There was no sun visible in the pale clouds, but the sea managed to hold its reflection, so that the undulating swell appeared to be lit from below as if by a giant lantern.

She had left Richard in the house to complete some letters for the afternoon mail coach that left from the square in Falmouth. She knew that one was for the Admiralty: there were no secrets between them now. She had even explained her own visit to Whitechapel, and the aid she had accepted from Sillitoe.

Bolitho had said quietly, "I never thought I would trust that man."

She had held him in her arms in their bed and whispered, "He helped me when there was no one else. But a rabbit should never turn its back on a fox."

Of the Admiralty letter he had said only, "Someone must have read my report on the Mauritius campaign, and the need for more frigates. But I can scarce believe that a wind of change has blown through those dusty corridors!"

Another day he had been standing with her on the headland below Pendennis Castle, his eyes the same colour as the grey waters that moved endlessly, even to the horizon.

She had asked, "Would you never accept high office at the Admiralty?"

He had turned to look at her, his voice determined and compelling. "When it is time for me to quit the sea, Kate, it will be time to leave the navy, for good." He had given his boyish smile, and the lines of strain had vanished. "Not that they would ask me, of all people."

She had heard herself say quietly, "Because of me, because of us-that is the real truth."

"It is not a price, Kate my darling, but a reward."

She thought, too, of young Adam Bolitho. His frigate Anemone was lying at Plymouth, in the dockyard after her long voyage from Mauritius by way of the Cape and Gibraltar. She had been so savaged in her final embrace with Baratte’s privateers that her pumps had been worked for every mile she was homeward bound.