Page 2 of The Captain's Midwinter Bride
With a nod to his wife, Phillip slipped from the room, doing his best not to let the guilt follow him out.
* * *
Annalise fought the urge to roll her eyes as she watched her daughter battle with her emotions. Since her father’s return, Beth seemed to take it upon herself to make him feel like an outsider, and her sharp tongue had lashed him more times than she could count.
Sliding her gaze to Phillip’s retreating back, she understood Beth’s struggles, although she would never admit it. Her husband was both familiar yet foreign. The gentle, earnest young man she agreed to marry a quarter of century prior had grown into the gruff, intimidating, still painfully handsome man who occupied her house with all the aplomb of an irritable bear.
It washishouse, she supposed. It was his hard work as a captain aboard theQueen Elizabethfor years and years upon end that allowed her, Oliver, and Beth to live comfortably, and even thrive, in Bristol. So many times during his many absences did Annalise wonder why she had consented to marry a sailor. Surely she knew her new husband would spend more time aboard the rocking deck of a ship than he would in their home with her. And yet when she was flanked by a crying two-year-old and a grumpy six-year-old with little money to spare for more than necessities, all Annalise knew was resentment for her husband and the job that took him far from her and the help she so desperately needed.
But she tried not to let that resentment bleed into her actions. So often when Phillip had leave, he was exhausted. The grooves in the tanned skin around his blue eyes had always been stark, the droop in his shoulders testament to his weariness. Yet he never wanted to rest. He had insisted on spending time with the children. He met them at the breakfast table in the mornings, sat in on their lessons, frolicked with them in the park, and napped when they napped. He insisted that they eat dinner at the family table instead of the nursery, and Annalise had consented without telling him the children always ate dinner with her in the dining room. He was a good father, and she was grateful.
If he had been a bit of a reserved husband, well, she supposed she could forgive him that too.
But the children that were the common thread between Annalise and her absent husband would soon be gone from the house, and she would be left with the man she knew as well as the fishmonger who sold her cuts of cod and snapper every Wednesday.
That was unfair. Phillip may have been on the seas more than he was home, but she had certainly come to know the man he was, and she could genuinely say she liked him. He possessed a sharp wit and a keen eye that had always kept Annalise on her toes. He had earned her respect over the years. Their marriage may have begun out of convenience, but she was proud of the accord they had built together for their children.
His return home for good had been a challenge for her, however. No longer did the servants turn to her with their questions, and suddenly her whereabouts and schedule were accountable to someone else. Annalise would be a liar if she said she didn’t chafe under her husband’s watchful eye. Still, she suppressed her annoyance, determined that she and Phillip would be friends. If part of her fanciful heart wished for more from her marriage, she ruthlessly silenced it.
“I’m so sorry I’m leaving you alone with him.”
Annalise blinked, jerking her attention to her daughter. “I beg your pardon?”
Playing with a sprig of holly that adorned the center of the table, Beth shrugged. “I feel guilty for getting married exactly when Father is retiring from the navy. He’s going to be here all the time, and you will have to put up with him.”
“He is my husband.” Annalise frowned. “Your father. Of course he’s going to retire here. This is his home as much as it is yours or mine.”
“But not exactly,” Beth murmured. “This is simply a place he rested while on leave. I suspect his real home will always be at sea.”
Annalise did not know how to argue with that assertion.
“And he’s always so dour. So gruff. How depressing it will be to share a breakfast table with him.”
“Your father is not dour,” Annalise declared curtly. “Do you not remember all the times he took you and Oliver out during his leaves? Or of the plays he reenacted with the two of you in the nursery?”
Beth’s eyes glazed over in memory, a ghost of a smile haunting her lips. “That seems so long ago. I had forgotten.”
“Your father may be many things, but dour is not one of them.”
“I suppose not.” Beth stared at her hands. “We did enjoy ourselves though, didn’t we?”
“You did. You and Oliver always had bright eyes when he took you off for an adventure. And you came home exhausted, with exciting stories to tell.”
Annalise had always been a little jealous that her husband could return and engage the children in fun activities, then be gone on his next voyage when parenting became a challenge with illness, tantrums, and growing pains.
Beth scowled, the expression more confused than upset. “What happened, Mama? How did Father go from…that,” she said, as if the memories were tangible, “to the stranger he is now?”
Annalise considered how best to explain this to her headstrong daughter. Setting her empty cup aside, she folded her hands on the table in front of her.
“As you and Oliver grew older, you questioned his absences more. Became impatient…and perhaps a tad bitter that he was not there when you needed him. Or wanted him. And you each had your own lives, with friends and social activities. So when he did have leave, you did not want to sacrifice your plans for him. You no longer had time for him.”
Nodding slowly, Beth worried her lip. “That makes sense, I suppose.”
Reaching for her hand, Annalise squeezed it tight. “Your father is not your enemy. He could not help that he was away any more than you or I could. Instead of becoming belligerent every time he speaks to you, perhaps remember the happy times you enjoyed with him and give him a chance.”
“Oh Mama,” her daughter sighed, stroking her thumb over Annalise’s knuckles. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you. Who is going to talk sense to me when I am upset and being unfair?”
Certainly not your new husband, she thought.Mr. Newell will just belittle and demean you until eventually you don’t even know to be upset.
