The Captain's Christmas Family (2 page)

Captain Radcliffe didn’t like her. That much was evident to Marian. Not that she minded—quite the contrary. Besides, it set them even.

She resented his obvious eagerness to palm off responsibility for Cissy and Dolly on someone else, without asking or caring whether that person might be the
least bit suitable. In Marian’s opinion, Lady Villiers was not.

“Her ladyship has been abroad since before Mr. Radcliffe’s death. The family’s solicitor has not been able to contact her. She was in Florence the last we heard, but she may have gone on to Paris.”

“It does seem to be a fashionable destination since Napoleon’s defeat.” Captain Radcliffe sounded disappointed that Lady Villiers would not be taking the girls off his hands immediately. “I know someone in France who might be able to get a message to her.”

A message to come at once and take the girls away? The prospect made Marian queasy. But would Cissy and Dolly be any better off with this glacial man about whom she’d heard disturbing rumors?

Her gaze flitted around the elegant, exotic room. At least this house was familiar to the girls. And if the new master had no fondness for them, she and the other servants did. Besides, unlike their aunt, Captain Radcliffe had no reason to harbor designs on the girls’ fortunes. “Could you delay sending that message for just a bit, sir?”

“Why on earth…?”

“Knightley Park is the children’s home—the only one they’ve ever known. If they must leave it, I would like some time to get them used to the idea, if that’s all right?”

It wasn’t all right. That much was clear from his taut, forbidding scowl.

“Please,” she added, though she doubted any amount of begging would budge a man like him. “You’ve probably spent most of your life moving from one place to
another. So perhaps you can’t understand why a child who’s lost her mother and father would want to stay in a familiar place around people she’s used to.”

It was not her place to speak to the new master in such a tone. Marian could imagine Mr. Culpepper’s look of horror if he heard her.

“I understand better than you suppose, Miss Murray.” Captain Radcliffe spoke so softly, Marian wondered if she had only imagined his words.

“You do?”

He replied with a slow nod, a distant gaze and a pensive murmur that seemed to come from some well-hidden place inside him. “I was ten years old when I was sent to sea after my mother died.”

The wistful hush of his voice slid beneath Marian’s bristling defenses. Her heart went out to that wee boy. A navy ship must have been an even harsher place to grow up than the Pendergast Charity School, where she had been sent. She wondered if young Gideon Radcliffe had been blessed with good friends and strong faith to help him bear it.

But she had no right to ask such questions of a man like him. Besides, the girls were her first priority.

Perhaps she could appeal to the part of him that remembered the loss and displacement he’d suffered. “Cissy is only nine and Dolly hasn’t turned seven yet. I know you don’t mean to send them off to sea, Captain. But
away-from-home
is all the same, no matter where, don’t you think?”

His brows rose and his lower lip thrust out in a downward curve. “I see your point.”

Marian sensed this was as receptive as he was likely
to get. “I’m not asking anything of you, Captain, except to provide us with food and houseroom until Lady Villiers returns. This place has plenty of both to spare. I will see to the girls, entirely, just the way I have since their father died. I’ll make certain they don’t disturb you.”

For a moment Captain Radcliffe stared down at the finely woven carpet. Then suddenly he lifted his head to fix her with a gaze that
did
see her—too clearly for her comfort. “Very well, Miss Murray. I am not such an ogre as you may suppose. I know this is
their
home and would have remained so if they’d had a brother.”

“I never thought you were an—”

Before she could blurt out that bald lie, the captain raised his hand to bid her not interrupt him. “Until the New Year then.”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“I shall delay contacting Lady Villiers until January.” Captain Radcliffe sounded resigned to his decision. “That will allow the children to spend Christmas in the country. After that, the New Year is a time for new beginnings.”

“Perhaps so.” That sounded ungrateful. Captain Radcliffe was under no obligation to let them stay for any length of time, let alone the whole winter. “What I meant to say was…thank you, sir.”

As she hurried back to the nursery, Marian thanked God, too, for granting this reprieve. Perhaps her earlier prayers had been heard after all.

