Beyond the Reef

by Alexander Kent

  He held her away, searching her face anxiously. ‘You’re not ill, Kate? What has happened?’

  She said, ‘There was a woman here today.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘She left a card.’ Her voice was husky, almost despairing. ‘It was “expected” that you might be here, she said.’ She looked at him directly. ‘Your daughter is unwell. The person sent as messenger would tell me nothing further.’

  Bolitho stared at her, expecting bitterness or resentment. There was neither. It was more an acceptance of something which had always been there, and always would.

  Catherine said, ‘You will have to go, Richard. No matter what you feel for your wife, or for what she connived at with my late husband. It is not in your nature or mine to run away.’ She touched the cheek near his damaged eye, her voice a whisper so soft that he could barely hear it.

  ‘Some may call me the vice-admiral’s whore, but such fools are to be pitied rather than scorned. When you look at me as you are doing now I can barely let you go. And every time you enter me it is as the first time, and I am reborn.’ She lifted her chin and he saw the pulse beating in her throat. ‘But stand between us, my darling Richard? Only death will ever do that.’

  She turned away and called to Allday, whom she had sensed to be waiting in the hall. ‘Stay with him – you are his right arm. Under these circumstances I cannot go. It would only harm him.’

  The carriage had returned to the door. Bolitho said, ‘Wait for me, Kate.’ He looked strained but alert, his black hair still dishevelled from travel, with the single loose lock above his right eye almost white where it hid the terrible scar on his forehead. A youthful, sensitive face; he might still have been the captain Allday remembered and described so vividly, in tears for a fallen friend. Then she moved against him and touched the old family sword, seen in all those portraits in Falmouth.

  ‘If I had a wish in the world it would be to give you a son to wear this one day. But I cannot.’

  He held her closely, knowing that if her reserve broke he could not leave her, now or ever.

  ‘You once said of me, Kate, that I needed love “as the desert needs the rain.” Nothing has changed. It’s you I want. The rest is history.’

  As the door closed she faced the stairway. Yovell was standing there, anxiously polishing his small gold-rimmed spectacles.

  She said aloud, as if Yovell were not even there, ‘If she tries to hurt him again, I will surely kill her.’

  Yovell watched her pass. Distress and anger could not diminish the beauty which turned so many heads. He thought of all the immediate obstacles. Herrick’s court-martial, the rumours he had gleaned about Captain Keen’s marriage, and now this.

  Perhaps it was as well they were all sailing for the Cape.

  * * *

  2

  Strangers

  * * *

  EVEN THOUGH IT was dark, the quiet and exclusive square was exactly as Bolitho had remembered. Tall, elegant houses, most of which seemed to have every window ablaze: light even reflected from the wet, bare trees where, within weeks, nursemaids would be wheeling their charges and loitering to gossip about their households.

  The carriage pulled up on its brake and Bolitho saw Allday’s features quite clearly as he leaned over in the glare of one of its lamps. Bolitho climbed down and stamped his feet to restore the circulation, giving himself time to compose his thoughts.

  There was a mews at the end of the nearest houses where a brazier glowed in the damp air, almost hidden by the various grooms and coachmen who would wait, all night if required, for their lords and ladies to call for them from lavish supper parties or from the gambling rooms across the square. It was the other London, which Bolitho had grown to hate. Arrogant, thoughtless. Without pity. As different from Catherine’s London as these mindless fops were from Bolitho’s sailors.

  ‘Wait nearby, Matthew.’ He glanced at Allday’s massive shadow. ‘Stay with me, old friend.’

  Allday did not question him.

  The door swung inwards even before the echo of the bell had died. A footman stood outlined against the chandeliers, his features invisible in shadow, like a wooden cut-out in some fashionable shop.

  ‘Sir?’

  Allday said harshly, ‘Sir Richard Bolitho, matey!’

  The footman bowed himself into the splendid hallway, which Bolitho noticed had been completely redecorated with new claret-coloured curtains instead of the others he had seen on his last visit. Those had also been new at the time.

