Relentless Pursuit

16. "Walk With Me"

ADAM BOI.ITIi0 lay quite still, for how long he could not tell, counting seconds, waiting, finding himself.

He moved slightly, waiting for the pain to bite into him. It was late, sunset. Ile tried again, and realised that there was a curtain drawn across a window; the sun was still shining, he could see it bringing colour to the bed.

He closed his eyes tightly again, and attempted to fit the pieces together. Ile was in a bed, covered up to his chin by a sheet. His hand explored his body, his side, and the bandages. Different ones, and there was no blood.

As if through a haze he saw his coat hanging from a chair, the buttons glinting dully in the filtered glow.

His hand moved again, touching his skin, damp, but without the terrible pain. And he was naked.

He groped above the sheet to push the hair from his eyes, but someone had already done that for him. It was like seeing a picture at the end of a dark corridor, remembering. The horse trotting steadily into the lane, the vague outline of the old house through a rank of trees. Ile had pulled one foot from its stirrup to lessen the strain, the raw reminder of the wound in his side.

A shadow; it might have been a fox, or even a stoat, but it had taken the horse by surprise. At any other time. But it was not any other time, and he had pitched headlong from the saddle. How long? How long? Ile moved his legs, afraid of losing the fragments of memory. Faces and voices, more pain while he was carried somewhere. He felt the bed beneath him. Then other voices, firm, deliberate fingers. Ile must have fainted again.

But he had not been alone. tie was certain of that. Perhaps O'Beirne had been right about his stubbornness, the admiral, too. Pride is one thing. Conceit is an enemy. He let his head fall back again. He could remember! He listened to the sounds. Some birds, rooks most likely. Voices, not in the yard but somewhere in the house. Perhaps they had already sent word to the ship? He tried to move on to one elbow, the returning memory like a threat.

Only then did he see her figure beside the window. In shadow, but she was watching him, he could sense it. Just as he could recall her being here, with him, in that lost space of time before someone else, a professional, had come to attend him.

"Lowenna?" His voice seemed like an echo in this strange room. He did not see her move, but felt her sit carefully on the bed and take his hand in hers, as he thought he could remember before…

She said, "Easy, now, Captain. Your wound is dressed. I am sorry you were caused such pain." He felt the fingers moving in his, as if she were suddenly aware of something. "I have sent word to your aunt." She must have sensed his surprise. "She told me I could call upon her. As a friend."

More voices, louder now. One was Montagu's. Not yet. Adam said, "You were with me. I can just recall it. You stayed with me." He tightened his grip as her hand attempted to pull away. "No, Lowenna, don't go. You took care of me." He made another effort and raised his body but she laid the hand on his bare shoulder and pressed him down.

"Please, don't."

Adam stared at the ceiling. The voices reminded him of the men who had carried him here. When she had stroked his face with the cloth, when he had protested at the blood on her gown.

He gazed at her. Seeing it. Like a word or a sound bringing back a dream. She had stood beside the bed and had dropped the stained gown to the floor. Then she had laid down beside him, dabbing his face with a damp cloth, stiffening when he had reached out for her, and had touched her.

She was looking down at him now, her hair hiding part of her face, lying against his shoulder like warm silk.

She said, "You kept saying that you wanted to save me. I worried so much-every effort seemed too much for you." She looked away, the hair now concealing her eyes. "You wanted to save me. Perhaps you saw me as the captive in the painting. Andromeda?" Her hand touched his mouth. "Don't say anything. I will think of it like that."

He said quietly, "I was coming to see you, Lowenna. Because I wanted to, needed to. But for my horse throwing me, I might have been unable to tell you things. Riding here was madness anyway. I have been at sea too long, I fear…" lie held her hand to his lips. "And I must go back to it soon."

She said, "Your steward is here."

"Bryan Ferguson?" Remembering what he had told Lieutenant Bellairs. "But then Falmouth is a small place."

She did not take her hand away but watched as he kissed it. She could recall the eyes of the men who had come from the inn, and her gown in disarray. It would make a good yarn over a glass or two of ale. She had seen and heard it all before, like the creeping terror which she had fought, year after year…

She removed her hand. "I never forgot your kiss, my tears, when you left." And today, here, in this room, she had lain beside him, nude, like one of the poses she performed for Sir Gregory. Which had taught her to fight and defy the shame and disgust, and the faces that turned to stare and condemn her.

