A Regency Officer's Wedding. Carla Kelly

Small feet, too.’

      ‘I don’t doubt you for a minute, sir.’

      What a prodigious old sprite, Bright thought in astonishment. He could feel Sophia’s eyes boring into the back of his nightshirt. I’m going to be in such trouble if I don’t cease this line of enquiry, he thought. ‘I doubt seriously we will ever need to test the strength of the chandelier,’ he said, knowing how lame he sounded. ‘Perhaps we should introduce ourselves? I am Sir Charles Bright, retired admiral of his Majesty’s Blue Fleet. This is my wife, Lady Bright.’

      The old man inclined his head as graciously as though he addressed his retainers. ‘I am Lord Edmonds, and I live in Northumberland.’

      No wonder you looked forwards to a visit to Devonshire, Bright thought. I would, too, if I lived in Northumberland. You probably dreamed about this all year. ‘I suppose that would explain why you never heard of Lord Hudley’s demise.’

      Lord Edmonds was in the mood to reminisce. ‘Sometimes one, sometimes two, sometimes—’

      ‘That will do, Lord Edmonds,’ Bright interrupted, grateful that the dark hid his flaming face and unwilling to look Sophia in the eye.

      Edmonds was unstoppable. ‘You’re a navy man. Don’t tell me you never…’

      He floundered, but was rescued by an unexpected source. ‘Lord Edmonds, more to the point right now, how did you get into this house?’ Sophia asked, her hands folded demurely in her lap now, and looking far too fetching in her nightgown, with hair all around her shoulders.

      Thank the Lord the old boy was diverted. Maybe he could also see in Sophia what was not lost on Bright. ‘Simple, my dear. Hudley secreted keys all over the terrace. I found my key—mine is under the little statue of Aphrodite with her legs…well, you know…out by the roses.’

      ‘Oh,’ Sophia said, her voice faint. ‘And there are keys everywhere?’

      ‘Everywhere,’ Lord Edmonds agreed cheerily. ‘We never had trouble getting in.’

      This was the moment when Charles Bright had his first brush with what one of his captains—after a trying time ashore with a pregnant wife—used to call ‘marriage politics’. The fact that he recognised the moment made Bright’s heart do a funny thing. He knew his ship’s surgeon would call such a thing impossible, but he felt his heart take a little leap. Nothing big, but there it was. I can laugh because I want to, and this antediluvian roué is harmless, he thought, or I can think of Sophia, and that sudden intake of breath. Choose wisely, Admiral.

      He took a deep breath, knowing that if he laughed, he might as well have waited another day or two for The Mouse. ‘Lord Edmonds, that worries me. Would you mind spending the night here—in a different room, of course—and walk around the gardens with me in the morning?’ He touched Sophia’s cheek, humbled at her tears. ‘I…I won’t have my wife alarmed like this again.’

      He swallowed and looked at the woman making herself so small in the chair next to the old man. ‘My dear, I will never let anything like this happen again.’

      She only nodded, because Bright could tell she couldn’t speak. The fear in her eyes reminded him how little he knew about women. Bright had no qualms about thanking the Lord for small favours to a man who, mere days ago, would have laughed. I just learned something, he thought, as he smiled at her with what he hoped was reassurance. Pray I remember it.

      ‘I can recall some of them,’ Lord Edmonds said.

      ‘Very well, then. How about you and I go belowdecks and see if my chef won’t mind providing us some tea? You might as well go back to bed, Sophia,’ he said. ‘I’ll find a bedroom for our…uh…guest.’

      ‘Oh, no,’ she declared, getting to her feet. ‘I’m not staying up here by myself!’

      Etienne didn’t seem surprised by his early morning visitors; Bright hadn’t thought he would, considering the odd hours they were both familiar with from life in the Channel Fleet. He rubbed his eyes, looked Lord Edmonds over, and even provided some ice chips in a towel for the bump on his head.

      Sophia had retreated to her room long enough to find a dressing gown as shabby as her nightgown and twist what looked like a wooden skewer into her mass of hair, pulling it back from her face. He found his own dressing gown, and she had kindly tied the sash without being asked.

      She stuck right by his side down the stairs, which gave him the courage to drape his handless arm across her shoulder, hoping it wouldn’t disgust her. It didn’t. She let out a long breath, as though she had been holding it, and gave him a quick glance full of gratitude.

      They sat downstairs in the servants’ hall for more than an hour, listening to Lord Edmonds, more garrulous by the minute, describe in glowing detail some of the more memorable revelries in the quiet building. As the clock chimed three, he gave a tremendous yawn. ‘I am ready to hang it up,’ he announced. His eyes turned wistful. ‘Forty years. My dears, when you live in the land of chilblained knees and sour oatmeal, a toddle down to Lord Hudley’s was always an event to look forwards to.’ He winked at Sophia, who by now was smiling. Glancing back at Bright, he said, ‘She’s a tasty morsel. Where did you find her?’

      ‘In a hotel dining room,’ Bright said, which seemed to be the best answer. Sophia laughed, which told him he had chosen right again.

      Lord Edmonds looked at them both, obviously wondering if there was a joke unknown to him, then shrugged. ‘I just need a blanket and a pillow,’ he said, then brightened, ever the optimist. ‘You could let me sleep in the library.’

      ‘Absolutely not,’ Bright said firmly. ‘My steward has already prepared you a chamber in the room next to me. After breakfast in a few hours, you and I will tour the grounds.’ He held out his hand and wiggled his fingers. ‘I’ll thank you for your key now.’

      Lord Edmonds sighed, but surrendered the item. He followed them up the stairs, muttering something about ‘how stodgy today’s youngsters are’, which made Sophia’s shoulders shake. ‘He thinks we are young people,’ she whispered to Bright. ‘Should we be flattered?’

      ‘I know I am,’ he whispered back. ‘Sophia, you must admit he is a prodigious old goat, to think he was going to thrill some Cyprian! Pray God I am as hopeful, at age eighty.’

      ‘I don’t have to admit anything of the kind,’ she shot back. ‘I hope you two finds lots of keys tomorrow morning!’

      He left Sophia at her door and escorted Lord Edmonds to his. He stood in the middle of the hall, uncertain what to do. The evening had already turned into something disturbingly similar to watch and watch about when he was a lieutenant: four hours on and four hours off, around the clock, at the good pleasure of the gods of war. He looked at Sophia’s door, wondering if she would sleep.

      There was a wing-back chair in the hall, rump sprung and removed from one of the bedchambers. He pulled it to Sophia’s door and sat in it, making himself comfortable with his cutlass across his lap. No telling what a randy old goat would do, he reasoned, especially one so intimately acquainted with a ne’er-do-well like Lord Hudley.

      He settled himself and closed his eyes.

      ‘Is that you, Charles?’

      She sounded like she was crouching by the keyhole.

      Charles, eh? he thought, supremely gratified. ‘Aye, Sophie, my fair Cyprian.’

      She opened the door a crack. ‘I think I am safe enough,’ she said, but he caught the element of doubt in her voice. ‘And I am not your “fair Cyprian”,’ she added, for good measure.

      He winked at her and closed his eyes. When she still stood there, he opened one eye. ‘Sophia, it’s been many a year since anyone has questioned me.’

      ‘I’m not one of your lieutenants!’ she flared.

      Temper, temper, he thought. It makes your eyes awfully bright. ‘That’s