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

  Able Six gave a contented sigh, rested Elements on his chest, closed his eyes, and whispered, “‘Number one, a point is that which has no part. Number two, a line is a breadthless length. Number three, the extremities of a line are points.’”

  Another sigh and he slept, content—or nearly so.

  Chapter Two

  To Able’s surprise, Lieutenant Caldwell, who must have finally made it to the country, came to his attention only two days later in the form of a badly spelled letter. Able didn’t even begrudge the two-penny postage he had to pay, because the novelty of a letter outweighed the expense.

  The only other letter he had ever received was the official notice of his warrant status from the Navy Board four years ago, proclaiming him fit to serve as a sailing master on any vessel of King George. Captain Hallowell told him later in the privacy of the empty officers’ wardroom that the Board had questioned Able’s age. Twenty-two was young to receive such a warrant for the most scientific member of any crew, next to the surgeon.

  “I convinced the Navy Board you were a bit of a prodigy, and besides, I needed a sailing master,” his captain had told him. “The looks of skepticism ran higher than a spring tide in that room, but by Neptune’s trident, Able, you’re already the best.”

  Able had tucked away that letter and gone about his business. Four years later, here was another letter. Rain thundered down, so he ducked into a tavern two doors from the postal office, ordered a cup of coffee, and wondered what Elias Caldwell had to say.

  The route to what Swiftsure’s third lieutenant had to say was pitted with misspellings. During a lull in the Doldrums a year ago, a month with Captain Hallowell’s two-volume copy of Dr. Johnson’s dictionary had provided Able with total recall of all the words crammed within. Granted, he had long suspected that proper spelling was a bit like beauty—something in the eye of the beholder—so he cut Lieutenant Caldwell some slack. Who didn’t relish the occasional letter?

  He sipped coffee and read. One virtue Elias Caldwell possessed was the ability to cut through layers of offal and get right to a subject. “Able, considering that I oh you my freedom from that French prisson,” the sailing master read, “I have found employment for you, pervided you do not minde teaching arithemetic to two little boys.”

  “Not at all,” Able told the letter, thinking of his own school days in the workhouse, where the overworked teacher, a bit of a bully, had thrashed him for being smart and ignored him ever after.

  He read on, learning of Elias’s mother’s best friend from childhood, who lived a cluttered life as wife of a Church of England cleric. “Four children in five years, Able. Imagin.”

  Apparently, the lady needed some help, which made Able chuckle. What the lady needed was her own bedchamber, more like, but who was he to question such matters—he who slept in a narrow bed in a rooming house?

  After getting a refill for his cup, Able read on. “It’s nothing fancy, but I thot of you. Basicly, it’s room and board and ten shillings a month. It should tide you over, because I no youre not used too much.”

  Trust Caldwell to be helpful and condescending at the same time. Able chuckled at the notion of Lieutenant Caldwell’s philanthropy and knew it probably extended no farther than this offer. Still, it was honest work and sorely needed. He continued his perusal of the document, all smudged and ink-stained because Caldwell was no dab hand at committing thoughts to paper.

  At the end of the page, there was a long line with an arrow pointing in a starboard direction, so Able turned over the letter. “P.S. Don’t be alarumed if Mama hangs about yur neck and weps tears of gratitude, my friend,” Able read silently. “Besids all this, youll be spending Cristmas with a fambly.”

  Now there was a novelty that intrigued Able Six almost more than the promised ten shillings a month. He had never spent Christmas with anyone and had no real idea how to go about such a venture.

  The letter concluded with precise directions to Pomfrey, described by Lieutenant Caldwell as a “smallish villag” not terribly distant from Dartmoor with its vile prison. “Just show up, friend,” the letter concluded. “I think youre only neded through the Cristmas hollydays, because the vicar will be in fiting trim once the hollydays are behinde him and he can continew teaching them himselv.”