He had been lost in pain, but aware of her. His hand had found her, and she had done nothing to prevent it.

She still could not believe it. She had wanted to end it then and there, but her mind had cried out for it to continue.

She must face it. Not merely give in like some innocent child.

She said, "I must go to London." She felt his eyes on her. "Tomorrow."

Adam said, "I behaved badly. Abused you, when pain and sickness are no excuse." He kissed her hand again. "But I must see you. It was intended, fate if you like. But I have to be with you."

She saw the smile, the edge of sadness which was lacking in the portrait. She hesitated; this was their last moment alone. "Perhaps…"

The door opened and Montagu, with Ferguson peering anxiously over his shoulder, strode into the room.

Adam released her hand. Perhaps. It was enough.

John Allday seized his friend's arm and all but pushed him through the doorway into the parlour.

"I'll fetch you a wet meself, Bryan. You sit here-an' I'll want to hear everything about the battle." He paused in his stride. "An' you says young Cap'n Adam is all right?"

Bryan Ferguson glanced around the room, at the model of the Hyperion on the table, and Allday's kit of tools beside a rough plan of another fine piece of work.

Unis hurried through to the Long Room but paused to greet him. "Good to see you again. We're busy today-the new road, y' know."

Allday shouted from the cellar, "Only just heard about Unrivalled an' the battle-wouldn't have known anything but for one of the revenue men passin' through! My God, Bryan, what are we here? Six miles from Falmouth? You'd think we was on the other side o' the real world!"

Unis touched his shoulder and carried on with her work, but not before Ferguson had seen the hurt on her pretty features.

He took the mug from Allday and waited for him to settle in another chair.

"I see you've started on Frobisher, then?"

Allday waved a hand. "Tell me about the battle. Did Unrivalled dish the buggers up? Who were they anyway? Why, in our day…"

Ferguson sipped the rum, recalling all the excitement, but not the sort his old friend wanted to hear. The urgent message from the glebe house, and going over with Young Matthew to collect Captain Adam. Everybody wanted to know about it. Even Lady Roxby had driven over to see her nephew. A surgeon from the garrison had examined and treated him and had offered a few blunt warnings of his own.

"If you were one of my dragoons, sir, I'd have you flogged in front of the troop for your behaviour. What the hell did you expect to happen?"

And he had met the girl, the one who had brought Captain Adam from the town that day when he had got his orders to report back to Plymouth.

He had recognised the change in her, even on so slight an acquaintance. There were rumours about her, how she posed for an artist, no matter that he was one of England's greatest painters to all accounts. His wife Grace had relatives still living in Bodmin, where the girl Lowenna had been horn. Lowenna's family had not approved of the match. Hard-working farming people, and the biggest corn chandlers in that part of the county, they had considered their daughter to be out of her depth marrying a scholar, a man who had never known the demands of bending his back and working with his hands. They had moved away after the birth. Vanished, "foreigners" again.

There had been some scandal, although Grace had said little about it. He had not pressed her; he knew what he owed her for nursing and restoring him after the Saintes. He glanced at the model again. Before Hyperion's time, that was…

On this occasion the girl had been warmer, but outwardly correct despite all the upheaval. Withdrawn, many would have said. But Ferguson had recognised something which was still as clear as yesterday. When Sir Richard had brought Lady Catherine to Falmouth for the first time… If only…

Allday leaned forward. "He was wounded, y' say? Is he taking it well?"

"The ship's repairing at Plymouth." He saw the old light in his friend's eyes. Living it. "The fleet's standing to, if you ask me."

"We should have finished the job last time, matey! Them buggers don't understand a soft hand, that's it an' all about it!"

Ferguson looked at the tools on the table. Captain Adam had told him about Frobisher, and that he had seen her at Gibraltar, maybe for something to say as they had driven back together in the new dog-cart, as it was called. More comfortable on that rutted track, it had bigger wheels than his little trap, but Poppy had pulled it like a champion. He thought Adam must have felt every stone and hole on that journey, but his mind had seemed elsewhere. He had been wounded, but in some way, Ferguson thought, he looked better than when he had been here before, only weeks ago.

