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 her 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 flagship 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.'
Bolitho heard someone snap his fingers, and turned to see a captain he did not know beckoning to the marine.
This was one of Thomas Herrick's own marines, a man who thought himself lucky to be alive and recovered from his wound, unlike so many on that terrible day.
He snapped, 'Have you no manners, sir?'
The captain stared at him and at his rank and seemed to sink into the throng like a fish in a pond.
He said, 'Rear-Admiral Herrick was my friend.'
The marine nodded gravely. He had seen the captain flush, then cringe at this man's sharp rebuke. Something else to tell the lads in the barracks.
'I knows it, Sir Richard. Beggin' yer pardon, I think it's wrong to send 'im to New South Wales.'
Bolitho took another goblet from among the good stuff and nodded. Why had he said, 'was my friend'? Was there no hope? Was friendship really dead between them? Herrick had always been a stubborn man, sometimes beyond sense or reason. He could still not accept Bolitho's love for a woman not his wife, even though Catherine had been the only one to stay with Herrick's own beloved Dulcie when she had been dying so horribly of typhus. It was a miracle that Catherine herself had not fallen to the same fate.
He looked through a gap in the crowd and saw Hamett-Parker watching him intently, his pale eyes reflecting the hundreds of candles like chips of glass.
Bolitho walked towards him. The marine had vanished for another tray. Bolitho had smelt brandy on his breath: he had better watch his step if his officer noticed it.
Hamett-Parker bobbed his head. 'I was aware of the charisma they say you possess, Sir Richard. That common fellow was obviously an admirer.'
'I always draw comfort from such men, Sir James. I saw what he and his comrades endured. He and others like him make me very aware of what we owe them in leadership.'
The admiral grunted. 'I'll not deny that. But we must all take care that popularity does not win more friends than leadership.' He glanced around at the noisy crowd. 'Lord Godschale would have approved, don't you think?'
'What has become of him?' He sensed that Hamett-Parker was trying to goad him.