A
fter his first night in his new home, Gideon woke much later than usual. He’d slept badly—the place was far too quiet. He missed the soothing lap of the waves against the hull of his ship, the flap of sails in the wind and the mournful cries of seagulls. When he had drifted off, the face of that young midshipman had appeared to trouble him. Though the charges brought against him were entirely unfounded—of causing the death of one member of his crew and threatening others—that did not mean his conscience was clear.

An iron band of pain tightened around Gideon’s forehead when he crawled out of bed. He staggered when the floor stayed level and still beneath his feet. It had taken him a while to gain his sea legs when he’d joined his first crew, all those years ago. Now the roll of a deck was so familiar he wondered if he would ever feel comfortable on dry land. Nottinghamshire had some of the driest land in the kingdom, many miles from the ocean in any direction. Coming here had given Gideon a far
more intimate understanding of what it meant to be “a fish out of water.”

Perhaps some coffee and breakfast would help. Though he’d lived on ship’s rations for more than two-thirds of his life, he could not claim they were superior to the fare available at Knightley Park.

As he washed, shaved and dressed for the day, Gideon’s thoughts turned back to his unsettling interview with Miss Murray the previous evening. The woman reminded him of a terrier—small and rather appealing, yet possessed of fierce tenacity in getting what she wanted. What in blazes had possessed him to tell her about being sent to sea after his mother’s death?

He seldom talked to anyone about his past and never about that unhappy time. Perhaps it was what she’d said about a bereaved child needing the comfort of familiar surroundings. It had struck a chord deep within him—far too deep for his liking. Before he could stop himself, the words had poured out. For an instant after he’d spoken, Gideon thought he sensed a thawing in her obvious aversion to him. Then she had turned and used that unintentional revelation as leverage to wring from him a concession he’d been reluctant to grant.

He counted himself fortunate that he had not come up against many enemy captains who were such formidable opponents as this simple Scottish governess.

It wasn’t that he begrudged his young cousins’ house room—quite the contrary. They had been born and lived their whole lives at Knightley Park, while he had only visited the place at Christmastime and in the summer. Though it belonged to him by law, he could
not escape the conviction that they had a far stronger claim to it.

While they remained here, he would be reluctant to make many changes in the domestic arrangements they were accustomed to…no matter how sorely needed. He would always feel like an interloper in his own home, prevented from claiming the solitude and privacy he’d hoped to find at Knightley Park.

That was not his only objection to the arrangement, Gideon reminded himself as he headed off in search of breakfast. What if his young cousins needed something beyond the authority of their governess to provide? What if some harm befell them and he was held accountable? He, who had been charged with the welfare of an entire ship’s crew, shrank from the responsibility for two small girls. It vexed Gideon that he had not thought to raise some of these objections with Miss Murray last night.

It was too late now, though. He had given his word. He only hoped he would not come to regret that decision as much as he regretted some others he’d made of late.

“Dolly!” That soft but urgent cry, and the light, fleet patter of approaching footsteps jarred Gideon from his thoughts; but too late to take proper evasive action.

An instant later, the child came racing around the corner and barreled straight into him. Her head struck him in the belly, like a small blond cannonball, knocking the breath out of him. Meanwhile the collision sent her tumbling backward onto her bottom. It could not have winded her as it had Gideon, for her mouth fell open to emit an earsplitting wail that made his aching
head throb. Her eyes screwed up and commenced to gush tears at a most alarming rate. The sight unnerved Gideon like nothing in his eventful naval career…with one recent exception.

Before he could catch his breath or rally his shattered composure, Marian Murray charged around the corner and swooped down to enfold her young charge. “Wist ye now, Dolly!”

She looked up at Gideon, her eyes blazing with fierce protectiveness. “What did you do to her?”

“What…?” Gideon gasped. “I…?”

That was one unjust accusation too many. Somehow he managed to suck in enough air to fuel his reply. “I did…
nothing
to her! That little imp ploughed into me. A few inches taller and she’d have stove in my ribs.”

