Cast Adrift - Book 03

She heard the door open behind her. The emotions that the crew were holding in check changed in an instant. Caroline smiled as she heard the collective gasp.

"What's going on?" a voice from behind her asked.

Caroline turned, taking in the ridiculously luxurious dressing gown that her husband was wearing.

"I'm reading your letter, darling. The one where you have me distribute your fortune among your men."

"What letter?" Lord William Stanhope asked. He stepped forward and snatched it from her hand. "But I'm not dead."

"Captain Torrington believes you dead," Caroline said with a nod at the captain of the Classic, who had turned quite pale. "Matthew Cooper believes you dead. And I'm quite certain that the lowest lubber among the crew is rather disappointed that you're not."

She rounded on her husband in mock fury.

"You told me that you had left word for them!"

"I did!" William protested. "With every ship we met on the way home; at Gibraltar; and at the Admiralty."

"We spoke no ships in the Med after our search for you, sir," Matthew said. "We didn't stop at the Gib nor at the Admiralty. Is it really you, sir?"

"Of course it's me, Matthew."

"But how?" Torrington asked.

"Yes, do tell them of the hardships you encountered, darling."

Caroline's teasing earned her a scowl that made her laugh aloud.

"Matthew!"

The door opened again and Lucy Cooper leapt onto her still stunned husband. Matthew stood stock still, flushing a deep red.

"Lucy," he murmured. "The crew."

"Shall I embrace one of them instead?" Lucy asked saucily. "You seem quite uninterested."

"You must give him time, Lucy," Caroline said. "He has believed my husband dead for the past three weeks."

"Dead?" Lucy asked. "But he has been here for a week."

"A week?" Torrington asked. "But how . . ."

"Come in, Captain Torrington," William said. "You too, Matthew. And you as well, Mister Jennings. Perhaps you can transmit my explanation to the men when we are done."

All three of them, along with Caroline, William, and Lucy, were sitting in the parlor minutes later drinking tea.

"Tell us now, sir," Lieutenant Jennings urged. "We looked everywhere for you."

"Within reason," Torrington said.

"He was nowhere reasonable at all," Caroline interjected. "He was washed ashore on an island populated nearly entirely with young Greek women."

"It was a festival," William reminded his wife for what seemed the twentieth time.

"Naked young Greek women," Caroline added.

"But how were you washed that far at all, sir?" Matthew asked.

"The first explosion, Matthew, blew that gig off the foredeck. The second explosion actually blew me off as well, directly into the gig. Knocked me out, in fact. Which is where I was, lying in the bottom of the gig, when the third explosion took place. But I imagine that it was the sides of that gig that saved me from the shock waves of the explosion. And certainly from the flaming debris. So I take it the Classic escaped unscathed?"

"A few minor fires, sir," Torrington said. "None of the ships in the harbor suffered any significant damage."

"Excellent. To continue, however, I awoke in the midst of that storm as it blew me further and further to the southeast. As my darling notes, I came ashore on a Greek island. An island with a sort of naked bacchanalia. I was rescued two days later –"

"Two days later," Caroline said with mock disgust and a shake of her head.

"Two days later by the Hart," William continued with a blush. "We had an exceptional passage across the Med. By the time I reached Gibraltar, Wellington had beaten Boney at the Battle of Waterloo. So I brought my intended ship straight home. Truly I am sorry for your troubles, gentlemen. I did try to leave word as often as I could."

"It is good to see you alive, sir," Jennings said reverently. "If you'll excuse me, sir, I'll let the men know."

"I too shall take my leave," Captain Torrington said. "Perhaps with you restored to life, I shall finally be able to exercise some control over my own crew. Instead of following their suggestions. It was their insistence, of course, that we had not the time to even stop at the Admiralty, but must proceed directly here to inform Lady Stanhope of her misfortune."

"Captain Torrington, that was a dear thing to do," Caroline said softly. "And I shall ever be grateful to you for it. There was no way for you to know that I had already been living with my misfortune for the past week."

**********

A month later, Lord and Lady Stanhope made their only social appearance of the summer season. It was a soiree for the heroes of what had come to be called the "Hundred Days," a period that had ended with Napoleon's banishment – imprisonment this time – on the much more remote island of St. Helena.

It was an occasion for renewing old acquaintances. Jane Arbuthnot and Katherine Packenham eagerly sought inclusion in the Stanhopes' circle. After all, they reasoned, hadn't they taken Caroline under their wings several years back when she was a friendless naval widow? Could not her current glory, both that reflected from her new husband and that she seemed to emit on her own, be traced back to them?

Resplendent in a beautiful new gown, her thighs still sticky from the attentions her husband had paid them while she was busy getting herself into it, Caroline smiled to herself as she let them have their triumph. Still, she could not help but feel a twinge of satisfaction at the open-mouthed gapes on their faces as the Duke of Wellington approached to embrace her. Her introduction produced such deep curtsies on the part of both women as to make her fear for their balance.

Finally, however, after the Duke had wandered off following a lingering kiss of Caroline's hand, she excused herself to go find her husband. He was deep in conversation with a civilian whose round smiling face seemed at odds with the obvious intelligence that shown from his eyes. William was laughing and shaking his head.

