Timeless Regency Collection: A Country Christmas Part 9

"I believe you have to," she replied.

"I mean . . . I mean, I can't wait to do battle with ignorance," he said, his face aflame. She will think I am an idiot, he told himself.

Miss Bonfort was far kinder than he deserved. She handed her wet cloak to a servant and peeked in the door where the heads had popped out. "Come out, you two," she said in a gruff voice he found charming. The woman knew children.

And there stood his pupils-little boys with wary eyes. With a nod of thanks, he handed his soaking boat cloak and hat to the same servant girl, who staggered under the weight of them as she retreated down the hall.

"Front and center, lads," he said in the voice of command he had developed through years of hard service.

He knew they would obey, and they did. "I am your tutor for the duration of this month," he told them, something they probably already knew. "I am Master Able Six." He gestured. "Beginning with the older, now. Step forward and report."

The slightly taller boy took a step forward. His chin went up. "Master Gerald Ripley, ten," he said, then stepped back.

The next lad stepped forward with more a.s.surance. "Master James Ripley, eight." He started to step back, then gestured with both hands. "I know you are more than six, sir."

Able glanced at Miss Bonfort, who was laughing behind her hand, her marvelous eyes getting smaller the more she tried to suppress her mirth.

"I am twenty-six," he replied, trying not to smile himself. "Master James, how much more is that than six?"

"Twenty years more," he replied promptly, then added, "You are old."

"I am, indeed," Able replied, charmed by his students. "A master at sea is a different t.i.tle than the one bestowed upon a lad. At sea, it means I am the master of the sails, their trim, the placement of ballast, and everything that keeps a s.h.i.+p afloat and moving in the right direction. I even keep the s.h.i.+p's official log."

"Not the captain?"

"No, James. He might take notes. Mine is the official log."

"But Six?" Gerald asked, speaking up for the first time.

"That is my surname, Gerald," he replied, pleased the less-a.s.sured child had added his mite to the conversation. "My name is Able Six, and you will call me Master Six." He nodded to them. "You may return to your posts. Tomorrow, we will begin the amazing study of mathematics."

The brothers looked at each other then back at him, the wary looks gone. They turned to leave, executing a smart about-face that tried Miss Bonfort even more.

"One more item, men," Able said.

They stopped and turned around just as smartly.

"Do you ever play jackstraws?"

"We like to."

"Like to . . . ?"

"We like to, Master Six," Gerald said promptly. "Are we going to play jackstraws?"

"Perhaps at first. We will do something even better with them, I a.s.sure you," Master Six replied. "It will be life-changing. As you were, men."

Chapter Five.

Able's introduction to his actual employers pa.s.sed off smoothly enough, conducted as it was in the vicar's study, a book-lined room that held his immediate attention for the few seconds required to examine all the t.i.tles on the spines and memorize them.

He was fast, but not fast enough for the man seated behind the desk, who rose and held out his hand.

"You like to read, sir?" Mr. Ripley asked as they shook hands. He seated himself and gestured to a chair.

"Aye, sir," Able replied. "I'm a fairly quick study."

The vicar laughed and steepled his fingers together, appraising him. "You're welcome to borrow any book you choose during your tenure here."

Book? Able thought. He took another quick glance at the bookshelves. It's only 216 books. I'll read them all in two weeks.

Here it came. The vicar looked closer at Able. "Provided we choose to hire you to tutor our older children."

"Fair enough, sir," Able replied.

The door opened, and Miss Bonfort returned with a copy of herself, one looking older and frazzled and wearing her ap.r.o.n high. He rose and bowed.

"Master Six, this is my sister, Mrs. Ripley."

Mrs. Ripley bobbed a curtsy of her own and sat down in the chair directly beside her husband's desk. A glance at her current tonnage made him suspect she was due for confinement in a month or so.

"Master Six, pleased to make your acquaintance." Mrs. Ripley said. "My boys are already telling me that you will play jackstraws with them tomorrow."

"Jackstraws?" the vicar asked as his eyebrows rose into his forehead.

"It is a wonderful way to introduce plane geometry to lads, provided you don't mind if I snap some in half and in thirds," Able explained. He laughed. "The jackstraws-not the lads."

Stony stares. "All we are asking for is addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division," the vicar said, his voice firm and in control.

"Certainly, sir," Able replied, knowing he needed to come about and handsomely to placate this slower mind. "They will know those within a fortnight, which is why I propose geometry as well. Tomorrow will just whet their appet.i.te and give them something to hope for, after we survive the tedium of rote cards and memorization."

