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The other riders nodded in sympathy and spoke quietly among themselves, content, apparently, to leave the Everards alone. The round fellow gave them a benign glance and settled back with his book again.
‘Dear wife?’ his incorrigible helpmeet whispered after she blew her nose.
‘Only the best for me, my heart,’ he whispered back, wondering where this gleeful streak was coming from. This earned him a little dig in his ribs, which further strengthened the reality that not one single midshipman on the Ulysses would recognise this side of their Captain. He would have to tell that to Verity when they had a moment alone.
Verity had relaxed against his shoulder, which touched his heart for some strange reason. Maybe she trusted him; more likely she was simply tired.
* * *
As the afternoon wore on, he became aware that the mail coach was travelling slower and slower. A glance out the window explained the matter. The rain that had started falling after their noon stop had turned into sleet and then slush.
Slower and slower, and then a stop. He looked out again, surprised at the gloom, then realised that he had returned to sleep as well, Verity tucked close to him and his head against hers.
He sat up carefully, not wanting to wake her. He heard the relief in the coachman’s voice when he announced they had arrived at Chittering Corner, where they would stop for the night. The other riders left the coach quickly, leaving them alone, which bothered Joe not a bit. With any luck, the silent rider had found his destination, which would simplify the rest of the trip. He gave his head a mental slap. What about the others who had heard his ‘dear wife’ remark?
Please, Lord, let them be from Chittering Corner and walking home now, he thought. It wasn’t too much to ask.
Joe touched Verity’s shoulder, feeling shy even though they had spent most of the afternoon cuddled close in sleep. She woke up and looked around, but stayed in his loose embrace.
‘Where are we?’
‘Chittering Corner,’ he said. ‘This is our stop for the night.’
‘Somehow I thought we would travel through to Norfolk.’
‘Unlikely, even in good weather,’ he told her. ‘Your strength does not lie in geography or navigation. I should have found that out before we became, ahem, engaged.’
She smiled at that, a sleepy smile that touched his heart again. Her eyes were heavy-lidded anyway, a feature he had not thought to find so attractive.
‘Let us venture inside and seek a couple of rooms,’ he said. ‘I can make arrangements.’
Joe stepped from the mail coach and felt the mud ooze over his shoes. Whoever cleaned shoes in this inn would be busy tonight, he decided. Luckily it was but a few steps to the inn, somehow appropriately named the Noah’s Ark. He held out his arms for Verity.
‘I’ll carry you,’ he said hopefully in his captain’s tone of voice.
It worked. She took one look and didn’t argue. She put her arms about his neck and let him carry her the short distance to the Ark. The coachman’s assistant slogged behind with luggage.
The inn was crowded with other travellers from early coaches and he wondered if there would be a room for Verity. He knew he could sleep anywhere. Oh, no. He saw familiar faces smiling at him, even leading him to the desk where the innkeeper waited.
‘Captain, these riders tell me that you fought at Trafalgar.’
‘Aye, sir, as did many others in the fleet. Is there possibly a room left?’ he asked.
The keep leaned over the desk. ‘There would not have been, but for the generosity of these,’ he said. He gestured to the little traveller and the clergyman Joe recognised. ‘This man and this man said they would make themselves comfortable in the public room so you and your wife could have the last room. It’s the least we can do for a hero and his wife, who probably seldom sees him.’
The older fellow nodded. So did the round, silent gentleman. Caught and trapped.
Joe looked around at Verity, who gave the slightest shrug of her shoulders, indicating she had no idea how to get out of this mess, either.
He could try. ‘Perhaps my...wife, uh, my wife could share this room with another lady who would otherwise be discommoded.’
‘Look around, Captain. It’s just us men tonight.’ The keep chuckled. ‘Between you and me, sir, the ladies are always smarter about these things.’ He held up that single key. ‘You have a room at the inn,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke and John could tell you how hard that is to come by at this season! Cost you three shillings, and that includes dinner. Come, sir, and take it.’ He added a leer to the laugh. ‘How often are you ever on land long enough to get reacquainted with this little lady you married? Three cheers for the Navy!’
What have I done? Joe asked himself as he pocketed the key in the middle of enthusiastic applause.
Chapter Twelve
I daren’t laugh, Verity thought. She wanted to in the worst way. She had not a single doubt that Captain Everard would treat her with the greatest respect, no matter what others imagined would be happening behind that door, but she couldn’t help smiling, which only encouraged the innkeeper.
‘See there, Captain? Mrs Everard is smiling!’
Soon everyone was at least grinning, except for the captain, who had a stricken look on his face, as if wondering how what had begun as a simple plan had turned into this.
The innkeeper didn’t know when to stop, apparently. ‘Cheer up, Captain Everard,’ he said. ‘I imagine it has been a long time since you have been ashore, to say the least.’
‘You cannot imagine how long it has been,’ the captain said. ‘I scarcely can.’
Verity had to give the captain his due. He took a deep breath and crooked out his arm. ‘Come, my dear.’
‘Shall I send my wife upstairs directly with a dinner menu?’ the keep asked.
