Christmas Belles

  His eyes twinkled. "By God, you are looking fit, you old pirate. As bronzed and weather-beaten as any Jack-Tar. You make me feel pale as a sheet by comparison."

  "You are," Trent said equably.

  Lathrop's gaze skated round the cabin, coming to rest on the steward. "And here is your faithful Mr. Doughty. What, Mr. Doughty! Still here? You have managed to survive another voyage under this tyrant? I thought you would have jumped ship long 'ere now."

  "No, sir." Mr. Doughty looked pleased that Lathrop had remembered him. And yet, was it just Trent's imagination, or had Doughty given a guilty start at Lathrop's jest? Trent hoped it was only his fancy. It would be disturbing to think that Doughty contemplated such mischief. Desertion was a far more serious crime than smuggling.

  But Doughty appeared easy enough, his ever-ready grin widening his lips. "I had to hang about, Mr. Lathrop. I wouldn't miss the captain's wedding for next month's ration of rum."

  "Wedding?" Lathrop echoed, looking astounded as well he might. Trent had informed few people of his forthcoming nuptials.

  "That will do, Mr. Doughty," he said.

  Doughty ambled toward the door and exited with a salute, that is, as close as the rogue ever came to executing a proper one. When the door closed behind him, Trent was left to face Lathrop's questioning gaze.

  Trent avoided it for a moment by inviting Lathrop to have a seat. He pulled a face at the hard, straight-backed chair but lowered himself into it, tossing his hat upon the desk.

  "You don't waste much of your prize money on the amenities, do you, Trent? Like a more comfortable chair."

  "It would only mean that much more rubbish to be cleared away for action." Trent took up a position near the cannon, leaning against the great iron barrel. "And how are your mother and sisters, Charles? Well, I trust?"

  "Oh, quite well." Lathrop made an impatient gesture. He was not about to be put off by such pleasantries. "Never mind about my family. What was that nonsense Doughty was sprouting about weddings?"

  "It was not nonsense, but quite true. Though this is not the blunt manner in which I meant to announce the fact, I fear I must call upon you, Charles, to offer me felicitations. I am about to be married."

  "The devil, you say!" Lathrop let out a long, low whistle of amazement. "I knew Lady Caroline had set her cap at you, but I can see I never gave the woman enough credit by half. To have snared you when you are so seldom off the deck of a ship—"

  "Do not become too lost in your admiration of Caroline. It is not she who has brought me to the altar, but another lady."

  "Dear me. I have heard you sailors have a girl in every port. So who is this fortunate damsel? Am I to be privileged to know her name?"

  "Certainly. I am betrothed to Miss Emma Waverly."

  Lathrop's face fell, his teasing manner swiftly abandoned. "Waverly! You don't mean the daughter of that old man who perished aboard your ship that time, the one who—"

  "Yes, precisely. Sir Phineas Waverly."

  When Lathrop lapsed into a troubled silence, Trent stirred restively. "You need not look as though my betrothal were something unnatural or even uncommon, Charles. After all, Sir Phineas was a distant relative of sorts. When he died, I not only inherited his estate but also the guardianship of his four daughters, with the exception of Miss Emma, who is already of age."

  Lathrop shook his head as though he could still not take it in. "But, Trent, have you ever even met this girl?"

  "No. Unfortunately, my duties have prevented me from ever visiting Windhaven. But I have had frequent correspondence with Miss Waverly."

  "Indeed, because you receive mail so often when you are on board ship! So how many times have you written each other? Once? Twice?"

  "Enough to conclude our marital arrangements," Trent said evasively. "With your romantic nature, Charles, I thought you would find the tale of my courtship quite pleasing."

  Lathrop rose to his feet and paced off a few steps, as much as the cabin would let him. His usually smooth brow was knit with worry. "If I saw any romance in this, mayhap I would, but what I see is guilt."

  "That's ridiculous."

  "Is it?" Lathrop gave him a long, searching stare which Trent found he could not meet. "My God, Trent," he went on. "You cannot continue to hold yourself responsible for the death of that old man."

  "Can't I? He would never have been aboard that ship but for me."

  "You tried to do him a kindness, going to a great deal of effort, getting him that post in the diplomatic corps."

