LITMIR.BIZ

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he said quietly. ‘I mean that with all my heart.’ He touched his chest. ‘Thank you from the bottom of mine.’

      Goodness gracious, now his audience was sniffing.

      ‘Are ye bound back to war, sir?’ someone in the crowd asked.

      ‘Aye, but first I have agreed to escort Miss Newsome to Norfolk,’ he said, happy to change the subject.

      Knowing looks passed from one to another, which made his face feel warm. He knew small villages because he came from one, where people shared all news because nothing important ever happened. He looked for kindness and charity in those eyes, and did not look in vain. They could imagine all they wanted over someone who was obviously a village favourite, from the kind looks coming Miss Newsome’s way. No need for him to explain himself further.

      ‘It is one last service I could perform for my second lieutenant,’ he said. ‘I do it with pleasure. Good day. I believe the coachman would like to keep to his time.’

      He held out his hand for Verity and helped her up, where four travellers already on the coach looked back at them. One rotund little fellow moved as close as he could to the window, but the space remaining was scarcely adequate.

      Miss Newsome seated herself next to the window and he squeezed in beside her.

      ‘I wish I didn’t have to keep explaining myself,’ he whispered to her. ‘I didn’t reckon it would be this hard.’

      ‘Easily dealt with,’ she whispered back. ‘Put your bicorn in my lap and your head against my shoulder and go to sleep.’

      ‘I’m not tired,’ he whispered back.

      ‘I am. Be quiet and pretend.’

      ‘There’s no room for my arm,’ he said, feeling like a pouty child.

      ‘Put it around my shoulders,’ Miss Newsome replied. Was the woman never at a loss?

      She was right. He eased his arm around her shoulders and gained enough space to wedge himself into the tight space. But his head on her shoulder? They were much the same height, so the theory was sound enough. He tested cautiously, and actually found himself relaxing. Maybe he hadn’t slept as soundly last night as he had imagined. Maybe he hadn’t slept well in weeks.

      * * *

      He woke up several hours later, looking around in surprise because he had actually relaxed. Miss Newsome was knitting and chatting with a woman about her age seated across from her, from the looks of her about ready to give birth.

      Without raising his head from its admittedly comfortable resting place—thank goodness Miss Newsome wasn’t a skinny thing with bones everywhere—he managed a sideways glance at the little man crowding him, also asleep and leaning against him.

      Such a dilemma: if he sat up, the porky fellow would likely wake up, too. Joe doubted too many men had leaned against Miss Newsome, which he privately discovered was a pleasant thing to do.

      ‘I could sit up, but I would wake up the man leaning against me,’ he whispered to Miss Newsome.

      ‘Let him be, then,’ she said. ‘I’m having no trouble knitting and you are not a burden,’ she replied. ‘In fact, if I may speak plain, I like the fragrance of your cologne. So does Mrs Black. Mrs Black, let me introduce Captain Everard. Joe, Mrs Black is the wife of a joiner and headed home after a week visiting her sister.’

      ‘Pleased to make your acquaintance,’ he said, ready to laugh at the incongruity of the situation, but happy to have his notion confirmed about the interesting people one could meet on the mail coach.

      ‘Same here,’ Mrs Black said. She shifted a little and winced, obviously finding not a single bit of comfort in her gravid state. ‘We’ve been wondering, your wife and I, where you got that fragrance. She said you’re newly back from Trafalgar.’

      ‘Oh, but...’ Miss Newsome began saying. ‘I should explain...’

      Oh, worse and worse. Mrs Black was labouring under a not surprising misapprehension, since he had made himself at home against Miss Newsome, with his arm around her shoulder and his fingers drooping perilously close to her bosom. Joe didn’t know a great deal about social niceties, but he strongly suspected that even a fiancé would not sit this way. Mrs Black had made the logical connection. If he said anything, fiancé or not, she would probably be aghast.

      ‘I was at Trafalgar and newly back,’ he said quickly. ‘I haven’t had enough time to tell Verity all my stories.’

      He could explain to Verity later why he was continuing an understandable error. ‘My crew had an opportunity to relieve the officers of the captured Ildefonzo of some personal possessions. I am the dubious beneficiary, but I like lemon, too.’

      ‘Poor, deluded men,’ the joiner’s wife said in sympathy. ‘Couldn’t you stop the looting?’

      ‘Joe... Captain Everard...was unaware of it,’ Miss Newsome said, as smoothly as if she lied every day. ‘You can see that he had a dreadful wound to his face.’

      ‘That’s the whole story,’ Joe said, well aware that it was fiction—calling it a story was no stretch. He had bought the cologne at Gibraltar, where they docked for enough repairs to limp them home. ‘Spoils of war, Mrs Black, and nothing more.’

      Apparently satisfied, Mrs Black continued her own knitting and Verity returned to the sock in her lap. Considering discretion the better part of valour, Joe pretended to be asleep.

      * * *

      When they arrived in Whistler, he happily escorted Mrs Black from the mail coach and wished her well with her upcoming blessed event. She touched his heart by kissing his cheek and thanking him for his role at Trafalgar.

      ‘Please tell Mrs Everard how mindful England is of her family’s sacrifice,’ she said.

      ‘I will,’ he said and that was no lie.

      He helped Verity down next because the coachman had announced a noon stop. He laughed inside at the contrition on her face and waited for her apology, which wasn’t long in coming.

      ‘Captain, I had no idea she would assume we were married,’ she whispered. ‘I never had a chance to mention our engagement and I didn’t want to embarrass her.’

      Her lips nearly tickled his ear and he found the sensation beguiling and far from unpleasant. ‘No fears, Verity,’ he said. ‘If the others on the coach continue their journey, we have no choice but to continue the charade.’

      ‘It’s perhaps regrettable, but no hardship,’ Miss Newsome said. ‘We looked even more casual than an engaged couple, didn’t we?’

      ‘Decidedly ramshackle on my part, but I have to say that your shoulder is comfortable.’

      ‘And your arm around me equally so,’ she said quietly. ‘But that is travel on the mail coach, eh?’

       Chapter Eleven

      The charade continued, because the round man remained aboard.

      ‘There is one problem with lying,’ Verity whispered as they tried to make themselves comfortable for the continuation of the journey.

      ‘Only one?’ he teased.

      ‘Wretched man,’ she said with some feeling. ‘We have to remember our lies so we do not misspeak.’

      ‘Heaven forbid,’ Joe said, enjoying this journey more by the minute. Blockade life bored him so badly that even this gentle misdemeanour amused him excessively. Still, a man should explain himself.

      ‘When we followed Villeneuve and the Bucentaure from Toulon, and thence to Trafalgar, you could have sliced our enthusiasm with a sharp knife and made a sandwich of it,’ he whispered. ‘Every one of us happily traded

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