Oh d.a.m.n, he had gone too far. Two sets of skeptical eyes bored into him. He looked at Miss Bonfort, hoping not to see the same expression. To his relief but not his surprise, he saw only lively interest on her face. Bless your imaginative heart, he thought.

"I think Master Six will work wonders with my nephews," Miss Bonfort said.

"Yes, yes, but geometry?" the vicar sputtered. "Who needs that?"

Able opened his mouth to reply, but another glance in Miss Bonfort's direction silenced him. The shake of her head was nearly imperceptible, but there it was. He kept his own counsel on geometry as surely as if she had jabbed him in the ribs.

Miss Bonfort continued to smile so serenely at her brother-in-law, who set about straightening the papers on his desk. He looked for all the world like a man who hated to make a decision-or one who had never seen the likes of Able Six before, which was more likely.

"Brother, he can use the work, and he comes well-recommended," Miss Bonfort said quietly.

Fidget and fiddle a little more. The vicar gave a great, noisy sigh and capitulated. "Very well, sir. Begin tomorrow," he said. "I will pay you ten s.h.i.+llings a month for December."

"Thank you," Able said. "You won't be disappointed."

The result of that comment was another sigh. "So much to do this month," muttered the vicar, "otherwise, I would do it myself."

"Shall I ask Mrs. Ledbetter to show Master Able to his room?" Miss Bonfort suggested when the vicar had returned to the business of tidying up a tidy desk.

"Yes, certainly. We dine at six of the clock, Master Able," Mr. Ripley said. "See that you are prompt."

With a shy smile of her own, Mrs. Ripley, hand on her belly, turned Able Six over to a housekeeper who, if appearances were not deceiving, must be the household supreme manager and she who must be obeyed. His suspicions were borne out by Miss Bonfort, who insisted on accompanying them to the guest room, fulfilling what he was coming to realize was her role as buffer in the Ripley household.

What he thought was a two-story house gloried in a short stairway to a third floor, that attic floor he was familiar with from his rooming house in Plymouth. He braced himself for disappointment.

A glance at Miss Bonfort showed him a lady almost beside herself with glee. When she opened the door with a flourish, he knew she knew his thoughts.

"Why, this is quite charming," he said in surprise after a glance around at a narrow bed as virtuous as the one he had abandoned in Plymouth, but with a fluffy pillow and blankets in evidence. He saw a rumpsprung armchair with a reading lamp beside it and a three-drawer bureau for his modest possessions. A wool rug, shaving stand, and pitcher completed the tableau.

"I will send a maid up to light the fire," was all Mrs. Ledbetter said before she nodded to them and left the room. The door remained open, perhaps as a reminder for him to behave himself in a bedchamber with a single lady, should he think to practice some evil design.

"She doesn't approve of me," Able remarked.

"It took me considerable time to worm myself into her good graces, too, so don't be despondent," Miss Bonfort said. "Will this do? I hope you do not b.u.mp your head on the eaves."

"It will more than do," he a.s.sured her. "I've never had a room this handsome, and I'm used to tight s.p.a.ces."

"Dinner at six," she repeated and turned to leave.

He didn't want her to go. He wracked his agile brain for some tidbit to keep her in his...o...b..t a little longer and came up with something.

"Miss Bonfort, your last name is familiar to me, except that I can't quite place it," he said, hoping he didn't sound like a man with designs on a lady.

Yet again she surprised him. "You know perfectly well why you remember Bonfort," she said, her tone kindly but firm. "I am beginning to suspect that you never forget a thing, Master Six."

"You've found me out," he said simply, hoping she would think he was joking. "There are Bonforts and there are Bonforts, but I think your uncle-cousin?-is Aloysius Bonfort, who is more than a mere navy employee in Portsmouth."

"You have me," she replied, and made him suddenly wish that were so. "Uncle Bonfort is the chief victualling officer for the Royal Navy in Portsmouth."

"I've seen his name on a doc.u.ment or two," Able said, recovering from a momentary and unaccustomed lapse in attention. "One of my tasks aboard s.h.i.+p is the proper displacement of cargo in the hold. I see his name and stamp often."

He wanted to ask why she wasn't spending more time in Portsmouth to be seen of any number of naval officers, each of whom would probably duel with the other for the privilege of proposing. Yet here she was in a vicarage in the Devon countryside, seen of children and one sailing master who already knew he was infatuated, at the very least.

"He's a fine uncle," she said, her cheeks rosy, as though she could read his thoughts. "I like to visit him, but the war keeps him more and more in his office."