  "Kindness!" Trent snorted. It had been a very careless sort of kindness. When Sir Phineas had first approached him for his aid, Trent had been in excellent humor, having newly acquired the stripes that marked him as a captain with seniority. In the flush of those spirits, he had glibly promised Sir Phineas anything. And, indeed, getting the old man his post had proved no hardship. Just the whisper in the right ear of an influential acquaintance in the government.

  "You never expected Sir Phineas to be sent to Portugal," Lathrop continued to argue. "Any more than you thought to convey him on your ship. Any more than you expected to run afoul of that Spanish man-of-war. And you did order the old man to stay below."

  "Aye," Trent said wearily, knowing it was useless to argue with Lathrop, useless to expect anyone raised outside the tradition of the navy to understand the one simple fact. The captain was always ultimately responsible for what happened aboard his ship, for the lives of every man, be he crew or passenger.

  "Wasn't it wonderfully convenient?" Trent sneered with some bitterness. "To have Sir Phineas die aboard my ship, me being his heir."

  "Damnation!" Lathrop flushed a bright red. "You know, if anyone else dared imply such a thing, I'd call them out. As if you ever coveted that old man's ramshackle estate! I daresay it will take half your own fortune to bring it to any kind of order."

  "I daresay it would, if I meant to try. But I am more concerned with the fate of Sir Phineas's orphaned daughters."

  "So much so that you intend to sacrifice yourself on the altar of matrimony."

  "Don't be so dramatic, Charles, and do check your agitation before you forget yourself and crack your head on one of the deck beams." Trent added in more placating tones, "It's no good your remonstrating with me, Charles. My course is set. I have proposed to Miss Waverly, and she has accepted me. We will be wed at Windhaven during the upcoming Christmas holidays."

  Lathrop shot him a look seething with frustration, but he sank back into the chair, flinging out his hands in resignation.

  "I suppose it only remains for me to wish you joy, then. Lord, won't Lady Caroline look blue when she hears of this."

  "Not for very long, I trust. There was never any deep attachment between us."

  "Only because you would not permit it."

  "No, I wouldn't," Trent said. "That is one of the important lessons I learned from my grandfather, the admiral. He taught me that a captain has no business forming close attachments, neither with his crew nor with those he leaves behind on shore. You know well what my life is like, Charles. A month at home, then years at sea. I have scarce been off the deck of a ship since I was nine, one of the privileges of being an admiral's grandson."

  "Oh, aye, a rare privilege that," Lathrop interrupted dryly.

  Trent ignored him. "It would be a cruelty for me to inspire a great love in any lady only to leave her pining for months on end. Cruel to us both. Far better to wed without passion. I am sure Miss Waverly and I will grow to be fond enough of each other in time. Her letters mark her to be a most sensible young woman."

  "I hope she is at least pretty. Have you ever seen a portrait of her?"

  "No, but Sir Phineas always used to speak of her as being quite lovely."

  "Fathers are ridiculously partial that way. My own sire used to think my sisters beauties, and you know quite well that both Lydia and Bess have more freckles than there are shells in the sea. For all you know, Miss Waverly may be the image of her papa."

  Perh
aps she would be, but that meant little to Trent. It often disturbed him that Sir Phineas's image had faded so from his memory. He recollected little of the elderly knight except that he had had a pair of very kindly eyes.

  "Sir Phineas was an exceedingly strange old man," Trent mused aloud. "I must confess, at times I found him an infernal nuisance when he was on board. He had a habit of seeking me out to talk, even when I was taking my solitary stroll on the quarterdeck. Though God knows what he spoke of. I can scarce remember." He gave a reluctant laugh. "Sometimes I had the feeling he harbored the peculiar notion that I was lonely."

  "Peculiar indeed," Lathrop murmured, casting Trent an oddly penetrating stare.

  Trent gave himself a little shake as though to rid himself of the reminiscing mood he seemed to have fallen into of late. "I didn't mean to wax so longwinded. I ought to be explaining why I sent for you, dragged you all the way down here to Plymouth."

  "I should thing this leveler about your upcoming marriage reason enough."

