The Gift of Happenstance #2
“Your exploits proceed you, Captain! How you managed to return the Asp to port is a marvel of its own. That you had her pitted against privateers and that she was not sunk smacks of sacrifice to old Davy Jones himself,” one of the men cackled as he slapped his knee.
“And did you get my offering, Admiral?” Wentworth asked, his expression not cracking until all the rest of the men had laughed at their friend’s expense.
“You liken me to that mischievous old codger, do you, whippersnapper? You better hope we never meet at the bottom of the ocean, my boy. If we do, you will finally learn to respect your elders.”
“I will bring with me a barrel of mead. I understand it to be the respect one is required to pay,” Wentworth joked, then turned to the grinning shopkeeper.
“I had the Navy Lists you requested here in a pile, Captain, but they were all purchased as gifts for seamen by family visiting the port as your ships are in. I will retrieve for you another stack.”
“Quite unnecessary, sir. I am glad to do so myself,” Wentworth held up a hand reflexively to mirror his expectation.
“A young woman above also seeks one. She shall likely faint at the very sight of you in the flesh! Perhaps, if she is single, she will be so enamored with you that she will be the one to catch you in her net!” One of the men suggested in jest.
“Do not you have greater concerns to consider than my taking a wife?” Wentworth rolled his eyes as he moved to the stairs.
“At the moment, no!” The old timers countered gleefully.
“Bring down a few extra volumes with you, if you would, my boy!” The book shop proprietor called out.
“And see here! He still acts the captain, ordering others about is if we were on a ship!” A man in one of the chairs pointed at the proprietor of the book shop is if it were an accusation when it, instead, was a great amusement.
Two minutes. Perhaps three. No more time did Anne have to catch her breath and school her features before the very man she had longed to see for nearly two thousand days was standing before her.
The Captain’s eyes widened in a betrayal of his astonishment at seeing her. He would have seen an equal amount in the first moment of her seeing him had she remained below.
“It is a pleasure to see you again, Captain,” Anne whispered as she folded down into a curtsy of respect and humility.
“Do not,” Wentworth said as he reached for her but pulled his hand back. “Please, stand.”
Anne complied, lifting her chin so that she met his eyes. They stood four feet apart, a chasm and but an arm’s-length in equal measures.
Anne did not shyly turn away as she might once have done when the Captain’s eyes roamed over her features, for she did the same in an appraisal of him.
While her quiet sadness was evident in the forming lines at her mouth and at the corner of her eyes, she had never seen a man more in the vigor of his prime.
A tan complexion, yes. But his health was in no question. The few lines she could detect made him look more powerful in his distinguished demeanor. And strong. He had always made her feel safe when with him, but now it radiated from him and was overwhelming to her senses.
“I am pleased to see you are well, Captain Wentworth,” Anne offered, though her voice had become breathless with such a long perusal of him after so many hours wondering what he would look like now.
“And I for your continued health,” Wentworth said, equally quiet.
Their gazes again roamed over each other before their eyes again met.
“I must-” Anne started.
“I would-” Wentworth began. An awkward pause became a shared amusement. A corner of his lips lifted and Anne could not fully check her smile. “Please.” The Captain nodded once for Anne to continue.
“I wished only to say that I have taken great relief in reading of your exploits in the papers, sir.”
“I have found great relief when Sophy tells me she has heard from you.”
“Her letters bring me even greater joy than I receive from reading the papers of your battles.”
“Most were but skirmishes.”
“Not all, however.”
“No, not all.”
“You must be more careful, Frederick,” Anne swallowed thickly. “Forgive me-”
“Say it again,” Wentworth’s quiet demand accompanied his step forward.
“Wentworth, my boy! She does not need the whole history of the Navy! Besides, I can do it far better than you!” One of the older men called out.
“Say it again,” Wentworth repeated, his voice low and vibrating with all the tension gathered from years of waiting swirled into a moment like a waterspout erupting.
“You must be more careful,” Anne repeated, her reply but a whisper as she looked up at him, now only a foot distant.
His only answer was to stare at her, unrelenting in his expectation.
“Frederick,” Anne offered, though it was said without any voice at all.
“Again,” he commanded, though it was spoken only between them.
“Frederick.”
This time, the sheer relief of speaking it was detected in the tremble of her voice. Saying it loosened something deep inside, and Anne’s tears were sudden. Too, she covered her mouth to contain the sob straining her throat.
