Читать книгу Make Her Wish Come True Collection - Ann Lethbridge - Страница 12

Chapter Five

As much as he would have preferred to avoid Plymouth, Ben Muir accepted the fact that the Royal Mail had its routes. He walked to the Drake, surprising Mrs Fillion, who knew he wasn’t due until after Christmas. She made no comment, but he hadn’t expected any, since he was wearing his sailing-master expression. His quick visit to Brustein and Carter should have sent him out smiling, because his prize money was doing nicely, but it didn’t.

He walked to the dry dock in Devonport and looked up at the Albemarle as workers swarmed about. The masts were bare of yardarms and rigging, which made the frigate appear as vulnerable as an enemy hulk after Trafalgar. He would bide his time in Scotland for a week or so, then return to supervise what made him so valuable to the fleet. This time, no matter how hard he stared at his ship, all he saw was a barefoot woman standing in sleet.

He shook his head over the continuous game of whist at the Drake that had been going on since at least the Peace of Amiens. He slept only because a man can’t stay awake more than three days in a row. He woke up tired, and began his mail-coach journey from one end of England to Kirkcudbright on the River Dee, hating himself with every mile.

He arrived three days later, bleary-eyed and unshaven, at Selkirk Arms, the posting inn with such a view of the river. He wasn’t sure if the landlord recognised him, even though they had gone to grammar school together. Ben was not in the mood for conversation, so he shouldered his duffel like the common seaman he really was and walked home, past MacLellan’s Castle, by St Cuthbert’s and up Church Row to Number Nine.

His Aunt Claudie opened the door. She stood a moment in shocked silence, then held out her arms to him. ‘Benny, Benny,’ she crooned, apparently not minding his travel smell. ‘I didn’t know you were coming.’

He knew he had been away too long because he had trouble understanding what she had just said. With some regret, he knew he had tidied up his own brogue so he could be understood aboard ship. The gentle burr of his aunt’s welcome eased his Scotsman’s heart.

‘I hadn’t planned to come home,’ he explained, as he let her drag him inside. ‘Where’s t’auld man?’

‘Ye’d better sit down, lad,’ she said and pushed him into a chair in the parlour.

He gave Aunt Claudie a long look, but saw no sorrow there. ‘What has he done?’ he asked.

‘He went on a trip to that country,’ she said as she relieved him of his cloak and hat.

‘Good God, did he go to Canada and my brothers?’ He couldn’t help shouting.

‘Nay, lad, nay, England!’ she exclaimed, her hands over her ears.

He took a deep breath and lowered his voice. ‘Why, in God’s name?’

‘It was something you wrote in your letter. He wouldn’t tell—such a stubborn man is my brother—but don’t you know he left immediately.’

Ben sat back in the chair, aware of his deep-down exhaustion. What had he ever written in his two letters from Venable of such urgency that would make a seventy-year-old fisherman, retired and comfortable before his own fire, scarper off?

Aunt Claudie returned his stare with one of her own. ‘Are ye ill, Ben Muir? Is that why?’

‘No. Good God, he has never even left the district!’

‘Don’t I know? As I remember, he got your last letter, muttered something like, “He’s never done this before and he’s messing up.” He was aboard the mail coach in the morning.’ She gazed at him with a twinkle in her eye. ‘Laddie, ye probably passed each other on the road!’

In the morning Ben secured a seat on the outgoing mail coach to Plymouth. He had a few minutes, so he reacquainted himself with the innkeeper and sat down to sweetened porridge and tea, vexed and troubled that his sole remaining parent had a peculiar bee in his bonnet.

He had just finished his tea when the innkeeper brought a letter to his table.

‘Ben, last night’s Royal Mail dropped off the mail sack. There’s one addressed to you.’ He chuckled. ‘Likely you rode all the way here with this letter in the mail coach.’

Mystified, Ben took the letter. As he read, he felt his whole body go numb. Reverend Winslow had begun by apologising for his presumption, then spent a close-written page telling what had happened to the proprietor of Mandy’s Rose and her niece. I thought you should know, the vicar concluded. If I am mistaken in your affections, I do apologise. Yours sincerely…

Horrified, Ben realised he had badly underestimated Lord Kelso. The mail coach stopping at every town would never be fast enough. He put both hands on the innkeeper’s shoulders. ‘What’s the fastest way I can get to Devon?’

The innkeeper didn’t flinch. ‘This is a matter of grave national emergency, isn’t it?’

‘Without question,’ Ben lied. ‘I’ll trust you not to mention that you even saw me here. Suppose Napoleon’s agents find out? What can I do?’

