A Country Christmas (Timeless Regency Collection Book 5) Read online

  She laughed again, shut the book, and lightly tapped him on the head with it. “You are right on, and you know it, smart man!”

  They laughed together, but she wasn’t done with him. She opened the book again. “The heading on Chapter Twenty-Two,” she prompted.

  “Oh, give me a hard one, Miss Bonfort,” he said. “‘The Beginnings of American Foreign Missions.’”

  She didn’t laugh this time. She just observed his face quietly, as though wondering how a human could pack so much inside his brain.

  “When did you figure me out?” he asked.

  “I watched your eyes when you were looking at my brother-in-law’s bookshelf,” she told him, setting the book down. “I’ve never seen eyes move so fast.” She indicated the book. “And you read this monstrously dry tome that I had to read for punishment years ago when I prevaricated.”

  “That’s punishment, indeed,” he teased. “I read it this morning when I woke up early.”

  “It took you . . .”

  “About twenty minutes,” he said. “It was dry, after all.”

  She shook her head in amazement, then transferred the baby she was carrying to her other hip. “I don’t know what to say, Master Able.”

  “Start by calling me Able, without master in front of it,” he asked, hopeful.

  “If you will call me Meridee,” she replied, then rolled her eyes. “What a name! I am the sixth of six daughters, and my parents must have run out of ideas.”

  “I rather like it. It’s not as silly as Durable.”

  “You have me there.”

  He just looked at her then, imagining a life with this lovely woman beside him. The little girl who rested so quietly against her only fueled his imagination further. He strongly suspected that love and thoughts of marriage and children didn’t come so fast to most men, but he already knew he wasn’t like most men. “I have not one single thing to recommend me,” he said quietly. “Nothing beyond a strange talent, which, frankly, is more of a curse than a blessing.”

  Meridee Bonfort merely shrugged and directed her attention to the baby in her arms. Deep inside him, he was touched at her sudden shyness. He knew he was moving too fast; she knew it, too, but she didn’t run from the room or turn cold. He knew she was bright; he also knew she was breathtakingly, superbly normal.

  “Captain Hallowell, my captain on the Swiftsure, told me once—I thought in jest—that I would need a keeper,” he said, coming not one step closer to this charming woman. “We laughed about it, but I believe he was serious.”

  She set the baby on the floor between them, and the little one began to pat her knees and rock a bit. Able stooped a moment and wound a curl around his finger, watching it bounce.

  “Captain Hallowell knew, too?” she asked.

  “Couldn’t be helped. I was a loblolly boy at that earlier time, dumping urinals and carrying food to patients for the ship surgeon, a man with no imagination whatsoever.”

  “That must have chafed you,” she murmured, not taking her eyes from his while sitting down.

  “No, actually,” he said as he sat down across from her. “He never suspected, so I was free to observe to my heart’s content and squirrel away his surgical textbooks for nightly reading.”

  Meridee sighed. “I think I know where this is going.”

  “I am certain you do,” he replied. “At the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, I was serving on the HMS Captain, with Commodore Horatio Nelson commanding that arm of battle. It was a bloody run, and the surgeon died.” He paused, wondering if she would believe what followed.

  She was quick. She turned pale, her eyes relentlessly on his. “You took over.”

  “Aye. The pharmacist mate seemed paralyzed when Surgeon Bowie died. I had watched any number of amputations. I knew what to do.” He shrugged. “Should I have stood by, idle?”

  To his gratification, Meridee leaned across the table and patted his cheek. She blushed and drew her hand away quickly, probably chagrined at her spontaneity, but he silently blessed her for it. She tried to cover her impulse by reaching down to pat the baby on the floor.

  “Did they all live?” she asked.

  “Most. Some, no one could have saved.” He closed his eyes for a second.

  “Open your eyes,” Meridee said. “They’re moving too fast.”

  He did as she said, relieved to be stopped before he saw the whole scene again on that cosmic sheet of cursed paper that was his mind.

