HIS MAJESTY'S BRIG-SLOOP TEAZER eased sheets and came round prettily for the last leg of the short passage from Polperro eastwards to Plymouth Sound. The ship's clerk knocked softly at the captain's cabin door. There was no reply so, from long friendship, Nicholas Renzi entered quietly. Commander Thomas Kydd was sitting rigid at the stern windows staring out. He turned, his face a bleak mask. "Tom, dear fellow? I've brought you this," Renzi said, proffering a glass. "The natives hereabouts do swear by its power to lay demons and recruit the spirit."

Kydd accepted the offering but it remained untouched in his hand. "Fine nor'-westerly blow," Renzi went on brightly. "We should raise the Sound on this tack, I'd venture." There was no response from the fine and ambitious sea officer, who had made the incredible journey from the fo'c'sle to the quarterdeck, then achieved his own command, now brought so low.

It had been so sudden. Returning triumphant after a rousing cruise, Kydd had decided to snatch a few moments in Polperro, the home of his newly betrothed, Rosalynd. There, he had learned of her tragic death, just days before.

Renzi drew a chair close. There was little to be said—grief was such a private thing, but in this Renzi knew guilt. His closest friend had stood alone when he had followed his heart and asked a country lass to be his bride, not Persephone Lockwood, the admiral's daughter. There had never been a formal understanding between Kydd and Miss Lockwood, but society—and Renzi—had been outraged nevertheless.