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Praise for award-winning author
Carla Kelly:

‘A powerful and wonderfully perceptive author.’

—New York Times bestselling author Mary Jo Putney

‘It is always a joy to read a Carla Kelly love story.Always original, always superb, Ms Kelly’s work is a timeless delight for discerning readers.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘Kelly has the rare ability to create realistic yet sympathetic characters that linger in the mind.One of the most respected … Regency writers.’

—Library Journal

‘These two have seen each other at their best and at their worst. Have been tried and tested in the flames yet come out stronger for it. I certainly enjoyed the trip …’

—Dear Author on MARRYING THE ROYAL MARINE

‘Taking her impetus from Robinson Crusoe and the film Castaway, Kelly crafts the story of a shipwreck survivor readjusting to civilization … Kelly presents a clear portrait of the mores and prejudices of the era, and demonstrates how to navigate through society’s labyrinth with intelligent, sharp repartee. This alone is worth the price of the book.’ —RT Book Reviews on BEAU CRUSOE

‘You need help. I need a wife. I don’t think I can make it any plainer.’

‘No, I suppose you cannot,’ Sally murmured, but made one final attempt to make the man see reason. ‘Admiral, you know nothing about me. You truly don’t.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him, but she found she could not. Coward, she thought.

He looked at her then, and his face was kind. ‘I know one thing: you haven’t yammered once about the weather. I suppose marriages have started on stranger footing.’

‘I suppose they have,’ she agreed. ‘Very well, sir.’

About the Author

CARLA KELLY has been writing award-winning novels for years—stories set in the British Isles, Spain, and army garrisons during the Indian Wars. Her speciality in the Regency genre is writing about ordinary people, not just lords and ladies. Carla has worked as a university professor, a ranger in the National Park Service, and recently as a staff writer and columnist for a small daily newspaper in Valley City, North Dakota. Her husband is director of theatre at Valley City State University. She has five interesting children, a fondness for cowboy songs, and too many box elder beetles in the autumn.

Novels by the same author:

 BEAU CRUSOE

 CHRISTMAS PROMISE (part of Regency Christmas Gifts anthology)

 MARRYING THE CAPTAIN*

 THE SURGEON’S LADY*

 MARRYING THE ROYAL MARINE*

 MARRIAGE OF MERCY

*linked by character

Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Admiral’s
Penniless Bride
Carla Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my father, Kenneth Carl Baier,

US Navy 1941–1971. Anchors aweigh, Dad.

Prologue

1816

The last five years had been a hard school. When Sally Paul had left the Bath employment registry with a position near Plymouth as lady’s companion, but only enough money to ride the mail coach, she had known she was heading towards pinch pennies.

As she neared the Devonshire coast, Sally owned to some uneasiness, but put it down to the fact that, after Andrew’s suicide, she had sworn never to look on the ocean again. Still, times were hard and work difficult to come by. No matter how pinch penny the Coles might prove to be, she was on her way to employment, after six weeks without.

Such a dry spell had happened twice in the past two years, and it was an occupational hazard: old ladies, no matter how kind or cruel, had a tendency to die and no longer require her services.

Although she would never have admitted it, Sally hadn’t been sad to see the last one cock up her toes. She was a prune-faced ogre, given to pinching Sally for no reason at all. Even the family had stayed away as much as they could, which led to the old dear’s final complaint, when imminent death forced them to her bedside. ‘See there, I told you I was sick!’ she had declared in some triumph, before her eyes went vacant. Only the greatest discipline—something also acquired in the last five years—had kept Sally from smiling, which she sorely wanted to do.

But a new position had a way of bringing along some optimism, even when it proved to be ill placed, as it did right now. She never even set foot inside the Coles’ house.

She hadn’t minded the walk from the Drake, where the mail coach stopped, to the east edge of Plymouth, where the houses were genteel and far apart. All those hours from Bath, cramped in next to a pimply adolescent and a pale governess had left Sally pleased enough to stretch her legs. If she had not been so hungry, and as a consequence somewhat lightheaded, she would have enjoyed the walk more.

All enjoyment ended as she came up the circular drive, noting the dark wreath on the door and the draped windows proclaiming a death in the family. Sally found herself almost hoping the late member of the Cole family was a wastrel younger son given to drink who might not be much missed.

It was as she feared. When she announced to the butler that she was Mrs Paul, come to serve as Mrs Maude Cole’s companion, the servant had left her there. In a moment he was back with a woman dressed in black and clutching a handkerchief.

‘My mother-in-law died yesterday morning,’ the woman said, dabbing at dry eyes. ‘We have no need of you.’

Why had she even for the smallest moment thought the matter would end well? Idiot, she told herself. You knew the moment you saw the wreath. ‘I am sorry for your loss,’ she said quietly, but did not move.

The woman frowned. Maybe she expects me to disappear immediately, Sally thought. How am I to do that?

She could see that the woman wanted to close the door. Five years ago, at the start of her employment odyssey, Sally might have yielded easily. Not now, not when she had come all this way and had nothing to show for it.

‘Mrs Cole, would you pay my way back to Bath, where you hired me?’ she asked, as the door started to close.

‘There was never any guarantee of hire until I saw you and approved,’ the woman said, speaking through a crack now. ‘My mother-in-law is dead. There is no position.’

The door closed with a decisive click. Sally stood where she was, unwilling to move because she had no earthly idea what to do. The matter resolved itself when the butler opened the door and made shooing motions, brushing her off as if she were a beggar.

She told herself she would not cry. All she could do was retrace her steps and see if something would occur to her before she returned to the Drake. She did not feel sanguine at the prospect; she was down to her last coin and in arrears on any ideas at all.

What was it that Andrew used to say, before his career turned to ashes? ‘There isn’t any problem so large that it cannot be helped by the application of tea.’

He was wrong, of course; she had known that for years. Sally looked in her reticule as she walked. She had enough for one cup of tea at the Drake.

Chapter One

The Mouse was late. Admiral Sir Charles Bright (Ret.) was under the impression that he was a tolerant man, but tardiness was the exception. For more than thirty years, he had only to say, ‘Roundly now’, and his orders were carried out swiftly and without complaint. True, copious gold lace and an admiral’s stars might have inspired such prompt obedience. Obedience was second nature to him; tardiness a polar opposite.

Obviously this was not the case with The Mouse. For the life of him, he could have sworn that the lady in question was only too relieved to relinquish her old-maid status for matrimony to someone mature and well seasoned. During their only visit last month, The Mouse—Miss Prunella Batchthorpe—had seemed eager enough for all practical purposes.

Bright stared at his rapidly cooling cup of tea, and began to chalk up his defects. He did not think of forty-five as old, particularly since he had all of his hair, close cut though it was; all of his teeth minus one lost on the Barbary Coast; and most of his parts. He had compensated nicely for the loss of his left hand with a hook, and he knew he hadn’t waved it about overmuch during his recent interview with Miss Batchthorpe. He had worn the silver one, which Starkey had polished to a fare-thee-well before his excursion into Kent.

He knew he didn’t talk too much, or harrumph or hawk at inopportune moments. There was no paunch to disgust, and he didn’t think his breath was worse than anyone else’s. And hadn’t her older brother, a favourite commander who helmed Bright’s flagship, assured him that, at age thirty-seven, Prunella was more than ready to settle down at her own address? Relieved, even. Bright could only conclude that she had developed cold feet at the last minute, or was tardy.

He could probably overlook Miss Batchthorpe’s plain visage. He had told her this was to be a marriage of convenience, so he wouldn’t be looking at her pop eyes on an adjoining pillow each morning. He could even overlook her shy ways, which had made him privately dub her The Mouse. But tardiness?

Reality overtook him, as it invariably did. One doesn’t live through nearly three decades of war and many ranks by wool gathering. She might have decided that he simply would not suit, even if it meant a life of spinsterhood. He knew even a year of peace had not softened his hard stare, and the wind- and wave-induced wrinkles about his mouth were here to stay.

Whatever the reason for The Mouse’s nonappearance, he still needed a wife immediately. I have sisters, he thought to himself for the thousandth time since the end of the war. Oh, I do.

Fannie and Dora, older than he by several years, had not intruded much in his life spent largely at sea. They had corresponded regularly, keeping him informed of family marriages, births, deaths and nit-picking rows. Bright knew that Fannie’s eldest son, his current heir, was an ill-mannered lout, and that Dora’s daughter had contracted a fabulous alliance to some twit with a fortune.

He put his current dilemma down to the basic good natures of his meddling siblings. Both of them widowed and possessing fortunes of their own, Fan and Dora had the curse of the wealthy: too much time on their hands.

Fan had delivered the first shot across the bows when he had visited her in London after Waterloo. ‘Dora and I want to see you married,’ she had announced. ‘Why should you not be happy?’

Bright could tell from the martial glint in her eyes—Wellington himself possessed a similar look—that there was no point in telling his sister that he was already happy. Truth to tell, what little he had glimpsed of Fan’s married life, before the barrister had been kind enough to die, had told him volumes about his sister’s own unhappiness.

Dora always followed where Fan led, chiming in with her own reasons why he needed a wife to Guide Him Through Life’s Pathways—Dora spoke in capital letters. Her reasons were convoluted and muddled, like most of her utterances, but he was too stunned by Fan’s initial pronouncement, breathtaking in its interference, to comment upon them.

A wife it would be for their little brother. That very holiday, they had paraded a succession of ladies past his startled gaze, ladies young enough to be his daughter and older and desperate. Some were lovely, but most wanted in the area he craved: good conversation. Someone to talk to—there was the sticking point. Were those London ladies in awe of his title and uniform? Did they flinch at the hook? Were they interested in nothing he was interested in? He had heard all the conversations about weather and goings on at Almack’s that he could stomach.

Never mind. His sisters were determined. Fan and Dora apparently knew most of the eligible females in the British Isles. He was able to fob them off immediately after his retirement, when he was spending time in estate agents’ offices, seeking an estate near Plymouth. He had taken lodgings in Plymouth while he searched. Once the knocker was on the door, the parade of lovelies had begun again, shepherded by his sisters.

Bemusement turned to despair even faster than big rabbits made bunnies. My sisters don’t know me very well, he decided, after several weeks. The last straw came when Fan decided that not only would she find him a mate, but also redecorate his new estate for him, in that execrable Egyptian style that even he knew was no longer à la mode. When the first chair shaped like a jackal arrived, Bright knew he had to act.

Which was why he now awaited the arrival of Miss Prunella Batchthorpe, who had agreed to be his ball and chain and leave him alone. Dick Batchthorpe, his flagship commander, had mentioned her often during their years together. Something in Bright rebelled at taking the advice of two of the most harebrained ladies he knew; besides, it would be a kind gesture to both Dick, who didn’t relish the prospect of supporting an old maid, and the old maid in question, who had assured him she would keep his house orderly and make herself small.

As he sat in the dining room of the Drake, with its large windows overlooking the street, Bright couldn’t help feeling a twinge of relief at her non-arrival, even as he cursed his own apparent shallowness. Miss Batchthorpe was more than usually plain.

