Chapter 1 #2
She looked over to him, loath to admit weakness, but also terrified of living in such tiny accommodations for something like forty or fifty days—perhaps more with bad weather.
If he’d looked anything other than completely sympathetic and kind, she would have begged off the trip then and there, despite the shame of it.
How had she imagined herself equal to this—this deprivation?
But he did look both understanding and kind, and such was the perversity of her nature that she could not admit weakness before such a conciliating husband.
“Never mind. I am sure I’ll grow—accustomed. It is only rather small.”
“It certainly is. You have been game as a pullet, but if you wish to hang back—please say so. I’ll miss you dreadfully, of course, but I would be back by October, Lord willing…”
“No, nonsense. Anne and Captain Wentworth will keep me company. And Anne says Captain Wentworth’s sister has crossed the Atlantic four times! Surely I can go a lesser distance.”
He still looked dubious. “Generally it comes in pairs; you’ll have to manage the voyage home as well.”
“I shall be very cross with you if you imply I cannot do what Mrs. Croft has managed four times. It is fine—snug, but at least it is very clean and fairly well-appointed.” She spread her hand over the bed which was already fitted out with their own linens.
“With my own blankets and bedsheets, I shall do.”
“Most packet ships only have single rooms. I thought we were lucky to find a ship with doubles, but perhaps you’d be more comfortable with your own space.
” He shuffled a half step to shut the door of the cabin.
It was like being in a well-appointed box.
He took her hands. “There is no shame in changing your mind, Caroline. I’m an officer, and I’m used to bivouacking in tight quarters—but none so tight as this. Please tell me.”
“Do stop, please. I am not getting off this ship. I said I wished to come, and I do. I shall take turns on the upper deck, I shall journal, and I shall—er—have all the time in the world for drawing. I brought a chess set and cards, as well.”
His thumbs stroked her wrists. “Very well, I’ll say no more. To think of Caroline Bingley willingly taking on such an adventure!”
He might more truly have said, “To think of Caroline Bingley clinging stubbornly to a disastrous plan,” she feared. But she was stubborn, and she would not admit defeat.
Richard leaned down to kiss her hands. “I love you very much, Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”
“Of course you do, and I find you significantly more than tolerable.”
He kissed one corner of her mouth and then the other. “You must be besotted to think me an inch above commonplace.”
Caroline smiled and Richard was not above taking advantage of such a moment, but in reaching to push back her hat, he knocked his elbow on the white bedframe.
Caroline staggered a half-step with the rocking of the ship and bumped into the wall.
Richard rubbed his elbow. “Navigating this might take some practice.”
“I daresay we shall have it.”
He eyed her lips. “I think it might be worth the effort.”
She laughed but also shook her head. “Let me unpack my last bandbox and make sure my maid has already stowed my things correctly. The sealed trunks are below, I assume?”
He took the dismissal well. “Yes, they are. The ones we bound up for Istanbul will be hard to reach, but if you find you need something desperately, I can tip the cargo master to fetch it.”
“I’ll arrange my things. Go up on deck and destroy your complexion some more.
” She shooed him out the door, which took more maneuvering.
When he was out, Caroline pressed fingers to her eyes.
She felt a strong inclination to cry, but she was made of sterner stuff than that.
Deftly untying the green ribbons under her chin, she hung her hat on one of the hooks that lined the wall.
Then she climbed the two steps to the bed and flopped onto it.
She was Caroline Bingley—er, Fitzwilliam.
She might make others cry, but she would not.
She was not a weak-willed miss to crumple at the first difficulty.
She was a married lady, married to a British officer, an officer whom she loved.
She would be worthy of him even when he could not see her.
She pressed the pillow to her face and breathed in her familiar lavender scent.
The pillow smelled faintly of her London townhouse and of the scent she sometimes used.
It was a little piece of home. While the packet ships would deliver passengers and mail to the Americas, West Indies, and even further, passengers were responsible for their own bedding.
They were also responsible, on the return trip, for their own food.
She assumed Richard and his supervisors would handle that.
Perhaps her resolve would have faltered, but she heard a lady’s voice outside her door, with accents both cultured and elegant. “Excuse me, sir, which cabin is No. 2? I see no numbers.”
“This one, ma’am—miss.”
“It’s Mrs. Scott, thank you, sir. And what time is dinner?”
