Beneath the Dover Sky (13 page)

“Just double-checking, love.”

“Why?”

Fordyce hesitated a moment as he concentrated on driving. “It’s a dirty night, isn’t it?” He honked at a truck. “Those army lorries always take over the entire road if they can get away with it.” He glanced at her. “You look lovely, Cathy. Have I told you that tonight?”

She narrowed her eyes and took her hand from his arm. “Come, Terry, out with it. What’s up?”

“We’re setting off after Christmas. First to Lisbon to take part in the
Vasco de Gama celebration they’re having. You know, Vasco de Gama the great explorer?”

“Yes, I know who Vasco de Gama was. Then what?”

“The Med.”

“The Mediterranean? But the
Hood
just came back from a worldwide cruise last month.”

“I know it. But the lads want to go down to the sun belt. It’s good for morale, and the Royal Navy has exercises for us to run.”

“I’m sure they do. Our fighting navy off to Gibraltar and Malta to save the Empire. I suppose you’ll be gone till spring.”

“Something like that.”

“Something like that? Oh Terry, things between us were just getting onto surer footing.” She plunged her head back against the seat and groaned. “Don’t fall for a navy man, every young woman is told. It’s something we are told never to do. Now look at the mess I’m in.”

“It’s hardly a mess, Cathy. I care for you very much and—”

“Of course it’s a mess! Here I’m living at Dover Sky through a rainy, dreary winter, and the one good reason to be doing it is off to work on his suntan after Christmas.”

“Cathy—”

“So I’m supposed to be like the dutiful wife and wait by the window as I look out toward the sea, darn your socks, and pray for your safe return?”

“I don’t know about the wife, window, or socks part of it, but I do hope you’ll pray for my safe return.”

Catherine sighed, her eyes still shut. “I will. You know I will. But Terry, we’re not married or engaged. And I’m not saying I want to be right now. It’s far too soon for anything like that. But quite honestly I don’t want to sit around all winter as if I were. I do want to get out of the house.”

“So there is someone else?” he said sharply, giving her a quick glance.

“There is no one else as close to me as you are. I just want you to understand if I go to a concert in London with a gentleman or attend a worship service in Canterbury with another, that it doesn’t mean I want to break off with you. I simply have to get out to get some air.”

“I understand that, I guess.”

“You do?”

“Yes. And what’s his name?”

“Terry! There is no one man…just some acquaintances.” She looked at his worried face. “Horatio Nelson. It’s him. Are you satisfied?”

“Not very.”

“Well, that will have to do.”

They rode in silence for several miles. Catherine finally spoke. “Let’s not spoil our evening together. I care for you, Terry. I’m just not ready to start pining away again. I’ve been pining for more than two years already.”

“I know that.”

She put her hand back on his arm and gave it a squeeze. “Good. So you understand why I can’t go back to that dark hole, not even for you.” She stared out through the rain sliding over the windshield and the swipes of the wipers. “In any case, it works both ways. I shan’t mind if you see a woman or two when you’re in port at Gibraltar.”

“I’m not interested.”

“Maybe one of them will change your mind.” She glanced at him and noted his clenched jaw and tight lips. “Don’t be a martyr, Terry. I count on your cheerfulness. Come back to me, but don’t come back to me sour.”

Port of Dover

“We cannot have a trade agreement with the communists in Moscow! Only Ramsay MacDonald could think that was a good idea. Ramsay MacDonald and his Labor Bolsheviks.” Edward paused as people in the packed hall cheered. “If I am elected, I will help form a Conservative government with Stanley Baldwin once more at the helm. Then we will tear up that agreement. We will have no trade with those revolutionaries—those assassins whose hands were dipped in blood with the murder of Tsar Nicholas and his family, even his children! I say it again: No trade with the murderers and Bolsheviks!”

The audience erupted into applause again. Edward waited for the
roar to subside. “But I don’t want you to send me to Westminster just to deal with the Red Menace, important as that is for the future of Great Britain. I also want to do something for Dover. I want to do something for you—the workingman—and for your children and your grandchildren. More shipping, more across-the-Channel traffic. A bigger harbor—a deeper harbor and a more protected harbor.”

Men jumped to their feet, clapping and waving their hats in the air. “I want a port second to none in Great Britain! I want a port that will bring prosperity to Dover! I call upon you to send me to Westminster so I may ensure a Conservative government puts money into you and into our harbor. I call upon you to send me to Westminster so I may ensure a Conservative government that will
pour
money into our harbor!”

Edward tried to continue but the applause drowned out his words. He smiled and lifted his hands. Finally he shouted, “A vote for me on October twenty-ninth is a vote for Britain and the British people! God save the king!”

Fordyce made his way through the crush of bodies and managed to shake Edward’s hand and slap him on the back. “Well done, Lord Edward. A great speech.”

Edward grinned. “Thanks, Fordyce. I have to give another seven or eight tomorrow, so keep me in your prayers.”

“We’ll pop by the flat after you’re free of all this to say hullo, and then Lady Catherine and I are heading out.”

Enthusiastic men and women jostled Edward and called out his name. He kept smiling and shaking hands as he spoke with Fordyce. “Actually, I’m not going back to the house. I’m taking the car to Deal. I have a meeting there in an hour and another at seven in the morning. I was going to ask if you wouldn’t mind taking Charlotte and Owen to Dover Sky with you. I’ll be gone a week, and I’d like them to be with family.”

“Why of course! I’ll collect them right away. Where are they?”

“Just at the back. I’ll be over to say goodbye once I’m finished here. I won’t be but five minutes.”

Fordyce struggled through the well-wishers. He’d just broken clear when Catherine slipped up beside him and kissed him on the cheek.