  He heard the murmur of voices and laughter from the dining-room upstairs – hardly what he had been expecting.

  ‘If you will wait here, Sir Richard?’ The footman had recovered his confidence a little. ‘I will announce your arrival.’

  He opened a door and Bolitho remembered this room too, despite more expensive alterations. Here he had confronted Belinda about her connivance with Viscount Somervell, Catherine’s dead husband, how they had planned to hold her under false charges in the notorious Waites prison until she could be deported, disposed of. He would never forget Catherine in that filthy jail, filled with debtors and lunatics. Catherine could never be caged; she would have died first. No, he would not forget.

  ‘Why, Sir Richard!’

  Bolitho saw a woman standing in the open doorway and somehow knew she was the ‘messenger’, Lady Lucinda Manners, presumably one of Belinda’s close friends, who had left the brief note at Catherine’s Chelsea house. Piled fair hair, a gown cut or pulled so low it barely covered her breasts … She was watching him, an amused smile on her lips.

  ‘Lady Manners?’ Bolitho gave a curt bow. ‘I received your letter on my arrival in London. Perhaps –’

  ‘Perhaps, Sir Richard, I will suffice as your companion until Lady Bolitho is free to leave her guests?’ She saw Allday behind the door for the first time. ‘I thought you would be alone.’

  Bolitho remained impassive. I can well imagine. The delicious predator: another attempt at compromise.

  ‘This is Mr Allday. My companion. My friend.’

  There was a tall-backed porter’s chair in the hallway and Allday sat down in it very carefully. ‘I’ll be in range whenever you gives the word, Sir Richard.’ One of the chandeliers shone briefly on the brass butt-plate of the heavy pistol concealed under his coat.

  Lady Manners had seen it also, and she said a little too brightly, ‘You have nothing to fear in this house, Sir Richard!’

  He looked at her calmly. ‘I am glad to know it, ma’am. Now, if you would hasten this interview I would be equally grateful.’

  The murmur of voices overhead stopped, as if the house itself were listening, and Bolitho heard the hiss of her gown against the banisters as she descended the beautiful staircase.

  She stood two steps from the bottom and regarded him in slow examination, as if looking for something she had missed.

  ‘So you came, Richard.’ She offered her hand, but he remained where he was.

  ‘Let us not pretend. I came because of the child. A matter of –’

  ‘Duty, were you about to say? Certainly not out of affection.’

  Bolitho glanced meaningly at the opulent surroundings. ‘It seems that my protection is rather more than adequate, let alone deserved.’

  The chair squeaked and she exclaimed, ‘I would prefer not to discuss this in front of servants, yours or mine!’

  ‘We speak a different language.’ Bolitho found he could look at her without hatred, without any of the feelings he had expected. To think she had even chided him that he had married her for the worst possible reason, because she had looked so much like his first wife, Cheney.

  ‘Allday has shared all the dangers and furies of this damned war – he is one of the men your so-called friends would spurn, even though he daily risks his life to keep you in comfort.’ He added with sudden anger, ‘What about Elizabeth?’

  She seemed about to return to the attack, then gave it up.

  ‘Follow me.’


  Allday leaned forward to watch until they had disappeared on the curving staircase. He would not worry too much, he decided. Bolitho had a great deal on his mind, but he had shown his steel to her ladyship and the other bitch with the bare shoulders and the glance that would sit fair on a Plymouth trollop.

  He reflected on the passage to Cape Town. It would be like no other, he thought. With Lady Catherine, Captain Keen and young Jenour in company, it would be more like a yacht than a voyage on the King’s business. Allday considered Lady Catherine. How different from the sluts he had seen in this house. Tall, beautiful; a real sailor’s woman, who could turn a man’s heart into water or fire just by looking at him. She even cared about the Bolitho estate in Falmouth and had according to Ferguson, the steward and Allday’s good friend, done wonders already with her suggestions and advice on how to make it pay again, to restore the losses incurred when Bolitho’s father Captain James had been forced to sell much of the land to settle his other son’s gambling debts.