Anger over a great many things that had nothing to do with the present situation came boiling out of him. “What was she doing tearing through the halls like a wild thing? Someone could have been hurt much worse.”

Now he’d done it. No doubt his rebuke would make the child howl even louder, if that were possible. Less than twenty-four hours had passed, and already he’d begun to regret his hasty decision to let the children stay.

To his amazement, Gideon realized the child was not weeping harder. Indeed, she seemed to have stopped. Her sobs had somehow turned to chuckles.

“Wild thing.” She repeated his words as if they were a most amusing compliment, then chuckled again.

“You needn’t sound so pleased with yourself.” Miss Murray helped the child to her feet and dusted her off.
“Captain Radcliffe is right. You could have been hurt a good deal worse. Now tell him you’re sorry and promise it won’t happen again.”

The little scamp broke into a broad grin that was strangely infectious. “I’m sorry I bumped into you, Captain. I hope I didn’t hurt you too much. I promise I won’t run so fast around corners after this.”

“I’m not certain that running indoors at all is a good idea.” Gideon struggled to keep the corners of his mouth from curling up, as they itched to do. “You are not a filly, after all, and this is not Newmarket racecourse.”

If Miss Murray found his remark at all amusing, she certainly gave no sign. “I apologize, as well, Captain. This is all my fault. I will keep Dolly under much closer supervision from now on.”

Gideon found himself torn between a strange desire to linger there in the hallway with them and an urgent need to get away. Since the latter made far more sense, he gave a stiff nod to acknowledge her assurance and strode away in search of a strong cup of coffee to restore his composure.

“Dorothy Ann Radcliffe,” Marian muttered as she marched her young pupil back to the nursery, “you won’t be content until you make my hair turn white, will you?”

“Could I really do that, Miss Marian?” Dolly sounded far more intrigued by the possibility than chastened.

“I don’t care to find out, thank you very much.” Marian pointed to a low, three-legged stool in the
corner, with which Dolly’s bottom was quite familiar. “Go sit for ten minutes and think about what you’ve done.”

“Why must
I
sit in the corner?” demanded the child. “When you told the Captain it was all your fault?”

“Impudence, for a start.” Marian fixed her with a stern look. “I warn you, I am not in the mood to tolerate any more of your foolishness, just now.”

Though Dolly deserved her punishment, Marian could not deny her own responsibility for what had happened. Since their father’s death, she had encouraged Dolly’s high spirits, in the hope of lifting her sister’s.

“What happened?” asked Cissy, who sat at the nursery table, an untouched bowl of porridge in front of her. “I heard shouting and bawling.”

Before Marian could get a word out, Dolly announced, “I bumped into the captain and fell down.”

Walking toward the corner stool, she rubbed her bottom. “He called me a wild thing and said the house isn’t a racecourse. I think he’s funny.”

Captain Radcliffe was anything but amusing. A little shudder ran through Marian as she recalled his dark scowl, which seemed to threaten he would send the girls away if another such mishap occurred. “That’s quite enough out of you, miss. I don’t want to hear another word for ten minutes or I’ll add ten more. Is that understood?”

Dolly opened her mouth to reply, then shut it again and nodded as she sank onto the stool.

Marian returned to her rapidly cooling breakfast but found she had no appetite for it now.

“What did he say, Miss Marian?” Cissy asked in an anxious tone.

“He wasn’t happy about being rammed into on his first morning here, of course.” Marian cast a reproachful look toward the corner stool. “I can’t say I blame him.”

Now that she thought back on it, the captain had seemed more vexed by her tactless assumption that he’d done something to hurt Dolly, rather than the other way around. She couldn’t blame him for that, either. No one liked to be unjustly accused, especially when
they
were the injured party. But what else was she to think, after the experiences of her past and the things she’d read about him in the newspapers? There had been reports of severe cruelty to the younger members of his crew, resulting in at least one death,

“I don’t mean what the captain said just now.” Cissy pushed her porridge around the bowl with her spoon. “What did he say last night when you went to talk to him…at
eight
bells?”

