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

  Now or never. “And I am Miss Meridee Bonfort, lately from the country,” she said, then felt like an idiot.

  The footman’s lips twitched at that, but he let them in and left them standing in the foyer, to the amusement of Meridee’s uncle.

  “He didn’t even show us to the drawing room. What a pup,” he whispered. “He is toying with the man who victuals ships of the fleet and a young lady who probably has more influence than I do.”

  “I doubt that supremely,” she whispered back, then gulped as a much-chastened footman returned, followed immediately by Captain Hallowell himself.

  She found herself looking at a balding man with a long, sharp nose, intense eyes, and an expression announcing that the man had never suffered a fool gladly in his entire life. She swallowed and looked again, noticing that his eyes were on her now, and that expression softened. Oh, please, she thought. Please help us.

  The captain bowed to her, and she curtsied as prettily as she could. He bowed next to Uncle Bonfort, then extended his hand.

  “Kindly excuse the poor manners of my footman,” Captain Hallowell said. “He’s new and doesn’t know what distinguished guests are, apparently.” A frosty look at the footman made the man wilt before Meridee’s eyes. “He will improve, or by the mark, I will impress him. Come with me.”

  Terrified and determined not to show it, Meridee grabbed her uncle’s hand and hung on as they walked past a drawing room and into a room with a desk and comfortable chairs. Ignoring the desk, Captain Hallowell seated them in the chairs and joined them in front of the desk.

  He was not a man for small talk. He reached behind him and picked up a letter. “Miss Bonfort, I received a letter early this morning from my sailing master, Able Six. For Master Six, it is a remarkably jumbled letter. If I didn’t know better, I would suspect he has taken leave of his senses.” He leaned forward and smiled. “But I know better, my dear.”

  Meridee felt herself relaxing. She willed her hands to stop shaking and pulled the note from her reticule that Able had handed to her only yesterday. “He wanted me to give this to you, sir.”

  He took it, opened it, laughed quietly, and handed it to her. “Read it, my dear. Read it aloud.”

  She took it, read it, blushed, and shook her head.

  “No, no, I insist,” the captain said, his expression suggesting huge enjoyment.

  Meridee glanced at her uncle, who nodded. “Do what the good captain says, niece.”

  She cleared her throat. “‘Dear Captain Hallowell,’” she began, in a voice not sounding remotely like the one ordinarily possessing her body. “‘Here is my keeper. She is lovely and kind and intelligent. Please help us. I know of no one else who can. Yours sincerely, Able Six.’ Sir, I . . .”

  “In a moment, my dear.” He held up his hand and spoke to Uncle Bonfort. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, sir, and can only echo the praise of other captains who appreciate the orderly way you run the victualling department. Between the two of us, what say you that we help this couple?”

  Uncle Bonfort nodded. “Whatever I can do, sir. I must ask: why? Why would you help a good sailing master out of his position?”

  “He is the single most brilliant man I have ever met in my life, but that counts for nothing, really,” Hallowell replied. “He did me a singular service for which I can never totally repay him.” He tapped Able’s letter. “He has never asked me for a favor before.”

  Singular service? “I don’t quite understand,” she said.

  “He’s a sly one, is Master Six,” Captain Hallowell said. “Did he mention my presence in the sick bay of the HMS Captain during the Battle of Cape St. Vincent?”

  “He did,” Meridee replied, on unsure ground.

  “Well, we weren’t even in the sick bay. That spot took a direct hit and the surgeon died. We were in the stairwell of the orlop deck, dead and dying men all around.”

  Meridee nodded. “He said you were there.”

  “That’s all? I am hardly surprised,” the captain said. “For all his astounding intelligence, I think part of Durable Six is still that little boy in the Dumfries workhouse, unsure of himself and unable to comprehend what was happening to him.” He leaned forward and gave Meridee a direct, searching look. “Which is why he needs a keeper.”

  She blushed some more. “What happened in the stairwell?” she asked.