Afterwards Young Matthew had said with unusual vehemence, "So that was the girl? I heard about her from a loudmouth I used to know."

Ferguson had waited; Young Matthew was not by nature a gossip.

"In Winchester, I was told. Beaten an' raped, an' left for dead, the story had it. Tried to end her own life, poor lass."

He had said no more. Nor would he.

Perhaps Grace also knew.

He felt Allday's big hand tap his knee. There was no avoiding it.

"Well, they sighted these two vessels, and right away Captain Adam guessed what they were up to."

Unis paused at the door, and after a few seconds smiled at what she heard and saw.

I ler John was hack at sea again. He had never really left it.

The wine cooler stood in one corner of the cellar, its polished woodwork and silver mounts gleaming in the flickering light of the lanterns.

Adam Bolitho ran his hand over the inscription and crest, identical to that carved on the fireplace in the room above. For My Country's Freedom. He thought again of the forlorn hulk at Gibraltar; it was hard to imagine this wine cooler on hoard, with men working and following their daily routines, like the world he had left in Unrivalled

Catherine had given this fine piece of furniture to his uncle; its predecessor lay on the seabed in the old Hyperion. It was a marvel that it had reached here unscathed, changing ships, being signed for again and again, until eventually it had arrived in Falmouth. And the chair she had given him.

He heard Ferguson's breathing behind him; he had scarcely left his side since the accident.

"I think we should move it upstairs, Bryan." He looked at the chair, covered with a sheet. "I might have that taken to the ship."

Ferguson nodded, unwilling to speak, and strangely moved.

"And the wine cooler, Captain?"

"It were best kept in the house. To come home to."

He turned away, suddenly lost within himself Still the interloper, always feeling that the house waited for someone else.

"I shall attend to that." Ferguson followed him tip the stone steps.

It should have been so different, he thought. This was another homecoming which would soon be interrupted by some urgent message. He had heard more about the sea fight in which Unrivalled had been damaged, and men had died. lie closed the iron-studded door. It could have been Adam. And next time…

He shook some dust from a heavy curtain and looked at the flowers in the walled garden. To come home to, he had said. But this was no home. Not anymore.

He thought again of what Young Matthew had told him. Maybe someone should consider the girl's feelings, and this spectre which still obviously haunted her. He sighed. Anyway, she had gone to London, so that was the end of it. But her eyes had said something else. He smiled awkwardly. How Grace would laugh if she knew. But he had not forgotten how it felt.

Or how it looked. He glanced down at his empty sleeve. The past was the past.

Adam was only partly aware of Ferguson's concern as he walked through to the study, where John Allday had seen Captain James Bolitho hand the old sword to his younger son.

He felt the leather case in his pocket, the Nile medal which Catherine had sent to him by special messenger. Somebody must have arranged it. There was only a brief note, echoing the one she had left for him in this house with the sword. He would have wanted you to have it.

He looked up at the portrait of Captain James, with the arm painted out. By right the sword should have been Hugh Bolitho's. The traitor.

My father.

His eyes went involuntarily to the empty fireplace. It was even the same rug, where he had loved and been loved by Zenoria. And now Catherine had broken the link which had brought them together.

Ferguson knew the signs. The ship was his world, and soon he would be away again. This house will be empty.

"A meal perhaps, Captain?"

Adam had opened the little case and was gazing at the gold medal. The Nile. So many memories. So many faces, gone forever.

"I think not, Bryan."

Ferguson said nothing. He would seek Grace's advice. She might know…

He was unable to believe what he saw.

She was standing just outside the opened French windows, by the roses, one finger to her lips, smiling but unsure, as if at any second she might turn and vanish. She was dressed in pale grey, and wore a wide-brimmed straw hat fastened beneath her chin with a blue ribbon. Her hair was tied back, and Ferguson saw that she carried a yellow rose, like the one rumoured to be in the portrait.

Adam said, "I think I shall take a walk, Bryan." He closed the little case and turned towards the sunlight.

She said, "Then walk with me."

Adam crossed the room, and paused as she held out the rose.

"This is for you." Her poise seemed suddenly a lie. "Please

I should not be here." He took the rose from her hand; her breathing was unsteady, as if she were fighting something, needing to speak, unable to find the words.

