All's Fair in Love and War

Chapter Twenty-Two

Harry had sat beside Miss Rowe during luncheon for twenty interminable minutes and she hadn’t so much as glanced his way for one second of them. Instead, she’d behaved as if he didn’t exist at all. While he undoubtedly deserved her frostiness and definitely needed her indifference if he was going to resist his inconvenient yearning for her, he could not bear the thought he had hurt her feelings. He had been so absorbed with guilt, he hadn’t given the bloody Boadicea a single thought during the short forty-minute sail from Cawsand to Plymouth.

But with the entrance to the Royal Navy Dockyard looming, he needed to push all his regrets to one side. Easier said than done after he had overheard her telling Ada some of her troubled family history before he had tried to sneak out. Now he hadn’t just been a cad to an innocent governess in his employ—which was unconscionable enough—but he now knew that the strong-willed and seemingly indomitable itch he couldn’t scratch was all alone in the world, bar the few friends she had made at Miss Prentice’s School for Young Ladies. That she had been rendered fatherless while still in the crib and motherless under such dreadful circumstances while about the same age as Marianne. His family had always driven him to distraction, but he could not imagine how lonely his life would be without them. Blasted Flora might well be the bane of his life, but she had always been a shoulder to cry on when fate had been cruel and vice versa. Through the best of times and the worst of times, they had always had each other.

To have no one must be horrendous. Isolating and frightening. It certainly explained why Miss Rowe was such a feisty character. She had had to face everything life threw at her alone, and that took grit.

Still, it must have been terrifying for a little girl to witness her mother deteriorate with illness. Smallpox was such a dreadful way to go. He’d borne witness to an outbreak here in Plymouth, years ago, that swept the dockyard and had killed so many so indiscriminately and so quickly it beggared belief. It had been horrendous to watch as a powerless adult from the periphery, so he shuddered to think what it must have been like for a child in the thick of it. Especially a child imprisoned in the depressing family quarters in a barracks where stiff upper lips were expected and everyone would have been too busy soldiering to help her get through that traumatic ordeal. With her father already long gone…

In which case, why had she been dragged from barracks to barracks until the age of sixteen?

There was another story there and one, no doubt, judging from her speed at changing the subject at luncheon, that wasn’t a nice one either. She had hinted as much last night before he had hauled her into his arms and kissed her.

I only have to hear the dreaded wordsIpswich or Preston or, heaven forbid, Newcastle, and a part of me dies.

Why the blazes had an orphan traveled from barracks to barracks until she turned sixteen? And more importantly, what had happened to her there to give her such bad memories? He hated the thought of someone else upsetting her almost as much as he hated himself for it. He needed to apologize. Set the record straight. Try to find a way to tell her that it wasn’t her fault he could not presently indulge his heart when…

“It’s good to be back on the water.” Simpkins encroached on his reverie. He waved at the heavily armed guards on the harbor wall and then pointed to Harry’s uniform, which was all they needed to see to allow them to sail straight past.

Harry had decided to don the full pomp and ceremony of his dress uniform, complete with the blessedly roomier and freshly cleaned newer breeches, to intimidate the lazy layabouts on the bloody Boadicea. He had also put it on to remind himself of who he was and to refocus his mind on what he had been sent here to do. Except he was still unable to focus on anything, currently, but her.

“I’ll bet you’re excited to see your ship and to get her shipshape, Captain?”

“Very.” A complete lie. Dread now joined all the guilt and confusion he was feeling. It settled like lead in his stomach. “I fear there will be a lot to do but, as one of the greats said, Alexander, I think, there is nothing impossible to him who is prepared to try.”

Harry sincerely hoped that was the case, at least where the Boadicea was concerned. Just as he had everything crossed that this unwelcome, and suddenly torturous, stint in Plymouth would reinvigorate his enthusiasm for his naval career. He was being given a brand-spanking-new flagship, after all, and that was a momentous honor. One few of his contemporaries would ever experience. He should be happy about it.

Surely?

“That’s the spirit, Captain!” Simpkins quickly gathered the small sail on the creaky boat the Kincaid family had used to cross the Sound for at least forty years. For reasons best known to herself, blasted Flora had had it painted bright red and yellow and dotted the sails with childish daisies. Therefore, despite its diminutive size, the little boat stood out against the dark, sensible colors of the navy fleet—much like the beguiling Miss Rowe did in a crowd—drawing every eye to its inauspicious arrival.

