"The Committee of Lloyd's are only concerned with getting even more frigates to escort even more convoys," Ramage commented. "Still, a hint over a glass of sherry often does more than an official letter."
"Your officers and your parents, and my parents - so much for the guests. Do we post up to London? Which is the post road?" Sarah asked.
"From memory that starts at Folkestone, and you get fresh horses at Hythe, Ashford - where we'd join - and then Lenham, Maidstone, West Malling, Wrotham Heath (you need fresh horses as well as an extra pair to climb that dam' long hill), and then Farningham, Swanley - and after that I get mixed up. The most important thing, according to Raven, is that there are no turnpikes on that road! There are plenty on the Dover, Canterbury, Faversham, Sittingbourne, Rochester and Gravesend road, though."
"I hope that doesn't mean the Ashford road will be in poor condition. We haven't had much rain lately. Does that mean we breathe dust the whole way?"
"My dear, don't think that turnpike tolls mean good roads! The people who own the land and establish the toll gates put that story about." He thought for a minute or two, staring at the flames dancing in the fireplace. "You know, Raven hasn't been to London for a long time - Uncle Rufus hated cities - and I don't like having to borrow father's carriage every time we want to go out. And we both hate posting . . ."
"So why don't we take Raven and our own carriage?" Sarah finished the sentence for him. "Yes, and let's not hurry. I don't know Kent, so why don't we take a week or two, staying at whatever inn takes our fancy?"
"You've had one honeymoon, you know," Ramage said teasingly.
"Yes, I vaguely recall it, but that was in France and, if you remember, it started the war going again ..."
CHAPTER TWO
The long and jolting journey to London by carriage in the lee of the Downs was enjoyable only because of the sunny weather, and because each night a brisk shower just before dawn laid the dust, although the two horses still kicked up enough at times to set them all coughing and make a cursing Raven slow down from a trot to a walk.
Day by day they skirted the North Downs, the great ridge lying on their right hand and deeply scarred with the white of the chalk showing through grass closely cropped by flocks of sheep. Once past West Malling the Downs began to curve round to the southwest across their path, and just as their road met the steep hill Raven reined in at Wrotham Heath.
"Better hire a couple of extra horses here than wait till we get to Wrotham village," he explained. "Often as not they've none left, or they want an extra couple of guineas for 'the last pair in the stable'."
The ride up the hill was spectacular: in climbing the side of the North Downs, with Raven stopping frequently to rest the horses, Ramage and Sarah would get out and look back over the rest of Kent spread out to the east and south of them, a green table with church towers and steeples sticking up like stubby pegs on a lawn, each surrounded by a huddle of houses and barns.
But Sarah seemed preoccupied, and when Ramage pressed her admitted she was saddened by the tablet they had seen at the foot of the hill back in Wrotham village. "Near this place," it said, "fell Lieut Colonel Shadwell, who was shot to the heart by a deserter on the morning of the first day of June 1799." Four lines carved below in italic added cryptically: "The Assassin with another deserter his companion were immediately secured and brought to justice."
"Three men dead," Sarah said. "They all intended to fight the French - well, obviously the deserter and his companion changed their minds - but all three have ended up in graves here at the foot of the Downs. Colonel Shadwell - was he a young man eager to fight the French? Or did he buy his commission to get away from a nagging wife?"
"Was he serving in one of the regular regiments of foot, or simply a wealthy landowner here, soldiering on Sunday mornings in the local yeomanry?" Ramage murmured.
"Oh, darling, you are spoiling the whole thing. Here I am thinking of a young colonel with a brilliant future ahead of him -"
"And belonging to one of the fashionable regiments!"
"- and you conjure up a portly farmer . . ."
"Your imagination is running wild. Why did the soldier desert? Where did he get the pistol to fire a fatal shot - or was it a musket? Who was his mysterious companion - another soldier, or a trollop he'd picked up? Was it at night? Did the colonel call upon him to halt? Or was the colonel leading a column of men?"
"If it wasn't such a steep hill, I'd insist we go back to Wrotham and ask some local people," Sarah said. "It happened only a few years ago, so they'll remember the details."
"We'll inquire on the way back," Ramage promised. "Come along - Raven is sitting on his box, so the horses are rested enough."
As they approached the city the road gradually became busier. After reaching Farningham they went on to Swanley (by which time they were looking for an inn to spend the night), and carts, carriages and coaches were passing each way, either on their way to the coast or bound for London. Everyone, Ramage noted, seemed to be in a hurry; Raven's leisurely progress, he realized, would probably be the only time until the war ended that Ramage would ever travel this road so slowly: every time he had previously left London for Dover, or had travelled the parallel road to the Medway towns to join a ship at Chatham, the horses had always been in a lather.
Raven still remembered where the house was, having brought his late master there a few times, and, as he pulled up with a clatter and a loud "Whoa, there!" intended to warn the earl's butler, Sarah sighed.
"How nice to be back in Palace Street. I think I prefer travelling by ship, though: you don't have to keep on packing and unpacking at post inns!"
"We must persuade father to get a house on the Thames side at Greenwich, and we'll sell Treffry Hall and buy a place near Dover. Then we can sail round when we want to see them!"
"We've come to see the gentlemen at Lloyd's," Sarah pointed out as a grinning Hanson let down the steps with a crash, opened the door of the carriage and, pushing his spectacles back up again, blinked and welcomed them. "Your father is just coming, sir. Leave the luggage to Raven and me."
Admiral the Earl of Blazey, hook-nosed and white-haired, came to the front door just as Sarah reached it. In his usual courtly fashion he kissed her hand before giving her a fatherly hug.
"We guessed you'd be here today: your father and mother are calling this evening." He shook hands with his son. "Your mother is busy with her dressmaker but she'll be ready as soon as you've washed off the grime of London. We could do with a shower of rain to lay the dust," he grumbled, looking up at the clear blue sky.
Ramage followed Sarah up to their rooms on the second floor. These two rooms had been his since he was a child and father had bought the Palace Street house: a bedroom and what had first been a nursery, then a playroom and finally a study. Finally, that is, until Sarah arrived: now with a third change of furniture it was their dressing room.
Undressing room, he reflected. In three or four minutes Sarah would be standing there naked, washing herself with a grace and ease of movement that always left him breathless. How often, in boyhood and bachelor days, he had spent hours lying on his bed, his head a whirl of wild fantasies and furious longings.
She walked across the room, undoing the ribbon of her bonnet and running a hand through her long, tawny hair. She checked that the jug on the marble washstand was full of water and that there was soap in the black alabaster container that Ramage recognized as one of the half dozen his mother had bought at Volterra many years ago when they had lived in Italy.