Christmas Promise Page 4

  “Or wrote it?”

  “I should, shouldn’t I? How do you know I write?”

  “Jim told me you kept a journal, in addition to your log.” Ianthe laughed. “Jim wrote me it was all he could ever do just to keep his log, and there you were, scratching away, when everyone else slept.”

  He smiled at the memory. “A time or two when we served together, I let him copy parts of my log.” He didn’t know it happened, but he was standing there, probably even leaning a bit on Ianthe, his arm on her shoulder, not just his hand. “Always before we finished a voyage. Log-keeping. That’s how we are paid, you know.”

  “No, actually, I didn’t.”

  “All logs went to Admiralty House and pay chits were issued.” He hugged her then, barely conscious of it. “Let us pray Admiralty never examined the Lieutenants Faulk and Mears’s logs in the same sitting!”

  He thought later that he could have stood that way for hours, except someone knocked on the door and Ianthe gracefully ducked from under his arm.

  “Our dinner guest. Don’t be so puffed up thinking you were the only one.”

  Don’t let it be a suitor, he thought suddenly, as if that mattered. Probably no one in Torquay needed a suitor more than Ianthe, if times were tough. After a few murmured words in the house’s small entryway, she led a familiar person into the sitting room.

  “Captain Faulk, do you remember Mr. Everly?”

  With the name put to him, he did. Faulk came forward with a bow, but was met with a handshake. He took the old man’s hand gently, noting how his knuckles were twisted in arthritis.

  “My vicar and tutor, sir! I was never your best pupil, eh?”

  The gentleman’s eyes were filmy, but they crinkled in good nature. “I think you would have been, Jeremiah, if only your father had not needed your help on the estate.”

  “It was the world I was born to, Mr. Everly.” He felt ten years old then, still holding the vicar’s hand.

  “The world you seem to have escaped, sir! You’re a post captain. You’ve done well.”

  “Thankee, sor,” he said, knuckling his forehead in perfect imitation of one of his own crew. If he recalled aright, Mr. Everly’s congregations used to be full of the common sailors of Torquay.

  “You can still laugh at yourself, Captain,” the vicar said. “A notable quality! Perhaps you even listened to a sermon or two of mine.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Diana must have turned the roast beef in time, because dinner was delicious. He didn’t know how it happened—he could blame Ianthe later—but his companions at table seemed to want to know about his exploits at sea. Glossing over the worst parts was easy enough. No need for them to know the terrors. Even Diana, who wasn’t nearly as interested as Jim, laughed when he told how seagulls would sometimes land on a seaman’s head and snatch food from the unsuspecting man’s hand, then fly off.

  “Happened to me once in the South Pacific,” he said. “Pesky critters.”

  Perfect hostess that she was, Ianthe allowed everyone their turn at conversation. Mr. Everly told of other boys he had taught. “As you well know, Captain, I didn’t have the parish with the Mears living,” he reminded Faulk. “That was why I had to eke it out teaching ruffians like you!”

  “I never thought you minded, sir.”

  “I never did, lad,” the vicar said, giving Faulk a gentle glance. “It was the world I was born to.”

  I know that modest world, Faulk told himself. It was what I was born to, as well. He looked around at Ianthe’s home. I could grow to like it here, Faulk told himself, if only the floor moved up and down occasionally. He glanced at Jem—positively burning to ask more questions—then back at the vicar. “Mr. Everly, pardon me for asking, but your wife…”

  “Gone these four years, lad. I miss her,” he said simply.

  “I seem to remember the best cinnamon buns, whether we deserved them or not.”

  From the look of real pleasure on the vicar’s face, he hadn’t been wrong to mention the late Mrs. Everly. Jem’s questions could wait until tomorrow. Maybe Ianthe would let him borrow her son for conversation of a seafaring nature.

  “Captain. Mrs. Mears. I remember something my good wife said about the three of you once,” the vicar said.

  We were three, weren’t we? Faulk thought, glancing at Ianthe, who happened to be looking at him. You’re reading my mind, lovely lady.

