The Admiral's Penniless Bride Read online

  “You need help. I need a wife. I don’t think I can make it any plainer.”

  “No, I suppose you cannot,” Sally murmured, but made one final attempt to make the man see reason. “Admiral, you know nothing about me. You truly don’t.” It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him, but she found she could not. Coward, she thought.

  He looked at her then, and his face was kind. “I know one thing—you haven’t yammered once about the weather. I suppose marriages have started on stranger footing.”

  “I suppose they have,” she agreed. “Very well, sir.”

  The Admiral’s Penniless Bride

  Harlequin® Historical #1025—January 2011

  Praise for award-winning author Carla Kelly

  “A powerful and wonderfully perceptive author.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Mary Jo Putney

  “It is always a joy to read a Carla Kelly love story. Always original, always superb, Ms. Kelly’s body of work is a timeless delight for discerning readers.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Kelly has the rare ability to create realistic yet sympathetic characters that linger in the mind. One of the most respected…Regency writers.”

  —Library Journal

  Marrying the Royal Marine

  “These two have seen each other at their best and at their worst. Have been tried and tested in the flames, yet come out stronger for it. I certainly enjoyed the trip.”

  —Dear Author

  Beau Crusoe

  “Taking her impetus from Robinson Crusoe and the film Castaway, Kelly crafts the story of a shipwreck survivor readjusting to civilization…. Kelly presents a clear portrait of the mores and prejudices of the era and demonstrates how to navigate through society’s labyrinth with intelligent, sharp repartee. This alone is worth the price of the book.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  The Admiral’s Penniless Bride

  CARLA KELLY

  Available from Harlequin® Historical and CARLA KELLY

  Beau Crusoe #839

  *Marrying the Captain #928

  *The Surgeon’s Lady #949

  *Marrying the Royal Marine #998

  The Admiral’s Penniless Bride #1025

  Did you know that some of these novels are also available as ebooks?

  Visit www.eHarlequin.com.

  To my father, Kenneth Carl Baier, U.S. Navy 1941–1971.

  Anchors aweigh, Dad.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Prologue

  1816

  The last five years had been a hard school. When Sally Paul had left the Bath employment registry with a position near Plymouth as lady’s companion, but only enough money to ride the mail coach, she had known she was heading towards pinch pennies.

  As she neared the Devonshire coast, Sally owned to some uneasiness, but put it down to the fact that, after Andrew’s suicide, she had sworn never to look on the ocean again. Still, times were hard and work difficult to come by. No matter how pinch penny the Coles might prove to be, she was on her way to employment, after six weeks without.

  Such a dry spell had happened twice in the past two years, and it was an occupational hazard: old ladies, no matter how kind or cruel, had a tendency to die and no longer require her services.

  Although she would never have admitted it, Sally hadn’t been sad to see the last one cock up her toes. She was a prune-faced ogre, given to pinching Sally for no reason at all. Even the family had stayed away as much as they could, which led to the old dear’s final complaint, when imminent death forced them to her bedside. ‘See there, I told you I was sick!’ she had declared in some triumph, before her eyes went vacant. Only the greatest discipline—something also acquired in the last five years—had kept Sally from smiling, which she sorely wanted to do.

  But a new position had a way of bringing along some optimism, even when it proved to be ill placed, as it did right now. She never even set foot inside the Coles’ house.

  She hadn’t minded the walk from the Drake, where the mail coach stopped, to the east edge of Plymouth, where the houses were genteel and far apart. All those hours from Bath, cramped in next to a pimply adolescent and a pale governess had left Sally pleased enough to stretch her legs. If she had not been so hungry, and as a consequence somewhat lightheaded, she would have enjoyed the walk more.

  All enjoyment ended as she came up the circular drive, noting the dark wreath on the door and the draped windows proclaiming a death in the family. Sally found herself almost hoping the late member of the Cole family was a wastrel younger son given to drink who might not be much missed.

  It was as she feared. When she announced to the butler that she was Mrs Paul, come to serve as Mrs Maude Cole’s companion, the servant had left her there. In a moment he was back with a woman dressed in black and clutching a handkerchief.

  ‘My mother-in-law died yesterday morning,’ the woman said, dabbing at dry eyes. ‘We have no need of you.’

  Why had she even for the smallest moment thought the matter would end well? Idiot, she told herself. You knew the moment you saw the wreath. ‘I am sorry for your loss,’ she said quietly, but did not move.

  The woman frowned. Maybe she expects me to disappear immediately, Sally thought. How am I to do that?

  She could see that the woman wanted to close the door. Five years ago, at the start of her employment odyssey, Sally might have yielded easily. Not now, not when she had come all this way and had nothing to show for it.

  ‘Mrs Cole, would you pay my way back to Bath, where you hired me?’ she asked, as the door started to close.

