Page 18 of Return to Satterthwaite Court

He meant it.

It didn’t matter that leaving the Navy had left him unmoored. That he was restless and out of his element back on land. A few more weeks in the bosom of his family and surely his spirit would calm and the proper course for his future would become clear.

It had to.

Chapter Five

“This one is from me as well.” Charles passed a tissue-wrapped box to his sister. She sat next to him on the overstuffed sofa, the skirts of her dressing gown pooling around her in a spill of soft pink wool. “It’s just a trifle. Something I picked up at a bazaar in Cairo.”

Hannah had only just awakened. Her dark auburn hair, so difficult to tame, had been temporarily subdued into a thick plait, secured with a velvet ribbon. Odysseus wore a matching ribbon around his scrawny neck. He dozed peacefully at Hannah’s slippered feet, well-fed and contented, amid the growing pile of torn paper and tinsel.

“What is it?” she asked.

“You must open it and see,” their father said.

“Yes, do,” their mother encouraged.

Arthur and Philly Heywood sat across from their children on the drawing room settee, their hands held in an intimate clasp. Behind them, stretching all the way to the drawing room ceiling, stood the Christmas tree in all its splendor. It was a new addition to their holiday celebrations. A fashion only recently brought to England, courtesy of Queen Victoria’s German husband, Prince Albert.

Philly and Hannah had taken to the idea at once. Since Charles’s arrival a fortnight ago, he’d been kept busy finding a suitable tree for them, cutting it down, and hauling it back to the house to decorate. Together, the Heywoods and their longtime retainers—Sara, William, and the rest of the servants—had trimmed the tree with candles, gilded fruit, red ribbons, and tinsel.

The entire room smelled of new pine, fresh oranges and cloves, and of the spice cake Cook was baking for their Christmas tea.

Philly had been determined to spare no effort in celebrating the holiday, now that Charles’s was home and finally free from danger. She’d received the news of his resignation from the Navy with tears of happiness and relief. Hannah had been equally overjoyed. There were no arguments or recriminations. The past was forgiven in exchange for the promise of a safe and hopeful future.

Charles wished he could feel as optimistic about that future as his mother and sister so obviously did.

A fortnight in residence and he was still as unmoored as he’d been when he arrived. It was an unsettling sensation. A familiar one, too. This same sense of restlessness—of incompleteness—had prompted him to leave Somersetshire eight years ago. It had followed him across the sea to Lebanon, Egypt, and beyond, a constant companion as he’d journeyed to the ends of the earth and back again. Adventuring hadn’t quelled the feeling. Perhaps nothing ever would.

Hannah opened the box he’d given her to reveal a dainty, hand-painted porcelain perfume bottle. “Oh, look, Mama! Isn’t it beautiful?” She flung her arms around Charles’s neck in an impulsive embrace. “Thank you. I love it.” She kissed his cheek before releasing him. “I shall put it on my dressing table.”

“Are ladies wearing much perfume abroad these days, my love?” his mother asked.

“I didn’t meet many ladies during my travels,” Charles said. “Certainly no one of fashion.”

“Hadn’t the sailors any dances or parties?” Hannah asked. “There were balls when you were a soldier, weren’t there, Papa?”

“A few,” Arthur said. “But I was in the Army, not the Navy, sweetheart.”

“We sailors spend a great many months at sea,” Charles said. “A grim business. We have no one but each other for company.”

Hannah returned her gift to its box. “You must have been very lonely.”

Charles didn’t answer.

The truth was, he had been lonely. Time had hung heavy when the fighting had stopped. He’d begun to crave a return to action. But when that action came, it was never of the sort he’d wanted. In the end, there had been no true heroes there. No genuine villains. Only men fighting other men for reasons none of them wholly understood.

“Soldiers and sailors aren’t the best source of information on what transpires at social events,” Arthur said, turning the subject. “You’d be better served consulting a lady.”

“The only one I know who has had a season is Mama,” Hannah said.

“And then only a single ball,” their mother replied. “Hardly worth remembering.”

Arthur brought his wife’s hand to his lips. “No,” he said gravely, “it isn’t.”

It had been a dark time in Charles’s mother’s life. On her grandfather’s death, Satterthwaite Court had passed out of her hands, going instead to a distant male relation—a ruthless London financier by the name of Edgar Townsend. He’d removed Philly from Satterthwaite Court and brought her to town, ostensibly to give her a season. In reality, he’d been conniving to marry her off to a notorious duke.

Charles didn’t know the whole of it. His parents hadn’t wished to burden him or his sister with distressing tales from the past. But Charles knew that his mother had been made unhappy and that only his father’s intervention had prevented her coming to harm.