“I am well, Anne,” Wentworth soothed as he held out his handkerchief.
Anne pressed it to her face, not bothering to hide her breathing in the scent of him, one of salted sea air and cloves. In memory of him, she always used cloves in her potpourri bags for her wardrobe.
“Then you have found no joy in following their expectations?” Wentworth asked as he watched her take comfort from his offering.
“Wentworth!” One of the men yelled out.
“I am in the midst of a rousing tale where I saw a monstrous white whale! Let me finish!” Wentworth yelled back.
At that, the old men of the sea began a rousing chorus of tales with their own encounters of those beasts which would only be seen if one were at sea.
“Oh, ho! Have you seen one of those gargantuan tentacled creatures that could take a ship down with but a swipe of one, Wentworth? Come on down when he’s finished, lass, and I will tell you a far more exciting tale!”
“Are there such creatures that would so easily destroy a ship in the sea?” Anne gasped as she looked at him with renewed fear.
“More than I can count,” Wentworth allowed. “The one he speaks of I do not believe exists, though something that could only be terrifyingly awesome is the source of the rumors.”
“You must be more careful, Frederick,” Anne said again, now pleading.
***
“Then you have gained no pleasure in breaking our engagement?” Wentworth asked as he searched her eyes.
“Only regret, and that began the moment I was told that I must.”
“If I had come to you when you were of age?”
“I would have gone with you into the belly of your great white beast,” Anne said with a small smile pulling at her lips.
“I would never let danger befall you, Anne.”
“Again,” Anne said, nearly swaying under the power of her emotions when she heard her name in his voice.
So often had she suspected that it would only be uttered in anger, a near oath. To hear it so tenderly spoken by him was to answer years’ worth of her prayers.
“I would never let danger befall you, Anne,” he murmured.
Anne pressed his handkerchief to her mouth as she again forced back a sob. She turned away, grabbing the nearest bookshelf as she willed her control to return.
“And there I was, in the Strait of Gibraltar!” Wentworth called out to reoccupy those below.
“The man is going to court the gal! A few compliments to the Navy and he is conquered! I knew just how it would be, did I not tell you all?” One of the men declared with the great enthusiasm that comes with being proven correct.
“I apologize,” Anne said as she wiped her tears.
“Do not. Not to me,” Wentworth said quietly. “But I must return below.”
“And I must go to the Miss Musgroves next door. My sister could not make the trip with her husband and his sisters, so I was asked to accompany them.”
“Musgrove.”
“Yes. Richard, or Dick, served on your ship under you and then Lieutenant Harville. He did not survive and was left in Gibraltar. I understand he is now Captain Harville, and Charles intends to ask that he join us for dinner.”
“Yes, my bringing in the Asp as he captained the Laconia in my stead was our last shared journey. He shall be moved to another ship that will come to port next week.”
“Do assure Captain Harville that he can make up all the stories he might wish of their brother’s exploits. It will help ease their mother’s grief.”
“As will a Navy List.”
“And so will a Navy List,” Anne said, picking one up off the shelf.
“Let me take this down for you that you may take more time to peruse the shelves. The Captain has many a treasure hidden if one enjoys reading as you so claim to,” Captain Wentworth said loud enough that those below could also hear his words.
Wentworth pulled a stack of Naval Lists from the shelf, securing them under an arm.
“Thank you, Frederick,” Anne said as she held his handkerchief out, though her fingers yet held tightly in proof that she wished to keep it.
When he did not reach for it, Anne, in a moment of boldness born of desperation and the relief of being in his presence, pulled the linen she carried up her sleeve and held the folded square out. The letters A and E were embroidered in a corner. Around and above them was a trellis design.
“Ivy,” Wentworth said as his finger traced the arch.
“The happiest moments I’ve ever known were in an alcove under an ivy trellis,” Anne confessed.
Wentworth nodded once in understanding. It was where he had proposed, where they had shared their first kiss, and also where they had stolen a dozen and more moments during their two-weeks’ engagement.
When it seemed he would say something, anything, a hail for him interrupted their moment, robbing them of a longer goodbye.
“How many do you wish brought down, Captain?” Wentworth asked as he stepped to the top of the stairs. “And it is fortunate that I have a linen to hand as your shelves are quite dusty! I am nearly blind from it!”