A Broom at the Masthead (The Drowned Books Book 1) (12 page)

"Presently,
not a lot." No one was watching them. He grinned at her, his lopsided
dog-chasing-a-flea grin that showed all his teeth on one side and not on the
other. "Not inconceivable that it will become my business, though." 

"For why,
husband?"

It was not often
that her man looked smug. He propped his chin in his hands and his eyes
sparkled with mischief. "'M good at what I do, my tibber." 

His looking smug
- and
remarkably
handsome, and as bright-eyed as a boy - did not mollify
Thomazine. Which was not to say that she had not noticed. "I see,"
she said, and her lips tightened. "The Navy cannot find itself decent
supply officers, that it must needs recruit those newly-married ones recently
retired from the Army?"

"Ah, now,
Thomazine, I've got a new wife to think of, and a household -"

"Thankful,"
she hissed furiously, "if you think getting that bloody ruin of a house
fixed up is worth getting your bloody head shot off for, I am here to assure
you, sir, you are very sadly misguided! We can perfectly well live in Essex -
and if you are so desperate to live in a fever-ridden swamp and breed sheep, we
can always move to the Dengey peninsula and be done with it! I have a dowry -
it is not, I admit, a vast one, but surely to goodness, husband, if we stand in
so much want that you must -" She picked up her pewter plate and slammed
it back down on the table to relieve her feelings somewhat, and heads turned.
"There,
now
see what you have done," she said, and her chin
wobbled in spite of everything she could do to stop it.

"Oh
dear," her husband said. "Oh, tibber, have I - " 

"Yes!"
Whatever
it was, he had done it, and she scowled at the crumbs on the table top and
would not look at him.

"Would you
mind
so
much?"

"If this is
an excuse to have me flatter your vanity, you shameless - you miserable
wretch
- if you are asking would I mind if you were to go off and be a
soldier again, after we have scarcely been married a month - yes, Russell,
yes
I would mind, very bloody much I would mind! If you didn't want to be married
you should have just said so at the time, and not - not -"

She pushed the
table back with a screech of wood and did not care who looked her way,
struggling to her feet - these
bloody
hampering, trailing fashionable
skirts, why could she not just wear the sensible ankle-length homespun of a
plain country girl and be done, why must she be draped and festooned and looped
like a pagan maypole - pushed rudely past a gaggle of slack-jawed apprentices,
and stormed out.

24

"That maid's breeding, see if she
ain't," Farr said sagely, and Russell favoured him with what he hoped was
a quelling look.

"See why
'ee don't have wenches in the shop, then," someone else added. "Peck
o' trouble, they be."

"Disruptive.
That's what they are, disruptive.
Especially
when they're
breeding."

"Well,
mate, you just going to sit there and let her walk out on yer? Make a fool of
you?"

She'd left her
furs, and her cloak, and it was beginning to sleet.

(Thomazine was
hot-tempered, but she wasn't stupid. She'd not go far.)

He got to his
feet slowly, aware of every eye in the shop on him. An odd feeling, to be
stared at this time for being the irresponsible young reprobate who had broken
his girl's heart in the middle of a public meeting-place. Gathering her cloak
over his arm, smoothing the heavy wool as if it might retain the warmth of her
skin: he didn't want to go after her, he felt a bloody fool, though he wasn't
angry with her, but oh, he could wish she hadn't the sort of fiery temperament
that would leave him in the middle of a coffee-shop exposed to every censure
while she went flouncing off in a tantrum. And that was nothing to do with a
marriage of April and December, and everything to do with a marriage of fire
and ice. Well, fire could melt ice, and ice could temper fire.

Fire might, on
the other hand, get itself knocked on the head and robbed, if not worse, if ice
didn't shape itself and stop sulking.

"No,"
he said mildly, "I'm going to go after her."

There was a
chorus of disapproval from the apprentices, who thought that such a forward
wench deserved all she got.

"Married?"

"Month
past." He settled his hat firmly on his head.

"Ahhh...."

"Told
you."

"Breeding."

"Intending
to
remain
married," he clarified. "If you will excuse
me?"

25

This was not Essex, she reminded
herself.

A little too
late to discover common sense, when you were a good quarter-mile away from
where you'd started out and pushing your way through crowds that seemed to be
thicker by the step, a confused mass of heads and ringlets and hats and
feathers.

How dare he. How
dare
he. He behaved like a - a single man with no responsibilities, like
the same shatter-brained young officer who had turned up three parts dead on
her mother's doorstep on more than one occasion, when Thomazine had been
growing up, expecting to be pieced back together. Well, he wasn't young any
more, and he wasn't an officer, he was a husband, with - with -

She stopped in
the middle of the pavement, stock-still, and someone thumped into the back of
her with a heavy basket of shopping, cursing.

She wasn't - was
she?

Couldn't be.
They had been married not much more than a month.

Oh yes, and
they'd been - acquainted, then - with each other, for some while before that.
Perhaps not what Uncle Luce discreetly described as "the right true end of
love", by which she understood he meant actual lying-down relations. But
Thomazine and her Thankful had been - well. Hot for each other. In most places,
and as often as they could conceive, without actually - yes. Well.

Could
she?

Well, he was as
much to blame. How dare he. How very bloody dare he, bring her to a public
place where she couldn't speak her mind to him, and then tell her that he was
likely to be taken up as an officer again, after twenty years and who knows how
many narrow escapes, how many scars. How many times could a man put himself in
the way of serious hurt, and come away with no more than broken bones, or flesh
wounds - as if you could call that livid horrible thing on his poor cheek a
flesh wound, as if he wasn't shy and stiff and awkward with his disfigurement -

It was someone
else's turn. He had earned his peace.