“Oh, that.” He’d told her about being sent away to sea when he was only a little older than Cissy, though Marian sensed he hadn’t intended to. “He said you and Dolly are welcome to stay at Knightley Park until your aunt comes back from abroad. That was kind of him, wasn’t it?”

So it was, Marian reminded herself, though she still resented his obvious reluctance.

Cissy ignored the question. “I wish Aunt Lavinia would come tomorrow and take us away with her.”

“I don’t!” cried Dolly, undeterred by the prospect
of ten more minutes in the corner. “I want to stay at Knightley Park as long as we can.”

That was what Marian wanted for the girls, too. She feared what might become of Cissy and Dolly once Lady Villiers took charge of them. Her best hope was that she would be allowed to remain as their governess. Though she disliked the idea of having no fixed home, flitting from one fashionable destination to another, at least she would be able to shield the children from the worst excesses of their aunt’s way of life.

But what if Lady Villiers decided that traveling with her two young nieces and their governess in tow would be too inconvenient? What if she dismissed Marian and placed the girls in a boarding school, while she used their money to stave off her creditors?

Worrying down a spoonful of cold porridge as an example to the girls, Marian tried to push those fears to the back of her mind. She had enough to be getting on with just now—she didn’t need to borrow trouble. If she could not keep the children from disturbing Captain Radcliffe, she feared he might turn them out long before Lady Villiers arrived to collect her nieces.

Gideon had intended to catch a few days’ rest before plunging into his new duties as master of Knightley Park. But after the collision with his young cousin on his way to breakfast, he decided a dignified retreat might be in order. If Miss Murray could not keep the children out of his way, then he must take care to keep out of theirs.

His belly was still a little tender where the child’s sturdy head had butted it. That did not smart half as
much as the memory of Miss Murray’s accusation. Her tone and look made it abundantly clear her opinion had been turned against him before he ever set foot in Knightley Park. Was that the case with all the servants? He’d hoped the vile gossip about him might not have spread this far into the countryside. Apparently, that had been wishful thinking.

Such thoughts continued to plague him as he rode around the estate, investigating its operation. What he discovered provided a distraction, though not the kind he’d hoped for. Everywhere he looked, he encountered evidence of idleness, waste and mismanagement. By late that afternoon, his bones ached from the unaccustomed effort of sitting a horse for so many hours. His patience had worn dangerously thin by the time he tracked down the steward of Knightley Park.

“Pray how long have you been employed in your present position, Mr. Dutton?” Hands clasped behind his back, Gideon fixed the steward with his sternest quarterdeck stare.

Unlike every midshipman who’d ever served under him, this landlubber seemed not to grasp the significance of that look.

The steward was a solid man of middling height with bristling ginger side-whiskers and a confident air. “Been here nigh on ten years, sir. Not long after the late master’s marriage, God rest both their souls. In all that time, Mr. Radcliffe never had a fault to find with my service.”

“Indeed?” Gideon’s voice grew quieter, a sign his crew would have known to heed as a warning. “You must have found my late cousin a very satisfactory em
ployer, then—easygoing, content to leave the oversight of the estate in your hands with a minimum of interference.”

“Just so, sir.” Dutton seemed to imply the new master would do well to follow his cousin’s example. “I didn’t presume to tell him how to hunt his foxes and he didn’t tell me how to carry out my duties.”

The man was drifting into heavy weather, yet he appeared altogether oblivious. “But there is a difference between those two circumstances, is there not? My cousin’s hunting was none of your affair, while your management of this estate was very much his. Now it is mine and I have never shirked my duty.”

At last the steward seemed to sense which way the wind was blowing. He stood up straighter, and his tone became a good deal more respectful. “Yes, sir. I mean…no, sir.”

From his coat pocket, Gideon withdrew a folded sheet of paper on which he had penciled some notes in the tight, precise script he used for his log entries. “From what I have observed today, Mr. Dutton, you have not been over
seeing
this estate so much as over-
looking
waste and sloth. I fear you have left me with no alternative but to replace you.”