The Captain’s Christmas Journey
The Viscount’s Yuletide Betrothal
The Captain’s Christmas Journey
Carla Kelly
To my parents.
‘Buck up, Captain Everard,’ he told his reflection in the mirror. ‘You promised you would do this, so to Kent you will go.’
Joseph Everard, post captain, Royal Navy, turned around to stare hard at Lieutenant David Newsome’s paltry heap of personal effects on his desk, wishing he could make it go away. It remained there unmovable, another sad testament to the fleet action now called Trafalgar. That one word was enough to convey all the horror, the pounding and the fire, which combined to create the most bittersweet of victories, with the well-nigh inconceivable loss of Vice Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson.
Had anyone been interested, Joe could have explained his reluctance to deliver David’s effects in person. It wasn’t because his second luff had done anything amiss, or behaved in any way unbecoming an