Second to None

12. Aftermath

LIKE AN unhurried but purposeful beetle, Unrivalled’s gig pulled steadily around and among the many vessels which lay at anchor in Gibraltar ’s shadow.

It was a time of pride, and of triumph, climaxing when they had entered the bay with one prize in tow and the other in the hands of a prize crew. To the men of the fleet, hardened by so many years of setbacks and pain, it had been something to share, to celebrate. Ships had manned their yards to cheer, boats from the shore had formed an unofficial procession until the anchors had splashed down, and order and discipline was resumed.

And the war was over. Finally over. That was the hardest thing to confront. Napoleon, once believed invincible, had surrendered, and had placed himself under the authority of Captain Frederick Maitland of the old Bellerophon in Basque Roads, to be conveyed to Plymouth.

The officer of the guard who had boarded Unrivalled within minutes of her dropping anchor had exclaimed, “When you fought and took the two frigates, we were at peace!”

Adam had heard himself answer shortly, “It made no difference.”

He thought of the men who had fallen in that brief, savage action. Of the letters he had written. To the parents of Midshipman Thomas Homey, who had been killed even as the second frigate had surged into their quarter. Fourteen years old. A life not even begun.

And to Catherine, a long and difficult letter. Seeing Avery’s shocked and unwavering gaze, like an unanswered question.

Midshipman Bellairs was sitting behind him, beside Jago at the tiller.

“Flagship, sir!”

Adam nodded. He had taken a calculated risk, and had won. It was pointless to consider the alternatives. Unrivalled might have been caught in stays, taken aback as she tried to swing through the wind. The two frigates would have used the confusion to cross her stern and rake her, each broadside ripping through the hull. A slaughterhouse.

He stared at the big two-decker which lay directly across their approach, His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Prince Rupert of eighty guns, a rear-admiral’s flag rising and drooping at her mizzen truck.

He made to touch his thigh and saw the stroke oar’s eyes on him, and controlled the impulse. He had examined his body in the looking-glass in his cabin, and found a great, livid bruise, showing the force of the impact. A stray shot perhaps, fired at random as his men had hacked their way on board the enemy.

Even now, four days after the engagement, the pain was almost constant, and caught him unaware, like a reminder.

The surgeon, rarely at a loss for words, had been strangely taciturn. Perhaps when he had fallen unconscious again he had said something, revealed the despair which had tormented him for so long.

O’Beirne had said only, “You are in luck, Captain. Another inch, and I fear the ladies would have been in dire distress!”

He looked up now and saw the flagship towering above them, the gig’s bowman already standing with his boat-hook, and prepared himself for the physical effort of boarding. Seeing his eyes on the ship’s massive tumblehome, the “stairs” up to the gilded entry port, Jago said quietly, “Steady she goes, sir!”

Adam glanced at him, remembering his face when he had torn open his breeches to deal with the wound. Poor Homey’s blood and brains had made it look worse than it was.

He seized the handrope, gritting his teeth as he took the first step.

An unknown voice sang out, “Cap’n comin’ aboard! Stand by… pipe! ”

Adam climbed, step by step, each movement bringing a shaft of pain to his thigh.

The calls shrilled, and as his head rose above the sill he saw the scarlet-coated guard, the seemingly vast area of the flagship’s impeccable deck.

The guard presented arms, and a duplicate of Captain Bosanquet brought down his blade with a flourish.

The flag captain strode to greet him. Adam held his breath. Pym, that was his name. The pain was receding, playing with him.

“Welcome aboard, Captain Bolitho! Your recent exploits had us all drained with envy!” He looked at him more closely. “You were wounded, I hear?”

Adam smiled. It seemed so long since he had done that. “Damaged, sir, nothing lasting!”

They walked together into the poop’s shadow, so huge after Unrivalled. He allowed his mind to stray. Or Anemone…

The flag captain paused. “Rear-Admiral Marlow is still studying your report. I have had your despatches transferred to a courier-she will leave this afternoon. If there is anything else I can do to assist you while you are here, you have only to ask.” He hesitated. “Rear-Admiral Marlow is newly appointed. He still likes to deal with things at first hand.”

It was as good as any warning. Captain to flag rank; he had seen it before. Trust nobody.

Rear-Admiral Elliot Marlow stood with his back to the high stern windows, hands beneath his coat-tails, as if he had been in the same position for some time. A sharp, intelligent face, younger than Adam had expected.

