Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

F lora refused to repine. She would not stew in regret like the veriest pea-brained green girl. She would face the peril of his absence with calm confidence, secure in the knowledge that he had lived most of his life in the navy and had not yet come to harm. She would have faith. She would believe in him, if not wholly for her own sake, then for his.

And she would write to him. This minute.

She went to fetch paper, pen and ink, when the bell rang.

“Who can that be?” Raines asked as she left Flora’s tea tray to answer the bell, and usher in a distinguished looking gentleman, his spectacles frosted with snow.

“Your pardon for the late call, miss.” The gentleman swept his snowy hat from his white head. “Hector MacQueen, Esquire, of MacQueen, Reedy and Urquart.” The ancient fellow very correctly handed Raines his card for her to pass to Flora. “Solicitors to Captain Jonathan Balfour, Earl of Kinloch.”

Panic flowed through her like acid. “What has happened?” Jack had only just left that morning! “Has there been some accident upon the road?”

“Do not distress yourself, Miss Conway.”

“But why are you here?” Flora blurted before she recalled herself to her manners. “Pray forgive me, but this is most unexpected.”

“I have come with this small posey that the Earl of Kinloch tasked me with ordering for you, Miss Conway, as a small token of his esteem.”

“Captain Balfour’s esteem?” Flora took the flowers reverently. “You are very kind.”

“But I have not come solely to deliver you flowers, Miss Conway.” The old gentleman looked about the corridor meaningfully. “If there is somewhere we might talk privately?”

Flora tried not to smile—how could the gentleman know she was in the house alone and kept only the barest of staff. “Yes, of course, do forgive me. Do come in. Raines, if you could bring Mr. MacQueen some refreshment in the library?” Raines would know well enough to bring the man whisky along with some tea.

Flora composed herself as she led the man into what had been her father’s book room. She took a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk and waved Mr. MacQueen into the other. “Now, Mr. MacQueen, how may I be of assistance to you?”

“It is I who have come in assistance to you, ma’am.” He opened his folded leather portfolio and briefly consulted a paper therein. “It is a very private, sensitive matter, Miss Conway, but you may be assured of my discretion.” He repositioned his spectacles upon the tip of his nose. “The Earl of Kinloch has changed his personal will—that portion of his personal estate that does not pertain to the Earldom and Estate of Kinloch, which are, as you might expect, quite thoroughly entailed.”

“Of course.” Flora was non-plussed. “And how can this concern me, sir?”

“It is a matter of some delicacy, Miss Conway, which is why I thought it best to visit you in the privacy of your home. You see, the earl, in his capacity as Captain Balfour, has made you a bequest of his personal estate and effects should he pass away at sea.”

There was nothing that could have prepared her to receive such astonishing news. She could not have heard the man rightly over the sudden pounding of her blood in her ears.

“But I thought he was poor and had no …” Flora searched for a word that did not make her seem like the veriest fortune hunter. “I was under the understanding that the Kinloch estate had consumed all of the captain’s personal assets?”

“Nearly all,” Mr. MacQueen said with some small satisfaction. “We were able to keep a small, but not entirely insignificant, asset—chiefly a piece of freehold property—apart from the Kinloch Earldom.”

“Oh, I see,” she said, though she did not really see at all.

“The earl, Captain Balfour, had meant for his behest to remain a secret until such time as his demise, but I thought it best—right and necessary—to inform you of his wishes.” The man hesitated and lowered his voice. “There are one or two particulars that I should like to clarify for the documents to be correct. Normally, I would deal with your father for such a legal matter, but it is understood that Mr. Conway is without the country at this juncture?”

“Yes, my father is away. But I am of age, Mr. MacQueen.”

“But under the law…” Mr. McQueen hesitated again. “Is there not some other gentleman that your father stipulated to act upon your behalf?”

“I am not permitted to act upon my own behalf?” Flora knew the legalities involved, but still, it rankled that she should have so little real autonomy. “Perhaps my brother-in-law, Lord Archibald Carrington, son of the Marquess of Aiken, would be the correct person?”

Mr. MacQueen’s face cleared at this news. “Excellent. That will do nicely. The conveyance of the small personal property on Kings Circus Mews is not, in the grand scheme of things, a large bequest, but the resultant funds from the sale will provide a tidy little independent annual income.”

“How…thoughtful.” Flora felt her face heat, even as she strove to speak evenly. “May I ask… That is, if you are privy to Captain Balfour, that is the Earl of Kinloch’s intentions… Why should he do such a thing?”

“Indeed.” Mr. MacQueen cleared his throat. “While it is my duty to keep the earl’s wishes confidential, the unusual circumstances—his service at sea—compelled me to visit. His exact words—I wrote them down quite exactly, you may be assured, Miss Conway.”

“Yes?”

“He said that he should have liked to be able to marry by his own preference if circumstances had permitted, and he wanted some token of his esteem to be made in the absence of that ability.”

“If circumstances had permitted?” she heard herself repeat.

“Yes, Miss Conway,” the older gentleman affirmed. “Had the Earldom of Kinloch not been bankrupt, the earl might have been able to follow his own inclinations. But as it stands, he felt he could not, in all responsibility, burden a bride with such debts as his.”

“I understand,” was all she might manage.

“I thought you should know, Miss Conway.” Mr. MacQueen stood. “And just to allay any concerns you might have, I can assure you that this matter will be kept with the utmost confidence. No one but you and his Lordship will know about the arrangement.”

“Yes, thank you. I—” She meant to stand and offer the man her hand and act like a woman of sense and not some green girl. But she was rooted to her seat. “It is very good of you to tell me.”