  “She had the gift, you know, or thought she did,” Mr. Everly said. “Second sight, lad!” he said, to answer Jem’s questioning look. “I remember one time when she looked at the three of you and told me, ‘Jim will go, but Ianthe and Miah will stay.’”

  “Jim and I both went,” Faulk said. “After all, we were at war.”

  “I never said my dear companion was accurate.”

  “Mama could have left once,” Jem said suddenly.

  “Whatever do you mean, dearest?” Ianthe asked, plainly puzzled.

  Jem looked at his sister. “When I was really small, Diana said there was a solicitor from Paignton.”

  “Long distance to travel, Ianthe,” Faulk teased, wondering why she had obviously not accepted an offer of marriage. Solicitors were certainly respectable enough, even those from three miles west in Paignton.

  She gave him a smoldering look that seared right through his vitals. “I’m sorry. I should not quiz you,” he murmured, instantly chastened.

  Ianthe’s look vanished quickly enough, when Jem leaned toward him, his voice perfectly serious. “Captain, Diana told me Mama said he would not suit, whatever that means.”

  Mr. Everly chuckled and Diana only sighed and glared at her little brother.

  “And that was the end of that,” Ianthe concluded, even as she pinked up like a schoolroom miss.

  She adroitly turned the subject again, and it was Diana’s turn to tell of school in Bath and her friends there. Faulk relaxed and actually allowed his spine to touch his chair back, content to listen to Diana, who, now that he regarded her, had her mother’s coloring but her father’s face. He wondered if that caused pleasure or pain for Ianthe. What must it be like to see your dead husband and lover mirrored in your child? At least I never knew that anguish, if it is anguish, he thought.

  The meal ended. He knew Ianthe would not take herself and the children away so he could jaw with the vicar, man to man at the dinner table, but what she did surprised him. After she and the children cleared the table, she brought back sherry and glasses.

  “Don’t you salts always toast at the end of a meal? Jim told me that once.”

  “Indeed we do, my dear,” he replied without thinking. “It’s your house, though. You lead.”

  She smiled and poured sherry all around, even for Jem, although she added water to his glass. “Smuggler’s sherry,” she said. “I’ve had this bottle for years. It’s for special occasions.”

  He could see it had never been opened. Obviously there weren’t too many special occasions in the Mears household.

  “All rise, then,” she said, and turned to face him. “Let us drink to peace and absent friends returning.”

  He smiled at her over the rim of the glass. “Thank you, Ianthe.”

  “I’ve heard navy toasts are colorful,” she said, while they were still on their feet. “Your turn, Captain Faulk.”

  “Let’s see now. It’s Wednesday, is it not?” He grinned at Jem. “Lad, if it were Saturday, we would toast, ‘To our wives and sweethearts. May they never meet.’”

  Diana giggled, but Jem only looked puzzled and glanced at his mother. Oh, no, Faulk realized, now she’d probably have to explain that to him.

  Ianthe was way ahead. “Jem, Captain Faulk will be happy to explain that later!”

  “Fair enough, madam.” He raised his glass. “Since it is Wednesday, Jem, this is what we would say at sea—‘To ourselves.’ And someone would chime in, ‘Because no one else remembers us.’”

  “That’s not true,” Jem said quickly. “We always remembered you.”


  “I, too, lad,” Mr. Everly said. “Every night.”

  Faulk couldn’t help himself. He swallowed several times and the others were kind enough not to make an issue of a grown man, hardened in the service of his country, taking a moment to recover himself.

  “Nevertheless, dear boy, that is the toast. Since you are the youngest crew present at table, it is your task to give it. We’re waiting. Lively now.”

  Jem regarded him seriously for a moment. “‘To ourselves, because no one else remembers us.’” He sipped and put down his glass. “Might you ask the navy to change it?”

  “Tradition is hard to buck, lad, but I’ll entertain that proposal and advance it through proper channels.”

  Everyone chuckled, even Jem, as he hoped they would. They adjourned to the sitting room for some chat, but it became quickly obvious that the vicar was tiring. I shall offer to walk him home, Faulk thought, but again, Ianthe was way ahead.

