Her brother straightened his back from putting more logs on the fire and looked at Allday gravely.

"Soon, you reckon?"

Allday nodded. "He’ll be off to London first. I should be with him-"

"Not this time, John. You’ve Unis now. I was lucky-I lost a leg for King an’ Country, though I didn’t think so at the time. A cannon don’t care. So make the most of what you have."

Allday picked up his unlit pipe and smiled as his new wife entered with a tankard of rum.

He said, "You knows what a man needs, my love!"

She wagged her finger and chuckled. "You’re a bad lad, John Allday!"

Across the parlour her brother relaxed, and Allday was glad.

But how could he really understand? He had only been a soldier, so why should he?

Lady Catherine Somervell paused at the turn of the stairway and pulled her gown more tightly about her body. After the warmth of the great four-poster bed and the fire in the room, the air was cold around her bare feet and ankles.

She had gone to bed earlier than usual to give Richard the opportunity to speak with his nephew alone. Later they had come upstairs together, and she thought she had heard Adam stagger when he reached the door of his room.

Throughout the evening meal he had been strained and unusually subdued. They had talked of his homeward journey, and of Anemone, docked to replace some of the copper damaged when she had been hulled by crossfire from Baratte’s privateers. Adam had looked up from his plate and for those few seconds she had seen the familiar animation, the pride in his Anemone.

"She took a beating, but by God, beneath the copper her timbers are as sound as a bell!"

He had mentioned that the brig Larne was also in Plymouth. She had brought despatches from Good Hope, but she was to remain in Plymouth to undergo an overhaul to spars and rigging. It was hardly surprising. Larne had been continuously at sea for nearly four years, in everything from blazing heat to screaming gales.