Timeless Regency Collection: A Country Christmas Part 8

Able managed a decent bow. He felt awkward beyond belief, silently blaming his clumsiness with a woman on the fact that he had never found a book on manners and etiquette aboard any of His Majesty's s.h.i.+ps.

"My sister greatly appreciates your willingness to help us on such short notice," Miss Bonfort said.

Bliss to his ears. Miss Bonfort had the wonderful West Country sound to her voice, which reminded him faintly of English as he heard it spoken in the United States.

"Happy to help, Miss Bonfort." Not only was she lovely to look at, but she smelled of roses.

Her relieved smile at his words suggested that life in the Ripley household was lively, indeed, and possibly exhausting. "Master Six, my sister wanted to a.s.sure whoever answered Elias's letter that if you wish to go home for Christmas, she wouldn't hold you to staying at the vicarage through the holiday."

"I have nowhere to go," he said simply, which caused those pretty eyes to cloud over.

She quickly turned her frown into a smile. "Then you have come to the right place to keep Christmas."

She next directed that kindly gaze to Lieutenant Caldwell, who seemed to have no difficulty breathing or maintaining his composure in the presence of such loveliness. "Sir, I trust I may take your friend away now?"

Do with me what you will, Able thought, looking around for his homely duffel bag, which leaned in the corner of the room like an overweight dog of unknown origin.

"Take him, Meridee," Elias said with a casual wave of his hand. The man obviously had no idea how remarkable Miss Bonfort was. The fact that he used her first name suggested a friends.h.i.+p of long standing, which Able suddenly envied.

Elias performed a little bow of his own. "He can teach any possible subject your brother-in-law can devise."

"Such a gift," Miss Bonfort said with a laugh, obviously not believing the lieutenant. "Very well, sir, shall we go?"

Tongue-tied, he followed her from the breakfast room and down the hall, where the footman had his cloak ready. From the way the smaller man staggered under the weight of it, Able knew it was as heavy with water as ever. Perhaps he would fall ill from the effects of pneumonia and require tender nursing at the hands of Miss Bonfort. When he expired, she would shed a tear or two, then bravely go about her business, a changed woman.

The idea was so ludicrous that he smiled. He was reaching for his flat-crowned hat when Miss Bonfort put her hand lightly on his arm.

"Silly me, but I have forgotten the princ.i.p.al reason for my visit." She pulled a tissue-wrapped package from her reticule and held it out to the footman. "Barkley, please give this to Lady Caldwell. I promised her tatting for her pillow slips."

The footman took the package with an appreciative smile of his own, suggesting that he wasn't immune to Miss Bonfort, either. He held open the door for the two of them.

Miss Bonfort spoke as she pulled on her gloves. "I tat for Lady Caldwell, and she has her seamstress attach the tatting to pillow slips, which Lady Caldwell then claims she did herself."

"You get no credit for your exquisite handiwork?" he asked.

"I get paid for my exquisite handiwork," she corrected. "Are you given credit for keeping a s.h.i.+p in trim?"

Upon my word, the lady knows something of the sea, Able thought in admiration, as they stood beside the dogcart. He gave a rueful laugh. "Seldom. The captain gets the credit, Miss Bonfort."

"My situation entirely," she said. "Just stow your . . . your-"

"Duffel."

"Under the seat, Master Six. What is in that box?"

"My s.e.xtant. I didn't want to leave it in the rooming house."

"Don't you trust the other roomers?" she teased, but it was no joke to him.

"I don't trust anyone, Miss Bonfort," he replied, then winced at how dour he sounded. "That is, I . . ." I what? He thought in desperation now, wondering whence his self-possession had flown. "I'm a master on half pay, living in a cheap rooming house, Miss Bonfort, while waiting out the Peace of Amiens. I wouldn't want anything to happen to my s.e.xtant."

Why did he have to be so forthright? Why did he need to repel this lady who would never give a moment's thought to someone who lived a life such as his? Nothing was going to happen this Christmas except a month's work, then back to the rooming house. She knows precisely where I stand now, he reminded himself. That's not a bad thing.

