The Captain's Frozen Dream

She sat rigid against him, refusing to relax the way she used to whenever they’d ridden out together in search of fossils and time alone. The distance between them unnerved him. He didn’t know the extent of what had happened while he’d been gone, but he could imagine. Without Conrad to protect her, it would have been easy for Lord Helton to set the dogs of society upon a woman of Katie’s humble background. He’d seen his uncle level several such attacks on his mother and knew the vicious lengths the marquis might employ to ostracise and punish those he didn’t think worthy of bearing the Helton family name.

Conrad adjusted his feet in the stirrups. He’d promised Katie when they’d become engaged he wouldn’t allow society or his uncle to harm her. He’d failed. It was another in a mounting pile of failures and mistakes threatening to crush him like an avalanche.

He ran his fingers through his hair, the shortness of it still a shock after he’d grown it so long in the Arctic. By now Henry must have reached London and handed Conrad’s report to Second Secretary of the Admiralty, John Barrow. Conrad could only imagine what fury and damnation awaited his inability to find the Northwest Passage and bring Gorgon home. Mr Barrow had stood beside Conrad before, when Lord Helton had done all he could to prevent Conrad from receiving a command. He didn’t know if Mr Barrow would stand beside him again or viciously denounce him like he had Captain Ross after Ross had failed to explore the bay Mr Barrow believed led to the Northwest Passage. The Second Secretary had been stealthy in his attacks against Ross, penning anonymous articles in widely read magazines and whispering against him to influential members of the Admiralty. No one could ever prove it was Mr Barrow who’d been behind the attempts to discredit and disgrace Captain Ross, but he’d never been fully exonerated either. If an attack was coming, Conrad wouldn’t see it until it was too late.

The horse rounded a curve filled with trees and Heims Hall at last came into view. Conrad straightened in the saddle, indulging in the sight of it. It’d been a long time since he’d seen the sturdy brick walls lined with rows of familiar windows and the steeply pitched roof. Built in the sixteenth century, it was small and intimate, the home of a man, not the seat of a scion. Only Katie, so solid in front of him, kept him from sliding off his horse to kiss the ground in thanksgiving. There’d been too many times when he’d thought he’d never see such a glorious view again, but he’d fought nature and overwhelming odds to return.

Not all of his men would have the same opportunity to experience this relief at coming home.

His hold on the reins eased as the intermittent trembles which had plagued him since Greenland weakened his grip once more. Thankfully, the darkness covered the shaking. It was bad enough Katie had sensed it before. He didn’t want her, or anyone, to know how deep the scars from his expedition ran, or how they continued to strangle his belief in himself and his abilities as a leader.

Conrad settled back down against the leather and guided the horse around the house to the stables behind, determined to allow the events of the past year to lie tonight. In the morning he’d get to the meat of them. He only prayed the damage wasn’t as bad as instinct warned, either to himself, his career or his future with Katie.

In the shadow of the stable lamp, a groom rose from where he sat whittling, curls of wood falling over his lap. His eyes went wide at the sight of Conrad before he tossed the stick and knife aside.

‘Captain Essington! Why, I don’t believe it.’ Mr Peet hustled forward on his long legs to catch the reins, his joy at Conrad’s return as bright on his face as the light from the lantern. ‘Mrs Peet will be so glad to see ya, everyone will be, well, excepting Miss Linton, she’s never happy to see anybody.’

‘It’s good to be home. You remember Miss Vickers.’

‘I do.’ He doffed his cap at Katie. ‘It’s a pleasure to see you again, Miss Vickers.’

‘And you, too, Mr Peet,’ Katie replied, although her voice lacked the same enthusiasm as the groom’s.

‘Oh!’ Katie breathed, as Conrad let go of the reins and slid his hands around her waist. It was smaller than he remembered and she seemed more fragile and vulnerable than when he’d left. She gripped his wrists tight as he shifted her off his lap and lowered her to the mounting block. As she stepped off it, she rocked as if she’d been on the deck of a ship for months, not on the back of a horse for a mile or two.

