“Hm. I think it may be Rossini. Something Italian, at all events. I’m not very musical.”
“Ah, yes. I love a good opera.”
She raised an eyebrow. “For the opera dancers, rather than the sopranos, I suspect.”
He laughed, not at all abashed. “Why, no, ma’am, for them all together!”
Caroline finished her piece to polite applause. She turned to Lady Marston. “The captain kindly had this put up for us. I promised Anne the next turn, but if you or Mrs. Scott would like to play, it is at your disposal. It is for us all.”
Lady Marston deigned to smile. “I do not play myself, certainly not on such an—er—eccentric instrument. Sophia does not play at all.”
Mrs. Scott inclined her head with a somewhat sharp smile. “A clear lack in my education.”
Anne did take a turn, and Captain Wentworth looked so proud and happy, Caroline was touched. Wentworth and Anne were quite adorable. Caroline did not know the precise details, but she understood they had been tragically parted when they were young.
While clapping for Anne, Caroline stepped on one of the pernicious beetles. Perhaps the journey would not be so terrible as she had feared.
The next morning,Day 6, Caroline took her thirty turns to the foremast, while Sir Mark and Lady Marston were at the front gunwale at the very bow of the ship. Sir Mark smoked a cheroot, and the wind carried snatches of the smoke and their conversation to her.
“I’ll jump overboard if you don’t stop nagging me, woman,” Sir Mark said roughly. “You keep me too close. A man must getsome air! And I really must smoke on occasion. If you won’t let me do it in the cabin?—”
“It is bad enough that I have tosharea cabin with you, you vile creature. But fine, I will allow?—”
The wind changed and Caroline was too far away to hear what Lady Marston would allow. A pretty picture of marital felicity, indeed! Caroline had found sharing a cabin with Richard a little trying as well, but certainly not to that extent. It was not that she didn’t love her husband, for she did. But in Caroline’s formative years, it had beende rigueurthat a man and wife did not share a bed-chamber. Everyone she knew considered cohabitation low-class and plebeian, not to mention showing a strange particularity. A man was supposed to come to his wife’s room when marital duties were either required or wanted, but more than that… Well, it was a little strange to her. She had to continually subdue the feeling that it was dreadfully vulgar.
It was also odd to wake up next to Richard every day. He might be holding her close or lying on his back with one leg out from under the blanket, or even on his stomach, with his handsome face turned toward her in his sleep—but he wasthere. And, in return, he saw her in such moments of unguarded sleep when he woke before her. It was such a vulnerable thing to sleep with someone!
From her late mother and her older sister, Louisa, Caroline had gathered marital duties were a thing to happen once or at most twice a month, but usually far less—particularly after the children were born. But Richard, perhaps because she was continually in his bed—or he was inhersdepending on how one looked at it—did not seem to have that idea. She did notmind—her face colored as she paced, and she was glad that the wind could account for it—but she hadn’texpectedit.
The Marstons seemed to have the opposite problem with proximity, if the disgust in Lady Marston’s voice was anythingto go by. It was a shame they hadn’t gotten two cabins. And it was a little odd too, because they were held to be very wealthy, and they could have afforded it. Mr. Belvedere had been a last-minute passenger—the captain had mentioned as much—so it would have been available when Sir Mark booked passage…
But what with one thing and another, the passengers were rubbing along tolerably well until the seventh day. That was when one of the sailors came to Captain Smythe just after supper and spoke softly in his ear.
“What’s that—a problem with the mail?” He rose at once. “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. I must attend to business.”
They couldn’t refrain from speculating about his sudden departure. “Were the mail bags disturbed, you think?” Anne asked.
“Perhaps water seeped in,” Richard offered.
Captain Wentworth shook his head. “Oiled and sealed, waterproof. Weighted too, so that they can be sunk quickly if the French should threaten the ship.”
“I daresay the beetles scoff at seals,” Caroline said. “They certainly scoff at every other barrier.”
“The parasitesareterrible for documents,” he allowed. “There are also termites, booklice, and silverfish, which love to eat paper and glue. But the bags are usually preserved against this, for the Post Office is determined the mail get where it is going and not be intercepted by man or beast.”
The captain returned and he was as red as he had been pale. “A great crime has been committed. I am at such a loss!—on my ship! It is too appalling.” He sank into his chair, clutching a handkerchief and wiping his brow. His hand shook as he poured himself some wine and drank it in one go. It seemed to settle his jangled nerves.
“What’s the matter?” Richard demanded. The image of the recent murder in Bath was still fresh in his mind. “You don’t mean—surely, that there has been a—death?”
“Worse, sir,” the captain said. “Someone hasrifled through the mail.”
5
Caroline’s mind also went to far graver crimes. “Notworse,surely? Perhaps one of the sailors yielded to temptation. Peopledosend cheques or even bank notes through the mail on occasion, don’t they?”
“As if my men would know what to do with a bill of exchange or a bank draft! And they know—they know—the mail is sacrosanct! I do not think it can be so.”
“But is anything missing?” Captain Wentworth asked, but then immediately shook his head. “Forgive me, that is a foolish question; you would have no way of knowing. Please tell us exactly what happened.”
