Her voice came from beyond. ”I have put down my hair.” She waited until he faced the door. ”It is not quite right yet. Yesterday and today I walked along the foreshore. The salt air is cruel to vain women.”
Bolitho watched the long, pale gown. In the deep shadows she appeared to be floating like a ghost.
She said, ”You once gave me a ribbon for it, remember? I have tied it around my hair.” She shook her head so that one shoulder vanished in shadow, which Bolitho knew was her long dark hair.
”Do you see it, or had you forgotten that?”
He replied quietly. ”Never. You liked Veen so much. I had to get it for you ”He broke off as she put out her arms and ran towards him. It seemed to happen in a second. One moment she was there, pale against the other door, and the next she was pressed against him, her voice muffled while she clutched his shoulders as if to control her sudden despair.
She exclaimed, ”Look at me! In God’s name, Richard, I lied to you, don’t you see?”
Bolitho took her in his arms and pressed his cheek into her hair. It was not the ribbon he had bought in London from the old lady selling lace. This one was bright blue.
She ran her hand up to his neck and then laid it against his face.
When she raised her eyes he saw that they were filled with emotion, pity.
She whispered, ”I did not know, Richard. Then, before you sailed with the convoy, I... I heard something about it... how you...”
She held his face between her hands now. ”Oh, dearest of men, I had to be sure, to know!”
Bolitho pulled her closer so that he could hide his face above her shoulder. It must have been Allday. Only he would take the risk.
He heard her whisper, ”How bad is it?” He said, ”I have grown used to it. just sometimes it fails me. Like the moment you stood there in the shadows.” He tried to smile. ”I was never able to outwit you.”
She leaned back in his arms and studied him.”And the time you came to the reception here, when you almost fell on the stair. I should have known, ought to have understood!’
He watched the emotions crossing her face. She was tall and he was very aware of her nearness, of the trick which had misfired.
He said, ”I will leave if you wish.”
She slipped her hand through his arm. She was thinking aloud as they walked around the room, like lovers in a quiet park.
”There are people who must be able to help.” He pressed her wrist to his side. ”They say not.” She turned him towards her. ”We will go on trying. There is always hope.”
Bolitho said, ”To know that you care so much means everything.” He half-expected her to stop him but she remained quite still, her hands in his, so that their linked shadows appeared to be dancing across the walls.
”Now that we are together I never want to lose you. It must sound like madness, the babbling of some besotted youth.”
The words were flooding out of him and she seemed to know how he needed to speak. ”I thought my life was in ruins, and knew that I had done a terrible harm to yours.”
Then she made to speak but he shook her hands in his. ”No, it is all true. I was in love with a ghost. The realisation ripped me apart. Someone suggested I had a death-wish.”
She nodded slowly. ”I can guess who that was.” She met his gaze steadily, without fear. ”Do you really understand what you are saying, Richard? How high the stakes may be?”
He nodded. ”Even greater for you, Kate. I remember what you said about Nelson’s infatuation.”
She smiled for the first time. ”To be called a whore is one thing; to be one is something very different.”
He gripped her hands even tighter. ”There are so many things...”
She twisted from his grip.7hey must wair.”Her eyes were very bright. ”We cannot.” He said quietly, ”Call me what you did just now.”
”Dearest of men?” She pulled the ribbon from her hair and shook it loose across her shoulder. ”Whatever I have been or done, Richard, you have always been that to me.” She looked at him searchingly. ”Do you want me?”
He reached for her but she stepped away.
”You have answered me.” She gestured towards the other door. ”I need just a moment, love.”
Without her the room seemed alien and hostile. Bolitho removed his coat and sword, and as an afterthought slid the latch on the door. His glance fell on the pistol and he uncocked it, seeing her face when she had discovered him. Knowing that she would have fired at the first hint of danger.
Then he walked to the door and opened it, the shadows and the fears forgotten as he saw her sitting on the bed, her hair shining in the candelight.
She smiled at him, her knees drawn up to her chin like a child.
”So the proud vice-admiral has gone, and my daring captain has come in his place.”
Bolitho sat beside her, and then eased her shoulders down onto the bed.
She wore a long robe of ivory silk, tied beneath her throat by a thin ribbon. She watched him, his eyes as they explored her body, remembering perhaps how it had once been.
Then she took his hand and pulled it to her breast, tightening his fingers until he thought he must hurt her.
She whispered, ”Take me, Richard.” Then she shook her head very slowly. ”I know what you fear now, but I tell you, it is not out of pity, it is from the love I have never given to another man.” She thrust her hands out on either side like one crucified and watched as he untied the ribbon and began to remove the robe.
Bolitho could feel the -blood rushing through his brain; while he too felt momentarily like an onlooker as he bared her breasts and her arms until she was naked to the waist.
He gasped, ”Who did this to you?”
Her right shoulder was cruelly discoloured, one of the worst bruises he had ever seen.
But she reached up with one hand and dragged his mouth down to hers, her breathing as wild as his own.
She whispered, ”A Brown Bess has a fearsome kick, like a mule!’
She must have been firing a musket when the pirates had attacked the schooner. Like the pistol.
