Page 47 of Pride of Valor

He should have begged the driver at the last stop to let him sit on top at his side. He knew the man wouldn’t have minded having someone who could give the guard a break from lookout duties.

The substantial woman next to him let out a gusty sigh and shoved the letter she’d been reading back into her bag. She made an unexpected tight turn in his direction and demanded, “What kind of war have you been fighting?”

Richard had been in such a rush to get back to Bocollyn, he hadn’t bothered to waste time at the tailor’s shop in Portsmouth putting together the kinds of clothing he’d need in his new life. The woman was probably referring to the well-worn, dusty Royal Marine uniform he still wore even though his final ship, theHMS Black Condor, had been paid off when they’d sailed back into Portsmouth Harbor for the last time.

“The usual kind,” he responded, hoping she’d give up and pester the passenger on her other side.

“Does your family know you’re coming home?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I want to surprise them.”

She jabbed the woman on her other side. “Man who’s gone for years at a time, might not like what he finds, if’n he doesn’t let folks know he’s on his way home.”

Richard gave her a stern frown which he hoped would end her senseless chatter.

“It’s just that a man wot follows the drum never really knows what’s going on at home while he’s off on the King’s business, does he?”

Richard pictured the woman rolling out of the carriage and into a ditch if he were to lean over her considerable bulk, not to mention that of her neighbor, and push both of them out the door.

Instead, he nodded sagely at her observation, not bothering to disabuse her of the notion that he was in the Infantry. Regular folk could never tell the difference between Marines and the Infantry, so he didn’t try to enlighten her.

Just then, the driver took a sharp turn at a bit too much speed, and the rucksack at his feet rolled across the aisle. When he bent forward to retrieve the bag, the nattering woman sucked in a sharp breath. Richard wedged himself back into his narrow space on the passenger seat and had to lean against the woman to carve out breathing room.

When he chanced a sideways look, she’d pulled out a fan and was making frantic motions to stir up a breeze. Richard hadn’t noticed an excess of heat inside the coach.

He finally pulled his hat down over his eyes and pretended to drift off to sleep in hopes she would leave him in peace.

“Are you married?”

“Saints preserve Ireland!” He leaned forward and fixed her with one of his famed stern looks that sent first-year recruits scrambling to their duty stations. “Since we’ve not been properly introduced, don’t you think it highly improper for you to ask a question like that?”

Undeterred, she plowed on. “Does that mean you are or you aren’t?”

He gave up. “Yes, I’m married, to an extremely jealous woman who is a crack shot with a bow and arrow. The last harpy who stared like you vanished without a trace.” This time, when he leaned back and shut his eyes, she at long last had nothing more to say.

When the coachman finally blew the horn for their arrival at the Falmouth Inn, Richard hoisted his rucksack and swung down as soon as the coach rolled to a stop and a hostler in the yard opened the carriage door. Although he hadn’t written Harriet, Sidmouth’s ducal carriage stood in the yard. Captain Bellingham’s wife, Sophie, must have written warning her of their ship’s arrival date. Harriet would have known he wouldn’t tarry in Portsmouth, yet still must have come to meet the stage for a number of days, calculating when he might arrive. Footman Thomas brought the steps to the carriage door, and now the woman he loved was framed in the coach window, looking the way he’d always imagined she would when he finally came home from sea for good.

When the doors of the carriage opened, Harriet stepped down and walked toward him with a small, fiery-haired girl at her hip. The tiny one he hoisted to his shoulder while the fully grown one clung to his side. Fleur and Max gave excited howls from inside the carriage where they’d taken up their new assignment since their former ward was away at school. They had a new bairn to watch over. Thank the heavens the oversize hounds remembered him well enough to trust him with his daughter.