Seasons of War 2-Book Bundle (100 page)

Biscuit slunk toward them, his head respectfully bowed, and handed off two steaming mugs and — to Leander — the additional delicacy of a slushed biscuit. As quietly as he had come, he moved away in search of others who required sustenance.

“Let us follow Prosper’s lead and look off in another direction,” encouraged Leander, tearing Fly away from the tragedy unfolding on the waves, and leading him to the brig’s bow. “Look there! If you squint into that far-off cloud bank, I bet you’ll glimpse Land’s End.”

“Perhaps the Isles of Scilly?”

“Whatever! We’ll be home soon.”

Fly finally raised his misty eyes. “Not yet forty years of age the two of us, and we’re physical wrecks.”

“I’m a long way from forty. You on the other hand, Mr. Austen —”

“Ah, but you’re still an old wreck — an emaciated one at that. I would suggest you eat up that slushed biscuit, and try to include some meat in your diet tonight. We’ll need to smarten you up if you ever hope to win the favour of a certain princess.” He smiled sadly. “If not for your friendship, Lee, this cruise would have been intolerable.”

The exhaustion and emotion of Leander’s surgery suddenly overwhelmed him. His words caught in his throat. “And yet the cost … my debt to you —”

The embers of life that had begun to stir in Fly’s face were extinguished by alarm. “You’ve — you’ve come to tell me then that Mr. Evans has died.”

Leander’s fist bounced near his mouth; he could only nod.

Fly wandered the bow in agitated circles before stopping to lean against the bowsprit. His sorrowful groan sliced through Leander like the surgical knife he had just held in his hands.

“The odds were stacked against him. If only it’d just been his arm —”

“Infection? I know that’s always your concern.”

“No. Blood loss.”

“Is there anyone … sitting with him?” Fly whispered brokenly.

“Magpie will stay with him until we hold his funeral service.”

“Bless our brave little sailmaker.”

“The boy grieves as if he’s lost an older brother.”

“Yes,” said Fly, contemplating the blue-green waves. “And I have lost a most cherished son.”

Leander touched his friend’s shoulder in sympathy.

“I shall not bury him in the North Sea or the Atlantic. There’s a little churchyard at Wymering in Portsmouth; I shall take him there. That way he will always stay close to the sea. It may ease his sisters’ minds to know where he is lying.” Tears slipped from Fly’s tired eyes. “It surely will ease mine.”

37

Monday, August 30

8:30 p.m.

Hartwood Hall

“What’s all yer tarryin’
about? Everyone’s waitin’ downstairs fer ya!”

Emily jumped in fright when that scolding meddler, Glenna McCubbin, suddenly filled her bedroom doorway, sending her sidling toward the desk to shield the items she had arranged there. “Is Uncle Clarence here yet?”

“Nay! He’ll likely arrive when the guests do.”

Emily’s stomach was a bunched knot of anxiety. She prayed her uncle had news — encouraging news this time. “Then what’s the hurry? I haven’t yet heard the expected barouches and phaetons below my window.”

“Her Grace and Lord Monroe want to see yer gown.”

“Lord Monroe? Since when did Wetherell become an authority on women’s fashion?”

“They want to make certain ya look satisfactory.”

“Satisfactory?” chirped Emily.

Glenna planted her fists on her hips to carry out her inspection. “Lud! That gown won’t do.”

Emily took a languid glance at herself in the mirror. “What’s wrong with it?”

“White doesn’t suit ya, and that absurd lace ruffle at yer neck reminds me o’ my prudish Aunt Euphemia.”

“This gown was made for me.”

Glenna stomped toward the wardrobe. “I’ll find ya somethin’ more comely.”

“No!” cried Emily, springing in front of her. “I am not changing. I don’t mind blending with the crowds tonight.”

“Well ya won’t, not with all the bosoms what’s sure to be on display!”

“Let Lord Monroe garner all the admiring glances tonight.”

Glenna wrinkled her nose. “Have ya bin cryin’ agin?”

“I’m fine,” snapped Emily, detesting her note of hysteria. “Let me just affix a rose in my hair — I brought some red ones in from the garden earlier — and I’ll be down shortly. I promise.”

“Ya need a maid. When yer properly married, they’ll see to gettin’ ya one.”

Itching to be rid of her, Emily did not inquire who
they
meant. “I am on pins and needles in anticipation!”

