Darkening Sea (6 page)

She touched his face. “You are worrying again. You hate this inaction, don't you?” She moved her hand across his mouth. “Do not protest, Richard. I know you so well!”

They heard the street bell jangle through the open door and Sophie's merry laugh as she spoke to someone.

Catherine said, “She is seventeen now, Richard. A good catch for the right man.”

“You treat her more like a daughter than a maid. I've watched you often.”

“Sometimes she reminds me of myself at her age.” She looked away. “I would not want her to endure such a life as that!”

Bolitho waited. Like Adam, she would tell him one day.

Sophie appeared at the top of the steps. “A letter, me lady.” She glanced at Bolitho. “For Sir Richard.”

He tried to imagine Catherine at sixteen, as Sophie had been when she had been taken into the household. Like Jenour she seemed to have matured suddenly after the open boat and their experiences at the hands of the mutineers.

She gave the square envelope to Bolitho. “Nice young officer it was, me lady. From the Admiralty.”

Catherine recognised the card in Bolitho's sunburned hands. It was a beautifully etched invitation, with a crest at the top.

“From Hamett-Parker. A reception to mark his appointment. His Majesty will be in attendance, apparently.” He felt the anger mounting inside him, and when she took the card from his hand she understood why. She was not invited.

She knelt down by him. “What do you expect, Richard? Whatever we think or do, others will believe it improper.”

“I'll not go. I'll see them all damned!”

She watched his face and saw something of Adam there, and the others in the portraits at Falmouth. “You must go. To refuse would be an insult to the King himself. Have you thought of that?”

He sighed. “I'll lay odds that somebody else has.”

She looked at the address on the card. “St James's Square. A
very
noble establishment, I believe.”

Bolitho barely heard. So it was beginning all over again. A chance to isolate one from the other, or to eagerly condemn them if Bolitho chose to take her with him.

“I wonder if Sillitoe will be there?”

“Probably. He seems to have many irons in the fire.”

“But you quite like him.”

He thought she was teasing him to take his mind off the invitation; but she was not.

“I am not sure, Kate.”

She laid her head on his lap and said softly, “Then we shall wait and see. But be sure of one thing, dearest of men. He is no rival—nobody could be that.”

He kissed her bare shoulder and felt her shiver. “Oh, Kate, what should I be without you?”

“You are a man. My man.” She looked up at him, her eyes very bright. “And I am your woman.” Her mouth puckered and she exclaimed, “And that's no error!” Then she relented. “Poor Allday, what must he have thought?”

She recovered her roses and added evenly, “They may try to discredit me through you, or the other way round. It is a game I know quite well.” She touched her shoulder where he had kissed it and her expression was calm again, faraway. “I shall accept Zenoria's invitation to visit Hampshire.” She saw the sudden cloud cross his face. “Only for that day. It will be a wise precaution. Trust me.”

They went into the house, where they heard Sophie talking with the cook in the kitchen.

She looked at him, smiling faintly when she said, “I think I strained my back.” She saw his understanding and added, “Perhaps you could be the navigator again and explore it?”

Later as she lay in his arms she whispered, “Sometimes, dearest of men, you have to be reminded of what is important . . .” She arched her back as he touched her again.

“And what is not . . .” The rest was lost in their embrace.

4
S
TRATEGY

C
APTAIN
Adam Bolitho reined the big grey to a halt and stared across a flint wall towards the great house. The wall was new, probably one of the many being built by French prisoners of war, he thought. He stroked the horse's mane while he gazed at the rolling Hampshire countryside with its air of timeless peace, so different from his home county where the sea was rarely out of sight.

People had glanced at him curiously as he had ridden through villages, following the old coaching road. A sea officer was obviously rare in these parts, while the military were only too common.

He looked at his hand and extended it in the hot sunshine. It was quite steady, untroubled. He almost laughed at himself. He felt far from either, and doubted more than ever the wisdom of his having come here.

Anemone
lay at Spithead awaiting orders, but he was so short of hands after the port admiral had insisted on transferring some of his men “to more deserving vessels” that the frigate would not move for a few more days. As he had expected he had lost his senior lieutenant Peter Sargeant. It had been a sad parting but Adam had not hesitated, knowing too well how important it was to grasp the chance of promotion, in Sargeant's case the command of a fleet schooner. You rarely got a second opportunity in the navy.

Aubrey Martin, the second lieutenant, had moved up, and they were hourly expecting another junior officer and some midshipmen. Having lost some of his most seasoned warrant officers to the needs of the fleet as well as his first lieutenant and good friend, Adam knew it would be a long haul to regain
Anemone
's status as a crack frigate with a company to match.

