“What brings you to this part of England?” she asked. “I confess I was astonished to see you here.”
“No more astonished than I was to see you. I somehow imagined you never left London.”
“Oh, I sometimes follow the beau monde to Brighton or a country house party. I have just come from one, in fact, and was on my way home when this wretched storm broke through. But this is a charming old inn, is it not? A fine place to stay the night and hope for sun in the morning. And you?”
“I am a more intrepid traveler, I fear. I am simply waiting for the rain to stop and I will be on my way.”
“To…?”
“I am to visit friends who live a bit north of here. But I must say, Willie, that I am delighted to have met you here. It has been such a long time since I’ve seen you.”
“Ten years.”
His brows lifted in surprise. “Sink me, has it been ten years?” Could it really be that long? Yes, it had been 1804, during that long leave after Sarah’s death, before Trafalgar. It was the last time he’d visited London, in fact. He had not even come to town for Nelson’s funeral in 1806. Oh yes, he remembered his last meeting with Willie quite vividly. It was when he learned she had married the Duke of Hertford, and he had barely avoided making a prime fool of himself.
And yet she knew exactly how long it had been. Lord, he hoped the date wasn’t burned in her memory because of his bumbling behavior.
“How have you been, Willie?”
“Very well, thank you.” She looked up from pouring tea and caught his eye. “That was not merely an idle question, was it? Yes, I am indeed very well. I have a good life. I have become quite a respectable widow, you see. But what of you? With the wars over, have you come home to stay a while?”
“More than a while. With Boney confined to Elba, there is little activity for the navy in Europe. And I have no desire to join the war in America. Instead, I have retired.”
“Retired? I rather thought you’d stay on until you’d made admiral, at least.”
“The navy wasn’t my choice as a career, you may remember. I have enjoyed it, though, and would not have missed it. But I’m tired of bouncing about the world and want to plant more permanent roots. I have a little place on the Sussex coast that I am rather fond of. I’d like to live quietly for a while and watch the sun rise and set over green instead of blue.”
“You will miss the sea.”
“Perhaps. Many of my fellow officers are bored to the bone and secretly praying for a new war. As for me, I am ready to enjoy a long peace. To spend the rest of my days on dry land, in Sussex. It’s a fine house with a small park, a view of the sea from the front and the south downs from the rear.” He grinned at her and winked. “Perhaps I’ll become a gentleman farmer.”
She laughed, and the sound took him back to that hayloft in Porthruan, where they had gifted each other with their virginity. It was the same musical laugh. A touch lower in timbre, but still the same. “Do you know anything about farming, Sam?”
“Not a bit. But I can hire people who do, while I sit by my fire with my pipe and my dogs and grow to a crusty old age. But for now, I’m going to enjoy the peace and collect my half-pay-”
“Half-pay? But I thought you retired.”
“One never retires from the Royal Navy, Willie. There is no provision for it. Once you join, you’re in for life. But you can opt to go on half-pay and live as you please until you are called to duty. Then you must report or lose your half-pay, which is precisely what I intend to do.”
For the next half hour she peppered him with questions about his naval experiences, and they talked easily together about the places he’d been, the battles he’d fought, the occasional foray into the East Indies, and the tedious blockade duties that had kept him busy the last half-dozen years.
He watched her closely as they talked. She was still an uncommonly handsome woman. No, “handsome” was too bland a word for the duchess. She was beautiful. Not in that fresh-bloom-of-youth way that had so captivated him as a boy, when she was soft and round and pink-cheeked. Now she had the sort of timeless beauty of antique marble statues he’d seen in Greece. Every plane and angle was perfect, even if etched with a line or two.
And yet, beneath the elegant and no doubt expensively maintained veneer, the pretty young girl he’d once known still lurked, catching him off guard now and then and robbing him of breath: in the way the merest hint of a dimple winked at one corner of her mouth, or the way she tilted her head as she listened to him speak, or the way she wrinkled her nose when she laughed. In such moments, decades rolled away and he was back in Cornwall. In the hayloft with his girl.
He had to wonder if things had gone as they’d planned, if he’d never been taken by the press gang and they’d married, would she have retained her beauty? Or would she now be haggard and worn out at forty-one, her looks long faded, bowed down by a hardscrabble life of drudgery and childbearing? Or would they have been so happy together that life would never have seemed too difficult?
There was no way to know what might have been, and no way to change the past, so there was no point in dwelling on it. Sam had always been forward-looking, making the best out of what life brought him.
But what was he to make out of this chance encounter? How was he to make the best of it?
“And what of you, Sam? I mean on a personal level. When we last met you had lost your wife. Have you remarried? Had more children?”
He shook his head. “No. I’ve been away too much. I took leave when I could to see Tom, of course.”
“Your son?”
“Yes. But no time for wooing a wife. A blockade captain’s life is not his own.”
“I never understood how an impressed seaman managed to rise to the rank of captain.”
“Mine was not a typical path, I assure you. In fact, my career has been quite out of the ordinary. I have always been a good sailor, as you know.”
She did know. Wilhelmina smiled and remembered the young Sam, scampering about on the cove, more at home on a fishing boat than on shore.
“My natural abilities were noticed and utilized from the start,” he continued. “Once I realized there was no going home for me, that I was stuck in the bloody navy against my will, I decided to make the best of it. I enjoyed the life, learned quickly, and put myself forward at every opportunity. After a few years, I was rated able seaman and made it known that I aspired to the quarterdeck. I was fortunate in my captain, who went against tradition to eventually assign me a midshipman’s rating.”
She poured another cup of tea, only to find the pot empty. Looking about, she caught Lizzie’s eye across the room and lifted an eyebrow. The girl bobbed and hurried off. Wilhelmina wanted to sit here for hours and listen to Sam, to allow that voice, still colored with the long Rs and rolling vowels of Cornwall, to wrap around her like a soothing blanket. But she could see that the rain was easing up and he would be wanting to resume his journey, and she didn’t want to let him go just yet. It was the first time they’d had more than a brief conversation in years, and most of those had been either unpleasant or awkward. Talking together like old friends was something she’d never imagined for them, and she savored every moment. Perhaps if she kept him talking, he would never notice if the rain stopped.
“I don’t know much about how the navy works,” she said. “Achieving a midshipman’s rating was unusual?”
“For an impressed seaman, it certainly was.” He shook his head and gave a soft chuckle tinged with self-mockery. “I was three-and-twenty, the oldest midshipman on board, but I was proud as a peacock, and already mapping out a career as an officer. It was just then that we returned to England, after five long years at sea. And I was bursting my buttons with pride in my new assignment, eager to track you down and lay my paltry little fortune, my hoarded bits of prize money, at your feet.”