by Louise Allen
When both Eliza and a housemaid with the tea tray arrived she was standing by the window looking out over the sweeping lawns that ran down to a lake. Several couples were strolling in the sunlight, a boy was throwing a ball to a tall man and two nursemaids followed on behind, their arms full of squirming bundles.
She turned, eyes dry and aching, and smiled at Eliza. ‘I expect those are some of my cousins down there. What a lot of people to get to know.’
‘A good thing, a big family,’ Eliza observed, hands folded primly in front of her crisp white apron. The minute the other maid had gone she threw up her hands, dignity forgotten. ‘This place is huge, Miss Clemence! A palace! The King’s House on Jamaica is nothing to this—and the staff. My knees are knocking, they’re so grand, believe me. And they stare so.’
‘They are not used to seeing many people of colour,’ Clemence explained. ‘They do not mean any harm by it and you will all soon become accustomed to each other. How is Street getting on?’
‘That butler, Mr Andrewes, has taken him off to find him what he says are suitable clothes. And poor old One-Eye is chained up in the stables, though Fred says he’ll look after him.’
‘You are one of the upper servants here,’ Clemence warned her. ‘But I am a very junior member of the family and you will take my precedence. Do you understand? I am sure the housekeeper will explain how to go on.’
‘Yes, Miss Clemence. I’ll unpack your things.’ She turned to the trunk, but Clemence heard her murmur, ‘An upper servant! Me!’
Clemence had not realised how tensely she had been awaiting her aunt’s questions until the tap on the door brought her to her feet.
‘Are you rested, my dear?’
‘Yes, Aunt Amelia. This is a very lovely room, thank you.’
‘You must thank Jessica, your cousin Standon’s wife, as she is your hostess. But that can wait until dinner time. If you can spare your maid now, perhaps we should talk.’
It was quite plainly an order, however pleasantly put. ‘Yes, Aunt Amelia. Eliza, you may leave us now.’ She sat down, hands folded, trying to remember her deportment lessons.
Her aunt regarded her steadily. ‘Can you tell me what has happened, from the time your papa died? Is that possible without distressing you too much?’
‘Yes, I can do that, ma’am.’ Clemence took a deep breath and began, in as orderly and dispassionate manner as she could, to set out what had happened to her ever since the news of the loss of Raven Duchess had reached them and her world had fallen apart. She told the older woman everything except the intimate passages with Nathan—those she could hardly bear to think of, let alone speak about.
There was silence when she reached the end of her narrative, then the duchess gave a little sigh. ‘That is a terrible story. You have been very brave, my dear. Now, are you quite certain that nothing has occurred that you have been unable to tell me of?’
Her meaning was quite clear to Clemence. She felt the colour mounting in her cheeks, but she said quite steadily, ‘Did you not believe Captain Stanier?’
‘Yes, I did. No, I mean was there anything that happened that you were not able to confide in him?’
‘No.’ Clemence was beyond feeling shy about discussing this. ‘Cousin Lewis found me too scrawny to attract him unless he absolutely had to bed me and no one on the ship knew my sex.’
‘Good. Then that is one less thing to worry about,’ her aunt said briskly. Clemence relaxed, forgetting she was facing an experienced questioner. ‘Are you in love with him?’ the duchess asked casually.
‘Y—No! Good heavens! No, of course not.’ Was she believed? The duchess was far too skilled at hiding her feelings for her to tell.
‘Excellent, although you do surprise me—he is a most attractive young man.’ The duchess’s mouth curved into a positively wicked smile. ‘But there are other handsome men out there and ones with titles and fortunes beside. So all we need to do now is to provide you with a fitting wardrobe and to introduce you to society. You will need to tell Mr Wallingford, our solicitor, all about your inheritance and he will make sure the Naismiths are dealt with.’
‘Good,’ Clemence said with some feeling, wishing it were possible to send both father and son to sea with Red Matthew McTiernan for a few months. Keelhauling was too good for them.
‘And now, my dear, it is time for you to change for dinner while I tell you all about your new family.’
