Page 39 of The Derbyshire Dance (Kendall House #3)
“Indeed, it was legal at the time. Although it’s been two years and more now since that trade was abolished in America.
The captain of the ship brought me back to South Carolina with him.
I made myself useful on the voyage, and by the time I reached Charleston, I had warranted a word of commendation to the ship’s owner, Mr. Jeffries.
I’d enjoyed learning the craft of sailing, and the owner agreed to make me a first mate on the next voyage.
In five years’ time, I’d worked my way up to captain and he sent me out with a ship of my own. ”
“A ship’s captain,” marvelled Bel, looking at the dandy in front of her. In his immaculately cut coat and pantaloons, he looked nothing like the life he was describing although she could see a weather-beaten, sun-bronzed look about his face and hands.
“After my third voyage, however, Mr. Jeffries’ daughter decided that she liked me better on land than on shore.
And so I was forced to swear my services to a different admiral and take a different commission.
I now oversee a plantation, sit in the shade sipping rum punch, and host other inhabitants of Charleston who enjoy sitting in the shade and sipping rum punch too. ”
“What he’s trying to say in his circumbendibus way,” interjected Hester, “is that we married last year, and since then, he’s been in South Carolina. With me.”
“Oh,” said Bel, pushing herself up to a sitting position on the sofa. “So, you are Mr. Jeffries’ daughter?”
Hester nodded shyly.
“And during all that time, you never thought to write? Never thought to let us know that you were alive? ”
Charlie’s eyes goggled and he gave a shrug. “I can’t say that I did. Relations haven’t exactly been friendly between America and England, so the mail is unpredictable. I always knew I would visit home eventually—and it’s not like the farm or the house were going to pick up and leave.”
“You nitwit!” said Bel, seizing the pillow from the sofa and beating him over the head with it as he held up a sturdy arm to stave off her blows. Finally, she exhausted her outrage and took a deep breath. “Mother and Father are dead, thinking you went to a watery grave.”
“Yes, I heard that at the house,” said Charlie, as if he had already accepted the fact. “From your maid there—Jenny, is it? She told us you were living here at Amsworth with Aunt Lucy, and that the old girl has married at last!”
“Yes. And no wonder the butler looked as if he’d seen a ghost when he came upstairs to announce you. You were declared dead ten months ago! In the eyes of the law, you don’t even exist anymore, Charlie.”
“Well, I like that!” said Charlie in an offended tone.
“A man goes on a little adventure, and his pigeon-hearted compatriots immediately give him up for lost.” He stamped his foot.
“Why did you have me declared dead if you were still searching for me? I came as soon as I saw your newspaper advertisement.”
“Newspaper advertisement?”
“Hester was the one who saw it—what did it say, love?”
“I have it right here.” Charlie’s American wife took a scrap of paper out of her reticule.
INFORMATION WANTED
The subscriber requests news of a certain Englishman
named Charles Morrison, likely a resident of Charleston ,
having arrived thither in the year 1803 or 1804.
If any gentleman has news of him,
he will be so kind as to inform his sister
by directing a line to her at Morrison House
near Upper Cross in Derbyshire, England.
—August 1811
“That was my first hint that Father and Mother had passed,” said Charlie, “for if they hadn’t, they would have written the advertisement rather than you.”
“But Charlie,” said Bel in shock. “I didn’t write this.”
Charlie stared. “You didn’t?”
“I didn’t even know you were in Charleston. I thought you were lost in the jungles of Africa or, in the best of all providences, rescued and taken on board a new ship to India.”
“Stap me! How peculiar,” said Charlie. The three of them looked at each other in befuddlement as the door to the parlour burst open.
“Charlie!” said Aunt Lucy, home with her husband from a nuncheon at the Jester’s Arms. “Charlie, you rascal! Jack, darling, you remember Charlie!” Charlie rose to his feet in greeting, and she flung herself into her nephew’s arms.
“Of course,” said Jack, who had purchased his estate near Upper Cross several years before Charlie’s departure to see the world. “Welcome back, my boy.” He reached around the effervescent Lucy to shake Charlie’s hand.