  “And so you met Captain Hallowell then?” she prompted.

  She held his hand now, lightly in her grasp, as though knowing intuitively that a tighter grip would frighten him. Some sense told him it was up to him to tighten the grip, and he did.

  “Aye. He commanded the Captain, Nelson’s flagship, and came to the sick bay.” That was close enough, if not entirely accurate.

  “Beg pardon, Miss Bonfort, but there is luncheon getting cold in the breakfast room. Miss Bonfort!”

  They both swiveled around and let go of each other’s hands at the same instant. The housekeeper stood in the doorway, her eyes as wide as saucers.

  “Luncheon can wait, Mrs. Ledbetter,” Meridee said calmly. “Save something for us, please.”

  “Are we in trouble?” he said, after the housekeeper glared at him, turned on her heel, and stomped away.

  “Most likely,” Meridee told him, her voice steady. “Mrs. Ledbetter is an estimable woman, but she will tattle to my sister and . . .”

  “. . . and I’ll be gone by nightfall.”

  “No!” Meridee exclaimed, and slapped the table. “I intend to win this round. My sister needs me right now, and your retention will be the condition of my remaining.” She leaned forward, her lovely blue eyes so intense. “You do need a keeper, Able Six. Please continue your narrative.” She laughed. “I need to hear it, but I am hungry and I believe Cook made profiteroles.”

  Meridee picked up the little girl from the floor and set her in her lap. She laughed when the baby slapped the table in perfect imitation. “I am setting a poor example,” she teased.

  Able told Meridee about the gift of Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica from Captain Hallowell a month after the battle. “It was in English, of course, but with the Latin text in the back.”

  “You read it in English in fifteen minutes?” Meridee teased.

  “Took me an hour. It’s a dense read. And then I—”

  “You read it in Latin the next afternoon, before . . . before one of those dog or cat watches.”

  He threw back his head and laughed. “You are a sorry excuse for a seaman! It’s a dog watch, and no, it took me three days.”

  “Slow top,” she teased again.

  “Captain Hallowell pulled a string or two and had me transferred to the Swiftsure, his next command, where I served as sailing master second without having any experience.” He chuckled at the memory. “Captain Hallowell took a beating from the Admiralty for such an impulsive act, but they left him alone when matters proved successful.”

  “You observed the sailing master,” she said, a statement of fact.

  “I did. Reuben Maxwell was the best. I learned from him and regret to this day his death during the Battle of the Nile.”

  He had nothing more to say so he was silent, enjoying the view of a lovely woman with troubled eyes. He had laid himself bare for the first time in his life, even beyond what Captain Hallowell knew. A yea or nay from Meridee Bonfort would allow him to hope or send him packing.

  He heard her stomach growl, which made him smile and broke the tension, if that’s what it was. “Should we adjourn to the breakfast room before you start to gnaw on that small girl in your lap?” he asked.

  “In a minute.” She waved off the suggestion in a way that endeared her to him enormously. “I want to know more about you, but you are probably loathe to keep explaining yourself.”

  “Au contraire. I have never told this much to anyone before. My gift or curse—call it what you will—is something I try not
to mention. Ask away.”

  “When did you discover this about yourself, or . . . or did someone discover it for you?”

  He sighed and started to close his eyes, but kept them open. “Miss Meridee Bonfort, no one in a workhouse cares too much about children who are numbered.”

  “Then you figured it out by yourself,” she persisted.

  He looked up at a knock on the frame of the open door. His face like thunder, the vicar stood there, a napkin tucked under his chin. “Meridee, I will speak to you immediately.”

  Able stood up. “Sir, I . . .”

  Mr. Ripley had a chicken leg in his hand, which he pointed at the sailing master. The result made the effervescent and obviously unrepentant Meridee Bonfort put her hand to her mouth. “You will leave this house at once.”

  “No, he will not.”

