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

As it turned out, that wasn’t even necessary. As men will, they had been chatting with each other while the choirmaster laboured with his sopranos on their descant, ‘O come let us adore him’, and the men had nothing to do. Out of the corner of her eye, she had watched Ben hand over that mysterious folded sheet of paper to the solicitor, who stood directly behind him in the bass section.

They walked home with other singers going in the same direction. Again, Ben was quick to take her arm firmly. She knew better than to lean against his arm this time. Something told her that was a gesture best reserved for someone hanging around longer than nineteen more days.

Nineteen days! The thought made her turn solemn and then grumpy, but not until she was upstairs and in her room. She pressed her face into her pillow and resolved to be sensible and sober and mind her manners. After he left, the room across the hall would get dusty and that would be the end of lodgers. Mandy knew she would never suggest the matter again to her aunt.

Chapter Three (#ulink_3d8c7b8c-f52e-5c8f-9890-3e486c7a70aa)

Good Lord, I wish you weren’t just across the hall, Ben thought.

Sleep did not come, but the idea of counting sheep just struck him as silly. He had slept through hurricanes and humid tropical nights. Once a battle was over and he had done all he could, he had no difficulty in closing his eyes and not waking until he was needed. The way things were shaping up tonight in this charming room, he was going to still be awake at two bells into the morning watch.

He lay on his side, staring at the door, wishing Amanda would open it. He knew she wouldn’t, not in a million years, but a man could hope. He lay there in utter misery, wondering how pleasant it would be to do nothing more than share a pillow with her. All the man-and-woman thing aside, how pleasant to chat with her in a dark room, talk over a day, plan for the next one. He felt his heart crack around the edges as he remembered the fun of bouncing into his parents’ room and snuggling between them. He wondered now if he had ever disturbed them and that made him chuckle.

Thank the Lord she had no inkling how badly he wanted to kiss her in that cloakroom. But, no, he had reminded her that he was only there for three weeks. She had murmured something after he said that, so soft he couldn’t be sure, into his bad ear. He pounded his pillow into shape and forced himself to consider the matter.

You just want a woman and any woman will do, he told himself. Yes, Amanda is charming, but you know better. She is far too intelligent to care about a seafarer. Where are your manners, Benneit Muir?

He thought of his near escape from the sister of the ship’s carpenter several years ago. True, Polly hadn’t possessed a fraction of Amanda’s charm, which made bidding goodbye an easy matter, when he returned to Plymouth. He had paced the midnight deck off the coast of France a few times, scolding himself, until that was the end of it. This would be no different.

He put on his usual good show over breakfast, even though he couldn’t overlook the smudges under Amanda’s eyes, as though she hadn’t slept much, either. Ben, your imagination borders on the absurd, he told himself as he ate eggs and sausage that might as well have been floor sweepings, for all he cared.

Amanda only made it worse by handing him his cloak and hat, and two sandwiches twisted in coated paper.

‘I think you need more than one sandwich on a tray,’ she said at the door. ‘I put in biscuits, too. Have a good day, Ben.’

He took the sweet gift, bowed to her and left Mandy’s Rose. By the time he reached Walthan Manor, he was in complete control of himself and feeling faintly foolish.

To his surprise, Thomas was ready for him, a frown on his face, but awake, none the less. Ben thought about a cutting remark, but discarded the notion. No sense in being petty and cruel to a weak creature, not when he himself had exhibited his own stupidity. Ben explained charting a course, and explained it again until a tiny light went on somewhere in the back of Thomas Walthan’s brain.

Together, they worked through two course chartings. By the second attempt, Thomas nearly succeeded. A little praise was in order.

‘Tom, I think you could understand this, with sufficient application,’ he said.

The midshipman gave Ben a wary look, perhaps wondering if the sailing master was serious. Ben felt a pang at Tom’s expression and an urge to examine his own motives in teaching. Was he trying to flog his own disappointments, show off, or was he trying to teach? The matter bore consideration; maybe now was the time.

Sitting there with Tom Walthan, inept midshipman, Ben took a good, inward look at himself in the library of Walthan Manor, of all places, and didn’t like what he saw. He was proud and probably seemed insufferable to a confused lad. He had a question for the midshipman, a lad from a titled, wealthy family.