Caroline rolled off the bed in a trice. She opened the door as the man answered that “dinner would be at six. Ocean hours, you see, ma’am.”
The lady was probably around Caroline’s age, though her serious gaze and youthful face belied one another. She might be a mature twenty, or a youthful thirty. She was genteel, although her black dress was more in keeping with a governess or lady’s maid than a lady of rank.
“How do you do, ma’am?” She gave Caroline a nod. She was very pretty, with curly dark hair partially subdued by braids and a hat. “You must be Mrs. Fitzwilliam?”
“Yes, but you have the advantage of me.”
“Of course. I’m Mrs. Scott. I’m traveling with Lady Marston and her husband, Sir Mark Marston.”
“The Marstons?” Caroline said. “I heard nothing of this. Sir Mark and Lady Marston cannot possibly plan—”
“Ah, there they are now,” Mrs. Scott said.
Two middle-aged persons entered the dining room.
Caroline had not seen them in some time, for she had been in Hertfordshire, Bath, or Derbyshire for the past year, but she had met them many times in London.
He was a baronet with property in the north, but he and his wife rarely left London, where they were something of a byword.
Lady Marston was tall and severe with a face like a hatchet, presently even more severe than usual.
Her half-coat of striped wool was boldly black and white.
. Sir Mark, on the other hand, was nearly a foot shorter, and rotund in the manner of a cream puff.
His pantaloons were of the latest sort, his waistcoat a virulent green, and his collar points—for a morning aboard a packet ship—absurd.
To finish it off, he wore a wig, which only the most stubborn of the previous generation still did.
It did not match his modish attire at all, and he was only in his fifties or early sixties, so he could not even claim great age as an excuse.
It was a small bob-wig with a roll over each ear, and it gave him a ridiculously comic air. She would’ve recognized him anywhere.
They had no children, unless rumor could be believed, which purported that at least three—but possibly as many as ten—by-blows of Sir Mark had been discreetly sent out of London to be fostered by tenants on his country estate.
One thought was uppermost in Caroline’s mind as she studied the couple: If Lady Marston and Sir Mark could stomach a trip in this tiny box to Istanbul, then Caroline Fitzwilliam could certainly not back down.
“How do you do, Lady Marston?” Caroline said. “Sir Mark?”
The gentleman squinted in the gloom to make out her face. “Very well—thank you. I can’t quite—have we been introduced?”
Caroline looked briefly at Lady Marston, but that lady only eyed the weather-stained table with disapprobation.
Caroline’s pride flared up. The Bingleys were not an old, titled family, but she had been in company with the Marstons any time these five years. “I believe that we were first introduced by Lady Sefton. I am Caroline Fitzwilliam, formerly Bingley.”
“Ah, of course! I’ve a dreadful memory.” Sir Mark bowed and his stays creaked alarmingly. Lady Marston dipped her head. Her one ostrich plume, black to match her costume, was a striking exclamation.
Another gentleman entered the dining room from the passageway, followed closely by Richard.
“Hullo; have I found the party?” the young man exclaimed.
His fair hair was rather long and caught back carelessly in a tie to avoid the wind.
He wore the glossy black boots of a gentleman who used champagne in the blacking, and a coat that must have come from Stultz.
He had a cane, although he did not otherwise appear to belong to the dandy set—he had no golden fobs dangling from his waist or rings on his fingers.
His broad frame spoke more of a budding Corinthian than a dandy.
He looked as if he’d be more comfortable in a boxing ring at Gentleman Jackson’s Salon than in the current situation.
He made a general bow. “I don’t know the custom aboard ship, but it seems apropos to introduce myself. I am Theodore Belvedere; my friends call me Belly.”
The posh Sir Mark eyed him through a quizzing glass. “I like your cravat. Brighton Fall?”
“No, sir, the Mathematical. All the crack at Cambridge just now.”
Sir Mark’s gaze traveled up, and he winced faintly as he took in the man’s windswept hair.
Young Mr. Belvedere laughed. “I know I look a mess! My apologies, ma’am, miss.” He bowed again to the ladies. “I was late in arriving at Falmouth. I’ve come from London as fast as may be and have dressed all by guess for three days past.”
“Three days?” Caroline repeated. “Why, we took ten.” To be sure, she and Richard had stopped in Bristol, Exeter, and Portsmouth. Once to see another officer, and several times merely to see sights from this region which Caroline had never visited before.