He heard a rig clatter up to the front drive and looked up in something close to alarm, now that he had told himself that Miss Batchthorpe simply wouldn’t suit. He stood up, trying not to appear overly interested in the street, then sat down. It was only a beer wagon, thank the Lord.

Bright patted the special licence in the pocket of his coat. No telling how long the pesky things were good for. Hopefully, his two dotty sisters had no connections among the Court of Faculties and Dispensations to tattle on him to his sisters. If they knew, they would hound him even more relentlessly. He would never hear the end of it. He hadn’t survived death in gruesome forms at sea to be at the mercy of managing women.

Bright dragged out his timepiece. He had waited more than an hour. Was there a legally binding statute determining how long a prospective, if reluctant, groom should wait for a woman he was forced to admit he neither wanted, nor knew anything about? Still, it was noon and time for luncheon. His cook had declared himself on strike, so there wasn’t much at home.

Not that he considered his new estate home. In its current state of disrepair, his estate was just the place where he lived right now. He sighed. Home was still the ocean.

He looked for a waiter, and found himself gazing at a lovely neck. Had she been sitting there all along, while he was deep in his own turmoil? In front of him and to the side, she sat utterly composed, hands in her lap. He had every opportunity to view her without arousing anyone’s curiosity except his own.

A teapot sat in front of her, right next to the no-nonsense cup and saucer Mrs Fillion had been buying for years and which resembled the china found in officers’ messes all across the fleet. She took a sip now and then, and he had the distinct impression she was doing all she could to prolong the event. Bright could scarcely remember ever seeing a woman seated alone in the Drake, and wondered if she was waiting for someone. Perhaps not; when people came into the dining room, she did not look towards the door.

He assumed she was a lady, since she was sitting in the dining room, but her dress was far from fashionable, a plain gown of serviceable grey. Her bonnet was nondescript and shabby.

She shifted slightly in her chair and he observed her slim figure. He looked closer. Her dress was cinched in the back with a neat bow that gathered the fabric together. This was a dress too large for the body it covered. Have you been ill, madam? he asked himself.

He couldn’t see her face well because of the bonnet, but her hair appeared to be ordinary brown and gathered in a thick mass at the back of her head. As he watched what little he could see of her face, Bright noticed her eyes were on a gentleman at a nearby table who had just folded his newspaper and was dabbing at his lips. She leaned forwards slightly, watching him. When he finally rose, she turned to see him out of the dining room, affording Bright a glimpse of a straight nose, a mouth that curved slightly downward and eyes as dark brown as his own.

When the man was gone from the dining room, she walked to the table and took the abandoned newspaper back to her own place. Bright had never seen a lady read a newspaper before. He watched, fascinated, as she glanced at the front page, then flipped to the back, where he knew the advertisements and legal declarations lurked. Was she looking for one of the discreet tonics advertised for female complaints? Did her curiosity run to ferreting out pending lawsuits or money owed? This was an unusual female, indeed.

As he watched, her eyes went down the back pages quickly. She shook her head, closed the newspaper, folded it neatly and took another sip of her tea. In another moment, she was looking inside her reticule, almost as though she was willing money to appear.

More curious now than ever, Bright opened his own paper to the inside back page, wondering what had caused such disappointment. ‘Positions for hire’ ran down two narrow columns. He glanced through them; nothing for women.

He looked up in time to see the lady stare into her reticule again. Bright found himself wishing, along with her, for something to materialise. He might have been misreading all the signs, but he knew he was an astute judge of character. This was a lady without any funds who was looking for a position of some sort.

Bright watched as the waiter came to her table. Giving him her prettiest smile, she shook her head. The man did not move on immediately, but had a brief, whispered conversation with her that turned her complexion pale. He is trying to throw her out, Bright thought in alarm, which was followed quickly by indignation. How dare the man! The dining room was by no means full.

He sat and seethed, then put aside his anger and concentrated on what he was rapidly considering his dilemma. Maybe he was used to the oversight of human beings. You do remember that you are no longer responsible for the entire nation? he quizzed himself silently. Let this alone.

He couldn’t. He had spent too many years— his whole lifetime, nearly—looking out for this island and its inmates to turn his back on someone possibly in distress. By the time the waiter made his way back to his table, Bright was ready. It involved one of the few lies he ever intended to tell, but he couldn’t think any faster. The imp of indecision leaped on to his shoulder and dug in its talons, but he ignored it.

With a smile and a bow, the waiter made his suggestions for luncheon and wrote down Bright’s response. Bright motioned the man closer. ‘Would you help me?’

‘By all means, sir.’

‘You see that lady there? She is my cousin and we have had a falling out.’

‘Ah, the ladies,’ the waiter said, shaking his head.

Bright sought for just the right shade of regret in his voice. ‘I had thought to mollify her. It was a quarrel of long standing, but as you can see, we are still at separate tables, and I promised her mother …’ He let his voice trail off in what he hoped was even more regret.

‘What do you wish me to do, sir?’

‘Serve her the same dinner you are serving me. I’ll sit with her and we’ll see what happens. She might look alarmed. She might even get up and leave, but I have to try. You understand.’

The waiter nodded, made a notation on his tablet and left the table with another bow.

I must be a more convincing liar than I ever imagined, Bright thought. He smiled to himself. Hell’s bells, I could have been a Lord of the Admiralty myself, if I had earlier been aware of this talent.

He willed the meal to come quickly, before the lady finished her paltry dab of tea and left the dining room. He knew he could not follow her; that went against all propriety. As it was, he was perilously close to a lee shore. He looked at the lady again, as she stared one more time into her reticule and swallowed. You are even closer than I am to a lee shore, he told himself. I have a place to live. I fear you do not.

Early in his naval career, as a lower-than-the-clams ensign, he had led a landing party on the Barbary Coast. A number of things went wrong, but he took the objective and survived with most of his men. He never forgot the feeling just before the jolly boats slid on to the shore—the tightness in the belly, the absolute absence of moisture in his entire drainage system, the maddening little twitch in his left eye. He felt them all again as he rose and approached the other table. The difference was, this time he knew he would succeed. His hard-won success on the Barbary Coast had made every attack since then a win, simply because he knew he could.

He kept his voice low. ‘Madam?’

She turned frightened eyes on him. How could eyes so brown be so deep? His were brown and they were nothing like hers.

‘Y-y-yes?’

Her response told him volumes. She had to be a lady, because she had obviously never been approached this way before. Better drag out the title first. Baffle her with nonsense, as one of his frigate captains used to say, before approaching shore leave and possible amatory adventure.

‘I am Admiral Sir Charles Bright, recently retired from the Blue Fleet, and I—’ He stopped. He had thought that might reassure her, but she looked even more pale. ‘Honestly, madam. May I … may I sit down?’

She nodded, her eyes on him as though she expected the worst.

He flashed what he hoped was his most reassuring smile. ‘Actually, I was wondering if I could help you.’ He wasn’t sure what to add, so fell back on the navy. ‘You seem to be approaching a lee shore.’

There was nothing but wariness in her eyes, but she was too polite to shoo him away. ‘Admiral, I doubt there is any way you could help.’

He inclined his head closer to her and she just as subtly moved back. ‘Did the waiter tell you to vacate the premises when you finished your tea?’

The rosy flush that spread upwards from her neck spoke volumes. She nodded, too ashamed to look at him. She said nothing for a long moment, as if considering the propriety of taking the conversation one step more. ‘You spoke of a lee shore, Sir Charles,’ she managed finally, then shook her head, unable to continue.

She knows her nautical terms, he thought, then plunged in. ‘I couldn’t help but notice how often you were looking in your reticule. I remember doing that when I was much younger, sort of willing coins to appear, eh?’

Her face was still rosy, but she managed a smile. ‘They never do though, do they?’

‘Not unless you are an alchemist or a particularly successful saint.’

Her smile widened; she seemed to relax a little.

‘Madam, I have given you my name. It is your turn, if you would.’

‘Mrs Paul.’

Bright owned to a moment of disappointment, which surprised him. ‘Are you waiting for your husband?’

She shook her head. ‘No, Admiral. He has been dead these past five years.’

‘Very well, Mrs Paul.’ He looked up then to see the waiter approaching carrying a soup tureen, with a flunky close behind with more food. ‘I thought you might like something to eat.’

She started to rise, but was stopped by the waiter, who set a bowl of soup in front of her. She sat again, distress on her face. ‘I couldn’t possibly let you do this.’

The waiter winked at Bright, as though he expected her to say exactly that. ‘I insist,’ Bright said.

The waiter worked quickly. In another moment he was gone, after giving Mrs Paul a benevolent look, obviously pleased with the part he had played in this supposed reconciliation between cousins.

Still she sat, hands in her lap, staring down at the food, afraid to look at him now. He might have spent most of his life at sea, but Bright knew he had gone beyond all propriety. At least she has not commented upon the weather, he thought. He didn’t think he could bully her, but he knew a beaten woman when he saw one, and had no urge to heap more coals upon her. He didn’t know if he possessed a gentle side, but perhaps this was the time to find one, if it lurked somewhere.

‘Mrs Paul, you have a complication before you,’ he said, his voice soft but firm. ‘I am going to eat because I am hungry. Please believe me when I say I have no motive beyond hoping that you will eat, too.’

She didn’t say anything. He picked up his spoon and began with the soup, a meaty affair with broth just the way he liked it. He glanced at her, only to see tears fall into her soup. He held his breath, making no comment, as she picked up her soup spoon. She ate, unable to silence the little sound of pleasure from her throat that told him volumes about the distance from her last meal. For one moment he felt enormous anger that a proud woman should be so reduced in victorious England. Why should that surprise him? He had seen sailors begging on street corners, when they were turned loose after the war’s end.

‘Mrs Fillion always makes the soup herself,’ he said. ‘I’ve eaten a few meals here, during the war.’

Mrs Paul looked at him then, skewered him with those lovely eyes of hers, so big in her lean face. ‘I would say she added just the right amount of basil, wouldn’t you?’

It was the proud comment of a woman almost—but not quite—at her last resources and it touched him. She ate slowly, savoring every bite as though she expected no meals to follow this one. While she ate, he told her a little about life in the fleet and his recent retirement. He kept up a steady stream of conversation to give a touch of normalcy to what was an awkward luncheon for both of them.

A roast of beef followed, with new potatoes so tender that he wanted to scoop the ones off Mrs Paul’s plate, too. He wanted her to tell him something about herself and he was rewarded after the next course, when she began to show signs of lagging. Finally, she put down her fork.

‘Sir Charles, I—’

He had to interrupt. ‘If you want to call me something, make it Admiral Bright,’ he said, putting down his fork, too, and nodding to the flunky to take the plates. ‘During the war, I think the crown handed out knighthoods at the crack of a spar. I earned the admiral.’

She smiled at that and dabbed her lips. ‘Very well, Admiral! Thank you for luncheon. Perhaps I should explain myself.’

