I would never forgive myself otherwise.'
Catherine reached out and pressed her arm. 'Sweet Nancy, you are all responsibilities today! I shall think about it…' She turned as her maid entered the room. 'What is it, Sophie?'
'A letter, me lady. The boy just brought it.'
Nancy watched her as she took the letter and saw her eyes mist over as she quickly scanned the handwriting.
'I shall leave, Catherine. It is no moment to share…'
Catherine opened the letter and shook her head. 'No, no-it is from Adam.' The handwriting was unfamiliar, and yet similar. It was a short impetuous letter, and somehow typical of him: she could see his grave dark features as he had written it, from Portsmouth it appeared, no doubt with his Anemone coming to life all around him as she completed storing and made ready for sea.
He wrote, 'You have been much in my mind of late, and I would that I had been free to speak with you as we have done in the past. There is no one else with whom I can share my thoughts. And when I see what you have done for my beloved uncle I am all gratitude and love for you.' The rest of the letter was almost formal, as if he were composing a report for his admiral. But he ended like the young man who had grown up in war. 'Please remember me to my friends at Falmouth, and to Captain Keen's wife should you see her. With affectionate regard, Adam.' She folded it as if it were something precious.
Nancy said, 'What is it?'
'It seems that the French are out. The foul weather was their friend, not ours… Adam is ordered to the West Indies with all haste.'
'How do they know with such certainty that the French are heading there?'
'They know.' She stood up and walked back to the window. Two grooms were reharnessing a fine pair of horses to the phaeton, and as the snow drifted down on them they flicked their ears with obvious displeasure.
Nancy came up beside her and put her arm around her waist. Afterwards Catherine thought it could have been the act of a sister.
'So they will all be together again?'
Catherine said, 'I knew in my heart it would happen. We both believe in fate. How else could we have lost each other and then come together again? It was fate.' She turned her head and smiled at her. 'You must be glad that your man has his feet on dry land.'
Nancy looked at her very directly. Her eyes, Catherine thought, were the colour of lavender, opened to the sun, and they did not blink as she said quietly, 'I once thought to become a sailor's wife.' Then she threw her arms around her. 'I am so selfish-'
'That you are not.' She followed her into the adjoining room and picked up the old cloak she sometimes wore when riding; Richard had once taken it to sea with him, in that other world.
Ferguson, muffled against the weather, was talking with the grooms and helped Nancy into the carriage, noting the tears and the brightness of her eyes as he did so.
As the horses thudded across the packed snow Catherine said, 'Do you wish to see me?'
Ferguson followed her through the doors. 'I wondered if there was anything I could do, my lady?'
'Take a glass of something with me.' He looked uneasily at his filthy boots but she waved him down. 'Be seated. I need to talk.'
He watched her as she took two glasses from a cabinet, her hair shining like glass in the firelight. He still could not picture her in a boat with only some ragged survivors for company.
He stiffened as she said over her shoulder, 'You heard about young Miles Vincent, I daresay.'
Did she know of his visit to Roxby? Was that what the squire's wife had been here about?
'Yes, I did hear something. I didn't want to trouble you.' He took the glass gratefully. 'He was put aboard the Ipswich, according to one of the coastguards. She was off to the Caribbean soon afterwards, it seems. But never fear, m'lady, I am sure her captain will deal fairly with the matter.' He hoped it sounded convincing.
Catherine barely heard him. 'The West Indies, you say? It seems everyone is going there, except us. I heard from Captain Adam, you see-he is probably out there off the Lizard at this very moment.'
For the first time Ferguson realised he was drinking brandy. He tried to smile. 'Well, here's to Sir Richard, m'lady, and all our brave fellows!'
She let the cognac run across her tongue like fire.
The French are out. How many times had they heard that? She looked up the staircase where the candlelight flickered on the stern faces of those who had gone from here before, to meet that same challenge. The French are out.
'Oh, dear God, that I was with him now!'
It was, as Ferguson later said to his wife, a cry torn from her heart.
'Land ho!'
Captain Adam Bolitho pressed his hands on the chart and stared at the neat calculations that marked their progress. Beyond the tiny chartroom he knew there would be excitement as the call came from the masthead. Beside him Josiah Partridge, Anemone's bluff sailing-master, watched his young captain's face, noting the pride he obviously felt for his command and at the fast passage they had almost completed. In mid-Atlantic they had met with fierce winds, but the frigate seemed to have a charmed life, and once into the sun they had lost no time in sending down the heavy-duty canvas and replacing it with the lighter sails that seemed to make Anemone fly.
Adam said, 'You've done well, Mr Partridge! I never thought we'd do it. Four thousand miles in seventeen days-what say you about that?'
Old Partridge, as he was called behind his back, beamed at him. Adam Bolitho could be very demanding, perhaps because of his illustrious uncle, but he never spared himself like some. Day and night he had been on deck, more often than not with both watches turned-to while the wind had screamed around them, matched only by the insane chorus of straining rigging and banging canvas.
Then into the friendly north-east trade winds, with the final run across the Western Atlantic where the sunshine had greeted them like heroes. It had been wild and often dangerous, but Anemone's company had come to trust their youthful captain. Only a fool would try to deceive him.
Adam tapped his brass dividers on a small group of islands to the south of Anguilla. French, Spanish and Dutch, often visited by ships sailing alone, but rarely fought over. Those nations, like the English, had far more important islands to protect in order to keep their sea-lanes open, their trade prospering.
'What about this one, Mr Partridge? It is as close to the passage we must take as makes no difference.'
The sailing-master bent over the table, his purple nose barely inches away; Adam could smell the rum but would overlook it. Partridge was the best sailing-master he had ever known. He had served in the navy in two wars, and in between had made his way around the world in everything from a collier brig to a convict ship. If there was to be foul weather he would inevitably inform his captain even before the glass gave any hint of change. Uncharted shallows, reefs which were larger than previous navigators had estimated, it was all part of his sailor's lore. He rarely hesitated, and he did not disappoint Adam now.
'That 'un, zur? That be Bird Island. It's got some fancy dago name, but to me it's always been Bird Island.' His round Devonian accent sounded homely here, and reminded Adam of Yovell.
'Lay off a course. I shall inform the first lieutenant. Lord Sutcliffe will not be expecting us anyway, and I doubt if his lordship would think we could make such a speedy passage even if he were!'
Partridge watched him leave and sighed. What it was to be young. And Captain Bolitho certainly looked that, his black hair all anyhow, a none-too-clean shirt open to the waist-more like someone playing the part of a pirate than a skilled frigate captain.
On the quarterdeck, Adam paused to stare up at the great pyramid of sails, so fresh and bright after the dull skies and patched canvas of the Western Ocean.
Many of the men on deck probably thought they were carrying secret despatches of the greatest importance to the Commander-in-Chief, that he should drive his ship so hard. At one time the great main-yard had been bending like a bow under the wind's powerful thrust, so that even Old Partridge had expected to lose a spar if not the entire mast.
In the whole ship, nobody knew the devil that drove him. Whenever he had snatched time to sleep or bolt down some food, the torment had returned. It was never far away, even now. In his sleep it was worse. Her naked body writhing and slipping from his grip, her eyes angry and accusing as she had pulled away. The dreams left him