"I wouldn't want you to lose your s.e.xtant, Master," she said. She stepped lightly on the dogcart pedal and seated herself in the vehicle before he could even offer a hand up.

He saw his dilemma. He could squeeze into the narrow seat beside her, but he blushed to even think of sitting hip-to-hip with a lady of such slight acquaintance, no matter how much he wanted to. He climbed into the rear-facing seat and set the wooden box beside him, the duffel under the seat.

Reins in hand, she turned around slightly. "Master Six, if you would feel more confident handling the reins yourself, I'll certainly let you. Some men are inclined to prefer such a thing, and I don't mind."

Since he had already told her he lived in a rough neighborhood and was a man on half pay, there was no point to ending his plain speaking. "Miss Bonfort, I have never ridden a horse before in my life, much less held reins in my hand and expected a horse to follow my lead."

She laughed, but he heard nothing derisive in the sound-and he was listening. "Honestly spoken, sir! I suppose you have been at sea for years and years."

"Almost seventeen, Miss Bonfort, since I was nine."

"And who sees a horse and cart in the middle of the ocean?" she asked and clucked to the horse, who responded with a toss of his mane and moved at a speed slow enough to gratify a man enjoying the fragrance of rose and the sight of a pretty woman.

To his amazement, she seemed to find him interesting, because she asked him to sit on the other side of his seat so she could see him better. "See here, sir, I like to meet new people, and I think a dogcart hardly conducive to conversation."

He did as she asked, pleased now to see her in profile as she capably held the reins in her gloved hands, her back straight.

"Would you like to know something about your little charges?" she asked, when he said nothing.

"Aye, miss," he said, sounding like a workhouse boy. He winced again at his tone, aware as never before how little he knew about conversation with ladies. "Their father usually has the teaching of them?"

"He does, Master Six, except that my brother-in-law finds himself extra busy this time of year, what with caroling and taking baskets to the poor and commiserating with paris.h.i.+oners who find holidays overwhelming." She rested her elbow on the seat back and looked him in the eye. "Gerald is ten and in great need of the basics of numbers. James is eight and knows more than Gerald."

Able smiled at that, thinking of himself and remembering all the workhouse boys he taught after hours, so they might avoid beatings the next day. "It happens. Your . . . your sister would like me to bring along Gerald and keep James interested without embarra.s.sing his older brother?"

"Precisely. I would help you, but I have my hands full with the two younger children, and there is another little one on the way," she said.

He watched her face, curious to know if such a forthright comment would make her blush. When it didn't, he knew he could talk about himself, because he was certain she had questions.

He didn't have to wait long. She glanced around at him again. "I see your name stenciled on that wooden box. I confess I have never seen Able spelled that way before."

"That's not my entire name, Miss Bonfort," he explained. "Would you rejoice in the name of Durable?"

She laughed out loud, then her face turned rosy as she realized he was serious and she had just made fun of him. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have laughed."

If she had said nothing more, he would not have added to the text. She turned around again to look at him. "Forgive my impertinence, but why would parents name a child Durable? If this is a peculiarity of Scotland, do forgive me, because I don't know any people north of the border."

Able could tell his story with some economy, so he did. "My mother gave birth to me in an alley on February 5, 1776. She managed to get me to the steps of St. George's Church before she returned to the alley and died. The rector found me."

"Oh my," she said softly.

"He wrapped me in his overcoat, took me inside the church, and then to the parish workhouse there in Dumfries. When I didn't die from that exposure, I was declared Durable by the master of the workhouse and named Six because I was the sixth such foundling in 1776."

He knew there were any number of things she could have asked him then, or remained silent as other women had, turning away as quickly as they could. She surprised him.

"What happened to One through Five?" she asked as calmly as if they discussed sines, cosines, and tangents-not that they ever would-but Able knew his strengths; discussing One through Five wasn't among them.