‘Post-chaise,’ the keep replied. ‘Barring snow, you’ll be there in two days.’

He arrived in three days. No amount of willing the horses to go faster could defeat snow around Carlisle, and then at York. The worst moment came as they rolled into Venable, past a darkened Mandy’s Rose. Bright lights burned everywhere else, making the closed and shuttered tea room appear long-abandoned, as though the last proprietors had left during the War of the Roses. Funny how quickly old buildings—and old ships, for that matter—could appear almost haunted.

He knew his postmen had tried to do what he demanded, so he paid them liberally and wished them merry Christmas. He stowed his duffel at the posting house and walked to St Luke’s. The vicar would know where Amanda and Sal Mathison had taken themselves. He cursed his stupidity again, resolving to do what he could for the woman he loved, who by now probably wouldn’t speak to him until the twentieth century, if either of them lived that long. And then he had to find his father. For the first time, the blockade of France and Spain sounded almost like going on holiday.

He heard the choir singing as he opened the church door. All of Venable must have chosen to forget work and worry and petty strife to celebrate the birth of Our Lord, the Prince of Peace in a world sorely in need of peace. Well, why not? It was Christmas Eve. He had forgotten.

Tired, discouraged, Ben shucked his cloak and hat and stood there watching the choir. The choirmaster was waving his arms about with his usual fervour, as if his exertions would get more tune and music from his amateurs.

There she was. He saw her when the choirmaster swayed to one side, carried away by his efforts. ‘Amanda,’ he said, so softly that no one looked around. ‘Please don’t hate me.’

He stood there in the aisle, unable to move forward or leave, or do anything except stare at her like a drowning man desperate for a life preserver.

The choir had begun a series of crescendoing ‘Hallelujahs’ when Amanda noticed him. The love of his life threw down her choir book and wormed her way past a row of astonished sopranos. She ran down the aisle as the choir kept singing and threw herself into his arms.

She nearly bowled him over, but he grabbed her and steadied them both, he who knew something about ballast and balance on a pitching deck. ‘Hallelujah!’ sang the choir as he kissed her.

‘Ben, we are idiots,’ she whispered in his ear.

‘I know. Do you love me?’ he whispered back, acutely mindful that the anthem had ended and no one was paying attention to the vicar. He glanced at Reverend Winslow, cheered to see that the vicar didn’t appear overly concerned.

‘Yes, I love you, you ninny,’ his dear one said. ‘You should be kept on a short chain.’

Someone else caught his eye. Grinning as broadly as the others, his father sat next to Aunt Sal. Ben took Amanda by the hand as they walked down the aisle. Aunt Sal obliged by moving over and he squeezed in next to his father. There was nowhere for Amanda to go except on his lap, which appeared to bother no one.

‘I need an explanation, Da,’ he whispered.

‘In good time,’ Maxwell Muir whispered back.

Reverend Winslow beamed at them. ‘Are we all settled?’ he asked and the congregation laughed.

The service continued. The choir sang again, after a reading of Luke 2, but nothing could induce Amanda to leave his lap and rejoin the singers. With a sigh that went right to his heart, she rested her head on his chest and closed her eyes. Her even breathing told him that she slept. That was just before his eyes closed, too.

At least the congregation didn’t tiptoe out and leave them slumbering. Ben’s father prodded him in the ribs before the recessional and they both stood, holding tight to each other, as the vicar and his acolytes walked down the aisle and into a snowy night.

Ordinarily, the gathering that followed the midnight service would have been a small one, as parents carried sleepy children home and elderly parishioners followed. No one left early this time. There was wassail for the adults and punch for the children, and Mrs Winslow’s exquisite desserts, made more special because Sal Mathison and Mandy had added their talents. Mandy’s Rose might be shuttered and dark, but it was plain to see that the real heart of the tea room carried on in the vicarage.

As much as he wanted to cuddle Amanda and work up the nerve to declare himself, Ben had another matter to discuss. ‘Da, what was it in my letters that sent you barrelling down the pike to Venable?’

His father traded glances with the suddenly shy lady who was probably going to become Ben’s wife. ‘Laddie, your letters were full of Amanda this and Amanda that. I wanted to see her for myself,’ he said simply. ‘At each change, the coachmen made certain I got on the right coach.’

Did I speak only of Amanda? he asked himself, his arm around her again. ‘And you wanted to make sure I stepped up to the mark,’ he said to his father.