There was a belated round of introductions.
Caroline was curious about Mrs. Scott—unsure if the lady was companion, lady’s maid, or fellow passenger—but her curiosity was still not satisfied after Mrs. Scott’s introduction.
Lady Marston performed that office, waving one thin hand in the young lady’s direction.
“This is my—friend, Mrs. Scott, who accompanies us.”
“And what takes all of you on this voyage?” Richard asked, coming to offer his arm to Caroline. “We are sent to Istanbul on government business.”
Young Mr. Belvedere raised his hand as if he were still at Eton or Harrow.
“I’ve been sent forth by my father on something of a Grand Tour.
Athens is my goal. The continent isn’t fit at present, of course, but I gather my pater thinks if he sends me round the long way I’ll still gain some polish.
See the ruins, meet more of society.” If he resented being sent off in such a fashion, he certainly did not look it.
His father must not greatly prize his safety, for it was the outside of foolish to send a young man to foreign lands without a companion.
Sir Mark shook his head severely. “Not with that hair, young man! Even I know that to take the Grand Tour with such a ragged mane—! Athens is a civilized city. Why, you might meet anyone there. Where is your tutor, boy?”
“I left him—or, he left me, rather.” His affability was unimpaired at their gapes of shock.
“He was always a dead bore, and he didn’t above half want to go.
He could only complain about resin in the wine and the dangers of sea travel.
I’m not so loose in the haft I can’t undertake a journey on my own.
I’ve letters of introduction to several of my father’s friends in Athens, or failing that, Rhodes. I shall do.”
Sir Mark raised his quizzing glass with an air. “I beg to differ.”
Mr. Belvedere laughed again. “Visiting a proper barber shall be my first order of business when we stop in Lisbon, I assure you. That’s our first stop, is it not?”
Richard looked dubious. “That’s a bamming story if ever I heard it. If you’re mixed up in something—gambling debt or legal trouble—fleeing the country will only make things worse.”
“Do I look like I’m fleeing a moneylender? No such thing, sir!”
“I’ve half a mind to tell the Packet Commander to put you out. You’ll be doing yourself a mischief.”
“No need to play me such a mean trick, on my honor! I’ll show you my father’s letters of introduction, if you wish.”
“I think I do wish.”
Lady Marston, perhaps annoyed at not being the center of attention, raised her voice. “We are not travelling to Istanbul; we will leave the ship at Lisbon.” She offered no further details, but her husband was not so circumspect.
“Aye, that’s right. I’ve an old uncle in Lisbon who croaked—er, expired this spring, and I’ll be needed to settle his affairs. I’m his heir, you see.”
“But in war time?” Caroline asked. “Surely that is a matter that could be managed by solicitors and not expose you both to such danger.”
Sir Mark removed his snuff box and flicked it open with his thumb. “Ah, well, the French have been subdued lately with Napoleon obsessed with Russia; a packet boat hasn’t been lost in the last two years.”
“Is that so?” said Mr. Belvedere, pleasantly surprised. “I’m glad to hear that. Don’t fancy a French prison myself.”
“None of us do,” Richard agreed dryly.
They all watched as Sir Mark took a large pinch of snuff, snorting a little as he finished.
“I don’t scruple to say there’s an odd smell here—but no Falmouth Stench is equal to my own blend of snuff.
” Sir Mark held it out with great affability.
“I’m willing to share, if anyone likes. Desperate times and desperate measures, you know. ”
Caroline was scandalized that he would offer it to the women as well, but Mr. Belvedere only laughed and took a pinch. “Thank you, sir.”
His laugh began to grate on Caroline. Sir Mark had barely got the snuff back into his inner pocket when the ship rocked with sudden violence.
Caroline felt her stomach roll. “Oh, dear. Are we off? But Anne and Captain Wentworth are not here yet.”
“No, that was just a good swell. I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”
Caroline was nervous about the nauseous turn of her stomach. “I hope so. I think I had better lie down for just a little.”
“Of course, my dear.”
Mrs. Scott and the Marstons also excused themselves, and Mr. Belvedere bounded back up the ladder.
Richard shook his head as he accompanied Caroline into their cabin. “I hope that young man doesn’t mean trouble. I shall ask Wentworth if we ought to intervene.”
“Whatever you think. Only—do pass me that bowl. I may be sick.”