Page 8 of Unforeseen Affairs
Charlotte thought of the myriad naval portraits she’d observed while wandering the Gearing family home. Of the athletic trio of young men assembled in the small library.Cunt and gunpowder, a sailor’s best friend.She smiled to herself. She trusted her own observations. Sir Colin Gearing was of the sea; he had been bred to don a bicorn hat and command a ship, not woo young women in society ballrooms.
Not yet, at least. Charlotte begrudgingly respected him for that.
Indeed, she felt a kinship in that regard, for while she may have been younger by a handful of years, she had no desire to be wooed by anyone. The entire world lay before her—not one of open ocean and exotic ports, but of mysterious puzzles, a world filled with secrets and bewilderments. She would not allow herself to be blinded by a handsome smile or a firm hand at the small of her back. Life offered too many possibilities, too much to discover for that.
They came to a stop outside Mrs. Stone’s small shop.
To a layperson, The Black Candle might have seemed to offer only useless oddities, but to Charlotte and those who were metaphysically inclined, it carried all the necessary occupational equipment. While the medium’s odd nature and nonsensical credos had made her a pariah among most of the city’s spiritualist societies, her care and discernment ensured her shop did a steady custom.
“Well, I shall bid you good evening, then,” Mrs. Stone said, taking a deep breath as she readied herself to reemerge into the outside world. “Please, give my regards to Mr. and Mrs. Sedley, and beg warn Mrs. Sedley to avoid rich foods for the present.”
“Why?”
Charlotte’s stepmother, Mrs. Susanna Sedley, was not someone to indulge in much of anything.
“Barley water, I should think, would do her well.”
She stepped down, refusing the groom’s proffered hand, and walked into the shop without a backward glance. Charlotte was left to puzzle over the bizarre counsel with no further explanation.
As the carriage took her back home, the memory of Sir Colin chasing her down the hall returned. Charlotte placed her chin upon one hand and stared out into the gas lamp-illuminated night. She said a silent prayer for the young man, asking that whoever this Miss Pearce was, she would not catch him in herhooks. People ought to have the opportunity to live to their full potential.
It felt only sporting to offer him good wishes, after she’d teased him so.
Her conscience thus assuaged, she put him out of her mind altogether.
Chapter Three
Colinwokeupthenext 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 HMSIapyx, 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.