She clenched her
fists at her sides and looked up at the sky, digging her nails into her palms,
because she must look like the worst kind of madwoman, standing bareheaded in
the wintry rain with her eyes full of tears and stars.

"How would
I live without you, you bloody fool?" she said aloud, to no one, and a
respectable goodwife stiffened as she passed, sidestepping as if profane insanity
might be catching.

"Mistress
Russell
?"

She did not
recognise him, though he looked respectable enough. A tall man, though neither
so elegant nor so finely put-together as Thankful - tall, and running a little
to fat, with a very clean, pink face, and earnest hazel eyes, and possibly the
most ludicrous wig she had ever seen: a great confection that tumbled in
lustrous curls over his shoulders, and rose to two little spiralling peaks at
his temples. "Mistress Russell, my dear, wherever is that neglectful
spouse of yours? Surely he has not tired of such a ravishing beauty so
soon!"

"Do I know
you, sir?" she said. She was almost tall enough to look him in the eye,
and had she been wearing heeled slippers, or pattens, she would have been. As
it was she was stoutly-shod enough to kick him in his silk-clad shins and do
some serious damage if he were to endeavour to lay hands on her.

He seemed to be
well aware of that fact. His mouth twitched. "No, mistress, although I was
on my way to remedy that lack. Charles Birstall - the Earl of Fairmantle - your
adoring cavalier, ma'am." And right there, in the middle of the street,
with everyone passing by and staring and giggling, he took off his hat and made
her the most ludicrously flamboyant bow. "Your next-door neighbour,"
he said, peeking up from under the tumbling curls with a roguish twinkle in his
eye. "And Member of Parliament for Everhall."

"We don't
hold much with cavaliers in our house," she said disapprovingly, and he
grinned at her, and straightened up.

"So I
understand, madam. I trust I - being smitten by your beauty - may be exempt
from the just punishment of other cavaliers? The merest hint of your
displeasure renders me prostrate with grief..."

"Sir
Charles," she began, and he gave her another cheery wink.

"Chas,
dear. Honestly. We are neighbours, and I hope we will be friends. Calling me
Sir Charles makes you sound like my bank manager, and
he
makes me quake.
Now. I know where you last had him, because since I received no reply to my
little invitation last night, I thought I'd pop round in person and see what
your plans were for this evening. I am sure you're very much in demand, madam.
For the novelty value, dear, I imagine, of thawing Old Crophead's frosty heart.
So. Anyway. I saw that dear little country-mouse you keep as a housekeeper - so
novel! - and she said you meant to have coffee - and how fortunate, because
here
you
are, but here
he
is not. Well, then, young lady,
whatever have you done with him?"

It was difficult
not to giggle at him, because he was silly like a fond uncle, in a sort of
harmlessly flirtatious manner, and especially with that absurd confection
perched on his head. "I left him in the coffee shop," she said, with
a defiant tilt of her chin.

"Oh
dear," Fairmantle said, looking sympathetic. "How very rebellious,
dear. Not permanently, one hopes?"

"Um.
No."

"It does
appear to be - well - raining, rather, madam. Now I appreciate that the gallant
Major probably approves of a little light mortification of the flesh after
breakfast, but I am not made of such stern stuff, dear. May I offer you my arm
and seek shelter? I fear I am considerably more old-fashioned than your
husband, or I should return you to the coffee-house -"

"There is
no need," Russell said grimly, from about a yard's distance. "Wife,
if you
ever
pull a trick like that again -"

He looked
furious. He also looked incredibly relieved, and as if he wouldn't admit it if
she asked. "I thank God that you were mistaken for a fanatic, or a
hoyden," he went on, completely ignoring Fairmantle, "bare-headed, in
the rain, you were distinctive enough that men marked you -"

"And a good
morning to you too, Major Russell," he said innocently, "I see I find
you in good health, sir, and may I offer you my felicitations on -"

"Thomazine,
you might have been robbed or
worse!
You are not in Essex now, mistress,
you are in the City of London and these streets swarm with cutpurses and - and
-" his cheek twitched, "I was worried to bloody death, tibber!"

"Dear me,
I've not heard anyone called 'tibber' in years," Fairmantle said, rubbing
his jaw reminiscently. "My old nurse used to call me that. How
sweet."

"I thought
I'd lost you," her husband said simply, and nothing more than that, but
his eyes flicked over her shoulder, and she turned round to see what he was
looking at. And found a tavern, and a rather elegantly dressed, slightly portly
gentleman with a face like an amiable pig leaning in the doorway, watching
them.

"Master
Pepys," he said curtly. "May I be of assistance?"

"On the
contrary, Major Russell. I was not aware that you had returned to town."
Master Pepys gave her a polite bow, and did not ask, though his eyes were all
but popping out of his head with intrigue. "I imagine the Admiralty will
be delighted with the information."

"I imagine
the Admiralty can wait a day or so, Samuel, before you tell them. My wife.
Mistress Thomazine Russell, of White Notley, in Essex - Master Samuel Pepys,
Clerk to the Board of the Admiralty. Don't you
dare
, sir."

His round,
cheerful eyes were alight with mischief. "Give you up, Major? Well, if you
plan to stand in the middle of Fleet-Street making yourself the talk of the
City with a pretty girl young enough to be your daughter, I won't hardly need
to, will I?"

"Is this
turning into a commercial gathering?" Fairmantle said. His gaze rested for
a second on Pepys, coolly. "Because I find the smell of ink makes me sick.
Smells of the shop, dear."

The clerk's rosy
face flushed a darker pink and he turned away, back into the tavern.

"I mean it,
Master Pepys," Russell called after him. "If I receive word from the
Admiralty on the morrow, I am going to come looking for you, sir. And Sir John
will
have your chambers, because
you
will not be requiring them further. I am
married less than six months, sir. Have some kindness."