‘Only if you want to.’

‘I do, actually. I do not wish you to think I am usually at loose ends. Ordinarily, I am employed.’

Bright thought of the wives of his captains and other admirals—women who stayed safely at home, tended their families and worried about their men at sea. He thought about the loose women who frequented the docks and serviced the seamen. He had never met a woman who was honestly employed. ‘Say on, Mrs Paul.’

‘Since my husband … died, I have been a lady’s companion,’ she said, waiting to continue until the waiter was out of earshot. ‘As you can tell, I am from Scotland.’

‘No!’ Bright teased, grateful she was no longer inclined to tears. She gave him such a glance then that he did laugh.

‘I have been a companion to the elderly, but they tend to die.’ Her eyes crinkled in amusement. ‘Oh! That is not my fault, let me assure you.’

He chuckled. ‘I didn’t think you were a murderer of old dears, Mrs Paul.’

‘I am not,’ she said amicably. ‘I had been six weeks without a position, sir, when I found one here in Plymouth.’

‘Where were you living?’

‘In Bath. Old dears, as you call them, like to drink the water in the Pump Room.’ She made a face, which was eloquent enough for him. She sobered quickly. ‘I finally received a position and just enough money to take the mail coach.’

She stopped talking and he could tell her fear was returning. All he could do was joke with her, even though he wanted to take her hand and give it a squeeze. ‘Let me guess: they were sobersides who didn’t see the fun in your charming accent.’

She shook her head. ‘Mrs Cole died the day before I arrived.’ She hesitated.

‘What did you do?’ he asked quietly.

‘I asked for the fare back to Bath, but she wouldn’t hear of it.’ Mrs Paul’s face hardened. ‘She had her butler shoo me off the front steps.’

And I am nervous about two silly sisters? Bright asked himself. ‘Is there something for you in Bath?’

She was silent a long moment. ‘There isn’t anything anywhere, Admiral Bright,’ she admitted finally. ‘I’ve been sitting here trying to work up the nerve to ask the proprietor if he needs kitchen help.’

They were both silent.

Bright was not an impulsive man. He doubted he had ever drawn an impulsive breath, but he drew one now. He looked at Mrs Paul, wondering what she thought of him. He knew little about her except that she was Scottish, and from the sound of her, a Lowland Scot. She was past the first bloom of youth and a widow. She had been dealt an impossible hand. And not once have you simpered about the weather or Almack’s, he thought. You also have not turned this into a Cheltenham tragedy.

He pulled out his timepiece. The Mouse was now nearly three hours late. He drew the deepest breath of his life, even greater than the one right before he sidled his frigate between the Egyptian shore and the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile.

‘Mrs Paul, I have an idea. Tell me what you think.’

Chapter Two

‘You want to marry me?’

To Mrs Paul’s immense credit, she listened without leaping to her feet and slapping him or falling into a dead faint.

She thinks I am certifiable, Bright thought, trying to divine what was going on in her mind as he blathered on. He was reminding himself of his least favourite frigate captain, who spoke faster and faster as the lie grew longer and longer. Dash it, this is no lie, he thought.

‘You see before you a desperate man, Mrs Paul,’ he said, wincing inside at how feeble that sounded. ‘I need a wife on fearsomely short notice.’ He winced again; that sounded worse.

He had to give her credit; she recovered quickly. He could also see that she had no intention of taking him seriously. Her smile, small though it was, let him know precisely how she felt about his little scheme. How can I convince her? he asked himself in exasperation. I doubt I can.

‘Mrs Paul, I hope you don’t think that through England’s darkest hours, the Royal Navy was led by idiots.’

Her voice was faint, mainly because she seemed to be struggling not to laugh. ‘I never thought it was, Admiral,’ she replied. ‘But … but why on earth do you require a wife on fearsomely short notice? Now that you are retired, haven’t you leisure to pursue the matter in your own good time?’

‘I have sisters,’ he said. ‘Two of ‘em. Since I retired last autumn, they have been dropping in to visit and bringing along eligible females. They are cornering me and I feel trapped. Besides, I am not convinced I want a wife.’

The look she gave him was one of incredulity, as though she wondered—but was too polite to ask—how a grown man, especially one who had faced the might of France for years, could be so cowed by sisters. ‘Surely they have your best interests at heart,’ Mrs Paul said. She seemed to find his dilemma diverting. ‘Do you require a … a nudge?’

‘That’s not the issue,’ he protested, but he admitted to himself that she did have a point. ‘See here, Mrs Paul, wouldn’t you be bothered if someone you knew was determined to help you, whether you wanted it or not?’

She was silent a moment, obviously considering his question. ‘May I be frank, Admiral?’

‘Certainly.’

‘There are times when I wish someone was determined to help me.’

She had him there. ‘You must think me an awful whiner,’ he admitted at last.

‘No, sir,’ she said promptly. ‘I just think you have too much time on your hands now.’

‘Aha!’ he exclaimed, and slapped the table with his hook, which made the tea cups jump. ‘It’s my stupid sisters who have too much time! They are plaguing my life,’ he finished, his voice much lower.

‘So you think proposing to me will get them off your back?’ she asked, intrigued.

‘You are my backup, Mrs Paul.’

Oh, Lord, I am an idiot, he thought. She stared at him in amazement, but to her credit, did not flee the dining room. Maybe you think you owe me for a meal, he thought sourly. Humouring a lunatic, eh?

‘Backup? There is someone else who didn’t deliver?’ she asked. Her lips twitched. ‘Should I be jealous? Call her out?’

She had him again, and he had to smile. In fact, he had to laugh. ‘Oh, Mrs Paul, I have made a muddle of things. Let me explain.’

He told her how in desperation because his sisters would not leave him alone, he had contacted the captain of his flagship, who had a sister withering on the matrimonial vine. ‘I made her an offer. It was to be a marriage of convenience, Mrs Paul. She needed a husband, because ladies … er … don’t seem to care to wander through life alone. I was careful to explain that,’ he assured her. ‘She agreed.’

He looked at the lady across the table from him, amazed she was still sitting there. ‘It is foolish, isn’t it?’ he said finally, seeing the matter through her eyes. ‘I have been stewing about in this dining room for hours, and the lady has not appeared. I can hardly blame her.’ He looked at his hook. ‘Maybe she doesn’t care overmuch for hooks.’

Mrs Paul put her hand to her lips, as though trying to force down another laugh. ‘Admiral, if she cared about you, a hook wouldn’t make the least difference. You have all your teeth, don’t you? And your hair? And surely there is a good tailor in Plymouth who could—’ She stopped. ‘You must think I am terribly rude.’

‘No, I think you are honest and … dash it, I have all my hair! I did lose a tooth on the Barbary Coast—’

‘Careless of you,’ she murmured, then gave up trying to hold back the mirth that seemed to well up out of her.

Her laughter was infectious. Thank goodness the dining room was nearly empty by now, because he laughed along with her. ‘What is the matter with my suit?’ he asked, when he could talk.

She wiped her eyes on the napkin. ‘Nothing at all, Admiral, if only this were the reign of poor George III, and not the regency of his son! I realise you have probably worn nothing but uniforms for years. Many men would probably envy your ability to wear garments from the turn of the century, without having to resort to a shoehorn. I am no Beau Brummell, Admiral, but there is a time to bid adieu to old clothes, even if they do fit.’

‘I was never inclined to add pounds,’ he said, trying not to sound sulky. ‘A tailor would help?’

‘Perhaps, but he won’t solve your problem of sisters,’ she said sensibly. ‘Suppose I agreed to your … er … unorthodox proposal, and you fell in love with someone? What then?’

‘Or suppose you do?’ he countered, warmed that she still seemed to be considering the matter.

‘That is unlikely. I have no fortune, no connections, no employment. I had a good husband once, and he will probably suffice.’

She spoke in such a matter-of-fact way that he wanted to know more, but knew he didn’t dare. ‘Did you tease him as unmercifully as you have teased me? “Careless of me to lose a tooth?” Really, Mrs Paul.’

‘I was even harder on him, sir,’ she said in good humour. ‘I knew him better and everyone knows familiarity breeds content.’

You’re a wit, he thought in appreciation. ‘I have no skills in searching for a wife, Mrs Paul. I never thought to live that long. I will blame Napoleon.’

‘Why not?’ she said, her voice agreeable. ‘He had his own trouble with wives, I do believe.’ She leaned forwards. ‘Admiral, I know nothing of your financial situation, nor do I wish to know, but surely a visit to Almack’s during the Season would turn up some prospects that would satisfy even your sisters.’

Mrs Paul obviously noted the look of disgust on his face, but continued, anyway. ‘If you’d rather not chance Almack’s, there is church. Unexceptionable ladies are often found there.’

‘You’d have me endure sermons and make sheep’s eyes at a female in a neighbouring pew?’

She gave him such a glance that he felt his toes tingle. ‘Admiral! I am merely trying to think of venues where you might find ladies—suitable ladies! Were you this much trouble in the fleet?’

‘This and more,’ he assured her, warming to her conversation. By God, you are diverting, he thought. ‘Mrs Paul, do you ever talk about the weather?’

‘What does the weather have to do with anything?’ she asked.

‘Good books?’

‘Now and then. Do you know, I read my way through the family library of the lady I worked for in Bath. Ask me anything about the early saints of the church. Go on. I dare you.’

Bright laughed out loud again. ‘Mrs Paul, mourning is well and good, I suppose, but why hasn’t some gentleman proposed recently? You are a wit.’

He wished he hadn’t said that. Her eyes lost their lustre. ‘It is different with ladies, sir. Most men seem to want a fortune of some size, along with the lady.’ She looked in her reticule again and her look told him she was determined to turn her wretched situation to a joke. ‘All I have in here is an appointment book, the stub of a pencil and some lint.’

The last thing you want is pity, isn’t it? he told himself. ‘So here we are, the two of us, at point non plus,’ he said.

‘I suppose we are,’ she replied, the faintest glint of amusement returning to her eyes.

‘And I must return to my estate, still a single gentleman, with no prospects and a cook on strike.’

‘Whatever did you do to him?’

‘I told him my sisters were coming to visit in two days. They order him about and demand things. Mrs Paul, he is French and he has been my chef for eleven years, through bombardment and sinking ships, and he cannot face my sisters either!’

‘What makes you think matrimony would change that?’ she asked sensibly. ‘They would still visit, wouldn’t they?’

He shrugged. ‘You have to understand my sisters. They are never happier than when they are on a mission or a do-gooding quest. With you installed in my house, and directing my chef, and having a hand in the reconstruction, they would get bored quickly, I think.’

‘Reconstruction?’ she asked.

‘Ah, yes. I found the perfect house. It overlooks Plymouth Sound, and it came completely furnished. It does require a little … well, a lot … of repairs. I think the former owner was a troll with bad habits.’

Mrs Paul laughed. ‘So you were going to marry this poor female who has cried off and carry her away to a ruin?’

