Читать книгу The Lady's Command - Stephanie Laurens, Stephanie Laurens - Страница 12

CHAPTER 4

Declan dallied at the breakfast table the next morning until Edwina breezed into the parlor.

They exchanged comfortable, knowing, richly private smiles, then she turned to the sideboard. He seized the moments while she filled her plate to drink in the sight of her, her trim figure displayed in a day gown of blue-and-white-striped cambric. Her pale golden hair was drawn up into a knot at the top of her head, from where it cascaded in a glory of bouncing curls that framed her face and brushed her nape.

Then she turned, and he rose and drew out the chair to the right of his. Once she’d sat, he resumed his seat at the table’s head.

Her gaze had gone to the various letters and notes piled beside his plate. “Have you had news?”

“Yes.” He flicked a finger at the missives. “Most of the reports I was waiting for have come in. I’ll need to go to the office for the last of them, but other than that…” He caught her gaze. “It appears I’ll be leaving immediately after luncheon.”

She stared at him blankly for half a minute, then she grimaced. “Damn.” She threw him an apologetic glance. “I have a luncheon, followed by an event, and I simply cannot cry off from either.” Her expression turned downhearted. “I’m so sorry. I had wanted to be here to wave you away, but…” She gestured, signifying resignation, then she shrugged and returned her attention to her plate, to the slice of toast she was slathering with jam. “Still, given the urgency of your trip, you must leave, and that’s that. I can’t even be sure exactly when I’ll get back—the event is on the outskirts of town. In Essex.”

Essex. On the other side of the capital from the road to Southampton; he couldn’t even arrange to turn aside and meet her… “So this is the last time we’ll see each other until I get back.”

She nodded. “Sadly, yes. I have an at-home this morning, and after that I’ll go on with my sisters to the luncheon.”

Declan told himself that the disappointment he felt, its oppressive weight, was entirely uncalled for. She was behaving exactly as a lady of her ilk should when faced with the situation he’d foisted on her; she wasn’t railing at him, crying, or enacting any scenes. He should be grateful for her attitude.

He had no grounds on which to feel that it lacked a certain something.

He squashed the sense of dissatisfaction deep, but the feeling didn’t leave him.

He dallied over his coffee until she’d finished her toast and tea. Then he rose, slipped his missives into his pocket, and drew out her chair. Together, they strolled into the front hall.

“Well, then.” Facing him, she donned a bright—patently superficial—smile. “It seems this is farewell.” She gripped his arm, stretched up, and placed a peck on his cheek. “Adieu, my darling. I’ll be here when you return.”

Before he could respond, she whirled and strode briskly to the stairs.

In something close to disbelief, he watched her ascend… That was it? His grand farewell wasn’t even a proper kiss?

He stared after her until she disappeared around the gallery, then he shook himself—and called his errant thoughts, and his uncalled-for emotions, to order. What had he expected? He was leaving her to live her life here in London and heading off on a voyage, and if he was honest, he would admit the unknown, the potential for danger, for adventure, called to him.

Edwina was adventurous, too.

“True. But she’s a woman.” A vision of his cousin Catrina—Kit—who captained her own ship in their fleet, swam across his mind, and he amended, “A lady. A noble lady.”

And she was his and now meant far too much to him for him to even contemplate putting her at risk—not of any sort or of any degree.

He had to go and sail and investigate, and she had to remain safely here.

That was all there was to it.

Feeling the weight of the missives in his pocket, he considered, then waved at Humphrey to fetch his coat.

A minute later, his expression set, he strode down the front steps and headed toward the Frobisher and Sons office and whatever last dregs of information his searchers had gleaned from the ships currently bobbing in the Pool of London. The more information he had before he sailed, the less time he would need to spend on the ground in Freetown—and the sooner he could return to re-engage with his wife and, in light of the separation, re-examine how their marriage should work.

He hadn’t in the least expected it, but deep down in his gut, he wasn’t at all satisfied with leaving her behind.

* * *

Edwina stood at the window of their bedroom and watched Declan stride away from the house. The instant he turned the corner and disappeared from her sight, she swung around and beckoned to her maid, Wilmot, who’d been packing the last of the clothes Edwina had selected into a small portmanteau. “Quickly—help me out of this gown.”