Chapter Nineteen
Nathan stood in the waiting room outside the admiral’s office in no very compliant frame of mind. His nerves felt raw since he had left Hampshire and distance did not seem to help. If anything, the more time he had to think about Clemence and the awful truth that he had fallen in love with her, the worse he felt.
He had risen through the navy, always accepting his orders without question, even when they had seemed eccentric and inexplicable. Now he found himself resentful and ready to argue. They had sent him out to Jamaica to fight pirates; he had done so—with some success, if he said so himself—and now they were hauling him back before they even knew how he had prospered.
If they had left him where he was, he would never have realised he was in love with Clemence. He could be happily hunting buccaneers at this very moment, if they had just left him be. The admiral’s secretary opened the door. ‘Captain Stanier?’
‘Sir.’ He arrived on the rug in front of the desk, saluted and stared stonily at the weather-beaten and irascible face glowering back.
‘What’s the matter with you, Stanier? Unhappy because we’ve called you back? Hah.’
‘I am entirely at your lordship’s disposal. Sir.’
‘You most certainly are. What do you think we sent you out there for?’
‘To fight pirates, my lord.’
The admiral narrowed his eyes, unable to fault the tone or the words. ‘I recall at the time telling you to assess the situation and develop a strategy to fight pirates.’
‘My lord.’ And what the hell did they think he and Melville had been doing?
‘So you’ve had a look. Tell me what needs doing. And stand at ease, man, you look as if you’ve a poker up your breeches.’
‘I was about to send despatches, my lord.’
‘Not good enough. I need you to convince their lordships of the need to put more resources out there because I’m damned if I can. This needs stamping out, once and for all before these freebooters and scum become useful allies for our late colonists. And I don’t trust those Americans an inch—too much competition for trade in that area, however friendly they seem to be.
‘We didn’t deal effectively with the Barbary pirates and they are still a thorn in the flesh of every law-abiding merchantman in the Mediterranean. You’ve been out to the West Indies, you’ve seen the situation, now I want you to work on a strategy and we’ll get the ships and money we need.’
Nathan felt himself relax. That at least sounded logical. ‘And then I can go back out there?’
‘Yes, you and Melville. I need you both to meet with Commodore Lord Hoste. You know where his office is? Well, get yourself along there and get organised.’ He waved a hand in dismissal. ‘And, Stanier—he’ll need a vice-commodore to take control out there. Do you understand what I am saying?’
‘But Melville—’
‘Melville is a good fighting captain. You are that and a strategist as well.’
Feeling somewhat as though he had been hit over the head, Nathan found Lord Hoste’s office. Vice-commodore?
Melville was already there, both men bent over charts, a secretary scribbling in the background. Hoste, an elegant man in his early forties who cultivated a deceptive manner of caring for little except the cut of his coat and the mix of his snuff, raised a languid brow at Nathan’s arrival.
‘How long do you need to get yourself equipped for two weeks in the country, Stanier?’
‘My lord?’
‘I was promised to a house party; you had better both come, too, because I’m damned
if I’m going to stick in London, it’s as dead as a graveyard and as stuffy as hell. We can work there as well as here. A couple of extra men are always welcome at these affairs and we’ll have every excuse for shutting ourselves away when they want us to listen to some simpering ingénue thumping the piano, eh?’
‘Your hostess—’
‘Done, sorted, all agreed.’ He waved a hand towards the secretary. ‘Tompion’s coming, too, with his cipher books and the charts and so forth. Can you be ready by Tuesday?’
Two days? ‘Yes, my lord.’
His brother Daniel’s valet could drag his stuff out of storage and beat the moths out of it, he supposed. It wouldn’t take more than a day to replenish his stocks of linen and call on his bootmaker. His brother was still at the town house, pleased to see him and confiding wearily that staying put throughout the summer was the cheapest option. ‘Priscilla’s gone off with the children to stay with her mother at Worthing,’ Lord Howarth had said with the air of a man off the leash. ‘Too unfashionable to stay in town at this time of year. Don’t like to argue with her, not now. She’s increasing. Again.’