  Captain Hallowell directed his attention to Uncle Bonfort, who looked puzzled. “Able Six was a loblolly boy then, hardly an exalted position. After the surgeon died and the pharmacist mate seemed too paralyzed to act, Able rolled up his sleeves and calmly took over.”

  “Impossible!” Uncle Bonfort sputtered.

  “In an ordinary man, I would agree. Able Six is not an ordinary man,” Hallowell said. He turned his attention to Meridee again. “What he did was save my son’s life.”

  “He would do that,” she said softly. “He never told me.”

  “Cape St. Vincent was my son Charles’s first voyage as a Young Gentleman. His leg was mangled by a chain shot fired from the San Nicolás. Able removed that portion of his leg below the knee as calmly as if he had done thousands of such amputations. My son is alive today and still active in the fleet, thanks to your man. What is it I can do for him? Just name it.”

  “Wait a minute!” Uncle Bonfort demanded. “He amputated a leg?”

  “Several, in fact,” Captain Hallowell said calmly. “The man is a prodigy. He sees something once or reads it once, and he never forgets. Never.”

  Uncle Bonfort gave Meridee his own chastened look. “You told me all this last night, and I did not believe you, my dear.”

  “It is hard to believe,” she agreed.

  “Come, come! Time is wasting! How can I help my sailing master?”

  “He has an amazing facility to teach young children,” Meridee said quickly. “He has been tutoring my nephews, one of whom is slow, where his younger brother is quick. Gerald loves arithmetic now, and James is still enthusiastic, because Able—I mean, Master Six—brings him along quicker without injuring Gerald’s feelings.”

  “He would appreciate the worth of a little boy, I imagine,” Captain Hallowell said, more to himself than to her, or so it seemed. “How can I help?”

  “Captain, can you possibly find him a place to teach math and geometry and navigational reckoning to young students?” she asked.

  Captain Hallowell rose and went to the window, where he stood a moment, hands behind his back, rocking on his heels. Meridee’s heart, which had been slowly climbing back up to its rightful position, took another dive.

  “Please, Captain,” she whispered. “Please.”

  “I need him more than you do,” Captain Hallowell said, still not facing her.

  “No, you don’t,” Meridee declared, tossing away a lifetime of quietly doing the bidding of others. It was her turn. She went to the window, too, taking the august man’s arm and tugging him around to face her. She gathered all her courage together and shook him. “You couldn’t possibly need him more.”

  “My dear, we will soon be at war again,” Captain Hallowell said gently as he took her hand from his sleeve. “Why would I willingly relinquish the services of the finest sailing master the Royal Navy will probably ever see?”

  “Because you owe your son’s life to him, and he has begged a favor,” she said, her voice controlled and quiet. Shouting at this man would never do.

  “My dear, what you ask is impossible,” the captain replied. “I should never have said I would do anything for him, because I cannot. Duty forbids it.”

  What could she do but admit failure? The room was silent except for a ticking clock. She looked at Uncle Bonfort and saw sympathy on his face. She looked at Captain Hallowell and saw the same. All she wanted to do was go back to the country where she could continue hiding from the world. She would wither and die there because there was a man in the world who needed her and she could not help him.

  “I believe I will leave now,”
she said. “I have squandered everyone’s valuable time.”

  She left the room with no fanfare, resisting the urge to run. The front door looked miles away, but she minded her steps and retained her dignity. Just a few more steps, and she would be out on the street again. She had relinquished her coat to the footman, but he could keep the thing.

  She stopped and felt an enormous anger building inside her—so massive it frightened her. Was she going to be brave or not?

  “Master Six has never asked me for anything before.”

  She stood there in the foyer, unwilling to turn around. “You have already said no, Captain,” she reminded the dratted man. “I will . . . I will think of something else because I intend to succeed. Good day.”

  “There will soon be war again.”

  That was it. She rounded on the captain, her fists up, took two steps, and hit him in the face as hard as she could. It was no open slap, but her closed fist.

  The pain to her knuckles was immediate, but she pulled back to hit him again.