Gritting his teeth against the stiffness in his back, legs and hands, Conrad slid down on to the block. He turned to see Katie watching him, worry marring the small lines along the corners of her lips. She’d seen him wince, sensed the slowness of his movements and guessed he was weakened by the north. He turned to the saddle bag to retrieve her satchel, not wanting her or anyone’s pity, not even his own.

With the small bag in his hand, he stepped off the block, patting the horse’s rump as Mr Peet led it away.

‘Shall we?’ Conrad motioned to the house.

* * *

The rising moonlight glinted off the large bank of windows making up one wall of the conservatory jutting from the rear of the house. Katie didn’t want to go inside, especially with the light burning in the upstairs window. The flick of a curtain in Miss Linton’s room announced the spinster’s presence and her curiosity. Whenever Katie and her father had stayed here, she had gone to great lengths to avoid the thin, buck-toothed woman. More so after Katie and Conrad’s engagement had been announced. The woman, only a year or two older than Katie’s twenty-five, had always looked upon Katie with as little warmth as Lord Helton. However, they couldn’t stand in the mews all night and Katie accompanied Conrad up the walk and into the conservatory.

She tried not to look at the marble table in the centre as they passed through the moonlit room, her shoulders brushing the delicate fronds of the many palms filling it. It was too difficult to see the empty top of the table and not think of her father working on the strange tiger-like fossil there in happier times. Through the opposite door, they entered the dimly lit hallway and the scent of scouring soap and wood oil overwhelmed her. Surrounded by so many familiar things, it seemed as if she could reach out and take Conrad’s hand and the past year and a half would vanish. If it did, then all the optimism and faith she’d once possessed in him might return. She kept her hands at her sides, unwilling to expose herself to more disappointment and heartache. She’d spend one night here, then tomorrow she’d leave Conrad and their past behind.

The hallway opened into a tall entrance hall with a slate floor. In the moonlight coming through the window, she could see the scattering of ammonite fossils embedded in the flat stone. Then the dark imprints of curving shells caught the orange light of a candle from somewhere above them and Katie looked up to watch Miss Linton descend the stairs.

A plain house dress hung from Miss Linton’s scrawny shoulders and her lacklustre brown hair was pinned in a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Unlike the groom, there was no wide smile to lighten her long face. She fixed her eyes first on Conrad and then Katie, her scowl deepening with each step until she was at last in front of them.

‘Conrad, what are you doing here?’ It was exactly the sort of dismissive greeting Katie expected from the shrewish woman.

‘Cousin Matilda, it’s a pleasure to see you as well,’ Conrad replied with a sarcastic bow.

‘Of course, I’m glad you’ve returned safely,’ she replied as if he’d been out in the fields, not presumed dead for nearly a year. ‘It’s certainly most unexpected.’

‘Is the guest room and my room as I left them?’

‘They are, but the linens haven’t been changed or the fires lit. If I’d received some notice of your arrival instead of being startled at night, things might have been better prepared.’

‘A man doesn’t have to send word to his own house.’

Miss Linton stiffened at the reminder of her place. Frustrated in her effort to enforce some control over Heims Hall, she turned to Katie. ‘Will she be staying here?’

‘You mean Miss Vickers?’ Conrad’s voice was low and warning. ‘Yes, she will.’

The little colour in Miss Linton’s face drained out, leaving her an unappealing shade of white. ‘But, Conrad—’

‘We’ll rely on you to serve as an appropriate chaperon.’

Miss Linton jerked back her shoulders in indignation, as if Conrad had asked her to walk down the high street of nearby Cuckfield naked. ‘I don’t think it’s appropriate for a woman like me—’

‘Thank you, Matilda.’ He cut her off, turned to Katie and held out his arm. ‘Shall I escort you to your room?’

Only the desire to vex Miss Linton prodded Katie to place her hand on the firm muscle beneath the wool coat. ‘Thank you.’

Conrad guided them around his cousin and they climbed the stairs. His solid form beside her was a welcome comfort against Miss Linton’s hostile stares burning a hole in the back of Katie’s dress. If only he had come back sooner, before Lord Helton’s lies had done their damage.

The staircase curved, taking them out of sight of Miss Linton and Katie removed her hand from Conrad’s arm, reluctant to encourage any intimacy between them.

