“How long will your repair take, d’ you think?”
Adam looked at him and smiled thinly.
“We did much of it after the fight.” He considered it, seeing the dangling cordage, the limping wounded, the canvas bundles going over the side. “A week.”
Marlow waved one hand. “Give him all the help you can…” He pointed at the table. “That despatch from the Admiralty, where is it?”
Adam relaxed very slowly. The real reason for his visit. Not to congratulate or to crucify him. That was Bethune’s domain. Marlow had not even mentioned his use of the prisoners to fill the gaps in Unrivalled’s company.
Marlow put his glass down with great care and took some papers from his flag captain.
“You are instructed to take passengers when you return to Malta. Sir Lewis Bazeley and his party, of some importance, I gather. It is all explained in the orders.”
Captain Pym said hastily, “Because of the danger from corsairs and other renegades, a man-of-war is the only safe option.” He gave a tight smile. “As your own recent fight against odds has proved. I am sure that Vice-Admiral Bethune would have chosen your ship, had he been consulted.”
Adam found he could return the smile. He could understand why Pym was a flag captain.
“Anything else?” Marlow stared at him. “Now is the time to ask.”
“I have a midshipman named Bellairs, sir. He is due for examination shortly, but in the meantime I would like to rate him acting-lieutenant, and pay him accordingly. He has done extremely well during this commission.”
He had not seen Marlow all aback before, and neither, he suspected, had Pym.
“Bellairs? Has he family? Connections?”
“He is my senior midshipman, sir. That is all that concerns me.”
Marlow seemed vaguely disappointed.
“You deal with it.” He turned away, dismissing him. “And, er-good fortune, Captain Bolitho.”
The door closed behind them.
Pym grinned widely. “That was damned refreshing! Leave it with me!”
He was still grinning when the calls trilled again, and Adam lowered himself into the waiting gig.
“Bear off forrard! Give way all!”
Bellairs stood to watch a passing trader, ready to warn them away if they came too near.
Adam said, “By the way, Mr Bellairs, you will be moving shortly.”
Bellairs forgot his poise in the captain’s gig, and said, “Move, sir? But I hoped to…”
Adam watched Jago’s face over the midshipman’s shoulder.
“To the wardroom.”
It was only a small thing, after all. But it made it seem very worthwhile.
Catherine, Lady Somervell, moved slightly in her seat and tilted her wide-brimmed straw hat to shade her eyes from the sun. With the windows all but closed it was hot, and her gown was damp against her skin.
The City of London had never featured largely in her life, and yet in the past few months she had come here several times. It was always busy, always teeming. The carriage could have been open, but she was constantly aware of the need for discretion, and had noticed that the coachman never seemed to use the same route; today, as on those other visits, the vehicle was unmarked, never the one Sillitoe had been using on the day of the service at St Paul ’s. She had seen the cathedral this morning, dominating its surroundings as it had on that day, which she would never forget nor wanted to relinquish.
She looked at the passing scene; the carriage was moving slowly in the congestion of the road. Grey-faced offices, one of which she had visited with Sillitoe when he had kept an appointment with some shipping agent; she had been politely entertained in another room.
There were stalls here, flowers and fruit, someone elsewhere making a speech, another drawing a crowd with a performing monkey.
Now they were returning to Sillitoe’s house in Chiswick. Never once had he forced his presence on her, but he was always ready to help her, to escort her, or if necessary to give his opinion on her decisions for the immediate future.
She glanced at him now, on the seat opposite, frowning slightly as he leafed through yet another sheaf of papers. His mind was ever agile, ever restless. Like their last visit to Sir Wilfred Lafargue at Lincoln’s Inn. He was a lawyer of repute, but when he and Sillitoe were together they were more like conspirators than legal adviser and client.
She thought of the letter she had received from Captain James Tyacke, a concise, unemotional account of why marriage to the woman he had once loved had proved impossible. It had saddened her, but she had understood his reasons, and the sensitivity he would never reveal. A man who had been utterly withdrawn, almost shy, when he had been forced to leave the only world he understood; she was proud to call him her friend, as he had been Richard’s. Perhaps for him the sea was the only solution, but it was not, and never could be, an escape.
She realised that Sillitoe was looking at her, as he often did, when he believed she did not know.
“I have to go to Spain.” Calmly said, as was his habit, but not the same. This was a mood she had not seen or sensed before.
“You said that it was possible.”
He smiled. “And I asked you if you would come with me.”
“And I told you that there has been enough damage done already because of me. And you know that is true.”
She averted her eyes to look at a passing vehicle, but saw only her reflection in the dusty glass.
Sillitoe’s sphere of influence encompassed both politics and trade, although he was no longer Inspector- General. The Prince Regent, who was notorious for his infidelities, had feared whatever stain a liaison between his adviser and confidante and the admiral’s whore might cast on his reputation as the future monarch. She felt the old, familiar bitterness. The men in power with their mistresses and their homosexual lovers were forgiven if their affairs were kept separate from rank and authority, and were not conducted where they might offend the royal eye.
She had rarely seen Sillitoe reveal anger. A week ago, a cruel cartoon had appeared in the Globe. It had depicted her standing nude and looking at ships below in a harbour. The caption had been, Who will be next?
She had seen his anger then. There had been apologies. Someone had been dismissed. But it was there all the same. Hate, envy, malice.
Perhaps even the Prince’s courtiers had had a hand in it.
She recalled Lafargue’s advice on Belinda, Lady Bolitho. Never underrate the wrath of an unloved woman.
Sillitoe said, “You need security, Catherine. And protection. I can offer you both. My feelings remain unchanged.” He glanced round, frowning as a gap appeared in the buildings and the river was revealed. Masts and loose, flapping sails. Arriving and departing; sailors from every corner of the world. She wondered briefly if the coachman, who seemed to know London like the back of his own hand, had been ordered to avoid ships and sailors also.
She looked at him again. His face was tense, his mind obviously exploring something which troubled him.
He said, “You could stay at my house. You would not be molested by anything or anybody, my staff would see to that.” As he had said when someone had carved the word whore on the door of her Chelsea house.
He said abruptly, “There is always danger. I see it often enough.”
“And what would people say?”
He did not answer her directly, but the hooded eyes seemed calmer.
“If you come to Spain, you may be yourself again. I go first to Vigo, where I must see some people, and then on to Madrid.” He laid the papers aside and leaned forward. “You like Spain, you speak the language. It would be a great help to me.” He reached out and took her hand. “I should be a very proud man.”
She gently withdrew the hand, and said, “You are a difficult man to refuse. But I must confront whatever future remains for me.”
She heard the coachman making his usual clucking sounds to the horses, a habit she had noticed whenever they were approaching the Chiswick house. The journey had passed, and now she must do something, say something; he had done so much to help, to support her in the aftermath of Richard’s death.
There was another vehicle in the drive. So he had known she would refuse; the carriage was waiting to take her to Chelsea, a lonely place now without her companion Melwyn, whom she had sent back to St Austell