With the perfect timing of a seasoned sailor that negated any need for Harry to lift a finger from the canary yellow rudder, his right-hand was up and ready to toss the line to the waiting man on the dock. “Captain Kincaid reporting for duty on the HMS Boadicea.” An instruction that had the shore team hopping and saluting as if he were visiting royalty, no doubt thanks to Admiral Nugent, who would have warned them to expect hellfire to rain down on whoever stood in Harry’s way.

With his embarrassing boat tethered, Harry saluted back, then waved away all offers of an escort to take him first to his new office and then his ship. He knew this place like the back of his hand thanks to regular visits here throughout his boyhood with his grandfather. He also needed a few silent minutes to bury all his tumultuous emotions before he had to be the no-nonsense Royal Navy fixer that was Captain Henry Augustus Kincaid.

Plymouth Dockyard was its usual noisy flurry of seemingly chaotic business, which wasn’t actually chaotic at all when you understood its necessary rhythm. Along the quay, an endless plethora of naval vessels of all shapes and sizes were tied tight to the giant iron bollards while being either loaded for a voyage or unloaded after one. Their many naked masts resembled reeds swaying gently against the horizon. Tall, spindly cranes whose size belied their strength—much like Miss Rowe—swung enormous loads wrapped in tarpaulin or rope, giant parcels of supplies holding everything from spare rigging to the sailors’ rum rations.

As he watched the familiar scene, Harry realized that after just a week, he did not miss his procurement job at the Admiralty at all. If anything, he was relieved to be done with that logistical nightmare. He wouldn’t do that job again if they paid him quadruple. A welcome realization which buoyed him slightly.

Maybe some distance from that suffocating role was all he had needed to be able to see the wood for the trees? He had been so busy in Whitehall that he never had the time to allow his true feelings for that thankless promotion to properly manifest. Yet now, he could see why he had been so dissatisfied with it all with crystal clarity. It had been a means to an end and not what he wanted to do. Which all rather suggested that this massive change of direction in his career was for the best too. That epiphany gave him renewed hope that he would find the enthusiasm for his career that had been sorely missing this last year as well and…

“There she is, Captain!” Simpkins was beside himself with joy as he pointed out the Boadicea between the piers at the very front of the building yard. “Blimey, she’s a beauty! Look at the size of her!”

If a person’s first reaction was the most honest one, then Harry’s wasn’t half as effusive as Simpkins’s. Yes, there was no denying that the Boadicea was indeed a handsome vessel—even swaddled in scaffold and with workmen’s cradles filled with paint pots dangling from her rail. She was also impressive; enough to take his breath away. At least fifty cannons already poked out of the gunports of the triple decks on the starboard side. Three chunky masts stabbed the sky above, naked and still awaiting their sails. So vast that she dwarfed all the other ships around her and so regal she demanded everyone’s respect. Yet as he craned his neck upward to take it all in, Harry still did not feel that surge of pride he had expected as her captain, nor any sense of connection to the vessel at all, for that matter. Only irritation that it existed and a sense of… flatness.

His boot had barely touched the gangplank than he was piped aboard with all the misplaced ceremonial formality that only His Majesty’s Royal Navy could properly pull off at a moment’s notice.

Word had clearly already made it to the few men on board that the new captain had turned up early to surprise them, as the shipwrights still working on the bow were doing their best impressions of busy men on a mission. That it was barely two on a Thursday afternoon and he could only count five of the supposed fifty workers also explained why the bloody Boadicea was so far behind schedule. Whoever was in charge was very lax indeed. While he made a mental note to find out who their useless supervisor was and have him replaced quick sharp, the motley crew of just three sailors up on the main deck had started to gather, ready to be inspected.

A very tall, very thin, very young lieutenant met him and saluted with all the stiffness of one who wanted to make the very best first impression. “Captain Kincaid, I am Lieutenant Ashley Gregson.” The clipped, aristocratic accent was a dead giveaway that Gregson was either some titled gent’s heir or his spare. “It’s an honor to be serving under you, sir.” Although he was at least six and twenty—by which age Harry had already taken his first command—Gregson appeared too wet behind the ears to be given such a position of authority on a ship this big. However, as Harry had been an early bloomer too, he decided not to judge a book by its cover and to give the lad a chance, as he knew how it felt to be judged unfairly for the unforgivable crime of youthfulness. “Stand at ease, Gregson. When did you get here?”