“Aunt Lucy,” said Bel, rising to her feet. “Did you perchance place an advertisement in America searching for news of Charlie? ”
“In America? Good heavens! Why would I do that?” She stopped hugging him long enough to look him up and down. “Is that where you’ve been all this time, Charles Morrison?”
“Yes,” said Charlie proudly. “And I would like to introduce you to my wife Hester, Jewel of the Carolinas.”
Lucy immediately altered the object of her embrace to her new niece-in-law while Jack bussed the tall woman on the cheek.
“Welcome to England, my girl.” His twinkling eye took in the slight curve of her belly beneath her purple walking dress, something Bel in all the turmoil had failed to notice.
“Is it too much to hope that there are little Morrisons on the way?”
Once again, Hester’s cheeks pinked. Bel reflected that she was much shyer than any American had the right to be.
“Yes, Hester’s in the family way,” said Charlie, answering for her. “I thought it might be better for her to stay on the plantation. But then again, if war is declared and the return home is delayed, I didn’t want to be trapped here and separated from her.”
“Return home,” repeated Bel. “So, this is just a visit then. You’re going back to Charleston now that you’ve done your duty and answered the newspaper advertisement.”
Charlie looked at her in surprise. “But, of course. Haven’t you been listening? My life is there now, with Hester. We have a whole plantation depending on us.”
“But what about the farm?” Bel asked in desperation. “Your inheritance here in England?”
“Morrison House?” Charlie shrugged. “You keep it. You always did care more about the land than I did.”
“Yes,” said Bel faintly, another bout of light-headedness coming on. “I suppose I always did.”
Nigel had never felt such elation. The harvest had exceeded his expectations, and even Mr. Billings—arms crossed and eyebrows beetled—had admitted that it was a job well done.
The tenants, after having a good grumble about the enforcement of home farm service, ceased their complaints once they saw much-needed repairs made on their roofs and fences.
Nigel had celebrated his triumph by purchasing more agricultural books, these ones on the proper breeding of sheep, and he was considering purchase of new stock to strengthen the flock when a letter arrived for his valet.
“Yer grace! Yer grace!” Archie came bounding into the study, interrupting Nigel’s conference with the steward. “Jenny says that Master Morrison’s come home.”
At the name Morrison , Nigel’s head looked up sharply. “What’s this?”
“Charlie Morrison’s back in England. He’s alive, yer grace!”
Nigel’s face split into a slow smile. So, Bel had been right all this time, and her sisterly intuition had proved true. “Did she say where he’s been keeping himself?”
“The Americas. An’ he’s brought an American wife with him who, Jenny says, has never even eaten a proper puddin’ before.”
“Well, I’m certain Jenny can rectify that,” said Nigel. “I remember her being a worthy baker of biscuits.” It was true, if one liked his ginger biscuits on the dry side.
“Yes, she is,” said Archie with a broad grin.
Nigel’s face was just as gleeful. So, his seedling efforts to find the truth had paid off in another glorious harvest. Charlie Morrison had made it to Charleston with the rest of the flotsam from Solomon Digby’s Belladore.
And now he was back in Derbyshire, after all these years, with a wife in tow!
Now, the magistrates would reverse their ruling, and Harold Brownlee’s hopes would deflate like a balloon.
Nigel could imagine the joy on Bel Morrison’s face, and that kept a smile on his own. The dead had come to life again.
He turned back to Mr. Billings and instructed him to go ahead with the purchase of a half dozen new rams. They were a slightly hardier species from a farmer in Northumberland. By breeding them with his own stock, he had high hopes that the lambs would be sturdier in the spring.
And he also had high hopes that he was close to fixing all those things that needed fixing.
And when that process was concluded, he could travel to Derbyshire, throw himself at Bel Morrison’s feet, and beg for her hand.
For if the dead could be raised, then the prodigal could be transformed, the rake could be remade, and a fool of an English duke could find happiness in the end.