But the knowledge, the idea, that Jack had in the last moment he was here, thought of her and gone so far as to act upon his impulse was… remarkable to say the least. Thoughtful. Gentlemanly.

He would be such a man. Even at the last.

Flora felt her eyes sting with the tell-tale heat of tears. She brushed them away, but clearly, the impression she had made on him was not half as such as he had made upon her.

But what on God’s ice-covered earth was she going to do about that?

Jack walked into the waiting room on the admiralty’s Levee Day with leaden feet, dragging himself through the door and into the crowded hall by dint of will and self-discipline alone.

The place was full of milling sailors, ranking from the lowest boys to post captains such as himself. He tipped his hat to one such fellow, an older man who had sat his lieutenancy exams with Jack a lifetime ago and done either so poorly—or so well—that he had been put into a bomb-ketch and never been given the chance to command anything better.

Such was life in the Navy—years of meritorious service in his lowly bomb-ketch and still, here the poor man was, hat in hand.

As was he.

Jack swiped off said hat and stowed in neatly under his arm while he signed in, writing only “Cpt Balfour” and the year he made post. The list, he was frightened to note, contained a good hundred names before him.

He found an empty foot of wall space, leaned upon his back, and settled down to wait.

“Captain, Lord Kinloch?” a stentorian voice called not thirty seconds later.

“Balfour,” he corrected automatically, as he rose and went toward the clerk. “Captain Jack Balfour, although also, uselessly, Lord Kinloch.”

“Yes, my lord captain.” The clerk did not appreciate his humor. “This way.”

Jack cast an apologetic glance at the myriad other fellows who had formerly been milling about the place like a school of barracudas. They had come to a standstill now, staring at him with undisguised hostility. “My apologies,” Jack offered lamely. “No accounting for taste.”

“Or influence,” someone muttered.

Jack gave up on trying to plead poverty and left them to their imprecations, following the clerk down a set of labyrinthine corridors before he was shown into a small, sunny apartment where he was astonished to see his friend Sir Charles Middleton sat behind a desk, poring over a list.

“Balfour!” he called, waving Jack over. “Good to see you, my friend. How have you been faring?” He eyed Jack up and down with open concern. “You look as if you’ve been hauling sharp—you’ve lost a few stone, if I’m not mistaken. The rumors must be true about your bankrupt earldom.”

“Your intelligence is, as usual, impeccable, sir.”

Sir Charles let out a laugh, but swiftly moved on to the business at hand. “We’ve put you to a frigate. The Dutch are, no doubt, waiting for their moment to strike out from the Low Countries while the French will attempt to break out of Brest. Napoleon, I know I need not tell you, is but hours from breaking his peace. I need you out there—North Sea, North Atlantic, it makes no difference to me. I will rely upon your instincts for where you are best needed, though Nelson, who has nothing but praise for you, will likely want you against the Dutch. I can offer you a fifth rate, Resistance , 18 pounder, 36-guns, decent sailer. Or an Apollo class fifth rate, Hotspur , also 36 guns, sails like a hog.”

Jack did not hesitate. “ Resistance . And the crew? Are there officers attached to her, or may I appoint my own?”

“A smattering of each, to my knowledge—a skeleton crew at the very least and two capable young lieutenants. Sailing Master on Resistance is a forty-year man, John Gallery. Excellent man. Never steer you wrong.”

“ Resistance, it is.” The name seemed fitting.

“Balfour?” Sir Charles peered over his glasses at Jack. “Is that…resignation I hear? Thought you’d be over the moon to get a ship so quickly with so many men waiting.”

“Oh, I am sensible of the honor, sir.”

“But?” Sir Charles asked bluntly.

“But I wish it were not necessary. I’m afraid I’ve grown accustomed to safety and calm, and I no longer relish putting my head out as a target for a cannonball.”

The older man chuckled. “You won’t say that when you’re out there, besting the enemy again.”

“Perhaps not. Definitely not, if I know what’s good for my men and my ship. But the truth is, my heart’s gone out of it.”

Sir Charles Middleton let out an oath so blue, Jack was astonished that the room didn’t fill with cold mist. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “But there’s nothing for it. We need you. The Admiralty needs its best men, and that, my boy, is you.”

Jack took a deep breath and stood. “I know my duty, sir.”

“Good. As do I, for if I sent you back out into the world in defiance of Lady Augusta Ivers’s express orders, I wouldn’t like my chances.”

“Lady Ivers interfered, did she?”

“Lady Ivers strongly recommended. And I respect both her late husband, and her own acuity, too much to doubt her opinion is sound.” But Sir Charles had his own acuity—he leveled his eyes on Jack. “But you may rest your worries that you have not been given favor solely on your own merit and abilities. Lady Ivers’s recommendation only piled on more canvas—we had already written you, when her letter told us to expect you.”

“And here I am.”

“And here, you are, at last. Doing what you were meant to do.”

“Taught to do, certainly,” Jack joked. “Who knows—perhaps, left to my own devices, I would have made a hell of a farmer.”

“Come, man,” Sir Charles cajoled. “You’re a hell of a captain, and you know it.”

“Just because I’m good at it doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Agreed,” Sir Charles returned. “They say a man who will go to sea for pleasure will go to hell for pastime. But like it or not, that’s up to you. There’s glory in it for you, either way.”

“I’ll defer any glory if I may. You can give it all to Vice-Admiral Nelson.” Jack named the former shipmate who seemed most destined for glory. “He’s made for it, the poor man.”

“So are you if you want it.”

Jack respected Middleton too much not to give him the truth. “And I most assuredly do not.”

Sir Charles’s laugh was rueful. “Then the only problem, my boy, is however shall you avoid it.”