“Good to meet you at last, Bolitho. Take a chair. Some wine, I think.” He did not move or offer his hand.

Adam sat. He knew he was strained and tired, and unreasonable, but even the chair seemed carefully placed. Staged, so that Marlow’s outline remained in silhouette against the reflected sunlight.

Two servants were moving soundlessly around the other side of the cabin, each careful not to look at the visitor.

Marlow said, “Read your report. You were lucky to get the better of two enemies at once, eh? Even if, the perfectionists may insist, you were at war with neither.” He smiled. “But then, I doubt that the Dey of Algiers will wish to associate himself with people who have failed him.” He glanced at his flag captain, and added, “As to your request respecting the son of that damned renegade, I suppose I can have no objection. It is hardly important…”

Pym interrupted smoothly, “And Captain Bolitho has offered to pay all the costs for the boy’s passage, sir.”

“Quite so.” He gestured at the nearest servant. “A glass, eh?”

Adam was glad of a chance to regain his bearings.

He said, “With regard to the prizes, sir.”

Marlow subjected his glass to a pitiless scrutiny. “The prizes, yes. Of course, their role may also have changed in view of the French position. I have heard it said that frigate captains sometimes see prize-money as the price of glory. A view I find difficult to comprehend.”

Adam realised that his glass was empty, and said bluntly, “The Dey of Algiers had three frigates at his disposal, sir. With the reopening of trade routes, those ships could have been a constant threat. That threat was removed, and at some cost. I think it fair enough.”

Captain Pym adroitly changed the subject.

“How long will your repair take, d’ you think?”

Adam looked at him and smiled thinly.

“We did much of it after the fight.” He considered it, seeing the dangling cordage, the limping wounded, the canvas bundles going over the side. “A week.”

Marlow waved one hand. “Give him all the help you can…” He pointed at the table. “That despatch from the Admiralty, where is it?”

Adam relaxed very slowly. The real reason for his visit. Not to congratulate or to crucify him. That was Bethune’s domain. Marlow had not even mentioned his use of the prisoners to fill the gaps in Unrivalled’s company.

Marlow put his glass down with great care and took some papers from his flag captain.

“You are instructed to take passengers when you return to Malta. Sir Lewis Bazeley and his party, of some importance, I gather. It is all explained in the orders.”

Captain Pym said hastily, “Because of the danger from corsairs and other renegades, a man-of-war is the only safe option.” He gave a tight smile. “As your own recent fight against odds has proved. I am sure that Vice-Admiral Bethune would have chosen your ship, had he been consulted.”

Adam found he could return the smile. He could understand why Pym was a flag captain.

“Anything else?” Marlow stared at him. “Now is the time to ask.”

“I have a midshipman named Bellairs, sir. He is due for examination shortly, but in the meantime I would like to rate him acting-lieutenant, and pay him accordingly. He has done extremely well during this commission.”

He had not seen Marlow all aback before, and neither, he suspected, had Pym.

“Bellairs? Has he family? Connections?”

“He is my senior midshipman, sir. That is all that concerns me.”

Marlow seemed vaguely disappointed.

“You deal with it.” He turned away, dismissing him. “And, er-good fortune, Captain Bolitho.”

The door closed behind them.

Pym grinned widely. “That was damned refreshing! Leave it with me!”

He was still grinning when the calls trilled again, and Adam lowered himself into the waiting gig.

“Bear off forrard! Give way all!”

Bellairs stood to watch a passing trader, ready to warn them away if they came too near.

Adam said, “By the way, Mr Bellairs, you will be moving shortly.”

Bellairs forgot his poise in the captain’s gig, and said, “Move, sir? But I hoped to…”

Adam watched Jago’s face over the midshipman’s shoulder.

“To the wardroom.”

It was only a small thing, after all. But it made it seem very worthwhile.

Catherine, Lady Somervell, moved slightly in her seat and tilted her wide-brimmed straw hat to shade her eyes from the sun. With the windows all but closed it was hot, and her gown was damp against her skin.

The City of London had never featured largely in her life, and yet in the past few months she had come here several times. It was always busy, always teeming. The carriage could have been open, but she was constantly aware of the need for discretion, and had noticed that the coachman never seemed to use the same route; today, as on those other visits, the vehicle was unmarked, never the one Sillitoe had been using on the day of the service at St Paul ’s. She had seen the cathedral this morning, dominating its surroundings as it had on that day, which she would never forget nor wanted to relinquish.