Bright couldn’t help himself. He wasn’t even sure why he did it, but he slipped his hook into the ribbons holding Mrs Paul’s bonnet on her head. She watched, transfixed, as he gave the frayed ribbon a gentle tug, then pushed the bonnet away from her face, to dangle down her back. ‘Are you sure you won’t reconsider? I don’t think you will be bored in my house. You can redecorate to your heart’s content, sweet talk my chef, I don’t doubt, and find me a tailor.’

‘You know absolutely nothing about me,’ she said softly, her face pink again. ‘You don’t even know how old I am.’

‘Thirty?’ he asked.

‘Almost thirty-two.’

‘I am forty-five,’ he told her. He took his finger and pushed back his upper lip. ‘That’s where the tooth is missing. I keep my hair short because I am a creature of habit.’ He felt his own face go red. ‘I take the hook off at night, because I’d hate to cut my own throat during a bad dream.’

She stared at him, fascinated. ‘I have never met anyone like you, Admiral.’

‘Is that good or bad?’

‘I think it is good.’

He held his breath, because she appeared to be thinking. Just say yes, he thought.

She didn’t. To his great regret, Mrs Paul shook her head. She retied her bonnet and stood up. ‘Thank you for the luncheon, Admiral Bright,’ she said, not looking him in the eyes this time. ‘I have had a most diverting afternoon, but now I must go to the registry office here and see if there is anything for me.’

‘And if there is not?’ It came out cold and clinical, but she didn’t seem to be a woman searching for sympathy.

‘That is my problem, not yours,’ she reminded him.

He stood as she left the table, feeling worse than when he waited for The Mouse. She surprised him by looking back at him in the doorway, a smile on her face, as though their curious meal would be a memory to warm her.

‘That is that,’ he said under his breath, feeling as though some cosmic titan had poked a straw under his skin and sucked out all his juices. It was an odd feeling, and he didn’t like it.

With each step she took from the Drake, Sally Paul lost her nerve. She found a stone bench by the Cattewater and sat there, trying to regain the equilibrium that had deserted her when she was out of Admiral Bright’s sight. The June sun warmed her cheek and she raised her face to it, glorying in summer after a dismal winter of tending a querulous old woman who had been deserted by her family, because she had not treated them well when she was able and could have.

Let this be a lesson to me, Sally had thought over and over that winter, except that there was no one to show any kindness to, no one left that being kind to now would mean dividends later on, when she was old and dying. Her husband was gone these five years, a suicide as a result of being unable to stand up to charges levelled at him by the Admiralty. The Royal Navy, in its vindictiveness, had left her with nothing but her small son, Peter. A cold lodging house had finished him.

She sobbed out loud, then looked around, hopeful that no one had heard her. Even harder than her husband’s death by his own hand—mercifully, he had hanged himself in an outbuilding and someone else had found him—was her son’s death of cold and hunger, when she could do nothing but suffer alone. She had been his only mourner at his pauper’s unmarked grave, but she had mourned as thoroughly and completely as if a whole throng of relatives had sent him to a good rest.

There was no one to turn to in Dundrennan, where her late father had been a half-hearted solicitor. The Paul name didn’t shine so brightly in that part of Scotland, considering her father’s younger brother, John, who had joined American revolutionaries, added Jones to his name and become a hated word in England. This far south, though, it was a better name than Daviess, the name she had shared with Andrew, principal victualler to the Portsmouth yard who had been brought up on charges of pocketing profit from bad meat that had killed half a squadron.

She had no other resource to call upon. I could throw myself into the water, she told herself, except that someone would probably rescue me. Besides, I can swim, and I am not inclined to end my life that way. I could go to the workhouse. I could try every public kitchen in Plymouth and see if they need help. I could marry Admiral Bright.

She went to the registry first, joining a line by the door. The pale governess who had shared a seat with her on the mail coach came away with nothing. The bleak expression on her face told Sally what her own reception would be. The registrar—not an unkind man—did say Stone-house Naval Hospital might still be looking for laundresses, but there was no way of knowing, unless she chose to walk four miles to Devonport.

‘It’s a slow season, what with peace putting many here out of work. You might consider going north to the mills,’ he told Sally. When she asked him how she would get there, he shrugged.

Dratted peace had slowed down the entire economy of Plymouth, so there was no demand for even the lowliest kitchen help in the hotels, she discovered, after trudging from back door to back door. One publican had been willing to hire her to replace his pots-and-pans girl, but one look at that terrified child’s face told Sally she could never be so callous. ‘I won’t take bread from a baby’s mouth,’ she said.

‘Suit yourself,’ the man had said as he turned away.

* * *

Evensong was long over and the church was deserted. She sank down wearily on a back pew. When her money had run out two days ago, she had slept in Bath’s cathedral. It had been easy enough to make herself small in the shadows and then lie down out of sight. St Andrew’s was smaller, but there were shadows. She could hide herself again.

And then what? In the morning, if no one was about, she would dip her remaining clean handkerchief in the holy water, wipe her face and ask directions to the workhouse. At least her small son was safe from such a place.

There were several prayer books in their slots. Sally gathered them up, made a pillow of them and rested her head on them with a sigh. There wasn’t any need to loosen her dress because it was already loose. She feared to take off her shoes because she knew her feet were swollen. She might never get them on again. She made herself comfortable on the bench and closed her eyes.

Sally opened her eyes with a start only minutes later. A man sat on the end of the row. Frightened at first, she looked closer in the gloom at his close-cut hair and smiled to herself. She sat up.

He didn’t look at her, but idly scratched the back of his only hand with his hook. ‘The Mouse still hasn’t turned up.’

‘You have probably waited long enough,’ Sally said as she arranged her skirt around her, grateful she hadn’t removed her shoes. ‘I don’t know what the statute of limitations is on such a matter, but surely you have fulfilled it.’

He rested his elbows on the back of the pew, still not looking at her. ‘Actually, I was looking for you, Mrs Paul. The waiter informed me that you left your valise in the chair.’

‘I suppose I did,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing in it of value.’ She peered at him through the gloom. ‘Why did the waiter think I was your responsibility?’

He glanced at her then. ‘Possibly because earlier I had told him you were my cousin, and we were on the outs, and I was hoping to get into your good graces by buying you dinner.’

‘That was certainly creative, Admiral,’ she said.

‘Dash it all, how am I supposed to approach a single female I have never met before?’ he said. She couldn’t help but hear the exasperation in his voice. ‘Mrs Paul, you are more trouble than an entire roomful of midshipmen!’

‘Oh, surely not,’ she murmured, amused in spite of her predicament. She glanced at him, then stared straight ahead towards the altar, the same way he stared.

There they sat. He spoke first. ‘When you didn’t come out of St Andrew’s, I thought you might not mind some company.’ His voice grew softer. ‘Have you been sleeping in churches?’

‘It … it’s a safe place.’

He hadn’t changed his position. He did not move any closer. ‘Mrs Paul, my sisters are still meddlers, my chef is still on strike, I can’t get any builders to do what they promised, the house is … strange and I swear there are bats or maybe griffons in the attic.’

‘What a daunting prospect.’

‘I would honestly rather sail into battle than deal with any of the above.’

‘Especially the griffons,’ she said, taking a deep breath. Am I this desperate? Is he? she asked herself. This man is—or was—an admiral. He is either a lunatic or the kindest man in the universe.

‘What say you, Mrs Paul?’ He still didn’t look in her direction, as though afraid she would bolt like a startled fawn. ‘You’ll have a home, a touchy chef, two dragons for sisters-in-law, and a one-armed husband who will need your assistance occasionally with buttons, or maybe putting sealing wax on a letter. Small things. If you can keep the dragons at bay, and keep the admiral out of trouble on land, he promises to let you be. It’s not a bad offer.’

‘No, it isn’t,’ she replied, after a long pause in which she could have sworn he held his breath. She just couldn’t speak. It was beyond her that anyone would do this. She could only stare at him.

He gazed back. When he spoke, he sounded so rational she had to listen. ‘Mrs Paul, The Mouse isn’t coming. I want to marry you.’

‘Why, Admiral? Tell me why?’ There, she had asked. He had to tell her.

He took his time, exasperating man. ‘Mrs Paul, even if The Mouse were to show up this minute, I would bow out. She’s a spinster, and that’s unfortunate, but she has a brother to take care of her, no matter how he might grumble. You have no one.’ He held up his hand to stop her words. ‘I have spent most of my life looking after England. One doesn’t just chop off such a responsibility. Maybe it didn’t end with Napoleon on St. Helena and my retirement papers. Knowing your dilemma, I cannot turn my back on you, no more than I could ever ignore a sister ship approaching a lee shore. You need help. I need a wife. I don’t think I can make it any plainer.’

‘No, I suppose you cannot,’ she murmured, but made one final attempt to make the man see reason. ‘Admiral, you know nothing about me. You truly don’t.’ It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him, but she found she could not. Coward, she thought.

He looked at her then, and his face was kind. ‘I know one thing: you haven’t wittered once about the weather. I suppose marriages have started on stranger footings. I don’t know when or where, but I haven’t been on land much in the past twenty years.’

‘I suppose they have,’ she agreed. ‘Very well, sir.’

Chapter Three

Sally didn’t object when the admiral paid for a room at the Drake for her, after suggesting the priest at St Andrew’s might be irritated to perform a wedding so late, even with a special licence. And there were other concerns.

‘I must remind you, sir, I’m not The Mouse. I cannot usurp her name, which surely is already on the licence,’ she pointed out, embarrassed to state the obvious, but always the practical one.

Admiral Bright chuckled. ‘It’s no problem, Mrs Paul. The Mouse’s name is Prunella Batchthorpe. Believe it or not, I can spell Batchthorpe. It was Prunella that gave me trouble. Prunella? Prunilla? A coin or two, and the clerk was happy enough to leave the space blank, for me to fill in later.’

‘Very well, then,’ Sally murmured.

* * *

She was hungry for supper, but had trouble swallowing the food, when it came. Finally, she laid down her fork. ‘Admiral, you need to know something about me,’ she said.

He set down his fork, too. ‘I should tell you more about me, too.’

How much to say? She thought a moment, then plunged ahead. ‘Five years ago, my husband committed suicide after a reversal of fortune. I ended up in one room with our son, Peter, who was five at the time.’

She looked at the admiral for some sign of disgust at this, but all she saw was sympathy. It gave her the courage to continue. ‘Poor Peter. I could not even afford coal to keep the room warm. He caught a chill, it settled in his lungs and he died.’

‘You had no money for a doctor?’ he asked gently.

‘Not a farthing. I tried every poultice I knew, but nothing worked.’ She could not help the sob that rose in her throat. ‘And the whole time, Peter trusted me to make him better!’

She didn’t know how it happened, but the admiral’s hand went to her neck, caressing it until she gained control of herself. ‘He was covered in quicklime in a pauper’s grave. I found a position that afternoon as a lady’s companion and never returned to that horrid room.’