Seeing a narrowing of Glenna’s eyes and realizing another lecture was about to be unleashed, Emily acted swiftly. Rushing toward her old nursemaid, hoping to squeeze the breath from her, she embraced her, relieved — upon untangling herself — to see her face flushed with joyful surprise.

“Ya haven’t given me one o’ those fer a long while, Pet.”

“I am sorry. I truly am.”

“No need fer apologies; just make haste —
make haste
.”

When a placated Glenna had at last departed, Emily blocked the door with a chair and hurried to the wardrobe to drag out the pillowcase she had stashed away on the floor behind her suspended gowns. On her knees, she took stock — one more time — to make certain she had everything she would need and everything she held dear. There, sitting atop her neatly folded sailor gear and the blue-and-white-striped dress, were Jane Austen’s volumes of
Pride and Prejudice
, and the bundle of unread letters Somerton had finally relinquished to her. Captain Moreland’s letter was there too, for Emily could not bear to leave it behind. Fishing inside a silk slipper, her fingers reassuringly closed around the £50 note she had won playing cards. Her glance then travelled to the desk. Propped up against her silver inkwell, addressed to the Admiralty, in care of the Duke of Clarence, was the letter in which she had written a detailed account of her experiences on HMS
Isabelle
and the USS
Serendipity
. Alongside it sat Helena’s esteemed emerald ring. Smiling to herself, for there was nothing more she needed to do, she sealed up the pillowcase with a scarf.

Emily’s eyes fell on her small sea chest. Her quivering hands sought the lid, lingering there, caressing the roughness of its simple wood construction. She closed her eyes to gather the sea around her like a pair of wings, her heart and senses swiftly responding. The salty tang of the Atlantic tickled her nose; its bracing spray cooled her face. Beneath her feet, the ship’s timbers sighed, and overhead the billowing sails cracked and snapped in the fresh breeze. She could hear the bosun’s whistle and the beating drum, Captain Moreland giving his orders and the Isabelles’ heedful replies, and amidst all — like a soaring bird that heralds land — came the whispered words of Leander Braden.

“
You must know, Emeline Louisa Georgina Marie, that, above all else, I completely love and adore you.
”

A clock chimed the hour. The expected phaetons and barouches came clattering into the courtyard. Unwelcome voices rang out in cheerful greeting. Peals of piercing, high-pitched laughter floated upon the evening air. Along the corridor, heavy footfalls came marching toward her bedchamber; an impatient messenger rapped upon her door.

With a terrible grief clenching her breast, Emily banged the wardrobe shut and rose to face the night.

11:00 p.m.

When the music room’s
mantelpiece clock tolled the hour, Emily was certain only she was cognizant of it. Where was Uncle Clarence? He
had
hoped to attend the ball. Was he afraid to face her then? Had he received confirmation that the
Amethyst
was lost? Had Trevelyan become a lurker in the backstreets of London, and her uncle was determined to singlehandedly root him out and present his head to the Admiralty?

Emily shrank against the wall beneath the portrait of Octavius. Sitting woodenly on a cushioned stool beside her was Fleda, her dead eyes watching the dancers. In her curls and ribboned muslin of duck-egg blue, she was a forsaken figure, all but forgotten in the corner of the music room to which her mother had banished her. Unable to cheer Fleda up — for her own condition was one of restless turmoil — Emily sipped on a goblet of pink punch, her eyes on the lookout for Wetherell in his violet and sapphire suit. So much for the Whist tables! “Your Royal Highness,” he had said after his fiercely critical scrutiny of her plain white gown, “I intend to dance every last cotillion and reel with you. Do not insult me by taking up with another partner.” Had he forgotten she had rebuffed his ridiculous proposal of marriage? Emily shook her head and shuddered in remembrance of his dry, doughy hands, his pointed toes as he performed ballet-style steps, and the staleness of his perspiring body as they whirled around the dance floor. She would have welcomed rescuing from Somerton, but
he
was far too busy to supply her with charity, lapping up the worshipping attentions of the single ladies who had sewn him up in an impenetrable circle of bare shoulders and smiles.

