Convenient Christmas Brides. Louise Allen

       Chapter Eight

      ‘I am starting to remind myself of every stereotype about the Royal Navy that I ever heard of,’ Joe told his shaving mirror before breakfast. ‘You dog, you.’

      He tried to let dismay at his casual behaviour last night exact its obvious toll, but all he felt was pleasantly tuned up. He had slept well for the first night in ages. He knew tackling ivy and chatting with Miss Newsome would not be onerous.

      She waited for him in the breakfast room, still dressed in sombre black, but with high colour to her face. ‘Good morning, Captain Everard. I trust you slept well?’

      ‘Better than any night in recent memory,’ he replied as he eyed the bacon all lined up like good soldiers on the sideboard. ‘I am about to embarrass myself here.’

      ‘I asked Cook to fry extra bacon. Have all you want.’

      He took her at her word and finished by overburdening his plate with enough eggs to maintain proper balance. Two slices of toast continued the symmetry. He sat down and eyed her single baked egg and one slice of bacon.

      ‘Miss Newsome, you will dry up and blow away with that short ration,’ he commented.

      ‘Hasn’t happened yet,’ she said, placing a napkin in her lap. She got up and added two more slices of bacon. ‘You’re right. I don’t want to blow away.’

      Joe tried to be proper and cut his bacon. A glance at Miss Newsome picking up her bacon gave him leave to follow suit and made her laugh.

      ‘I’ll tell you a story on me, Captain,’ she said, wiping her lips. ‘A mild-mannered fellow, Weltby’s solicitor, started visiting me. Papa assured me he was interested, so I humoured him. Here is the odd part: For two years he showed up Tuesdays, ate breakfast with us, of all things, and sat silent in the sitting room until he left for work. He stared at me; it was unnerving. Breakfast?’

      Two years? What is wrong with the men of Kent? he thought as he happily dispatched a fried egg.

      ‘After two years, I decided there would never be an offer of marriage, which, truth to tell, I found reassuring,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he liked the food. One morning I picked up my bowl of porridge and said, “Sir, I am taking our peculiar courtship to an entirely new level.”’ She laughed out loud. ‘I drank the milk from the bowl. He ran out of the house and was never seen again.’

      Joe leaned back in his chair and joined her laughter. ‘Miss Newsome, you two would never have suited.’

      ‘Precisely. Answer me this: Captain, would you cry off if the lady you had been courting for two years suddenly drank from the porridge bowl?’

      ‘In the first place, I cannot imagine such a scenario,’ he said. ‘In the second place, two years? You can drink from that vase of mums over there, if you wish. I am indifferent to the matter.’

      It was her turn to laugh and promise him she had no such plans. ‘Mama did lament that I would probably never have another such opportunity,’ Miss Newsome told him. ‘Opportunity for what, I should have asked her.’

      He finished breakfast with Miss Newsome, pleased with her easy manner and good humour. There she sat in full mourning, vibrantly alive.

      ‘Mama has been resisting my hints that the house needed more greenery to properly celebrate the season,’ she told him as they started to walk down the fence row to the nearest copse. ‘When I suggested you and I might go hunt the wild ivy before you left, she practically leaped about in agreement. I swear I do not know what has got into her.’

      ‘I’m grateful she let me tell her about her son,’ he said, transferring the basket to his other arm so he could steady her on an icy patch. Well, it looked icy to him.

      ‘We have all been too silent since your letter.’ She stopped. ‘How many of those do you write, sir?’

      He considered, knowing the butcher’s bill would startle her. ‘Let me think: I have been a post captain for eight years. Before that I was a captain. Before that, first lieutenant for a captain who never could bring himself to write such missives. Probably more than two hundred, Miss Newsome. Fleet actions are a nasty business, but so are accidents and illnesses.’

      ‘You poor man. And we only had to receive one.’

      ‘It’s not the same,’ He knew the personal loss he suffered with each death, whether the sailor was a second lieutenant like David Newsome, or an able seaman. Joe was the man in charge, until a battle or disease reminded him he was no such thing. ‘It’s not the same.’

      He looked into her eyes and doubted she believed a word of it.

      ‘Thank you for your sacrifice.’ She hurried on ahead, either giving him a moment to grieve, or her such a moment. Perhaps it was both.

      He joined Miss Newsome at a stone wall which had once formed the back of a crofter’s cottage, from the looks of it. She simply stood there, staring at the ivy.

      ‘Miss Newsome?’ he said cautiously. ‘I’d offer you a penny for your thoughts, but I suspect I know them.’

      She turned around, startled, then relaxed. ‘Perhaps not. This is the time of day when class begins in the school for tenants’ children that I used to teach.’

      ‘I had no idea,’ he said. ‘I assumed you lived quietly at home.’

      ‘I educated children for five years,’ she said and he watched her eyes soften. ‘Lovely children.’

      ‘May I ask...?’

      Her eyes hardened then. ‘Lord Blankenship, who employs my father, informed me that he had a poor relation needing work. I was released and another put in my place.’

      She pursed her lips together and frowned. Joe knew if this were his misfortune, he would be swearing and throwing things about. Obviously Miss Newsome was better equipped for ill fortune than he was.

      ‘But, sir, here is holly, with berries properly red. You cut there and I will hold this end.’

      He did as she asked, struck by the fact that a woman of Miss Newsome’s obvious calibre would even consider work. When he finished, she deftly wound the length of ivy into the basket he had set down.

      ‘Lord Blankenship has found me similar employment in Norfolk,’ she said. ‘I am to go there on the mail coach after Christmas.’

      ‘I confess I do not understand why you need employment,’ he said, then knew he owed her an immediate apology for inserting himself in family matters that were none of his business. ‘Beg pa—’

      ‘Oh, please, not that,’ she interrupted. ‘Perhaps we Newsomes appear more genteel than you think.’

      ‘I never thought...’

      Shut up, Joe, he told himself. Admit your interest, at least to yourself.

      She indicated a rustic bench and sat down, giving him leave to do the same.

      ‘Papa is an estate manager of several large properties,’ she said, ‘but we fall far short of gentry. What is your background, sir, if I may ask?’

      ‘You may. My father was a solicitor in Cornwall,’ he said. ‘My mother was of the friendly persuasion.’

      ‘My goodness, a Quaker,’ Miss Newsome said. ‘What did she think of your profession, if I may be so bold?’

      ‘She died before I went to sea. My father remarried and his new wife was happy to see me gone. She brought several hopeful offspring to the connection’, he said, leaving it at that.

      Miss Newsome gave him a sympathetic look, which took him aback. No one