‘I am so sorry,’ he said. ‘There wasn’t anyone you could turn to?’

‘No,’ she said, after blowing her nose on the handkerchief he handed her. ‘After my husband was … accused … we had not a friend in the world.’ She looked at him, wondering what to say. ‘It was all a mistake, a lie and a cover-up, but we have suffered.’

Admiral Bright sat back in his chair. ‘Mrs Paul, people ask me how I could bear to stay so many years at sea. Unlike my captains who occasionally went into port, I remained almost constantly with the fleet. We had one enemy—France—and not the myriad of enemies innocent people attract, sometimes in the course of everyday business on land, or so I suspect. My sisters have never understood why I prefer the sea.’

‘Surely there are scoundrels at sea—I mean, in addition to the French,’ she said.

‘Of course there are, Mrs P. The world is full of them. It’s given me great satisfaction to hang a few.’

She couldn’t help herself; she shuddered.

‘They deserved it. The hangings never cost me any sleep, because I made damned sure they were guilty.’ He looked into her eyes. ‘Mrs Paul, I cannot deny that I enjoyed the power, but I have never intentionally wronged anyone.’

Too bad you were not on the Admiralty court that convicted my husband, she thought. Or would you have heard the evidence and convicted, too? She knew there was no way of knowing. She had not been allowed in the chambers. Best put it to rest.

‘I have the skills to manage your household,’ she told him, when he had resumed eating. ‘I’m quite frugal, you know.’

‘With a charming brogue betraying your origins, could you be anything else?’

‘Now, sir, you know that is a stereotype!’ she scolded. ‘My own father hadn’t a clue what to do with a shilling, and he could outroll my rrr’s any day.’ She smiled at the admiral, liking the way he picked up his napkin with the hook and wiped his lips. ‘But I am good with funds.’

‘So am I, Mrs P.,’ he said, putting down the napkin. ‘Napoleon has made me rich, so you needn’t squeeze the shillings so hard that they beg for mercy! I’ll see that you have a good allowance, too.’

‘That isn’t necessary,’ she said quickly. ‘I’ve done with so little for so long that I probably wouldn’t know what to do with an allowance.’

He looked at his timepiece. ‘Past my bedtime. Call it a bribe then, Mrs P. Wait until you see the estate I am foisting on you!’ He grew serious quickly. ‘There is plenty of money for coal, though.’ With his hook, he casually twirled a lock of her hair that had come loose. ‘I think your fortunes have turned, my dear.’

It was funny. The hook was so close to her face, but she felt no urge to flinch. She reached up and touched it, twining the curl further around it.

‘My hook doesn’t disgust you?’ he asked, startled.

‘Heavens, no,’ she replied. ‘How did you lose your hand? And, no, I’m not going to be frippery again and suggest you were careless.’

He pulled his hook through the curl, patted it against her cheek and grinned at her. ‘You do have a mouth on you, Mrs Paul. Most people are so cowed by my admiralness that I find them dull.’

‘I am not among them, I suppose. After your taradiddle about being my cousin, I think you are probably as faulty and frail as most of humanity.’ She sat back, amazed at herself for such a forthright utterance. She had never spoken to Andrew that way, but something about Charles Bright made him a conversational wellspring as challenging as he was fun to listen to.

‘Touché!’ He looked down at his hook. ‘I was but a first mate when this happened, so it has been years since I’ve had ten fingernails to trim.’

She laughed. ‘Think of the economy!’

He rolled his eyes at her. ‘There you go again, being a Scot.’

‘Guilty as charged, Admiral.’

‘I wish I could tell you it was some battle where England’s fate hung in the balance, but it was a training accident. We were engaged in target practice off the coast of Brazil when one of my guns exploded. Since it was my gun crew, I went to lend a hand.’ He made a face. ‘Poor choice of words! The pulley rope that yanks the gun back after discharge was tangled. I untangled it at the same time it came loose. Pinched off my left hand so fast I didn’t know it had happened, until the powder monkey mentioned that I was spouting. Mrs P, don’t get all pale on me. We had an excellent surgeon on board, almost as talented as the smithy who built me my first hook.’

‘You never thought about leaving the navy?’

‘Over a hand? Really, madam.’

‘How do you keep it on?’

She was hard put to define his expression then. She could have sworn there was something close to gratitude in his eyes, as though he was pleased she cared enough to ask such a forwards question.

‘Apart from eight-year-old boys, you’re the first person who ever asked.’

‘I’m curious.’

‘I’ll show you later. There’s a leather contraption that crosses my chest and anchors to my neck.’ As she watched, he tilted his head, pulled at his neckcloth and exposed a thin strap. ‘See? If ever my steward is gone or busy, you might have to help me get out of it. Are you any good at tying neckcloths?’

‘I’ve tied a few,’ she said.

‘Good. You might have to tie more. Beyond that, I’m not too helpless.’

‘Helpless is not a word I would ever use in the same breath with your admiralness.’

‘What a relief that is, Mrs P,’ he said. ‘Where were we?’

‘Something about you?’

‘Ah, yes. I was born forty-five years ago in Bristol. My father was a successful barrister who could not understand why I wanted to go to sea. He made arrangements and I shipped aboard as a young gentleman at the age of ten. My older sisters are Frances—I call her Fan, or Fannie—and Dora, who follows where Fannie leads. Both married well and both have outlived their husbands, which means I am ripe for meddling from them.’ He shuddered elaborately.

‘Any interesting avocations, now that you are retired?’

‘Not yet. Mrs Paul, your eyelids are drooping.’ He stood up. ‘I will retire now and leave you to your chamber. Do you think nine of the clock tomorrow morning is too early to bother the vicar at St Andrew’s?’

‘I should think not.’ She looked up at him, a frown on her face. ‘You don’t have to go through with this, you know.’

‘I believe I do.’ He bent down then, and she thought for one moment he was going to kiss her. Instead, he rubbed his cheek against hers, and she smiled to feel whiskers against her face. It had been so long. ‘Mrs Paul, you need help and I need a wife. I promise you I will cause you no anxiety or ever force myself on you without your utmost consent and enthusiasm, should you or I ever advance this marriage into something more … well, what … visceral. Is that plain enough?’

It was. She nodded. Then he did kiss her, but only her cheek.

‘Very well, then, Admiral. I will be an extraordinarily excellent wife.’

‘I rather thought so,’ he said as he went to the door and gave her a little bow. She laughed when he kissed his hook and blew in her direction, then left the room.

‘You are certainly an original,’ she said quietly. She sat at the table a few minutes longer, eating one of the remaining plums, then just looking at the food. It was only the smallest kind of stopgap between actual dinner and breakfast, but she had not seen so much food in front of her in years. ‘What a strange day this has been, Admiral,’ she whispered.

She didn’t sleep a wink, but hadn’t thought she would, considering the strangeness of her situation. She spent much of the night debating whether to tell her future husband that her married name was Daviess, but decided against it, as dawn broke. He knew her as Mrs Paul, and what difference could it make? She had resolved several years ago not to look back.

When the ‘tween-stairs girl made a fire in the grate and brought a can of hot water, Sally asked for a bath, hoping the admiral wouldn’t object to the added expense on his bill. When the tub and water came, she sank into it with pleasure.

She left the tub after the water cooled. With a towel wrapped around her, she pulled out the pasteboard folder from her valise and extracted her copy of the marriage lines to Andrew Daviess, and his death certificate, reading again the severe line: ‘Death by own hand.’ Poor, dear man. ‘Andrew, why didn’t you think it through one more time?’ she asked the document. ‘We could have emigrated to Canada, or even the United States.’

With a sigh, she dried herself off and stood a moment in front of the coal fire. The towel fell to the floor and she stood there naked until she felt capable of movement. She looked in the mirror, fingering her stretch marks and frowning over her ribs in high relief when she raised her arms. ‘Sally, you’ll eat better at Admiral Bright’s estate,’ she told her reflection. ‘You are just an empty sack now.’

She was in no mood to begin a marriage with someone she did not know, but there didn’t seem to be anything else to do. She dressed quickly, wishing she had a better garment for the occasion. She shook out a muslin dress from the valise, one she had worn many times, and took it and the pasteboard folder downstairs. She left the dress with the parlour maid, asking that someone iron it for her, then let herself out of the Drake.

It was still early; no one was about in the street except fishmongers and victuallers hauling kegs of food on wheelbarrows. From her life in Portsmouth as Andrew Daviess’s wife, she knew he had been efficient in his profession, even up to the shocking day he was accused by the Admiralty of felony and manslaughter in knowingly loading bad food aboard ships. In the months of suspended animation that followed, she had seen him shaking his head over and over at the venality of his superior, whom he suspected of doctoring the all-important and lucrative accounts to make the errors Andrew’s alone. He could prove nothing, of course, because his superior had moved too fast.

And finally Andrew could take it no longer, hanging himself from a beam in their carriage house, empty of horses since they could no longer afford them and pay a barrister, too. He left no note to her, but only one he had sent to the Lord Admiral proclaiming his innocence, even as his suicide seemed to mock his words.

Now the whole matter was over and done. She knew that by marrying the admiral, who had no idea what a kettle of fish he had inherited and with any luck never would, her life with Andrew Daviess was irrevocably over.

When she arrived at St Andrew’s, the vicar was concluding the earliest service. She approached him when he finished, explaining that in another hour, she and a gentleman would be returning with a special licence.

‘I am a widow, sir,’ she said, handing him the pasteboard folder. ‘Here are my earlier marriage lines and my late husband’s death certificate. Is there anything else you need from me?’

The old man took the folder and looked inside. ‘Sophia Paul Daviess, spinster from Dundrennan, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland, age twenty-two years, 1806’. He looked at Andrew’s death certificate, shaking his head, so she knew he had read the part about ‘Death by his own hand’. He handed the document back. ‘A sad affair, Mrs Daviess.’

‘It was.’

‘And now you are marrying again. I wish you all success, madam.’

‘Thank you, sir.’ She hesitated. ‘For reasons which you must appreciate, I have been using my maiden name, rather than my married name.’

He walked with her to the door. ‘I can imagine there has been some stigma to a suicide, Mrs Paul.’

If you only knew, she thought. ‘There has been,’ was all she said.

‘Those days appear to be ending. I’ll look forwards to seeing you again in an hour.’ The vicar held out his hand. ‘If you wish, I can enter this information in the registry right now, so you needn’t be reminded of it during this next wedding.’

It was precisely what she wanted. ‘Thank you, sir.’

As she returned to the Drake, she looked up to the first storey and saw the admiral looking out. He waved to her and she waved back, wondering how long he had been watching and if he had seen her leave the hotel.

When she came up the stairs to the first floor, he opened his door. ‘You gave me a fright, Mrs Paul, when I knocked on your door and you weren’t there. I reckoned you had gone the way of The Mouse, and that would have been more than my fragile esteem could manage.’

‘Oh, no, sir. I would not go back on my word, once given,’ she assured him.

