“Bad?” was all he said.
Ferguson answered sharply, “We shall have no say in things, that’s certain.”
Grace put down another glass. “Here, my love. You deserve it.” She looked from them to the empty hearth, the old cat curled up in one corner. Home. It was everything; it was all they had.
She remembered how Bryan had described those moments of Adam’s first visit here after his uncle’s death, when he had picked up the old sword and read the letter Catherine had left for him.
Like rolling back the years, he had said, like seeing the young Captain Bolitho again. Surely nothing could destroy all that.
She said with soft determination, “I must lock up,” and looked at them both, saddened rather than angered by one woman’s petty spite. “God will have His say. I shall have a word with Him.”
It was Tom, the coastguard, who found her body. A year or so ago, he would have done so earlier. He had been riding loosely in the saddle, his chin tucked into his neckcloth, his mind only half aware. Like his horse, he was so familiar with every track and footpath along this wild coastline that he had always taken it for granted. Behind him, his young companion was careful not to disturb him or annoy him with unnecessary questions and observations; he was a good fellow, inexperienced though he was, and should make a competent coastguard. He had been thinking, and he is replacing me next week. It had been hard to accept, even though he had known to the day when his service was to be ended, and he had already been offered employment with the mail at Truro. But after all he had seen and done on these lonely and often dangerous patrols, it would be something unknown, and perhaps lacking in a certain savour.
He had heard all about the comings and goings at the old grey house, the Bolitho home for generations. Lawyers and clerks, officials, all Londoners and strangers to him. What did they know of the man and the memory? Tom had been there at the harbour when news of the admiral’s death had arrived. He had been at the old church for the memorial service, when the flags had been dipped to half-mast, and young Captain Adam Bolitho had taken his place with Lady Somervell. He had thought of the times he had met her along this same coast, walking or riding, or just watching for a ship. His ship, which would never come any more.
And at first he had thought that it was her, that patch of colour, a piece of clothing moving occasionally in the breeze off Falmouth Bay. It was one of her favourite places.
Like that other time when she had joined him in the cove below Trystan’s Leap and had cradled the small, broken body of the girl named Zenoria. All those times.
He had found himself dropping from the saddle, running the last few yards down the slope where the old broken wall stood half-buried in gorse and wild roses.
And then he had seen her horse, Tamara, another familiar sight on his lonely patrols above the sea.
But it had not been Catherine Somervell. He had thrust his hand into her clothing, cupping her breast, aware of her eyes watching him through the veil over her hat. But the heart, like the eyes, had been still.
He should have known; the angle of the head told him some of it, the riding crop on its lanyard around the gloved, clenched hand and the bloody weals on the mare’s flank told the rest.
Tamara would have known. Would have pulled back, even if beaten, from jumping the old wall. She would have known…
“What is it, Tom?”
He had forgotten his companion. He stared up at the dark outline of the old house, just visible above the hillside.
“Fetch help. I’ll stay here.” He glanced at the side-saddle, which had slipped when the woman had been thrown.
“It’s got a lot to answer for.” He had been describing the house. But his companion was already riding hard down the slope, and there was no sound but the wind off the bay.
13. Envy
EIGHT DAYS after her arrival at Gibraltar, Unrivalled was to all intents once more ready for sea. Pym, the rear-admiral’s flag captain, had been true to his word, and had supplied as much as he could to speed repairs and replace standing and running rigging which was beyond recovery.
But it went far deeper than that. Adam Bolitho had seen and felt it from the first day. There was a new stubbornness in the men, and a kind of resentment that anyone should think Unrivalled’s own ship’s company could not manage without outside help or interference.
Some of the wounded who had been transferred ashore to more comfortable surroundings had returned on board, eager to help, unwilling to be separated from the faces and voices they knew.
Adam had imagined that he would be able to weigh and sail unimpeded by the passenger Rear-Admiral Marlow had described.
The written orders had explained little, merely emphasising the need for haste and, above all, safety. As Pym had said, “No more battles, Bolitho!”
Curiously, it had been the third lieutenant, Daniel Wynter, who had been able to supply more information. Sir Lewis Bazeley was well known in the political circles frequented by Wynter’s father. A hard-headed businessman who had been largely responsible for designing and building defences along England’s south coast from Plymouth to the Nore when a French invasion had seemed a very real possibility, he had been knighted for his efforts, and it was suggested that his next appointment was Malta, where the fortifications had altered little since the first cannon had been mounted. If there had been any lingering doubts about Malta ’s future, they had been dispersed. A fortress in the Mediterranean’s narrows, who commanded it held the key to Gibraltar and the Levant.
But Adam’s hopes were dashed by the arrival at the Rock of the Cumberland, a stately Indiaman; he had been with Galbraith the previous morning when she had dropped anchor. Like most of John Company’s ships she was impressively armed, and, he had no doubt, equally well manned. The H.E.I.C. paid generously, and offered other financial benefits to officers and seamen alike. Adam’s thoughts on that score were shared by most sea officers: if as much money and care had been lavished on the King’s navy, the war might have ended in half the time.
There was to be no ceremony, he had been told; the great man would transfer to the more spartan comforts of the frigate and be on his way.
The sooner the better, Adam thought.
He had visited the flagship this morning, and Pym had congratulated him on the appearance of his ship, and the speed with which the scars of battle had been hidden, if not removed. Tar, paint and polish could work wonders, and Adam was proud of the men who had done it.
The severe bruising to his groin had been given little opportunity to improve, and inevitably the pain returned when he most needed all his energy and patience.
The greater, and far more pleasant, surprise had been at the twenty or so seamen who had volunteered to sign on, after his promise to do what he could for anyone who would fight for Unrivalled. Galbraith had not shared the surprise, and said only that he thought the whole lot should have put their names down without question. Ten of those same men had been killed or wounded in the fight.
Adam wondered what Lovatt would have made of it.
As he had written in his report to the Admiralty, “I gave them my word. Without them, my ship would have been lost.” It might blow a few cobwebs away from that place. He also wondered what Bethune might have done, given the same choice. A man between two separate roles. The one he had known as a young captain. The one he was living now.
Unrivalled’s gig was turning in a wide arc as she returned from the flagship. Adam leaned forward, his eyes slitted against the glare, studying the line and the trim of his command. He had been pulled around the ship every day, making certain that the additional stores, even the movement of powder and shot from one part of the hull to another, would in no way impede her agility under all conditions. He smiled to himself. Even in action again.