“There, that’s done. I’m ready for my coffee right after we say hullo to Char.”

Fordyce gave her a cold look. His voice was clipped. “We’re to ferry Char and Owen to Dover Sky straightaway. Your brother is driving over to Deal when he’s done here, and he’ll be gone a week. He wants his wife and child safe and sound at the estate.”

“I see.” She hesitated. “Well, that only makes sense, doesn’t it?” She held his arm. “Cheer up. I’ll have Norah fix us up a pot of coffee when we get home, and we’ll squirrel away in the den. It’ll be better than a coffee shop or restaurant. And you’ll have me all to yourself.”

“Will I? We can’t leave Charlotte on her own, can we? How hospitable would that be?”

“I thought you liked her.”

“I do. She’s wonderful. Edward married a gem. But I’ll not be able to get away for another month—not until Guy Fawkes—and I’d hoped you and I could have a good talk.”

“Terry, we can. I—”

“Oh, there you two are! Cheers!” Charlotte stood in front of them wearing a red dress with a matching red hat and feather. “I hear you’re my cab. I really don’t want to put you two out. We’d be perfectly happy at our flat while Edward’s gone. He gets terribly old-fashioned about things like this.”

Fordyce found his best smile quickly. “Nonsense, Char. If it were me, I’d want the same thing for my wife and son. Where’s your boy? Where’s the luggage?”

“Owen’s with the Conservative Party’s secretary for this district and probably getting horseback rides on Mr. Tippin’s back, I’m sure. Poor man.” She smiled. “I’m afraid we’ll have to drop by the flat for the luggage, Terry. It’s all terribly inconvenient. Edward just came up with this plan before he got up to speak so there’s nothing packed.”

“That’s all right. We’ll wait while you get ready.”

“I’m dreadfully sorry.”

“Not at all.” He glanced about. “I’ll fetch Owen and give Edward a
wave. That’ll be his cue to make his way through the multitudes to the parking lot. Come along, you two.”

Charlotte walked beside Catherine. “He’s a lot more chipper than I’d be if someone had ruined my plans for the evening.”

“Yes,” Catherine replied. “Terry can reach deep down into his sea chest and usually find the right hat to wear.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mean he rises to the occasion.”

“Well, the very least I can do is leave you two to yourselves once we’re at Dover Sky. I’ll tuck Owen in and read to him. Then I’ll—”

Catherine put her arm through Charlotte’s. “I shouldn’t bother hiding away on our account. I doubt Terry will stay very long after he’s seen us safely home.”

“Why not? It’s only eight now.”

Catherine shook her head. “He’ll be on his way back to the fleet.”

“Something up? I thought he’d move heaven and earth to be with you for a few hours.”

“We had…um…we had a bit of a disagreement on the way here. The
Hood
’s going south to the Med after Christmas and won’t be back till spring.”

“What? Then all the more reason for the pair of you to spend all the time you can together.”

“Yes, well, once Owen is settled in and Terry leaves, you and I can have tea together and I’ll explain the winter and rough weather of taking a fancy to Lord Preston’s daughter Catherine. At the most unfortunate times, I get my Danforth up.”

When they arrived at Dover Sky, Terry pulled up to the front door. He escorted the women and boy to the front door, went back and brought Charlotte’s bags in and left them with the poker-faced Skitt. Then he tipped his officer’s hat to Charlotte and Catherine, and headed back into the sheets of rain. He got behind the steering wheel and drove away.

“You were right about that, weren’t you?” Charlotte sat in a corner
of the library ten minutes later, a model of the clipper ship
Cutty Sark
on the shelf above her head. “Terry didn’t let any grass grow under his heels.”

Catherine poured from a Royal Doulton teapot. “He’s hurt.”

“Will you explain?”

Skitt had started a small blaze in the fireplace, and a log snapped twice and hissed.

Catherine wrapped her hands around her teacup but didn’t drink. “It’s not hard, really. He wanted me to wait for him faithfully with a stiff upper lip while he’s down at Gibraltar and Malta and who knows where. I told him I couldn’t. And I can’t, Char. We’re not married. We’re not even engaged. We’ve scarcely kissed.”

“I—”

“One moment. I’ve been two years in the tomb waiting for Albert to resurrect. I walked out of that tomb with Sean in my arms this past summer when I realized I was the one who needed the resurrection. I can’t go back into the tomb, Char. Not for Terry, not for anyone. It would kill me.”

Charlotte didn’t drink either. “I think I understand.”

“Terry doesn’t. But then he scarcely knows me. He thinks he does, but he doesn’t. I’m more stubborn than he realizes. I’m not in a hurry to find a man, not even for Sean’s sake. And I’ve got a fighter’s streak running through me as thick as the cable that holds
HMS Hood
in place. I can’t sit at Dover Sky all winter waiting for him to return from sea with Drake and Raleigh and Nelson. I want to go to the theater, eat at restaurants where crystal chimes and forks and knives make a great clatter because people are happy all around me. I want to go to concerts in London, get a glimpse of the king and queen in their royal box, and walk under the cliffs at Dover with someone other than Aunt Holly.”

Charlotte slipped her a smile. “And other than your sister-in-law?”

“I adore you, Char. For that matter, I adore Holly too. But yes, I want to hear a man’s footsteps beside me. I want to smell his cologne, have his hand take my arm if I stumble, take in that lovely man scent I’ve missed so much—the tweed, the pipe tobacco, the leather gloves and shoes. I miss manliness, Char. I’m starved for it, and I shan’t be
without just because the navy likes a Mediterranean sun more than four months of English rain.”