She looked at the passing scene; the carriage was moving slowly in the congestion of the road. Grey-faced offices, one of which she had visited with Sillitoe when he had kept an appointment with some shipping agent; she had been politely entertained in another room.

There were stalls here, flowers and fruit, someone elsewhere making a speech, another drawing a crowd with a performing monkey.

Now they were returning to Sillitoe’s house in Chiswick. Never once had he forced his presence on her, but he was always ready to help her, to escort her, or if necessary to give his opinion on her decisions for the immediate future.

She glanced at him now, on the seat opposite, frowning slightly as he leafed through yet another sheaf of papers. His mind was ever agile, ever restless. Like their last visit to Sir Wilfred Lafargue at Lincoln’s Inn. He was a lawyer of repute, but when he and Sillitoe were together they were more like conspirators than legal adviser and client.

She thought of the letter she had received from Captain James Tyacke, a concise, unemotional account of why marriage to the woman he had once loved had proved impossible. It had saddened her, but she had understood his reasons, and the sensitivity he would never reveal. A man who had been utterly withdrawn, almost shy, when he had been forced to leave the only world he understood; she was proud to call him her friend, as he had been Richard’s. Perhaps for him the sea was the only solution, but it was not, and never could be, an escape.

She realised that Sillitoe was looking at her, as he often did, when he believed she did not know.

“I have to go to Spain.” Calmly said, as was his habit, but not the same. This was a mood she had not seen or sensed before.

“You said that it was possible.”

He smiled. “And I asked you if you would come with me.”

“And I told you that there has been enough damage done already because of me. And you know that is true.”

She averted her eyes to look at a passing vehicle, but saw only her reflection in the dusty glass.

Sillitoe’s sphere of influence encompassed both politics and trade, although he was no longer Inspector-General. The Prince Regent, who was notorious for his infidelities, had feared whatever stain a liaison between his adviser and confidante and the admiral’s whore might cast on his reputation as the future monarch. She felt the old, familiar bitterness. The men in power with their mistresses and their homosexual lovers were forgiven if their affairs were kept separate from rank and authority, and were not conducted where they might offend the royal eye.

She had rarely seen Sillitoe reveal anger. A week ago, a cruel cartoon had appeared in the Globe. It had depicted her standing nude and looking at ships below in a harbour. The caption had been, Who will be next?

She had seen his anger then. There had been apologies. Someone had been dismissed. But it was there all the same. Hate, envy, malice.

Perhaps even the Prince’s courtiers had had a hand in it.

She recalled Lafargue’s advice on Belinda, Lady Bolitho. Never underrate the wrath of an unloved woman.

Sillitoe said, “You need security, Catherine. And protection. I can offer you both. My feelings remain unchanged.” He glanced round, frowning as a gap appeared in the buildings and the river was revealed. Masts and loose, flapping sails. Arriving and departing; sailors from every corner of the world. She wondered briefly if the coachman, who seemed to know London like the back of his own hand, had been ordered to avoid ships and sailors also.

She looked at him again. His face was tense, his mind obviously exploring something which troubled him.

He said, “You could stay at my house. You would not be molested by anything or anybody, my staff would see to that.” As he had said when someone had carved the word whore on the door of her Chelsea house.

He said abruptly, “There is always danger. I see it often enough.”

“And what would people say?”

He did not answer her directly, but the hooded eyes seemed calmer.

“If you come to Spain, you may be yourself again. I go first to Vigo, where I must see some people, and then on to Madrid.” He laid the papers aside and leaned forward. “You like Spain, you speak the language. It would be a great help to me.” He reached out and took her hand. “I should be a very proud man.”

She gently withdrew the hand, and said, “You are a difficult man to refuse. But I must confront whatever future remains for me.”

She heard the coachman making his usual clucking sounds to the horses, a habit she had noticed whenever they were approaching the Chiswick house. The journey had passed, and now she must do something, say something; he had done so much to help, to support her in the aftermath of Richard’s death.

There was another vehicle in the drive. So he had known she would refuse; the carriage was waiting to take her to Chelsea, a lonely place now without her companion Melwyn, whom she had sent back to St Austell temporarily to help her mother with work for a forthcoming county wedding.

They would surely notice the change in the girl. She had become confident, almost worldly. As I once was at that age.