Wilmot hurried to Edwina’s side. As she set deft fingers to Edwina’s laces, the severely garbed middle-aged maid anxiously murmured, “Are you sure about this, my lady?”

“Absolutely definitely.” Shrugging out of the loosened gown and letting it fall, Edwina added, “You needn’t worry. I’ll be perfectly safe.” Wilmot had been with her since her come-out; she was an excellent maid, but rather timid.

“If you say so, my lady.” Wilmot clearly remained unconvinced, but she held her tongue as she helped Edwina into a dun-colored carriage dress.

As soon as all the tiny black buttons at the back of the dress were secured, Edwina waved Wilmot to the last of the packing and headed for her dressing table. In short order, she stowed her brushes, combs, and a handful of hairpins into a large traveling satchel. From a drawer, she drew out a wad of banknotes. She tucked some into a small purse that she placed in a black traveling reticule, then secreted the rest of the notes in a pocket sewn into the lining of the satchel. When she turned, Wilmot was securing the straps of the portmanteau.

Edwina slipped the reticule’s ribbon over her wrist, settled the satchel’s strap on her shoulder, picked up the bonnet Wilmot had left ready, then waved the maid to the door. “Remember what I told you. Go down the back stairs, and you’ll be able to slip out of the house while I’m talking to Humphrey in the front hall. I’ll see you in just a few minutes.”

Still looking worried, Wilmot hefted the portmanteau, bobbed a curtsy, then hurried out of the door.

After one last glance around the room, Edwina followed, closing the door behind her.

She descended the main stairs. When Humphrey joined her in the front hall, she smiled brightly at him. “I require a hackney, Humphrey. Please summon one for me.”

“Of course, my lady.” Humphrey hesitated, then somewhat diffidently said, “If you’re sure the carriage will not suit?”

“Sadly, it won’t.” Tugging on her gloves, she went on, “For this particular excursion, a hackney is what I need.”

Humphrey bowed. “I’ll summon one immediately, ma’am.”

Edwina waited in the front hall while Humphrey opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch. She heard a shrill whistle; half a minute later, the clop of hooves informed her that her carriage had arrived. Calmly, she walked out onto the porch and down the steps. Humphrey held open the hackney’s door; he gave her his hand to help her into the carriage.

After settling on the thankfully clean seat, she nodded to Humphrey. “Thank you, Humphrey. I’ll see you anon.”

The jarvey said something, then Humphrey looked at her. “The direction, ma’am?”

“Oh—Eaton Square.”

Humphrey shut the carriage door and conveyed her instruction to the jarvey. A second later, the carriage jerked into motion.

Edwina felt her eyes grow round, felt excitement tempered by apprehension grip her. “I’m off on my journey,” she murmured to herself.

She waited until the carriage slowed at the corner, then stood and rapped sharply on the trapdoor set into the hackney’s ceiling. When it opened and the jarvey said “Yar?” she called up, “When you turn the corner, you’ll see a woman in a black gown holding a portmanteau. Please pull up beside her.”

The jarvey paused, then said, “’Ere—this isn’t one of them scandalous elopements, is it?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Huh. Pity.” The jarvey flicked his reins, and his horse stepped out. “I always wanted to drive someone setting out on one of those.”

Edwina shut the trapdoor and sank back onto the seat, a very large smile spreading over her face. She wasn’t escaping to marry some unsuitable man—she was escaping to be with the entirely suitable gentleman she’d married.

She was still grinning when the jarvey drew up alongside the pavement where, as she’d arranged, Wilmot stood waiting with the portmanteau. Even as Edwina opened the carriage door and took the portmanteau, Wilmot was darting anxious glances in every direction.

“Don’t worry,” Edwina reiterated. “Now, don’t forget to give Humphrey those letters I left with you. They’re important, and it’s also important you don’t hand them over until six o’clock this evening.”

She’d written letters to her mother, her sisters, her brother, and to Humphrey and Mrs. King, explaining where she’d gone and how long she expected to be away. Given her destination, she couldn’t see that they would worry; she’d be just as safe as she would be in London. Possibly safer, given Declan would be with her.