  Chapter Seven

  I have a champion, Able thought, curious more than fearful how this would play out, mainly because he suspected Meridee was just beginning to plumb the depths of her own involvement. From the look of astonishment on the vicar’s face, he had never heard his little sister-in-law defy him.

  “Meridee, go to your room!”

  She stood up, clutching her little niece. “Edmund Ripley, I am twenty-five and not three. I will not go to my room. Yes, I was holding the sailing master’s hand. You would, too, if you heard his stories of life on the blockade and the terrors of a French bombardment.”

  Her chin trembled, and her eyes filled with tears, impressing Able beyond all belief by so much prevarication and emotion. No wonder her father had made her read The Book of Martyrs years earlier as punishment for fibs. She appeared not to have learned a thing.

  “I doubt I would be holding his hand,” the vicar said, but his anger seemed to dissipate. He stopped pointing the chicken leg and merely looked at it, as though wondering where it came from. Able glanced away, wondering if anyone had ever perished of suppressed mirth.

  Brother-in-law and sister-in-law glared at each other. “I vow, if your sister did not need your help so much, I would send you packing, too, Meridee,” the vicar threatened, but with diminishing fervor. He rounded on Able, who gazed back. “As for you . . .”

  Praise God, but Gerald and James tumbled into the room, their practice cards in hand. “I got them all correct, Master Able,” Gerald was shouting. He did a creditable imitation of a sailor’s hornpipe, while James, ever the conspirator, beamed at his elder brother.

  “He did, Papa,” James said. “We quizzed each other, just as Master Able taught us. Let us show you. Sit down, please, dear Papa.”

  Dear Papa sat, his eyes on his sons now. With a flourish worthy of a magician, James held up the first card, which happened to be five plus two.

  “Seven!” Gerald declared in round tones.

  Another card, another correct response. Ever the observer, Able watched the vicar’s face soften as his son, who was admittedly not as quick a thinker as his little brother, sailed in triumph through five more cards. When he hesitated on the first of the subtraction cards, Able spoke up quietly, so as not to disturb the boy’s concentration.

  “Think of the jackstraws in your mind, Gerald. Picture them on a piece of paper, and you’ll have it,” Able instructed.

  “Eight,” the boy replied, his voice confident.

  Meridee applauded, and Gerald took a bow. “What are we going to learn this afternoon?” he asked Able.

  “The world of triangles,” Able told him. “Almost my favorite place. That is, provided I’m here to teach you.”

  “You’ll be here,” the vicar said.

  Able had to give the man points for changing his tack and finding a new course. Mr. Ripley leveled an avuncular stare at his sister-in-law, even as he gently plucked his little daughter from Meridee’s arms. “There will be no more hand-holding, no matter how heartrending a tale you hear, Miss Bonfort. Do I make myself amply clear?”

  She curtsied, looking not one bit chastened. The vicar appeared inclined to overlook her unrepentant state.

  “And you, sir,” he said to Able. “Remember your station in life.”

  “Aye, sir. I am reminded of it often,” Able said.

  The chicken leg held at his side now, out of reach of his daughter’s grasp, the vicar left the classroom. Gerald turned to Able. “May we start on triangles now?” he asked.

  “I haven’t eaten yet, and your aunt’s stomach is growling,” Able said. “Did you leave us any profiteroles?”

  Both boys nodded, their eyes serious, because this subject was, after all, dessert. Able looked at their eagerness, their youth, their well-fed faces, their clean and brushed clothing and wisely did not contrast it with his own childhood. Perhaps some things were meant to be put away and not remembered. He would have to ask Meridee about that, once he told her of his own education in the workhouse. Perhaps he could even tuck away all those bad memories, once she knew.

  “Here is what I think you should do,” Meridee told her nephews. “Go outside and walk around in the cold air. See what you can find that might interest Master Able. I’ll send him out to join you as soon as he finishes luncheon.”

  “Well done, Miss B,” he said as they walked down the hall to the breakfast room. He leaned toward her, but not too close this time. “How much trouble are you in?”

