Page 5 of Unforeseen Affairs (The Sedleys #6)

Colin woke up the next morning feeling perfectly adequate, despite his birthday revelry.

Shortly after breakfast, though, that familiar lightness arose in his head, and he spent a good hour agonizing in indecision: Ought he head to his club, or would he be better served by remaining safely at home?

Away from the cacophony of the city, the traffic, the thick clouds of heaven-knew-what…

all that which was nothing like the open sea, with the spray of the waves, the taste of salt in the air, the empty horizons far as the eye could see.

At the moment, the only thing for him to see was the family’s morning room, done up as it always had been, in wallpaper of naval blue and gold covered in etchings of ships.

All ships that had been under a Gearing’s command.

His gaze drifted to one of the HMS Iapyx , the only one he could claim.

But even it hadn’t really been his, for he was only a lieutenant when he’d sailed upon it.

He ought to be a captain by now.

Colin sighed in frustration and shook out his newspaper with more force than necessary.

He hadn’t always been bitter like this. But his life had changed dramatically over the past year. It was devastating to consider the emptiness his future might hold.

So instead he ignored it, and did his best to focus on an article about the demonstration at the Devon and Exeter Institution of a new invention called the telephone.

The idea of communicating with another human across so many miles using one’s actual voice, rather than just dots and dashes?

It defied all logic, and yet there it was, reported on in black and white in front of him.

The technical aspects of it were beyond his ken, but even if it did all seem a bit mystical, the idea was nevertheless quite exciting.

He’d only begun to consider the future implications of such a marvelous technology when his father entered the morning room.

Colin lowered the paper just enough to make eye contact, then nodded.

“Commodore.”

“Lieutenant Gearing,” his father said as he took a seat opposite his son.

For the past twelve months, Colin had done his best to remove himself from the morning room by ten.

For that was the time when, like clockwork, his father would arrive to pore over his correspondence, or upbraid his youngest son when the letters he’d received that day proved insufficiently engaging.

This morning, though, in the midst of fretting about the state of his head, Colin had forgotten.

Commodore Elijah Gearing had served thirty years, not quite advancing to admiral before being forced to retire due to heart complications. The length of his service, though, was something he never let his son forget.

Colin tried to focus on the print before him, but his mind kept catching on every sound coming from his father’s direction. The shifting of his chair, the breaking of a wax seal, the crinkling and flapping of a letter being removed from its envelope and unfolded.

He wondered if Beaky was fit to be seen.

Last night Colin and Kettlewell had escorted him home, for the fellow was all mops and brooms after taking his duty to celebrate far too seriously.

But if Colin were to venture out to call on Beaky and see how he fared, he might also see his younger sister, Alice.

Or Miss Pearce, as he supposed he ought to call her now that she was out in society.

It had been a month or so since Colin had seen her, the last time her mother had hosted a dinner. Alice had worn a fetching peach gown generously trimmed with lace; she’d looked as cheerful and frothy as a cup of sherbet.

That was how young ladies ought to dress.

Not the way Miss Charlotte Sedley did, severely clad in a narrow, dark gray skirt and plain white blouse.

Colin frowned at the newspaper before him, bothered by this sudden intrusion of the strange young lady into his thoughts.

After all, he was unlikely to ever see her again.

“Your mother,” the commodore said, cutting into the tense silence, “has told me you’ve refused to attend her… entertainment next week.”

“That is correct.”

“And may I inquire as to why?”

Hidden behind the newspaper, Colin clenched his jaw.

He knew he ought to set it aside and give his father the respect he was due not just from his rank, but his position in the family.

But he’d discovered this past year, living under the same roof for the longest period in over a decade, that some childish recalcitrance still remained within him.

“Because I don’t care to see her hopes dashed,” he said, more forcefully than he’d intended.

His father cleared his throat.

Now he’d done it. Colin gingerly folded the newspaper and set it aside, still avoiding the old man’s gaze.

“You don’t care to see her hopes dashed?” his father repeated, his voice booming.

The commodore’s voice had once been matched by his large, imposing form, though after fifteen years retired he’d shrunk to a mere shadow of himself, hunched over and weakened, his once red hair now sparse and white.