The downing of a number of bumpers of strong drink to celebrate the forthcoming arrival of another little Stanier would doubtless help him pass this evening, at least. Nathan pulled his attention back to the charts spread out on the wide map table and joined with Melville in deciding exactly what they needed to take with them. His mood had changed. If he really had got that coveted promotion, a challenging mission, then soon, surely, that dull internal ache would disappear and he would find his old self-sufficiency again?
‘Will you tell me more about the pirates, Cousin Clemence? Please?’ The eleven-year-old Grand Duke of Maubourg presented himself in front of Clemence’s wicker chair, hair in his eyes, a scrape on his cheek and mud all round the bottoms of his trousers. He seemed to be enjoying his English summer holiday as much as his parents must savour their regular escapes from court life at Maubourg.
His stepfather, her cousin Lord Sebastian Ravenhurst, sprawled on a rug at the duchess’s feet, having informed his mother that Freddie had exhausted him. His unsympathetic parent merely dumped his baby daughter on his admirably flat stomach and laughed.
‘Don’t plague Cousin Clemence,’ he said now. ‘She wants a rest, too.’
That was true. A morning of exploring the gardens with Lady Standon—Cousin Jessica—who was interested in which exotic species she might import for her glass houses, a close interrogation from Mr Ravenhurst—antiquarian and collector, Cousin Theo—on the use of mahogany in furniture in the West Indies, and a spirited game of bat and ball with Freddie, his stepfather and Lord Dereham—Cousin Ashe—had left her glad to sit down and finally warm enough to shed one of the cashmere shawls she was wrapped in.
Clemence thought she was getting a grip on who was who, who was married to which cousin and what had been happening in their lives lately, but it was making her head spin.
Freddie was still looking hopeful. He had the great brown eyes of his mother, Eva, and, like the grand duchess, was skilled at looking innocent and appealing when it suited him.
‘Go and talk to Street,’ she suggested with a sudden flash of inspiration. ‘He used to be a pirate.’
‘No!’ The brown eyes grew huge and Freddie turned to gaze in awe at Street, who stood on the edge of the lawn, arms folded, One-Eye sitting at his feet. Clemence was not certain what he thought he was guarding her against, but she found his stolid bulk curiously comforting and Jessica was deeply impressed with the Creole recipes he had introduced to the cook.
‘But yes. Although you had better ask your mama first.’ Eva might take a poor view of her only son being sent to play with a pirate.
‘You could take the boat out on the lake,’ Eva said serenely, fanning herself against the heat of what everyone assured Clemence was a hot September day.
‘But—’
‘Freddie swims very well,’ his doting mama assured her. ‘But no cutlasses!’ she called after her son as Freddie took to his heels.
It occurred to Clemence that she should have asked her hostess first before introducing a pirate into the household. ‘I should have told you all about Street sooner,’ she confessed. ‘I hope no one minds? Only he saved my life, and he is quite reformed.’ She crossed her fingers.
‘I thought Captain Stanier had done that.’ Jessica sat up, pushing her wide-brimmed hat back from her face.
‘He did, several times. But Street saved me from being shot in the galley when there was the battle with the navy.’ She woke up every night, shuddering with terror at the memory of those moments when she had been convinced she was going to die, hearing the explosion of the shot, seeing the eyes of the man and his extended arm as he took aim.
Oddly the nightmares had only begun since Nathan had left, almost as though the knowledge of his nearness had kept them at bay. She wondered, when she braced herself to think about it, whether it was the fact that Nathan had not been there when it happened that made it so frightening in retrospect. Last night had been the worst yet. She had woken to find herself drenched with sweat, Eliza’s arms around her, trying to shake her out of the nightmare.
‘We have some naval guests arriving soon,’ Jessica continued as they all watched Street settling to the oars with Freddie in the bows, his arms clasped round One-Eye’s neck. ‘Perhaps we had better forget Street’s former employment while they are here.’
‘Navy in the plural, my dear?’ Gareth, Lord Standon, passed her a glass of lemonade. ‘I thought it was just George Hoste we were expecting today. Oh, and that idiot Polkington and his sisters.’
