The Captain's Christmas Family. Deborah Hale

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 employer, 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 overseeing this estate so much as overlooking waste and sloth. I fear you have left me with no alternative but to replace you.”

       “You can’t do that, sir!”

       With a raised eyebrow, Gideon inquired what prevented him.

       “What I mean to say is, I’ve got a wife and family and I’m not as young as I used to be.” Dutton’s former bluster disappeared, replaced by fear of reaping the bad harvest he had sown. “If word gets out that I’ve been dismissed…”