She was aware now of Sillitoe’s expression; ever alert, he seemed suddenly apprehensive, before he regained his habitual self-assurance. She followed his eyes and felt the chill on her spine. The carriage door bore the fouled anchors of Admiralty, and there was a sea officer standing beside it, speaking with Sillitoe’s secretary.

So many times. Messages, orders, letters from Richard. But always the dread.

“What is it?”

He waited for a servant to run up and open the door for her. Afterwards, she thought it had been to give himself time.

He said, “I shall not keep you. The Admiralty still needs me, it would appear.” But his eyes spoke differently.

Marlow accompanied her into the house and guided her to the library, where she had always waited for Sillitoe.

“Is something wrong?”

The secretary murmured, “I fear so, m’ lady,” and withdrew, closing the tall doors.

She heard voices, the sound of hooves; the visitor had departed without partaking of hospitality. Sillitoe drank little, but always remembered those to whom the gesture was welcome.

He came into the library and stood looking at her without speaking, then, without turning his head, he called, “Some cognac.”

Then he crossed the room and took her hand, gently, without emotion.

“The Admiralty has just received news on the telegraph from Portsmouth. There has been a fight between one of our frigates and two pirates.”

Without being told, she knew it was Unrivalled, and that there was something more.

Sillitoe said, “Lieutenant George Avery, my nephew and Sir Richard’s aide, was killed.” He remained silent for a moment, then said, “Captain Adam Bolitho was injured, but not badly so.”

She stared past him, at the trees, the misty sky. The river. The war was over. Napoleon was a prisoner, and probably even now being conveyed to some other place of internment. And yet, although it was over, it was not yet over; the war was here, in this quiet library.

Sillitoe said, “George Avery was your friend also.” And then, with sudden bitterness, “I never found the time to know him.” He gazed at the window. “I see him now, leaving to rejoin Sir Richard when I wanted him to stay with me. I do believe that he felt sorry for me.” He waved his hand, and the gesture seemed uncharacteristically loose and vague. “All this-and his loyalty came first.”

The door opened and Guthrie placed a tray and the cognac on a table, glancing at Catherine. She shook her head, and the door closed again.

Sillitoe took the glass, and sat in one of the uncomfortable chairs.

“He was coming home, damn it. It was what we both needed. What we both fought! ”

She looked around, feeling the silence, as if the great house were holding its breath.

Adam was safe. There would be a letter from him as soon as it was possible. In the meantime, he was at sea, in the one element he knew and trusted. Like James Tyacke.

She walked past the chair, her mind suddenly quite clear, with that familiar sensation of detachment.

She put her hand on his shoulder and waited for him to turn his head, to look at the hand, and then at her.

As she had been, defenceless.

She said softly, “My Spanish is not so perfect, Paul.” She saw the light returning to his eyes, and did not flinch as he took both her hands and kissed them. “Perhaps… we can both find ourselves again.”

He stood, and then held her fully against his body, for the first time.

He said nothing. There were no words.

Eventually there was a gentle tap on the door, and Marlow’s voice. Unreal.

“Is there anything I can do, m’ lord?”

She answered for him. “Tell William to put away the carriage, please. It will not be required again today.”

It was done.

Bryan Ferguson hurried into the kitchen and all but slammed the door behind him.

He looked at his friend, seated in the chair he always occupied when he visited them, the familiar stone bottle on the table.

“Sorry to have left you so long, old friend. I’m bad company today.” He shook his head as Allday pushed the bottle towards him. “I think not, John. Her ladyship might think badly of the ‘servants’ having a wet!”

Allday watched him thoughtfully.

“She changed much?”

Ferguson walked to the window and stared at the stable yard, giving himself time to consider it. The smart carriage was as before, and Young Matthew was talking to the coachman. He smiled sadly. Young Matthew, the Bolitho household’s senior coachman. Filling out now, and a little stooped. But he had always been called “young,” even after his father had died.

He said, “Yes. More than I thought.” It stuck in his throat. Like a betrayal.

Allday said it for him. “High an’ mighty, is she? Thought so, when I last seen her.”

Ferguson said, “She walks from room to room with that damned lawyer, making notes, asking questions, treating my Grace like she’s a kitchen maid! Can’t understand it!”

Allday sipped the rum. It, at least, was good. “I can remember when Lady Bolitho was no more’n a paid companion to the wife of some bloody-minded old judge! She may have looked like Sir Richard’s wife, but it went no deeper. That’s it an’ all about it!”

