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Marrying the Royal Marine
Carla Kelly
From Ugly Duckling to Beautiful SwanIllegitimate Polly Brandon has never felt like more than an ugly duckling. So she’s amazed when Hugh Philippe Junot pays her such close attention as they sail for Portugal.Under ordinary circumstances she knows this distinguished Lieutenant Colonel of Marines would never have looked at her, but having his protection for the journey is comforting – and something more that she’s afraid to give a name to.Should she trust what she sees in Hugh’s eyes – that she’s turned from ugly duckling to beautiful, desirable swan?
You are cordially invited to the weddings of Lord Ratliffe’s three daughters as they marry their courageous heroes
A captain, a surgeon in the Royal Navy and a
Royal Marine prove true husband material in
this stirring Regency trilogy from Carla Kelly
MARRYING THE CAPTAIN
THE SURGEON’S LADY
MARRYING THE ROYAL MARINE
Praise forCarla Kelly, recipient of a Career Achievement AwardfromRT Book Reviewsand winner of two RITA
Awards
‘A powerful and wonderfully perceptive author.’
—New York Times bestselling author Mary Jo Putney
‘Kelly has the rare ability to create realistic
yet sympathetic characters that linger in the mind.
One of the most respected … Regency writers.’
—Library Journal
‘Carla Kelly is always a joy to read.’
—RT Book Reviews
‘Ms Kelly writes with a rich flavour that
adds great depth of emotion to all her
characterisations.’
—RT Book Reviews
About the Author
CARLA KELLY has been writing award-winning novels for years—stories set in the British Isles, Spain, and army garrisons during the Indian Wars. Her speciality in the Regency genre is writing about ordinary people, not just lords and ladies. Carla has worked as a university professor, a ranger in the National Park Service, and recently as a staff writer and columnist for a small daily newspaper in Valley City, North Dakota. Her husband is director of theatre at Valley City State University. She has five interesting children, a fondness for cowboy songs, and too many box elder beetles in the autumn.
Novels by the same author:
BEAU CRUSOE CHRISTMAS PROMISE
(part of Regency Christmas Gifts anthology)
MARRYING THE CAPTAIN*
THE SURGEON’S LADY*
*linked by character
MARRYING THE ROYAL MARINE features
characters you will have met in MARRYING THE
CAPTAIN and THE SURGEON’S LADY
Did you know that some of these novelsare also available as eBooks?Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
Marrying the
Royal Marine
Carla Kelly
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Lynn and Bob Turner, former U.S. Marines.
Semper Fi to you both.
Prologue
Stonehouse Royal Marine Barracks,
Third Division, Plymouth—May 1812
Black leather stock in hand, Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Philippe d’Anvers Junot, Royal Marine, stared into his mirror and decided his father was right: he was lonely.
Maybe early symptoms were the little drawings that deckled Hugh’s memorandum tablet during endless meetings in the conference room at Marine Barracks. As Colonel Commandant Lord Villiers covered item after item in his stringent style, Hugh had started drawing a little lady peeking around the edge of her bonnet. During one particularly dull budget meeting, he drew a whole file of them down the side of the page.
Hugh gazed more thoughtfully into the mirror, not bothered by his reflection—he knew his height, posture, curly brown hair, and nicely chiselled lips met the demands of any recruiting poster—but by the humbling knowledge that his father still knew him best.
He had written to his father, describing his restlessness and his dissatisfaction with the perils of promotion. While flattering, the promotion had bumped him off a ship of the line and into an office. I know I should appreciate this promotion, he had written, but, Da, I am out of sorts. I’m not sure what I want. I’m sour and discontented. Any advice would be appreciated. Your dutiful, if disgruntled, son.
A week later, he had read Da’s reply over breakfast. He read it once and laughed; he read it again and pushed back his chair, thoughtful. He sat there longer than he should have, touched that his father had probably hit on the matter: he was lonely.
Damn this war, he had thought then. The words were plainspoken as Da was plainspoken: My dear son, I wrote a similar letter to your grandfather once, before I met your mother, God rest her soul. Son, can ye find a wife?
‘That takes more time than I have, Da,’ he had said out loud, but Da was probably right. Lately, when he attended the Presbyterian church in Devonport, he found himself paying less attention to the sermon and more attention to husbands, wives, and children sitting in the pews around him. He found himself envying both the comfortable looks of the couples married longest, and the shy hand-holdings and smouldering glances of the newly married. He tried to imagine the pleasure of marrying and rearing children, and found that he could not. War had ruined him; perhaps Da wasn’t aware of that.
It was food for thought this May morning, and he chewed on it as he took advantage of a welcome hiatus from a meeting—the Colonel Commandant’s gout was dictating a start one hour later than usual—and took himself to Stonehouse Naval Hospital. He had heard the jetty bell clanging late last night, and knew there would be wounded Marines to visit.
The air was crisp and cool, but threatening summer when he arrived at Block Four, where his friend Owen Brackett worked his surgeon’s magic on the quick and nearly dead. He found Owen on the second floor.
The surgeon turned to Hugh with a tired smile. ‘Did the jetty bell wake you?’
Hugh nodded. ‘Any Marines?’
‘Aye. If you have a mind to visit, come with me.’
Hugh followed Brackett down the stairs into another ward. With an inward sigh, he noted screens around several beds.
