The Admiral's Penniless Bride (22 page)

The glib words seemed to carom off every surface of Charles’s brain. ‘No record?’ he repeated, not overly concerned that his voice was rising. ‘I wasn’t really there? I didn’t testify? I heard no accusations hurled at whom I think—no, whom I know now—was an honest man? Nothing?’

They could probably hear him in the anteroom. He knew his voice could carry over a hurricane. But there was the First Lord, looking all disapproving now, prissy even, narrowing his eyes and probably wishing one of his favourite admirals to Hades. For the life of him, Charles could only think of what Dora would probably say at a moment like this.

‘You should be ashamed of yourself, Lord Biddle. Good day.’

None of the officers waiting in the anteroom looked at him when Charles hurried from the building. He hailed a conveyance, one of many loitering about the government offices on as dreary a day as he had ever encountered.

The carriage couldn’t go fast enough to suit him, but as he stood before Lord Edborough’s elegant house, he knew his was a fool’s errand. If Andrew Daviess had found no satisfaction, neither would he. Standing under the porch at Admiralty House, it had come home forcefully to him that the might of the Royal Navy extended far beyond the world’s oceans. It had the power to ruin lives with total impunity. He could almost see poor Andrew Daviess attempting to make his puny claims against men who would crush him without remorse. The man had never had a chance.

Charles was shown into Lord Edborough’s sitting room and spent nearly an hour waiting. He employed his time
well, watching the rain run through a ruined downspout across the street, and looking at men and women hurrying down slick walkways. Mostly he thought of Sophie, wondering how she was, and whether she watched the rain fall, too.

‘Admiral Bright! To what do I owe this great honour?’

He turned around to see Lord Edborough, a prosy man he had always liked well enough. More pleasantries followed, tedious in the extreme, now that he was bursting to talk. Unable to endure one more minute, he interrupted.

‘My lord, I will be brief. Five years ago, the Royal Navy brought charges of graft, corruption and foul play against the supervisor of Portsmouth’s victualling yard, a man named Andrew Daviess. I have reason to believe your brother was the guilty party.’

Lord Edborough was silent.

‘You do have a brother, do you not?’ Charles said, tried to the limit.

‘I do, or I did,’ Lord Edborough said finally. ‘He has been dead these three years.’

Charles sat down without being invited to do so. ‘Your brother ruined Andrew Daviess. His widow and small son were turned out to fend for themselves. The boy died and the woman was reduced to paupery.’ He handed Lord Edborough the original forged and erased invoice that Sophie had kept back. ‘This is potent evidence of his chicanery, but not enough to satisfy any court of law bent on covering up malfeasance. Take this, my lord. Tear it up. Burn it. It’s the last bit of evidence against your foul brother, may he rot in hell. No court in the land will touch it. Your dirty secret is safe as houses. Good day.’

He made it to the door before Lord Edborough spoke. ‘Admiral Bright, one moment.’

Charles turned around, not caring if he frightened the older man with the grimness of his expression. No need to worry, though. Lord Edborough’s visage was more bleak.

Lord Edborough chose his words carefully. ‘He was a weak one, was Edmund. Always in debt. None of us in the family approved of his actions.’

‘Then he was guilty,’ Charles said, his voice scarcely above a whisper.

Lord Edborough confirmed nothing. ‘He was my brother, Charles, for good or ill.’

‘But…’

‘He was my brother,’ the viscount repeated. ‘If you attempt any action, I will come against you with all the force of the law.’ He began to rip the invoice into tiny pieces, viscerally reminding Charles of Sophie’s manuscript that he had shred in front of her horrified eyes. ‘You have no proof. I will never tell a court of law what I have just revealed to you, Admiral Bright. Good day.’

D
ora begged him to stay, but Charles was adamant.

‘I have neglected my estate too long,’ he told her as he slid the last clean shirt into his valise.

‘Give me a few weeks, and I will send you an invitation to visit,’ he told her after breakfast, as she stood outside with him. ‘You’ll be fair amazed at the transformation our—my—house had undergone. There is nary a naughty cupid in sight.’