Adam slipped his hand gently beneath her arm.

"I will show you the house, Lowenna." He pressed her arm to reassure her, feeling its tension. And then, "You came. It is all I care about. You are here beside me, and I shall not awake and find only a dream."

"I could not go, to London, or anywhere else, without coming to discover how you are." She averted her face slightly. "No, do not look at me so, I am not sure if I can…"

She was trembling. Afraid. Of him or herself?

He repeated, "And you came."

"Joseph brought me. I told him to wait." She looked at him directly, her eyes suddenly determined, pleading. "I had no right…"

"You, of all people, have every right."

She smiled, for the first time. "Just walk with me, Adam. Show me your home. The way you offered, that day…"

They moved from room to room, scarcely speaking, each intensely aware of the other. And not knowing how to proceed.

She said abruptly, "I saw the portrait. I told Sir Gregory it is not right." She seemed shocked by her own outspoken comment. "Who, what am I, to say such things?"

He smiled. "Tell me. I'll not bite."

It was like a cloud passing away. She said, "Like that, Adam. Exactly that. The smile, as I remembered. And will remember it!"

He put his hand on her shoulder, touching her skin, feeling her body's resistance. Like a reminder. As if it had happened before.

He said, "I would never hurt you, Lowenna. I would kill any man who harmed you."

She touched his face. "A man of war." Gently, she took his arm. "Walk me to that garden. The roses… What are you thinking, Adam?"

He walked with her to the steps, feeling the sun on his face, on her arm. The girl who had visited him in a dream had returned.

He said, "I think that you belong here, Lowenna."

She did not answer, and he said, "That was badly put. Given time, I would learn to express myself… as I feel… and how I feel. You do belong here."

They walked on, pausing while he stooped to pat Young Matthew's dog, Bosun. Old and almost blind now, the dog allowed nobody to pass unchallenged.

Adam winced as he straightened again.

"That will teach me a lesson!"

Ferguson was standing by the door of his office, and lifted a hand as they passed.

From another doorway Grace Ferguson also watched, and felt a tear in one corner of her eye.

They made a perfect picture. Like something from the past, and yet something so new and radiant that it was beautiful to see after all the sorrow this house had known. And all the happiness, too…

She thought she heard the girl laugh, at something he had said, perhaps. A closeness, a new discovery.

She went back into the house and closed the door, in spite of the heat.

Would she tell him? Could she share something which had all but destroyed her, without destroying this hope of a fresh beginning?

She hurried into the cool shadows, annoyed at herself that she was weeping.

Aware only of the girl holding his arm, Adam strolled through the stable yard and towards the gates. Several people working in the yard turned to look at them; a few, who had served here longer, waved.

She said, "I want you to tell me about your life. Your ship, the men you lead." She said it so seriously that he wanted to throw caution aside and embrace her. Like the girl in the dream.

"Then you can tell me all about you, Lowenna."

She turned away, pretending to watch some ducks flying across the surface of the pond. She could not answer. And she was afraid.

Bryan Ferguson stood just outside the library door, his hand moving up and down the buttons of his coat, a habit he no longer noticed. It was rare for him to be so agitated.

"I heard a horse, Captain. I thought it was mebbee a courier."

Sir Gregory Montagu removed his hat and gave a curt how. "It is not uncommon for people to call upon me without prior arrangement. The times we live in, perhaps?"

Adam stood up from the table, the letter unfinished. Barely begun. My dear Catherine.

It was hard to compare this straight, elegant figure with the paintdaubed one in the grubby smock. He had ridden here along that same dusty track, but looked as if he could have been arriving at Court.

"Very well, Bryan. Thank you." He glanced at the open door, the windows beyond. For a moment more he had imagined that she had come, too. Was it only yesterday, their walk in that same garden, while he had told her about Unrivalled, and some of the people who had made her the ship she had become? For those precious moments, so close, and yet quite apart.

Montagu gestured towards one of the paintings. "That must be some of Ladbroke's work. Ships all out of proportion. Wouldn't know a block from a beakhead!"

Adam was suddenly alert, on the defensive. Montagu had not come here to pass the time of day about a painter who had died years ago.

