Alexander Kent - BEYOND THE REEF

"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.

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.