It Happened One Christmas: Christmas Eve Proposal / The Viscount's Christmas Kiss / Wallflower, Widow...Wife!. Ann Lethbridge

      ‘Surely you never expected to stay at Walthan Manor, Master Muir?’

      What a self-righteous prig Midshipman Tommy Walthan is, Sailing Master Benneit Muir said to himself. He’s a pipsqueak, a lump of lard and an earl’s son. God spare me.

      ‘Oh? I assumed that since you commissioned me to drill you in navigation methods, that I would be more useful close by.’ That was the right touch. Ben didn’t hold out much hope that any amount of tutoring would improve the wretched youth’s chances of passing his lieutenancy exams next year in 1811, but it was nearly Christmas and the sailing master had no plans.

      There wasn’t time to go home to Scotland, or much reason. The girls Ben had yearned for years ago were all married and mothers many times over. His mother was gone, his father too old to travel and his brothers in Canada.

      Walthan gave that stupid, octave-defying titter of his that felt like fingernails on slate. It had driven other midshipmen nearly to distraction, Ben knew, but at least it was one of the irritants that spurred others to pass their exams and exit the HMS Albemarle as quickly as possible. Even the captain, an amazingly patient man, had remarked that nothing short of the loss of his ship would ever rid them of Tom Walthan. No other captain wanted him, no matter how well connected his family.

      ‘Stay at Walthan? Lord, no, Master Muir! I can’t imagine what my mama would say, if you stepped from this post-chaise with your duffel. Better find a place in the village, sir.’ The midshipman coughed delicately into his sleeve. ‘You know, amongst people more of your own inclination.’

      Ben decided that the village would be far enough away from Walthan’s laugh, but he didn’t intend to sink without a struggle.

      ‘You’ll shout my room and board?’ Ben gave the midshipman the full force of the gallows glare he usually reserved for the quarterdeck. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford to pay his own whack, but he was tired of being cooped up in the post-chaise all the way from Plymouth with Tom Walthan, the midshipman from Hades.

      ‘If I must,’ Walthan said, after a lengthy sigh, that made Ben feel sorry for the lad’s nanny, gone now. He had no doubt that Walthan’s mother had long since given up on him.

      ‘I fear you must pay,’ Ben said. ‘Do you know of lodgings in Venable?’

      ‘How would I?’ Walthan waved his hand vaguely at the cliff edges and sea glimpses that formed the Devon coast. ‘Venable has a posting house. Try that.’

      Ben gave an inward sigh, nothing nearly as dramatic as Tom Walthan’s massive exhalation of breath, because he was not a show pony. He had hoped to find a quiet place to finally slit the pages on The Science of Nautical Mathematics and settle down to a cosy read. Posting houses were not known as repositories of silence.

      ‘Besides, I still must explain why I have asked you here to help me study for my exams,’ Walthan said. ‘The last time I wrote Mama, I was pretty sure I would pass.’ Another delicate cough. ‘And so I informed her.’

      ‘That attempt in Malta?’ Ben asked. He remembered the barge carrying four hopeful midshipmen into the harbour where an examination board of four captains sat. Three had returned excited and making plans, Walthan not