  “That’s enough!” Captain Hallowell exclaimed as he grabbed her hand. “Look now, you’ve bloodied your knuckles. Calm down, my dear, calm down! I think I am about to change my mind.”

  Meridee gasped and burst into tears. She stood there, her knuckles bloody and Captain Hallowell holding her hand so gently now. In fact, his arm went around her shoulder, and before she knew it, she was sobbing into his shirt. “I love him, and he needs a keeper.”

  “If ever a man had a champion . . .” he said and smoothed down her hair. “Miss Bonfort, I will do everything in my power to help. I know just the place for your man, and it hasn’t anything to do with Trinity House.”

  “Something better?” she asked, too shy to look at him.

  “Aye, Miss Bonfort, although a bit of a secret.” He chuckled. “Can I trust you?”

  “I can keep a secret,” she said as she crossed her heart.

  He pulled out his handkerchief, handed it to her, and commanded her to blow her nose. She did as he said, then pressed the cloth to her knuckles. She made the mistake of looking at Captain Hallowell then and gasped to see his eye swelling shut.

  “I didn’t mean it!” she exclaimed.

  “I believe you did, my dear,” he contradicted. “I deserved it, too, after the enormity of what your man did for me. Come now. Let’s find my wife, who will shed her own tears when I tell her what happened and probably scold me later. We can find some salve for your knuckles.” He chuckled. “And maybe a beefsteak for my eye. Mr. Bonfort, had you any idea what a ferocious terror you have for a niece?”

  “Not at all,” her uncle said to her dismay. Meridee also thought she heard a little pride in his voice. “She was always the most biddable girl, perhaps biddable to a fault. This is a new Meridee, and I like her even more.”

  “Obviously, she has never been in love before,” Captain Hallowell said, as he steered her toward the back of the house and told the dumbfounded footman who had witnessed the whole thing to find Mrs. Hallowell, and quickly.

  “There is one more way I can assist you and that sailing master of mine, who has no business wasting his prodigious talents on a mere quarterdeck,” the captain said.

  Meridee blew her nose again. “Oh, anything, sir. I owe you such an apology, too.”

  “You owe me nothing,” he said. “I had a massive debt to discharge, and you . . . er, reminded me.” He stopped walking and put his hands on her shoulders. “My dear, we have an ace up our sleeve by the name of Vice Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson. I intend to call in a favor of mine.”

  “You can do that?” she asked, astounded. Everyone in England was familiar with Sir Horatio.

  “I happen to be a member of an august informal little group called Nelson’s Band of Brothers,” he said. “I earned that title at Aboukir Bay, by damn! A letter from me would be well and good, but when the masters of St. Brendan’s hear from Nelson himself . . .” Hallowell chortled and rubbed his hands together. “Tell me, my dear, do you have any objection to setting up housekeeping right here in crowded, noisy, infamous Portsmouth?”

  Wide-eyed, she shook her head. “Anywhere Master Six is, is home to me.”

  He chucked her under her chin. “That is the right answer. Go home now, once we bandage your fingers, or better still, come with me to St. Brendan’s.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  I am too old for the fidgets, Able Six told himself as he walked outdoors with his star pupils.

  Meridee Bonfort had been gone too long—never mind that it was only four days. The first day of her absence, he had dutifully walked with his pupils after luncheon, breathing great lungfuls of healthy air, before they returned to the schoolroom for more geometry, followed by more Christmas angles, which the vicar himself requested.

  “Your angles will decorate the church this year,” Edmund Ripley had said. “I like them. More to the point, the Lord Almighty probably enjoys a bit of variety in Christian worship.”

  The following day had been less sanguine, to put it mildly. Able had followed the vicar’s instructions to the letter about finding holly and ivy, which he had already agreed to use to deck the church from vestibule to nave to sanctuary.

  “Ordinarily, Mrs. Ripley and Meridee perform this office, but I fear my wife is not equal to the task of greening the church this year,” Mr. Ripley said, by way of apology. The vicar could blush, too, even though Mrs. Ripley’s condition was precisely of his making, which made Able Six smile to himself.

