'No secret is ever safe, Captain Bolitho. Be ready. I think maybe you are the one who can save her. From those four days, and from herself.'
Adam followed him into the sunshine. There was cloud coming in now, blue-grey, from the sea. A change in the weather… He watched his visitor climb up into the saddle. Or an omen?
For a moment longer Montagu sat motionless, then he said, 'Your portrait will he ready very soon. I was told of a few alterations I should make.' It seemed to thrust some of the earlier anxiety aside. 'And I would not wish to annoy your aunt. That rascal Roxhy knew a thing or two when he married her, eh?'
Adam watched the horse until it was through the gates.
He knew Ferguson was loitering nearby; it was something they shared, without truly understanding how or why.
He turned and looked at him, surprised by his own calmness.
'I shall need Young Matthew early tomorrow, Bryan.'
Ferguson nodded. No questions were needed here. He had seen it all too often. And yet this was different in some way.
'I have some letters to write.' He was looking now towards the walled garden, at the roses.
To come home to.
He was ready.
17. The Only Key
Al' THE CLOSE of July, Lord Exmouth's fleet weighed and put to sea. It was an impressive armada, even to the eyes of those who had grown up in war, and Plymouth drew crowds from miles around to watch its departure. Because of indifferent winds it took a whole day for the ships to clear the Sound and take formation upon Queen Charlotte, the flagship. They left behind a powerful sense of anti-climax. For weeks anyone who could scull a dory or lay back on a pair of oars had pulled spectators around the anchored ships. Entertainers, and even a performing bear, had joined with pickpockets and tricksters to make the most of the unusual crowds.
Now, apart from local tradesmen and the usual idlers, Plymouth appeared strangely deserted. In the main anchorage only lifeless and laid-up vessels in ordinary and the hulks closer inshore remained. Except for one anchored frigate, lying apart from all the others, yards crossed, upperworks and rigging alive with seamen as they had been since her return with a hull scarred and blackened from that brief but pitiless encounter. True to his word, the port admiral had sent every spare shipwright and rigger to assist with Unrivalled's hasty overhaul, and now she seemed reborn. Only the experienced eyes of watermen and the old Jacks on the Hoe could see beyond the fresh tar and paint, and the neat patches on much of her canvas.
The carriage stood at the roadside below the wall of a local battery, the paired horses resting after the journey, the hills and the hot sunshine.
The coachman leaned outwards slightly and said, 'Close enough, I think, Miss Lowenna.'
The girl nodded but said nothing. Like all those who worked for Sir Gregory, the coachman was polite, but firm. He had his orders for this expedition, as he would if he had been transporting a valuable painting from one address to another.
He was concerned about the loitering crowds, she thought. Some were looking over now. A smart carriage, a liveried coachman… they were all men. She plucked at her gown; it was hot, and the leather was damp against her body. One of the men raised his hand in a mock salute, and she heard the coachman mutter something under his breath.
You saw them in every seaport. Men who had once served and fought in ships like the frigate now shimmering above her own reflection. They had suffered, lost an arm or a leg; two had patches covering empty eye sockets. And yet they always came to watch. To cling to something which had so injured or disabled them.
It was something no painter could recreate. She thought of the portrait again. The smile, about which Sir Gregory had at first been so adamant. Or was he merely testing her? Sounding out her strength?
Two more men had joined the group by the wall, but stood slightly apart, their clothing marking them out as shipyard workers.
One said, 'She's up an' ready to go, Ben. Tomorrow first thing, if this wind 'olds.'
The other one seemed less certain. 'Under orders, then? I thought she was too badly knocked about when she first came in!'
His companion grinned. 'My father's out there now with the freshwater lighter-she's sailin' right enough. I was talkin' with one of the ropemaker's men. Tells me 'er captain's a real driver! A firebrand to all accounts!'
Some of the others had moved closer to listen. As if they were jealous, she thought.
An older man, walking heavily on a wooden leg, said, ''Er cap'n is Adam Bolitho, matey.'
'You were afore 'is time, eh?'
He ignored the laughter. 'I served under 'is uncle, Sir Richard, in th' old Tempest, when 'e took fever in the Great South Sea. There was none better.'
The girl gripped the lowered window. Nancy Roxby had mentioned that ship when she had come to see the portrait.
She looked towards the old sailor, the sudden determination making her head swim. She had seen the old- fashioned telescope under his arm.
'I'm getting down!' She held up her hand. 'No. I shall be all right.' She could not even remember his name. 'I have to see…'
The coachman fastened the reins, and glanced around uneasily. He liked his work in spite of Montagu's changes of mood, and his demands for a carriage at any time he chose; there were few enough jobs, and too many men being discharged from the fleet and the army to be careless.
He saw the girl extending her hand to the burly, one-legged figure.
'May I have it?' They were staring at her, close enough to touch, to smell the strong tobacco, the tar. 'Please?' The hand was steady, but felt as if it were shaking uncontrollably. She was even calm. The way Sir Gregory had taught her, insisted, for her own sanity.
The man suddenly smiled. 'But certainly, young lady. 'Tis a bit old an' dented-' He shook his head as if to exclude the others, especially the one who called, 'Like you, eh, Ned?'
She raised the glass carefully, heard the coachman's boots slam down on the cobbles as the one-legged man put his arm around her, taking the weight of the telescope, as a marine will test the measure of his musket.
'There, miss.' The hard hand tightened over her fingers. 'There. '
She shook some hair from her eyes, feeling a trickle of sweat run down her spine, like an intruder. A memory.
Then she saw Unrivalled, and almost stopped breathing as the ship, slightly angled on the current now, swam into the lens, the raked masts and black rigging shining like glass in the sunlight, the loosely brailed-up sails, a long, tapering pendant occasionally whipping out from one masthead.
Tiny figures moving, apparently aimlessly, about the decks, but each having a purpose. Others motionless, officers perhaps. She felt the tension returning. Adam. He would be there. The stable boy had told him when the carriage had left, when she had asked Sir Gregory if she could be driven to Plymouth.
It was important, although even she did not know how important it was. Like opening a sealed room, with the only key.
'Not without me, you won't!' But his sharpness had been to cover something else. Something only they had shared. Until now.
She steadied the glass on the proud figurehead, the hands thrust behind her streaming hair. The uplifted breasts, like herself in the studio that day when he had walked in.
She lowered the telescope and saw the ship fall away, become only a fine model again.
'Someone you know aboard Unrivalled, miss?'
They were all looking at her, but there was no malice. No lust. No hands reaching out to hold and force her down, down…
She said quietly, 'Yes.' How can I say that? He will leave here, tomorrow, someone said, and in any case… 'I