Conrad didn’t protest, but continued to escort her down the short hall illuminated by the light spilling out of Miss Linton’s open bedroom door. It filled the narrow space with a wavering amber glow and sharpened the lines of Conrad’s straight nose and strong forehead.

He stopped before the open door of a bedroom in the middle of the hallway. Thankfully, it wasn’t one of the adjoining rooms at the end, the ones she and her father had occupied when they’d stayed here to study the tiger fossil. There were enough lingering memories to torment her, she didn’t need more.

‘In the morning, after we’ve both had some rest, we’ll talk,’ Conrad stated, as if the problems of over a year could simply be surmounted with a conversation.

She took the satchel from him, careful to keep her fingers away from his. ‘There’s little to discuss.’

She moved to enter the room, but Conrad shifted between her and the door. ‘There’s everything to discuss. Whatever happened while I was gone to make you think differently of me, I’ll see it set right.’

Katie fingered the rough spot on the satchel handle where the varnish had been rubbed away during her father’s many trips to visit scientific men. They’d appreciated his ability to find fossils, but not his theories on why the strange animals no longer existed. ‘Conrad, I spent my childhood listening to my father make promises to my mother, one after another. He’d make sure she never regretted leaving her family for him, he’d spend time with her once he was done with this paper or cleaning that fossil. In the end he couldn’t keep any of them.’

‘I’m not your father.’

‘But you have his passion for work, the all-consuming kind which places itself above anyone and everyone. When you first proposed, I told you I had doubts about entering your world, making myself visible to society. You were so gallant in your promise I’d never suffer and I believed you. Then you left and everything I feared, everything you assured me wouldn’t happen did.’

A new light flickered behind Conrad. Miss Linton stood at the top of the stairs at the end of the hall, her disapproving scowl deepened by the candle she held.

He lowered his head, his face so close to hers, Katie could see the faint outline of his beard along his chiselled jaw. ‘This isn’t how it’s going to end, Katie.’

Her chest caught at the nearness of him. If things were different, if he hadn’t left, she might have risen up on her feet and touched her lips to his, fallen into his arms and known the bliss they’d once experienced together on the Downs, away from everyone and everything except each other, but things weren’t different and the time for discussion had passed.

‘Goodnight, Conrad.’ Katie slipped into the room and closed the door behind her.

* * *

Conrad frowned as the lock clicked shut.

Matilda scurried up behind him, moving so quickly the candle flame danced and nearly went out before she raised her hand to protect it. ‘Conrad, we must speak.’

‘Whatever it is, it can wait until morning.’ He made for the stairs, rolling his stiff shoulders. He needed to eat and sleep in a real bed, not endure his cousin’s company. Hopefully the groaning of the ship’s timbers and the far-off thunder of breaking ice wouldn’t haunt his dreams. Too much was already cracking up around him for him to face tomorrow exhausted.

‘It can’t wait.’ Matilda dogged his heels as he descended, the light from her candle waving erratically over the plaster walls. ‘You can’t think to allow her to stay here.’

‘I’ll allow whomever I wish to reside here for any length of time.’ He stopped on the landing and levelled a pointed look at his cousin. ‘As I’ve allowed you to reside here and manage the estate in my absence.’

She pursed her lips in indignation. ‘Then I cannot continue to remain here, risking my reputation to lend some thin veneer of credibility to hers.’

Conrad glared at her as he would a sailor who dared to question his orders. ‘Careful, Matilda, how you speak of the woman who is to be my wife.’

‘Don’t think to cow me into withholding my opinion of your connection to a woman of no standing who can bring nothing to your family.’

‘She’s the granddaughter of a baronet.’

‘And the daughter of a disgraced woman who didn’t have the foresight to think of her family, her name, her ancestry before running off with some poor country doctor. No wonder Miss Vickers behaved the way she did after you left. You have no idea what they’re saying about her in London.’

‘You’re right, nor do I want to know,’ Conrad tossed over his shoulder as he made for the entrance hall.

‘But you must.’ Matilda followed him. ‘They say she and certain members of the Naturalist Society were more than professional acquaintances.’

