temporarily to help her mother with work for a forthcoming county wedding.
They would surely notice the change in the girl. She had become confident, almost worldly. As I once was at that age.
She was aware now of Sillitoe’s expression; ever alert, he seemed suddenly apprehensive, before he regained his habitual self-assurance. She followed his eyes and felt the chill on her spine. The carriage door bore the fouled anchors of Admiralty, and there was a sea officer standing beside it, speaking with Sillitoe’s secretary.
So many times. Messages, orders, letters from Richard. But always the dread.
“What is it?”
He waited for a servant to run up and open the door for her. Afterwards, she thought it had been to give himself time.
He said, “I shall not keep you. The Admiralty still needs me, it would appear.” But his eyes spoke differently.
Marlow accompanied her into the house and guided her to the library, where she had always waited for Sillitoe.
“Is something wrong?”
The secretary murmured, “I fear so, m’ lady,” and withdrew, closing the tall doors.
She heard voices, the sound of hooves; the visitor had departed without partaking of hospitality. Sillitoe drank little, but always remembered those to whom the gesture was welcome.
He came into the library and stood looking at her without speaking, then, without turning his head, he called, “Some cognac.”
Then he crossed the room and took her hand, gently, without emotion.
“The Admiralty has just received news on the telegraph from Portsmouth. There has been a fight between one of our frigates and two pirates.”
Without being told, she knew it was Unrivalled, and that there was something more.
Sillitoe said, “Lieutenant George Avery, my nephew and Sir Richard’s aide, was killed.” He remained silent for a moment, then said, “Captain Adam Bolitho was injured, but not badly so.”
She stared past him, at the trees, the misty sky. The river. The war was over. Napoleon was a prisoner, and probably even now being conveyed to some other place of internment. And yet, although it was over, it was not yet over; the war was here, in this quiet library.
Sillitoe said, “George Avery was your friend also.” And then, with sudden bitterness, “I never found the time to know him.” He gazed at the window. “I see him now, leaving to rejoin Sir Richard when I wanted him to stay with me. I do believe that he felt sorry for me.” He waved his hand, and the gesture seemed uncharacteristically loose and vague. “All this-and his loyalty came first.”
The door opened and Guthrie placed a tray and the cognac on a table, glancing at Catherine. She shook her head, and the door closed again.
Sillitoe took the glass, and sat in one of the uncomfortable chairs.
“He was coming home, damn it. It was what we both needed. What we both fought! ”
She looked around, feeling the silence, as if the great house were holding its breath.
Adam was safe. There would be a letter from him as soon as it was possible. In the meantime, he was at sea, in the one element he knew and trusted. Like James Tyacke.
She walked past the chair, her mind suddenly quite clear, with that familiar sensation of detachment.
She put her hand on his shoulder and waited for him to turn his head, to look at the hand, and then at her.
As she had been, defenceless.
She said softly, “My Spanish is not so perfect, Paul.” She saw the light returning to his eyes, and did not flinch as he took both her hands and kissed them. “Perhaps… we can both find ourselves again.”
He stood, and then held her fully against his body, for the first time.
He said nothing. There were no words.
Eventually there was a gentle tap on the door, and Marlow’s voice. Unreal.
“Is there anything I can do, m’ lord?”
She answered for him. “Tell William to put away the carriage, please. It will not be required again today.”
It was done.
Bryan Ferguson hurried into the kitchen and all but slammed the door behind him.
He looked at his friend, seated in the chair he always occupied when he visited them, the familiar stone bottle on the table.
“Sorry to have left you so long, old friend. I’m bad company today.” He shook his head as Allday pushed the bottle towards him. “I think not, John. Her ladyship might think badly of the ‘servants’ having a wet!”
Allday watched him thoughtfully.
“She changed much?”
Ferguson walked to the window and stared at the stable yard, giving himself time to consider it. The smart carriage was as before, and Young Matthew was talking to the coachman. He smiled sadly. Young Matthew, the Bolitho household’s senior coachman. Filling out now, and a little stooped. But he had always been called “young,” even after his father had died.
He said, “Yes. More than I thought.” It stuck in his throat. Like a betrayal.
Allday said it for him. “High an’ mighty, is she? Thought so, when I last seen her.”
Ferguson said, “She walks from room to room with that damned lawyer, making notes, asking questions, treating my Grace like she’s a kitchen maid! Can’t understand it!”
Allday sipped the rum. It, at least, was good. “I can remember when Lady Bolitho was no more’n a paid companion to the wife of some bloody-minded old judge! She may have looked like Sir Richard’s wife, but it went no deeper. That’s it an’ all about it!”
Ferguson only partly heard. “As if she owns the place!”
Allday said, “Young Cap’n Adam’s away, Bryan, an’ there’s only the lawyers to fight over it. It’s nothin’ to them.”
Ferguson touched his empty sleeve, as he often did when he was upset, although he was not aware of it.
“She asked about the sword.” He could not stop himself now. “When I told her that Lady Catherine had given it to Captain Adam, like Sir Richard had intended, all she said was, she had no right!” He looked at his oldest friend. “Who had any better right, eh? God damn them, I wish she was back in the house where she belongs!”
Allday waited. It was worse than he thought, worse than Unis had warned him it might be. “She done the right thing to stay away while this is goin’ on, an’ you knows it. How would it look, that’s what a lot of people would say. A sailor’s woman, but she got pride too, an’ that’s no error! Look what happened to Lady Hamilton. All the promises and the smiles came to naught. Our Lady Catherine’s not like any of ’em. I know, I seen her in that damned boat after the wreck, an’ other times, the two o’ them laughin’ and walkin’ together, just like you have. We’ll not see the likes o’ them again, you mark me well!”
Ferguson felt the empty sleeve again. “Seemed to think I was getting past my duties here. That’s how it sounded to me anyway. God damn it, John, I don’t know anything else!”
“It’s all written down. Your position here is safe. Sir Richard took care o’ that, like he did for everyone else.” He looked away suddenly. “’Cept for himself, God rest him.”
Ferguson sat at the table. Sir Richard had always called Allday his oak, and suddenly he understood, and was grateful for it.
He said in a calmer voice, “An’ then she went into the big room, their room.” He gestured towards the house. “She told the lawyer that Sir Richard’s picture should be down with all the others of the family. The ones of Cheney and Catherine she said could be removed as far as she was concerned.”
Allday asked, “She stayin’ overnight?”
“No. Plymouth. With Vice-Admiral Keen.”
Allday nodded sagely, his head shaggy in the reflected sunshine. He enjoyed his visits here. One of the family, he had always described it, until good fortune had offered him Unis, and the little inn in Fallowfield.
“I hopes that one’ll be on the lookout for squalls!”
A stable boy thrust his head around the door, but hesitated when he saw Allday, who had become something of a legend around Falmouth since Sir Richard Bolitho’s last battle.
Ferguson said, “What is it, Seth?”
