Ransome's Quest (42 page)

The housekeeper protested, but Julia did not listen, pulling Jerusha out onto the front porch with her just in time to see the carriage pull up into the circle drive. Julia smiled at William, Ned, and then frowned.

“They made the admiral and his wife ride facing backwards.” What must they think of William’s manners? The guests of honor were always given the forward facing seat.

The gold braid along the brim of the admiral’s hat sparkled in the late afternoon sun. Though the side points of the modified version of an old tricorn swished from side to side as he looked around, he never turned his head far enough so that Julia could see his face. Beside him sat a woman wearing a deep-brimmed bonnet, a veil fluttering from its edges.

The carriage stopped and Ned climbed down first, followed by William. Julia caught herself from calling out the instruction that they were supposed to let their guests descend first.

William smiled up at them as he climbed down from the carriage to the ground at the bottom of the porch steps.

“Mrs. Goodland, Mrs. Ransome. May I have the honor of introducing you to the new admiral of Jamaica station?”

The man climbed down, his head lowered so the hat hid his face. Julia ducked her head, trying to see him. And then he looked up.

She gasped. “Papa?”

His craggy face broke into a grin, and he took the steps two at a time and swept her up into his arms. “Oh, my bonny girl.”

“Papa, it’s really you! You’re here, in Jamaica.”

He set her down and tweaked her chin. “You act as though you haven’t seen me in years. It has only been about three months, by my calculation.”

“Oh, Papa. What a three months, though.”

He caressed her cheek. “So William has told me. We shall have time to speak of everything, but not now. Not tonight.” He turned to Jerusha. “Mrs. Goodland, a delight to see you again.”

“And you, Sir Edward. What a welcome sight you are. I’ll go in and make some refreshments ready.”

Charlotte came out as Jerusha went in. Her eyes widened at the sight of Julia’s father, and after a startled glance at Julia she dropped into a deep curtsey. “Welcome home, Sir Edward.”

“Miss Ransome”—he cast a glance over his shoulder at Ned before continuing—“or should I call you Mrs. Cochrane? I am not certain.”

She sighed. “I am not certain myself anymore. Everyone around here calls me Miss Charlotte as we don’t know what my proper name is.”

At the bottom of the steps, Ned’s face went from smiling to warning in an instant, but only Julia saw it.

“Come, Julia, Miss Charlotte, there is someone I want you to meet.”

Julia’s heart suddenly stuttered and then started again with an irregular beat. William’s note had said he was bringing the admiral
and his wife.
She swallowed hard. The memories of Mama were still vivid in this house even more than eighteen months after her death.

Admiral Witherington reached up to help down the veil-shrouded lady. “Julia, Miss Charlotte, I have the great honor of introducing you to my wife, Lady Witherington.”

The woman reached up and swept her creamy veil back.

Charlotte grabbed Julia’s arm with painful intensity. “Mama?”

The woman removed the bonnet, revealing without a doubt that she was indeed Charlotte and William’s mother. She opened her arms and her daughter ran to her, sobbing, apologizing, and expressing her astonishment at seeing her in Jamaica.

Julia’s head buzzed with questions. She looked up into her father’s green eyes and found she could not ask one.

Behind them Charlotte’s excited voice began detailing her experiences since the moment she sneaked out of Susan and Collin Yates’s townhouse the day before
Audacious
and
Alexandra
set sail from Portsmouth.

Sir Edward took Julia’s hand and tucked it under his elbow, leading her to the porch steps. “We shall tell all at supper.” He stopped halfway up the steps and pinned her with a worried gaze. “You…you aren’t angry with me for remarrying, are you?”

“Papa, I—” Words jumbled in her throat. “Mrs. Ransome?”

He ran his knuckles along her jaw. “That is you now, my dear.”

Charlotte’s voice stopped suddenly. Julia looked down to see why and saw Charlotte staring, dismayed, up at the porch. Julia turned and looked up. And her stomach lurched.

Her father stiffened. Michael froze.

Julia looked at William, who shook his head at her.

“M-Michael?” Sir Edward stepped back and would have fallen down the steps had not Julia steadied him.

Michael’s confused gaze sought Julia’s.

“Papa is the new admiral of Jamaica station, Michael. He’s come home—and he’s remarried.” She prayed her brother and father could reconcile, like the father and prodigal son in the book of Luke. She had read the story so many times since Michael returned to her life that she almost had it memorized.

Michael nodded, his expression hardening. “Then I suppose it is good that I will be leaving for Philadelphia just as soon as possible.”

T
he study door slammed closed. Julia flinched and ushered everyone—everyone but her father and Michael—into the large formal sitting room at the front of the house.

William sat in the chair adjacent to the end of the settee where his mother sat, looking for all the world as if this were any other normal day. As if he expected her father to listen to what Michael had to say rationally, calmly, and make his judgments objectively.

Jerusha brought in a tray with two decanters: one of wine and the other of fruit juice. For the first time ever, Julia chose wine over juice. “Mrs. Rans—I am sorry, Lady Witherington. How did you and my father come to be married?”

William’s mother tasted the juice and looked up to thank Jerusha, who poured her a full serving. “I know it must be difficult on you, especially, Julia, to know I am married to your father, to hear me called by your mother’s title. I do not want to distress you. You must call me Maria. Or, as I have already offered, Mama.”

