He looked up at the portrait of Captain James, with the arm painted out. By right the sword should have been Hugh Bolitho’s. The traitor.
My father.
His eyes went involuntarily to the empty fireplace. It was even the same rug, where he had loved and been loved by Zenoria. And now Catherine had broken the link which had brought them together.
Ferguson knew the signs. The ship was his world, and soon he would be away again. This house will be empty.
“A meal perhaps, Captain?”
Adam had opened the little case and was gazing at the gold medal. The Nile. So many memories. So many faces, gone forever.
“I think not, Bryan.”
Ferguson said nothing. He would seek Grace’s advice. She might know . . .
He was unable to believe what he saw.
She was standing just outside the opened French windows, by the roses, one finger to her lips, smiling but unsure, as if at any second she might turn and vanish. She was dressed in pale grey, and wore a wide-brimmed straw hat fastened beneath her chin with a blue ribbon. Her hair was tied back, and Ferguson saw that she carried a yellow rose, like the one rumoured to be in the portrait.
Adam said, “I think I shall take a walk, Bryan.” He closed the little case and turned towards the sunlight.
She said, “Then walk with me.”
Adam crossed the room, and paused as she held out the rose.
“This is for you.” Her poise seemed suddenly a lie. “Please . . . I should not be here.” He took the rose from her hand; her breathing was unsteady, as if she were fighting something, needing to speak, unable to find the words.
Adam slipped his hand gently beneath her arm.
“I will show you the house, Lowenna.” He pressed her arm to reassure her, feeling its tension. And then, “You came. It is all I care about. You are here beside me, and I shall not awake and find only a dream.”
“I could not go, to London, or anywhere else, without coming to discover how you are.” She averted her face slightly. “No, do not look at me so, I am not sure if I can . . .”
She was trembling. Afraid. Of him or herself?
He repeated, “And you came.”
“Joseph brought me. I told him to wait.” She looked at him directly, her eyes suddenly determined, pleading. “I had no right . . .”
“You, of all people, have every right.”
She smiled, for the first time. “Just walk with me, Adam. Show me your home. The way you offered, that day . . .”
They moved from room to room, scarcely speaking, each intensely aware of the other. And not knowing how to proceed.
She said abruptly, “I saw the portrait. I told Sir Gregory it is not right .” She seemed shocked by her own outspoken comment. “Who, what am I, to say such things?”
He smiled. “Tell me. I’ll not bite.”
It was like a cloud passing away. She said, “Like that, Adam. Exactly that. The smile, as I remembered. And will remember it!”
He put his hand on her shoulder, touching her skin, feeling her body’s resistance. Like a reminder. As if it had happened before.
He said, “I would never hurt you, Lowenna. I would kill any man who harmed you.”
She touched his face. “A man of war.” Gently, she took his arm. “Walk me to that garden. The roses . . . What are you thinking, Adam?”
He walked with her to the steps, feeling the sun on his face, on her arm. The girl who had visited him in a dream had returned.
He said, “I think that you belong here, Lowenna.”
She did not answer, and he said, “That was badly put. Given time, I would learn to express myself . . . as I feel . . . and how I feel. You do belong here.”
They walked on, pausing while he stooped to pat Young Matthew’s dog, Bosun. Old and almost blind now, the dog allowed nobody to pass unchallenged.
Adam winced as he straightened again.
“That will teach me a lesson!”
Ferguson was standing by the door of his office, and lifted a hand as they passed.
From another doorway Grace Ferguson also watched, and felt a tear in one corner of her eye.
They made a perfect picture. Like something from the past, and yet something so new and radiant that it was beautiful to see after all the sorrow this house had known. And all the happiness, too . . .
She thought she heard the girl laugh, at something he had said, perhaps. A closeness, a new discovery.
She went back into the house and closed the door, in spite of the heat.
Would she tell him? Could she share something which had all but destroyed her, without destroying this hope of a fresh beginning?
She hurried into the cool shadows, annoyed at herself that she was weeping.
Aware only of the girl holding his arm, Adam strolled through the stable yard and towards the gates. Several people working in the yard turned to look at them; a few, who had served here longer, waved.
She said, “I want you to tell me about your life. Your ship, the men you lead.” She said it so seriously that he wanted to throw caution aside and embrace her. Like the girl in the dream.
“Then you can tell me all about you, Lowenna.”
She turned away, pretending to watch some ducks flying across the surface of the pond. She could not answer. And she was afraid.
Bryan Ferguson stood just outside the library door, his hand moving up and down the buttons of his coat, a habit he no longer noticed. It was rare for him to be so agitated.
“I heard a horse, Captain. I thought it was mebbee a courier.”
Sir Gregory Montagu removed his hat and gave a curt bow. “It is not uncommon for people to call upon me without prior arrangement. The times we live in, perhaps?”
Adam stood up from the table, the letter unfinished. Barely begun. My dear Catherine.
It was hard to compare this straight, elegant figure with the paint-daubed one in the grubby smock. He had ridden here along that same dusty track, but looked as if he could have been arriving at Court.
