Part 28 (1/2)
”Compa.s.sion and bravery-ah, che miracolo!” continued Francesca. ”Everyone in Naples and Palermo knows that of you, My Lord Captain Edward Ramsden, and soon everyone in England will cheer you for it as well. But that is not what I wish to know from you, my darling husband, not if you are to have any peace.”
”You mean to torture me that much until I spill my secrets?” he asked, trying miserably to make a jest of it. But this was the first time she'd called him her husband-her darling husband at that-and how could he make a jest of something as significant as that?
”No peace from me, Edward, no,” she said gently, linking her hand into the crook of his arm, ”for I do not intend to stop looking after you. But if you wish peace for yourself, asleep and awake, then you must speak of this fearful dream.”
Still looking down at the deck, he shook his head. ”No, la.s.s. Confession's not my way.”
”You wouldn't be confessing anything,” she said, leaning closer to him so that the end of one long braid tickled his knee. ”You'd be telling a story to your wife, no more, and I vow by all that is holy that I shall never repeat your words to another.”
He'd thought her a temptation before, and did still, yet what she was offering now was more alluring than any apple from Eve. Confessing might not be his way, but confiding wasn't, either, and hadn't been since he'd been a friendless boy, unable to trust others with his secrets. The chance to unburden himself now would be an almost unimaginable luxury, especially to his wife.
His wife. As a husband, he'd believed he must be the one to offer solace and protection, to comfort her, and now it seemed she was doing the same for him. That was what a husband did, wasn't it? He'd no experience of his own with marriage, and having been so long in the navy, he hadn't even had any examples to observe. Were such confidences commonplace for other husbands? Could his bond with Francesca weigh more in this case than his honor and courage as an officer?
Had the admiral himself made such confidences to Lady Hamilton, a lovely and willing replacement for his own wife so far away in England? Had he whispered to her his disappointments after they'd returned from Egypt, his fears, the concerns he couldn't share with his officers without seeming weak or incompetent? Was that the real reason why he'd chosen to linger so long in Naples, for the sake of a gentle female ear to balance the male horrors of war?
”If you can give this dream of yours words, Edward,” she said softly, ”if you can share your fear with me, then you'll rob this nightmare of its power over you.”
He groaned with frustration. He longed to tell her, to be able to part with enough of his past to do as she said. Yet as much as he ached to begin, he'd no real notion of how to give enough shape and words to the nightmare to be able to tell it to her.
And somehow she knew this of him, too, his wise and logical wife in her yellow stockings and golden hoops.
”Was the Centaur ever in danger from the L'Orient's fire?” she asked. ”Is that why you were trying so hard to save her and your crew?”
”Yes,” he gasped, relief mingling with the shameful horror of the dream itself. ”No! We were close, aye, closer than any other s.h.i.+p save Hallowell's Swiftsure, but we swung round with our bows to the L'Orient to bear the explosion that way, and we'd closed our ports to keep the heat from our powder, too. There was not one flaw to what was done, none.”
”But not in your dream?”
He groaned again. ”Then I do nothing right, Francesca, not one d.a.m.ned thing. I am careless and selfish, the worst kind of captain looking only to add to my own glory. I let my crew become ravening, undisciplined beasts, worse than any Frenchmen, and when the L'Orient comes straight for us, all I think of is cowardly ways to save only myself from the death I deserve.”
”I see no shame in that, Edward,” she said softly. ”What greater fear could there be than death?”
”But a captain must not think that way! He must be willing to make whatever sacrifice is necessary for the good of the s.h.i.+p and his crew! He must always think first of his duty, Francesca, never of himself!”
”And I say, caro mio, that beneath his fine English uniform, your captain is but a man,” she said firmly, ”with every right to fear for his own pain and destruction. If a man truly has no fear of death, then where is the glory, the courage, in facing it? How can even an English navy captain cherish the rare blessings he has in life without fearing their loss?”
”Why should I deserve any blessings at all if I must behave with so little honor?” he demanded, his anguish genuine. ”Over and over I make the same wrongful choices, and over and over I must-I must-suffer the consequences!”
”But only in this nightmare, my husband,” she insisted. ”You do not trust the success the world wishes to lavish upon you, or feel worthy of what you have achieved, and so you punish yourself again and again in this nightmare. But why, Edward-why, why?”
Why, she asked, when the answer was so blindingly obvious he could either have laughed, or wept. As long as he could remember, from his father to his brothers to every other member of his wretched family, he'd never been judged deserving of anything of real merit. Even now, when the rest of the world praised him as a hero, in his nightmare he was again that small, terrified, worthless boy cut off by his family and sent to sea, the one destined always to make the wrong choice and bring dishonor to his name.
”You are no coward, Edward,” she said fervently, her fingers tight around his arm as she willed him to believe it. ”And I will never let anyone say otherwise of you. Not my brave English lion! No, no, my darling Edward: you are the best, the bravest, and the most honorable gentleman I have ever known, awake or asleep.”
”Not to the Lord of the Admiralty, I am not.”
And never was to my father, never could be, from the day I was born.
”And I say you are!” she cried, her conviction vibrating between them. ”This First Lord will not turn you out in disgrace, the way you dread. Instead he'll heap honors upon you, and medals and ribbons and promotions and a new s.h.i.+p and oh, everything, everything good and fine that you deserve, else-else he shall answer to me, Edward, to me!”
He bowed his head, resting his hand over hers. He wanted desperately to believe her, as desperately as she seemed to be to defend him. He'd never had a champion, nor ever expected to, particularly one in petticoats, and most particularly one that was also his wife. Was this, then, one more thing he'd have to learn about marriage?