‘Please do,’ the Captain replied. ‘We would like to eat at six.’
The innkeeper bowed. Verity let Joe lead her out of the lobby, but not before she heard one of the wags from the public room make some not-so-silent comment about Captain Ever-hard. The captain sighed and tightened his grip on her arm.
I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, she thought, even as she wanted to sink into the floor.
He was utterly silent on the stairs and down the hall to the sole remaining empty room in the inn. She had to give him credit for a steady hand with the key in the lock. A glance at his face showed her a man with high colour on his face and grim, tight lips.
He opened the door, ushered her inside and stood there, looking as uncertain as the most callow youth to be found anywhere civilised society existed.
‘Captain Everard, you probably thought it would be a simple matter to escort me to Norfolk, didn’t you?’ Verity said as she removed her bonnet, fluffed her hair and looked around.
The Noah’s Ark was true to the sign creaking in the wind outside: no more than two at a time would fit in this room. The bed occupied most of the space, with a begrudging amount of room left over for a small table, two chairs and a fireplace. She opened the door on a tiny closet. A washbasin and stand filled the rest of the room. There wasn’t even room for a three-legged dog to turn around and lie down.
And there stood Captain Everard, looking positively stricken. Now what? Verity thought. As she stood there, bonnet in hand, all she wanted to do was laugh.
She sat down carefully on the bed, then leaped up when it squeaked. It more than squeaked; it seemed to shriek, as though every wooden peg was protesting years of abuse ranging from overweight occupants to amorous lovers.
She didn’t want to look at Captain Everard, but the room was too small to ignore a fairly tall, sturdy fellow wincing at the sound and probably wondering how far it would carry. She couldn’t help herself; she started to laugh.
She sat down in what she hoped was a quieter chair, leaned forward to let her forehead touch the table and gave herself over to mirth. She laughed as quietly as she could, too old at nearly thirty to care what anyone thought.
She suddenly heard a massive squeak from the bed and turned around to see Captain Everard lying there, his legs hanging over the edge, laughing along with her. He finally pressed his hand to his stomach and declared, ‘Oh, stop! One of us has to stop or neither of us will.’
It took a moment. Every time she thought of the humour of the situation, Verity laughed a little longer. At last her good humour dwindled down to a hiccup, which set off the Captain again, for some reason. When he was finally silent, Verity looked at him lying there relaxed and felt her heart grow oddly tender.
She knew next to nothing about Captain Everard’s life, except that it had to be an exceptionally difficult one, with constant war and deprivation. Impulsively she reached out and touched his leg, which she instantly regretted. What a forward thing to do.
He only opened his eyes and smiled. ‘This is nice,’ was all he said.
‘We should tell amazing lies more often, I suppose you will say,’ she teased.
‘I’m no liar and neither are you.’ He started to sit up, then rethought the matter. ‘I suppose I am fair amazed how people assume this or that. Everyone assumes we are married. Tell me, Miss Newsome, do we look married?’
His question set her off again and she laughed. ‘We rather do,’ she said when she could speak. ‘Look at you, flopped there!’
‘No, no, I mean before now,’ he said. ‘I suppose we are of roughly the same age and there we were on the mail coach, sleeping like puppies in a pile.’
‘I suppose,’ she agreed, deciding to stop fretting over their situation. They would be in Norfolk tomorrow and he would have finished his obligation to his late second lieutenant.
She noticed a slip of paper under the door and picked it up. ‘Here we have the dinner bill of fare,’ she told the Captain, whose eyes were closed now.
Heavens, whoever put this here must have heard a lot of laughter, she thought, which made her smile instead of worry what anyone thought. We are only one night in Chittering.
‘Read it aloud,’ he said, without opening his eyes. ‘If anything contains beets, that is an automatic nay from me.’
‘They’re good for you,’ she said, which earned her one open eye and a sour expression. She read the bill of fare. They debated a moment over shepherd’s pie or roast beef and decided on the pie, with barley-broth soup first and custard last.
His eyes closed. In a moment he was snoring softly, which touched Verity’s heart; he evidently felt comfortable. His arms were stretched out, his hands open. She saw no tension in him.
Feeling shy but hungry, Verity covered him with a light blanket and went downstairs with the menu. She reminded herself that she had always been forthright and no-nonsense and nothing had changed. Still, she had to steel herself to approach the innkeeper and hand him the menu.
‘We would like these items,’ she said.
‘At six o’clock?’ he asked, smiling at her, which told her all she wanted to know about who had put the menu under the door and heard their laughter.
‘Yes, please,’ she replied, ready to be formal, but governed by an imp of her own. ‘You’re probably wondering what was so funny.’
‘Not at all, Mrs Everard,’ he told her and she saw something wistful in his eyes now. ‘War is war. Sometimes you need to laugh.’
His artless comment brought tears to her eyes, but they weren’t tears of sorrow, for a change. She felt a kinship she had not anticipated and good will, which reminded her forcefully of the season, which sorrow had dismissed as too much to manage this Christmas.
Happy Christmas to me, she thought, and Happy Christmas to Captain Everard.
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