The captain of the dockyard had discovered that he was going for a ride, if only to free himself from the constant stream of orders and requests which were the lot of every captain under the watchful eye of a flag officer. The captain had received two letters for Valentine Keen, which had followed him from the flagship
Black Prince
in the West Indies and had eventually arrived in Portsmouth.

The dockyard captain had commented dryly, “One is from his tailor, same as mine in London. I'd know that skinflint's scrawl anywhere. But you never know.” He added helpfully, “Nice canter anyway.”

That at least was true. The powerful grey had been loaned to him by a major of marines at the barracks, an officer who was apparently so well supplied with horses that he would have had to serve for a hundred years in the Corps to pay for them if he depended on his service allowance alone.

Adam studied the house again. About five miles to the east of Winchester at a guess, and not many villages nearby. Five miles—it could be ten times that, he thought.

But why was he here? Suppose Keen suspected something, or Zenoria had blurted out the truth. He made himself face it without embroidering the facts. He had taken her. A moment of despairing passion when each had thought they had lost someone loved in the
Golden Plover.

He had taken her. Had she refused him he dared not think what might have happened. He would have been ruined, and it would have broken his uncle's heart. Of her they would have said, no smoke without fire. The easy way for the liars and the doubters.

He often remembered his fury when he had heard the stranger at the inn insulting the Bolitho name. Each time he'd come to the same desperate conclusion.
I nearly killed him. Another instant and I would have done it.

You fool. Go back while you can.
Even as he thought it his heels dug into the grey's flanks and he was trotting down a slope towards the tall gates, each with a bronze stag on the top. The family was very rich and influential, and Keen's father was known to think his son mad for remaining in the navy when he could have almost any career he wanted.

An old gardener was stooping amongst flower beds, his barrow nearby. Adam touched his hat as he rode up the sweeping drive, and noticed that there was a long fowling piece propped against the barrow. This place must be very isolated, servants or not, he thought. How would an untamed girl like Zenoria settle to this after Cornwall's wild coastline?

The house was even larger and more imposing than he had imagined. Pillars, a magnificent portico adorned with carvings of lions and strange beasts, and steps clean enough to eat from.

He would have smiled but for his inner tension. The old grey house at Falmouth was shabby by comparison. A place that welcomed you. Where you could live.

A small, wizened man darted from somewhere and held the reins while Adam dismounted.

“Give him some water. I shall not be long.” The man nodded, his face completely blank.

He did not turn away from the house as the man led the big horse around the corner of the building. He thought his nerve would break if he did.

One of the paired doors swung inwards even before he could reach it, and a prim-looking woman with keys at her waist stood facing him without warmth.

“Captain Adam Bolitho, ma'am. I have letters for Captain Keen.” Or was he already promoted to flag rank?

“Are you expected, sir?”

“No. Not exactly.” Used to sailors jumping to his every command, he was taken aback by her chilling tone.

She remained firmly in the centre of the doorway. “Captain Keen is away, sir.” She may have considered telling him where he was, but changed her mind. “Will you leave a message?”

There were voices and then he heard Zenoria call, “What is it, Mrs Tombs?”

Adam felt his heart beating faster. The housekeeper was aptly named.

The door opened wide and she was there, staring at him. She wore a simple flowered gown and her dark hair was piled above her ears. Her only adornments were some pearl earrings and a pendant, which he guessed was worth a small fortune. He did not quite know what he had been expecting, but she looked like a child dressing up in adult's clothing. Playing a part.

“I am sorry, er, Mrs Keen, I have some letters.” He fumbled for them, but his cuff caught on the short fighting sword he always favoured. “My ship is still at Portsmouth. I thought—”

The forbidding housekeeper asked, “Is everything in order, ma'am?”

“Yes.” Zenoria tossed her head as he had seen her do when her hair had hung down like glossy silk. “Why should it not be?”

“Very well, ma'am.” She stood back to allow the newcomer to enter. “If you require anything . . .” She glided away soundlessly on the marble floor but her words remained like a warning.

Zenoria stared at him for several seconds. “You know you are not welcome here,
Captain.
” She glanced around as if afraid someone would hear. But the house was completely silent, as if it were listening. Watching.

“I am so sorry. I shall go directly.” He saw her draw back as he took a pace towards her. “Please. I didn't mean to offend you. I thought your husband would be here.” He was losing her, even before he had made any contact.

She was very composed, dangerously so. “He is in London. At the Admiralty. He will be back this evening.” Her eyes blazed. “You should not have come. You must know that.”

A door opened and closed discreetly and she said, “Come into the library.”

She walked ahead of him, very erect and small in this great cathedral of a house.
The girl with moonlit eyes,
as his uncle had called her.