  ‘There was never any guarantee of hire until I saw you and approved,’ the woman said, speaking through a crack now. ‘My mother-in-law is dead. There is no position.’

  The door closed with a decisive click. Sally stood where she was, unwilling to move because she had no earthly idea what to do. The matter resolved itself when the butler opened the door and made shooing motions, brushing her off as if she were a beggar.

  She told herself she would not cry. All she could do was retrace her steps and see if something would occur to her before she returned to the Drake. She did not feel sanguine at the prospect; she was down to her last coin and in arrears on any ideas at all.

  What was it that Andrew used to say, before his career turned to ashes? ‘There isn’t any problem so large that it cannot be helped by the application of tea.’

  He was wrong, of course; she had known that for years. Sally looked in her reticule as she walked. She had enough for one cup of tea at the Drake.

  Chapter One

  The Mouse was late. Admiral Sir Charles Bright (Ret.) was under the impression that he was a tolerant man, but tardiness was the exception. For more than thirty years, he had only to say, ‘Roundly now’, and his orders were carried out swiftly and without complaint. True, copious gold lace and an admiral’s stars might have inspired such prompt obedience. Obedience was second nature to him; tardiness a polar opposite.

  Obviously this was not t
he case with The Mouse. For the life of him, he could have sworn that the lady in question was only too relieved to relinquish her old-maid status for matrimony to someone mature and well seasoned. During their only visit last month, The Mouse—Miss Prunella Batchthorpe—had seemed eager enough for all practical purposes.

  Bright stared at his rapidly cooling cup of tea, and began to chalk up his defects. He did not think of forty-five as old, particularly since he had all of his hair, close cut though it was; all of his teeth minus one lost on the Barbary Coast; and most of his parts. He had compensated nicely for the loss of his left hand with a hook, and he knew he hadn’t waved it about overmuch during his recent interview with Miss Batchthorpe. He had worn the silver one, which Starkey had polished to a fare-thee-well before his excursion into Kent.

  He knew he didn’t talk too much, or harrumph or hawk at inopportune moments. There was no paunch to disgust, and he didn’t think his breath was worse than anyone else’s. And hadn’t her older brother, a favourite commander who helmed Bright’s flagship, assured him that, at age thirty-seven, Prunella was more than ready to settle down at her own address? Relieved, even. Bright could only conclude that she had developed cold feet at the last minute, or was tardy.

  He could probably overlook Miss Batchthorpe’s plain visage. He had told her this was to be a marriage of convenience, so he wouldn’t be looking at her pop eyes on an adjoining pillow each morning. He could even overlook her shy ways, which had made him privately dub her The Mouse. But tardiness?

  Reality overtook him, as it invariably did. One doesn’t live through nearly three decades of war and many ranks by wool gathering. She might have decided that he simply would not suit, even if it meant a life of spinsterhood. He knew even a year of peace had not softened his hard stare, and the wind-and wave-induced wrinkles about his mouth were here to stay.

  Whatever the reason for The Mouse’s non-appearance, he still needed a wife immediately. I have sisters, he thought to himself for the thousandth time since the end of the war. Oh, I do.

  Fannie and Dora, older than he by several years, had not intruded much in his life spent largely at sea. They had corresponded regularly, keeping him informed of family marriages, births, deaths and nit-picking rows. Bright knew that Fannie’s eldest son, his current heir, was an ill-mannered lout, and that Dora’s daughter had contracted a fabulous alliance to some twit with a fortune.

  He put his current dilemma down to the basic good natures of his meddling siblings. Both of them widowed and possessing fortunes of their own, Fan and Dora had the curse of the wealthy: too much time on their hands.

  Fan had delivered the first shot across the bows when he had visited her in London after Waterloo. ‘Dora and I want to see you married,’ she had announced. ‘Why should you not be happy?’

  Bright could tell from the martial glint in her eyes— Wellington himself possessed a similar look—that there was no point in telling his sister that he was already happy. Truth to tell, what little he had glimpsed of Fan’s married life, before the barrister had been kind enough to die, had told him volumes about his sister’s own unhappiness.

  Dora always followed where Fan led, chiming in with her own reasons why he needed a wife to Guide Him Through Life’s Pathways—Dora spoke in capital letters. Her reasons were convoluted and muddled, like most of her utterances, but he was too stunned by Fan’s initial pronouncement, breathtaking in its interference, to comment upon them.

  A wife it would be for their little brother. That very holiday, they had paraded a succession of ladies past his startled gaze, ladies young enough to be his daughter and older and desperate. Some were lovely, but most wanted in the area he craved: good conversation. Someone to talk to—there was the sticking point. Were those London ladies in awe of his title and uniform? Did they flinch at the hook? Were they interested in nothing he was interested in? He had heard all the conversations about weather and goings on at Almack’s that he could stomach.