‘For all that you sail in a dangerous occupation, you are the most cautious of my sons,’ his father informed him. He leaned forward to look at Amanda. ‘My dear, I thought he might try to talk himself out of a very good idea. Besides, I wanted to meet you. Ben said you needed a father. Here I am.’

Ben couldn’t help his tears when Amanda gave her father a deep curtsy. ‘And here I am, Father,’ she whispered.

Touched beyond words, Ben raised her to her feet. ‘Ben, we have had a pleasant visit, these past few days,’ she told him. ‘I have heard some diverting stories about your childhood.’

Ben rolled his eyes. He saw Aunt Sal’s smile and knew nothing had been settled. ‘Sal, I owe both of you an apology. This whole bad business with the loss of Mandy’s Rose wouldn’t have happened if I had kept my mouth shut. Can you forgive me?’

‘I can and will,’ she said in her forthright way. ‘Mandy and I are working for the Winslows now, and I—’

‘Pardon me, dear, but perhaps the curtain has not quite closed on this whole mess,’ Reverend Winslow said. The vicar ushered a little man forward, someone Ben had seen in Mandy’s Rose for a few meals, but unknown to him.

‘May I introduce Andrew Pickering?’

Ben made his bow.

‘Mr Pickering owns that row of buildings that our esteemed Lord Kelso has decided to purchase.’

‘A good row, sir, a good row,’ the little fellow said. He frowned. ‘The vicar tells me I have done a hasty thing, but perhaps we can make all right again.’

‘I believe you gave your word, Mr Pickering,’ Ben reminded him.

Mr Pickering shook his head. ‘I was duped.’ He gave a snort of indignation. ‘Promised me, he did, that there would be a signed contract by half-six on Christmas Eve.’ He shrugged until his high collar rode up past his ears. ‘It is midnight.’

Mr Cooper continued the narrative. ‘Lord Kelso had me prepare the contract, but he sent word this afternoon that he was too ill to do business until the first of the year.’

Serious nods all around. Ben felt his spirits begin to rise.

‘I reminded him that the deal was to be closed today and he just laughed. Said no one wanted it,’ Mr Cooper said.

‘Insulted me, he did!’ Mr Pickering declared.

‘I propose this, Master Muir,’ Mr Cooper said. ‘If you will make Andrew Pickering a better offer, the row will be yours to do with as you see fit.’

Amanda returned to Ben’s side, her face rosy with embarrassment for him, because she knew nothing about his finances. ‘Mr Cooper, you needn’t put Ben on the spot. I don’t think…’ She stopped.

Ben looked at the woman who might actually share his pillow soon. He gave his attention to Mr Pickering. ‘Three hundred pounds, did you say?’

‘Aye. You offer will have to be higher, to flummox Lord Kelso.’

‘You’re a shrewd gentleman,’ Ben said, which appeared to delight Mr Pickering. ‘How about four hundred pounds?’

Amanda gasped and grabbed his hand, towing him to a corner of the room. ‘Ben! Is that your life savings? You can’t!’

He pulled her close, amused to look over his shoulder and see everyone leaning towards them. Amanda moved even closer to him, which brought some heat to one of his appendages.

‘I guess that means you’re not marrying me for my money,’ he teased, stepping back a bit because they were the attention of mixed company.

‘Do be serious, Ben.’

He whispered in her ear about Brustein and Carter, and prize money. ‘We all get a percentage, not just the captain and admiral of the fleet,’ he concluded. With unholy glee, he saw that her eyes had begun to glaze over when his lips tickled her ear. ‘I can afford any number of Mandy’s Roses.’

Amanda took a deep breath and another, looking around as if aware for the first time that they were the centre of attention. ‘You would to that for Aunt Sal and me?’

‘That and more.’ He whispered in her ear again, since results were so positive. ‘I love you.’ He turned to Aunt Sal. ‘Everything I ever said about not inflicting myself on a good woman in time of war was poppycock and base cowardice. Do excuse it, Miss Mathison.’

‘I am inclined to,’ Aunt Sal told him, ‘particularly since Mandy seems to want to hang about your neck.’

Ben returned his attention to the pretty girl whose eyes were little chips of blue, because she was smiling so big. ‘Please marry me as soon as possible.’

She nodded and gave him a fierce hug, which caused a curious phenomenon: the room suddenly seemed empty of observers. No one was there except the two of them and a fierce hug deserved an equally fierce kiss.

They stood together, locked in a tight embrace, as their audience applauded, then returned to their own Christmas food and cheer. The vicar shook his hand, tears in his eyes, and his father just looked on in amusement and what looked like pride. Aunt Sal’s lips trembled and her smile made Ben shaky. He was marrying Sal’s treasure. The responsibility settled on his shoulders, right next to duty to his king and country. It was more of a caress than a heavy weight.

