LITMIR.BIZ

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      He wrote, still frowning. ‘Starkey might think I am infringing on his territory. Still, how do I find a steward?’

      Sally thought a moment. ‘We pay a call on your neighbours.’

      ‘What, and poach from them?’

      ‘You are a trial, Admiral. I wish I had known this yesterday.’

      His lips twitched. ‘I’m not doing this on purpose. I’m out of my depth here.’

      ‘I repeat: tomorrow we will visit your closest neighbours. You will leave your card, explain the situation—I am certain they are already well aware of what this house looks like—and throw yourself on their mercy. If you are charming, they will provide assistance.’

      ‘And if I am not?’

      ‘You are charming, Mr Bright.’ She felt her cheeks grow warm when he looked at her. ‘Do you even know who your neighbours are, sir?’

      ‘The one directly next to us is an old marquis who seldom ventures off his property. A bit of a misanthrope, according to the real estate agent.’

      ‘Any other neighbours?’

      He gestured vaguely in the other direction. ‘Across the lane is Jacob Brustein and his wife, Rivka. He’s the banker in Plymouth who partners with William Carter. Or did. I think Carter has been dead for years, but the name always gave Brustein some clout. My sisters were appalled.’

      She considered this information. ‘Tomorrow morning, we will visit your neighbours.’

      He looked at his list. ‘Don’t you need a maid to help you with your clothes?’

      Sally shook her head. ‘The dress you saw me in, in the dining room, one cloak, a shawl, a nightgown and this blue dress constitute my wardrobe.’

      He dipped the pen in the inkwell. ‘One wardrobe for the lady of the house and suits for me. Then you will need a lady’s maid. A laundress, too?’

      She nodded, feeling the pinch of poverty again, even though she sat in a comfortable room. ‘I’m sorry to be a burden.’

      He waved the list to dry the ink. ‘Burden? Look at all this sound advice you have given me.’ He reached across the table for her hand. ‘Sophia, pay attention. I am only going to say this once, since the subject of money seems to embarrass you. As much as I disliked Napoleon, I grew rich off of him. This paltry list won’t make much of a dent. It won’t, even when I add a carriage and horses, and a coachman, and someone to clean—whatever you call it—from the stables.’

      ‘Try muck.’

      The admiral tipped back his chair and laughed. ‘Very well! Muck. I can see that your principal task will be to smooth my rough edges.’

      ‘Very well, sir.’

      Starkey knocked on the door, then opened it. ‘Dupuis wanted me to tell you that dinner is served in the breakfast room. I have covered the scabrous paintings.’ He closed the door, then opened it again. ‘Penelope and Odysseus are gone,’ he intoned. ‘Or maybe she was Venus and he a typical sailor.’

      Sally stared after him. ‘This place is a lunatic asylum,’ she said, when Starkey closed the door.

      ‘Not quite, dear wife. You have a worse task ahead, one I won’t even bother to immortalise on paper. You must find me something useful to do.’

      That will be a chore, she thought, as she removed her clothes that night in the privacy of her own bedroom. Starkey had made the bed at some point in the evening and lit a fire in the grate, which took away the chill of the rain that continued to fall.

      Dinner had been sheer delight. On short notice, Etienne had prepared a wonderful onion soup and served it with homely pilot bread, a menu item she remembered well from the days when Andrew would bring home his work and pore over the Royal Navy victual list, as she sat knitting in their tidy bookroom.

      She had felt shy at first with Charles, spending so much time in the company of a man she barely knew, but who was utterly engaging. Thinking to put her at ease, he started telling stories of life at sea—nothing designed to horrify her, but stories of travel to lands so far away she used to wonder if they were real, when she was a child. He told them with gusto, describing the purgatory of being a ‘young gentleman’, a thoroughly unexalted position below midshipman, when he was only ten.

      She must have looked askance at such a rough life for a mere child, because he stopped and touched her hand. ‘Don’t worry. I will never send our children to sea so young.’

      He had continued his narrative, probably not even aware of his inclusion of her in his life, and she knew better than to say anything. She found herself listening to him with all her heart, filled with the pleasure of something as simple as conversation. She realised she had been hungry for it, after years of tending old women who liked to retire with the chickens. A lady’s companion didn’t quite belong in the servants’ hall, and certainly not in the master’s sitting room. There had been too many nights spent in solitude, with too much time to miss her son and agonise over her husband’s ruin. This was different and she relished the admiral’s company.

      He had said goodnight outside the door to her chamber. ‘I’m across the hall, if you need anything,’ he said, then turned smartly on his heel, looking every inch the commander, and probably not even aware of it.

      You don’t know what else to be, do you? she thought, closing the door. As for what I need, it isn’t much, Admiral. When you are destitute, you quickly discover how much you don’t need, or you die.

      She sat cross-legged on her bed, bouncing a little, pleased to feel the comfort of a mattress thicker than a bandage. She had hung on to the mirror-backed hairbrush Andrew had given her one Christmas, and applied it, after she had taken all the pins from her hair.

      She turned over the brush and looked seriously at her face, noting the anxious eyes and thin cheeks, and wondering again why Admiral Bright had even paused to look at her in the dining room. All she could think was that the poor man was desperate for a wife, and when The Mouse didn’t materialise… Well, whatever the reason, she would do her best to smooth his passage on land.

      She was in bed and thinking about pinching out the candle when he knocked.

      ‘Sophia, I forgot something. Stick your hand out the door.’

      Mystified, she got up and opened the door a crack. ‘Why on earth…?’ she began.

      He had taken off his coat, removed his neckcloth and unbuttoned his shirt; she could see the webbing of straps against his neck that bound his hook to his wrist. He held out a piece of string.

      ‘I’m determined to do something about that ring that you kept taking on and off during dinner. Did it end up in the soup?’

      What a sweet man you are, she thought. ‘You know it didn’t! I can surely just wrap some cloth around it and keep it from slipping off,’ she said. ‘You needn’t…’

      ‘Mrs Bright, I won’t have my wife stuffing cloth in her ring. What would our unmet neighbours think? Besides, it was my choice for The Mouse. Somehow, it just isn’t you.’

      She opened her mouth to protest, but he gently laid his finger across her lips. ‘Mrs Bright, I am not used to being crossed. Retired I may be, but I like my consequence. Hold out your ring finger like the good girl I know you are. Lively now.’

      She did as he said. How could she not? He handed her a small stub of a pencil and draped the string across her finger.

      ‘I don’t have enough hands for this,’ he muttered. ‘Just wrap it around and mark the right length.’

      Sally did, touched at his kindness. Their heads were close together, and she breathed in his pleasant scent of bay rum again. ‘There you are, sir.’ She handed him the marked string and the pencil.

      He stepped back. She stayed where she was, her

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