LITMIR.BIZ

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hold them up. For the first time in years, probably since he had received a year-old letter telling him of the death of his mother, Ben Muir, senior warrant officer on one of His Majesty’s frigates, was desperate to go home.

      He sat a long while in the kitchen of Mandy’s Rose, sipping tea with Sally Mathison. With sad eyes, she listened to his version of the events in Lord Kelso’s book room and the shame on her niece’s face.

      ‘Mandy told me as much,’ she said when he finished his recitation, and poured more tea for them both.

      ‘I would like to speak to her,’ he asked. ‘Apologise, at the very least. Lord knows I made a muddle of the whole business.’

      It was Sal’s turn to look uncomfortable. ‘She told me she would rather be alone. Let’s give her the evening off and all should be better tomorrow.’ She passed him a plate of biscuits. ‘Besides, what can Lord Kelso do, except fume and froth?’ She gave him a worried glance. ‘Do you fear for your own career?’

      ‘Oh, no,’ he assured her. He looked down at his cup, wishing absurdly that he could read tea leaves and have a medium tell him his own future. ‘It’s just… Miss Mathison, would you be surprised if I thought I was in love with your niece?’

      She gave him a genuine smile. ‘I’d be astounded if you weren’t.’

      ‘It’s out of the question, I know, but…’

      ‘Why do you say that?’

      She caught him by surprise. ‘I am thirty-one,’ he said, casting about for a good reason.

      ‘Mandy is twenty-six.’

      ‘I’ll be gone all the time, until Napoleon decides to end this war, and he shows no such inclination.’ Even to his own ears, it sounded like a weak argument.

      ‘She has ever been a resourceful child,’ said the lady who had raised the woman he adored. ‘Mandy would be lonely, but she would manage. You would get amazingly wonderful letters.’

      Why that made him blush, Ben couldn’t have told a roomful of Mr Coopers, or even a chief magistrate. He stood up. ‘Some things are not meant to be,’ he told her.

      ‘Why?’ she asked so quietly.

      ‘What man in his right mind would marry, when the prospect of death in battle is so high aboard each Royal Navy vessel that plies the waters?’ There. That should do it.

      ‘Oh, I expect that a man who loves a lady would do precisely that,’ Sal replied, as calmly as you please. ‘P’raps it’s better this way, since you have no respect for the bravery of women in general and my niece in particular. Good day to you, Master Muir.’

      She had him, even as he cringed inside at the complete truth of her words. ‘I’ll be leaving in the morning.’

      Ben ate dinner in silence, wishing with all his heart that Amanda would come down the stairs. She did nothing of the sort and his forebodings grew. He knew how poorly he had shown himself to Sally Mathison, probably the one person that Amanda would believe. He had a greater worry. He had met vindictive men before and he feared what Lord Kelso might do.

      By the time he went to bed, he had convinced himself that his fears were unfounded. After all, what else could Lord Kelso do? Ben packed his clothes, took a long look at The Science of Nautical Mathematics, still untouched, then lay down to compose himself for sleep that he knew would not come.

      He stared at the ceiling all night. In the morning, he got up, washed and shaved in cold water and dressed. He had already told Sal that he was leaving on the northbound mail coach before dawn and just to leave a pasty for him.

      His timepiece told him that he had better hurry. He opened the door to his room to let himself out quietly and there stood Amanda in her nightgown and shawl.

      He exclaimed something because she had startled him, but she didn’t step back. Without a word, she put her hands up on his shoulders, which made him stoop a little.

      She kissed one cheek and then the other. ‘God keep you, Ben Muir,’ she whispered, her eyes on Aunt Sal’s closed door. ‘I was a ninny yesterday and I apologise.’

      ‘I am the fool,’ he contradicted.

      ‘Bother it,’ she whispered and kissed him again.

      He picked her up and kissed her back, then set her down. Her body pressed against his had given him a bigger jolt, but he had to hurry to the mail coach. He touched her nose, which made her sob, then put her hand to her mouth to stifle it. Unsure of himself, he who was self-assured in every aspect of naval operations, he went down the stairs quietly.

      He turned back to look up at her, wanting to declare himself, wanting to propose to her, wanting to tell her the deepest feelings of his heart. A realist, he knew he could do none of those and still catch the mail coach, so he remained silent. No, not a realist; a coward.

      ‘Wait a moment.’

      Miserable, Ben stood still in the darkness of the hall that led into the dining room.

      ‘Catch.’

      He held out his hand as the love of his heart, the mother of children he would never have, tossed something soft to him.

      ‘I only had time to knit you one stocking,’ she whispered, ‘so it’s a poor kind of Christmas. Perhaps one is better than none.’

      With that, she blew him a kiss and disappeared back into the upper-floor gloom. He heard another stifled sob and then a door close on every one of the expectations he hadn’t known he possessed, until he went to Venable to tutor a miserable excuse for a midshipman.

      He tucked the stocking into his uniform front and let himself out Mandy’s Rose for the last time.

      He had forgotten the pasty, so he bought pasteboard and lint at the posting house and ate that instead. As he chewed and swallowed doggedly, he wondered if there was a more cowardly man in all of England. Someone else would make her a good offer some day. Besides, he didn’t even know how to propose marriage.

      He would have managed quite well, if the mail coach hadn’t passed Mandy’s Rose on its journey to take him briefly to Plymouth, and a change of coach onto the Great North Road. He should have known better than to look out the window.

      There Amanda stood in the rain, that shawl still clutched tight around her nightgown, her feet bare. She locked her eyes on to his and he could have died with the pain in his heart.

      ‘Shameful, forward piece,’ said the woman seated next to him. ‘She’ll come to no good end.’

      Ben closed his eyes in perfect agony.

      Aunt Sal scolded her for standing in the rain, but Mandy could tell her heart wasn’t in it. She let her aunt lead her upstairs, strip off her wet nightgown and towel her dry, then wrap her tight in that towel and hold her close.

      Neither of them spoke. Sal finally turned to the door. ‘Get dressed, missy,’ she said. ‘We have a lot of work to do today and we have Christmas plans.’

      Mandy stared at the closed door for a long time, then did as her aunt had dictated. She had wasted a whole day yesterday. Breakfast seemed like a burden, so she shook her head over pasties when she came downstairs.

      ‘Amanda Mathison.’

      Mandy looked up, startled, as her dearest aunt took her chin firmly in her hand and gave her a shake. Wounded at ill treatment, she let Aunt Sal slap that pasty in her hand and obeyed her command to eat. She had the hardest time swallowing around the lump in her throat, but she managed because Aunt Sal expected her to manage.

      ‘Aunt Sal, why didn’t he declare himself?’ she asked finally, when she knew she wasn’t going to cry. ‘I believe he cared for me.’

      ‘He more than cared for you,’ Sal said finally. She hadn’t eaten, but there seemed to be an impediment in her throat, too.

      ‘Doesn’t

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