‘There was a cutter returning from Surgeon Brittle’s satellite hospital in Oporto. The cutter was stopped at sea by a frigate with some nasty cases to transfer,’ Owen said. ‘Seems there was a landing attempted farther north along the Portuguese coast. Sit.’
He sat, never used to ghastly wounds, and put his hands on the man’s remaining arm, which caused the Marine’s eyes to flicker open.
‘Meet Lieutenant Nigel Graves, First Division,’ Brackett whispered before leaving.
‘From Chatham?’ Hugh asked, putting his lips close to the man’s ear.
‘Aye, sir. Serving on … Relentless.’ It took ages for him to get out the words.
‘A regular mauling?’ he asked, his voice soft. ‘Take your time, Lieutenant. We have all day.’ He didn’t; the Lieutenant didn’t. It was a serviceable lie; both knew it.
Lieutenant Graves tried to sit up. Hugh slipped his arm under the young man’s neck. ‘What were you doing?’
‘Trying to land at Vigo.’
‘A one-ship operation?’
‘Four ships, sir.’ He sighed, his exasperation obvious. ‘We didn’t know each other! Who was in charge when the Major died?’ He closed his eyes. ‘It was a disaster, sir. We should have been better.’
Hugh could tell he wanted to say more, but Lieutenant Graves took that moment to die. Hugh gently lowered him to the cot. He was still sitting there when Owen Brackett returned, enquired about the time of death from him, and wrote it on the chart.
‘A botched landing at Vigo,’ Hugh said. ‘Uncoordinated Marines working against each other, when all they wanted to do was fight! I’ve heard this before.’
‘It makes you angry,’ Owen said.
‘Aye.’ Hugh smoothed down the Lieutenant’s hair. ‘Each company on each vessel is a well-oiled machine, because we train them that way. Put one hundred of them on a ship of the line, and you have a fighting force. Try to coordinate twenty-five here or fifteen there from three or four frigates operating in tandem, and it can be a disaster.’
The surgeon nodded. ‘All they want to do is their best. They’re Marines, after all. We expect no less.’
Hugh thought about that as he took the footbridge back over the stream to the administration building of the Third Division. He was never late to anything, but he was late now.
The meeting was in the conference room on the first floor. He stopped outside the door, hand on knob, as a good idea settled around him and blew away the fug. Why could someone not enquire of the Marines at war how they saw themselves being used in the Peninsula?
‘You’re late, Colonel Junot,’ his Colonel Commandant snapped.
‘Aye, my lord. I have no excuse.’
‘Are those stains on your uniform sleeve?’
Everyone looked. Hugh saw no sympathy. ‘Aye, my lord.’
Perhaps it was his gout; Lord Villiers was not in a forgiving mood. ‘Well? Well?’
‘I was holding a dying man and he had a head wound, my lord.’
His fellow Marine officers snapped to attention where they sat. It might have been a tennis match; they looked at the Commandant, as if on one swivel, then back at Hugh.
‘Explain yourself, sir,’ Lord Villiers said, his voice calmer.
‘I visited Stonehouse, my lord.’ He remained at attention. ‘Colonel, I know you have an agenda, but I have an idea.’
Chapter One
Lord Villiers liked the idea and moved on it promptly. He unbent enough to tell Hugh, as he handed him his orders, ‘This smacks of something I would have done at your age, given your dislike of the conference table.’
‘I, sir?’
‘Belay it, Colonel Junot! Don’t bamboozle someone who, believe it or not, used to chafe to roam the world. Perhaps we owe the late Lieutenant Graves a debt unpayable. Now take the first frigate bound to Portugal before I change my mind.’
Hugh did precisely that. With his dunnage stowed on the Perseverance and his berth assigned—an evil-smelling cabin off the wardroom—Hugh had dinner with Surgeon Brackett on his last night in port. Owen gave him a letter for Philemon Brittle, chief surgeon at the Oporto satellite hospital, and passed on a little gossip.
‘It’s just a rumour, mind, but Phil seems to have engineered a billet for his sister-in-law, a Miss Brandon, at his hospital. He’s a clever man, but I’m agog to know how he managed it, if the scuttlebutt is true,’ Brackett said. ‘Perhaps she is sailing on the Perseverance.’
‘Actually, she is,’ Hugh said, accepting tea from Amanda Brackett. ‘I’ve already seen her.’
‘She has two beautiful sisters, one of whom took leave of her senses and married Phil Brittle. Perhaps your voyage will be more interesting than usual,’ the surgeon teased.
Hugh sipped his tea. ‘Spectacles.’
‘You’re a shallow man,’ Amanda Brackett said, her voice crisp.
Hugh winced elaborately and Owen laughed. ‘Skewered! Mandy, I won’t have a friend left in the entire fleet if you abuse our guests so. Oh. Wait. He’s a Royal Marine. They don’t count.’
Hugh joined in their laughter, at ease with their camaraderie enough to unbend. ‘I’ll have you know I took a good look at her remarkable blue eyes, and, oh, that auburn hair.’
‘All the sisters have it,’ Amanda said. ‘More ragout?’
‘No, thank you, although I am fully aware it is the best thing I will taste until I fetch the Portuguese coast in a week or so.’ He set down his cup. ‘Miss Brandon is too young to tempt me, Amanda. I doubt she is a day over eighteen.’
‘And you are antiquated at thirty-seven?’
‘I am. Besides that, what female in her right mind, whatever her age, would make a Marine the object of her affection?’
‘You have me there, Colonel,’ Amanda said promptly, which made Owen laugh.
