out of season flowers and fragrant candles scented the air—quite the opposite of Harry’s boyhood denizen with its moldering walls, broken chimneys, and missing windowpanes.
His own person felt conspicuous and odd, but for the first time in years, dressed correctly in jacket and a waistcoat too small. The Hessians pinched across his arches, his feet having widened from so many years working the decks barefooted. Without the beard, he felt naked, but his scalp felt wonderfully clean, his head light from the inches sheared and now lying on the dressing room floor. By the time Phipps had finished with him, he no longer recognized himself, even though his coat was a bit out of style, according to Harry’s opinion.
A great deal of muttering had been voiced throughout the struggle to render him presentable for dinner, mainly due to the improper fit. He and Harry were of similar height but Cameron had longer arms and wider shoulders. Weight loss allowed for a squeeze into the black jacket and pale yellow waistcoat. The pantaloons had to be abandoned with a tragic sigh from the valet and replaced with breeches. In the end, poor Phipps looked frazzled to a faint from his exertions.
Cameron wasn’t sure what he had been expecting to encounter when introduced to Harry’s wife, but she wasn’t what he imagined an “Ollie” sort of woman would be. Lady Collyns boasted a lush figure that had been made more so by obvious pregnancy. It was her face and bearing that made one pause before speaking. Chocolate brown eyes held no guile, no artifice. Her attitude was one of unprejudiced acceptance. He couldn’t recall ever meeting a person so obviously free of predisposition.
He bowed over a hand that was feminine and yet strongly shaped for a female. Her features were handsome, not pretty, and her complexion astonishing, reminding him of glossy alabaster.
He caught himself staring. “I do beg your pardon, Lady Collyns.”
“How pleased I am to meet you, Mr. Bradford. Or do you have a naval title?”
“I was an ensign a long time ago. Plain mister will do.”
She gestured to a nearby chair. Harry sat next to his wife on the Egyptian motif couch. Its azure silk upholstering heightened the intense blue of his eyes. He�
��d switched the tinted spectacles for a pair with clear lenses. And he’d changed his clothes. Cameron didn’t want to imagine what the haberdashery bills mounted to every quarter. Apparently it equaled a sum that never sent a qualm of alarm through Harry. Phipps had expressed his pride regarding his master’s expenditures—the sort of debt that exceeded Cameron’s imagination. Throughout the task of transforming a “beast” into something presentable, Phipps had gossiped that his employer was rich as a nabob from his gambling successes and Caribbean plantations.
His stomach made a rude noise, catapulting him back to the withdrawing room. “Beg pardon, ma’am, for that and drifting off. That recent knock to my head didn’t help to reorder the clutter in my brain box.”
Lady Collyns whispered with sweet, secretive assurance, “We keep country hours here at Rolands. Dinner will be announced very soon.”
“I do apologize, ma’am, and have no excuse but the obvious. I am looking forward to what will prove the finest and certainly the most abundant meal I’ve enjoyed in months. I’ve been on the road for the last weeks.”
Lady Collyns nudged her husband’s arm and gestured at a dish of candies. Harry beamed at his wife, as if she were the most amazing thing on earth. Cameron was beginning to understand why. Harry’s sort typically chose a wife with similar tastes and attitudes, a female who would not interfere and understood her place. Lady Collyns bore no resemblance to that sort of female and was nothing like her husband. Where Harry was blatant and extroverted in every sense, Olivia Collyns was unassuming and plain. No, not plain. Conservative. And amazingly tolerant. She conveyed acceptance and consideration, fairly glowed with inner resolve and steady character.
In a purely masculine point of view, there was also the fact that when not with child, Lady Collyns boasted a figure to invoke territorial challenges and fistfights with every male in striking distance. As luck would have it, Harry pounced on any opportunity for an energetic fight. They’d spent most of their childhood wrestling and competing at everything from rock skipping to cricket. Harry usually won with his twin and Cameron tying for second.