‘I thought as much,’ he said, ‘especially after the ‘tween-stairs maid said you had left a dress belowdeck to be ironed.’ He thumped his chest with his hook, which made Sally smile. ‘What a relief.’

‘I went ahead to the church with my marriage lines and Andrew’s death certificate. I thought he might want to see them and perhaps record them. Such proved to be the case.’

‘So efficient, Mrs Paul,’ he murmured. ‘I shall be spoiled.’

Not so much efficient as ashamed for you to see that certificate, she thought. Oh, seek a lighter subject, Sally. ‘That’s it, sir. I will spoil you like my old ladies—prunes in massive amounts, thoroughly soaked for easy chewing, and at least a chapter a day of some improving literature such as, such as …’

‘I know: “The prevention of self-abuse during long sea voyages”,’ he joked, then held up his hand to ward off her open-mouthed, wide-eyed stare. ‘I do not joke, Mrs P! You would be amazed what do-gooders in the vicinity of the fleet think is important.’

She laughed out loud, then covered her mouth in embarrassment that she even knew what he was talking about.

‘I was a frigate captain then. I preserved a copy of that remarkable document and asked all my wardroom mates to sign it. The purser even added some salacious illustrations, so perhaps I will not let you see it until you are forty or fifty, at least.’

She couldn’t think of a single retort.

‘What? No witty comeback?’ There was no denying the triumph in his eyes.

‘Not to that, sir,’ she admitted. ‘Perhaps I will not read you improving chapters of anything.’

She was spared further embarrassment by the ‘tween-stairs maid, who brought her ironed dress upstairs and shyly handed it to her. Admiral Bright gave the little girl a few coins before she left.

Sally went into her own room and put on the dress, but not before wishing it would magically turn into a gown of magnificent proportions. Just as well it does not, she scolded herself as she attempted to button up the back. I don’t have the bosom to hold it up right now.

She also remembered why she hadn’t worn the dress in ages. By twisting around, she managed to do up the lower and upper buttons, but the ones in the middle were out of reach. She stood in silence, then realised there was nothing to do but enlist the admiral. She knocked on the door. She felt the blush leap to her face, even as she scolded herself for such missish behaviour, considering that in less than an hour, she was going to marry this man.

‘Admiral, can you possibly tackle the buttons in the middle of this dratted dress? Either that, or call back the ‘tween-stairs maid.’ She looked at his hook and frowned. ‘Oh, dear. I forgot.’

Admiral Bright was obviously made of sterner stuff. He came into her room and closed the door behind him. ‘What? You think I cannot accomplish this simple task? Who on earth do you think buttons my trousers every morning? Turn around and prepare to be amazed.’

She did as he said, her cheeks on fire. He pressed the flat curve on his hook against her back to anchor the fabric, then pushed each button through, his knuckles light against her bare skin.

‘No applause needed,’ he said. ‘Turn around and stop being so embarrassed.’

She did as he said. ‘You’re going to wish The Mouse had showed up.’

‘No, indeed, madam. I have something for you, and you will have to manage this yourself.’

He took a small sack out of his coat front and handed it to her. ‘I got this in India. It should look especially nice against that light blue fabric.’

Holding her breath, Sally took out a gold chain with a single ruby on it.

‘You can breathe, Mrs Paul,’ he advised. She could tell by his voice how pleased he was with her reaction.

‘I wish I had something for you,’ she whispered as she turned the necklace over in her hand.

‘Considering that this time yesterday, you thought you were going to be tending an old lady with skinflint relatives, I am hardly surprised. Come, come. Put it on. I can’t help you with the clasp.’

She did as he said, clasping the fiery little gem about her neck where it hung against her breast bone. Suddenly, the old dress didn’t seem so ordinary. She couldn’t even feel the place in her shoes where the leather had worn through.

‘It’s not very big, but I always admired the fire in that little package,’ he told her, half in apology, partly in pride.

She could feel the admiral surveying her, and she raised her chin a little higher, convinced she could pass any muster, short of a presentation at court. All because of a little ruby necklace. She touched it, then looked at Admiral Bright. ‘You deserve someone far more exciting than me,’ she said.

He surprised her by not uttering a single witticism, he whom she already knew possessed many. ‘You’ll do, Sally Paul,’ he said gruffly and offered her his arm. ‘Let’s get spliced. A ruby is small potatoes, compared to the favour you’re doing me of shielding me for evermore from my sisters!’

Chapter Four

They were married at half past nine in St Andrew’s Church, where some three centuries earlier, and under different ecclesiastical management, Catherine of Aragon had knelt after a long sea voyage and offered thanks for safe passage. Sally could appreciate the mood and the moment. When the vicar pronounced them husband and wife, she felt a gentle mantle of protection cover her to replace the shawl of lead she had been carrying around for years. She couldn’t have explained the feeling to anyone, and she doubted the admiral would understand. She was too shy to expand on it, so she kept the moment to herself.

Truth to tell, she hoped for better success than Catherine of Aragon. After the brief ceremony, when the young vicar chatted a bit mindlessly— obviously he hadn’t married a couple with so little fanfare before—Sally couldn’t help but think of her Catholic Majesty, gone to England to marry one man, and ending up a scant few years later with his brother, Henry.

She mentioned it to the admiral over breakfast at the Drake. ‘Do you not see a parallel? You came here to marry The Mouse, and you ended up with the lady’s companion. Perhaps Catherine of Aragon started a trend.’

The admiral laughed. ‘If it’s a trend, it’s a slow-moving one.’ He leaned forwards over the buttered toast. ‘What should I call you? I’ve become fond of Mrs P, but now it’s Mrs B. And I had no idea your name was actually Sophia, which I rather like. How about it, Sophia Bright?’

She felt suddenly shy, as though everyone in the dining room was staring at the ring on her finger, which seemed to grow heavier and heavier until it nearly required a sling. ‘No one has ever called me Sophia, but I like it.’

‘Sophia, then. What about me? You really shouldn’t persist in calling me admiral. Seems a bit stodgy and you don’t look like a midshipman. Charles? Charlie?’

She thought about it. ‘I don’t think I know you well enough for “Charles”. Maybe I’ll call you “Mr Bright”, while I think about it.’

‘Fair enough.’ He peered more closely at the ring he had put on her finger in the church. ‘It’s a dashed plain ring.’ He slid it up her finger. ‘Rather too large. H’mm. What was good enough for The Mouse doesn’t quite work for you.’ He patted her hand. ‘You can think about my name, and I can think about that ring, Sophia.’

Now I am Sophia Bright, where only yesterday I was Sally Paul, she thought as she finished eating. No one will know me. While he spoke to the waiter, she looked over at her new husband with different eyes. There was no denying his air of command. Everything about him exuded confidence and she felt some envy.

He was certainly no Adonis; too many years had come and gone for that. His nose was straight and sharp, but his lips were the softest feature on his face. Such a ready smile, too. He reminded her of an uncle, long dead now, who could command a room by merely entering it. She began to feel a certain pride in her unexpected association with this man beside her. After the past five years of shame and humiliation, she almost didn’t recognise the emotion.

He had no qualms about gesturing with his hook. If he had lived with the thing since his lieutenant days, then it was second nature, and not something to hide. She looked around the dining room. No one was staring at him, but this was Plymouth, where seamen with parts missing were more common than in Bath, or Oxford. This is my husband, she wanted to say, she who barely knew him. He is mine. The idea was altogether intoxicating and it made her blush.

He had hired a post chaise for the ride home. ‘I … we … are only three miles from Plymouth proper. I suppose I shall get a carriage, and that will mean horses, with which I have scant acquaintance,’ he told her. ‘It’s going to be hard for me to cut a dashing figure atop a horse.’ He shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know a good horse if it bit me … which it will, probably.’

Sally put her hand to her mouth to keep in the laugh. With a twinkle in his eyes, the admiral took her hand away. ‘It is a funny image, Sophia,’ he said. ‘Go ahead and laugh. I imagine years and years of midshipmen would love to see such a sight. And probably most of my captains, too.’

He fell silent then, as they drove inland for a mile, over the route she had taken on foot only yesterday. How odd, she thought. It seems like years ago already, when I was Sally Paul.

He was gazing intently out the window and she wondered why, until the ocean came in sight again and he sat back with a sigh. He misses it, she thought, even if it is only a matter of a few miles.

‘You miss the ocean, don’t you?’

He nodded. ‘I thought I would not. After I retired, I spent some weeks in Yorkshire, visiting an old shipmate far inland—well, I was hiding from Fannie and Dora. What a miserable time! Yes, I miss the ocean when I do not see it.’ He looked her in the eye. ‘Did you ever meet a bigger fool?’

‘Probably not,’ she replied, her voice soft, which made the admiral blush—something she doubted he did very often. ‘It it amazing what revelation comes out, after the ring goes on.’

‘I suppose you have deep, dark secrets, too,’ he told her, good humour in his voice, as if he could not imagine such a thing.

He had come closer to the mark than was comfortable, and she wished again she had told him her real married name. It was too late now. She would have to hope the matter would never come up. Sally returned some sort of nonsensical reply that she forgot as soon as it left her lips, but which must have satisfied the man. His gaze returned to the view out the chaise window.

‘I do have a confession,’ he said, as the post chaise slowed and turned into a lane which must have been lovely at one time, but which now was overgrown and rutted.

It can’t be worse than my omission, she thought. ‘I’m all a-tremble,’ she said, feeling like the biggest hypocrite who ever wore shoe leather.

He chuckled, and touched her knee with his hook. ‘Sophia, I promise you I do not have a harem in Baghdad—too far from the coast—or an evil twin locked in the attic.’ He didn’t quite meet her gaze. ‘You’ll see soon enough. How to put this? I didn’t precisely buy this property for the manor.’

He had timed his confession perfectly. The coachman slowed his horses even more on the last turn, and then the estate came into view. What probably should have been a graceful lawn sloping towards a bluff overlooking a sterling view of Plymouth Sound was a tangle of weeds and overgrown bushes.

The admiral was watching her expression, so Sally did her best to keep it entirely neutral. ‘It appears you could use an entire herd of sheep,’ she murmured. ‘And possibly an army equipped with scythes.’

She looked closer, towards the front door, and her eyes widened. She put her hand to her mouth in astonishment. Rising out of a clump of undergrowth worthy almost of the Amazon was a naked figure. ‘Good heavens,’ she managed. ‘Is that supposed to be Venus?’

‘Hard to say. You can’t see it from here, but she seems to be standing on what is a sea shell. Or maybe it is a cow patty,’ the admiral said. He coughed.

There she stood, one ill-proportioned hand modestly over her genitals. Sally looked closer, then blushed. The hand wasn’t over her privates as much as inside them. The statue’s mouth was open, and she appeared to be thinking naughty thoughts.

‘I think this might be Penelope, and her husband has been gone a long time,’ Sally said finally.

She didn’t dare look at the admiral, but she had no urge to continue staring at a statue so obviously occupied with business of a personal nature. She gulped. ‘A very long time.’