  Now they were all gone, he thought grimly. Apart from young Adam, to whom Bolitho had given the family name: there would be no more of them. It made him uneasy to imagine the old grey house empty, with none of its sons to come home from the sea.

  It was something he shared with Bolitho, and a preoccupation he worried about in private. That one day the enemy’s steel or a blast from the cannon’s jaws would separate them. Like the master and his faithful dog, each fearful that the other would be left alone.

  Upstairs conversation was returning to the dining-room. Bolitho barely noticed as they stopped outside an ornate gilded door.

  Belinda faced him coldly. ‘As Elizabeth’s father, I thought you should know. Had you been at sea I might have acted differently. But I knew you would be with … her.’

  ‘You were right.’ He returned the cold, steady stare. ‘Had my lady caught the fever from poor Dulcie Herrick I think I would have ended my life.’ He saw the shot go home. ‘But not before I had done for you!’

  He thrust open the door and a woman in a plain black gown, whom he guessed was the governess, scrambled to her feet.

  Bolitho nodded to her, then looked at the child who lay fully dressed on the bed, partly covered by a shawl.

  The governess said quietly, ‘She is sleeping now.’ But her eyes were on Belinda, not him.

  Elizabeth was six years old, or would be in three months’ time. She had been born when Bolitho had been in San Felipe with his little sixty-four gun flagship, Achates. Keen had been his flag-captain in Achates, too, and in that battle Allday had received the terrible sword-thrust in the chest which had almost killed him. Allday rarely complained about it, but it sometimes left him breathless, frozen motionless with its recurring agony.

  Belinda said, ‘She had a fall.’

  The child seemed to stir at her voice and Bolitho was reminded of the last time he had seen her. Not a child at all: a miniature person, all frills and silks like the lady she would one day become.

  He had often compared it with his own childhood. Games amongst the up-ended fishing boats at Falmouth, with his brother Hugh and his sisters and the local children. A proper life, without the restrictions of a governess or the remote figure of her mother, who apparently only saw her once a day.

  He asked sharply, ‘What kind of fall?’

  Belinda shrugged. ‘From her pony. Her tutor was watching her closely, but I’m afraid she was showing off. She twisted her back.’

  Bolitho realised that the child’s eyes were suddenly wide open, staring at him.

  As he leaned over to touch her hand she tried to turn away from him, reaching for the governess.

  Belinda said quietly, ‘To you, she is a stranger.’

  Bolitho said, ‘We are all strangers here.’ He had seen the pain on the child’s face. ‘Have you called a doctor – a good one, I mean?’

  ‘Yes.’ It sounded like of course.

  ‘How soon after it happened?’ He sensed that the governess was staring from one to the other, like an inexperienced second at a duel.

  ‘I was away at the time. I cannot be expected to do everything.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘How can you?’ She did not conceal the anger and contempt in her voice. ‘You care nothing for the scandal you have caused with that woman – how could you hope to understand?’

  ‘I will arrange a visit from a well-appointed surgeon.’ Belinda’s tone left him quite cold. This was the woman who had left Dulcie Herrick to die after pretending friendship to her, who had used Herrick’s revulsion at Catherine’s liaison with her husband, and who had discredited Catherine and eventually deserted her in that same fever-ridden house. He tried not to think of his old friend Herrick. He, too, would die or live in dishonour if the court-martial went against him.

  He said, ‘Just once, think of somebody else before yourself.’

  He moved to the open door and realised he had not once called her by her first name.

  He was in time to see somebody peering curiously out of the dining-room.

  ‘I think your friends are waiting for you.’

  She followed him to the head of the stairs. ‘One day your famous luck will run out, Richard! I would I could be there to see it!’

  Bolitho reached the hallway as Allday lurched up from his porter’s chair.

  ‘Let us go back to Chelsea, Allday. I will send a letter in Matthew’s care to Sir Piers Blachford at the College of Surgeons. I think that would be best.’ He paused by the carriage and glanced at the street brazier, the dark figures still hunched around it. ‘Even the air seems cleaner out here.’

  Allday climbed in with him, and said nothing. More squalls ahead. He had seen all the signs.