  The holly had been aggravating enough, making his hands bleed, but the larger issue of the ivy had ended his career in decorating before it even started.

  The ivy was easy enough to find, even though Mr. Ripley’s directions were vague to the point of nonexistent. Able had turned the directions into an exercise involving angles and titled it “Treasure Map,” which meant his pupils could barely wait to start.

  To his pleasure, the boys quickly found great patches of ivy and called for him to hurry with his knife and basket. He had begun his attack on the ivy when the whole plan unraveled. His hands began to burn, then break out in welts and start to swell. He tried to fight through the pain, then gave it up for a bad business. The countryside had turned on him.

  Gerald and James commiserated, but could barely control their delight to be permitted to use a real knife, something their parents wouldn’t have allowed, or so they told him. He supervised and did his best not to scratch.

  The vicar had been properly appalled at the sight of his injury, but Mrs. Ripley seemed to find the matter amusing. She calmly slathered a pleasant-smelling, white ointment on his hands, all the while assuring him that he would not die.

  “You are not taking this seriously,” Able accused her.

  “I suppose I am not,” she said, coating a few spots on his neck that were starting to itch, too. “How wondrous that a man can survive Camperdown, the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, the Battle of the Nile, subsequent incarceration in a French prison and escape from the same, be thrown ashore to starve on half pay, and then succumb to ivy!” Her lips started to twitch, and she laughed.

  What could a man do but laugh, too? “I suppose you will tell me that Meridee would laugh, too, were she here?” he asked, trying to sound indignant and failing.

  His question dissolved Mrs. Ripley in more laughter, accompanied by the assurance that Meridee would indeed see the humorous aspect of a well-trained, dignified, handsome man with welts, spots, and ointment. “She would howl,” Mrs. Ripley assured him. “Probably slap her knee.”

  Mercifully, by the time he went to bed that night—oh, God above, how he missed his chaste conversations with Meridee on the stairs—the swelling had retreated and the pain was mostly gone. He lay there as the smile left his face, wondering how soon he could quit the countryside. Meridee deserved better than him. What was he thinking, proposing to someone like Meridee?

  Next day, he wasn’t so certain he could ever leave. By noon, the redness was gone and he could bend his f
ingers again, so the vicar enlisted his help in distributing baskets of jams, jellies, and fancy bread to the worthy poor of his parish.

  That was how Mr. Ripley had phrased it: the worthy poor. A man with a mind far livelier than most, Able asked what constituted the unworthy poor. When the vicar started to explain that women who birthed babies in the hedgerows might constitute the unworthy poor, as well as poachers and wife beaters, he stopped, embarrassed.

  “Perhaps these people need help, too,” Mr. Ripley said after a long moment of what must have been theological reflection.

  You mean my mother, Able thought and felt no shame. Whatever events had brought Mary Whoever to his birth and her death in that alley behind St. George’s Church had resulted in a life Able Six knew was worth living.

  “The poor are poor, and worth has nothing to do with it,” Able said, perhaps more forcefully than he should have. “They have hopes and dreams, too. I know they do, because I am one of them.”

  Mr. Ripley had looked at him seriously, then did a strange thing, a thing that touched Able’s heart. He kissed the sailing master on his cheek. “I believe you are right, Master Six,” he said. “I will not use that phrase anymore. After all, Christ was no respecter of persons, was He? Why should my church, my little vicarage so minuscule in the scheme of things, pretend otherwise?”

  They distributed baskets at every hovel, regardless of worthiness, and returned home in remarkable agreement. A note to his patron requesting more funds to tend to the Christmas needs of all had gone out that evening to the lord of the manor, who controlled Mr. Ripley’s living.

  “We may not succeed this year, Master Able, but we will try,” Mr. Ripley had said.

  Able slept poorly that night, as his nearly visceral longing for Meridee Bonfort showed no signs of abating. Tomorrow evening, there would be caroling, followed by wassail in the vicarage. Maybe Meridee would at least send a letter.