Conrad paused in the centre of the room, tightening his fist at his side before releasing his fingers one by one. Matilda’s revelation added to the unease already created by the scene with Katie and Mr Prevett on the road. Whatever had happened while Conrad was gone, the gravity of it was beginning to settle over him like a storm in the North Atlantic. Only tonight he had no time for it, or his cousin. The woman wasn’t above exaggeration, she excelled in it. He brushed her and his suspicions aside as he made for his study. ‘No doubt the stories are in existence because of my uncle.’

‘There’s no reason for an august man like Lord Helton to dirty his hands with a woman like Miss Vickers,’ Matilda countered as she followed after him. She was the only one who’d ever venerated his uncle. Her slight connection to the marquis through Conrad gave her the single edge of superiority over her small group of friends and she cherished it. ‘She isn’t suitable to be a marchioness.’

Conrad stopped and whirled around to face her. ‘What are you talking about? I’m not Lord Helton’s heir.’

‘You mean you haven’t heard?’ Her dull-brown eyes sparkled with the delight of knowing something Conrad didn’t. ‘Your cousin Preston is dead. You are Lord Helton’s heir now.’

* * *

Conrad shoved open the study door and it banged against the plaster wall. The breeze of it disturbed the blue-and-gold flag from the ship of his first command hanging from the timbered rafters. The stench of stale air hit him as he made for the sideboard and the decanter of brandy sitting on top.

What the hell happened while I was gone? It was as if he’d sailed away from one world and returned to find another, more contemptible one had taken its place.

He flipped back the silver stopper and raised the crystal to his lips, ready to drown himself and all his shattered plans in the liquor. Nothing had gone as he’d intended, not his expedition or his homecoming.

Over the top of the glittering decanter, he caught sight of his father’s portrait hanging over the mantel. Conrad lowered the decanter. This had once been his father’s domain and he’d filled the shelves with his collection of beetles, the research of which had garnered him the presidency of the Naturalist Society. Later, his study of the insects had provided a refuge from the nightmares of the hell his own brother, the Marquis of Helton, had consigned him to for daring to defy him, the one which had ruined his health and broken his spirit.

Conrad followed the stare of his father’s painted brown eyes across the room to where the spoils of Conrad’s expeditions now adorned his father’s precious bookcases—Inuit spears, beaverskin moccasins, wood totems and the fossil remains of animals both known and unknown. They were a silent catalogue of all his past successes and triumphs. Taking it in, his gut sank like it had the morning he’d watched Gorgon break apart and slip beneath the icy water, leaving them trapped. It was his blood trapping him now, the legacy his father and mother had spent years struggling to escape, the one ruled by the iron fist of Lord Helton.

Conrad took another long drink and silently cursed his uncle. Lord Helton cared for nothing except power and using it to make men in government and society bow and scrape before him. After Conrad’s father’s early death had put him beyond his brother’s reach, it’d been a struggle for Conrad and his mother to escape Lord Helton’s grasping control. If it hadn’t been for Heims Hall and his mother’s brother, Jack, they might never have known peace, or the security of a home and an income not encumbered by the Helton legacy.

Conrad smiled at the memory of his mother standing in the grand entrance hall at Helton Manor after his father’s funeral, breaking Lord Helton’s walking stick over her knee after he’d dared to strike Conrad with it for mourning his father. She’d pelted the man with the broken bits and a barrage of insults, stunning Lord Helton into silence for the first time in his life.

Conrad’s smile faded. Afterwards, Lord Helton’s methods had become more subtle and he’d resorted to lies and rumours to attack her instead of confrontation. When she’d passed, Lord Helton then turned his vengeance against Conrad, using his influence in government to make sure every ship Conrad received after becoming captain was more worm-eaten than the last. Yet Conrad had accepted each doomed command and made a stunning success of them all, securing his reputation as a first-rate officer and diluting Lord Helton’s influence. After Napoleon’s defeat left Conrad without a ship and on half-pay, he’d volunteered for the Discovery Service and built a name for himself as an explorer, one of Mr Barrow’s favourites, a man who always succeeded.

Except this time.

Conrad took another deep drink, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He should have turned Gorgon for home before the short Arctic summer had ended. Instead, he’d pushed north and others had paid the price for his mistake, sacrificing fingers, toes and even a life to Conrad’s desire to accomplish his mission.

