Rachel knocked lightly on the door, and on hearing Harriet’s quiet, “Come in,” ushered Stephen in, in front of her. Clode came immediately toward them, and Daniel had just enough time to take the model from the little boy before he charged across the room and into the arms of his mother. She held him for a second, then seeing that James’s eyes were opening again, addressed her boy.
“Stephen! Stephen, my love, look at your papa.”
The boy struggled to hold his head against his mother, his eyes tightly shut.
James managed to open his lips. “Stephen,” he coughed fiercely. The boy flinched but, feeling the gentle pressure of his mother’s hand, managed to turn his body a little and open his eyes. James smiled at him, and without apparently knowing he did so, Stephen loosed his grip on his mother’s waist and smiled shyly back.
Harriet could not quite bear to look at her husband. She knew how great his pain must be, she could see it in the fine lines around his eyes, the furrows of his forehead. She wondered what part of his mind was serving him now, causing him to try and shield their son from that pain. It spoke a finer understanding than any he had shown since the accident.
“Thank you for coming to see me, my boy.”
Stephen forgot his fear enough to move away from Harriet entirely, and put his small hand on his father’s massive wrist.
“I brought the model for you, Papa.”
“Thank you.” James’s eyes traveled the young boy’s face with a sort of curious wonder. “Let it be put where I can see it.” Clode dragged one of the side tables to the opposite side of the bed and set the Splendor on it. If James noticed or recognized Clode himself, he gave no sign. Only, when the boat came close enough for him to see, he gave a great sigh. Stephen seemed to feel the lack of his attention.
“I found out the name of the song, Papa,” he said, and sang a line or two in a quavering falsetto. “It is called ‘Sia fatta la pace.’ Manzerotti sings it.”
James kept his eyes on the ship, but opened his fingers to take his son’s hand in his own. “Manzerotti. Yes, of course. Thank you, Stephen. It does not seem as important now.”
Jocasta was back on the sofa dealing the cards by the time the first of the King’s Messengers returned. “It seems you were right, sir,” he said, shifting his weight from one shoe to the other as he spoke to Crowther. “Fred Mitchell came out to take the air at lunch, and I saw him meet with Mr. Palmer’s secretary at Whitehall. Then he hightailed it back to his place in Salisbury Street. I’d swear his jacket pocket sat smoother when he came out again.”
“Very good,” Crowther replied, without looking up from his writing. “But your information came from that lady,” his quill pointed out to Jocasta, “not myself.” The messenger cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable.
“Yes, sir.”
“What further?”
“There was a boat taken from a pitch at the bottom of One Tun Alley on Thursday night. Or at least, something queer went on. Fella who owns it came to it in the morning and found the ropes done up wrong and a hearth rug shoved under the bench.”
Crowther lifted his eyes. “What became of the rug?”
“The man took it home to his woman, and she weren’t too pleased to let it go again.”
“And now?”
“The thin lady in the kitchen, Mrs. Service, took it from me, sir. Before she showed me up.”
“Excellent.” The man did not leave. Crowther waited.
“Thing is, sir, seems like there’s a funny mood abroad-down by the river and over the streets. Can’t put my finger on it, but people are on edge. As if they’re watching and waiting. There’s something going on. I haven’t seen so many people with that look on them. . I’ve never seen it, sir.”
Crowther looked at him impassively. “I understand you, sir. You have done very well. What are your further duties?”
“I am to wait near Lord Carmichael’s, sir. Discreet like, till I am called for.”
“Then do so.”
The man backed out of the room. As the door shut behind him, Jocasta stopped laying her cards and studied Crowther from under her brows. The ceasing of the regular beat of her cards disturbed him and he glanced toward her.
“Wasn’t sure of it last night, but now the daylight’s on you, I know you.”
“Do you, madam?”
“Ask me where I was born and when.”
Crowther laid down his pen and sat back in his chair. “Where were you born and when, Mrs. Bligh?”
“Keswick. Seventeen thirty-seven.”
“I see.”
“I don’t hold as a rule with waking up what’s been left resting a long while, my lord. But should you ever wonder about the days of my youth, and what I remember of it, you may find me and ask me.”
Crowther felt his throat tighten. “I would prefer you called me simply Mr. Crowther. Or as we are acquaintances from childhood, you may call me Crowther.”
Jocasta did not reply and the cards began to slap down again. Some moments passed before she said, “Sam has returned with the lad that saw my Kate done for.”
“Where are they now?”
Jocasta nodded upward. “Making friends with Lady Susan and her little uncle and that gray-eyed beauty, Miss Chase. That young girl’s a smart one. You could throw her on a dunghill or into a palace and she’d prosper. If they feed my boy macaroons he’ll be sick on their carpet. He’s not used to it.” Crowther was unsure if she meant the dog or Sam. “It’s a queer household this, Mr. Crowther. I turn my cards here, I see blood and harmony all woven together. Strange rope to swing from.”
Crowther’s pen made small scratching movements on the paper. “As good as any. Did you make your arrangements?”
“I did. And Molloy continues with his own.”
Crowther looked across at her. “I will be there?”
“Don’t fash yersel’. You’ll be there, and you’ll be fetched when needed. I wouldn’t walk the rookeries as a general habit, gentleman like you. But tonight you’ll pass in and out again.”
“Thank you.”
Jocasta said nothing but continued at the cards.
The world was becoming simpler again. The strange aching fog that had been battering at his mind, the whistling headaches. . his stumbling senses were beginning to clear. He opened his eyes a little. The ship, his other darling, was there waiting for him, trim and thirsting to be away. He saw old comrades on the deck; men he’d thought drowned or shattered were there whole and urging him toward them. And on the quarterdeck, with the baby in her arms and Stephen at her side, was Harriet. She was wearing the green riding habit she had been dressed in the first time they met. It matched her eyes. And she was laughing, trying to stop the wind driving her red curls across her face and waving to him, telling him to hurry because all was ready and the ship was straining for the off. The smell of the sea flooded his nostrils, the wind stung his cheeks and he began to run down the slope to the bay where the jolly boat was waiting to take him on board; he could already hear the bosun’s whistle, feel the shift of the timbers on the deck as the wind caught her sails, feel his wife’s hand cool and loving in his own as they made their way out into open water.
She held onto his hands as if she could pull him back from the flood, as if by fastening her fingers where his pulse now threaded away to nothingness, she could hold him back from the wastes beyond.
“James?” she said in a whisper, as his breath emptied from him. “James? No, please stay, James! Stay! Stay, my love!” He was gone. She fell forward over his body and promised any god who might listen her breath and bones, offered every sacrifice, every love, she tried to offer them her life, her children, and taking him by the shoulders, buried her mouth in his neck.
Her sister fell on her knees beside her and wrapped her arms around Harriet’s waist and called out to her through her own weeping. Harriet drew her husband’s lifeless arm across her shoulders and swore to die herself, go with him rather than carry on a moment alone.