  Never mind. His sisters were determined. Fan and Dora apparently knew most of the eligible females in the British Isles. He was able to fob them off immediately after his retirement, when he was spending time in estate agents’ offices, seeking an estate near Plymouth. He had taken lodgings in Plymouth while he searched. Once the knocker was on the door, the parade of lovelies had begun again, shepherded by his sisters.

  Bemusement turned to despair even faster than big rabbits made bunnies. My sisters don’t know me very well, he decided, after several weeks. The last straw came when Fan decided that not only would she find him a mate, but also redecorate his new estate for him, in that execrable Egyptian style that even he knew was no longer à la mode. When the first chair shaped like a jackal arrived, Bright knew he had to act.

  Which was why he now awaited the arrival of Miss Prunella Batchthorpe, who had agreed to be his ball and chain and leave him alone. Dick Batchthorpe, his flagship commander, had mentioned her often during their years together. Something in Bright rebelled at taking the advice of two of the most harebrained ladies he knew; besides, it would be a kind gesture to both Dick, who didn’t relish the prospect of supporting an old maid, and the old maid in question, who had assured him she would keep his house orderly and make herself small.

  As he sat in the dining room of the Drake, with its large windows overlooking the street, Bright couldn’t help feeling a twinge of relief at her non-arrival, even as he cursed his own apparent shallowness. Miss Batchthorpe was more than usually plain.

  He heard a rig clatter up to the front drive and looked up in something close to alarm, now that he had told himself that Miss Batchthorpe simply wouldn’t suit. He stood up, trying not to appear overly interested in the street, then sat down. It was only a beer wagon, thank the Lord.

  Bright patted the special licence in the pocket of his coat. No telling how long the pesky things were good for. Hopefully, his two dotty sisters had no connections among the Court of Faculties and Dispensations to tattle on him to his sisters. If they knew, they would hound him even more relentlessly. He would never hear the end of it. He hadn’t survived death in gruesome forms at sea to be at the mercy of managing women.

  Bright dragged out his timepiece. He had waited more than an hour. Was there a legally binding statute determining how long a prospective, if reluctant, groom should wait for a woman he was forced to admit he neither wanted, nor knew anything about? Still, it was noon and time for luncheon. His cook had declared himself on strike, so there wasn’t much at home.

  Not that he considered his new estate home. In its current state of disrepair, his estate was just the place where he lived right now. He sighed. Home was still the ocean.

  He looked for a waiter, and found himself gazing at a lovely neck. Had she been sitting there all along, while he was deep in his own turmoil? In front of him and to the side, she sat utterly composed, hands in her lap. He had every opportunity to view her without arousing anyone’s curiosity except his own.

  A teapot sat in front of her, right next to the no-nonsense cup and saucer Mrs Fillion had been buying for years and which resembled the china found in officers’ messes all across the fleet. She took a sip now and then, and he had the distinct impression she was doing all she could to prolong the event. Bright could scarcely remember ever seeing a woman seated alone in the Drake, and wondered if she was waiting for someone. Perhaps not; when people came into the dining room, she did not look towards the door.

  He assumed she was a lady, since she was sitting in the dining room, but her dress was far from fashionable, a plain gown of serviceable grey. Her bonnet was nondescript and shabby.

  She shifted slightly in her chair and he observed her slim figure. He looked closer. Her dress was cinched in the back with a neat bow that gathered the fabric together. This was a dress too large for the body it covered. Have you been ill, madam? he asked himself.

  He couldn’t see her face well because of the bonnet, but her hair appeared to be ordinary brown and gathered in a thi
ck mass at the back of her head. As he watched what little he could see of her face, Bright noticed her eyes were on a gentleman at a nearby table who had just folded his newspaper and was dabbing at his lips. She leaned forwards slightly, watching him. When he finally rose, she turned to see him out of the dining room, affording Bright a glimpse of a straight nose, a mouth that curved slightly downward and eyes as dark brown as his own.

  When the man was gone from the dining room, she walked to the table and took the abandoned newspaper back to her own place. Bright had never seen a lady read a newspaper before. He watched, fascinated, as she glanced at the front page, then flipped to the back, where he knew the advertisements and legal declarations lurked. Was she looking for one of the discreet tonics advertised for female complaints? Did her curiosity run to ferreting out pending lawsuits or money owed? This was an unusual female, indeed.

  As he watched, her eyes went down the back pages quickly. She shook her head, closed the newspaper, folded it neatly and took another sip of her tea. In another moment, she was looking inside her reticule, almost as though she was willing money to appear.

  More curious now than ever, Bright opened his own paper to the inside back page, wondering what had caused such disappointment. ‘Positions for hire’ ran down two narrow columns. He glanced through them; nothing for women.

  He looked up in time to see the lady stare into her reticule again. Bright found himself wishing, along with her, for something to materialise. He might have been misreading all the signs, but he knew he was an astute judge of character. This was a lady without any funds who was looking for a position of some sort.