But that voice, wielded for decades as a means of intimidation, somehow remained as powerful as ever.

“Then I wonder, boy, why you’re refusing the invitation, even as you sit here ashore on half-pay, spending your days doing nothing of import.”

Colin’s head felt heavier, as if it were he, and not Beaky, who had overindulged the night before.

He stared straight ahead, at the small line drawing of the HMS Iapyx on the wall.

The closest thing he’d ever had—and would likely ever have—to his own command.

He knew every gun, every sail, every rigging, could see them all in his mind’s eye.

Some nights he’d close his eyes and imagine he was on watch, walking the entire length of the ship over and over again.

“Bernard would never,” his father scoffed, setting aside one letter and reaching for another.

Colin felt a pain in his gut at that.

“I’ve spoken with a new doctor,” he said hesitantly. He did not like discussing these matters with his father.

The commodore clearly did not appreciate that.

“Is that so?” he sniffed. “Is Dr. Cowgill, who delivered you into this world with his own two hands, not adequate for your needs?”

Colin felt a burst of anger, and tamped it down as much as he could. But not entirely.

“No,” he blurted. “He is not.”

The old sawbones, who by all rights should have retired years ago, had listened silently to Colin’s concerns with an empty expression, then prescribed him a regimen of tobacco smoke enemas.

Colin might not be a man of science, but he had failed to see how blowing smoke up his ass would clear his head and keep him steady.

“Hm,” was his father’s dubious reply.

Interminable seconds ticked by. Colin now wished very much that he’d gone to call on Beaky. At least then he’d be enjoying Alice’s charming company, rather than listening to his father excoriate him as if he were Colin’s commanding officer.

“I’ll admit you had a bit of luck in that… piratical debacle,” his father said as he perused another letter. “Not worth the ink spilled over it, let alone a knighthood, but who am I to criticize Her Majesty’s whims?”

Twenty-five thousand pounds in prize money.

And that just his share from the first ship he’d captured, to make no mention of the second.

All of it with the captain and first lieutenant sick as dogs below deck.

Everyone in the country had been duly impressed when the story reached England’s shores.

He’d been gazetted, for goodness’ sake. Everyone acknowledged his accolades as a tremendous honor.

Everyone, that is, except Commodore Elijah Gearing.

Colin had come to realize that the only thing that might earn him the man’s praise was if he were to figure out how to resurrect his elder brother.

“The fact remains that you’ve now refused two postings.

” His father looked up from the letter currently in his hand and leveled a hard stare at Colin.

“You had better take care with your next steps, or some will think you… unfit for service.” He paused, letting the stern words hit their mark before proceeding with the final shot. “That you’ve lost your senses.”

Anger gripped Colin’s heart. He tightened his fists, willing his head to steady, praying for the room to stop swaying.

“Very well,” Colin finally capitulated. “I’ll attend.”

His father studied him, searching for any sign of insubordination or dishonesty. Finding none, he nodded slowly.

“Good.”

He looked back to his correspondence.

“I’m not insane,” Colin said, his heart now as heavy as his head.

“Of course you’re not,” his father said dismissively. “You’re a Gearing.”

He looked once more at Colin, his face deathly serious.

Colin had nothing left to say.

Charlotte spent the ensuing week at her leisure.

Well, mostly so. Not entirely, for her cousin Bess had enlisted her assistance in the rather ridiculous pursuit of dressing and staging her dog, Walter, for a series of photographs that echoed the works of the great Renaissance masters.

Charlotte did not mind. She liked her elderly cousin, silly though she may be, and Charlotte had been thinking she really ought to spend more time with her.

Bess was supposedly her chaperone, after all.

“I can’t decide, Charlotte, dear, and the photographer is telling me we must settle on this today, before his arrival,” Cousin Bess fretted in a strained voice. “Not like Tuesday.”

On Tuesday, when the poor man had last visited, he’d drunk seven cups of tea while waiting for Bess to select the most appropriate dog-sized flat cap, of which there were at least a dozen.

Charlotte had quite enjoyed the photographer’s bulging eyes when Bess threw open a small trunk filled with tiny jackets and accoutrements fit only for an aging, ailing spaniel with rheumy eyes and a lolling tongue.