  He had seen the look Belinda had given him on the stairs. She would do anything to get Bolitho back. She would be just as glad to see him dead. He smiled inwardly. She’d have to spike me first, an’ that’s no error!

  Admiral the Lord Godschale poured two goblets of brandy and watched Bolitho, who was standing by one of the windows staring down at the street. It irritated the admiral increasingly that he should always feel envy for this man who never seemed to grow any older. Apart from the loose lock over the deep scar on his forehead which had become suddenly almost white, Bolitho’s hair was as dark as ever, his body straight and lean, unlike Godschale’s own. It was strange, for they had served as young frigate captains together in the American war: they had even been posted on the same date. Now Godschale’s once-handsome features had grown heavy like his body, his cheeks florid with the tell-tale patterns of good living. Here at the Admiralty, in his spacious suite of offices, his power reached out to every ship great and small, on every station in His Britannic Majesty’s navy. He gave a wry smile. It was doubtful if the King knew the names of any of them, although Godschale himself would be the very last to say so.

  ‘You look tired, Sir Richard.’ He saw Bolitho dragging his mind back into the room.

  ‘A little.’ He took the proffered glass after the admiral had warmed it over the crackling fire. It was well before noon, but he felt he needed it.

  ‘I heard you were out late last night. I had hoped …’

  Bolitho’s grey eyes flashed. ‘May I ask who told you I was at my wife’s house?’

  Godschale frowned. ‘When I heard of it I cherished the thought that you might be returning to her.’ He felt his confidence ebbing under Bolitho’s angry stare. ‘But no matter. It was your sister, Mrs Vincent. She wrote to me recently about her son Miles. You dismissed him from your patronage, I believe, while he was a midshipman in Black Prince … a bit hard on the lad, surely? Especially as he had just lost his father.’

  Bolitho swallowed the brandy and waited for it to calm him.

  ‘It was a kindness as a matter of fact, my lord.’ He saw Godschale’s eyebrows rise doubtfully and added, ‘He was totally unsuited. Had I not done so I would have ordered my flag-captain to court-martial him for cowardice in the face of the enemy. For one who enjoys spre
ading scandal, my sister appears to have overlooked the true reason!’

  ‘Well!’ Godschale was at a rare loss for words. Envy. The word lingered in his mind. He considered it again. He was all-powerful, wealthy, and beyond the risk of losing life or limb like the captains he controlled. He had a dull wife, but was able to find comfort in the arms of others. He thought of the lovely Lady Somervell. God, no wonder I am still envious of this impossible man.

  Godschale pressed on grimly. ‘But you were there?’

  Bolitho shrugged. ‘My daughter is unwell.’ Why am I telling him? He is not interested.

  Like the mention of the midshipman. It was merely another probe. He knew Godschale well enough by reputation, both past and present, to understand he would hang or flog anyone who put his own comfort in jeopardy, just as he had never shown the slightest concern for the men who month after month rode out storm and calm alike, with the real possibility of an agonising death at the end of it.

  ‘I am sorry to know it. What can be done about it?’

  ‘Lady Catherine is with a surgeon at this moment. She knows him quite well.’ He felt his injured eye prick suddenly as if to reveal the lie, the real reason she had gone to consult the heron-like Blachford.

  Godschale nodded, wondering why Bolitho’s wife was allowing such interference.

  Bolitho could read his thoughts as though he had shouted them aloud; he recalled Catherine’s voice, while she had lain at his side in the darkness. They had talked for much of the night, and as usual she had seen everything more clearly than he.

  ‘You care so much, Richard, because you still feel responsible. But you are not. She made the child what she is. I’ve seen it happen all too often. I shall visit Sir Piers Blachford – he is one of the few I would trust. I am sure he will be able to help Elizabeth, or find someone who can. But I will not see you destroy yourself by going to that house again. I know what she is still trying to do … as if she has not already taken enough from you.’

  Bolitho said, ‘In any case, I am quite certain you did not bring me here merely to discuss my domestic situation, my lord?’