  Able drained his coffee cup, shook his head at another refill, and stared out the window. He had just paid another month’s rent at the Lady Luck, and his landlady wouldn’t refund a penny of it if he jumped ship. His own natural caution made him willing to maintain the room, just in case Lieutenant Caldwell’s offer of employment proved less than desirable. If he kept the room, he wouldn’t have to take along all of his admittedly few possessions.

  What did he have to lose? The scuttlebutt down at the docks was of French buildup of ships in ports in Spain and France, obscure harbors where the French seemed to assume a British spy had never set foot. The rumors had come in a circuitous route from a distant cousin whose brother-in-law’s grandfather heard such news in passing by Admiralty House. Although not inclined to skepticism, Able was a realist: the peace could end next Thursday or last for years.

  I’ll do it, he told himself as he rose and swung his boat cloak about his shoulders. Once outside, he turned up the collar against the rain, which had tapered off to sprinkles, even though a cold wind blew off Plymouth Sound. What could possibly be difficult about teaching two boys some math?

  A few words with his landlady had left her cheerful and probably glad he hadn’t demanded a refund. Keeping his quarters through December meant money to her, with no need to clean, dust, or change sheets in that room tucked under the eaves.

  He possessed nothing in the way of clothing except his sailing master uniforms, or what passed as a uniform, as the Navy Board hadn’t yet taken the time to authorize one. Able had adopted the plain black trousers and black coat of other masters, which showed neither dirt nor blood. His smallclothes were ragged, but nobody’s business except his own. They went into the bottom of his duffel bag. Shaving gear took its usual amount of space. He was cursed with a heavy beard that required shaving each morning, and occasionally at night, if he was summoned to eat at the captain’s table. Comb and brush followed, and the little bottle of olive oil that proved highly useful to untangle his black curls.

  He debated whether to take his sextant, then decided he would feel uneasy leaving it behind. He didn’t think his landlady would hurry it to the pawnbroker, but he had no such assurance about her daughter. He returned the sextant to its padded box and set it next to the duffel.

  Books came next, not that he needed to refer to the information inside the pages. Books were a comfort. After the rout of the Dutch Navy that was Camperdown, he had gone below, once the bloody work was done, eased himself into his hammock, and just held Mary’s prayer book for the peace it gave him. He knew all the prayers.

  And that was it. There was no window in his attic room, but he listened to the raindrops diminish. When all was silent, he shouldered his duffel and his boxed sextant and left the Lady Luck.

  He stood on Notte Street as he called to mind a map of Plymouth and the surrounding countryside. He had pored over it for ten minutes one evening in the Swiftsure’s wardroom and memorized it, as he had memorized everything he ever read.

  Ten miles was nothing for a man in good shape who still relished a walk for a walk’s sake. Eventually, he would be confined to a ship again, and the luxury of such appealing exercise would be a thing of the past. Besides, shank’s mare was cheaper.

  Truth be told, the road to Dartmoor gave him the megrims as he swung smartly along. He had been there once to facilitate the transfer of a prisoner from the Swiftsure’s brig to the formidable prison from which no one escaped. The felon he escorted had been a stoic lad who had broken down in sobs as the big prison gate swung open to receive him.

  I know the feeling, he thought, remembering that French prison, where the only thing good that ever happened was the opportunity to learn to speak Frenc
h with a Provençal accent. He still mourned the loss of his old sextant, appropriated by his jailers—may they rot in hell.

  He turned west before Dartmoor and continued his journey until he came to the bank of the Plym River. The rain began again, but he knew he was close to Pomfrey. He would have to ask directions in the village, but another hour should see him to what Elias Caldwell described as a large manor house, home of the lieutenant’s parents.

  There it was, seen through a screen of rain. His shoes crunched on the gravel underfoot, and he was soon up the low steps and knocking on the front door.

  Able was admitted with some reluctance, after he explained to the footman that he wasn’t a journeyman seeking work, but the invited guest of Lieutenant Caldwell. Luckily, Elias came into the foyer in time to spare any further embarrassment.

  “Able, you’re all wet,” Elias told him, as though it were news.

