Tom the coast guard watched her thoughtfully. The admiral's lady, the one who was the talk of London according to some. But she had called him by his name. As if he mattered.
He said carefully, "May I ask what you be doing up 'ere at this hour, m'lady? Could be dangerous."
She faced him directly, and afterwards he was to remember this moment, her fine dark eyes, her high cheekbones, her utter conviction as she said, "Sir Richard is coming home. In the Anemone."
"I knows that, m'lady. We had word from the navy."
"Today, " she said. "This morning." Her eyes seemed to blur and she turned away.
Tom said kindly, "There be no way o' knowing, m'lady. Wind, weather, tides…"
He broke off as she slipped from the saddle, her stained boots striking the track as one. "What is it?"
She stared out at the bay as it began to open up, the light spilling above the headland like glass.
"Do you have a telescope, please?" Desperation put an edge to her voice.
The two coast guards dismounted and Tom lifted his glass from a long leather case behind his saddle.
Catherine did not even see them. "Be easy, Tamara! " She rested the long telescope on the saddle, still warm from her own body. Gulls were swooping around a tiny boat far out towards the point. It seemed much clearer than before, and pink on the sea's face she saw the first sunlight.
Tom's companion had also extended his telescope, and after a few minutes he said, There be a ship out there, Tom, by God so there be! Beggin' your pardon, m'lady! "
She had not heard him. She watched the sails, misty and unreal like shells, the darker line of the slender hull beneath.
"What is she, Toby? Can you see her rig?"
The man sounded stunned. "Frigate. No doubt o' that. Seen too many o' they in an' out o' Carrick Roads over th' years! "
"Still, could be anyone. Ride down to the harbour an' see if you can discover anythin'…"
They both turned as she said quietly, "It is he."
She had extended the telescope to its full length. She waited for the horse to quieten so that she could stare without blinking. Then she said, "I can see her figurehead in the sunshine." She handed back the glass, her eyes suddenly blind. "Anemone…" She saw it in her mind's eye as she had seen it in reality, before the ship had tacked into shadow again: the full-breasted girl with the raised trumpet, her gilt paint so clear in the reflected glare. She repeated as if to herself, "Anemone… daughter of the wind."
She leaned her face against the horse. "Thank God. You came back to me."
Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho awoke from a disturbed sleep and stared up at the darkness of the small sleeping-cabin, his mind responding instantly to the sounds and movements around him. His sailor's instinct told him that like the cabin the sea was still dark outside this lithe, graceful hulclass="underline" a command for which any young officer would give his right arm. He listened to the dull thud of the tiller head as it matched the rudder's strength against the sea and the wind's thrust in the sails, heard the sluice of water alongside as the frigate Anemone leaned over on a new tack to a different motion. Gone were the great soaring thrusts of the Western Ocean, through hard sunshine and lashing rain in equal portions. Here the seas were short and steep as the ship ploughed her way nearer to the land. Three weeks from the Caribbean. Adam had driven his Anemone like the thoroughbred she was.
Bolitho clambered from the swaying cot and steadied himself with one hand on a deck head beam until he was accustomed to the lively movements. A frigate: no man could want more. He recalled the ones he had commanded as a youthful captain, younger even than Adam. The ships so different, yet still familiar. Only the faces, the men themselves seemed blurred, if not forgotten.
He felt his heart beat faster as he thought of the nearness of land. After miles of ocean without even sighting another ship, they were almost home. Today they would anchor in Falmouth, and after a brief pause for fresh water Adam would sail again for Portsmouth, from which place he would send the brief details of their return to the new telegraph that linked the senior naval port with the Admiralty in London.
They had sighted the Lizard at dusk the previous evening before losing it again in a sea mist. Bolitho recalled how he and Allday had watched it on another occasion. It had been first light then too, and he had whispered her name, longing for her, as he was now.
Overnight Old Partridge, Anemone's sailing master, had changed tack so that in the darkness, close-hauled and under reefed topsails, they had given the dreaded Manacles a wide berth.
Bolitho knew he could not sleep and toyed with the idea of going on deck, but he was also aware that his presence there might distract the watch keepers It had been hard enough for them to get used to a vice-admiral in their midst, and a famous one at that. He gave a grim smile. Notorious, anyway.
He had watched and listened to the way the frigate's cramped company of some two hundred and twenty officers, seamen and marines had worked as a team, quick to respond to storm and screaming gales like the seasoned hands they had become. Adam could be proud of what he and his young wardroom had achieved, with the backing of some excellent warrant officers like Old Partridge. Adam was probably dreading the arrival in Portsmouth, where it was more than likely some of his best hands would be transferred to other vessels that were short of men. Like poor Jenour, Bolitho thought. So eager to do well in the navy, and yet because of his loyalty and friendship, unwilling to leave his admiral and take charge of the French prize, and a captured enemy flag officer for good measure. He thought too of the good-byes when he had left the Black Prince for the last time. Julyan the sailing master who had worn Bolitho's hat to deceive the enemy when they had closed for battle with the French flagship after Copenhagen; Old Fitzjames the gunner who could lay and fire a thirty-two pounder as easily as a Royal Marine could aim his musket; Bourchier, major of marines, and so many others who would never see anything again. Men who had died, often horribly, not for King and Country as the Gazette would proclaim, but for each other. For their ship.
The keel bit into a deep swell and Bolitho opened the screen door to Anemone's stern cabin. So much more spacious than older frigates, he thought; so unlike Phalarope, the first he had commanded. But even here in the captain's private domain the guns were tethered securely behind their sealed ports. The furniture, the small touches of civilized living, could all be rushed below decks, the screens and doors torn down to open this place, this ship, from bow to stern with the long eighteen-pounders on either side. A ship of war.
He thought suddenly of Keen. Perhaps his departure had been the greatest wrench of all. Promotion, and well-deserved, awaited him: to commodore or even to rear-admiral. It would be as big a change of circumstances as it had once been for Bolitho himself.
One night when he had been dining with Adam, while the ship drove blindly on into an Atlantic squall with every shroud and halliard screaming like an insane orchestra, he had mentioned Keen's promotion and the differences it would bring to Zenoria. Catherine had written to him of the impending birth, and he had guessed that she had wanted Zenoria with her at Falmouth. What would become of the child, he wondered. The navy like his father? Keen's record and success as both captain and natural leader would give any boy a good beginning.
Or the law, or the City perhaps? Keen's family came of far wealthier stock than the usual inhabitants of any midshipman's berth in some overcrowded liner.
Adam had not commented immediately. He had been listening to the slap of feet on deck, the sudden bawl of commands as the helm had gone over yet again.
"If I had to begin all over again, Uncle, I'd not ask for a finer tutor."
He had hesitated, just for an instant the thin, half-starved midshipman who had walked all the way from Penzance to search for his unknown uncle, with only Bolitho's name scrawled on a piece of paper. "Nor a better friend…"