Ferguson only partly heard. “As if she owns the place!”

Allday said, “Young Cap’n Adam’s away, Bryan, an’ there’s only the lawyers to fight over it. It’s nothin’ to them.”

Ferguson touched his empty sleeve, as he often did when he was upset, although he was not aware of it.

“She asked about the sword.” He could not stop himself now. “When I told her that Lady Catherine had given it to Captain Adam, like Sir Richard had intended, all she said was, she had no right!” He looked at his oldest friend. “Who had any better right, eh? God damn them, I wish she was back in the house where she belongs!”

Allday waited. It was worse than he thought, worse than Unis had warned him it might be. “She done the right thing to stay away while this is goin’ on, an’ you knows it. How would it look, that’s what a lot of people would say. A sailor’s woman, but she got pride too, an’ that’s no error! Look what happened to Lady Hamilton. All the promises and the smiles came to naught. Our Lady Catherine’s not like any of ’em. I know, I seen her in that damned boat after the wreck, an’ other times, the two o’ them laughin’ and walkin’ together, just like you have. We’ll not see the likes o’ them again, you mark me well!”

Ferguson felt the empty sleeve again. “Seemed to think I was getting past my duties here. That’s how it sounded to me anyway. God damn it, John, I don’t know anything else!”

“It’s all written down. Your position here is safe. Sir Richard took care o’ that, like he did for everyone else.” He looked away suddenly. “’Cept for himself, God rest him.”

Ferguson sat at the table. Sir Richard had always called Allday his oak, and suddenly he understood, and was grateful for it.

He said in a calmer voice, “An’ then she went into the big room, their room.” He gestured towards the house. “She told the lawyer that Sir Richard’s picture should be down with all the others of the family. The ones of Cheney and Catherine she said could be removed as far as she was concerned.”

Allday asked, “She stayin’ overnight?”

“No. Plymouth. With Vice-Admiral Keen.”

Allday nodded sagely, his head shaggy in the reflected sunshine. He enjoyed his visits here. One of the family, he had always described it, until good fortune had offered him Unis, and the little inn in Fallowfield.

“I hopes that one’ll be on the lookout for squalls!”

A stable boy thrust his head around the door, but hesitated when he saw Allday, who had become something of a legend around Falmouth since Sir Richard Bolitho’s last battle.

Ferguson said, “What is it, Seth?”

“They’m comin’ now, Mister Ferguson!”

Ferguson stood up and took a deep breath.

“I won’t be long.”

Allday said, “We done a lot worse together, Bryan, remember?”

Ferguson opened the door, and smiled for the first time.

“That was then, old friend.”

He walked across the yard, so familiar underfoot that he would have known every cobble in the dark.

He considered Allday’s question. Has she changed much? He saw her now, on the broad steps leading up to the entrance, elegant in a dark red gown, a hat which he guessed was fashionable in London shading her face. In her late forties, with the same autumn-coloured hair, like the young wife she had replaced when Cheney Bolitho had been killed in a carriage accident. It was hard to believe that he himself, with only one arm, had carried her, seeking help, when she and her unborn child were already dead.

It was one of fate’s cruellest ironies that Richard Bolitho and his “oak” had found Belinda in almost exactly the same circumstances after an accident on the road.

Her face was unsmiling, the mouth tighter than he remembered it. He tried not to think of Allday’s pungent summing-up. High and mighty.

She was speaking to the lawyer, a watchful, bird-like man, while Grace waited to one side, her bunch of keys in her hand.

Ferguson saw her expression, and felt his own anger rising again. Grace, the finest housekeeper anyone could wish for, and a wife who had nursed him through pain and depression after losing his arm at the Saintes, hovering like a nobody.

“There you are, Ferguson. I shall be leaving now. But I expect to return on Monday, weather permitting.” She walked across the yard, and paused. “And I should like to see a little more discipline among the servants.”

Her eyes were amused, contemptuous. Ferguson said, “They are all trained and trustworthy, m’ lady. Local people.”

She laughed softly. “Not foreigners like me, you mean? I think that quaint.”

He could smell her, too. Heady, not what he might have expected. He thought of the delicate scent of jasmine in his estate office.

She said, “Are all the horses accounted for among the other livestock?”

Ferguson saw her eyes move to the nearest stall, where the big mare Tamara was tossing her head in the warm sunlight.

He said, “That one was a gift from Sir Richard.”