‘Tell me something, Thomas, and I speak with total candour. Do you like the Royal Navy? Answer me with equal candour, please.’

Tom’s expression wavered from disbelief to doubt, to a thoughtful demeanour that Ben suspected mirrored his own.

‘I…I am not so certain that I do,’ Tom said finally. He blushed, hesitated and had the temerity to ask the sailing master his own question. ‘Do you, sir?’

Tom’s unexpected courage impressed Ben. He thought a long moment and nodded. ‘I do, lad. The navy was a stepping stone for me. My father was a fisherman and we lived in Kirkcudbright. He lives there still. I wanted more than a fishing smack. I discovered a real facility with mathematics, geometry in particular.’

‘I hate geometry,’ Tom said, with some heat.

‘It shows. Do you like the ocean?’

With no hesitation this time, Tom shook his head. He stared at the ink-smudged paper in front of him. ‘Not even a little.’

‘I do. I love wind in sails and I feel I am greatly needed in this time of national alarm. For all that I am a Scot, I do care for England.’

Tom saw that for the gentle joke it was and relaxed.

‘Then why, lad? Why? Could you find a better way to serve your country? You’ll be an earl some day, I have no doubt. Why the sea?’

Tom said nothing for a long while. ‘He thinks it would make me a man,’ Thomas said with considerable bitterness. ‘I must do as he bids.’

‘Must you?’ Ben asked. He felt suddenly sorry for the miserable young man before him. ‘Could you find the courage to tell your father that the navy will not do for you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I hope you will.’ Ben went to the window, turning deliberately to face Venable. He idly wondered what Mandy was doing, then shook his head, exasperated with himself. He turned back. ‘I could pound this maths into your brain, Thomas, with a little help from you, but here is what I fear—some day you might be a lieutenant on a quarterdeck and you might make a fearsome mistake. Men’s lives, lad, men’s lives.’

Thomas nodded, his lips tight together. ‘I don’t think I can sit here any longer today,’ he said. ‘I need to…’ He sighed. ‘I don’t know what I need, sir.’

‘Do you have a good place to think?’

Tom gave Ben a half-smile. ‘We can agree that I’ve never done much of that before. I’ll find a place, sir.’

‘I’ll be back tomorrow and we’ll continue,’ Ben said. ‘Give the matter your attention, because it does make a difference.’

I can give myself the same advice, Ben thought, as the midshipmen closed the door quietly behind him. They were inland here, but Ben had two sandwiches and biscuits. He could walk to higher ground and find a spot to see the ocean he was starting to miss.

He gathered up his charts and tools, then just sat there in the library. The sofa was soft and maybe he could lie down for a nap. No one ever came in the library and his eyes were starting to close. Amanda Mathison, get thee behind me, he thought, with some amusement at his own folly. ‘You’ll forget her in a week,’ he muttered.

Mostly now, he wanted a nap.

Ben woke to the sound of angry voices. He sat up, startled, until the fog cleared and he realised the altercation wasn’t going on there in the library. He tried to remember if there was side door to the manor where he could escape without notice.

He opened the door and peered down the hall. No servants lurked anywhere, which told him they had chosen discretion, too. The voices were so loud that he knew no one would hear him even if he stomped through. He should leave right now.

And he would have, if he hadn’t recognised Mr Cooper’s deep bass voice from the choir last night. The solicitor must have read the folded paper and gone directly to Walthan Manor. Still, the matter wasn’t his business and Ben knew it. He started past the book room, then stopped, when Lord Kelso roared out Mandy Mathison’s name like a curse.

Ben leaned towards the door. He had never eavesdropped in his life, but here he was, with no plans to move until he learned more.

‘You cannot force me to honour this damned codicil!’ Lord Kelso shouted.

‘It is the law, my lord,’ Mr Cooper said, his voice much softer, but distinct.

‘Only you and that damned sailing master know!’

‘The vicar witnessed it. I cannot just ignore a matter of the law, Lord Kelso.’

‘Others do.’

‘My lord, I am not amongst them.’