nothing else but her.'
'If anything happens to me…'
Bolitho saw her shading her eyes to look at the window, almost as if she had heard his words.
Sillitoe laughed, 'Do not think such thoughts.' The mood left him and he said smoothly, 'Now, the matter of your new flag lieutenant.'
Bolitho barely heard him. 'We are returning to Falmouth.' He shivered. 'How I hate this place, where men's minds are frozen in time.' He looked at him steadily. 'Send him to me at Falmouth with a letter of introduction.'
Sillitoe was watching him curiously. 'Is that all? Then I will attend to it.'
He gazed after Bolitho as he descended the stairs, and he thought he saw him stumble at one shadowed corner.
He called down, 'When you find Baratte again, do not hesitate. Kill him.' Then he was gone.
Later, Bolitho thought it had sounded like something personal.
Bolitho stood by the open doors and looked across the garden to the orchard. The breeze from the sea that cooled his face filled the room behind him with the scent of roses.
A few more days, and then he would retrace the way to Plymouth. He could feel Catherine watching him from beside the empty fireplace. She had tried to hide her own preparations for their parting: new shirts from London, another store of wine from the shop in St. James's Street, which had been sent directly to Plymouth. Ozzard had been packing chests, checking every item, his features giving nothing away. He was always like that now, Bolitho thought, ever since the old Hyper ion had gone down. A man haunted by something, and yet in the open boat after the shipwreck he had been surprisingly strong, tending a dying man, rationing out their wretched portions of food and water, his eyes searching secretly for the remaining mutineer who had been hidden amongst them.
'What about John Allday?'
Bolitho turned towards her. It was as if she had been reading his thoughts.
He said, 'He'll not stay ashore. So wedding, if wedding there is to be, must wait until we return.'
'I'm glad. I shall feel you are safer with him close at hand.' Her dark eyes were full of questions, as they had been when she had found him studying his packet of information from the Admiralty.
'Will it be difficult for you?'
Bolitho sat beside her and held her hand, the one on which she wore his beautiful ring of rubies and diamonds. He had slipped it on to her finger immediately after Keen's wedding at Zennor in the little mermaid's church.
'I shall have Valkyrie. I am being given Triton too.'
'That was Baratte's ship?'
'Aye. It might drive him to do something foolish.' He touched the ring on her finger where she had once worn Somervell's.
'I must ask, Richard. Do you dislike this Captain Trevenen? You may have to rely on him so much.'
He shrugged. 'Our paths have crossed a few times. His father once served with mine I suspect that has the makings of something. He is the kind of captain I might have expected
Hamett-Parker to approve.' He looked up at her eyes, her mouth. 'I will get Anemone also, if their lordships are good to me.' He saw her relief.
'He needs you, Richard.'
He smiled. 'We shall see.'
There was a sound of voices and Grace Ferguson entered, unwilling as ever to disturb them.
'There is an officer to see you, Sir Richard.'
He saw Catherine's hand go to her breast as she whispered, 'From the Admiralty?'
Mrs. Ferguson said, 'A Lieutenant George Avery.'
Bolitho released her hand and stood up. 'Sillitoe's nephew.'
She asked, 'Is it wise? May it not be a ruse to have an aide who will know all your secrets?'
He smiled at her. 'Not all, dearest Kate. If he does not fit, I shall send him back to the Nore.' He added to the housekeeper, 'March him in.'
Catherine said, 'They will all miss you, Richard. They love you so.'
He turned away as the eye smarted again. 'I cannot bear to think on it.'
The lieutenant came in and stared at them. He had obviously travelled by a series of coaches, and looked crumpled and dusty.
Bolitho saw his surprise as he said, 'I am Richard Bolitho. This is Lady Catherine Somervell.' It must be rather a shock, he thought, they were probably far from what Avery was used to. The much-talked of flag officer dressed in an old shirt and breeches, looking more like a gardener than a vice-admiral, and a Knight of the Bath at that. 'Please be seated, Mr. Avery. I will see that you are given refreshment.' He did not even glance at her but heard her go to the door.
'I will arrange it, ' she said.
'Sit down.' He turned slightly so that the bars of the afternoon sunlight should not irritate his eye.
Avery was not quite what he had expected, either. Tall, with thick dark hair which was touched with grey, he seemed old for his rank, older than Adam certainly. Sillitoe had sent the promised letter of introduction, but as was his custom
Bolitho had left it to read after this interview. He would draw his own conclusions first.
'Tell me something of yourself.' He watched the lieutenant's eyes move around the room, absorbing the history of the place, the portraits, the old books through the library door. His face was deeply lined, like that of a man who had suffered and not been able to forget.
'I have been serving as second lieutenant of the Canopus, Sir Richard.' He had a low resonant voice with only a faint accent. West Country, probably Dorset.
He was trying to relax, muscle by muscle, but could not restrain his curiosity, as if he were still surprised to be here.
' Canopus needs a good deal of refitting, Sir Richard. Rot and blockade have taken a toll of the old lady.'
'And before that?'
Bolitho recognised the pain, the sudden look of hopelessness as Avery answered, 'I was in the schooner Jolie, a prize taken from the French two years earlier. We were serving off Biscay when we came upon a Dutch trader working right inshore. We had often used those tactics because she was French-built and usually roused no suspicion.' He said bitterly, 'With our little pop-guns what could we do anyway?' He seemed to recall where he was, and went on quietly, 'I was second-in-command, and the captain was another lieutenant. I liked him but…'
'But?'
Avery looked directly at him and Bolitho saw that his eyes were tawny, very clear like a wild cat's.
'I thought him reckless, Sir Richard.'
Bolitho touched his eye without noticing it. Jolie. It did not mean anything. Perhaps he should have read Sillitoe's letter after all.
Avery had paused, expecting an interruption, a rebuke even, for criticising his commanding officer no matter how junior at the time.
He said, 'We put two shots across the Dutchman and he came up into the wind. The master probably imagined that there was more than one of us.' His face stiffened. There was. The other one was a French corvette. She came around a headland under full sail. We had no chance. We were already close-hauled and on a lee shore, but all my captain said was, 'Two for the price of one.' They were the last words he uttered on this earth. A ball cut him in half even as he waved defiance to the enemy.' He was silent for a moment, then he continued. 'The corvette raked us from bow to stern. Men were falling and dying. I still hear the screams, the pleas for mercy. Then I was hit. As I lay on the deck I could see our people pulling down the flag. If they had fought on, they would all have been killed.'
Bolitho said, 'If you had not been wounded, would you have ordered them to fight on?' Again he watched the pain. It was probably a question Avery had asked himself many times.
Avery said, 'It was about the time of the Peace of Amiens, Sir Richard, when I was taken prisoner. As I was wounded I think the French were glad to release me.' He paused. 'Then I had to face a court-martial.'
Bolitho could see it as if he had been there. The Peace of Amiens had been an excuse for the old enemies to