  "Oh, I could have conveyed that in a letter. I fear there is something more." Trent felt a rare surge of emotion and spoke more gruffly to conceal it. "I should deem it a great favor if you would travel up to Windhaven to stand up with me at my wedding."

  "I should have deemed it a great insult if you hadn't asked me." Lathrop leapt up impulsively, and Trent feared he would not escape an embrace this time. But Lathrop expressed the force of his feelings with a cuff to Trent's shoulder.

  "You great dolt! Of course I shall come. And you must have known that. Why else would you have `dragged me all the way to Plymouth,' as you put it?"

  "I suppose I was rather sure of your answer. I fear I presume too much upon your good nature."

  "No," Lathrop said earnestly. "You presume upon the basis of our friendship, as well you should."

  "Yes, well..." Trent gave an embarrassed cough. "Good, That's all settled, then, though I do feel a little guilty for taking you away from your own family at Christmastime."

  "That is no hardship, believe me. My mother has invited a parcel of her tonnish friends down from London and is busy planning a ball, a masquerade, and all manner of other horrors. You know how I despise all that fashionable nonsense. You have sailed to my rescue, Captain Trent. If only you could be married every Christmas."

  "Once, I trust, will suffice. I have been given a leave of absence by the Admiralty. We have only to agree on our traveling arrangements. By post, I thought. Could you possibly be ready to set out today?"

  "Within the hour." Lathrop retrieved his hat and gave it a playful toss, catching it by the brim. "How long has the Admiralty given you? One month? Two?"

  "A fortnight only."

  "Well! I call that a rather shabby allotment for a man's wedding and bride trip."

  "There will be no bride trip. The Admiralty is not romantic, Charles. And even though things have not been quite so heated since Trafalgar, there is still a war going on."

  "So there is " Lathrop sobered but only for a moment. "But not in Norfolk. There we shall cry down with the fierce god Mars. It shall be Venus to whom we pay our court. You did say Waverly had four daughters?" Lathrop preened a little, straightening his cravat. "Perhaps I shall set up an agreeable flirtation with one of the younger ones."

  Trent bit back a smile. Like Mr. Doughty, Lathrop fancied himself quite a devil with the ladies. The truth was that Lathrop possessed far too sweet a disposition to ever cut a dash as a rakehell.

  All the same, Trent humored him, growling, "You had best control your libertine propensities, Charles, and recollect that those three young ladies are my wards. I might be forced to call you out."

  "I tremble with fear, Captain," Charles mocked. After a little more jesting in this vein, the time and place of their departure was fixed upon, and Charles took his leave to see to his own packing.

  Trent caught himself still smiling long after Lathrop had left him. He wondered, not for the first time, how such a somber fellow as himself had retained a friendship with a man as jovial as Charles. Perhaps because contrary to Admiral Sefton's teachings, one did not lightly shake off the attachments of one's youth. Trent had never had brother or sister, his mother dying in the birthing of him. His scholarly father had seemed but a gentle shadow passing through his life. Trent's whole world had been dominated by the gruff old man who had been his grandfather. Rear Admiral John Sefton had taken Trent aboard his own flagship and made him a midshipman at the tender age of nine. Though Trent had never doubted his fierce grandfather's love for him, the admiral had shown Trent no quarter, done nothing to spare him the rigors of life at sea.

  Only once had the admiral ever exerted his influence on Trent's behalf. That was when the eleven¬year-old Trent had been wounded in action, a flying splinter the size of a knife driven through his thigh.

  The admiral had had Trent removed from shipboard and the inept ship surgeon's care. He had sent his grandson to convalesce at the home of old family acquaintances, the Lathrops. It was during those three months that a bond had been forged between Trent and Charles Lathrop, a friendship that had endured against all the changes of maturing, the necessarily long separations. Rather than being at school in the manner of most boys his age and station, eight-year-old Charles had been kept at home with a tutor because his mama had feared for his "delicate constitution."

  How anyone could have fancied Charles delicate, observing the mad way he rode his horse at fences, Trent had not known or cared. He had been only too glad of Charles's company.