She looked around his little room as if wondering what else she could do to make it better. "I'll see that you have a gla.s.s and carafe of water-or something stronger, if you prefer." She went to the open door. "I'm coming, Mrs. Ledbetter," she said and flashed him a conspiratorial smile. "She watches out for me," she whispered, then spoke normally. "See you at six for dinner."

Dinner was sheer delight. Able found himself seated between his two little pupils, with a fine view of Miss Bonfort seated directly across from him. The blessing on the food went on too long, as though the vicar wanted to prove a point. Able sat as still as the lads on either side of him. James began to fidget before the amen, but Gerald held fast.

He had never eaten so well, either. Dish after dish came his way-they served country style-and moved on after generous portions on his plate, which promptly disappeared. The soft rolls were made in heaven.

Sixteen years in a hard service caused him to commit what he hoped was his only breach of decorum. From habit, he tapped the roll on the table, which made Miss Bonfort put her hand to her mouth in merriment.

He realized what he had done and turned to James. "Lad, I am so accustomed to banging out weevils from bread that I committed a serious offense against the best bread I have ever eaten."

"Weevils?" James asked, his eyes huge.

"They don't eat much," Able added. Even the vicar had to smile at that one.

Little boys being what they were, one thing led to another and he found himself describing the Battle of the Nile-a slimmed down, less gory version-to interested listeners long after the final course. The footman lingered to bring out more sliced apples, which occasioned a visit from the cook, until Mrs. Ripley asked her more agile sister to hurry belowstairs to invite everyone up to listen.

He told them of the Swiftsure's late arrival on the scene in Aboukir Bay because they had been sent to reconnoiter Alexandria, Egypt. Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson was still unsure where the French fleet was and sent Swiftsure out on a frigate's duty.

"The frigates are the eyes and ears of the fleet, but Sir Horatio had none," Able explained, taking another slice of apple. "When we got wind of the battle, we crowded on sail for Aboukir Bay."

"And fired on the whole lot of the Frogs?" James asked, which earned him a frown from his father and a reprimand from his mother to mind his mouth.

"We couldn't. It was dark, and Captain Hallowell didn't want to risk firing at a Royal Navy s.h.i.+p," Able said, remembering that moment, as well as the precise lat.i.tude and longitude, the number of crew on deck, and the other s.h.i.+ps on the water. "As it was, he nearly fired on the Billy Ruffian."

"There never was a s.h.i.+p named that," Gerald scoffed, ever a realist. This earned him another hard stare from Papa, but nothing more, because everyone was focused on the story.

"Master Gerald, you are correct. It was the HMS Bellerephon, but British tars being what we are, we call it Billy Ruffian," he explained.

"You did end up shooting something?" James asked, sounding so impatient that Able nearly smiled.

"Aye, we did, lad. We pounded the French Orient until it exploded," Able said. He never forgot anything, but he wished he could forget that moment on the deck of the Swiftsure when the sailing master was skewered through with a splinter from the s.h.i.+p's own railing, and the job of sailing master became his.

"I became the sailing master after the master died," he said, knowing that was enough information for little boys who probably thought splinters were mere irritations under a fingernail. "Next, we subdued the Franklin and, finally, the Tonnant. Not a bad evening's work."

James uttered a sigh of satisfaction. A glance a.s.sured him that Mr. Ripley had fallen under the spell of the battle, and so had Miss Bonfort, her chin in her palms, her elbows on the table. Mrs. Ripley looked too gravid to be comfortable until the next Ripley put in his or her appearance.

"I have to hear more," Gerald said solemnly. "I simply must."

"Not tonight," his father said, vetoing any further sea stories.

"But Master Six, why are you here and not on a s.h.i.+p?" James asked, determined the narrative continue.

"Solely because the First Consul of France, Napoleon Bonaparte himself, and our First Minister, Henry Addington, struck a peace accord," Able told his audience. "I am living ash.o.r.e on half-pay, along with most of the Royal Navy, as long as the peace holds."

"Will it be long, sir?" James asked, even as his father pulled back his chair and took him gently by the arm.

"No. There is more war to wage." Able clapped his hands together, suddenly tired of all his thinking and rethinking. "I will tell you more tomorrow, when you report to . . . to . . ."

". . . the cla.s.sroom at . . ." Mrs. Ripley supplied.

". . . at two bells in the forenoon watch," he finished. "That will be nine of the clock. Good night to you."

It was all too much, he decided, as he started down the hall to the stairs. He wondered what it would be like to not remember everything, to not know chapter and line of every book he had ever read. To think he had a.s.sumed when he was poor Number Six in the workhouse that everyone learned the way he did.