“Very well, Bryan. Thank you.” He glanced at the open door, the windows beyond. For a moment more he had imagined that she had come, too. Was it only yesterday, their walk in that same garden, while he had told her about Unrivalled, and some of the people who had made her the ship she had become? For those precious moments, so close, and yet quite apart.
Montagu gestured towards one of the paintings. “That must be some of Ladbroke’s work. Ships all out of proportion. Wouldn’t know a block from a beakhead!”
Adam was suddenly alert, on the defensive. Montagu had not come here to pass the time of day about a painter who had died years ago.
“I thought you might be in London, Sir Gregory.”
“Did you? Indeed.” He plucked at the short cavalier’s beard, his eyes everywhere. It was the first time Adam had seen him uncertain, perhaps unsure how to continue.
“You saw Lowenna, here in this house?”
Adam tensed. It would be easy to lose his temper. Maybe Montagu wanted just that.
“She was concerned about my injury. She would not stay for long.” He could see that his words were having no effect. “I made certain that she was properly escorted.”
Montagu nodded abruptly. “So I heard. As it should be. One can never be too careful these days.”
He walked to a bookcase, his riding boots squeaking on the waxed floorboards.
“Lowenna is very dear to me, otherwise I should not be here. She is my ward, but that cannot last forever. Nothing does. She is a lovely woman, but in some ways . . .”
Adam said quietly, “Then you must know, Sir Gregory, that I care for her greatly.” He raised his hand. “Hear me. I was unprepared for it, but now I can think of little else, only her future happiness.”
Montagu sat down heavily and gave him the same unwavering stare as some subject for his canvas.
He said, “I knew her father for some years. I had occasion to work with him at Winchester. A scholar
, and a fair man. But not of our world, yours or mine. He cared and trusted too much. His wife died in Winchester—a fever of some sorts. It was a foul winter that year—many went the same way. Lowenna tried to take her mother’s place, and I did my best to help when I could. I felt I owed it to her father. As I said, a fair man, but weak. Unable to find his way after her death.”
“I felt there was something.”
Montagu seemed not to have heard him. “They had a house outside Winchester, near the woods, pleasant enough, I suppose, but remote.” He leaned forward, his eyes very steady, sharing something which he must carry like a sacred trust. “Some men came, asking for food, shelter maybe. Anyone else would have sent them packing. But as I said, he was not of our world.”
Adam felt himself gripping his leg, chilled, held in suspension, as if watching the gun ports of an enemy opening.
“They wanted money. Afterwards, we heard they were deserters from the army, common enough in those times. He had none, in any case, but they would not believe him.”
He was on his feet again. “I am only telling you this because I trust you. If I thought or discovered to the contrary, I would use everything at my disposal to destroy you.”
He had not raised his voice, and yet it was as if he had shouted it aloud.
“It was some time before it was discovered. A visitor from the college where he was employed, I believe. For four days that girl was held captive, at their mercy. I can see from your face that you can form your own assessment, and I shall leave it there. It broke her in mind and body, and she would have died, I know that now. She is a brave, intelligent person, and I have seen what she has given to force that horror behind her.”
Adam said, “With your help. Yours alone.”
“Perhaps I need her as much as I think she needed me.”
“Thank you for telling me, Sir Gregory.”
Montagu regarded him impassively. “Has it changed things?”
“How could it?”
“She may never be able to tell you herself. Who can be that certain of anyone?”
Adam said, after a silence, “Did they catch them?”
“Eventually. They were hanged as felons, not as soldiers. Even at the scaffold they tried to soil her name. Some of it found a receptive ear. No smoke without fire, isn’t that what the Bard said?” He moved one foot sharply. “I would have burned those scum alive for what they did!”
Adam heard someone leading a horse from the yard. Montagu had timed his visit to the minute.
“The subject of this conversation is safe with me, Sir Gregory.”
Something in his tone made Montagu cross the room and take his hand, their first contact since his arrival.
“No secret is ever safe, Captain Bolitho. Be ready. I think maybe you are the one who can save her. From those four days, and from herself.”
Adam followed him into the sunshine. There was cloud coming in now, blue-grey, from the sea. A change in the weather . . . He watched his visitor climb up into the saddle. Or an omen?
For a moment longer Montagu sat motionless, then he said, “Your portrait will be ready very soon. I was told of a few alterations I should make.” It seemed to thrust some of the earlier anxiety aside. “And I would not wish to annoy your aunt. That rascal Roxby knew a thing or two when he married her, eh?”
Adam watched the horse until it was through the gates.
He knew Ferguson was loitering nearby; it was something they shared, without truly understanding how or why.
He turned and looked at him, surprised by his own calmness.
“I shall need Young Matthew early tomorrow, Bryan.”
Ferguson nodded. No questions were needed here. He had seen it all too often. And yet this was different in some way.
“I have some letters to write.” He was looking now towards the walled garden, at the roses.
To come home to.
He was ready.