"No one has ever asked me that before," he said, buying himself a moment.

"I trust you have had conversations like this when someone questioned your name," she said.

"It generally came up in fo'c'sles and later in wardrooms in one sea or other," he hedged. "My mates laughed it off. The wits called me Able Seven or Eight, and eventually no one thought about it. The teasing stopped, because what a man does at sea speaks louder."

"One through Five?" she asked again. This was not a woman with wool pulled easily over her eyes.

"All dead. They weren't durable," he said simply. "And now your next question will be . . . ?"

She turned around to face the front again, minding the reins as the horse trotted along slowly, and he thought she was done with him. Or not. He heard her sniff back tears, and he wondered if his story touched her heart as it did his. Through the years, he had wondered why he was Durable, and One through Five were not.

Might as well air all his dirty linen now so she could share it with her vicar brother-in-law and older sister. He accepted the reality that even this ten-s.h.i.+lling-a-month job with room and board might end before it began. "The next question is generally, 'Why, Master Six, do you look so unScottish?'"

"That wasn't my next question," she told him, speaking with a little more spirit now. "I have an uncle who works for the navy in Portsmouth. I stay with him upon occasion. His dinner guests often include sailing masters and surgeons. I've never heard of a sailing master as young as you."

"We can blame Napoleon for that, Miss Bonfort," he told her. "I was Sailing Master Second until the middle of Aboukir Bay in '99. You might know it as the Battle of the Nile. The master was killed on deck by a splinter of railing, and I took over."

It seemed simple to say, but the reality had been intense and painful, considering his high regard for the man just superior to him, now dead. Able had stepped forward on the b.l.o.o.d.y quarterdeck and watched the sails, the wind, and the course of the battle. After a nod from Captain Hallowell, he calmly told the helmsman precisely what the Swiftsure should do and when, coming into battle late as they had. There was time for the shakes hours later when victory was in their hands, and Admiral Horatio Nelson's audacity stunned and then warmed a nation's heart. His was only a small part of the bigger picture, but the glow of pride had never gone away.

"No fears?"

Had he been afraid? Why didn't this woman ask the usual questions? "No, actually," he said finally, hoping he didn't sound c.o.c.ksure. "I wasn't afraid at Camperdown, either, or any number of smaller encounters with the French or Spaniards."

"I would be afraid," she said.

He didn't know her, except that her questions revealed a lively mind. "I doubt that greatly, Miss Bonfort," he said. "What a man is, in battle, is busy, and no one is busier than a sailing master. A wrong order to the helmsman can court disaster. The time to fear comes after, when the battle is over and you are wondering why in G.o.d's name you are still alive. Oh, and the odd nightmare or two." Or three or four, but she knew enough already about him that would do for a brief acquaintance.

She turned in the seat again, and his heart softened to pudding at her br.i.m.m.i.n.g eyes.

"You're too tenderhearted, Miss Bonfort," he teased gently. "I am in the business of war, and you are not. I put to sea because I relish the challenge."

"Not to protect the people at home?" she teased in turn.

Why did she come up with such probing questions? "You're no better at small talk and chatter than I am, Miss Bonfort," he told her, buying another moment. "I share a s.h.i.+p and a fleet with many men who have wives and children at home, and parents and cousins. I have no one."

"I speak for myself, then, in saying thank you," she said, and turned back to her primary duty of getting a slow horse moving faster, now that the rain had started again. She turned to him for a fleeting moment, just long enough to say, even as her cheeks bloomed with color, "I wish I had curly hair, Master Six."

Who wouldn't laugh at that? The rain poured down, and Able Six, competent fellow, strangely but thoroughly educated, realized he had just discovered the pleasure of honest flattery. Was this ad hoc teaching a.s.signment only going to get stranger?

Chapter Four.

Able scoured his brain for something clever to say and decided silence might be best. No one had ever thanked him for what he did. No one had ever envied his stupid curls. No one had ever asked about One through Five. He could have told her more about Four and Five, who shared the room where all the boys slept, sometimes three to a bed. He remembered the coughing and then the blood, and wondered why he was immune from such suffering.