“Yesterday, sir,” said the lieutenant, not standing any easier. “I was transferred from the Kingfisher.” A big enough boat that suggested young Gregson might well know his poop deck from his mizzenmast after all. Although by the assessing expression on Simpkins’s face, his right-hand was unconvinced. But such was the usual wariness between the commissioned sailors and the enlisted. The navy, in their narrow-minded wisdom, refused to promote fine mariners like Simpkins, who had clawed their way up the hard way, into the officer class. That was still reserved for gentlemen only, irrespective of how competent the gentlemen actually were at sea—and so many weren’t. It would be one of the first archaic things Harry abolished if he ever became admiral of the fleet.

He decided not to overthink why he had put an if in that casual thought in case it meant something significant, when up until now it had always been a definitive when I am admiral of the fleet. It was just a random thought, after all, on the back of a busy and fraught week; there was no need for his mind to single that random one out and imbue it with unnecessary gravitas. Although it did anyway.

“Then seeing as you have a day’s head start on us, why don’t you give us the tour, Lieutenant?”

“Your supper is stone cold,” said Ada unapologetically as she waved her wooden spoon at Harry seven hours later. “In this house, supper is served at seven on the dot and always has been in the fifty years I’ve worked here. Them’s the rules, Harry, and a man who wears two watches should do a better job of arriving on time.”

“Sorry, Ada.” He did his best impression of a man contrite. It came easily tonight because he was contrite. Despite trying his hardest to focus all day on the bloody Boadicea and its myriad problems that he needed to fix in just a month, his mind had wandered too frequently back to Miss Rowe and how he had upset her instead. “At least I am back in time for the children’s bedtime.” Although judging by the silence in the house beyond this kitchen, he might be too late for that too. “Where are they?”

“Gone for their baths.” The spoon jabbed at the ceiling. “If you shake a leg, you might see them before Georgie tucks them in for the night.” Clearly everyone on the planet had the right to call the siren by her given name except him, and that galled, even though he knew he needed that formal barrier between them. “Where’s Simpkins?” She tilted to look behind him with an expression that said she knew full well why his right-hand wasn’t there. “Don’t tell me. He’s gone for a jar at the Ship tavern.”

There was no point denying it. Cawsand was small and the community as thick as thieves. “As he’s ceased being my butler, his evenings are now his own—but he did say he was only going for the one.”

“Well, when he finally gets home after the five or six that he’s really gone for, let him know that his food is cold too.” She gave him a light thwack on his arm with her spoon. “You’ll both be home by seven tomorrow, young man, or I’ll make you wear your dinner like a hat.”

“Yes, Ada.” Harry had known her too many years not to believe she meant it. “I really am sorry.” That was bound to be his easiest apology tonight. He still didn’t quite know how to tackle the next one and decided he would play it by ear when the time came.

And talking of time…

He checked one of his pocket watches for Ada’s benefit. “I’d best shake a leg, as you said, to catch the children.” After which, he needed to have a more difficult conversation with their governess than this morning’s. Except this one would be based on truth and not the pathetic and handy lies he had unintentionally hurt her with.

Harry took the stairs two at a time in his haste to get to her and get it over with, then paused in the half-open doorway to watch her in action.

She was curled up on the bed with Grace, reading the children a story. Her vibrant hair was gloriously unruly after a day herding his nieces and nephew and had long escaped its pins. Norbert had made a pillow of her feet and was snoring upside down and spread-eagled across the bottom of the mattress while Felix was listening intently from his cross-legged position on the rug. Marianne was lounging on her belly next to him, her chin propped in her hands.

As Miss Rowe read something about a pumpkin at midnight and a woman running away from a handsome prince who was left bereft with just her shoe, both Harry’s nieces inhaled. “How is he ever going to find her again?” asked Grace, so engrossed in the tale she thought it was true.

“He’s not,” replied Felix, matter-of-fact. “She’s a maid and he’s a prince and they move in very different circles. He’d be marrying below himself and princes don’t do that in real life.”

“If there’s no happy ending then I do not wish to hear the rest!” Marianne yanked off the paper crown she was wearing, and before she threw it in disgust, Harry could not resist intervening.

“I am sure it will end happily if you give your poor governess some peace and quiet to finish the story.”

Miss Rowe jumped at that, took one look at him, and blushed. Then she snapped the book closed at the same time as she surged to her feet. “You shall have to wait until tomorrow night to see how it ends. I shall leave you all to say your good nights to your uncle.”

She could not even bring herself to look at him as she scurried past. Proof, if proof were needed, she now thoroughly hated him, although whether that was as a result of him taking gross advantage of her person last night or thanks to his clumsy, cowardly words of this morning, he had no clue. The masochistic little devil within was rooting for the latter, as that was the only option which could be fixed to end happily for them like the prince and the pumpkin lady—and to hell with the navy. That devil wanted him to ignore all the sound and pressing reasons that made her and him impossible, simply to have an excuse to kiss her again. Preferably as soon as possible.

