Relentless Pursuit (35 page)

“I have some letters to write.” He was looking now towards the walled garden, at the roses.

To come home to.

He was ready.

17 THE ONLY
K
EY

A
T THE CLOSE
of July, Lord Exmouth's fleet weighed and put to sea. It was an impressive armada, even to the eyes of those who had grown up in war, and Plymouth drew crowds from miles around to watch its departure. Because of indifferent winds it took a whole day for the ships to clear the Sound and take formation upon
Queen Charlotte,
the flagship. They left behind a powerful sense of anti-climax. For weeks anyone who could scull a dory or lay back on a pair of oars had pulled spectators around the anchored ships. Entertainers, and even a performing bear, had joined with pickpockets and tricksters to make the most of the unusual crowds.

Now, apart from local tradesmen and the usual idlers, Plymouth appeared strangely deserted. In the main anchorage only lifeless and laid-up vessels in ordinary and the hulks closer inshore remained. Except for one anchored frigate, lying apart from all the others, yards crossed, upperworks and rigging alive with seamen as they had been since her return with a hull scarred and blackened from that brief but pitiless encounter. True to his word, the port admiral had sent every spare shipwright and rigger to assist with
Unrivalled
's hasty overhaul, and now she seemed reborn. Only the experienced eyes of watermen and the old Jacks on the Hoe could see beyond the fresh tar and paint, and the neat patches on much of her canvas.

The carriage stood at the roadside below the wall of a local battery, the paired horses resting after the journey, the hills and the hot sunshine.

The coachman leaned outwards slightly and said, “Close enough, I think, Miss Lowenna.”

The girl nodded but said nothing. Like all those who worked for Sir Gregory, the coachman was polite, but firm. He had his orders for this expedition, as he would if he had been transporting a valuable painting from one address to another.

He was concerned about the loitering crowds, she thought. Some were looking over now. A smart carriage, a liveried coachman . . . they were all men. She plucked at her gown; it was hot, and the leather was damp against her body. One of the men raised his hand in a mock salute, and she heard the coachman mutter something under his breath.

You saw them in every seaport. Men who had once served and fought in ships like the frigate now shimmering above her own reflection. They had suffered, lost an arm or a leg; two had patches covering empty eye sockets. And yet they always came to watch. To cling to something which had so injured or disabled them.

It was something no painter could recreate. She thought of the portrait again. The smile, about which Sir Gregory had at first been so adamant. Or was he merely testing her? Sounding out her strength?

Two more men had joined the group by the wall, but stood slightly apart, their clothing marking them out as shipyard workers.

One said, “She's up an' ready to go, Ben. Tomorrow first thing, if this wind 'olds.”

The other one seemed less certain. “Under orders, then? I thought she was too badly knocked about when she first came in!”

His companion grinned. “My father's out there now with the freshwater lighter—she's sailin' right enough. I was talkin' with one of the ropemaker's men. Tells me 'er captain's a real driver! A firebrand to all accounts!”

Some of the others had moved closer to listen. As if they were jealous, she thought.

An older man, walking heavily on a wooden leg, said, “'Er cap'n is Adam Bolitho, matey.”

“You were
afore
'is time, eh?”

He ignored the laughter. “I served under 'is uncle, Sir Richard, in th' old
Tempest,
when 'e took fever in the Great South Sea. There was none better.”

The girl gripped the lowered window. Nancy Roxby had mentioned that ship when she had come to see the portrait.

She looked towards the old sailor, the sudden determination making her head swim. She had seen the old-fashioned telescope under his arm.

“I'm getting down!” She held up her hand. “No. I shall be
all right.
” She could not even remember his name. “I have to see . . .”

The coachman fastened the reins, and glanced around uneasily. He liked his work in spite of Montagu's changes of mood, and his demands for a carriage at any time he chose; there were few enough jobs, and too many men being discharged from the fleet and the army to be careless.

He saw the girl extending her hand to the burly, one-legged figure.

“May I have it?” They were staring at her, close enough to touch, to smell the strong tobacco, the tar. “Please?” The hand was steady, but felt as if it were shaking uncontrollably. She was even calm. The way Sir Gregory had taught her, insisted, for her own sanity.

The man suddenly smiled. “But certainly, young lady. 'Tis a bit old an' dented—” He shook his head as if to exclude the others, especially the one who called, “Like you, eh, Ned?”

She raised the glass carefully, heard the coachman's boots slam down on the cobbles as the one-legged man put his arm around her, taking the weight of the telescope, as a marine will test the measure of his musket.

“There, miss.” The hard hand tightened over her fingers.
“There.”

She shook some hair from her eyes, feeling a trickle of sweat run down her spine, like an intruder. A memory.

Then she saw
Unrivalled,
and almost stopped breathing as the ship, slightly angled on the current now, swam into the lens, the raked masts and black rigging shining like glass in the sunlight, the loosely brailed-up sails, a long, tapering pendant occasionally whipping out from one masthead.

Tiny figures moving, apparently aimlessly, about the decks, but each having a purpose. Others motionless, officers perhaps. She felt the tension returning. Adam. He would be there. The stable boy had told him when the carriage had left, when she had asked Sir Gregory if she could be driven to Plymouth.

It was important, although even she did not know how important it was. Like opening a sealed room, with the only key.

“Not without
me,
you won't!” But his sharpness had been to cover something else. Something only they had shared. Until now.

She steadied the glass on the proud figurehead, the hands thrust behind her streaming hair. The uplifted breasts, like herself in the studio that day when he had walked in.