“I won’t forget, my lady.” Wilmot bobbed a last curtsy. “I don’t know how you’ll manage with your hair, but I pray that you’ll take care.”

Edwina smiled. For all her nerves, Wilmot was a dear. “I will. And we’ll be home before you know it. Now hurry back before you’re missed.”

Wilmot bobbed again, whirled, and plunged into the narrow lane that ran along the rear of the houses in Stanhope Street.

Edwina shut the carriage door, then sat back with a satisfied sigh. She’d managed to leave the house, luggage and all, without anyone but loyal Wilmot knowing.

The trapdoor opened, and the jarvey asked, “So are we still headed to Eaton Square, mum?”

Edwina shook herself to attention. “No. I wish to go to Mr. Higgins and Sons’ establishment in Long Acre.”

“Right you are.” The trapdoor fell closed. An instant later, the carriage rocked into motion.

“And now,” she murmured, “I really am off—off on a true adventure.”

* * *

Declan strode up The Cormorant’s gangplank as sunset was streaking the sky.

He’d been held up at the London office when one of his searchers was late getting back. Subsequently, he’d delayed at Stanhope Street as long as he could, hoping that Edwina might return before he absolutely had to leave, but she hadn’t. Then on reaching the office here, he’d found more men waiting with verbal reports on the current conditions in Freetown.

He’d hoped that somewhere amid all the information, he might have found some glimmer of a clue as to why four men—Captain Dixon, Lieutenant Hopkins, Lieutenant Fanshawe, and Hillsythe—had vanished, but no. Instead, the news from Freetown was entirely benign, with not even a hint of disturbance among the natives.

On gaining The Cormorant’s railing, he paused to look across the harbor at the forest of masts set against the bright orange and scarlet hues in the palette the westering sun had flung up. Such sights never failed to steal his breath; there was beauty in the sky and in the promise of the ships bobbing at anchor, of the journeys they would make and the far-flung places they would visit before they returned to this port.

His gaze moved on to the billowing sails of the ships sliding majestically out of the harbor and into the Solent beyond. Soon The Cormorant would be joining the line.

His sailing master, the principal navigator, was waiting, smiling, at the head of the gangplank. As he stepped down to the deck, Declan acknowledged the master’s crisp salute with a nod and a matching smile—one of anticipation. “Mr. Johnson. How is she?”

“Shipshape and ready to sail, Captain.”

“Excellent.” With a nod, Declan acknowledged the salute of his quartermaster—Elliot, a burly Scotsman who was waiting by the wheel—then stepped aside to allow a pair of sailors to bring in the gangplank.

Grimsby, the bosun, bowlegged and barrel-chested, supervised the stowing of the gangplank. He grinned at Declan and saluted. “Good to have you aboard again, Capt’n.”

After replying to that and other greetings from his crew, all of whom had sailed with him before, Declan made a quick circuit of the deck, instinctively noting the ropes and sails, the set of the spars, and checking for anything not precisely as it should be. But everything appeared in perfect order; his ship stood ready to get under way.

Finally, he climbed to the poop deck, located over the stern, and joined his lieutenant, Joshua Caldwell, by the wheel. “Right, Mr. Caldwell. Shall we get under way?”

“Aye, Captain—ready and waiting at your command.”

Declan grinned; he and Caldwell had sailed the world for years, and those words had become a habit between them. “It’s good to be on the waves again.”

“I can imagine.” Caldwell raised his voice and called for a jib to be set. “There’s enough wind, I think, to get us out with just that.”

Declan nodded in agreement. He waited while the ropes were cast off and the ship slowly slid away from the wharf; under Caldwell’s careful steering, The Cormorant’s bow came around, and the ship eased into the channel leading out of the harbor basin. “So what did Royd do this time?”

His older brother was constantly tinkering with this and that, trying one thing, then another, to improve the performance of the Frobisher fleet. His favorite test subjects were his own ship, The Corsair, Robert’s ship, The Trident, and The Cormorant. Whenever any of those vessels docked at Aberdeen, the chances were good that Royd would have them out of the water.

“He had the hull refinished in some new varnish—he claims it has less resistance, so the ship should cleave through the water more cleanly and therefore go faster. He also changed the set of the rudder, so be warned. It feels different—reacts a little differently.”