The kiss was endless. It was like sharing everything in a to moment. Clinging to it, never wanting it to finish, ut una hold on for a minute longer.
He heard her cry out as he threw the robe on the floor, saw her fists clench as he touched her, then covered her in his hand as if to prolong the need they had for each other.
She watched him tear off his clothes and touched the scar on his shoulder, remembering that too, and the fever she had held at bay.
She said huskily, ”I don’t care about afterward, Richard.”
He saw her looking at him as his shadow covered her like a cloak. She said something like’It’s been so long - Then she arched her body and gave a sharp cry as he entered her, her fingers pulling at him, dragging him closer and deeper until they were one.
Later, as they lay spent in each other’s arms and watched the smoke standing up from the guttering candles, she said softly, ”You needed love. My love.”
He held her against him as she added, ”Who cares about the tomorrows.”
He spoke into her hair. ”We shall make them ours too.”
Down on the jetty Allday seated himself comfortably on a stone bollard and began to fill his new pipe with tobacco. He had sent the barge back to the ship.
Bolitho would not be needing it for a bit yet, he thought. The tobacco was rich, well dampened with rum for good measure.
Allday had dismissed the barge but found that he wanted to remain ashore himself. Just in case.
He put down a stone bottle of rum on the jetty and.puffed contentedly on his new day.
Perhaps there was a God in Heaven after all. He glanced towards the darkened house with the white walls.
Only God knew how this little lot might end, but for the present, and that was all any poor Jack could hope for, things grinned and reached down were looking better for Our Dick. He for the bottle. An’ that’s no
error.
Gibraltar 1805
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Letter
His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Hyperion heeled only very slightly as she changed tack yet again, her tapering jib-boom pointing almost due east.
Bolitho stood by the quarterdeck nettings and watched the great looming slab of Gibraltar rise above the larboard bow, misty-blue in the afternoon glare. It was mid-April.
Men moved purposefully about the decks, the lieutenants checking the set of each sail, conscious perhaps of this spectacular landfall. They had not touched land for six weeks, not since the squadron had quit English Harbour for the last time.
Bolitho took a telescope from the rack and trained it on the Rock. If the Spaniards ever succeeded in retaking this natural fortress, they could close the Mediterranean with the ease of slamming a giant door.
He focused the glass on the litter of shipping which seemed to rest at the foot of the Rock itself. More like a duster of fallen moths than ships-of-war. It was only then that a newcomer could realise the size of it, the distance it still stood away from the slow-moving squadron.
He looked abeam. They were sailing as close as was prudently safe to the coast of Spain. Sunlight made diamond-bright reflections through the haze. He could imagine just how many telescopes were causing them as unseen eyes watched the small procession of ships. Where bound? For what purpose? Riders would be carrying intelligence to senior officers and lookout stations. The Dons could study the comings and goings with case here at the narrowest part of the Strait of Gibraltar.
As if to give weight to his thoughts he heard Parris say to one of the midshipmen on the quarterdeck, ”Take a good look, Mr Blessed. Yonder lies the enemy.”
Bolitho tucked his hands behind him and thought over the past four months, since his new squadron had finally assembled at Antigua. Since Catherine had taken passage for England. The parting had been harder than he had expected, and still hurt like a raw wound.
She had sent one letter in that time. A warm, passionate letter, part of herself. He was not to worry. They would meet again soon- There must be no scandal. She was, as usual, thinking of him.
Bolitho had written back, and had also sent a letter to Belinda.
The secret would soon be out, if not already; it was right if not honourable that she should hear it from him.
He moved across the quarterdeck and saw the helmsmen drop their eyes as his glance passed over them. He climbed a poop ladder and raised the glass again to study the ships which followed astern. It had kept his mind busy enough while the squadron had worked up together, had got used to one anotherps ways and peculiarities. there were four ships-of-the-line, all third-rates which to an ignorant landsman would look exactly like Hyperion in the van. Apart from Obdurate, the others had been new to Bolitho’s standards, but watching them now he could feel pride instead of impatience.
Holding up to windward in the gentle north-westerly breeze he saw the little sloop-of-war Phaedra, sailing as near as she dared to the Spanish coast, Dunstan hoping possibly for a careless enemy trader to run under his guns.
Perhaps the most welcome addition was the thirty-six gun frigate Tybalt, which had arrived from England only just in time to join the squadron. She was commanded by a fiery Scot named Andrew McKee, who was more used to *orking independently.
Bolitho understood the feeling even if he could not condone it.
The life of any frigate captain was perhaps the most remote and monastic of all. In a crowded ship he remained alone beyond his iso cabin bulkhead, dining only occasionally with his officers, completely cut off from other ships and even the men he commanded. Bolitho smiled. Until now.
They had achieved little more in the Caribbean. A few indecisive attacks on enemy shipping and harbours, but after the reckless cutting-out of the treasure-ship from La Guaira all else seemed an anti-climax. As Glassport had said when the squadron had set sail for Gibraltar. After that, life would never be the same.