‘He might be an idiot—he is certainly the world’s worst gossip—but I feel sorry for the girls.’
‘You should have invited some more bachelors, in that case.’ Gareth lay back in his chair. ‘There is Harris coming this afternoon and the curate will be at dinner, but we’ve three young ladies to be entertained.’
‘I certainly don’t need any bachelors,’ Clemence said hastily.
‘Nonsense, all unmarried girls need bachelors to practise on. That was what was missing from my life and look what happened to me as a result,’ Jessica observed, exchanging a smile with her husband that curled Clemence’s toes in her slippers. ‘Anyway,’ she continued. ‘Hoste is unwed, although he is a lost cause—far too indolent for marriage—but the other two may be single for all I know.’
‘Surely you know who you invited, dear,’ the duchess observed.
‘Hoste is in the middle of some urgent navy business and asked if he could bring them,’ Jessica said vaguely. ‘Oh, look! The hound has jumped in after the ducks. And Freddie has fallen overboard. And there goes Street.’
Quite who was rescuing who, it was difficult to tell. The lake was not deep, but it was muddy and full of weed and the boy and the man were laughing too hard to swim properly and One-Eye was enjoying himself trying to catch ducks, and the rowing boat had overturned and by the time an elegant carriage with a crest on the door drew up the butler was forced to escort the occupants to the lakeside and a scene of chaos.
The entire house party was gathered by the water, shouting encouragement as Street waded to the bank, Freddie over one shoulder and pond weed draped like a collapsing wig about his ears. One-Eye heaved himself out, his jaws full of a struggling duck, and shook himself violently all over the onlookers.
Amidst shrieks from the ladies he gave a muffled bark and galloped off. Clemence turned with the others to see Andrewes leading three naval officers down the slope towards them. Tail wagging frantically, One-Eye bounded up to the one on the right and deposited the duck at his feet. The bird flapped off, quacking hysterically.
I am going to faint, Clemence thought as her vision darkened and her head began to spin. It couldn’t be Nathan—she was hallucinating.
‘Clemence?’ It was Cousin Bel, Lady Dereham. She slipped a hand under her arm. ‘Are you all right, my dear?’
‘Yes, just a moment’s dizzi
ness. So foolish—I think I must have turned too quickly, made my head spin.’ It is Nathan. He isn’t looking this way, he hasn’t seen me. Was it possible to escape? But there was nowhere to go, no ship in harbour. She saw now that the other officer was Captain Melville, and the tall man who was kissing Jessica on both cheeks must be Lord Hoste.
There was no escape, but at least she could hide away until she had regained some composure. The Ravenhursts en masse, even without the drama of a soaking wet child and an uncontrollable dog, were more than adequate cover.
Clemence smiled at Bel, skirted round behind Theo and his wife, Elinor, who were in animated conversation with Eden Ravenhurst and his pretty new wife, Lady Maude, and slid thankfully into the cover of the shrubbery. It was not until she reached the sanctuary of the terrace and risked a backwards glance that she saw that Nathan had turned and was looking up the slope directly at her. She jumped over the sill of the long window and ran through the dining hall as though McTiernan and Cutler were at her heels.
‘I was just admiring this prospect of the house,’ Nathan said to his hostess in apology for his distraction. ‘Charming.’ Clemence had vanished, leaving him with the haunting image of her white face. She did not want to see him, then—hardly surprising, given that she had heard his dismissive words to her aunt.
It had taken him until Guildford to emerge from the animated discussion he was having with Melville about the risks and benefits of setting up a spying network across the islands and to realise that the road was looking worryingly familiar.
‘Where are we going, my lord? In the hurry to get ready, it did not occur to me to ask.’
‘Hmm?’ Lord Hoste emerged from his perusal of the Gentleman’s Magazine. ‘Standon’s place, near Romsey. Damn good food.’
‘Excellent,’ Nathan had responded hollowly, earning himself a puzzled stare from Melville. Now James was looking at him with dawning comprehension as he was introduced to one Ravenhurst after the other.