The warmth of emotion from that day, which seemed so long ago but was only a few months back, rushed in. The day William’s mother had accepted Julia as her own daughter.

“Thank you…Mama.” As soon as she said it, it sounded right.

Not like the raised voices she could just make out coming from the study on the opposite side of the house. She glanced at William. She had been right. There would be yelling.

“Your father and I have known each other for years, ever since my dear George’s funeral. Your father and George were close friends, and he promised George he would look after our family. He made certain the boys were well placed and that Charlotte and I had what we needed.”

“Nothing I did was ever good enough for you!”

Julia closed her eyes, cleared her throat, and affixed a smile on her face. “And then you saw each other again in Portsmouth this summer.”

“Yes. It was the first time since the funeral, but I felt as if I knew him well through his friendship with George and the way he took William under his wing.” Maria Witherington smiled at her eldest son.

“You should have had courage enough to tell me you did not want to join the Royal Navy!”

Maria glanced in the direction Michael and Sir Edward had disappeared. “I-I could see your father still grieved for your mother, Julia. I understood his pain, so whenever I had the opportunity I made sure he knew he could talk to me if he ever wanted to.”

“…
compared me to William Ransome my entire life!”

“I am certain he appreciated that.” Julia looked toward the study and then toward William. He squirmed a bit in his chair at his name being brought into it. She’d warned him it would come to this.

Maria smoothed her hand down her skirt. “Your father has such a sensitive soul.”

“Now you’re being idiotic, Michael!”

Julia burst out into nervous laughter. “Yes, currently on display for all of us to hear.”

Her quip and the laughter that followed helped release the tension in the room. “So you helped Father through his grief?”

“Yes. He held on to so much from when Michael die—disappeared that your mother’s death was nearly his undoing. If you had not returned to England with him, I do not know what might have happened to him.”

“Oh, yes, because a pirate is such a trustworthy sort.”

Julia looked at William and could tell he was thinking the same thing as she. If she had not returned to England, none of their lives would have turned out so well.

“As you recall, I returned to Gateacre to prepare for Philip’s homecoming before you left for Jamaica. Charlotte was supposed to go with the Fairfaxes to the country the morning before your ships left.”

“He made me feel like I was worth something, like I could accomplish whatever I set out to do.”

“And you set out to become a pirate? Brilliant idea!”

“Philip had been home but a day when an express arrived from Collin Yates telling me that if Charlotte was at home with me to keep her there until he could arrive to retrieve her. I did not know what was going on, so I waited. Two days later, he came. He’d been to the Fairfaxes’ country home looking for her, and they told him they had received a note from Charlotte saying she was staying in Portsmouth to assist with Lady Dalrymple’s daughter’s new baby. Collin knew that wasn’t true, so he figured Charlotte had decided to go home instead.”

“How foolish were you to believe such a thing?”

Maria put her arm around Charlotte’s shoulder, kissed her temple, and drew her close. “We thought you were dead. Captain Yates went to great expense trying to find you.”

William said, “I shall reimburse him, Mother.”

She patted her eldest son’s knee. “No need. Sir Edward has done so already.” She looked at Charlotte again. “And then your note arrived from Madeira. We knew you were safe but thought you were traveling with William and Julia, not disguised as a midshipman. Really, Charlotte.”

“You never responded to the ransom demand because you never wanted me for a son!”

“T
HERE WAS NO RANSOM DEMAND
! And you
ARE
my son. Want has nothing to do with it!”

Jerusha came back into the room, and Julia jumped to her feet. “Dinner. Shall we adjourn to the dining room?”

After William said a blessing over the meal, Maria continued her story. “Your father and I really have Charlotte to thank for bringing us together. I was in such a state when we could not discover where you had gone, and he comforted me.”

“He was back from London?” Julia speared several pieces of beef from a platter before passing it to Charlotte.

“Yes, fresh from his promotion to vice admiral and with new orders to take over in Jamaica. We had grown so close over those weeks. We thought as friends. But then, when it came time for him to leave, we could not say goodbye. So he asked me to come with him to Jamaica as his wife.” She stopped and cocked her head. “Are we farther away from the study in here?”

“No. They are no longer yelling—”

“Julia!” Her father’s voice boomed through the house.

Startled, she rose. William started to stand also, but she waved him back down. “If he wanted both of us, he would have called both of us.” She left the dining room and headed for the study.

Her father stood in the doorway, expression still stormy.

“Papa?”

“Where is the brandy?”

“What brandy?”

He clenched and unclenched his fists in front of him. “Every man’s study has brandy.”

“Papa, no man has lived in this house since before you bought the place. None except Jeremiah, and he does not use the study.” She looked past him into the room. Michael sat on the sofa, arms stretched out across its back, legs crossed. “Is everyhing…have you resolved your differences.”

“That’s what we need the brandy for.”

“I see. I will have some brought to you.”

“Thank you.” He stepped back into the room and closed the door.

Before she could return into the dining room, the butler greeted her at the door. Not so formally trained or utilized as those in England, he looked worried. “Is everything all right, Mrs. Ransome?”

“My father would like a bottle of brandy and two glasses brought to him in the study.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He marched off toward his pantry, where he must have had a bottle already prepared for the gentlemen for after dinner. Julia went back into the dining room and took her place at the foot of the table.

No one ate, but all looked down the table at her. “He wanted brandy.”