  “You underestimate the power of a good boat cloak, friend,” Able replied, happy to hand off the dripping garment, which easily weighed an additional ten pounds in rainwater. And yes, he was wet, but that was another advantage of black clothing.

  Soon, he was drinking tea in a pretty parlor off a larger one and being stared at by Lady Caldwell, Elias’s mother. While she hadn’t thrown her arms about his neck and wept tears of thanksgiving for the rescue of her son from a French prison, Lady Caldwell did dab at her eyes and look at him at some length. He sighed inwardly, knowing what was coming.

  “You’re certain you are from Dumfries, Scotland?” she asked as she handed him a cup of tea.

  “As certain as a man can be,” he replied, amused.

  “I mean, you sound like a man from Scotland, but, sir, you don’t look like one,” she replied. She spoke with that same air of moral certainty that her son employed upon occasion, which told Able Six that particular apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree.

  “No, I don’t, Lady Caldwell,” he replied. “That’s what I am, though, and I hear your friend is in need of a teacher. Please tell me more, if you would.”

  There. That should fix the old biddy. I dare you to change the subject, he thought and reached for a biscuit, the kind with sprinkles of sugar that he liked though they played merry hell with a black uniform.

  Knowing she was defeated, Lady Caldwell let the ship of his parentage sail away and told him of her childhood chum, Amanda Bonfort, who had married the vicar holding the living on the next estate. Now Amanda Ripley, she was the mother of many and in need of educational assistance.

  “She specifically mentioned help with arithmetic,” Elias threw in, “but I assured Mama that you can teach practically anything.”

  “How can that be?” Lady Caldwell asked.

  “I read a lot, ma’am,” Able replied with a straight face, even as Elias’s eyes grew merrier by the moment.

  She nodded and said nothing, perhaps at a loss. Able knew he had a commanding air about him. She wouldn’t be the first person who chose not to question it.

  “Where is this vicar’s house?” he asked when the silence stretched on.

  “Not far,” Lady Caldwell replied, looking relieved to find the muse of conversation again. “You can, er, walk if you prefer it, but I know Mrs. Ripley’s youngest sister is coming by soon in a dogcart to bring me something.”

  Lady Caldwell looked at the timepiece pinned to her sparse bosom. “Oh, the time. Will you kindly excuse me?” she asked as she rose.

  And there they stood for a moment. Able thought she would escape from the room because he was obviously not a man of quality like her son, but he underestimated Lady Caldwell. Instead, she came forward, took both his hands, and kissed his check, to his amazement.

  “Thank you for freeing my son, Master Six,” she said, and there was no mistaking the tears in her eyes.

  “We were all getting pretty tired of incarceration,” he said, touched by her emotion. “I just wish others had followed those of us who left.”

  She nodded. “Not everyone is brave,” she said and left the room.

  “I didn’t expect that,” Able told Elias.

  “I warned you she would weep a bit and hang about your neck,” the lieutenant joked. “Mothers are like that.”

  I wouldn’t know, Able thought as he followed his friend into a breakfast room, where luncheon waited. As he ate—the food was excellent—he nodded and smiled and commented where required, while the other half of his active brain had a sudden epiphany about his own mother. The master of the workhouse had told him of his origins—how he was found naked and crying on the steps of St. George’s Church in February, left there by a drab who somehow managed to get from the church to the back alley, where she died.

  “A trrrail of blood,” the beadle had told him, relishing the drama of the incident. “In both dirrrections, lad, as though she birthed you in the alley, but took you to the front steps. Odd, that.”

  Able had taken the news in stride, which was the only way to take anything in a workhouse. He was never angry at the woman he never knew, but as he ate and listened to Elias Caldwell, he had the most marvelous feeling that his dying mother had made certain he was found, by dragging herself to the church steps. She wanted him found; she wanted him to live.

  He looked out the breakfast room window at the sound of a wheeled vehicle on the gravel outside. He looked, mainly so Elias would not see the sudden emotion on his face.