Even as a little boy, he knew that children with mothers and fathers died, too, not just orphans. In one of his more enterprising stratagems to mine income for the workhouse, Beadle McNair rented out the little ones as mourners for funeral processions.

"It's easy work, lads," he had said. "Just cry and wail a bit."

Able cried and wailed, but never enough to suit the beadle, who vowed he could "give him summat to cry about, think on." It was but one of many beatings, but Able Six still could not be convinced to cry copiously in funeral possessions. What happened instead was a fierce urgency to put the workhouse behind him before he went the way of Four and Five.

And now I am here in Devon with gentlefolk, he thought as the dogcart trundled along. I have certainly been in stranger places. Or have I?

"Four and Five died of consumption," he told Miss Bonfort at last. "One through Three must have died before I was old enough to be aware of them. I ran away to sea at nine because I didn't want to die."

"And into the arms of the most dangerous profession in England," Miss Bonfort said with a shake of her head. "Master Six, you are a wonder!"

They laughed together, and he felt immeasurably better, except she didn't seem to be taking his low status and unfortunate birth seriously enough. He noticed no disgust on her face. Might as well spill the entire budget.

"My hair is black and curly because my father was perhaps a Spaniard or maybe an Italian," he told her. "Who knows?"

"Maybe Greek," she commented, still unperturbed.

"Funny, but I hadn't thought of Greece," he told her, falling into the same casual tone, as though they talked about the king's horses at Newmarket and whether they would win, place, or show this year. Lordy, but this isn't even the most interesting thing about me, he thought, completely diverted, even as he started to s.h.i.+ver from the driving rain.

As much as he enjoyed her company, Able felt only relief to see a small village-perhaps Pomfrey-then a venerable church and a stone house hard by. "Is that the vicarage?" he asked, wis.h.i.+ng his teeth didn't chatter.

"At long last," she a.s.sured him. "You must be freezing. I know I am."

She gave the horse a halfhearted slap with the reins, and the beast only turned his head to give her a reproachful look that made the sailing master chuckle.

"If I do that again, I will lose a friend," she remarked. "Goldenrod is in no hurry."

Name him One through Five, and he won't last long, Able thought. "I bow to your superior knowledge of horseflesh," he said out loud. "One would think the incentive of oats in a dry barn would hasten the velocity."

She laughed at that, calling him a scientist, which he bore with good grace, considering that he never thought to hear such a t.i.tle applied to himself. He had a strong suspicion that when he stepped from the dogcart, he would be at least four inches taller from all the praise piled upon him by a la.s.s who didn't cringe at his lower-than-low birth, his regrettable situation of half-pay, or his curly hair.

It wasn't even praise, really, he decided, as his a.n.a.lytical mind examined two or three sides simultaneously, as it tended to do regularly. In his world of war and nautical hierarchy, he never thought to find a comrade in a dogcart in Devon. It was the farthest thing from his thoughts.

He did have the presence of mind and manners to leap from the dogcart in time to hand her down from the high seat, which earned him another of those dimpled grins and a hearty thank-you. He wanted to raise his cloak and shepherd her under it to stay dry, except the beastly thing was soaking wet and probably would have drowned her. They squished to the closest entrance of the tidy house included in the living of a parish vicar.

"I'm back," Miss Bonfort sang out as she closed the door behind them. "And I have brought a tutor!"

Able smiled to see little heads pop out of a doorway, then pop back in. "I am probably not their favorite sight right now," he whispered to Miss Bonfort, leaning closer to get another whiff of her rose talc.u.m powder.

"Your task will be to a.s.sure them that numbers are not the enemy; ignorance is," she replied, turning toward him.

She was close enough to kiss, but Master Six was smarter than that. For a second, he admired the small freckles sprinkling her nose, then straightened up.

"I can't," he said out loud, not meaning to, but there she was and so pretty, even with rainwater on her face.