He gripped the decanter tight against his chest, hanging on with both hands to keep it from slipping out of his grasp. At times, he’d barely been able to hold his pen on the voyage home, the weakness nearly crippling him as he’d reread his journal and relived the horrors of his experience to write his report. In the cold north he’d thought it would ease once he reached warmer climes, but as time passed it was becoming apparent the weakness was driven not by cold but by memories, especially those of Aaron’s hopeless eyes meeting his before he’d slipped out of the tent door and into oblivion.

Eyes as vacant as those of the skeleton of the tiger-like creature perched in front of the window.

Conrad rocked a little as he approached the animal, coming face-to-face with the long jaw and the two curving canine teeth protruding from the mouth. He slid his hand over the top of the skull, feeling the slight pits and crevices of the bones. It was an exquisite specimen, one he’d purchased from an Inuit trader in Greenland at the end of his first voyage to the Arctic three years ago. The same man had sold Conrad the skeleton that was even now in one of the many crates making their way to Heims Hall, the likes of which he’d never seen in any book or collection.

He ran his fingers over the tiger’s long nose and down the back edge of one curved and serrated fang. He’d spent hours watching Katie and her father meticulously clean and piece this animal together. Katie would do the same with the creature in the crate, making sense of the jumble of bones in a way he could never understand. Her face would light up in excitement when she did, just as it had when she’d attached this skull to the vertebrae.

He flicked the pointed end of the fang with his fingernail. A dead animal would receive a warmer welcome than he had.

He backhanded the skull, knocking it free of its neck and sending it flying across the room. It thudded each time it bounced along the carpet before the leg of a wide, leather bench brought it to a sudden stop. He marched up to it, ignoring the sting to his hand as he focused on the hollow eyes watching him above the mercifully unbroken fangs. He raised his foot to stomp the poor thing into oblivion, to crush it and all memories of the frozen wasteland which had ruined everything, but he couldn’t.

He lowered his foot, staggering a bit before he righted himself. He was a man of discovery, not a destroyer, though this last expedition had nearly crushed him. He braced himself against a nearby desk, the wood beneath his fingers smooth and cool, unlike the rough timbers of the ship. The sounds of the house surrounded him—the whinny of a horse in the mews, the twitter of a night bird. They were as familiar now as they’d been when he was ten and in their echoes he found a faint comfort. Then the creak of the floorboard beneath his boot sent a shock racing up his back. In the straining wood he heard the echoes of Gorgon groaning beneath the pressure of the ice, struggling to keep it at bay until at last she’d given up the fight.

Conrad moved uneasily to the chair beside the cold fireplace, set the half-empty decanter on the table and dropped into the thick cushions. The house was much quieter than the ship. During the long Arctic months, the wind had always been blowing and the men had been talking, complaining or playing cards, anything to fill the hours of boredom with something other than worry. The weariness of the past eighteen months, of the last few hours, settled over him like the fog of drink. He should go upstairs. He needed to sleep in a proper bed, but he couldn’t move. He’d known true exhaustion and this wasn’t it. Even if he went upstairs, there was no guarantee of rest, only hours of sleep jerked from him by nightmares of the cold.

It didn’t matter. Years of exploration had taught him to catch sleep where and when he could, to do with as little of it as possible in order to make it through another day. Only this wasn’t the North Pole, or the hull of a ship. It was the study where he’d first wooed Katie, the woman whose soft voice and love he’d hoped would silence the doubts and memories torturing him.

As the darkness closed in around him, the crack of icebergs slamming together drowned out the quiet of the house. Each thud made Conrad wince until at last it faded and a dreamless sleep brought much needed silence.

* * *

Katie peered into the dark study. In the hallway, she thought she’d heard a noise, but everything in here was quiet. She must have imagined it the way she sometimes imagined hearing her father return from a dig. She’d look up from sketching a specimen, thinking she’d see him come through the door, only to remember he was never coming home again.

It shocked her how keenly she noticed his absence. Even when he’d been home, he’d never truly been there. There’d never been anyone who’d been willing to place her above their own selfish pursuits, not her mother, her father or even Conrad.