The Indebted Earl

the years when he’d turned in his logbooks after each voyage.
Lady Sophia Haverly. A duke’s daughter, a baron’s fiancée, a true English rose.
Dare he admit how much he had looked forward to mail arriving aboard ship and here at the hospital? Richardson had been generous in reading portions of her letters aloud in the wardroom aboard the Dogged over the months. Charles suspected half the officers on the ship nursed a tendresse for the major’s fiancée. Or at least the idea of her, with her quick wit and breezy writing style.
Not that he himself had succumbed to the charming missives beyond a mild interest. They were always sunny, always encouraging, bits and bobs of life in their Oxfordshire village. The concepts were mostly foreign to Charles, who had known no other life but the sea since he was a child. He’d joined the Royal Navy at twelve, making his way up from powder monkey to captain over the span of twenty-four years. As such, he was almost a foreigner in his own country when he found himself ashore in England.
Here in the hospital, as Rich’s condition had worsened, the major had asked Charles to read the letters aloud, and eventually to pen the replies. The last letter Charles had composed had been almost entirely his own creation, Rich being too weak to contribute much to the epistle.
Charles had described the flowers outside the hospital, the orange blossoms’ overpowering scent from the grove near his billet, and the bustle of the port—anything he thought might interest the young noblewoman. Was it lying not to reveal Rich’s true condition? A bond existed between Charles and this woman he had never met, for they both cared for Rich. Charles had never written a letter to a young lady before, and he wasn’t sure if he was executing the task correctly. He felt odd ending the letter with an endearment or two, hoping he could put into words what he knew Rich felt for his lady.
He sighed. If it weren’t for him, Rich would be hale, hearty, and most likely walking up that drive in Oxfordshire, ready to resume his life as a baron and marry Lady Sophia.
Charles’s fingers brushed the signature on the letter. Unlike himself, Lady Sophia Haverly wrote a beautiful hand, and her name was as feminine and appealing as her correspondence. Her words and the images they created set up an odd longing in his heart that he didn’t quite know what to do with, making him homesick for a place he had never been. As a battle-hardened sea captain, full of salt and tar, he shouldn’t be interested in the words of a young woman he’d never met, a woman more than a decade younger than himself, and most importantly a woman betrothed to a dying man who was his friend.
Such thoughts were both frivolous and unworthy. He shook his head, reminding himself he had no attachment to this young woman in her bucolic village. He was a mere conduit at this point, taking dictation to send to her, reading her words aloud to her intended. Her letters were a pleasant distraction from the tedium of hospital life, a bit of a novelty in his seagoing experience. Anticipated and enjoyed now but soon forgotten once he was aboard ship once more.
Even as he told himself this, he knew it wasn’t true. He would not forget Lady Sophia, nor the light she had brought into the lives of himself and his officers through her words.
Tucking her letter into its envelope, he placed it with the others back into Rich’s sea chest—locker, he supposed it was called on land. The movement caused tightness across his shoulders but not the agonizing searing of previous weeks. The long wound had needed two separate surgeries to open, clean, and drain, but he had finally reached the point where every movement wasn’t torture.
He checked the clock on the opposite wall. If he had been aboard his beloved HMS Dogged, the duty officer would be sounding the changing of the watch. Sadly, with the injury to her captain, the Dogged had been turned over to another’s command. By this time she was probably berthed at Plymouth or Portsmouth with only a skeleton crew, the rest of his men ashore and scattered.
Would he get his ship back, or, with the cessation of hostilities, would he be set ashore as well? If he were beached for any length of time, what would he do with himself? His life was at sea, and it was all he wanted.
The surgeon entered the ward. Why did the man always appear to have been dragged through a gun port backward? Hair on end, clothes rumpled, instruments spilling from his pockets. Nothing shipshape about his appearance. He’d soon find himself on the wrong side of a disciplinary hearing if he were in Charles’s chain of command.
“Good day, Captain.” The surgeon consulted a small notebook. “I didn’t expect to see you here now that you’ve been cleared for release back to England.”
Charles shot a glance at Rich, but the major didn’t appear to have heard. “Pettigrew.” He dipped his chin in greeting.
“I was thinking of you earlier today as I performed a procedure on a cavalry soldier who isn’t progressing as well as I had hoped. He, too, had a saber slash, but on his chest. I had to reopen him and extract a piece of his uniform embedded deep in the wound. Now the debris is removed, I can only hope he heals as well as you have.”
Charles quelled a shudder. Lord willing, he would never have to endure such medical treatment again. The second surgery to drain and clean the wound had nearly done him in. It had been all he could do not to disgrace himself by crying out during the procedure.
“I envy you returning to Britain soon. I shall be posted here until the last man either recovers or passes on, I suppose.” The surgeon heaved a martyred sigh that