"I thought you might be in London, Sir Gregory."

"Did you? Indeed." He plucked at the short cavalier's beard, his eyes everywhere. It was the first time Adam had seen him uncertain, perhaps unsure how to continue.

"You saw Lowenna, here in this house?"

Adam tensed. It would be easy to lose his temper. Maybe Montagu wanted just that.

"She was concerned about my injury. She would not stay for long." He could see that his words were having no effect. "I made certain that she was properly escorted."

Montagu nodded abruptly. "So I heard. As it should be. One can never be too careful these days."

He walked to a bookcase, his riding boots squeaking on the waxed floorboards.

"Lowenna is very dear to me, otherwise I should not be here. She is my ward, but that cannot last forever. Nothing does. She is a lovely woman, but in some ways…"

Adam said quietly, "Then you must know, Sir Gregory, that I care for her greatly." He raised his hand. "Hear me. I was unprepared for it, but now I can think of little else, only her future happiness."

Montagu sat down heavily and gave him the same unwavering stare as some subject for his canvas.

He said, "I knew her father for some years. I had occasion to work with him at Winchester. A scholar, and a fair man. But not of our world, yours or mine. He cared and trusted too much. His wife died in Winchester-a fever of some sorts. It was a foul winter that year-many went the same way. Lowenna tried to take her mother's place, and I did my best to help when I could. I felt I owed it to her father. As I said, a fair man, but weak. Unable to find his way after her death."

"I felt there was something."

Montagu seemed not to have heard him. "They had a house outside Winchester, near the woods, pleasant enough, I suppose, but remote." He leaned forward, his eyes very steady, sharing something which he must carry like a sacred trust. "Some men came, asking for food, shelter maybe. Anyone else would have sent them packing. But as I said, he was not of our world."

Adam felt himself gripping his leg, chilled, held in suspension, as if watching the gun ports of an enemy opening.

"They wanted money. Afterwards, we heard they were deserters from the army, common enough in those times. He had none, in any case, but they would not believe him."

He was on his feet again. "I am only telling you this because I trust you. If I thought or discovered to the contrary, I would use everything at my disposal to destroy you."

He had not raised his voice, and yet it was as if he had shouted it aloud.

"It was some time before it was discovered. A visitor from the college where he was employed, I believe. For four days that girl was held captive, at their mercy. I can see from your face that you can form your own assessment, and I shall leave it there. It broke her in mind and body, and she would have died, I know that now. She is a brave, intelligent person, and I have seen what she has given to force that horror behind her."

Adam said, "With your help. Yours alone."

"Perhaps I need her as much as I think she needed me."

"Thank you for telling me, Sir Gregory."

Montagu regarded him impassively. "Has it changed things?"

"How could it?"

"She may never be able to tell you herself. Who can be that certain of anyone?"

Adam said, after a silence, "Did they catch them?"

"Eventually. They were hanged as felons, not as soldiers. Even at the scaffold they tried to soil her name. Some of it found a receptive ear. No smoke without fire, isn't that what the Bard said?" He moved one foot sharply. "I would have burned those scum alive for what they did!"

Adam heard someone leading a horse from the yard. Montagu had timed his visit to the minute.

"The subject of this conversation is safe with me, Sir Gregory."

Something in his tone made Montagu cross the room and take his hand, their first contact since his arrival.

"No secret is ever safe, Captain Bolitho. Be ready. I think maybe you are the one who can save her. From those four days, and from herself."

Adam followed him into the sunshine. There was cloud coming in now, blue-grey, from the sea. A change in the weather… He watched his visitor climb up into the saddle. Or an omen?

For a moment longer Montagu sat motionless, then he said, "Your portrait will he ready very soon. I was told of a few alterations I should make." It seemed to thrust some of the earlier anxiety aside. "And I would not wish to annoy your aunt. That rascal Roxhy knew a thing or two when he married her, eh?"

Adam watched the horse until it was through the gates.

He knew Ferguson was loitering nearby; it was something they shared, without truly understanding how or why.

He turned and looked at him, surprised by his own calmness.

"I shall need Young Matthew early tomorrow, Bryan."

Ferguson nodded. No questions were needed here. He had seen it all too often. And yet this was different in some way.

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

To come home to.

He was ready.