On dreary days like today, he longed to stride a quarterdeck in some southern latitude.

Two nights in public houses had convinced him how weary he was of travel. On the third day, the coachman was willing to drive him right to his door, but the prospect of a house without Sophie in it trumped his weariness. Inventing some errand that could not be postponed, he asked to stop at the Drake for luncheon. He could complete his journey once he had eaten. No one paced back and forth
in his sitting room, pining for a glimpse of him. His time was his own.

Apparently, his time was also the Drake’s. He placed his order, but the waiter returned once and then twice, bearing the unwelcome news that the hotel had exchanged hands only a week ago, and things were not as they should be. Charles shrugged and went outside in the rain to advise his coachman to come inside, too, or find a better public house.

He sat down at his usual table again, unable to prevent his eyes from straying to that table to the front and left where he had first seen Sally Paul. It was foolish of him to think that his heart hurt, but it did. He rubbed his chest, resolving not to give the Drake his patronage any more.

A man sat in Sophie’s spot, rattling through the newspaper, and casting angry glances at his timepiece. With a monumental oath, the man folded his paper, whacked the table with it, then left the dining room. An elderly lady taking tea nearby jumped in her seat and uttered a little shriek.

When no one came to straighten the table the irate man had deserted, Charles retrieved the newspaper. Making himself comfortable, he read the news, boring in the extreme, now that warships rode at anchor, or had been placed in ordinary. He finished the paper and refolded it, then unfolded it and turned to the back page, that section Sophie had been studying with such intent when he noticed her, and found he could not look away.

Notices were few; jobs were still scarce. He looked down the paper to the legal announcements, several of which had originated from Brustein and Carter’s office three streets over. His eyes widened and he read them again.

On the face of it, there was nothing remotely interesting about a landowner searching for a lost relative, someone to
whom he owed money. It was the writing that grabbed his attention and refused to let go, taking him back to the best moments last summer, when Sophie had laboured over his puny life story, infusing it with her own wit and skill. He read the announcement again; it was Sophie’s writing.

He looked to the bottom of the announcement, with the initials D.B.—David Brustein, to be sure. Charles let out the breath he had been holding when he saw the lowercase s.b., following a slash. He stood up, unmindful of everything in the dining room. It couldn’t be. He was imagining things. He read another similar announcement from D.B./s.b., and one more, this one S.B./s.b. Although the subject in all three announcements was pedestrian in the extreme, the words were not.

‘You’re still using my name,’ he said out loud. He looked at the elderly lady with the tea and pointed at the announcement. ‘She’s still using my name!’

The woman glared at him and snapped her fingers to summon a waiter—probably to throw him out of the Drake—but he was already out the door, walking fast up the High Street, the newspaper still clutched in his hand. He passed several officers he had known for years. They hailed him; he ignored them. And then out of breath, he was standing before the modest door proclaiming Brustein and Carter.

He stood there a moment until he was breathing normally, then opened the door.

It was the same office he had always visited. In fact, he had stopped in before his trip to London, speaking as he always did to either David or Samuel Brustein, his men of business, now that Jacob had retired. He had chatted with David as he withdrew money, only last week.

Everything had changed now, even though it all remained the same: the dark panelling, the Turkish rug,
the overstuffed chairs, the most junior clerk looking at him politely, waiting to honour whatever request he had.

‘Admiral Bright? How may we help you today?’

He willed himself to remain calm as he stood in front of the clerk’s desk. He indicated the announcements. The clerk looked at him, interest in his eyes. ‘Yes?’

‘Where is Sophie Bright?’ he asked softly, when he wanted to rip the door to the interior offices off its hinges and run down the hallway, looking in all the cubicles this time, and not just David or Samuel’s offices.

The clerk was silent. He adjusted his spectacles and stood up. ‘Let me get Mr David Brustein.’

‘I’m coming with you.’

‘No, you’re not,’ the clerk replied crisply. ‘Sir! Just wait here, please.’