"Ah, here is my savior," he said, beckoning Caroline to join them. "Mister Barrow, may I present my wife, Caroline? Mr. Barrow, Caroline, is the Second Secretary of the Admiralty. He proposes to send me to sea again."

Caroline frowned.

"Apparently Mr. Barrow has no wish to become the First Secretary," she said sternly.

"My apologies, Lady Stanhope," Barrow said with a bow. "I am specifically ordered by the First Lord to discuss this question with your husband."

"What question is that?" a voice asked behind William and Caroline.

Caroline recognized it immediately.

"James!" she exclaimed. "You have returned just in time. You must protect me from this brutish second secretary who proposes dragging my wandering husband to sea once again."

"What should I do, my dear?" James asked.

"Challenge him to a duel, of course," she said with a laugh.

"Pens at twenty paces?" James asked. "Government would frown on one of its secretaries killing another one. James Stanhope, sir, at your service."

"John Barrow, sir, at yours."

Caroline rolled her eyes as she watched the two men exchanged a significant glance. James had only recently ended his entanglement with his former companion. Now he was giving this new gentleman almost the same look that she could see the Duke of Wellington giving a delighted Katherine Packenham some fifty feet across the room.

"I have already informed him, dearest," William said, "that I am committed to accepting the orders of my wife for the foreseeable future, dearest, and that I am in no position at the moment to accept a command."

"A command of what, for heaven's sake?" Caroline asked. "The war is over. Captains with more seniority than you are littering the beach already, you tell me."

"It would have been a mere sloop, dear, along with a steamship of some sort."

"A steamship?"

Caroline could not keep the interest from her voice.

"From Mr. Langhorne's yard," Barrow added.

"Mr. Langhorne?" Caroline asked.

"My wife was one of Mr. Langhorne's first investors, Mr. Barrow," William said.

"Indeed?" Barrow asked. "I congratulate you on your omniscience, Lady Stanhope. Few would have predicted such success even six months ago."

"It is difficult for me to believe that their Lordships are willing to leave the age of sail," Caroline said.

"It was difficult for me to obtain their agreement, Lady Stanhope. In this case, however, sail would prove far less practicable than steam."

"And where is this command?"

"Speaking as an interested investor, of course, not as the wife of a potential commander," William said, sharing a laugh with his brother.

"Hush, darling. I am speaking with the Second Secretary."

"The River Quorra, my Lady. We propose sending three expeditions to Africa. One under the auspices of the Foreign Office proceeding overland from Freetown, in Sierra Leone. Another to travel up the Congo, seeking to learn whether the Congo and the Niger are in fact the same river. And the third to travel up the Quorra, whose delta lies between the two. It is proposed that both of the last two expeditions employ steam power in order to enter the rivers during the heights of their seasonal flood."

William decided that he needed to temper Barrow's enthusiasm.

"Mr. Barrow leaves out, of course, that the Quorra delta is a series of swamps and tributaries stretching for hundreds of miles. That particular steamship may never find the river."

"Still, what fun!" Caroline exclaimed with a delighted clap of her hands.

"I beg your pardon?" William asked, his face frozen in the midst of his smirk.

"I said, ‘what fun,'" Caroline repeated. "Adventure, exploration, discovery. Just like Mr. Cook and Mr. Park."

"Perhaps I have been asking the wrong Stanhope," Barrow said hopefully.

"Little do I know of sailing an ordinary ship, let alone a steamship," Caroline said with a laugh. "Other than the command, "Hard a-starboard" and the expression "lubber," of course."

She gave her husband a mischievous look to remind him yet again that he had once called his wife a whoreson lubber. William could always be relied upon to turn a bright crimson.

"Nevertheless," Barrow said, "perhaps I should enlist you as an ally, Lady Stanhope."

"Perhaps you should, Mr. Barrow."

"After all, his Lordship states that he is at your beck and call."

"Caroline," William said, "you can't seriously propose that we part again so soon."

"Don't whine, dear," Caroline said. "I propose nothing of the kind. This expedition will take some time to prepare, will it not, Mr. Barrow?"

He nodded his agreement.

"So we're really discussing the flood that will occur next September, are we not, in 1816?"

"We are," Mr. Barrow said with no little delight.

"One must really be careful of marrying too well, brother," James said, earning himself a glare from William. "Or at least too well-read."

"By then Michael will be three, a perfect age to travel, at least to Madeira if not to Freetown itself. Which you can make the base of your voyages. Lucy will come with me, of course."

William stared at his wife, at the Second Secretary, and at his wife again. Finally he looked at his brother.

"Apparently my participation was not needed," he said with a shake of his head.

"It never is, darling."

Caroline patted him on the cheek.

"It's always welcome, of course. But it's never needed. Perhaps you would join us for dinner, Mr. Barrow, this coming Thursday?"

"I shall be delighted," Barrow said, smiling like a schoolboy.

"You shall come too, James," Caroline said.

Her brother-in-law simply nodded.

"And me?" William asked.

"Certainly," Caroline said. "You may bring the wine. Speaking of which . . ."

A passing waiter was carrying a tray of wine glasses and Caroline eagerly seized one for each of the party.

"To the future, gentlemen," she said as the men joined her in raising a glass. "And may it prosper all of us."