Sir Paul Sillitoe, who had just entered by another door, smiled at the admiral's back. "Never underestimate that lady, Sir James, and do not make her an enemy." He walked casually to the littered table and added coolly, "Or you will make one of me. Be assured of it, sir! "
Bolitho sat on a bench in the shade of a solitary tree in the neat little garden behind the house. It was peaceful here, and the clatter of iron-shod wheels and the regular passing of horses were muffled, as if far away. Behind the rear wall were the mews for this row of houses, for horses and a limited number of carriages.
He watched Catherine cutting roses and wondered if she were still missing Falmouth and what must seem the unlimited space of the house there, compared to this small town-house. Her gown was low-cut so that she could feel the benefit of the sun directly overhead, and the darker line on her shoulder where she had been so cruelly burned in the open boat was still visible.
It had been three days since his interview with Hamett-Parker and the uncertainty, the waiting, had unsettled him.
She looked at him and her expression was troubled. "Is there no way we can learn what is happening, Richard? I know what you are thinking."
He stood up and crossed to her side. "I am bad company, dear Kate. I want to be with you and have no senseless burden hanging above me! "
A breeze turned over the pages of The Times and blew it on to the grass. There was more news of enemy attacks on shipping heading for home around the Cape of Good Hope. Each vessel had been sailing independently and without escort. It seemed likely that that had been what Hamett-Parker had been hinting at. Suppose he were ordered back to Cape Town, Golden Plover's original destination when mutiny and shipwreck had erupted like a sudden storm? Were the marauding ships which had carried out these attacks French naval vessels or privateers? Whatever they were, they must be based somewhere.
She touched his face. "You are worrying again. You hate this inaction, don't you?" She moved her hand across his mouth. "Do not protest, Richard. I know you so well! "
They heard the street bell jangle through the open door and Sophie's merry laugh as she spoke to someone.
Catherine said, "She is seventeen now, Richard. A good catch for the right man."
"You treat her more like a daughter than a maid. I've watched you often."
"Sometimes she reminds me of myself at her age." She looked away. "I would not want her to endure such a life as that! "
Bolitho waited. Like Adam, she would tell him one day.
Sophie appeared at the top of the steps. "A letter, me lady." She glanced at Bolitho. "For Sir Richard."
He tried to imagine Catherine at sixteen, as Sophie had been when she had been taken into the household. Like Jenour she seemed to have matured suddenly after the open boat and their experiences at the hands of the mutineers.
She gave the square envelope to Bolitho. "Nice young officer it was, me lady. From the Admiralty."
Catherine recognised the card in Bolitho's sunburned hands. It was a beautifully etched invitation, with a crest at the top.
"From Hamett-Parker. A reception to mark his appointment. His Majesty will be in attendance, apparently." He felt the anger mounting inside him, and when she took the card from his hand she understood why. She was not invited.
She knelt down by him. "What do you expect, Richard? Whatever we think or do, others will believe it improper."
"I'll not go. I'll see them all damned! "
She watched his face and saw something of Adam there, and the others in the portraits at Falmouth. "You must go. To refuse would be an insult to the King himself. Have you thought of that?"
He sighed. "I'll lay odds that somebody else has."
She looked at the address on the card. "St. James's Square. A very noble establishment, I believe."
Bolitho barely heard. So it was beginning all over again. A chance to isolate one from the other, or to eagerly condemn them if Bolitho chose to take her with him.
"I wonder if Sillitoe will be there?"
"Probably. He seems to have many irons in the fire."
"But you quite like him."
He thought she was teasing him to take his mind off the invitation; but she was not.
"I am not sure, Kate."
She laid her head on his lap and said softly, Then we shall wait and see. But be sure of one thing, dearest of men. He is no rival nobody could be that."
He kissed her bare shoulder and felt her shiver. "Oh, Kate, what should I be without you?"
"You are a man. My man." She looked up at him, her eyes very bright. "And I am your woman." Her mouth puckered and she exclaimed, "And that's no error! " Then she relented. "Poor Allday, what must he have thought?"
She recovered her roses and added evenly, "They may try to discredit me through you, or the other way round. It is a game I know quite well." She touched her shoulder where he had kissed it and her expression was calm again, faraway. "I shall accept Zenoria's invitation to visit Hampshire." She saw the sudden cloud cross his face. "Only for that day. It will be a wise precaution. Trust me."
They went into the house, where they heard Sophie talking with the cook in the kitchen.
She looked at him, smiling faintly when she said, "I think I strained my back." She saw his understanding and added, "Perhaps you could be the navigator again and explore it?"
Later as she lay in his arms she whispered, "Sometimes, dearest of men, you have to be reminded of what is important…" She arched her back as he touched her again. "And what is not…" The rest was lost in their embrace.
4. Strategy
Captain Adam Bolitho reined the big grey to a halt and stared across a flint wall towards the great house. The wall was new, probably one of the many being built by French prisoners of war, he thought. He stroked the horse's mane while he gazed at the rolling Hampshire countryside with its air of timeless peace, so different from his home county where the sea was rarely out of sight.
People had glanced at him curiously as he had ridden through villages, following the old coaching road. A sea-officer was obviously rare in these parts, while the military were only too common.
He looked at his hand and extended it in the hot sunshine. It was quite steady, untroubled. He almost laughed at himself. He felt far from either, and doubted more than ever the wisdom of his having come here.
Anemone lay at Spithead awaiting orders, but he was so short of hands after the port admiral had insisted on transferring some of his men 'to more deserving vessels' that the frigate would not move for a few more days. As he had expected he had lost his senior lieutenant Peter Sargeant. It had been a sad parting but Adam had not hesitated, knowing too well how important it was to grasp the chance of promotion, in Sargeant's case the command of a fleet schooner. You rarely got a second opportunity in the navy.
Aubrey Martin, the second lieutenant, had moved up, and they were hourly expecting another junior officer and some midshipmen. Having lost some of his most seasoned warrant officers to the needs of the fleet as well as his first lieutenant and good friend, Adam knew it would be a long haul to regain Anemone's status as a crack frigate with a company to match.
The captain of the dockyard had discovered that he was going for a ride, if only to free himself from the constant stream of orders and requests which were the lot of every captain under the watchful eye of a flag officer. The captain had received two letters for Valentine Keen, which had followed him from the flagship Black Prince in the West Indies and had eventually arrived in Portsmouth.
The dockyard captain had commented dryly, "One is from his tailor, same as mine in London. I'd know that skinflint's scrawl anywhere. But you never know." He added helpfully, "Nice canter anyway."
That at least was true. The powerful grey had been loaned to him by a major of marines at the barracks, an officer who was apparently so well supplied with horses that he would have had to serve for a hundred years in the Corps to pay for them if he depended on his service allowance alone.