  “Diana and Jem, would you kindly walk our dear friend home? I intend to put Captain Faulk to work over dishes.”

  He must have been the only one surprised, until it occurred to him that Diana and Jem were probably given that assignment every time the old gentleman came to eat. Jem held out his overcoat while Diana fussed over his muffler. Faulk smiled to watch them, so careful of the vicar. Jim, you would be proud the way your dear wife has raised your children, he thought. They are fine in ways I wish you knew about.

  When they were gone, he joined Ianthe in the kitchen, taking off his uniform coat and looking around for an apron.

  “Heavens, you needn’t become my scullery,” Ianthe scolded, her hands deep in dishwater. “I just wanted a moment’s conversation with someone older than ten years, and not moody and fifteen.”

  He found a large enough dishcloth and tied it around his middle. “That’s another measure of a leader, Ianthe. Never ask crew to do something you wouldn’t do.” That didn’t sound right. “Not that I am implying you are my crew, but I can do every man’s job on ship, right down to stuffing oakum in cannon shot below the waterline.” He could have slapped himself for sounding so wistful.

  Soapy hands and all, she turned around. “You miss your ship.”

  “Like chunks out of my heart. Let me wash, because you know where things go.”

  He took over at the sink, happy to be busy, and already restless because he was not. He did not know how he would survive the two weeks before he was to report to Admiralty House and learn more about his new command. And yet, washing dishes with Ianthe Mears was a memory he would treasure always, mundane as it was. Maybe that was life on land: small moments of purest pleasure, rather than world-changing battles and hours of terror. He glanced at Ianthe, who seemed to be drying the same plate over and over.

  “Ianthe, a solicitor wouldn’t suit?”

  “Not if I didn’t love him. What would be the point?”

  It was blunt and honest, stripped of all frills, rather more like a comment from his mates.

  “I think that one is dry, Ianthe,” he said gently, wishing he hadn’t mentioned the damned solicitor.

  Her face rosy now, she put it down and picked up another.

  “I suppose I alone in the world knew how much Jim loved you.” It seemed the right thing to say, but he had no idea how to comfort her, beyond taking her in his arms and holding her as close as a man could hold a woman, until she could feel the buttons of his shirt clear through to her spine.

  She astonished him by laughing, a heartfelt belly laugh that he didn’t know women could make. “You knucklehead,” she said, and it sounded like an endearment. “You should know, of all people, considering that you wrote all those letters!”

  If she had suddenly dealt him a body blow that tumbled him into the sink headfirst, he couldn’t have been more surprised. “You knew?” he asked, dismayed when his voice cracked like a midshipman’s.

  “Of course I knew,” she told him. “Jim was a wooden letter writer. The first few letters he ever wrote me were so stilted, bless his heart.” She took his hands, dried them off on his apron, and pointed to the chair at the kitchen table. “Sit down. You’re going pale under your tan, and I am not strong enough to pick you up off the floor if you faint.”

  He did as she ordered, hardly daring to look at her. She sat down across the table from him, her eyes merry. He almost thought she was enjoying this.

  “In his last letter—at least the last one before they started sounding really polished and loverlike—he mentioned that you had come on board as third mate.”

  “The Clarion,” he said, happy enough, at least, that the words didn’t come out in an undignified squeak this time.

  “Am I wrong about the letters?” she asked, not looking hurt or injured, or in any way melancholy.

  “Not at all. We shared a cabin, and he didn’t waste a minute in telling me how desperately in love he was. He said he wanted to do everything right, and if he had to court you through the post using his feeble words, he was doomed.”

  Ianthe laughed and clapped her hands. “Doomed,” she repeated. “What a darling he was.”

  Faulk had to laugh, too. She was making his subterfuge so easy. “You know Jim. He was persuasive and utterly sincere, and I could not turn him down. And I do like to write.”

  She propped her elbows on the table in a most unladylike way and rested her chin in her palms. “Did he tell you exactly what to write?”

  She had him there. He could lie and say yes, or tell the truth and say no. He chose discretion and lied, and she saw right through him.

