Newsome seemed to take pity on him then. ‘Very well. We can say it is an engagement of recent origin,’ she conceded, after a sigh of theatrical proportion.
‘Which is precisely true,’ Captain Everard said, keeping his expression bland. ‘Only a mere ten hours ago I was a free, unencumbered man.’
Miss Newsome burst out laughing. She looked in the captain’s eyes and he gazed back, perfectly calm. This was no fleet action, but he was beginning to enjoy himself.
‘Oh, for goodness sake. We’ll be late,’ she said. ‘Eat your eggs, Captain.’
‘I’d better be Joe to you, Verity,’ he told her.
* * *
It appeared that a fair number of Weltby’s citizens were either travelling this morning, too, or liked to see people off on a journey. To Joe’s eyes, most seemed to have no specific purpose at all.
‘Does everyone in Weltby bail out at Christmastime?’ he asked, genuinely puzzled. ‘What do you make of this, Mr Newsome?’
Augustus Newsome regarded the crowd and turned back to Joe with a bland expression containing the hint of apology to it, which roused Joe’s suspicions.
‘I mentioned to a few people in the village yesterday that you were a genuine Trafalgar hero, come to offer personal condolences to us about Davey,’ he said.
‘No hero. I was merely attending to my duty.’
Mr Newsome continued to beam at him, so Joe tried another tack. ‘We weren’t doing anything glamorous,’ he said, as the crowd gathered closer. ‘Frigates serve as repeaters in a large ship-to-ship engagement as Trafalgar was. We were just doing our job.’
He didn’t mean to raise his voice, but there was Verity’s hand on his arm. Her touch calmed his heart, something he needed at that exact moment, because Trafalgar felt too real again.
He dug deep and thank God the coachman was climbing into his box. ‘The real heroes are those of you who give us your sons,’ he said quietly. ‘I mean that with all my heart.’ He touched his chest. ‘Thank you from the bottom of mine.’
Goodness gracious, now his audience was sniffing.
‘Are ye bound back to war, sir?’ someone in the crowd asked.
‘Aye, but first I have agreed to escort Miss Newsome to Norfolk,’ he said, happy to change the subject.
Knowing looks passed from one to another, which made his face feel warm. He knew small villages because he came from one, where people shared all news because nothing important ever happened. He looked for kindness and charity in those eyes, and did not look in vain. They could imagine all they wanted over someone who was obviously a village favourite, from the kind looks coming Miss Newsome’s way. No need for him to explain himself further.
‘It is one last service I could perform for my second lieutenant,’ he said. ‘I do it with pleasure. Good day. I believe the coachman would like to keep to his time.’
He held out his hand for Verity and helped her up, where four travellers already on the coach looked back at them. One rotund little fellow moved as close as he could to the window, but the space remaining was scarcely adequate.
Miss Newsome seated herself next to the window and he squeezed in beside her.
‘I wish I didn’t have to keep explaining myself,’ he whispered to her. ‘I didn’t reckon it would be this hard.’
‘Easily dealt with,’ she whispered back. ‘Put your bicorn in my lap and your head against my shoulder and go to sleep.’
‘I’m not tired,’ he whispered back.
‘I am. Be quiet and pretend.’
‘There’s no room for my arm,’ he said, feeling like a pouty child.
‘Put it around my shoulders,’ Miss Newsome replied. Was the woman never at a loss?
She was right. He eased his arm around her shoulders and gained enough space to wedge himself into the tight space. But his head on her shoulder? They were much the same height, so the theory was sound enough. He tested cautiously, and actually found himself relaxing. Maybe he hadn’t slept as soundly last night as he had imagined. Maybe he hadn’t slept well in weeks.
* * *
He woke up several hours later, looking around in surprise because he had actually relaxed. Miss Newsome was knitting and chatting with a woman about her age seated across from her, from the looks of her about ready to give birth.
Without raising his head from its admittedly comfortable resting place—thank goodness Miss Newsome wasn’t a skinny thing with bones everywhere—he managed a sideways glance at the little man crowding him, also asleep and leaning against him.
Such a dilemma: if he sat up, the porky fellow would likely wake up, too. Joe doubted too many men had leaned against Miss Newsome, which he privately discovered was a pleasant thing to do.
‘I could sit up, but I would wake up the man leaning against me,’ he whispered to Miss Newsome.
‘Let him be, then,’ she said. ‘I’m having no trouble knitting and you are not a burden,’ she replied. ‘In fact, if I may speak plain, I like the fragrance of your cologne. So does Mrs Black. Mrs Black, let me introduce Captain Everard. Joe, Mrs Black is the wife of a joiner and headed home after a week visiting her sister.’
‘Pleased to make your acquaintance,’ he said, ready to laugh at the incongruity of the situation, but happy to have his notion confirmed about the interesting people one could meet on the mail coach.
‘Same here,’ Mrs Black said. She shifted a little and winced, obviously finding not a single bit of comfort in her gravid state. ‘We’ve been wondering, your wife and I, where you got that fragrance. She said you’re newly back from Trafalgar.’
‘Oh, but...’ Miss Newsome began saying. ‘I should explain...’
Oh, worse and worse. Mrs Black was labouring under a not surprising misapprehension, since he had made himself at home against Miss Newsome, with his arm around her shoulder and his fingers drooping perilously close to her bosom. Joe didn’t know a great deal about social niceties, but he strongly suspected that even a fiancé would not sit this way. Mrs Black had made the logical connection. If he said anything, fiancé or not, she would probably be aghast.
‘I was at Trafalgar and newly back,’ he said quickly. ‘I haven’t had enough time to tell Verity all my stories.’
He could explain to Verity later why he was continuing an understandable error. ‘My crew had an opportunity to relieve the officers of the captured Ildefonzo of some personal possessions. I am the dubious beneficiary, but I like lemon, too.’
‘Poor, deluded men,’ the joiner’s wife said in sympathy. ‘Couldn’t you stop the looting?’
‘Joe... Captain Everard...was unaware of it,’ Miss Newsome said, as smoothly as if she lied every day. ‘You can see that he had a dreadful wound to his face.’
‘That’s