  He looked again because the lass driving the dogcart had glanced in the window at him as she drove by and halted the cart. She raised her whip to wave.

  “What a pretty girl,” Able couldn’t help blurting out to his luncheon partner. He heard the doorbell jangle and resisted a sudden urge to get up and answer it, galloping down the hall to beat out the footman.

  “She surely is,” Elias said with a sorrowful shake of his head. “Poor thing, youngest of six daughters. I believe her father—God rest his soul—ran out of dowry after the first three. All I know about her is that she helps her sister, the vicar’s wife, with the younger children.” He stood up and gestured that Able do the same. “And here she is.”

  Chapter Three

  The door opened on a young lady with the brightest blue eyes Able had ever seen. The rich color dominated her face and left a man no choice but to admire them. Her hair was brown and she had a dimple in her left cheek and the hint of one in her right.

  “Able, let me introduce you to Miss Bonfort, your ride to the vicarage, even though she had no idea this would happen when she drove up, eh, Meridee?” Elias was saying. Strange how his voice sounded far away. “Miss Bonfort, this is Master Able Six, here to help educate your . . . your—”

  “My nephews,” she supplied, turned to Able, and gave him—him!—a curtsy.

  Able managed a decent bow. He felt awkward beyond belief, silently blaming his clumsiness with a woman on the fact that he had never found a book on manners and etiquette aboard any of His Majesty’s ships.

  “My sister greatly appreciates your willingness to help us on such short notice,” Miss Bonfort said.

  Bliss to his ears. Miss Bonfort had the wonderful West Country sound to her voice, which reminded him faintly of English as he heard it spoken in the United States.

  “Happy to help, Miss Bonfort.” Not only was she lovely to look at, but she smelled of roses.

  Her relieved smile at his words suggested that life in the Ripley household was lively, indeed, and possibly exhausting. “Master Six, my sister wanted to assure whoever answered Elias’s letter that if you wish to go home for Christmas, she wouldn’t hold you to staying at the vicarage through the holiday.”

  “I have nowhere to go,” he said simply, which caused those pretty eyes to cloud over.

  She quickly turned her frown into a smile. “Then you have come to the right place to keep Christmas.”

  She next directed that kindly gaze to Lieutenant Caldwell, who seemed to have no difficulty breathing or maintaining his composure in the presence of such loveliness. “Sir, I trust I may t
ake your friend away now?”

  Do with me what you will, Able thought, looking around for his homely duffel bag, which leaned in the corner of the room like an overweight dog of unknown origin.

  “Take him, Meridee,” Elias said with a casual wave of his hand. The man obviously had no idea how remarkable Miss Bonfort was. The fact that he used her first name suggested a friendship of long standing, which Able suddenly envied.

  Elias performed a little bow of his own. “He can teach any possible subject your brother-in-law can devise.”

  “Such a gift,” Miss Bonfort said with a laugh, obviously not believing the lieutenant. “Very well, sir, shall we go?”

  Tongue-tied, he followed her from the breakfast room and down the hall, where the footman had his cloak ready. From the way the smaller man staggered under the weight of it, Able knew it was as heavy with water as ever. Perhaps he would fall ill from the effects of pneumonia and require tender nursing at the hands of Miss Bonfort. When he expired, she would shed a tear or two, then bravely go about her business, a changed woman.

  The idea was so ludicrous that he smiled. He was reaching for his flat-crowned hat when Miss Bonfort put her hand lightly on his arm.

  “Silly me, but I have forgotten the principal reason for my visit.” She pulled a tissue-wrapped package from her reticule and held it out to the footman. “Barkley, please give this to Lady Caldwell. I promised her tatting for her pillow slips.”

  The footman took the package with an appreciative smile of his own, suggesting that he wasn’t immune to Miss Bonfort, either. He held open the door for the two of them.

  Miss Bonfort spoke as she pulled on her gloves. “I tat for Lady Caldwell, and she has her seamstress attach the tatting to pillow slips, which Lady Caldwell then claims she did herself.”