  That had been a glorious summer of hunting for birds' nests, swimming in the pond, playing at cricket, simply being a boy instead of Mr. Midshipman Trent of His Majesty's flagship Diana. Trent had never forgotten those halcyon days. They remained among his fondest memories. He was still reflecting upon them when Mr. Doughty returned to the cabin.

  Trent snapped to at once, ashamed to be caught woolgathering. While Doughty finished up the packing, Trent made haste to finish his report.

  He was just inking in his name with his usual precision when Doughty closed up the trunk and announced, "There now. That's all square, Cap'n."

  "Very good, Mr. Doughty. Convey the trunk topside."

  "Aye, aye, sir. And I just want to be thanking you, sir, fer taking me with you. I haven't been off this ship since they brought me from the excises. I've never seen Norfolk, but I hear tell they have a fine coastline. Plenty of prime coves for smuggling."

  When Trent glanced up sharply, Doughty flashed a bright smile.

  "Only jesting, sir."

  "I sincerely hope so, Mr. Doughty. Just as I hope you will contain some of your enthusiasm and recollect that at the end of two weeks, we will be back here aboard ship. Both of us."

  "Indeed. O'course, sir," Doughty responded glibly.

  Trent frowned, experiencing again that stirring of uneasiness, wondering if he was making a mistake trusting the roguish steward. He might have been wrong to request the use of Doughty's services away from the ship. Taking him inland might set the most dreadful temptation in the man's way.

  But Trent was swiftly distracted from these troubling thoughts. Moving to close the sea chest, Doughty let out a loud howl, followed by a string of curses.

  "What the devil is amiss now, Mr. Doughty?" Trent demanded. "Did you smash your thumb?"

  The steward's face was puckered into an expression of dismay that appeared ludicrously childlike on such a brawny fellow.

  "No, Cap'n, beggin' yer pardon, sir, but 'tis pure calamity, that's what it is. Look what happened during that last squall that bumped your sea chest about."

  Doughty's hand trembled as he delved into the chest and drew forth what looked like no more than a handful of crumbled stone. When it finally occurred to Trent what had broken, he shrugged.

  "It was only the figurine that Greek sea captain insisted upon giving me," Trent said. "Just a casting of Saint somebody or other."

  "Saint Nicholas, Cap'n," Doughty said reproachfully. "Saint Nicholas, the protec
tor of all sailors. Oh, woe betide! This be an ill omen, sir. Best postpone all your plans, the shore leave and the wedding!"

  "Don't be ridiculous."

  Doughty was appallingly superstitious, like most seamen, and Trent had little patience with it. He ordered the steward to dispose of the broken pieces and then see to removing his baggage to the quarterdeck.

  Although Doughty moved to obey, he shook his head darkly. Even as he hoisted the trunk to his shoulder and left the cabin, Trent could still hear him muttering lamentations beneath his breath, the dire prediction that he never expected to live to see his captain exchange vows with Miss Emma Waverly.

  Partly amused, partly exasperated, Trent moved to close up the sea chest himself when Doughty had gone. As he lowered the lid, he noticed the steward had missed one of the chunks of statue.

  Reaching down, Trent drew forth the saint's decapitated head. The stone eyes did seem to regard him with a cold blankness that was a little macabre. But as Trent was not in the least superstitious, he marched to the stern and forced open one of the windows. Without further thought, he cast the head of Saint Nicholas into the foam-capped depths of the Channel.

  Chapter Two

  The time had come to put away all black bands, ribbons, and other signs of mourning. If only memories were as easily packed away, Chloe thought with a sigh. Slipping the mourning ring from her finger, she laid it to rest in the top drawer of her dresser with the other treasured reminders of her father, the fob and watch he had worn as a young man, the small wooden carving of Saint Nicholas, Sir Phineas's final letter to her.

  A year and a half had passed since the notice had come from Captain Trent bearing the dreadful tidings. The first torrents of her grief had eased to become a gentle rain. She could even derive some solace at the thought that at least now Papa must be reunited with her mother. She did not doubt that from some distant heaven both her parents kept watch over their four daughters.

  Chloe almost envied them, for there was little of heaven apparent this day in Norfolk. The sky beyond the nursery room's latticed windows was a most dismal winter gray. Tension seemed to crackle in the air as sharply as the green logs on the fire.