Regency Christmas Wishes. Carla Kelly

Grey, please excuse what happened. I found this under a box in my officer’s storeroom.’

      Mrs Fillion held out a letter most tattered and mangled. James Grey set down his soup spoon and picked it up. He squinted to make out some sort of return address. Stoic he may be, but he couldn’t help his involuntary intake of breath to see a single word: Winnings.

      ‘What? How?’ was all he could manage as he held the delicate envelope as though it were a relic from an Etruscan tomb. Mrs Fillion, owner of The Drake, was kind enough to allow her Plymouth hotel to serve as an informal postal and collection station since the beginning of Napoleon’s war. He motioned her to sit down at his solitary table, wishing she didn’t appear so upset.

      ‘What happened was that I set a box with some poor dead officer’s personal effects on top of the letter, which I was saving for you,’ she said, apologising. ‘Unfortunately, I haven’t seen you in years.’

      ‘That’s because I’ve operated on the far side of the world for several voyages,’ he said. ‘Don’t let this trouble you.’ He stared at the envelope. ‘Any idea how long it might have been there?’ He found himself almost afraid to open such a fragile document.

      He couldn’t help wincing when she said, ‘It’s been there since 1791, because the box I set on top of it had “1792” scribbled on the side.’ She sighed. ‘Eleven years, Captain. I hope it wasn’t something terribly important.’

      Likely not. When he never heard from Theodora Winnings after he proposed by way of pen and paper, James Grey, a first lieutenant in 1791, understood a refusal as well as the next man. Since his career seemed to keep him on the far side of the world for much of that decade, he had felt a little foolish for proposing to sweet Teddy Winnings in the first place. Then he dismissed the matter, except when he stood a watch, the perfect time to reflect on so much charm, goodwill and charity in a lovely frame. He stood a lot of watches. Still, Mrs Fillion needed to be jollied.

      ‘I wouldn’t worry, Mrs Fillion,’ he said. ‘I was a brand new first luff and I proposed to a fetching young thing in Charleston, South Carolina. Did it by letter, so you see how callow I was.’ He laughed, and thought it sounded genuine.

      Mrs Fillion smiled, which relieved him. ‘Captain, would you be brave enough to propose in person now, providing the right fetching young thing happens along?’

      ‘Unlikely. I’m a ripe thirty-seven, and serve in a dangerous profession. Why inflict that on a woman?’

      ‘You underrate females, Captain,’ Mrs Fillion said.

      ‘I have long been fortune’s fool.’ He picked up his soup spoon again, giving Mrs Fillion liberty to continue circulating among her other guests.

      The dining room was less busy, mainly because of the Treaty of Amiens, which meant most warships were in port, with officers uncomfortable on half pay and scrimping, and crews dumped on shore to starve. War was almost guaranteed to break out again, but until it did, this meant tight times in ports like Plymouth and Portsmouth.

      Jem waited until she was engaged in conversation with another officer before picking up the mangled letter. Eleven years was a long time to expect a letter to rule in his favour. Whatever the fervour of the moment, it was long past, whether Teddy’s reply had been yea or nay.

      He had already finished reading his newspaper, and there was still soup to be downed. Might as well see what she wrote all those years ago. He slit the letter open carefully, dismayed to see water damage inside.

      ‘Yes!’ The word leaped out at him. My God, Jem thought, she loved me. The rest of the letter was mainly blotched and illegible. He stared hard, and fancied he made out the phrases, ‘...but you need to know...’ and then farther down the ruined page, ‘I should have...’ The box Mrs Fillion set on top of Teddy’s letter must have been damp. He could decipher nothing else.

      His soup forgotten, Jem leaned back in his chair, staring out the window where autumn rain slid down the panes. His first glimpse of Theodora Winnings was through a fever haze, as though he gazed up at her from the bottom of a pond. That was his second relapse from malaria. Since the frigate Bold was peacefully moored in Charleston Harbour, the post surgeon had taken him ashore and left him to the tender mercy of the Sisters of Charity.

      He had recalled nothing of the first week except the stink of his sweat and his desire to die. Toward the end of that week, he vaguely remembered a visit from his captain, who announced the Bold was sailing to Jamaica, but would return in two months, hoping to find him alive. At the time, he had preferred death. Even in his addled state, Jem knew that was nothing to tell his commander.

      By the second week, he could get out of bed for a call of nature, if someone clutched him close around the waist. The Sisters of Charity were tough women who manhandled him so efficiently that any embarrassment quickly vanished.

      By the third week, life’s appeal returned, especially when Miss Theodora Winnings sat beside his bed to wipe his forehead and read to him. He was still too wasted to pay attention to the words, but he enjoyed the slow molasses sound of Miss Winnings’ Southern diction.

      By the next week, he spoke in coherent sentences and silently admired the loveliness of her ivory skin, dark hair and eyes and full lips, not to mention a bountiful bosom.

      ‘Captain, your soup must be cold. Would you like more?’

      ‘Oh, no. I’m done.’ He looked down at the letter with its nine legible words. ‘Mrs Fillion, she said yes eleven years ago.’

      He shouldn’t have told her, she who set the box on his letter in the first place. He knew Mrs Fillion had been through much, with children of her own at sea, and bad news when her lodgers died in the service of king and country. Her eyes brimmed with tears.

      ‘Look here, ma’am, don’t weep on my account,’ he added hastily. ‘As it turned out, once the Bold picked me up and revictualled, we left the Carolinas and never returned. I was a foolish lieutenant. Our paths were destined never to cross again.’

      Mrs Fillion wasn’t buying it. ‘Love doesn’t work like that,’ she argued. She dabbed angrily at her tears. ‘If you had known her answer, you would have found a way.’

      ‘Poppycock and humbug, Mrs Fillion,’ he stated firmly.

      He misjudged the redoubtable owner of the Drake. ‘Listen to me, Captain Grey,’ she demanded.

      Unused to being dressed down, he listened.

      ‘I think you should go to the United States,’ she said, lowering her voice so the other Navy men couldn’t hear. ‘Find Miss Winnings.’

      ‘What is the point, madam?’ he said, exasperated, more with himself than with her.

      ‘She said aye eleven years ago,’ Mrs Fillion replied.

      He knew he was wearing his most sceptical expression, but she touched his sleeve, her hand gentle on his arm. ‘Have a little faith, Captain.’

      He had to laugh. ‘Madam, I am as profane a captain as you will find in the fleet, as are most of my associates. We rely on time and tides, not faith.’

      ‘I don’t believe you.’ She looked around the room. ‘I doubt there is a captain or lieutenant in here who doesn’t rely on faith, too, say what you will.’

      What could he add to that? He wasn’t up to a theological argument with a hardworking woman he had long admired. ‘I’ll think about it,’ he muttered, then leaned over and gave Mrs Fillion a whacking great kiss on her cheek. For both their sakes, he chose not to continue the narrative. He could pretend he had reassured her, and she was kind enough to think so, too. That was how polite society worked.

      He knew it would be wise to leave the dining room then, and spare Mrs Fillion from more discomfort. He looked in the card room, not surprised to see the perpetual whist game about to get underway. He couldn’t remember who had named it that, but during wartime, there was always someone in port to make up a whist table.