There were books piled in little heaps on a table. She said in an almost matter-of-fact voice, “All mine. Waiting for our new house when it is ready for us.” She stared at the tall windows where a bee was tapping on the glass. “They are so kind to me here . . . but I have to
ask.
I have no carriage and I am told not to ride alone. There are footpads and they say deserters always close by. It is like the desert!”

Adam thought of the gardener and his musket. “When will you leave here?” He barely dared to speak.

She shrugged. Even that sent a pain to his heart. “This year, next year—I am not sure. We will live near Plymouth. Not Cornwall, but close. In truth I find this life daunting. The family is away in London for the most part, and Val's youngest sister never wants to leave the baby alone.”

Adam tried to remember the sister. She was the one who had lost her husband at sea.

“I see nobody. Only when Val comes back can I . . .” She seemed to realise what she was saying and exclaimed, “And what of you? Still the gallant hero? The scourge of the enemy?” But the fire refused to kindle.

He said, “I think of you so much I am almost beside myself.” A shadow passed the window and he saw a girl carrying the baby across a neatly trimmed lawn. “It's so little,” he said.

“You are surprised, are you? You thought perhaps he might be older—even your own son?”

She was taunting him, but when he turned towards her he saw the real tears in her eyes.

“I wish to God he were mine. Ours!”

He heard his horse being led to the front of the house again. The housekeeper would feel happier if he left without further delay. She would likely tell Keen about his visit.

He laid the two letters on the table. “For your husband. They were my key to your door. But I failed . . .”

“What did you expect? That I would take you to my bed merely because it is you, because you always get what you want?”

He picked up his hat and pushed his unruly hair from his forehead. He did not see her start at the familiar gesture. “I wanted only you, Zenoria.” It was the first time he had spoken her name here. “I did not have the right, or the courage to tell you that I loved you.”

She pulled a silk bell-cord. “Please go.” She watched him move to the library door, her figure very still. “Perhaps God will forgive both of us, but I can never forgive you.”

The door closed, and for several minutes she stood quite still until she heard a groom calling out his thanks to the young captain for the coins that had been put into his hand. Only then did she take a small book from one of the piles, and after a further hesitation she opened it. Pressed in the middle were a pair of wild roses, now as flat as silk. He had given them to her on that ride, on his birthday. She said to the silent room, “And I loved
you,
Adam. I always will.”

Then she dried her eyes and adjusted her gown before going to the double doors and out into the sunshine.

The old gardener was still working unhurriedly. Only his barrow and musket had moved. Along the drive and through the gates she could see the road. It was empty. As if none of it had happened.

She heard the child crying, the placating sounds from Val's sister, who had wanted one of her own.

All was as it had been before. But she knew she had just lost everything.

Bolitho paused by the ballroom's pillared entrance, using the time it took for a bewigged footman to notice him to accustom his own eyes to the light.

The footman had a reedy voice, and he thought it unlikely that anyone heard his announcement above the scrape of violins from an orchestra and the great din of voices. It was certainly a very impressive house in fashionable St James's Square, “noble” as Catherine had aptly described it, and far too large for Hamett-Parker alone. The admiral had lost his wife in a hunting accident, but had certainly retained a liking for lavish living. Bolitho had also noticed a marble statue of a centurion in the entrance hall, and had realised then that it had been put there by the house's original owner, Admiral Anson, to commemorate his own flag-ship of that name.

Footmen and some Royal Marines pressed into service to assist them laboured through the throng. There were red coats and the scarlet of the marines, but the navy's blue and white made up the majority of guests: there were very few below the rank of post-captain. Of His Majesty there was no sign, and Bolitho had heard that he quite often failed to attend such receptions even though he was reminded of them by his long-suffering staff.

He felt a prickle of annoyance as he saw the large number of women present. Some might be wives: some, with their bold glances and barely-covered bosoms, were unlikely guests. But they did not count because nobody cared. If any ordinary officer were having an affair others would merely ignore it. But if Catherine had been on his arm, looking as she did on these rare occasions, you could have heard a pin drop, and every eye would be staring.

Someone took his hat and was lost amongst the crowd. Another, a Royal Marine, reached him with a tray and turned it carefully towards him. Bolitho glanced at him questioningly and the marine said in a conspiratorial whisper, “That's the good stuff, Sir Richard.” He nearly winked. “I'm proud to be servin' you. Wait till I tells the lads!”

Bolitho sipped the wine. It
was
good. Cold too, surprisingly enough. “Do I know you?”

The man grinned, as if such things were impossible. “Bless you, no, Sir Richard. I was one o'
Benbow
's after-guard when you came for us.” His face was suddenly grim. “I'd bin wounded, y'see, otherwise I'd 'ave bin lyin' dead with all me mates.”