It Happened One Christmas: Christmas Eve Proposal / The Viscount's Christmas Kiss / Wallflower, Widow...Wife!

She sat on one of the benches placed here and there around Venable by some benefactor. She had much to do at Mandy’s Rose and had promised a quick return to help prepare dinner, but suddenly it didn’t matter. The enormity of her upcoming loss rendered her powerless to take one more step.

Sailors only come to go away, she tried to remind herself, but her heart wasn’t having it. She thought he admired her; all signs pointed that way, at least. She was beginning to understand that he would never act on a man’s impulse, because he plied a dangerous trade with no end in sight. Their generation had been born to war and like everyone else—there were no exceptions—it would influence their lives until death and destruction and one man’s ambition ran its course. They were like chips of wood tossed into a stream and driven at random towards the ocean, powerless to change course.

She stared at the ground, then closed her eyes, wondering just when the pleasure of a good night’s sleep had become a distant memory. She yawned and her own cheery nature resurfaced. You are facing a life crisis and you are yawning, she thought as she yawned again.

She heard someone approach. She knew everyone in the village and she didn’t relish explaining her tears. But these were familiar shoes. She had seen them under one or other of the dining tables for the past three days. She looked up at Ben Muir.

His face solemn, he sat beside her. It was only a small bench and now they were crowded together. To accommodate matters, he draped one arm across the back of the bench, which meant she had to lean towards him.

‘There now,’ he said. ‘I looked back and saw you sitting so melancholy.’ He peered closer and she saw that he had freckles, too. ‘One hundred pounds isn’t a bad thing, Amanda.’

‘Certainly not,’ she said, almost relieved that he had nothing more serious to say. Relieved or disappointed? This man could irritate me, she thought, then smiled. What a ninny she was. He was only being kind.

‘You can tuck the money away for a special occasion. That’s what I would do.’

He stretched his legs out and crossed them, which had the effect of drawing her closer. Mandy knew she should get up. The hour was late and Aunt Sal didn’t like to prepare for the dinner rush by herself. She allowed herself to incline her head against the sailing master, which proved to be surprisingly comfortable, almost a refuge from worry over a dratted inheritance.

‘What is your special occasion?’ she asked, curious.

‘Don’t have one yet.’ His arm was around her now. ‘After Trafalgar, when we towed one of the Spanish ships into Portsmouth, the entire wardroom gathered together and got stinking drunk.’

‘I wouldn’t spend any money on spirits,’ she said.

‘I didn’t, either.’ He took a deep breath. ‘We drank dead men’s liquor, Amanda. I was serving as second master on a ship of the line that was mauled during the battle. The sailing master and two lieutenants had died. I had assumed the master’s duties during the battle, so the officers included me. We drank their stored supply—dead men’s liquor.’

She turned her face into his chest, unable to help herself, which meant that both of his arms circled her now. ‘How do you bear it?’ she whispered into his gilt buttons.

‘It becomes normal life, I suppose,’ he told her, after much silence. ‘Damn Napoleon, anyway.’

The unfairness of Ben Muir’s life broke her heart. ‘So…so you don’t spend much time on land by choice? Is that it?’

‘Partly. Granted, we have little opportunity, but you might be right.’ He inclined his cheek towards hers. ‘A sad reflection, but not your worry, Amanda.’

This would never do. A cold bench on a busy footpath was no place to discuss anything and Aunt Sal needed her. ‘It is my worry,’ she said softly. ‘It should be of concern to each one of us on land who is kept safe by the Royal Navy. Let me thank you for them.’

She kissed his cheek. His arms tightened around her. She kissed his cheek again and, when he turned towards her, she kissed his lips. Right there on the footpath, she kissed a man she had known for three days, the first man she had ever kissed. She probably wasn’t even doing it right.

His lips parted slightly and he kissed her back. He made a low sound in the back of his throat that Mandy found endearing and edgy at the same time. Warmth flooded her stomach and drifted lower, all from a kiss. Good God Almighty, Aunt Sal had never explained anything like this in her shy discourse on men and women. Of course, Aunt Sal was a spinster. Mandy could probably get better advice from the vicar’s wife.

She ended the kiss, sitting back, wondering at herself, blushing hot, wanting him to leave, praying he would stay and stay. ‘I…I don’t think I know what I’m doing,’ she said and stood up.

She thought he might apologise, but he did no such thing. He shrugged. ‘I’m not certain what I am doing, either.’

They looked at each other and started to laugh. ‘Have you ever met two more bona fide loobies?’ he asked, when he could talk. He stood up and crooked out his arm. ‘Take my arm, Amanda. This path is misty.’

She did as he said. ‘That is a most feeble effort to get me to walk close to you,’ she scolded, onto him and not minding it.

