The admiral laughed. ‘If it’s a trend, it’s a slow-moving one.’ He leaned forwards over the buttered toast. ‘What should I call you? I’ve become fond of Mrs P, but now it’s Mrs B. And I had no idea your name was actually Sophia, which I rather like. How about it, Sophia Bright?’
She felt suddenly shy, as though everyone in the dining room was staring at the ring on her finger, which seemed to grow heavier and heavier until it nearly required a sling. ‘No one has ever called me Sophia, but I like it.’
‘Sophia, then. What about me? You really shouldn’t persist in calling me admiral. Seems a bit stodgy and you don’t look like a midshipman. Charles? Charlie?’
She thought about it. ‘I don’t think I know you well enough for “Charles”. Maybe I’ll call you “Mr Bright”, while I think about it.’
‘Fair enough.’ He peered more closely at the ring he had put on her finger in the church. ‘It’s a dashed plain ring.’ He slid it up her finger. ‘Rather too large. H’mm. What was good enough for The Mouse doesn’t quite work for you.’ He patted her hand. ‘You can think about my name, and I can think about that ring, Sophia.’
Now I am Sophia Bright, where only yesterday I was Sally Paul, she thought as she finished eating. No one will know me. While he spoke to the waiter, she looked over at her new husband with different eyes. There was no denying his air of command. Everything about him exuded confidence and she felt some envy.
He was certainly no Adonis; too many years had come and gone for that. His nose was straight and sharp, but his lips were the softest feature on his face. Such a ready smile, too. He reminded her of an uncle, long dead now, who could command a room by merely entering it. She began to feel a certain pride in her unexpected association with this man beside her. After the past five years of shame and humiliation, she almost didn’t recognise the emotion.
He had no qualms about gesturing with his hook. If he had lived with the thing since his lieutenant days, then it was second nature, and not something to hide. She looked around the dining room. No one was staring at him, but this was Plymouth, where seamen with parts missing were more common than in Bath, or Oxford. This is my husband, she wanted to say, she who barely knew him. He is mine. The idea was altogether intoxicating and it made her blush.
He had hired a post chaise for the ride home. ‘I … we … are only three miles from Plymouth proper. I suppose I shall get a carriage, and that will mean horses, with which I have scant acquaintance,’ he told her. ‘It’s going to be hard for me to cut a dashing figure atop a horse.’ He shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t know a good horse if it bit me … which it will, probably.’
Sally put her hand to her mouth to keep in the laugh. With a twinkle in his eyes, the admiral took her hand away. ‘It is a funny image, Sophia,’ he said. ‘Go ahead and laugh. I imagine years and years of midshipmen would love to see such a sight. And probably most of my captains, too.’
He fell silent then, as they drove inland for a mile, over the route she had taken on foot only yesterday. How odd, she thought. It seems like years ago already, when I was Sally Paul.
He was gazing intently out the window and she wondered why, until the ocean came in sight again and he sat back with a sigh. He misses it, she thought, even if it is only a matter of a few miles.
‘You miss the ocean, don’t you?’
He nodded. ‘I thought I would not. After I retired, I spent some weeks in Yorkshire, visiting an old shipmate far inland—well, I was hiding from Fannie and Dora. What a miserable time! Yes, I miss the ocean when I do not see it.’ He looked her in the eye. ‘Did you ever meet a bigger fool?’
‘Probably not,’ she replied, her voice soft, which made the admiral blush—something she doubted he did very often. ‘It it amazing what revelation comes out, after the ring goes on.’
‘I suppose you have deep, dark secrets, too,’ he told her, good humour in his voice, as if he could not imagine such a thing.
He had come closer to the mark than was comfortable, and she wished again she had told him her real married name. It was too late now. She would have to hope the matter would never come up. Sally returned some sort of nonsensical reply that she forgot as soon as it left her lips, but which must have satisfied the man. His gaze returned to the view out the chaise window.
‘I do have a confession,’ he said, as the post chaise slowed and turned into a lane which must have been lovely at one time, but which now was overgrown and rutted.
It can’t be worse than my omission, she thought. ‘I’m all a-tremble,’ she said, feeling like the biggest hypocrite who ever wore shoe leather.
He chuckled, and touched her knee with his hook. ‘Sophia, I promise you I do not have a harem in Baghdad—too far from the coast—or an evil twin locked in the attic.’ He didn’t quite meet her gaze. ‘You’ll see soon enough. How to put this? I didn’t precisely buy this property for the manor.’
He had timed his confession perfectly. The coachman slowed his horses even more on the last turn, and then the estate came into view. What probably should have been a graceful lawn sloping towards a bluff overlooking a sterling view of Plymouth Sound was a tangle of weeds and overgrown bushes.
The admiral was watching her expression, so Sally did her best to keep it entirely neutral. ‘It appears you could use an entire herd of sheep,’ she murmured. ‘And possibly an army equipped with scythes.’
She looked closer, towards the front door, and her eyes widened. She put her hand to her mouth in astonishment. Rising out of a clump of undergrowth worthy almost of the Amazon was a naked figure. ‘Good heavens,’ she managed. ‘Is that supposed to be Venus?’
‘Hard to say. You can’t see it from here, but she seems to be standing on what is a sea shell. Or maybe it is a cow patty,’ the admiral said. He coughed.
There she stood, one ill-proportioned hand modestly over her genitals. Sally looked closer, then blushed. The hand wasn’t over her privates as much as inside them. The statue’s mouth was open, and she appeared to be thinking naughty thoughts.
‘I think this might be Penelope, and her husband has been gone a long time,’ Sally said finally.
She didn’t dare look at the admiral, but she had no urge to continue staring at a statue so obviously occupied with business of a personal nature. She gulped. ‘A very long time.’
‘No doubt about it,’ the admiral said, and he sounded like he was strangling.
I don’t dare look at him, else I will fall on the floor in a fit of laughter, and then what will he think? Sally told herself. And then she couldn’t help herself. The laughter rolled out of its own accord and she clutched her sides. When she could finally bring herself to look at the admiral, he was wiping his eyes.
‘Mrs Bright, you would be even more shocked to know there was a companion statue on the other side of the door. Let me just say it was a man, and leave it at that.’
‘Wise of you,’ she murmured, and went off in another gust of laughter. When she could muster a coherent thought, Sally realised it had been years and years since she had laughed at all, let alone so hard.
‘What happened to … ah … Romeo?’ she asked.
‘My steward—you would probably call him my butler—whacked him off at the ankles. I suppose he hasn’t had time to get around to the lady.’
The admiral left the post chaise first. She took his hand as he helped her out. ‘I can scarcely imagine what delights await me indoors,’ Sally said.
‘Oh, I think you can,’ was all he would say, as he put his hand under her elbow