Bernard Cornwell - Sea Lord

“I’m sorry?” I said with incredulity. His manner in the last few minutes had been touched with a cold hostility, yet now he was offering me a boat? I warmed to him again.

“It’s quite simple.” He seemed irritated by my obtuseness. “I am offering to buy you another ocean-going yacht.”

“But that’s ridiculous!” I hoped to God he wouldn’t agree with me. Pride would make me protest, but not for long. I needed another boat desperately.

He offered me the ghost of a smile. “Not so ridiculous, my lord, as giving away a Van Gogh.” He was plainly determined to go on calling me ‘my lord’. “Of course,” he continued, “if you don’t want another boat, then I shall quite understand.”

“I do want one,” I said fervently. His equation of my gift of the Van Gogh with his present of a replacement boat made the transaction seem less astonishing and more acceptable. I had also decided that this was a man who liked to hide his kindnesses behind a pernickety façade.

Sir Leon stirred the gravel with a well-polished shoe. “I assume, my lord, that if you have another boat you will resume your wandering way of life?”

“I really don’t know.”

He had asked the question casually, and my reply had been just as offhand. Yet my careless answer provoked a very cold look indeed. “Does your uncertainty have anything to do with my stepdaughter?” The abruptness of the question, and its acuity, astonished me. I said nothing, and Sir Leon frowned. “My wife seems to think that the two of you might be suited, but I must tell you that I often find Lady Buzzacott’s ideas whimsical.”

Now the thing lay in the open; the boat wasn’t a recompense for the gift of a painting, but a bribe to take me away from Jennifer. This wasn’t a man who hid his kindnesses, but simply purchased what he wanted. Now he wanted my absence. I felt foolish for liking him, for it was suddenly plain that he detested me. “You’d prefer Hans to become Jennifer’s husband?” I asked forthrightly.

“Of course I would,” Sir Leon said blandly, as though we merely discussed our preferences for cars or boats. “Hans is a most steady and sensible man. It might take flair to build a financial empire, my lord, but it takes steadiness to maintain it, and Hans has succeeded very well at preserving and expanding his inheritance. So, you see” – and here he offered me the smallest of smiles – “I would be very well advised to help you find a suitable boat and thus tempt you to very distant waters.”

At least, I thought, the bastard was honest. He wanted me gone because I wasn’t suitable. I was a rogue and vagabond. I was a mongrel sniffing round his thoroughbred.

“And I assume,” he pressed me, “that if you are equipped with a suitable boat, you will indeed resume your previous way of life?”

“Not necessarily, no.” I would not give him that satisfaction, even if it meant that the bastard withdrew his offer.

“May I ask what other inducements might keep you ashore? Besides Jennifer?”

“I might go into business,” I said airily, then, despite my dislike of him, found myself articulating an idea which must have been simmering in my mind ever since I had returned to England. “I sometimes think it’s time to give myself a proper base. I live on a very narrow knife edge between poverty and bankruptcy, and that’s fine for a time, Sir Leon, but after a while it becomes tedious. I need something to make some money, something that will let me sail away when I want to, but something that will go on earning money while I’m away.”

“It sounds very desirable,” he was amused, “but rather a pipe dream, surely?”

“There’s a property on the Hamoaze,” I heard myself saying. “It belongs to a plump old crook called George Cullen, and if I could raise the money I could make it into one of the finest yacht-repair yards on the south coast. It’s no good looking to the banks, of course, so it is probably a pipe dream, but I’ve got a friend who might be interested. Except that he’s rather over-extended financially.”

“You have the necessary skills to run a yacht-repair business?”

“All of them,” I said proudly.

Sir Leon looked up at me. “If you had not given me the Van Gogh, my lord, you would doubtless have received all the capital you might need. But, alas, your own generosity seems to have condemned you to the wanderer’s life.” He gave me one of his very small smiles, as if to show that he had proved that my only chance of financial survival lay in accepting his offer, and thus leaving his stepdaughter alone. He glanced towards his helicopter and I assumed he was about to walk away, but instead he offered me an irritated frown. “I must admit that I am sorely disappointed in Inspector Abbott. His ploy of making you a target seems to have misfired very badly.”

“Indeed.” I could only agree.

“It now seems clear to me that Inspector Abbott has very small chance of finding these wretched people, so it seems I have no choice but to deal with them myself.”

“Pay the ransom, you mean?”

“What else?” Sir Leon did not sound dismayed at the prospect. “I have already inserted the coded advertisement in The Times indicating my willingness to do so. I now await their instructions which I will follow punctiliously. Inspector Abbott advises me that the criminals might renege on the arrangements, but that is a risk I must be willing to take. Following Inspector Abbott’s advice has so far only succeeded in putting my stepdaughter into hospital, so you may imagine that I am not enamoured with his ideas.”

He had spoken with unnatural venom when he mentioned Jennifer. I blushed. “I’m sorry –” I began.

“My wife has already assured you that there is no need for an apology,” he interrupted me. “I don’t entirely agree with her, but we shall nevertheless consider the matter closed. The important thing now is to provide Jennifer with the very finest medical attention. Hans has some very sound ideas, but I do assure you, my lord, that none of this any longer concerns you.” He looked up at me and I saw how deceptive were those myopic pale eyes. This was a very formidable man indeed, and one who disliked me intensely. “I believe in making things very plain in negotiations,” he went on, “so I am here to tell you, my lord, that your association with my affairs, and with my family, is concluded. Jennifer will be moved to a private clinic in Switzerland where, I assure you, her visitors will be strictly controlled. I hope you understand me?”

“Keep my dirty hands off her?” I said flippantly.

I annoyed him, as I’d meant to, but he controlled the annoyance. Instead he took a business card from his top pocket. “That is the name and address of my financial controller. He will henceforth make all the arrangements concerning the Lady Georgina, and he will also pay the bills contingent on your new boat. I shall instruct him that you are to be given credit of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds. Should you wish to have that money paid to you in cash, then feel free to ask, but I should advise you to arrange payment in some place where the taxman might not notice.” He handed me the business card, then took a long brown envelope from his inside pocket. “At the same time, my lord, I do not wish you to think that I am ungrateful for your efforts on my behalf, so perhaps you will also accept this small token of my thanks?”

I took the envelope. I didn’t open it. I was hoping he had been so generous that I would feel constrained to refuse the gift, and I knew I couldn’t afford that quixotic gesture, not since my own money had sunk to the bottom of the English Channel.

Sir Leon held his hand out to me. “Should your sister challenge your right to give me the painting, then I trust you will make yourself available to my lawyers? My driver is at your disposal for the rest of the day.” I shook his hand, then he turned away. I wondered how such a dry little sod had ever attracted a woman like Helen. Not a week before she had offered me a bedroom in Comerton Castle, now her husband was giving me the boot.