She tapped his arm very gently. “I am aware of it. She will need exercise, then.”

Ferguson was suddenly aware of the hurt, like that which he had seen in Grace’s eyes.

“No, m’ lady, she was ridden regularly, until…”

She smiled again; she had perfect teeth. “That has an amusing ring, don’t you think?” She glanced towards the carriage, as though impatient. “I might take her for a ride myself on Monday.” She was looking at the house again, the windows where the room faced the sea. “You have a suitable saddle, I trust?”

Ferguson felt that she knew, that she was enjoying it, mocking him.

“I can get one if you intend…”

She nodded slowly. “She used a saddle like a man, I believe? How apt!”

She turned away abruptly and was assisted into the carriage. They watched it until it was out on the narrow road, and then walked together to their cottage.

Ferguson said, “I’ll take John back to Fallowfield presently.”

Grace took his arm and turned him towards her. She had seen his face when they had been in the room with the three portraits, and the admiral’s bed. Lady Bolitho had got rid of Cheney’s portrait before; it had been Catherine who had found and restored it. Bryan was a good man in every way, but he would never understand women, especially the Belindas of this world. Catherine would always be an enemy to Belinda, but Cheney’s love she could never usurp.

Allday made to rise from his chair as they entered, but Grace waved him down.

“Bad?” was all he said.

Ferguson answered sharply, “We shall have no say in things, that’s certain.”

Grace put down another glass. “Here, my love. You deserve it.” She looked from them to the empty hearth, the old cat curled up in one corner. Home. It was everything; it was all they had.

She remembered how Bryan had described those moments of Adam’s first visit here after his uncle’s death, when he had picked up the old sword and read the letter Catherine had left for him.

Like rolling back the years, he had said, like seeing the young Captain Bolitho again. Surely nothing could destroy all that.

She said with soft determination, “I must lock up,” and looked at them both, saddened rather than angered by one woman’s petty spite. “God will have His say. I shall have a word with Him.”

It was Tom, the coastguard, who found her body. A year or so ago, he would have done so earlier. He had been riding loosely in the saddle, his chin tucked into his neckcloth, his mind only half aware. Like his horse, he was so familiar with every track and footpath along this wild coastline that he had always taken it for granted. Behind him, his young companion was careful not to disturb him or annoy him with unnecessary questions and observations; he was a good fellow, inexperienced though he was, and should make a competent coastguard. He had been thinking, and he is replacing me next week. It had been hard to accept, even though he had known to the day when his service was to be ended, and he had already been offered employment with the mail at Truro. But after all he had seen and done on these lonely and often dangerous patrols, it would be something unknown, and perhaps lacking in a certain savour.

He had heard all about the comings and goings at the old grey house, the Bolitho home for generations. Lawyers and clerks, officials, all Londoners and strangers to him. What did they know of the man and the memory? Tom had been there at the harbour when news of the admiral’s death had arrived. He had been at the old church for the memorial service, when the flags had been dipped to half-mast, and young Captain Adam Bolitho had taken his place with Lady Somervell. He had thought of the times he had met her along this same coast, walking or riding, or just watching for a ship. His ship, which would never come any more.

And at first he had thought that it was her, that patch of colour, a piece of clothing moving occasionally in the breeze off Falmouth Bay. It was one of her favourite places.

Like that other time when she had joined him in the cove below Trystan’s Leap and had cradled the small, broken body of the girl named Zenoria. All those times.

He had found himself dropping from the saddle, running the last few yards down the slope where the old broken wall stood half-buried in gorse and wild roses.

And then he had seen her horse, Tamara, another familiar sight on his lonely patrols above the sea.

But it had not been Catherine Somervell. He had thrust his hand into her clothing, cupping her breast, aware of her eyes watching him through the veil over her hat. But the heart, like the eyes, had been still.

He should have known; the angle of the head told him some of it, the riding crop on its lanyard around the gloved, clenched hand and the bloody weals on the mare’s flank told the rest.

Tamara would have known. Would have pulled back, even if beaten, from jumping the old wall. She would have known…

“What is it, Tom?”

He had forgotten his companion. He stared up at the dark outline of the old house, just visible above the hillside.

“Fetch help. I’ll stay here.” He glanced at the side-saddle, which had slipped when the woman had been thrown.

“It’s got a lot to answer for.” He had been describing the house. But his companion was already riding hard down the slope, and there was no sound but the wind off the bay.