I can be patient; I can be civil
, Charles told himself as he said down, then stood up immediately, as David Brustein opened the door, straightening his neckcloth. He was a short man like his father and Charles towered over him.

‘Mr Brustein, where is my wife?’

He said it softly; he knew he did. The last thing he wanted to do was terrify Sophie, if she was within hearing distance.

Brustein sat down on the edge of his clerk’s desk, effectively blocking the interior door, even though it was patently obvious that Charles could toss him aside like a skittle. ‘She’s here,’ he said. ‘How did you find her?’

Charles sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were wet. And as he looked at the younger man, he saw Brustein’s eyes welling up, too.

‘Admiral? How did you find her?’

Wordlessly, Charles pointed to the announcements in the newspaper.

‘I don’t quite—’

‘David, I would know Sophie’s style of writing anywhere.’ He tapped the initials. ‘And there it is: s.b. for Sophie Bright. Please. Let me talk to her.’

Brustein nodded just as the door opened and Samuel came out, obviously curious to know what had taken his brother to the reception room during the busiest part of the day. The brothers spoke together in Yiddish, and Samuel went back inside.

‘He will ask Mrs Bright if she wishes to speak to you.’ David stood up then, no taller than ever, but exerting a certain command. ‘If she does not wish to speak to you, you will have to go.’

‘Aye, lad,’ he replied.

He could be patient. His pride was gone, his faith in the Royal Navy well nigh shattered after sifting through a mountain of duplicity. As he waited, he knew that if Sophie Bright would not see him, he would will the house to her and take ship for South America. She would never want for anything, and he would want for everything. But as the Lord Admiral had so smugly exclaimed, that was how the world worked.

The door opened. Charles’s face fell to see Samuel, and no one behind him. Was it to be Montevideo or Rio de Janeiro? He didn’t care.

‘Admiral? Why don’t you follow me?’

Dumbly, he turned towards the door leading to the street. David Brustein stopped him, his hand on his arm.

‘No, Admiral. Follow Samuel.’

Sophie was perched on a stool behind a tall desk, her hands clasped in front of her, her face pale. With a gesture, Samuel cleared the room of the other clerks at their desks. Charles stood in the doorway, afraid to move one step closer.

‘I read one of the Brusteins’ legal announcements. It sounded…’ he gulped ‘…it sounded remarkably like your writing, Sophie.’

She watched his face, not wary, but solemn.

‘Charles…are you well? You look thin. Surely Etienne is still in your employ. And Starkey, too, I suppose. Please tell me that Miss Thayn still—’

‘Starkey is long gone,’ he said, coming closer, but not too close. How beautiful she looked in the strong light coming through the double windows, the perfect setting for scribes. Her face had a gentle glow to it that he hadn’t noticed before. He hadn’t seen her in five months, come to think of it. ‘I dismissed Starkey the day you left.’

She nodded.

‘The others? I have to tell you, Miss Thayn is no more.’

‘Charles! I was so hoping you would—’

‘Steady as she goes, Sophie! She and Etienne decided to tie the knot. Miss
Thayn
is no more.’

She laughed at that. ‘You wretch!’ she scolded, and he had to gulp again and look away.

‘The girls are fine, and Vivienne is planning to cook for me, so Etienne and Amelia can go away for a few weeks.’ He hesitated, putting all his eggs in one fragile basket. ‘You never decided on a good colour for the exterior.’

‘Pale blue, I should think,’ she said, getting off her stool and coming around the corner of the desk. ‘It will look good against the lemon trees.’

He stared at her gently rounded belly, then dropped to his knees. She was in his arms in a moment, gathering him close as he pressed his face into her belly. Her hands rested on his head, and then she knelt, too, holding him close. ‘You’re too thin,’ she said. ‘Tell me you weren’t sick!’

He could only shake his head and gather her closer. As
he did so, he felt the baby move, probably in protest at such close quarters in an already confined space.