‘I’ll buy the building block and you won’t lose Mandy’s Rose,’ he told Aunt Sal.

He thought she would agree, so her headshake surprised him. ‘I can afford it, dear lady. Please let me.’

‘I think not,’ she said, with a smile at the vicar, who had just been joined by his wife. ‘I rather like cooking in the vicarage and I know Mandy would rather be in Plymouth, for those times when the Albemarle comes to port.’

‘Would you?’ he asked his dear woman.

‘Venable would be too far away,’ she said, her voice so shy.

‘It’s only ten miles,’ he reminded her.

‘Too far.’

Ben nodded; she was right. He could already see her standing dockside in Devonport, waiting for him. In a few years, if the war ground on, she would probably wait for him there with a child, maybe two, if this wedding happened soon and he came into port occasionally.

‘Very well,’ he agreed. ‘But there will be this condition, Reverend Winslow: I will pay Sal Mathison’s salary. Consider it my contribution to the health and well-being of the Winslows and my tithe to the Church of England. No argument.’

No one argued. He saw the relief in Mrs Winslow’s eyes. He glanced at her hands, knotted with arthritis, and understood. He turned to Mr Pickering. ‘Alas, I think you must wait for Lord Kelso to recover from his choler and accept his offer, after all.’

‘I don’t mind. It’s still a good offer and I’m getting old,’ Mr Pickering said. ‘Eighty-five next week. I need a holiday.’

Everyone laughed, including Amanda, then she gave Ben a searching look. ‘His choler? How would you know what is really wrong with Lord Kelso?’

‘It’s only a suspicion,’ Ben said. ‘When I stopped in Devonport and talked to the harbour master, he told me about a visit to my captain from Thomas Walthan.’

‘Thomas?’

‘Aye. He surrendered his midshipman’s berth. I cannot begin to express my relief, but I doubt his father sees it that way.’ He chuckled. ‘Let’s draw a curtain over life at Walthan Manor right now.’

He turned to the vicar. ‘I need a special licence. My ship is my parish, but I’d rather not wait three weeks to have my captain cry the banns there.’ Ben laughed. ‘Besides, after all my declarations on never marrying, he would find this vastly amusing. Do you suppose the bishop is in Plymouth?’

‘Alas, he is not,’ Reverend Winslow said.

‘We will elope,’ Ben said, biting off each word, as his darling Mandy blushed.

‘No need,’ the vicar said. ‘I saw the bishop only yesterday at Lord Baleigh’s seat just a little south of here, celebrating with wassail.’ He leaned forward. ‘He is a patriotic man, Mr Muir. Go in all your finery and describe a lonely night on the blockade. Get Mandy to squeeze out a tear or two and he will grant a special licence, even if he is on holiday. Shall we say December the twenty-sixth?’

‘What say ye, Amanda?’ Ben asked, his eyes on his love, who struggled to keep back tears. She nodded.

‘Lad, it might be hard to find a nice place to stay, inns being what they are at Christmas,’ Maxwell Muir said.

‘Hardly.’ Mr Cooper reached into his pocket and pulled out a key. ‘Mandy’s Rose is available. No one is taking possession until Lord Kelso gets around to signing the contract.’ He bowed to Mr Pickering. ‘No objections, sir?’

‘None whatsoever.’

‘I don’t have a dress,’ Amanda said, but it sounded to Ben like a feeble protest.

‘Good God, woman, then what are you wearing?’ he teased. It’ll come off soon enough, he thought.

* * *

The dress lasted through a wedding, a quick reception in the vicarage on leftover Christmas refreshments, and a walk to Mandy’s Rose. They sat for a moment on the bench by the road, where he promised to find her a wedding ring as soon as they got to Plymouth and the Drake.

She took off the dress—that nice green wool—as he watched, her face a deep blush. He did duty on the buttons to her camisole, which afforded him a most pleasant view of what he had already imagined was a lovely bosom. There was even a wonderful mole between her breasts, which he kissed. That led to her hands on his trouser buttons. She was good with buttons.

When his trousers and shirt were off, and his small clothes halfway gone, she made him turn around so she could see the blue gunpowder dots on his back. He would have laughed at her cheerful scrutiny, except that she started kissing each dot, which moved matters along handsomely.

She didn’t even fumble with the cord holding up her petticoat and she hadn’t bothered with drawers. She was a sailor’s dream come true.

* * * * *