The Old Vengeful

'Don't worry, Elizabeth!' He exerted himself to reassure her.

'It's a good sign—his inviting you to his home . . . you'll meet his daughter too—a skinny little blonde creature, the image of her mother, and very sharp like both of them ... it means he's not about to peach about those safe deposit boxes of yours to all and sundry, I'd guess—for a start.'

'I thought that remained to be seen,' said Elizabeth guardedly.

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'So it does. But although David's a damned tricky bastard, he's not mean with it. Putting one over on other people is what he enjoys, too—putting one over the Inland Revenue, or whoever deals with death duties . . . that'll appeal to him.' He gave her another quick glance, but this time a fellow-conspiratorial one, which told her that under the skin, and in spite of their publicly abrasive relationship, Paul Mitchell returned the loyalty and regard which David Audley felt for his subordinate—the same thing which had made the survivors of Father's old crew stand in the rain for him in their best suits so recently, in that secret society to which she had never been admitted.

'What's the matter?' Her silence bothered him.

'I have the feeling that I'm being press-ganged, that's all.'

'Hardly that. It's your knowledge we want, you won't be expected to fire the cannon and shin up the mast. And there can't be anything dangerous involved, not this time.'

' 'Can't'? How do you know that? After what's happened already?'

Paul shook his head. 'David wouldn't invite you to his home if he was worried about anything. He's pretty careful that way

—that's why the invitation is reassuring.' He drove in silence for a second or two. 'Surprising maybe ... I admit I find it a little surprising . . . but damn reassuring nevertheless, Elizabeth. So tell me about Number Seven.'

Press-ganged or not—and shanghai'd might be a more dummy3

accurate description for all that had happened to her during the last 24 hours—but press-ganged or shanghai'd or whatever . . . and reassured or not about her own fate and the fate of her inheritance, she had to trust to Paul Mitchell's judgement and David Audley's good faith, even though they were both men outside her experience.

'Where do you want me to begin?'

'Twelve Vengefuls,' said Paul, nodding at the road ahead, on which the homeward- bound Sunday traffic was thickening to slow him up. 'The Armada Vengeful, hanging on to Medina-Sidonia's shirt-tail up the Channel—King Charles's Vengeful, betraying him at Bristol in 1642, and Cromwell's 50-gunner in the First Dutch War, wrecked on the Goodwins . . .—then Pepys' Vengeful, scuppered by the Dutch in the Medway in

'67—then Rooke's Vengeful fighting alongside the Dutch at Gibraltar in 1704—'

Was that his own research, or had he read Father's earlier chapters?

'Then Number Six, protecting our loyal American colonists from the French in '59, but eventually getting wrecked off Cape Hattcras in '81 trying to stop the French helping those revolting Yankee rebels— historical irony, you could call that, I suppose.' He drove in silence for a time. 'Number Eight—

muzzle-loaders versus breech-loaders— I enjoyed Number Eight . . . He had a nice line in scorn, did your father—'the mechanics of incorrect decision-making, brought to a fine art in the mid-Victorian navy'—' he gave her a quick half-look, dummy3

half-nod '—and so to Number Nine—'

But he had missed out Number Seven altogether, thought Elizabeth, staring at the handsome profile.

'The armoured cruiser—'the ugliest Vengeful of them all, and in her day arguably the worst sailer and gun platform in the whole Channel Fleet' . . . But she was also the one that obstinately refused to sink when they used her as a target ship in 1897, wasn't she—'to the surprise and embarrassment of all concerned'—right, Elizabeth?'

Not just a handsome face; though: somehow, between last evening and the moment he'd bounced back into her life, and apart from whatever else he'd done, he'd read those carefully-typed pages closely enough to memorise passages from them accurately.

'Plus my Number Ten, from Jutland, and his Number Eleven, full-fathom-five off Finisterre, or wherever . . . and we don't need to worry about that submarine we gave to the Greeks after the war—we know all about that apparently, and it doesn't signify. So that makes the full Vengeful tally—

right?' Another look, and then the profile again. And with that face and the self-assurance which went with it there would be equally good-looking and assured girl-friends in tow, if not an elegant wife close-grappled, so it was no use making silly pictures just because he was being gentle with her. She was merely business, and his gentleness was common-sense.

'Not quite.' To stifle that foolish ache she tried to dummy3

concentrate on that business. 'You left out Number Seven, of course.'

'But you are going to tell me about her, Elizabeth—don't you remember?'

Elizabeth stared at the road ahead, on which the home-going traffic from the coast was thickening. She wished she was going home with them, even to another lonely evening.

'I remember that we started this conversation yesterday.'

'So we did. But yesterday you weren't exactly brimming with ideas. Quite understandably, in the circumstances, of course.'

'Yes . . . quite understandably . . . since I was brimming with alcohol—administered to loosen my tongue, presumably, rather than my brains?'

That earned her a longer look, a little rueful, mostly apologetic, but with a suggestion of respect which she