'Mr Q's conversation is merely more to my liking, certainly…'

'Pah!' interrupted Elizabeth, 'he talks of nothing but your confounded profession. Come, sir, I still smell gunpowder, Nathaniel,' and added warningly, 'do not tack ship.'

He took a deep breath and explained the gist of Dungarth's news without betraying the details.

'So it is to be Britannia contra mundum,' she said at last.

'Yes.'

Elizabeth was silent for a moment. 'The country is weary of war, Nathaniel.'

'Do not exempt me from that, but…' he bit his lip, annoyed that the last word had slipped out.

'But, Nathaniel, but? But while there is fighting to be done it cannot be brought to a satisfactory conclusion without my husband's indispensable presence, is that it?'

He looked sharply at her, aware that she had great reason for bitterness. But she hid it, as only she could, and resorted to a gentle mockery that veiled her inner feelings. 'And Lord Dungarth promised you a ship?'

'As I said, my dear, you are very perceptive.'

He did not notice the tears in her eyes, though she saw the anticipation in his.

Chapter Two 

A Knight Errant

 October-November 1800

'Drinkwater!'

Drinkwater turned, caught urgently by the arm at the very moment of passing through the screen-wall of the Admiralty into the raucous bedlam of Whitehall. Recognition was hampered by the shoving that the two naval officers were subjected to, together with the haggard appearance of the newcomer.

'Sam? Samuel Rogers, by all that's holy! Where the deuce did you spring from?'

'I've spent the last two months haunting the bloody waiting room of their exalted Lordships, bribing those bastard clerks to put my name forward. It was as much as the scum could do to take their feet out of their chair-drawers in acknowledgement…' Rogers looked down. His clothes were rumpled and soiled, his stock grubby and it was clear that it was he, and not the notorious clerks, that were at fault.