For a moment he stared at them and they at him.
Then Hugo Cheverly exclaimed aloud.
“Charles! You are the last person I expected to see here! How have you come?”
“By one of His Majesty’s ships of the line, as it happens,” he replied and advanced further into the room to clasp his friend’s hand.
“But all that is wonderful,” Hugo Cheverly declared, “you are sent from Heaven itself! That is just what we need at the moment, a ship to carry us back to England. Camilla, let me present Sir Charles Fotheringdale, an old friend of mine. We served in the Peninsula War together. And let me tell you, Charles, there is no one I would rather at this moment ask to oblige me by acting as my Best Man.”
“Your Best Man!” Sir Charles expostulated, having bowed to Camilla. “You are about to be wed? My dea
