most promising students.
A tall looking-glass which he had seen used to direct light on to a subject lay in fragments, and a man was clutching a bloodied sheet to his face even as he tried to stagger to his feet.
Adam said, 'Stay where you are! ' He did not raise his voice, or did not think he had, but the other man fell back against the couch as if he had struck him. Some one about his own age, and vaguely familiar; he did not know or care. If he had moved, he would have killed him.
The girl stood facing him, quite still, as if posing for an artist. Only the painful thrust of her breast made a lie of her composure. She had one hand to her shoulder, where there was a tear in her gown which would become a bruise on the bare skin. In the other she was holding a brass candlestick.
She said quietly, 'Adam.' She repeated his name as if she believed she were mistaken. 'How did you knowT
The man on the couch exclaimed, 'She might have killed me! ' He broke off and cringed as she raised the candlestick again.
But she tossed it under one of the sheets and said, 'I was leaving. He tried to stop me. Then he tried to…'
She would have fallen if Adam had not seized her, held her, soothed her with words he scarcely understood, and did not remember. Behind him he heard the soft click of a pistol being uncocked. Troubridge had been ready.
He stroked her back, holding her without looking at her, feeling the resistance, the nearness of a complete breakdown. Remembering the secrets Montagu had told him, and what Nancy had discovered for herself. The nightmare, the brutal, lusting figures. The suffering and the shame.
He held his cheek close to the long, silky hair, his voice low, so that no one else existed.
'I wrote to you, Lowenna. I wanted you to know, to believe…'
For a moment he thought she had not heard, but felt her nod very slowly, her dark hair clinging to his face.
'I dared not. I was not sure. About myself. What I might do. It did not seem fair to you. To us…'
The man on the couch stirred, his shoes scraping on broken glass. Adam heard Troubridge say, almost gently, 'Easy, now, be still, eh?' The hammer clicked again and there was silence. Even the sounds from the other rooms had faded or gone completely.
He said quietly, 'I only heard about the fire when I returned to Falmouth.' He held her more closely as she began to shiver. 'I'll take you where you'll be safe.'
'I have some friends, not far from here.' She winced as the man shouted, 'Whores! '
She said, 'Of your making. As you would have used me! '
Then she stood back a little, his hands still around her waist, and added, 'This is Sir Gregory's nephew. I think you may have seen him at one time.'
Calmly said, but he could feel through his hands what it was costing her.
'I had my belongings packed, ready to go.' She shook her head, trying to shut it out. 'He said terrible things, taunted me, tried…' She shut her eyes. 'I wanted to stop him… kill him.'
A tall, painted screen shuddered to one side and Jago appeared in the room.
He said, 'Found another door, Cap'n. Thought it might be a bolt-hole.' He reached out casually and gripped the other man by the arm. 'Stay anchored, matey. I don't like surprises, especially from your sort of filth.' He did not even raise his voice. He did not need to.
Adam guided her to the empty fireplace, suddenly conscious of the cold. Hating the place, the smell of paint and oil.
She was gazing at him, her eyes unmoving, like the moment he had first seen her. On that day, Montagu's nephew had just arrived, and the bearded painter had taken him through another room to avoid a meeting. But for that…
'Take this.' He undipped his cloak and folded it around her. 'I have a carriage downstairs.'
She had not heard him. She said, 'Sir Gregory's house is locked up until legal matters have been settled. His brother is a lawyer, you see.'
Adam did not see, but he could well imagine the complications Montagu's sudden death would create. And Lowenna would be completely alone.
Troubridge said, 'I know a place where she can stay a while, sir. There must be some one…'
She had turned to study him, as if she had not realized any one else was there, and attempted to smile. But the nightmare was returning.
Instead, she looked very directly at Adam's face, as if to memorize each detail, as Montagu might have done before starting to paint.
She nodded again, very slowly.
'Walk with me.'
Like that day in the garden, or that other day, when she had given him the rose.
Then, with her arm through his, she left the deserted studio, her head erect, her hair falling around her shoulders, even darker as they moved out on to the landing.
Troubridge followed, the pistol still dangling from his hand. He had learned a lot today in a very short while. About his captain, and about himself.
He heard Jago slam the door, and thought he called something to the man who still sat on the studio couch, the bloodied sheet pressed to his face.
Things could have gone very wrong. He might have been killed, or been forced to kill some one else. It would have meant ruin, and shame for his father, the admiral. And I was not afraid. Not once.
He also noticed that neither the captain nor the lovely woman wrapped in the boat cloak once looked back.
He thought of her voice when she had said, walk with me. All he could feel was envy.
5. A Last Resort
'Oars! '
One more pull, and then the cutter's twelve blades rose, dripping from the murky water, to rest motionless on either beam like spread wings. It was bright and cold, the oarsmen's breath combined like steam as the cutter lost way, rocking gently in the current.
Adam Bolitho stood in the stern sheets and watched the moored two-decker rising above him, the newly gilded beak head and bowsprit swing across the boat as if Athena, and not the cutter, was moving.
The figurehead, too, was freshly painted, the eyes set in a grey stare, the face beneath the plumed helmet handsome rather than beautiful, as the Greek myths would have insisted.
He sensed that the others were watching him. Stirling, the first lieutenant, slumped by the coxswain, breathing heavily, and the midshipman in charge, one hand almost touching the tiller bar as if he were afraid the coxswain might make a mistake in front of their captain. Sitting more comfortably on the opposite side was Fraser the sailing master, his bright blue eyes missing nothing as the current carried them slowly into Athena's shadow.
They had already circled the ship twice, Stirling occasionally indicating the recent work carried out by dockyard people or the ship's own company. Factual and to the point, but seldom offering an opinion.
Fraser, on the other hand, had rarely stopped talking about the ship. His ship, how she would behave at sea now that some of the ballast had been moved aft to make her stand more trim
'in the deep water', as he put it. It should have been obvious to the dockyard, and also to Stirling, he thought. With half her twenty-four pounders removed, replaced now by painted wooden 'quakers', Athena's ability to sail close to the wind might have been seriously impaired.
Fraser said, 'She looks right, sir! Feels it too, I'll wager! ' A fellow Cornishman, and from Penzance, where Adam had first drawn breath, he did not care to hide his enthusiasm, or his eagerness to get to sea again. 'A fine sailer, sir! Close-hauled, even under storm stays' is she can hold her own with a frigate, beggin' your pardon, sir! '
