Day of Honor 01_ Ancient Blood - Diane Carey [70]
Grinning happily, Alexander sidled to Picard’s side during this distraction, and uttered, “Is this another relative of mine?”
Glancing down at the boy with a wistful grin of his own, Picard simply said, “Seems so.”
Evidently, the two cousins were not the only ones in the room just discovering long-lost relations. The boy seemed overwhelmed by these human relations suddenly popping up in a life in which human things had seemed the more elusive and Klingon things the most important.
“My God … Sandy, Sandy … Sandy!” Jeremiah finally allowed his cousin to pull him back so they could get a good look at each other. “When—did you get taller? Look at you! My heaven, look at your hair! It’s so light! And you actually fill out that jacket! You never filled out a piece of clothing in all our lives!”
“You always filled yours out mightily well,” the rechristened Sandy chuckled, thumping his cousin’s middle, “and now you’ve worked it off!”
“Starved it off, more like. My God … this is unthinkable! What are you doing here? Why didn’t you write that you were coming?”
“I attempted to do so, but the ship upon which my letter traveled evidently was attacked and sunk. Your little war.”
“Yes, yes …” Coverman pulled away another step, though he kept one hand clasped tightly on Sandy’s elbow, and leaned toward the narrow stairway. “Amy!” he called on a laugh. “Amy, come down! It’s all right! This is our Sandy! Can you believe it?”
A teenaged girl came peeking from the stairwell, her brown hair twisted up under a lace cap, and she was dressed in a day dress even though this was the middle of the night. Apparently the town had indeed been expecting trouble on the water tonight. Jeremiah, Picard noticed now, was also dressed, despite the hour, in a simple linen shirt with long full sleeves, a brown vest, and gray breeches.
Coverman caught the teenaged girl’s hand and pulled her into the room. “This is Amy,” he said, beaming. “My wife.”
Picard almost bolted a protest—the girl could hardly be fifteen years old.
“Sandy … not really?” Amy Coverman’s voice was very soft, far more demure than any female Picard had ever known. She offered her hand to her husband’s cousin. “Mr. Leonfeld, I’m deeply glad you’ve come here!”
“Madam.” Sandy took her hand and bowed at the waist, morphing instantly into that elegant aristocrat who was never far beneath the surface. “My dear cousin,” he added as he looked at her pale young face. “I see, Jeremiah, you’ve transgressed into child-stealing,”
Jeremiah smiled at his very young wife. “Our marriage was arranged by the pastor of our chapel. We were married when Amy turned fourteen. And so lucky a man as I never walked in less than Heaven.”
The girl smiled back, blushing in the candlelight, and Picard could hardly deny the adoration that had evidently survived the wearing away of girlish infatuation.
At the stairs another person appeared, a second woman of thirty or more, pulling behind her a child who seemed, by Picard’s faulty reckoning, to be about four years old. The woman cautiously kept the child, a boy, behind her aproned skirts, but he peeked out at the strangers.
“Pardon me,” Amy Coverman said. “Aunt Mercy, it’s all right to come down. Gentlemen, may I present my mother’s second sister, Mercy Starrett, and her son, Seth Starrett.”
“Madam,” Picard offered.
“Sir,” the other woman said. She was very plump and nervous, wide-eyed at the sight of the strange men, and hid her child behind her skirts even as she entered the room.
“Have you eaten?” Jeremiah Coverman suddenly asked, pumping Sandy Leonfeld’s arm. “How did you get here? Where is your regiment? I can hardly get over that uniform! Cursed if you don’t look like a proper British tyrant in it! And who are these other men?”
“Oh—I beg your pardon.” Leonfeld stepped back and motioned to Picard and the others. “This is Lieutenant Picard of Her Majesty’s Fighting Ship Justina, Midshipman Nightingale, Seamen Bennett and Wollard, and Ship’s Swab Alexander.”
Scowling,