Chapter 10

Lucy Burton stood haughtily at the top of the stairs.

"What is the meaning of this? Unhand my maid."

"I thought you said this was 'er Ladyship?" Trent demanded of Wright as Lucy slowly descended.

Wright looked from one woman to the other. The two women were remarkably similar.

"It don't matter," he said finally. "They can both watch him cut. Just gives us one more to squeal."

"Oh!"

The men turned again to watch Lucy slip down the last three steps and land on her rear end in an inglorious heap the floor.

"Lucy!" Caroline wrenched herself free of Wright's grasp and went to Lucy's help as the three intruders roared with laughter.

"What are you doing?" Caroline whispered as she reached for Lucy's arm.

Lucy grabbed Caroline's wrist and jammed it into her pocket. Caroline felt her fingers wrap around a wooden grip. She looked up to see her friend's eyes drop toward her other pocket, letting Caroline know that Lucy had another pistol there.

"This is better than a show," Wright said, waving his pistol about. "Now for some blood. Boys."

"Let him go," Caroline said coldly.

Wright looked over to see two pistols pointed at him.

"Or you two ladies will both try to shoot me?" he asked with a sneer. "We're in trouble, boys. No telling where those bullets might go."

Chase and Trent joined him in laughter.

Wright smiled for a moment as he decided which to shoot. It was clear that he wasn't going to get the money this way. Perhaps he should just shoot the only man left; hat would still leave two women for entertainment. Perhaps, in the agonies that would follow, one of them would break.

His pistol moved no more than a fraction of an inch before the women's two pistols rang out. Wright died immediately, a bullet through his left eye.

"Oh, no," Lucy said, pulling a third pistol from her pocket and aiming it in the general direction of the other two men. "It don't matter to me which one of you dies. Whichever goes for his pistol first.

The two men were paralyzed as Lucy addressed James.

"Perhaps you would pick them up, er, sir."

"My pleasure, love." James squirmed from Trent's unresisting grip and moved around Chase to pick up the pistols. "I wonder whether Mr. Cooper realizes quite what a treasure he is getting."

Mr. Cooper and his captain entered the drawing room twenty minutes before the beginning of the New Year. They found Caroline and Lucy sitting on the couch listening to James read from one of the various periodicals that Lord Prescott took.

"Is Father quite alright?" he asked.

"Darling, you quite frightened us," Caroline said. "Do you not know better than to sneak up on women like that?"

"I beg your pardon, my dear," William said as he absently kissed Caroline on the cheek. "I saw father as we passed through the kitchen on the way in from the stables. He has quite a lump on his forehead. He claims to have fallen."

He looked around. James's attention was riveted on his magazine. Lucy was looking adoringly at Matthew. Caroline was looking at her feet.

"Did anyone see him fall?" William asked.

He looked from James to Caroline to Lucy. Lucy was the one who finally cracked.

"Caroline killed him."

"I most certainly did not," Caroline said.

"You most certainly did so. She did, sir."

"You were the one who killed him," Caroline insisted.

"Killed who?" William roared.

"Whom," James corrected him.

"I say no more," Lucy said.

"I will kill someone myself if this goes on much longer," William said.

James sighed and put down his magazine.

"Oh, very well. Three gentlemen broke in and demanded money from Father. He resisted, of course, and they struck him. He is fine, by the way. He reports no headache whatsoever. In any event, Miss Lucy, who was upstairs, managed to come down with three pistols in the pockets of her dress. I never asked how you knew where they were, dear?"

"Which I saw Matthew a-cleaning them one day," Lucy said with a blush.

"Of course," James said. "Anway, the leader of the group, a Mr. White —"

"Wright," Caroline corrected him.

"Mr. Wright, then. He is dead. As to who killed him, I would point out only that Caroline's bullet left a very neat hole in the Gainsborough over on the east wall."

Caroline stuck out her tongue at Lucy.

"The remaining gentlemen have been given quarters downstairs," James said. "We will call the sheriff on the morrow. Now, don't you have something to ask Caroline before the day is over? Before the year is through?"

Under four pairs of eyes, Captain Sir William Stanhope decided that his curiosity would not serve him any further this evening. He fell to one knee and pulled a small box from the pocket of his waistcoat.

"Caroline, would you do me the honour of accepting this ring as a token of the love that I shall bear you throughout our married lives together?"

"Oh, William," Caroline answered. "Of course I will, darling."

They beamed at each other as William placed the ring on Caroline's finger.

"Bravo, William. That was exceptionally well put. Rehearsed it all the way up, did you not?"

"Very well put indeed," Lucy said with a significant look. "A girl should be quite fortunate to hear such a proposal from her suitor."