In more ways than one, Bolitho thought grimly It had been a strange feeling to quit Antigua. He had the lurking belief that he would never see the islands again. The Islands of Death, as the luckless army garrisons called them. Even Hyperion had not been immune from fever. Three seamen employed ashore had been taken ill, and had died with the disbelief of animals at slaughter.
He stepped from the ladder as Haven crossed the deck to speak with Penhaligon the master.
The latter remarked confidently, ”The wind stands fair, sir. We shall anchor at eight bells.”
Haven kept very much to himself, and apart from a few fits of almost insane anger, seemed content to leave matters to Parris. It was a tense and wary relationship, which must affect the whole wardroom. And yet the orders when they came by courier brig had been welcome. The storm was still brewing over Europe, with the antagonists watching and waiting for a campaign, even le battle which might tip the balance.
a sing The captured frigate Consort, renamed Intripido, had slipped out of port unseen and unchecked. It was said that she too had left for Spain, to add her weight to His Catholic Majesty’s considerable navy. She would be a boost to public morale as well.
A prize snatched from the English, who were as ever desperate for more frigates.
Bolitho stared at the towering Rock. Gibraltar for orders.
How many times had he read those words? He looked along the busy maindeck, the hands trimming the yards, or squinting up at the restless sails. It had been in Gibraltar that he had first met - Did with Hyperion, when this endless war had barely begun ships wonder about their fates? He saw Allday lounging by the boat tier, his hat tilted down to shade his eyes from the hard glare. He would be remembering too. Bolitho saw the coxswain put one hand to his chest and grimace, then glance suspiciously around to make sure nobody had noticed. He was always in pain, but would never rest. Thinking about his son, of the girl at the Falmouth inn; of the last battle, or the next one.
Allday turned and looked up at the quarterdeck. just a brief glance of recognition, as if he knew what Bolitho was thinking.
Like that dawn when he had gone to the jetty after leaving Catherine.
Allday had been there, had put his fingers to his mouth to give his piercing whistle which dismissed any boatswain’s call to shame, to summon a boat.
When he had last seen Catherine he had argued with her, tried to persuade her to move away from London until they could face the storm together. She had been adamant. She intended to see Somervell, to’tell him the truth. Our love must triumph.
When Bolitho had voiced his fears for her safety she had given the bubbling, uninhibited laugh he remembered so well. -There has been no love between us, Richard. Not as you thought it was.
I wanted a marriage for security, Lacey needed my strength, my backing.”
It still hurt to hear her use his name.
He could see her now, on that last evening before she had sailed. Those compelling eyes and high cheekbones, her incredible confidence.
He heard Jenour’s footsteps on the worn planking. Ready to convey his orders to the other captains.
Bolitho saw a brig riding untidily on the blue water, her yards alive with flags as she conveyed news of the squadron to the Rock fortress. There might even be word from Catherine. He had reread her only letter until he knew each line perfectly.
Such a striking, vibrant woman. Somervell must be mad not to fight for her love.
One night when they had been lying together, watching the moonlight through the shutters she had told him something of her past. He already knew about her first marriage to an English soldier-of-fortune who had died in a brawl in Spain before the Franco-Spanish Alliance. She had been just a young girl at the time, who had been raised in London, a part you would not dare to believe, dear Richard! She had laughed, and nuzzled his shoulder, but he had heard the sadness too. Before that she had been on the stage. When she was fourteen. A long hard journey to become the wife of the Inspector General. Then there had been L
uis Pareia, who had been killed after Bolitho had taken their ship as a prize, then defended it against Barbary pirates.
Pareja had been twice her age, but she had cared for him deeply; for his gentle kindness above all, something which until then had been denied her.
Pareja had provided for her well, although she had had no idea that she owned anything but some jewellery she had been wearing aboard that ship when Bolitho had burst into her life.
Their first confrontation had been one of fire. She had spat out her bitter despair and hate. It was still hard to fathom when all that had changed to an equally fiery love.
He took the telescope again and trained it on the brig.
Catherine had missed the sight she had sworn to witness.
Almost the last thing Bolitho had seen when Hyperion left English Harbour had been a line of grisly gibbets, their sunblackened remains left as a reminder and a warning to other would-be pirates.
He saw Parris standing forward along the starboard gangway, to make sure that when they anchored nobody ashore would find even the smallest fault in the manoeuvre.
Parris had taken a working party ashore at Antigua to move Catherine’s trunks aboard the packet-ship.
Catherine had slipped her hand through Bolitho’s arm while they had watched the sailors carrying the boxes towards the jetty.
She had said, ”I don’t like that man.”
Bolitho had been surprised. ”He’s a good officer, brave too.
What don’t you like about him?”
She had shrugged, eager to change the subject. ”He gives me the shivers.”
Bolitho glanced again at the first lieutenant. How simply he could raise a grin from a seaman, or the obvious awe of a midshipman. Maybe he reminded her of someone in her past? It would be easy to picture Parris as a soldier-of-fortune.
Jenour remarked, ”My first time here, Sir Richard.”
Bolitho nodded. ”I’ve been glad enough to see the Rock once or twice after a rough passage.”
Captain Haven called, ”Stand by to alter course two points to larboard!’
Alexander Kent - Bolitho 17 Page 16