As there was no way of apologizing with the children present, he let her go. But she had barely gone ten feet when there was a commotion downstairs that stopped her in her tracks and brought him and the children up short.

“In the absence of her ladyship, then her blasted brother can compensate me!” Harry chilled at the unfamiliar voice coming from the front porch. The word compensate dragged him instantly back to his childhood, when all the debt collectors had queued angrily at their door. It also awoke Norbert, who began to bark before he flew off the bed to join the fray in the hall.

“Now see here!” Tom was equally incensed downstairs at the aggressive tone of the interloper. “You’ve no right to come barging here at this late hour when you know the master and mistress won’t be home for months!”

“I want paying, Tom, and I damn well want paying tonight!”

“Then you can come back and state your case politely to Harry during daylight hours, like a decent person!” By the sounds of wood being wrestled, Tom was attempting to shut the door on the interloper while holding back mad Norbert, and neither the debt collector nor the dog would have it. “There is nobody to receive you here tonight!”

“Oh yes there is! I saw her bloody brother with me own eyes not ten minutes ago, riding home across the field in his fancy uniform! So he will see me now! I’m sick of being fobbed off by you and Ada when I’m owed!”

“You’ve got no proof that any money actually is owed!”

“Got no proof!” The stranger’s voice rose several octaves, and so did Norbert’s barking. “What’s this if it’s not proof! I’m not going until I get my money!”

As the children’s eyes had widened at the drama unfolding downstairs, and as Harry remembered only too well how frightening it was for a child to have to listen to a bailiff’s threats while powerless to do anything to stop them taking what they wanted, he rushed to the stairwell. If it spared them that same anxiety, then he would pay his sister’s debt whether there was proof she owed it or not. And despite bloody fuming at his blasted sister for racking up debt and ignoring it. Why the hell hadn’t Flora learned the same awful lessons from their financially incompetent parents as he had? Especially when she had been as terrified of it all as he had been back then. To put her own children through the same torment because she was a flighty disaster who couldn’t run a bath was beyond the pale!

He slowed before he took the stairs, as he was determined to keep the calm upper hand, no matter how chaotic the situation sounded. His sister might be up to her eyeballs in debt, but thanks to all the admiral’s hoarded money and Harry’s talent for investing it, he was as solvent as could be.

“What seems to be the problem, sir?” He would be polite and accommodating for the sake of the children, who were already quite scared enough, and he would make this go away no matter how much it cost. But when she came back, by Jove, Flora was getting both barrels!

At Harry’s approach, the interloper pointed at him with a quaking finger and raised his other fist high in the air. From it, dangling by the scruff of his neck, was a gangly puppy. “Look what your bloody dog did to mine!”

He recognized the man as a local farmer rather than a debt collector, and it did not take a genius to work out that the long-limbed and scruffy pup he was holding was the fruit of Norbert’s loins. The thing was Norbert all over, only in miniature. He had the same long snout, the same shaggy gray fur, and the same big brown eyes.

“People hereabouts pay good money for one of my sheepdogs and this cuckoo in the nest is eating me out of house and home!” The man took a pace forward and jabbed his pointed finger again. “I warned your bloody nephew to keep his dog away from my bitch, and I warned your sister too, but did they listen? Now I have to suffer the consequences. This dog would be worth a guinea if it had been born a collie like its mother and the rest of the litter, but nobody in their right mind is going to pay a farthing for a sheep dog who looks like this! You owe me a guinea, sir, for this runt, and at least five shillings for all the food he’s eaten since Bessie birthed him.”

A sum that didn’t add up at all. “So to be clear, Norbert impregnated Bessie, your sheep dog?”

“Yes.”

“Who then went on to have a litter of pups numbering…?” He paused to allow the disgruntled farmer to fill in the blank.

“Seven!”

“And the other six?”

“Came out perfect.”

“And… it’s just this one you require compensation for and not the whole litter?” Clearly the farmer was as thick as two short planks if he thought that those other six hadn’t been tainted by their enormous father’s unruly lineage. They would all have a touch of Norbert about them, no matter how much they currently favored their mother. It might not be visible now, but it would be, and then God help their new and unsuspecting owners, as they would be in for a ride. Then would doubtless want their money back.

The farmer held out his hand. “One guinea and six shillings, if you please. I shan’t be leaving without it.” He planted his feet and glared. First at Harry and then at the giant, randy, barking Norbert beside him.