  “Jeremiah, you must be the worst liar in the fleet,” she told him, reaching across the table to give him a little shake. “You forget. I knew Jim almost as well as you did. He probably told you how much he loved me, then kind of waved his hands the way he did when he was at a loss, and said something like, ‘Miah, fill in the rest.’ And you looked after him the way you looked after me, when you sent me your prize money after Trafalgar.”

  “That…that was Jim’s share,” he said, forgetting she had just told him how transparent he was.

  “No, it wasn’t, you big liar,” she said softly, and it sounded almost like an endearment. “All I was entitled to was a pension, not a bonus of two hundred sixty-nine pounds, plus the additional hundred pounds you sent me. Miah! You were poor as Job’s turkey then and could have used the money yourself.”

  “Do I look like I suffered because of a spot of kindness?”

  “Not now.” She put her hand on his arm again. “I bought this house with your gift to me, and had money left over to help my own family when Papa died and Mama fell on hard times. Miah, those letters you wrote for Jim were the most wonderful letters in the history of the universe.”

  He knew there was no sense in trying to bamboozle this female. “I was proud of them. I wrote them for Jim and he copied them in his own handwriting. Rest assured, though—he did not share your replies.”

  She blushed then. “Good for Jim.” She tightened her grip on his arm and gave him another look, similar to the one that had sliced through him at dinner like a cutlass. “Know this, Miah—I loved my husband. You watched over me there, too, with your letters, and steered me into a safe harbor. Oh, this war. Our time was so short. After we were married, I know you saw him more than I did.”

  He nodded, miserable.

  “Miah, we cannot undo the war. I had a good husband who went to sea, and we have two excellent children.”

  He knew she wanted to say more, but the front door opened then, and in another minute, Diana and Jem were in the kitchen, too, insisting that he sit at the table while they finished the dishes. All he could do was watch them, almost overwhelmed with the sorrow that Jim would never know how wonderful his family was.

  Ianthe apologized profusely, but he didn’t mind sharing Jem’s room. He did draw the line at taking Jem’s bed and insisted the cot was probably more comfortable than his sleeping cot at sea. It was, mainly because the pillow smelled of roses. If he had be
en a romantic sort of fellow, he probably could have dreamed that Ianthe slept beside him. As it was, he lay there—comfortable, hands behind his head—and thought of the unnatural state of all those men in all those ships, lying alone through decades of war, when most of them probably wished to be in the gentle grasp of wives or lovers.

  The irony of the Mearses’ situation was not lost on him. True enough, Jim may have been married to Ianthe, but he spent more actual time in Faulk’s company. All those letters, he thought, as he started to drift off. And the whole time, she knew he had written them. He wondered if she suspected that even the best writer in the world, which he was not, could hardly have written them if he had not felt the sentiment himself.

  He was nearly asleep when Jem spoke to him.

  “Captain Faulk?”

  “Aye, lad.”

  “I’m glad I lost that money. If I hadn’t, we never would have met you.”

  Faulk could almost feel his heart twisting with those drowsy words from the son of a man he admired and still missed. Sometimes events did pass like ships in the night. Thank God this one didn’t.

  “My sentiments precisely, Jim. Jim? Sleep tight.”

  Chapter Four

  Ianthe lay awake a long time that night. The house was quiet, and she yearned to do what she always did, but knew how improper it would be, since Captain Faulk shared a room with her son. Still, not a night had ever gone by since the boy was born that she hadn’t checked on him and his sister.

  She got out of bed, finding her robe this time, and putting it on while she went to Diana’s room first. It was such a pleasure to have her daughter home that she stood a long moment beside her bed, looking down at her. She dreaded having to be the bearer of bad news later.

  I hope you understand, my love, she thought, as she twitched the blanket higher and admired her child’s lovely face. She looked so much like her father, a softer version, of course, but Jim had never been a resolute, hard sort of man, not like Jeremiah. She had never been able to shake the idea that if he had not died at Trafalgar, her husband would still not have survived the brutal grind required of men on the blockade.