She lowered the telescope and saw the ship fall away, become only a fine model again.

“Someone you know aboard
Unrivalled,
miss?”

They were all looking at her, but there was no malice. No lust. No hands reaching out to hold and force her down, down . . .

She said quietly, “Yes.”
How can I say that? He will leave here, tomorrow, someone said, and in any case . . .
“I would like to get a message to him. Is it possible?” She looked towards the coachman. “I can pay.”

The coachman relaxed muscle by muscle. A patrol of soldiers was coming along the road. He was no longer alone.

He said, “I'll drive us down to the waterfront, Miss Lowenna.

I can barter with the wherrymen there.”

The one-legged man said firmly, “I can do it. I've got me own boat.” There was a kind of defiance in his voice. Pride, too.

Then he looked at her, eyes taking in everything, reliving memories, perhaps.

“It'll be the cap'n, then?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I can take you too, if you wishes it?”

She shook her head. “I will write a note, here and now.”

She opened the little case she had brought with her. As if she had known.

It was impossible. It was madness.

And all at once it was done.

The man took it with great care and said, “
My
Cap'n Bolitho in
Tempest,
'e had a fine lady like you. Lovely, she was.”

She laid her hand on his ragged sleeve. “Was?”

“We buried 'er at sea. Same fever.”

He gripped her hand and folded her fingers firmly over the coins she held ready for him.

“Not this time, missy. “'E's a lucky man, I'll give 'im that. None luckier, eh, lads?”

She climbed into the carriage, eyes blind to everything, even the anchored frigate.

If they knew, they would pity her. She bit her lip until the pain steadied her. Everyone did, who knew.

She recalled crying out in the night. Not caring.

It's love I want. Not pity, can't you see that?

Like the sealed room. The only key.

Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune waited for his servant to close the doors and said, “It was good of you to come, Thomas. I am aware that you are very busy at this time.”

He watched his visitor sit carefully, holding his shoulder, and frowning as if in anticipation of pain. He looked tired, more so than on the previous visit.

Rear-Admiral Thomas Herrick looked around the room, with its glittering chandeliers and a splendid portrait of Earl St Vincent as First Lord of the Admiralty.

Bethune knew Herrick disliked any contact with this seat of Admiralty; hated it, was a better description. He felt out of place here.

“I received your last report.” Bethune paused, like a wildfowler testing his ground. “I found it very informative. Helpful, especially to me.”

Herrick looked up at him, his blue eyes very steady. “Commodore Turnbull needs more ships, Sir Graham. And he needs them
now.
I doubt if we shall ever stop the slave trade completely, but without proper patrols we will be outmanoeuvred at every stage. A waste of time, and money too, if that is their lordships' only yardstick.”

Bethune walked to a window and looked down at the carriages and the riders heading towards the park, seeing that other stretch of parkland, the leafless trees that marked the old duelling site.

He had spoken to Catherine just a few days ago. There had been more people about, and she had seemed surprised that he had come to meet her wearing his uniform. He touched the gold lace on his sleeve. It had been a reckless thing to do, but he had already read Herrick's report and had acted swiftly. He had not even stopped to consider what it must have cost Herrick to break his silence.

He tried to put it from his mind. Herrick was not doing it for him, but for Catherine and Catherine's lover, Richard Bolitho.

He said, “I hope you will take a glass with me, Thomas? We shall not be disturbed.”

Herrick shrugged. It could have meant anything.

But Bethune was ready. He knew Herrick well enough by now.
I think I do.
Stubborn, single-minded, loyal. The navy was his whole life, and, like an hour-glass, it was running out.

He opened a cupboard and poured two glasses of cognac. From the dusty shop in St James's where Catherine had bought wine for Richard . . .

He saw her face again, her eyes flashing when he had mentioned Baron Sillitoe of Chiswick.

“We are
not
lovers. But I owe him so much. He stood by me when others did not. I would have died but for him.”

Herrick took the glass and studied it gravely. “Early for me, Sir Graham.” Always the title, like a last barrier, just as he never used “Lord” in connection with Sillitoe, either in his report or in this room.

“It seems certain that Lord Sillitoe is deeply involved with business affairs in the West Indies.” Bethune hesitated. “And in Africa?”

Herrick said, “No doubt about it. The offices in the City of London have confirmed it. Sillitoe may have been unaware of the extent to which it was tied to the slave trade, but ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law.” He added with sudden bitterness, “Anyone who has faced a court martial will say as much!”

Bethune turned back to the window. He must have been mad; Catherine had been right. So near the Thames, where anyone might have seen them. A promising flag officer, well placed for further promotion, with a wife and children, and still young enough to rise to the new demands of the navy in peacetime. He thought of the fleet which had sailed from Plymouth, to an inevitable confrontation with the Dey of Algiers. Hardly peace, and there was growing friction between the new allies over the slave trade.

He had even touched her, held her hand, prevented her from pulling it away.

“I don't want you to go, Catherine. You could remain here, in London. I can make certain of your privacy.”

He had seen her eyes.

“As your mistress, Graham? Another scandal? I have too much respect for you to ruin your whole life.”

Herrick asked abruptly, “Is there news of Catherine?”

Bethune faced him. “I spoke with her. A few times.” He saw the disbelief, then the caution. “She intends to go with Lord Sillitoe to the West Indies.” He thought suddenly of the Nile medal, her relief when he had told her that it had been delivered safely to the Bolitho house in Falmouth.