Alexander Kent - BEYOND THE REEF

"Read on. The court martial will be held here in Black Prince, your command and my flagship."

Keen nodded, understanding at last. "Then I am eager for the Cape, sir." He finished with sudden bitterness, "I will not be needed here."

Bolitho took his hat from the cabin servant. Then he said, "When you are ready, Val, please tell me… tell us. It is what true friends are for."

Keen seemed to search his face for something.

"That I shall never forget."

"I am depending on it." He hesitated, hearing the marine guard stamping into line at the entry port. "Your pain is mine, as mine has too often been yours."

Ebenezer Julyan, the sailing-master, was loitering by the wheel, and Bolitho guessed he had been waiting purposely to see him. As though it were yesterday, he recalled Julyan's grin of pleasure as they had sailed to meet the towering San Mateo, when Bolitho had given him his own gold-laced hat to wear to make the enemy believe that Black Prince was a Danish prize.

He called, "Did you give that hat to your boy, Mr Julyan?"

The man laughed. "I did that, sir. It made a rare stir in th' village! It be good to see 'ee again, Sir Richard!"

Bolitho looked round at other familiar faces, who had also faced death that day. He thought too of Keen's bitter comments; then he touched the silver locket through his shirt, the one she had fastened around his neck this morning as she always did when they were to be parted, even for a few hours.

May Fate always guide you. May Love always protect you.

With Keen so downcast, it seemed wrong to think of all the happiness she had given him.

Catherine, Lady Somervell, walked to the window with its small iron balcony and looked out across the swirling Thames. The city had been wide awake by the time her mud-spattered carriage had clattered to a halt outside this small, elegant house in Chelsea, the streets full of traders and carters from the various markets hawking meat, fish, vegetables, all a reminder of the London she had known as a very young girl; the London she had shown in part to Bolitho.

It had been a long hard journey on that appalling road, past leafless trees stark against a cold moon, and splashing through a downpour an hour later. They had stopped every so often to eat and drink, but not until Bolitho's portly Devonian secretary Yovell had inspected each inn to make certain it was suitable for her to enter. Several times he had climbed back into the carriage, grimly shaking his head to signal Matthew to drive on.

They had looked after her wonderfully, she thought. They had refilled her copper foot-warmer with boiling water at each stop, and ensured that she had been well wrapped in rugs as well as her long velvet cloak, and independent though she was, she had been glad of their company.

The house felt strange after Falmouth, damp and unfamiliar, and she was thankful for the fires blazing in most of the rooms. She thought of the grey Bolitho house below Pendennis Castle, and was still strangely surprised that she could miss it so much when she was away from it. She heard Allday laugh in the kitchen, and somebody, probably the faithful, silent little Ozzard, putting logs on one of the fires.

Once during the journey on a comparatively smooth stretch of road, when Yovell had fallen asleep and Ozzard had been outside on the coachman's box, she had engaged Allday in conversation, listening intently as he had answered her questions and spoken of his early days with the man she loved. The ships and the battles, although she knew he had skirted around the latter. He never tried to shock or impress her, and he seemed to feel free enough to speak with her on equal terms, almost as a friend.

When she had asked him about Herrick, he had been more wary.

"I first knew him as one of the Cap'n lieutenants in the old Phalarope-back in eighty-two, it was." He had given his lazy grin. "Course, I didn't exactly volunteer, so to speak." It seemed to amuse him. "When the Cap'n finally left Phalarope he took us with him, me an' Bryan Ferguson. Then I became his cox'n." He had shaken his head like a big shaggy dog. "Lot of water since them days."

Then he had looked at her very directly. "RearAdmiral Herrick is a stubborn man, begging your pardon, m'lady. An honest gentleman, an' that's rare enough these days, but…"

Catherine had watched his uncertainty. "Sir Richard is deeply concerned about him. His oldest friend, would you say?"

It had given Allday the time he needed. "Next to me, m'lady! But folk don't change, no matter what their circumstances. Sir Richard never has. A flag officer he may be, a hero to most people he certainly is, but he's no different to the young cap'n I saw in tears at the death of a friend."

"You must tell me that too, Allday. There are so many gaps I want… I need to fill."

The carriage had lurched into a deep rut and Yovell had awakened with a startled grunt.

"Where are we?"

But Allday had looked at her in that same level way, as he had at English Harbour when her husband had been alive, and Bolitho had become her lover again after their stupid separation.

"I'll tell you, m'lady, don't you fret. This passage we're makin' to the Cape will show you the man we sees, not the one who comes home from the ocean. The King's officer."

She heard herself laugh. "I do believe you are filling in your own gaps about me, Allday!"

Now for a few more moments she was alone in the room where they had loved so demandingly, as if they were trying to make up for the lost years.

She thought of Valentine Keen, his troubled face when he had spoken to her of his hopes and fears for his marriage to Zenoria. Another mystery: so close a band of brothers-poor Oliver Browne's "happy few"-and yet there was a coldness between Herrick and Keen. Because of Bolitho, or because of Zenoria?

She had never mentioned to Richard what she had seen in Adam's face at Keen's wedding. She might after all have been mistaken. In the same heartbeat, she knew she was not; she was too experienced not to recognise that Adam, Richard's nephew and the nearest to a son he would ever know, was in love with Keen's Zenoria.

But Adam was a captain now, albeit a very young one, and his first frigate, the Anemone, was somewhere at sea with the Channel Fleet. It was just as well, at least until things settled down again.

She tossed away her cloak and gazed at herself critically in a tall mirror. A woman envied, admired and hated. She cared for none of it.

She saw only the woman who was loved by England's hero. The man. She smiled, remembering Allday's sage-like confidences. Not the King's officer.

She was waiting for Bolitho when he reached the house in the late evening, although she had had no forewarning of the time of his arrival. He strode through the doors and gave his hat and cloak to the new maidservant, before taking Catherine in his arms.

They kissed, and he studied her for several seconds.

"Thomas Herrick is to be court-martialled."

She put her arms around his neck. "My news is not good either."

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.