‘No doubt about it,’ the admiral said, and he sounded like he was strangling.

I don’t dare look at him, else I will fall on the floor in a fit of laughter, and then what will he think? Sally told herself. And then she couldn’t help herself. The laughter rolled out of its own accord and she clutched her sides. When she could finally bring herself to look at the admiral, he was wiping his eyes.

‘Mrs Bright, you would be even more shocked to know there was a companion statue on the other side of the door. Let me just say it was a man, and leave it at that.’

‘Wise of you,’ she murmured, and went off in another gust of laughter. When she could muster a coherent thought, Sally realised it had been years and years since she had laughed at all, let alone so hard.

‘What happened to … ah … Romeo?’ she asked.

‘My steward—you would probably call him my butler—whacked him off at the ankles. I suppose he hasn’t had time to get around to the lady.’

The admiral left the post chaise first. She took his hand as he helped her out. ‘I can scarcely imagine what delights await me indoors,’ Sally said.

‘Oh, I think you can,’ was all he would say, as he put his hand under her elbow and helped her up the steps. ‘Careful now. I should probably carry you over the threshold, Mrs Admiral Sir Charles Bright, but you will observe the front steps are wobbly.’

‘I shall insist upon it when the steps are fixed.’

‘Oh, you will?’ he asked, and then kissed her cheek. ‘Hopefully, our relationship will continue after your first view of the entry hall.’ He opened the door with a flourish. ‘Feast your eyes, madam wife.’

The hall itself appeared dingy, the walls discoloured from years of neglect, but the ceiling drew her eyes upwards immediately. Her mouth fell open. She stepped back involuntarily and her husband’s arm seemed to naturally encircle her waist.

‘At the risk of ruining my credit with you for ever, Sophia, I saw a ceiling like this once in a Naples bawdy house.’

‘I don’t doubt that for a minute!’ she declared, looking around at a ceiling full of cupids engaged in activities the statue out front had probably never even dreamed of. ‘Over there … what on earth …? Oh, my goodness.’ Sally put her hands to her cheeks, feeling their warmth. She turned around and took her husband by the lapels of his coat. ‘Mr Bright, who on earth owned this house?’

‘The estate agent described him as an earl—the sorry end of a long line of earls—who had roughly one thing on his mind. Apparently, in early summer, the old roué used to indulge in the most amazing debaucheries in this house. After that, he closed up the place and retreated to his London lodgings.’

She couldn’t help herself. She leaned her forehead against her new husband’s chest. His arms went around her and she felt his hook against her waist. ‘There had better be a very good reason that a man of sound mind—I’m speaking of you—would buy such a house, Admiral Bright.’

‘Oh, dear,’ he murmured into her hair. ‘Not two minutes inside your new home and I am back to “admiral”.’ He took her hand. ‘Yes, there is a good reason. Humour me another moment.’

She followed where he led, her hand in his, down the hall with its more-than-naughty inmates high above, and out through the French doors into the garden, which was as ill used as the front lawn. Beyond a thoroughly ugly gazebo was the wide and—today—serene expanse of the ocean. It filled the horizon with a deep blue that blended into the early summer sky. Sea birds wheeled and called overhead and she could hear waves breaking on the rocks below. In the distance, a ship under full sail seemed to skim the water as it made for Plymouth.

The admiral released her hand. ‘One look at this and I knew I would never find another place so lovely. What do you think, Sophia? Should I tear down the house and rebuild?’

She turned around and looked at her new home, sturdy with stone that might have once been painted a pastel; elegant French doors that opened on to a fine terrace; wide, floor-to-ceiling windows that would be wonderful to stand behind, when the day was stormy and still the ocean beckoned.

‘No. It’s a good house. Once a little—a lot—of paint is applied.’

‘My thoughts precisely. I got it for a song.’

She had to smile at that. ‘I’m surprised the estate agent didn’t pay you to take it off his hands! Have your sisters been here?’

‘Once. Fannie had to wave burnt feathers under Dora’s nose, and they were gone the next morning before it was even light. I confess I haven’t done anything to the house since, because they assured me they would never return until I did. Until now.’ He sighed and tugged her over to the terrace’s stone railing, where they sat. ‘It worked for a few months, but even these imps from hell weren’t strong enough to ward off the curse of women with too much time on their hands. Fannie is planning to redecorate in an Egyptian style, and Dora tags along.’

‘When?’

‘Any day now, which is why my cook is on strike and …’ He put his hook to his ear, which made her smile. ‘Hark! I hear the thump-tap of my steward. Here he is, my steward through many a battle. John Starkey, may I introduce my wife, Mrs Bright?’

Yesterday, she might have been startled, but not today. From his peg leg to his eye patch, John Starkey was everything a butler was not. All he lacked was a parrot on his shoulder. If he had opened his mouth and exhibited only one, lonely tooth, she would not have been surprised. As it was, he had a full set of teeth and a gentle smile, even a shy one. She looked from the admiral to his steward, realising all over again that these were men not much used to the ameliorating company of women.

But his smile was genuine. She nodded her head. ‘Starkey, I am delighted to make your acquaintance. Is this the strangest place you have ever lived?’

‘Aye, madam.’

‘But you would follow the admiral anywhere, I take it.’

He looked faintly surprised. ‘I already have, Mrs Bright,’ he replied, which told her volumes about a world of war she would never know. It touched her more than anything else he could have said.

‘Starkey answers the front door, polishes my best hook—and any other silver we might have lying around—decants wine with the best of them and never considers any command too strange,’ the admiral said. ‘Starkey, the naked woman in the front yard will have to go. Lively now.’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’ He knuckled his forehead. ‘I ran out of time.’ He bowed to them both and left the terrace. In a few minutes, Sally heard the sound of chopping.

‘I’m low on servants,’ he told her as he got off the railing and started for the French doors. She followed. ‘That will be your task. Go back to Plymouth and hire whomever you think we need.’

She walked with him slowly back down the hall, neither of them looking up. He paused before a closed door. ‘This is my—our—library.’

‘Wonderful! I was hoping the house had one.’ Sally started forwards, but the admiral neatly hooked the sash on the back of her dress and reeled her in.

‘Over my prone and desiccated corpse, Sophia,’ he said. ‘If you think these cherubs are … ah … interesting, you’ll be fair shocked by the walls in here. And the books. And the busts.’ He winced. ‘I’ve never seen such a collection of ribaldry under one roof. The earl seemed to prefer illustrations to words.’

‘My blushes,’ Sally said.

‘Mine, too, and I consider myself a pretty normal navy man.’ He laughed softly. ‘The old earl has me beat! I looked through one book and found myself darting glances over my shoulder, hoping my mother—she’s been dead nearly forty years—wasn’t standing close enough to box my ears and send me to bed without any supper.’ He removed his hook from the back of her dress. ‘I’m not a man who believes in book burning, but I’m going to make an exception, in this case. We’ll make an evening of it.’

He continued down the hall, and she followed, shaking her head. He stopped before another door. ‘Speaking of meat … this is the way belowdeck to the galley.’ He straightened his shabby coat. ‘In case you are wondering, I am girding my loins. My cook is down there—don’t forget he is on strike.’

Sally stared at the door, and back at her husband. ‘Is he that terrifying?’

‘Let us just say he is French.’ He peered closer. ‘Right now, you are probably asking yourself how on earth you let yourself be talked into marriage to a certified lunatic and life in a house of, well, if not ill repute, then very bad art.’

He started to say something else, but he was interrupted by a crack from the front entrance and the sound of bushes shaking. ‘I think Penelope has more on her tiny mind now than Odysseus’s continued absence,’ Bright murmured. ‘I will choose discretion over valour, and not even ask what you think of all this.’

You would be surprised, Admiral, she thought. I have never been so diverted. Sally took his arm and opened the door. ‘I think it is time I met your cook.’

Chapter Five

‘His name is Etienne Dupuis, and I won him with a high card after the Battle of Trafalgar,’ the admiral whispered as they went quietly down the stairs. ‘He was the best cook in the fleet, but he can be moody at times.’

‘This is one of those times, I take it,’ Sally whispered back. ‘Why are we whispering?’

‘He told me if I ever allowed my sisters here again, he would leave me to Starkey’s cooking and return to La Belle France.’

‘And would he?’

‘I don’t intend to find out.’ His lips were close to her ear, and she felt a little shiver down her spine. ‘Let us see how charming you can be, Mrs Bright.’

They came into a pleasant-sized servants’ hall. Thankfully, there were no cupids painted on these walls, but all was dark. The Rumford didn’t look as though there had been a fire lit for several days.

‘I think we’re too late,’ she whispered, not minding a bit that the admiral had pulled her close. ‘See here, sir, are you more afraid than I am?’

‘Absolutely,’ he told her. ‘You didn’t know you had married the coward of the Blue Fleet, did you? Good thing there was no Yellow Fleet. Stay close, Sophia. He threw a cleaver at me once.’

‘Goodness! In that case, I think I should stay far away!’

He took her hand and towed her further into the kitchen. ‘Etienne? I want you to meet my wife. She is the kindest creature in the galaxy.’

Sally smiled. ‘You don’t even know me,’ she whispered into his shoulder.

‘I think I do,’ he told her, raising her hand in his and kissing it. ‘You’ve been here twenty minutes at least, and you haven’t run screaming away from this den of iniquity I purchased. I call that a kindness. Etienne? She’s nothing like my sisters. Can we declare a truce?’

The admiral nodded towards the fireplace and a high-backed chair, where a little puff of smoke plumed. The man in the chair—she could see only his feet—didn’t move or say anything. He cleared his throat and continued to puff.

‘He’s more than usually stubborn,’ Bright whispered.

‘He sounds very much like the old ladies I tended,’ Sally whispered back. She released her grip on the admiral. ‘Let me see what I can do.’ She couldn’t help herself. ‘What is it worth to you, sir?’ she teased.

Before he spoke, the admiral gave her such a look that she felt her stomach grow warm. ‘How about a wedding ring that fits?’ he asked at last, with the humorous look she was used to already, the one that challenged her to match his wit.

‘Solid gold and crusted with diamonds,’ she teased. ‘And an emerald or two.’

Sally picked up a chair at the servants’ table and put it down next to the high-backed chair. She seated herself, not looking at the little man. ‘I’m Sophia Bright,’ she said.

There was a grunt from the chair, but nothing more.

‘Honestly, how can my husband even imagine you can work in this place, with no pots-and-pans girl, and no assistant? What was he thinking? And his sisters? That’s more than even a saint could endure. I shouldn’t be surprised if you have already packed your valise.’

Another puff. Then, ‘I have been thinking long and hard about packing.’

‘I could never blame you,’ she said, shivering a little. ‘Do you have enough bed covering down here? I believe it would be no trouble to find a proper footstool for your chair. I will go look right now.’

That was all it took. The little man got up from his chair and bowed. ‘Etienne Dupuis at your service, Lady Bright. Bah! What would I do with a footstool?’

