Ричард Вудмен - The shadow of the eagle

'Thank you ma'am. I should like to say ...' Marlowe shot an imploring glance at Drinkwater who tactfully turned to Hyde and his young belle.

'You have the advantage of me, Mr Hyde ...'

'I have indeed, sir. May I present Miss Cassandra Wilcox ...'

Drinkwater looked into a pair of fine blue eyes which were surrounded by long lashes and topped by an intricate pile of blonde hair. 'I fear I am out of practice for such becoming company, Miss Wilcox, you will have to forgive an old man.'

'Tush, Captain, you are not old ...'

'Oh, old enough for Mr Hyde and his fellows to refer to me as Our Father,' said Drinkwater laughing and catching Hyde's eye.

'How the devil did you know, sir?' queried Hyde, eyebrows raised in unaffected surprise.

'Oh, the wisdom of the omnipotent, Mr Hyde. It was my business to know.' Drinkwater smiled at Miss Wilcox. 'Have you known Mr Hyde long, Miss Wilcox?'

'No sir, we met at Sir Quentin's two nights ago.'

'We sang a duet, sir ... at Marlowe's father's,' Hyde added, seeing Drinkwater's puzzlement.

'Ah yes, of course, he is the gentleman in plum velvet.'

'The rather large gentlemen in plum velvet,' added Miss Wilcox mischievously, leaning forward confidentially and treating Drinkwater to a view of her ample bosom. She seemed an ideal companion for the flashy Hyde.

'Would you oblige me by introducing me, Hyde?'

'Of course, sir.'

'Miss Wilcox, it has been a pleasure. I shall detain Hyde but a moment.' Drinkwater bowed and Cassandra Wilcox curtseyed.

'Is Frey about to strangle himself in the noose of matrimony, sir?' Hyde asked as they crossed the carpet to where Sir Quentin, a large, florid man as unlike his heir as could be imagined, guffawed contentedly amid a trio of admiring ladies.

'It very much looks like it, don't it.' Drinkwater looked askance at Hyde. 'You do not approve?'

'She is his senior, I'd say,' Hyde said with a shrug, 'by a margin.'

'But a deserving soul and Frey is a man of great compassion. What about yourself and Miss Wilcox?'

'A man must have a reason for staying in town, sir, or at this season for visiting in the country ... Excuse me, ladies; Sir Quentin, may I introduce Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater?'

It was a pleasant stroll across St James's Park towards the abbey. They walked in silence for a while and then Elizabeth, casting a quick look over her shoulder at Frey and Catriona Quilhampton who lingered behind them, remarked, 'You seem to have made an impression on young Frederic Marlowe, my dear.'

Drinkwater grunted. 'What did he have to say?'

'Rather a lot. He said you saved him from a fate worse than death.'

'I'd say that was rather overstating matters. He was simply in some distress, both personally and professionally. He was concerned at the unexpected delay in our return to London ...'

'Ah,' observed Elizabeth perceptively, 'then the lady was expecting.'

'Good heavens, Bess, do you miss nothing!'

'And professionally?' Elizabeth prompted.

'Oh he had had some experience that had not passed off well. He was unsure of himself

A bit like Humpty-Dumpty? Only in this case the king's men did put him back together again?'

'Yes,' laughed Drinkwater, looking at his wife. 'Damn it, Elizabeth, but you are a lovely woman.'

The letter from Bushey was waiting for them when they arrived at the house in Lord North Street. Williams handed it to Drinkwater on a salver and, after he had struggled for a moment one-handed, Elizabeth rescued him from his embarrassment just as Catriona and Frey entered the room.

'Some tea, Williams, I think,' Elizabeth ordered as the company sat.

'How is the arm, sir?' Frey asked.

'Oh, pretty well, Not for the first time Kennedy saved me, though I suspect he rather wished I had got my just deserts.'

'Nathaniel! That's an ungrateful thing to say!' Elizabeth was profoundly shocked.

'Oh, you don't know Kennedy, m'dear.' Drinkwater flicked open the letter, read it while the company waited — all by now aware of the writer — expectantly watching Drinkwater's face.

'Well?' Elizabeth asked, as, expressionless, Drinkwater laid the letter in his lap.

'Well what?'

'What news? What does His Royal Highness write to you about? Or is it more secrets?'

'No, no.' Drinkwater took a deep breath. 'He has promised Birkbeck, who was my especial concern, a dockyard post.'

'That is good news, sir,' commented Frey approvingly.

'Yes.'

And ... ?' Elizabeth prompted and then, when Drinkwater sat silently, fisted her hands and beat them into her lap. 'Oh, Nathaniel, why do you have to be so tiresome? Either tell us, or say you cannot!'

Drinkwater looked up with a familiar, wry smile upon his face. 'Well, my dear, His Royal Highness', he said the words with sonorous and deferential dignity, 'has been so impressed with the actions of Andromeda and, though modesty prevents me from laying undue emphasis upon the point, with my services ...'

'Oh, Nathaniel, please go on, you are submitting us to the most excruciating torture.'

'Please do tell us,' put in Frey.

'Catriona, m'dear,' Drinkwater appealed to his red-haired guest, 'surely you don't want to hear this nonsense?'

'Oh, but I surely do,' Catriona replied in her soft Scots burr.

'Very well,' Drinkwater sighed. 'His Royal Highness has been graciously pleased to suggest I am made a knight-commander of the Bath...'

'Why, sir,' exclaimed Frey leaping up from his chair, 'that is wonderful news!'

Drinkwater looked at his wife. She had gone quite pale and held both hands in front of her face while Catriona looked concernedly at her friend.

'You had better hear me out,' Drinkwater went on. 'His Royal Highness also says that since hauling down his flag, he is not presently in a position to recommend me, but that he', Drinkwater unscrewed the letter and read aloud, ' "will ever be completely sensible of the great service rendered to the nation by His Majesty's frigate Andromeda in the late action off the Azores and, should His Royal Highness be in a future position to honour Captain Drinkwater, His Royal Highness will be the first to acknowledge that debt in the aforementioned manner ..."'

Drinkwater crushed the letter with a rueful laugh amid a perfect silence.

'I think it is time for bed. It has been a long and eventful day.' Drinkwater stretched and Frey tossed off his glass of oporto.

'Sir, before we retire I should like to acquaint you of my, of our, decision.'

'Of course, Frey. Pray go on.'

'You will have guessed,' Frey said, smiling, 'my proposal has been accepted.'

Drinkwater stood and held out his hand. 'Congratulations, my dear fellow.' They shook hands and Drinkwater said, 'I am glad you don't share Hyde's opinion of marriage.'

'What was that?'

'That it was a noose.'

'Doubtless Hyde would find it so.' Frey paused, adding, 'I know the lady to be ...'

'Please say no more, my dear fellow. The lady has much to commend her and James would be pleased to know you care for Catriona, for her existence has not been easy. I am delighted; we shall be neighbours. Come, a last glass to drink to all our futures now that the war is at an end.'

'If not to your knighthood.'

'Ah, that...' Drinkwater shrugged. 'There is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip.'

Both men smiled across their glasses, then Drinkwater said, 'You know, in all the years I have been married, I have never been at home longer than a few months. Perhaps my permanent presence may not be an unalloyed joy to my wife.'

'That does not constitute a noose.'

'No, but I would not want it to be even a lanyard ...' Drinkwater paused reflectively and Frey waited, knowing the sign of a germinating idea from the sudden abstraction. 'You will live at Woodbridge when you have spliced yourself with Catriona?' he asked at last.