Without warning, Emily’s goblet was seized and dispensed with, and she was summarily dragged through the door and into the antechamber by the stout woman-friend of her Uncle Clarence, the one named Mrs. Jiggins — with the happy disposition — who had professed her notions on sailors and carnal recreation at the previous ball. Tonight the wiggly folds of her throat were constrained with pearls and her turban of pleated gauze was embellished with glittering amethysts and one very large ostrich plume.

“My dear, tell me,” she said, her voice slurring with drink, “when will your uncles be arriving?”

“I believe you mean my
uncle
… in the singular.”

“Oh, do I?”

“I’m hoping Uncle Clarence will be here soon.”

“Ah! And tell me,” she went on, leaning in, her hot, sour breath hitting Emily’s cheek, “when will His Grace be making the announcement?”

“What announcement?”

“Oh, come now, don’t be coy. You know perfectly well what I’m alluding to.”

Emily turned to face the woman. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

The woman’s fingers sought her vermilion lips and then fluttered on the base of her pearl-laden neck. “Oh, you sly thing!” she laughed. “You want to surprise everyone! Do not worry yourself, for Helena told only
me
in the strictest confidence.”

Emily’s blazing eyes went hunting for the Duchess of Belmont, but ideas of violent revenge were cooled when Wetherell’s vividness swelled before her, backing her up against a marble column.

“Ladies!”

He swept the parquet floor with an elaborate bow as if hoping to impress Emily with his prevailing ability to touch his toes, and then his fingers clamped her elbow like iron manacles. “Excuse us, Mrs. Jiggins,” he grinned, “but I must away with this exquisite creature to execute a longways country dance.”

11:30 p.m.

As soon as Emily spotted
the distinctive pineapple head of her Uncle Clarence milling about in the antechamber, and before the master of ceremonies had trumpeted his arrival to the music room crowd, Emily made her graceful excuses to Wetherell — her ankle required a respite — and hurried away to pull her unsuspecting relative into the empty schoolroom.

“Uncle, please, what news?”

Having arrived later than anticipated, Uncle Clarence was in a flustered state and none too pleased. “Emeline, might we discuss all later on? It was an exhausting ride from London and I’m in need of a bowl of punch.” He inclined his neck to view the glittering guests passing by the open doorway. “The ladies are quirking their eyebrows at me in their eagerness to dance.”

“For one moment, Uncle, do forget the ladies.”

His reply followed an edgy sigh. “It’s too soon. There’s nothing further to report on either the whereabouts of Trevelyan or HMS
Amethyst
. The only good piece of news is that this damned business with Trevelyan has not yet been leaked, thus, our Royal Navy has forestalled exceeding embarrassment. Oh, but your family, Emeline — the one you claim has forgotten you — has managed to secure your annulment. How fortunate you are to have royal relations, able to secure favours in the wink of an eye. Tonight you may show your gratitude and tomorrow we shall pray for Trevelyan’s recapture and perhaps word of your mariner friends.”

Emily broke eye contact with him, turning away, feeling as if the merry dancers had skipped and trampled upon her heart. She was scarcely responsive when a chorus of exclamations pealed through the halls and chambers beyond the schoolroom, instantaneously shushing the guests and the band’s lively tune. Ball gowns swished, throats cleared and swallowed, and Emily thought she heard Helena’s hysterical tweet of laughter pierce the ensuing stillness.

Uncle Clarence clapped his hands together. “Come along, Emeline. This is the moment for which we’ve all been waiting.”

“Who has come?” she asked breathlessly.

“My brother and your uncle, the Prince Regent.”

“The Regent?” Emily caught his arm, delaying him from making a dash for the door. “Why? After all this time, why has he come now?”

Uncle Clarence winked a round blue eye. “You’ll not find out unless you follow me to the music room.”

38

11:30 p.m.

(First Watch, Seven Bells)

Aboard the
Prosperous and Remarkable

Having climbed down
to the orlop surgery from the gun deck where Fly had slung a new hammock for him beside a restorative open port, Leander lifted his lantern in the black darkness to check on Magpie. The boy was still there, slumped over the operating table with his head resting against the side of the oak coffin that Pemberton had solemnly constructed to hold Morgan’s remains. Leander set the lantern upon the table and squatted down on his haunches beside him.

“Is that you, sir?” said a sleepy voice.

“Magpie, could I convince you to come away and sleep on the gun deck?”

“I’m keepin’ vigil over Mr. Evans, sir. But I ain’t doin’ a good job ’cause I’ve drifted off a few times.”