"It will hold them for now," Pitt said briefly.

The sound of their voices roused the household. A butler appeared from the gloom, with a maid close behind. "In here," Pitt threw over his shoulder, as he entered a small drawing room. The maid slipped past with a taper, lit the candles, and a pool of gold illuminated the chaise-longue. Pitt sprawled on it full-length, while Addington took a winged chair nearby.

"Oh, a bite of cold tongue and ham would answer," Pitt said wearily, to the butler's query, then closed his eyes until the man had returned with brandy and a new-opened bottle of port. He poured, then withdrew noiselessly, pulling the doors closed.

"Hard times," Addington offered.

"You think so, Henry? Since that insufferable coxcomb Fox rusticated himself I have only the French to occupy me." He took a long pull on his port.

Addington studied the deep lines in his face. "General Buonaparte and his invasion preparations?" he asked quietly.

There had been little else in the press for the last two months. Paris had performed a master-stroke in appointing the brilliant victor of Italy to the head of the so-called Army of England, which had beaten or cowed every country in Europe. His task now was to eliminate the last obstacle to conquest of the civilised world. Spies were reporting the rapid construction of flat troop-landing barges in every northern French port, and armies were being marched to the coast. Invasion of the land that lay in plain sight of the battalions lining those shores was clearly imminent.

"What else?" Pitt stared into the shadows. "If he can get across the twenty miles of the Channel then ... then we're finished, of course."

"We have the navy," Addington said stoutly.

"Er, yes. The navy were in bloody mutiny less'n a year ago and are now scattered all over the world. Necessary, of course." He brooded over his glass. "Grenville heard that the French will turn on Hanover and that His Majesty will oblige us to defend his ancestral home, dragging us into a land war."