  “None, I think,” she said after a moment’s consideration. For the smallest second, he envied her a quiet brain that required reflection before response. “Truth be told—”

  “So you do tell the truth now and then?”

  She had the good grace and sufficient conscience to flash him a look that held a measure of repentance in it. “I only tell lies to get myself out of trouble, and maybe you, too, as I’m the one who took your hand.” She cleared her throat for dramatic effect. “As I started to say before I was so rudely interrupted, truth be told, my brother-in-law and sister have worried about Gerald’s mental acuity.”

  “No need for them to worry,” he said. “He simply needs a different approach to whatever has been tried before. I have noticed that some people need to see and touch what they are learning. Jackstraws are one thing, and I will find other methods for Gerald.”

  She turned to face him. “You realize you should be teaching children full time, and not just temporarily.”

  He couldn’t help it that his hands went to her shoulders. By the mark, she was soft to touch. “You also realize I am in the Royal Navy,” he said. “We are not at war at this moment, but I wouldn’t wager peace to last too far into 1803. I have a job to do.”

  “I know,” she said, sounding oddly deflated. She seemed to perk up almost too fast to suit her mood. “Right now, I need a profiterole.”

  “It’s dessert,” he teased, relieved to be on what felt like solid ground.

  Even though it was only lukewarm now, luncheon with Meridee was an unalloyed pleasure. She ate with relish, which he enjoyed. Eyeing her sturdy frame, he reckoned she never missed a meal. She was by no means plump, merely healthy and well-fed, as a woman ought to be. And shapely.

  Not for the first time, he wondered what his mother had looked like toward the end of her likely short, bleak life. He had no idea how old she was when she died, but he had seen drabs and street woman in other ports and countries and knew she was probably not beyond her teen years. Life on the street was a great and harsh leveler. Come to think of it, so was his life in the fleet.

  For the first time, he wondered what it would be like to teach children, just children. A man of logical if overcrowded mind, Able extended that thought to include his own children, well aware they would likely never be born, considering his dangerous profession and the realization that once war resumed, it would probably last a long time.

  “What in the world are you thinking, Able?” Meridee asked as she passed him another sandwich, the kind with the edges trimmed and the bread soft and free of weevils.

  “Do you truly want to know?” he asked as he took the proffered sandwich. “I am no
t a small-talking man. Think carefully before you answer me, Meridee.”

  It could have gone in any direction. I have not known you for twenty-four hours, he thought in humility, as he watched her expressive face. He wanted to lean closer to see those minuscule freckles again, but he refrained because he was already balancing on thin ice in the Ripley household.

  “I need to know what you are thinking, Able Six,” she said finally. “If war comes today or tomorrow or in six months, something tells me I will regret the remainder of my entire life if I do not know.”

  He sat back, almost at a loss, except that he was never at a loss. Might as well confess. “I am thinking how much I would like to teach children; more specifically, my children, who will likely never be born, because I have not a thing to recommend me and I serve a dangerous profession.”

  He didn’t know what she would do. This woman was a variable in the complicated scheme of his life that he had never encountered before. He smiled suddenly, thinking of Newton’s Third Law of Motion. He turned slightly to face her and held up his hand. To his eternal relief and delight, she pressed her hand against his. He pressed back, and she pressed again. He twined his fingers in hers.

  “According to Newton’s Third Law of Motion—I’ll simplify it—for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. We just proved it,” he whispered, not even wanting the delicate watercolor pictures on the walls to hear him speak his odd heart to this lady. “That’s how arches stand up. I also think it’s how a . . . a vessel could fly to the moon, if such a thing were possible, and it is.”

  He looked for skepticism and saw none, which made his shoulders relax as they had last night in bed. He knew he could tell her anything.

  “You are always going to be thinking faster and farther than anyone,” she whispered back. She tucked their twined hands in her lap, which gave him a pleasant jolt even Newton couldn’t explain.

  “But you won’t yield an inch. It’s an equal reaction,” he said. “We would remain in equilibrium.”