‘I never dreamed I would be a father,’ he said many minutes later, when she had left off kissing him, and her hands were gentle on his back now. ‘That was something so out of reach I never thought…’

‘Think again, Charlie,’ she told him, leaning on him to stand on her feet again. ‘I believe it was that morning before we went to pay our respects to Jacob Brustein.’ She tugged at his hand and he stood up, only to clasp her close, as their son or daughter protested with another high kick. Sophie laughed softly. ‘Or it could have been the morning or two before that, or maybe…’

‘We weren’t much good at convenient marriages, were we, my darling?’ Charles said.

She walked him to the door, opening it to see both Brusteins and the clerks waiting with an air of expectation. ‘Gentlemen, I didn’t mean to take you away from your accounts.’

David gestured to his own office. ‘Go in there and talk,’ he said. ‘Sam and I will walk down to the Drake for tea.’

‘The service is terrible there,’ Charles said, before Sophie closed the door to David’s office and pulled him into her lopsided embrace again. ‘You’ll wait for ever.’

He sat down, pulling her on to his lap. ‘You walked to the Brusteins’ that morning.’

Sophie nodded, resting against his chest. His hand went to her belly as though it belonged there. ‘I didn’t know where else to go, and Mr Brustein had said I could always depend on him. With all the carriages coming and going, I knew I’d get away.’

‘I am so sorry,’ he said, his voice betraying only a tiny portion of the anguish he felt.

She nestled closer, and her words were muffled in his
overcoat. ‘For a long time, you were just one more person who had hurt me.’

‘I know. What changed?’

She thought about it. She gave that small sigh with the little sound to it, and he realised how he had been craving to hear that again. ‘Well, the baby, to be sure. I had no idea how you would feel about a child from my body, not after—’

‘Sophie, don’t even think it. I was cruel and you didn’t deserve the way I treated you.’

He held her close until she stirred in his arms. ‘I knew I would do anything to keep my baby safe. I’m not certain when it happened, but one morning I woke up and realised that if I never saw you again, mine would be a life not worth living.’ She toyed with the button on his overcoat. ‘But I had no way of knowing how you felt, so there the matter rested.’

‘You left behind a persuasive letter, my love,’ he told her. ‘After I finished drinking all the liquor in the cellar, and after Dora dried me out and—’

‘Dora? She Did What?’

He played with her curls that had come loose from her chignon. ‘Sophie, you’re speaking in capitals, just like Dora. It’s true, and it can keep. More to the point, I went to Admiralty House and received the royal circumlocution. Would it surprise you to know that all records and transcripts from Andrew’s trial have disappeared? Poof. Just like that.’

‘Now we will never know.’

‘Think again.’ Cuddling her close, he told her about Lord Edborough’s confession of sorts. ‘He assured me I could never prove anything in a court of law, and he is right. Edmund Sperling is dead, though, if that is any consolation.’ He sighed. ‘A few months ago, when I was
so proud and stupid, I wanted to see Sperling get his just deserts before a heavenly tribunal.’

‘But not now?’ she asked, her hands warm inside his overcoat now.

‘No, my love. When I was younger, I wanted justice. Now that I am older, I yearn for mercy.’

He went back to his manor alone, but with a smile on his face. David and Samuel had both cut up stiff when he wanted to whisk his darling away from them that very hour. They reminded him that quarters were approaching, and they needed his gravid, beautiful wife for another week of work. ‘She has made herself indispensable to us,’ was David’s last argument.

He could understand that completely. From the moment she gave him her startled consent to wed, Sarah Sophia Paul Daviess Bright had worked her own little magic on him. He thought about asking her what she was planning to do, if he hadn’t found her, then decided he didn’t care. Maybe some day she would tell him.

When he got home and made himself comfortable in his favourite chair in the sitting room—he still hated to go into the bookroom—he took out her little book of sonnets and turned to the twenty-ninth. For five months, he had never got beyond the first few lines about disgrace, and bootless cries, and troubling deaf heaven. Now his eyes roved lower. He smiled and mouthed the words, ‘Haply I think on thee’, then on to ‘thy sweet love remembered’, until he was content as never before, even if his dear one—dear ones—were still in Plymouth.