"Matthew?" William asked. "Did you not ask Miss Lucy for her hand?"

"Which I already did," Matthew protested.

"Which all you did was point out that marriage was a joyful state," Lucy said.

"And which you agreed," Matthew responded. "Sufficient to announce our engagement, at any wise. Which Mrs. Woodward gave me some cake in celebration. Because you told her of it."

It was the first argument with a woman in which Matthew Cooper had ever prevailed. And, as on those rare occasions when it would happen again, his triumph would be short-lived.

Lucy sniffed.

"Still, Matthew," Caroline said, "a woman does appreciate something romantic, some avowal of love from the man with whom she will spend the rest of her life."

"Now, now." William gently patted his fiancée's hand. "The poor man does not need to be shown up by his captain."

But the poor man was already on both knees in front of his love.

"I have no ring," he said. "But I offer you my love, Lucy Burton. It is a love so bright, as is the shining of the dawn. It is a love so sweet, as is the honey of the bees."

Matthew took a deep breath, conscious of his heart hammering within his chest.

"It is a love so soft, as is the skin of newborn lamb. It is a love so fine, as is a cloth of finest silk. It is that love that I bear for you, Lucy Burton."

Lucy sniffed again.

Caroline sniffed as well.

Both women burst into tears and fell into each other's arms.

Matthew turned to stare at his captain, a stricken look on his face. William looked equally puzzled.

"You bear being shown up by your captain quite well, Matthew Cooper," James said. "No doubt it is a daily occurrence. I do not believe I have heard that piece before. From where does it come?"

"Sir?" Matthew Cooper asked.

"Your poem. Who wrote it?"

Matthew Cooper reached into his pocket to pull out a wad of greasy papers. From their midst he extracted a well-worn sheet filled with scribblings and crossings-out in all directions.

"I guess I did mostly, sir. Although it ain't no poem. It don't even rhyme, sir."

He offered James the paper. The women had begun a new flood of tears.

"You wrote it yourself?" William asked.

"Well, not as who should say wrote it, sir. Not having the writing at all. Mr. Lampson it was wrote most of it down, sir. And he suggested the bees. Along with these last two lines which I didn't say, sir, on account of Lieutenant Neville suggesting that 'twould be better shorter."

"My God, man," James exclaimed. "You've filled both sides of the page."

"Oh, aye, sir. There were many as who had suggestions for me. On the barky. In Bermuda. I had them all copied to learn by rote. But Mr. Neville it was suggested that —"

"Yes, yes," William said. "You did very well, Matthew."

"Are you quite certain, sir?" Matthew asked, glancing at the tear-stained faces of the two women on the couch.

"Quite certain, Matthew," Caroline said softly.

Lucy took his chin in her hand and turned his head so she could look into his eyes.

"Quite certain, Matthew Cooper, you silver tongued devil. Now take me upstairs before the New Year arrives."

William pulled Caroline to her feet as their servants ran up the stairs.

"I believe we will call it an evening as well, dear brother," he said. "May we leave you here by yourself?"

"Most certainly," James said. He picked up the magazine. "I shall celebrate having my manhood intact for yet another year."

"I beg your pardon?" William asked. Caroline was already pulling him toward the stairs.

James waved his brother and sister-in-law toward the stairs.

"And a fine manhood it is," Caroline said over her shoulder as she reached the bottom step.

"Aye, quite nice," Lucy yelled from the upper landing.

"You told me you didn't look!" James said. But he returned to his magazine with a smile.

The Reverend Barnabus Cocksley rearranged his cassock for the tenth time and cracked his door to peer out at the crowd for the fifth time. His poor little church was bursting at the seams, the pews filled to overflowing with a mix of raggedly dressed civilians and impeccably attired naval officers.

He pulled his pocket watch out and opened it. It was time. He walked out to the altar and faced the congregation before nodding to the two men who were waiting at the door to his left.

Matthew Cooper took a step and stopped, even more overwhelmed by the size of the crowd than the priest had been. His best man, Captain Sir William Stanhope, nearly knocked him down. Cocksley watched Captain Stanhope hiss into his coxswain's ear, and the man strode forward as if he had been struck with a whip.

Cocksley jerked his head up as the organist began playing. He was still quite unused to having an organ in his church. For that matter, he was unused to the idea that the Earl of Prescott had donated an organ to his church and had had it installed in the last two weeks. He was unused to the Earl of Prescott. The man had placed Cocksley in this parish a decade before but had never once attended services. Now he was a man transformed, appearing every Sunday, paying for countless repairs and innovations, and generally making Cocksley even more nervous.