17 THE ONLY KEY
AT THE CLOSE of July, Lord Exmouth’s fleet weighed and put to sea. It was an impressive armada, even to the eyes of those who had grown up in war, and Plymouth drew crowds from miles around to watch its departure. Because of indifferent winds it took a whole day for the ships to clear the Sound and take formation upon Queen Charlotte, the flagship. They left behind a powerful sense of anti-climax. For weeks anyone who could scull a dory or lay back on a pair of oars had pulled spectators around the anchored ships. Entertainers, and even a performing bear, had joined with pickpockets and tricksters to make the most of the unusual crowds.
Now, apart from local tradesmen and the usual idlers, Plymouth appeared strangely deserted. In the main anchorage only lifeless and laid-up vessels in ordinary and the hulks closer inshore remained. Except for one anchored frigate, lying apart from all the others, yards crossed, upperworks and rigging alive with seamen as they had been since her return with a hull scarred and blackened from that brief but pitiless encounter. True to his word, the port admiral had sent every spare shipwright and rigger to assist with Unrivalled’s hasty overhaul, and now she seemed reborn. Only the experienced eyes of watermen and the old Jacks on the Hoe could see beyond the fresh tar and paint, and the neat patches on much of her canvas.
The carriage stood at the roadside below the wall of a local battery, the paired horses resting after the journey, the hills and the hot sunshine.
The coachman leaned outwards slightly and said, “Close enough, I think, Miss Lowenna.”
The girl nodded but said nothing. Like all those who worked for Sir Gregory, the coachman was polite, but firm. He had his orders for this expedition, as he would if he had been transporting a valuable painting from one address to another.
He was concerned about the loitering crowds, she thought. Some were looking over now. A smart carriage, a liveried coachman . . . they were all men. She plucked at her gown; it was hot, and the leather was damp against her body. One of the men raised his hand in a mock salute, and she heard the coachman mutter something under his breath.
You saw them in every seaport. Men who had once served and fought in ships like the frigate now shimmering above her own reflection. They had suffered, lost an arm or a leg; two had patches covering empty eye sockets. And yet they always came to watch. To cling to something which had so injured or disabled them.
It was something no painter could recreate. She thought of the portrait again. The smile, about which Sir Gregory had at first been so adamant. Or was he merely testing her? Sounding out her strength?
Two more men had joined the group by the wall, but stood slightly apart, their clothing marking them out as shipyard workers.
One said, “She’s up an’ ready to go, Ben. Tomorrow first thing, if this wind ’olds.”
The other one seemed less certain. “Under orders, then? I thought she was too badly knocked about when she first came in!”
His companion grinned. “My father’s out there now with the freshwater lighter—she’s sailin’ right enough. I was talkin’ with one of the ropemaker’s men. Tells me ’er captain’s a real driver! A firebrand to all accounts!”
Some of the others had moved closer to listen. As if they were jealous, she thought.
An older man, walking heavily on a wooden leg, said, “’Er cap’n is Adam Bolitho, matey.”
“You were afore ’is time, eh?”
He ignored the laughter. “I served under ’is uncle, Sir Richard, in th’ old Tempest, when ’e took fever in the Great South Sea. There was none better.”
The girl gripped the lowered window. Nancy Roxby had mentioned that ship when she had come to see the portrait.
She looked towards the old sailor, the sudden determination making her head swim. She had seen the old-fashioned telescope under his arm.
“I’m getting down!” She held up her hand. “No. I shall be all right.” She could not even remember his name. “I have to see . . .”
The coachman fastened the reins, and glanced around uneasily. He liked his work in spi
te of Montagu’s changes of mood, and his demands for a carriage at any time he chose; there were few enough jobs, and too many men being discharged from the fleet and the army to be careless.
He saw the girl extending her hand to the burly, one-legged figure.
“May I have it?” They were staring at her, close enough to touch, to smell the strong tobacco, the tar. “Please?” The hand was steady, but felt as if it were shaking uncontrollably. She was even calm. The way Sir Gregory had taught her, insisted, for her own sanity.
The man suddenly smiled. “But certainly, young lady. ’Tis a bit old an’ dented—” He shook his head as if to exclude the others, especially the one who called, “Like you, eh, Ned?”
She raised the glass carefully, heard the coachman’s boots slam down on the cobbles as the one-legged man put his arm around her, taking the weight of the telescope, as a marine will test the measure of his musket.
“There, miss.” The hard hand tightened over her fingers. “There.”
She shook some hair from her eyes, feeling a trickle of sweat run down her spine, like an intruder. A memory.
Then she saw Unrivalled, and almost stopped breathing as the ship, slightly angled on the current now, swam into the lens, the raked masts and black rigging shining like glass in the sunlight, the loosely brailed-up sails, a long, tapering pendant occasionally whipping out from one masthead.
Tiny figures moving, apparently aimlessly, about the decks, but each having a purpose. Others motionless, officers perhaps. She felt the tension returning. Adam. He would be there. The stable boy had told him when the carriage had left, when she had asked Sir Gregory if she could be driven to Plymouth.
It was important, although even she did not know how important it was. Like opening a sealed room, with the only key.
“Not without me, you won’t!” But his sharpness had been to cover something else. Something only they had shared. Until now.
She steadied the glass on the proud figurehead, the hands thrust behind her streaming hair. The uplifted breasts, like herself in the studio that day when he had walked in.
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