‘I thought I was rather clever, for a man with no practice whatsoever,’ he said, going along with her banter.

She stopped and faced him. ‘You realise how…how odd this is. Neither of us is young, but listen to us!’

He nodded and set her in motion again. She looked at him, mature and capable, wearing that intimidating bicorn hat and sporting those curious blue dots on his neck. It was not her business, but he had to be a man with some experience with women, probably exotic, beautiful women in faraway ports. To say he had no practice whatsoever couldn’t be true, but she thought she understood what he was saying. A man paid for those women for one night, a business transaction. He probably had no idea how to court a lady.

Not that she was a lady; she worked in Mandy’s Rose. For all that, she had been raised gently by a careful aunt. He was no gentleman, either, just a hard-working Scot with ambition, who had risen perhaps as far as he could in the Royal Navy. They were really two of a kind, two ordinary people. With enough time, something might happen, but there was no time.

She also thought that he would never make another move towards her. After all, she had kissed him, not the other, more logical way round. He knew the clock ticked. Maybe he had forgotten that for a second when he kissed back, but he was a careful man, not likely to forget again.

‘You’re looking far too serious,’ he said, as they came in sight of Mandy’s Rose.

She took a deep breath, then let it out. What could she say? There would be no happy ending to this Christmas encounter because of Ben’s vile mistresses—war and time. They were gruesome harpies she could not fight.

‘I’ll probably recover,’ she told him. She gave his arm a squeeze, let go and hurried into the restaurant, late enough for Aunt Sal to scold.

He followed her inside, then walked up the stairs to his room. He didn’t come down for dinner, but she heard him walking back and forth, back and forth. She worked quietly, distressed to her very core, uncertain, angry because until Ben Muir came into her life, she had known nothing would ever change. She and Sal would work and provide for themselves, and live a comfortable life, one better than so many could hope for.

Everything and nothing had changed. She would lie in bed a few more weeks, wondering what she would do if he tapped on her door long after Sal slept. When Master Muir left, all would return to normal, except down in that deepest recess of her heart. She would never be the same again, but how could that matter to anyone except her?

In growing discomfort, she listened to his footsteps overhead. He walked slower now and paused often, perhaps looking out the window into darkness.

‘What is the matter?’

Guilty for just standing still when there were tables to clear, Mandy turned around to face her aunt. She shook her head, tried to swallow down tears and failed miserably. She bowed her head, pressed her apron to her eyes and cried.

Tears in her own eyes, her aunt put her arm around Mandy’s waist and walked her into the kitchen. She sat her down and poured tea.

I can’t tell her how I feel about Ben, she thought, mortified. Thank God her father had given her an excuse that might brush past a careful aunt’s suspicion. ‘I told you about Ben finding that piece of paper in Lord Kelso’s library.’

Sal nodded. ‘I know he went with you to the vicar’s, but you were gone so long.’

Careful here, Mandy told herself and sipped her tea. She told her aunt about the codicil that her grandfather had written the day before he died and which the vicar witnessed. ‘He wanted to give me one thousand pounds, but Reverend Winslow said that would only frighten me. He settled on one hundred pounds and the vicar witnessed it. I am to receive one hundred pounds I don’t want.’

Sal laughed and poured herself some tea. ‘It’s not the end of the world! You looked as though you’d lost your best friend and the world was passing you by!’

Exactly, Mandy thought.

‘Into the counting house the legacy should go, until you need it,’ Aunt Sal said. She started to clear the tables, then stopped. ‘This will make you laugh, but I was afraid you…’ she pointed over her head ‘…were starting to fall in love.’

‘Heavens, Auntie! How can you imagine such a thing?’ Mandy asked, as her insides writhed. Head down, she stacked the dinner plates.

‘Silly of me,’ her aunt confessed. ‘I can’t imagine a less likely match.’ She set down her dishes and rubbed her arms. ‘They seem like marked men, almost, working in wooden ships and facing enemy fire. What does that do to someone?’

What does that do to someone? Mandy asked herself as she washed dishes later. It’s killing me.

To her relief, Sal had taken a bowl of soup and basket of bread upstairs. Mandy stopped washing when she heard laughter overhead, then washed harder, grateful that the sailing master wasn’t mourning over something that wasn’t there. It remained for Mandy to chalk this up to experience, a wonderful experience, yes, but only that.

Sal came downstairs a few minutes later, a smile on her face. ‘Such a droll fellow,’ she said. ‘He told me how your eyes widened at the idea of one hundred pounds and how you protested.’

‘I suppose I did,’ she said and made herself give an elaborate shiver that made her aunt’s smile grow. ‘I reckon I will have to make an appearance at Walthan Manor, unless Mr Cooper can arrange this in his office.’