‘Make yourself more comfortable?’ she asked, keeping her voice innocent. ‘And I will worry about you, shivering down here in the dark.’

In a moment, the chef had pulled down the lamp over the table, lit it and sent it back up. He shook coal into the grate and lit it, then turned to the Rumford. ‘Would madam care for tea?’

‘I’d love some, Etienne, but I know you are a busy man and it isn’t time for tea yet. Besides … weren’t you about to pack?’

‘I will make time,’ he said, bowing graciously again and ignoring her question. ‘I shall have Starkey serve tea on the terrace.’

‘That is so kind of you,’ she said, not daring to look her husband in the eyes. She could see that he had not moved from where she had left him. ‘Perhaps some tea for the admiral, too.’ She leaned closer in a conspiratorial manner. ‘Poor man. It’s not his fault that he has such sisters.’

‘I suppose it is not,’ the chef said, busying himself in the pantry now. ‘They order me about and tell me what to do in my own kitchen! Me!’

Sally tisked several times and frowned. ‘Not any more, Etienne. I am here.’

‘You think you can stop them?’ he asked, waving his hands about.

‘I know I can,’ she answered simply, mentally shouting down every qualm rattling around in her brain. ‘There are no limits to what I would do to preserve the sanctity of your kitchen.’

Dupuis stopped and blew a kiss in her direction. He looked at the admiral. ‘Sir! Wherever did you meet such a gem?’

‘In a hotel dining room, Etienne. Where else?’

The chef laughed and smiled in conspiratorial fashion at Sally. ‘He is such a wit.’ He made a shooing motion with his hands. ‘Zut, zut! Upstairs now!’ He drew himself up. ‘Etienne Dupuis will produce!’

Sally clapped her hands. ‘You are everything my darling husband said, and more! In future, perhaps you would not mind showing me at the beginning of each week what you plan for meals? Just a little glimpse.’

He bowed elaborately this time. ‘I will bring my menus upstairs to your sitting room each Monday. And you might be thinking of your favourite foods.’

Lately it has been anything, Sally thought. I am just partial to eating again. ‘An excellent arrangement,’ she said. ‘This, sir, is your domain.’ She nodded to him, turned on her heel and rejoined her dumbfounded husband. ‘Come, my dearest, let us return to the terrace. I believe I saw some wrought-iron chairs there.’

With a smile, Bright held out his arm to her. ‘Amazing,’ he murmured. ‘My dearest?’

‘He is French and we are newly married. Do you have a better idea?’

The admiral glanced back at the chef, who was watching them, and put his arm around her waist. ‘I rather like it. Sophia, peace is suddenly getting interesting. I thought it never would.’

What he said, whether he even understand or not, went right to her heart. She impulsively put her hands on his shoulders. ‘I do believe I understand you now.’ She said it softly, so Etienne would not hear. ‘You’ve been at loose ends.’

He would have backed off, but she had him. His eyes narrowed. ‘You’re sounding a little like my sisters, Sophia.’

‘I probably am,’ she answered, on sure ground. ‘I am a female, after all. They reckoned you needed a wife. I reckon you just need a purpose. The war is over.’

It sounded so simple that Sally wondered if he would laugh at her nonsense. To her horror at first, tears filled his eyes. ‘My goodness,’ she said softly, when she recovered herself. ‘I’m not so certain you knew that.’

He said nothing, because he couldn’t. She took a handkerchief out of her sleeve and quickly wiped his eyes. ‘There now. We will have to brush old leaves and bird droppings, and heavens knows what else, off those chairs.’

The admiral said nothing as they walked down the hall, but he refused to release her hand, even when Etienne was not around to watch. On the terrace, he sized up the situation and found a piece of pasteboard to brush off the leaves from two chairs. He indicated one with a flourish and she sat down.

That’s what it is, she thought, as she watched him tackle the wrought-iron table. He needs a purpose. I do hope he doesn’t regret his hasty marriage already, because I still need a home.

He sat down beside her. ‘I have never seen anyone deal so quickly with Etienne, and I have known him for years. How did you know what to do?’

‘I believe I discovered the key when I was lady’s companion to what I will charitably call crotchety old women. All they ever needed was someone to listen to them. I listened.’ She put her hand on the admiral’s arm. ‘Don’t you see? In all his years of war and loss, and humiliation, I suppose, at being won in a card game, Etienne’s refuge has been his kitchen. If something threatens it, he goes to pieces.’

The admiral looked at her, making no move to draw away from her light touch. ‘I should just humour him?’

‘What do you lose by humouring him? I doubt he makes many demands.’

He reflected a moment. ‘No, he never has, really.’ He leaned forwards. ‘How do you propose to keep my sisters out of his kitchen?’

‘I’ll bar the door if I have to,’ she replied. Challenged by this man, she leaned forwards, too, until their noses were nearly touching. ‘This is my house, too, now, unless you’ve changed your mind already.’

She sat back then, suddenly shy, and he did the same, but with a half-smile on his face. ‘Change my mind?’ he said. ‘When you have declared that you will be a buffer for my chef, and probably even for me, as well? Only an idiot would change his mind.’

He closed his eyes and turned his face to the sun. ‘Peace,’ he said finally. ‘Sophia, I have missed out on everything in life because of Napoleon—a … a … wife, family, children, a home, a bed that doesn’t sway, clean water, fresh meat, smallclothes not washed in brine, for God’s sake, neighbours, new books from lending libraries, Sunday choir—you name it. I didn’t know how to court, so look what I did.’ He opened his eyes, looked at her and hastily added, ‘About that, be assured I have no regrets, Sophia. One doesn’t become an admiral of the fleet without a healthy dose of dumb luck.’

She was silent a long moment, looking out to sea, wondering what to make of the events of the past two days that had changed her life completely. ‘Perhaps my luck is changing, too.’

‘Count on it, wife.’

She was not so confident to take his assurance for fact. The last five years had shown her all too clearly how swiftly things could change. But then, she reasoned later, why could they not change for the good, too? Maybe the admiral was right.

They spent a pleasant afternoon on the terrace, drinking Etienne’s fragrant tea and eating the biscuits he brought out later, warm and toasted from the Rumford, which must have sprung back to life as soon as they had left the kitchen.

Sally was content to sit on the terrace, even in its shabby, unswept state, because the view was so magnificent. Also, she had no wish to enter the house again. As she sat, she began to think about the ramshackle garden in front of her.

‘Herbs would be nice,’ she commented.

‘Herb’s what?’ he teased.

She rolled her eyes. ‘Were you this much trouble to your sisters when you were young?’

‘Probably.’ He looked where she was looking. ‘Funny. All I see is the ocean and you see the land.’

‘Herbs right there in that closest weedy patch. Lavender, thyme, rosemary. Etienne will thank me. I would put roses there. The possibilities are endless.’

Clouds gathered overhead. When the rain began, the admiral held out his hand to her. ‘Looks like we are forced to go inside. May I suggest the bookroom? I think it is a place the old earl seldom entered, because he never decorated there.’

He was right; the bookroom was bereft of statues or cupids behaving badly. After indicating a chair, he sat down at the desk and took out a sheet of paper. Sally moved closer and uncapped the inkwell. The admiral nodded his thanks, then took up the pen and rested his hook on the paper to anchor it.

‘First things first, Sophia. Name it.’

‘More servants. I will ask Etienne what sort of staff he requires. We should have a downstairs maid, an upstairs maid and a ‘tween-stairs girl. Gardeners. Would Starkey like a footman?’

‘Probably. We need painters with copious buckets of paint.’ He stopped and leaned his elbows on the desk. ‘Sophia, how to we find these people? On board ship, I spoke and everyone jumped.’

‘We need a steward—someone who knows the area who can find these people for us.’

He wrote, still frowning. ‘Starkey might think I am infringing on his territory. Still, how do I find a steward?’

Sally thought a moment. ‘We pay a call on your neighbours.’

‘What, and poach from them?’

‘You are a trial, Admiral. I wish I had known this yesterday.’

His lips twitched. ‘I’m not doing this on purpose. I’m out of my depth here.’

‘I repeat: tomorrow we will visit your closest neighbours. You will leave your card, explain the situation—I am certain they are already well aware of what this house looks like—and throw yourself on their mercy. If you are charming, they will provide assistance.’

‘And if I am not?’

‘You are charming, Mr Bright.’ She felt her cheeks grow warm when he looked at her. ‘Do you even know who your neighbours are, sir?’

‘The one directly next to us is an old marquis who seldom ventures off his property. A bit of a misanthrope, according to the real estate agent.’

‘Any other neighbours?’

He gestured vaguely in the other direction. ‘Across the lane is Jacob Brustein and his wife, Rivka. He’s the banker in Plymouth who partners with William Carter. Or did. I think Carter has been dead for years, but the name always gave Brustein some clout. My sisters were appalled.’

She considered this information. ‘Tomorrow morning, we will visit your neighbours.’

He looked at his list. ‘Don’t you need a maid to help you with your clothes?’

Sally shook her head. ‘The dress you saw me in, in the dining room, one cloak, a shawl, a nightgown and this blue dress constitute my wardrobe.’

He dipped the pen in the inkwell. ‘One wardrobe for the lady of the house and suits for me. Then you will need a lady’s maid. A laundress, too?’

She nodded, feeling the pinch of poverty again, even though she sat in a comfortable room. ‘I’m sorry to be a burden.’

He waved the list to dry the ink. ‘Burden? Look at all this sound advice you have given me.’ He reached across the table for her hand. ‘Sophia, pay attention. I am only going to say this once, since the subject of money seems to embarrass you. As much as I disliked Napoleon, I grew rich off of him. This paltry list won’t make much of a dent. It won’t, even when I add a carriage and horses, and a coachman, and someone to clean—whatever you call it—from the stables.’

‘Try muck.’

The admiral tipped back his chair and laughed. ‘Very well! Muck. I can see that your principal task will be to smooth my rough edges.’

‘Very well, sir.’

Starkey knocked on the door, then opened it. ‘Dupuis wanted me to tell you that dinner is served in the breakfast room. I have covered the scabrous paintings.’ He closed the door, then opened it again. ‘Penelope and Odysseus are gone,’ he intoned. ‘Or maybe she was Venus and he a typical sailor.’

Sally stared after him. ‘This place is a lunatic asylum,’ she said, when Starkey closed the door.

‘Not quite, dear wife. You have a worse task ahead, one I won’t even bother to immortalise on paper. You must find me something useful to do.’

That will be a chore, she thought, as she removed her clothes that night in the privacy of her own bedroom. Starkey had made the bed at some point in the evening and lit a fire in the grate, which took away the chill of the rain that continued to fall.

Dinner had been sheer delight. On short notice, Etienne had prepared a wonderful onion soup and served it with homely pilot bread, a menu item she remembered well from the days when Andrew would bring home his work and pore over the Royal Navy victual list, as she sat knitting in their tidy bookroom.

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