Even then Bolitho had seen the courier’s dramatic despatch as nothing more than a necessary interruption.

Belinda had walked with him to the carriage, her eyes laughing, her body warm against his as she had told him of her plans, what she would do to prepare for their marriage while he was in London. She would be staying at the squire’s house until they were finally married, for there were always loose tongues in a seaport like Falmouth, and Bolitho wanted nothing to spoil it. He disliked Lewis Roxby, the squire, intensely, and could not imagine what his sister Nancy had seen in him when she had married him. But he could be relied on to keep her entertained and occupied with his horses and his spreading empire of farms and villages.

Behind his back, Roxby’s servants called him the King of Cornwall.

The shock had really hit Bolitho when he had been ushered into Admiral Beauchamp’s chambers. He had always been a small, frail man, seemingly weighed down as much by his epaulettes and gold lace as the tremendous responsibility he held and the interest he retained wherever a British man-of-war sailed on the King’s service. Hunched at his littered table, Beauchamp had been unable to rise and greet him. In his sixties, he had looked a hundred years old, and only his eyes had held their fire and alertness.

“I will not waste time, Bolitho. You have little to squander, I daresay. I have none left at all.”

He was dying with each hour and every tight breath, and Bolitho had been both moved and fascinated by the intensity of the little man’s words, the enthusiasm which had always been his greatest quality.

“Your squadron performed with excellence.” A hand like a claw had dragged blindly over the litter of papers on the table.