ADAM BOI.ITIi0 lay quite still, for how long he could not tell, counting seconds, waiting, finding himself.
He moved slightly, waiting for the pain to bite into him. It was late, sunset. Ile tried again, and realised that there was a curtain drawn across a window; the sun was still shining, he could see it bringing colour to the bed.
He closed his eyes tightly again, and attempted to fit the pieces together. Ile was in a bed, covered up to his chin by a sheet. His hand explored his body, his side, and the bandages. Different ones, and there was no blood.
As if through a haze he saw his coat hanging from a chair, the buttons glinting dully in the filtered glow.
His hand moved again, touching his skin, damp, but without the terrible pain. And he was naked.
He groped above the sheet to push the hair from his eyes, but someone had already done that for him. It was like seeing a picture at the end of a dark corridor, remembering. The horse trotting steadily into the lane, the vague outline of the old house through a rank of trees. Ile had pulled one foot from its stirrup to lessen the strain, the raw reminder of the wound in his side.
A shadow; it might have been a fox, or even a stoat, but it had taken the horse by surprise. At any other time. But it was not any other time, and he had pitched headlong from the saddle. How long? How long? Ile moved his legs, afraid of losing the fragments of memory. Faces and voices, more pain while he was carried somewhere. He felt the bed beneath him. Then other voices, firm, deliberate fingers. Ile must have fainted again.
But he had not been alone. tie was certain of that. Perhaps O'Beirne had been right about his stubbornness, the admiral, too. Pride is one thing. Conceit is an enemy. He let his head fall back again. He could remember! He listened to the sounds. Some birds, rooks most likely. Voices, not in the yard but somewhere in the house. Perhaps they had already sent word to the ship? He tried to move on to one elbow, the returning memory like a threat.
Only then did he see her figure beside the window. In shadow, but she was watching him, he could sense it. Just as he could recall her being here, with him, in that lost space of time before someone else, a professional, had come to attend him.
'Lowenna?' His voice seemed like an echo in this strange room. He did not see her move, but felt her sit carefully on the bed and take his hand in hers, as he thought he could remember before…
She said, 'Easy, now, Captain. Your wound is dressed. I am sorry you were caused such pain.' He felt the fingers moving in his, as if she were suddenly aware of something. 'I have sent word to your aunt.' She must have sensed his surprise. 'She told me I could call upon her. As a friend.'
More voices, louder now. One was Montagu's. Not yet. Adam said, 'You were with me. I can just recall it. You stayed with me.' He tightened his grip as her hand attempted to pull away. 'No, Lowenna, don't go. You took care of me.' He made another effort and raised his body but she laid the hand on his bare shoulder and pressed him down.
'Please, don't.'
Adam stared at the ceiling. The voices reminded him of the men who had carried him here. When she had stroked his face with the cloth, when he had protested at the blood on her gown.
He gazed at her. Seeing it. Like a word or a sound bringing back a dream. She had stood beside the bed and had dropped the stained gown to the floor. Then she had laid down beside him, dabbing his face with a damp cloth, stiffening when he had reached out for her, and had touched her.
She was looking down at him now, her hair hiding part of her face, lying against his shoulder like warm silk.
She said, 'You kept saying that you wanted to save me. I worried so much-every effort seemed too much for you.' She looked away, the hair now concealing her eyes. 'You wanted to save me. Perhaps you saw me as the captive in the painting. Andromeda?' Her hand touched his mouth. 'Don't say anything. I will think of it like that.'
He said quietly, 'I was coming to see you, Lowenna. Because I wanted to, needed to. But for my horse throwing me, I might have been unable to tell you things. Riding here was madness anyway. I have been at sea too long, I fear…' lie held her hand to his lips. 'And I must go back to it soon.'
She said, 'Your steward is here.'
'Bryan Ferguson?' Remembering what he had told Lieutenant Bellairs. 'But then Falmouth is a small place.'
She did not take her hand away but watched as he kissed it. She could recall the eyes of the men who had come from the inn, and her gown in disarray. It would make a good yarn over a glass or two of ale. She had seen and heard it all before, like the creeping terror which she had fought, year after year…
She removed her hand. 'I never forgot your kiss, my tears, when you left.' And today, here, in this room, she had lain beside him, nude, like one of the poses she performed for Sir Gregory. Which had taught her to fight and defy the shame and disgust, and the faces that turned to stare and condemn her.
He had been lost in pain, but aware of her. His hand had found her, and she had done nothing to prevent it.
She still could not believe it. She had wanted to end it then and there, but her mind had cried out for it to continue.
She must face it. Not merely give in like some innocent child.
She said, 'I must go to London.' She felt his eyes on her. 'Tomorrow.'
Adam said, 'I behaved badly. Abused you, when pain and sickness are no excuse.' He kissed her hand again. 'But I must see you. It was intended, fate if you like. But I have to be with you.'
She saw the smile, the edge of sadness which was lacking in the portrait. She hesitated; this was their last moment alone. 'Perhaps…'
The door opened and Montagu, with Ferguson peering anxiously over his shoulder, strode into the room.
Adam released her hand. Perhaps. It was enough.
John Allday seized his friend's arm and all but pushed him through the doorway into the parlour.
'I'll fetch you a wet meself, Bryan. You sit here-an' I'll want to hear everything about the battle.' He paused in his stride. 'An' you says young Cap'n Adam is all right?'
Bryan Ferguson glanced around the room, at the model of the Hyperion on the table, and Allday's kit of tools beside a rough plan of another fine piece of work.
Unis hurried through to the Long Room but paused to greet him. 'Good to see you again. We're busy today-the new road, y' know.'
Allday shouted from the cellar, 'Only just heard about Unrivalled an' the battle-wouldn't have known anything but for one of the revenue men passin' through! My God, Bryan, what are we here? Six miles from Falmouth? You'd think we was on the other side o' the real world!'
Unis touched his shoulder and carried on with her work, but not before Ferguson had seen the hurt on her pretty features.
He took the mug from Allday and waited for him to settle in another chair.
'I see you've started on Frobisher, then?'
Allday waved a hand. 'Tell me about the battle. Did Unrivalled dish the buggers up? Who were they anyway? Why, in our day…'
Ferguson sipped the rum, recalling all the excitement, but not the sort his old friend wanted to hear. The urgent message from the glebe house, and going over with Young Matthew to collect Captain Adam. Everybody wanted to know about it. Even Lady Roxby had driven over to see her nephew. A surgeon from the garrison had examined and treated him and had offered a few blunt warnings of his own.
'If you were one of my dragoons, sir, I'd have you flogged in front of the troop for your behaviour. What the hell did you expect to happen?'
And he had met the girl, the one who had brought Captain Adam from the town that day when he had got his orders to report back to Plymouth.
He had recognised the change in her, even on so slight an acquaintance. There were rumours about her, how she posed for an artist, no matter that he was one of England's greatest painters to all accounts. His wife Grace had relatives still living in Bodmin, where the girl Lowenna had been horn. Lowenna's family had not approved of the match. Hard-working farming people, and the biggest corn chandlers in that part of the county, they had considered their daughter to be out of her depth marrying a scholar, a man who had never known the demands of bending his
