The long and jolting journey to London by carriage in the lee of the Downs was enjoyable only because of the sunny weather, and because each night a brisk shower just before dawn laid the dust, although the two horses still kicked up enough at times to set them all coughing and make a cursing Raven slow down from a trot to a walk.
Day by day they skirted the North Downs, the great ridge lying on their right hand and deeply scarred with the white of the chalk showing through grass closely cropped by flocks of sheep. Once past West Malling the Downs began to curve round to the southwest across their path, and just as their road met the steep hill Raven reined in at Wrotham Heath.
"Better hire a couple of extra horses here than wait till we get to Wrotham village," he explained. "Often as not they've none left, or they want an extra couple of guineas for 'the last pair in the stable'."
The ride up the hill was spectacular: in climbing the side of the North Downs, with Raven stopping frequently to rest the horses, Ramage and Sarah would get out and look back over the rest of Kent spread out to the east and south of them, a green table with church towers and steeples sticking up like stubby pegs on a lawn, each surrounded by a huddle of houses and barns.
But Sarah seemed preoccupied, and when Ramage pressed her admitted she was saddened by the tablet they had seen at the foot of the hill back in Wrotham village. "Near this place," it said, "fell Lieut Colonel Shadwell, who was shot to the heart by a deserter on the morning of the first day of June 1799." Four lines carved below in italic added cryptically: "The Assassin with another deserter his companion were immediately secured and brought to justice."
"Three men dead," Sarah said. "They all intended to fight the French - well, obviously the deserter and his companion changed their minds - but all three have ended up in graves here at the foot of the Downs. Colonel Shadwell - was he a young man eager to fight the French? Or did he buy his commission to get away from a nagging wife?"
"Was he serving in one of the regular regiments of foot, or simply a wealthy landowner here, soldiering on Sunday mornings in the local yeomanry?" Ramage murmured.
"Oh, darling, you are spoiling the whole thing. Here I am thinking of a young colonel with a brilliant future ahead of him -"
"And belonging to one of the fashionable regiments!"
"- and you conjure up a portly farmer . . ."
"Your imagination is running wild. Why did the soldier desert? Where did he get the pistol to fire a fatal shot - or was it a musket? Who was his mysterious companion - another soldier, or a trollop he'd picked up? Was it at night? Did the colonel call upon him to halt? Or was the colonel leading a column of men?"
"If it wasn't such a steep hill, I'd insist we go back to Wrotham and ask some local people," Sarah said. "It happened only a few years ago, so they'll remember the details."
"We'll inquire on the way back," Ramage promised. "Come along - Raven is sitting on his box, so the horses are rested enough."
As they approached the city the road gradually became busier. After reaching Farningham they went on to Swanley (by which time they were looking for an inn to spend the night), and carts, carriages and coaches were passing each way, either on their way to the coast or bound for London. Everyone, Ramage noted, seemed to be in a hurry; Raven's leisurely progress, he realized, would probably be the only time until the war ended that Ramage would ever travel this road so slowly: every time he had previously left London for Dover, or had travelled the parallel road to the Medway towns to join a ship at Chatham, the horses had always been in a lather.
Raven still remembered where the house was, having brought his late master there a few times, and, as he pulled up with a clatter and a loud "Whoa, there!" intended to warn the earl's butler, Sarah sighed.
"How nice to be back in Palace Street. I think I prefer travelling by ship, though: you don't have to keep on packing and unpacking at post inns!"
"We must persuade father to get a house on the Thames side at Greenwich, and we'll sell Treffry Hall and buy a place near Dover. Then we can sail round when we want to see them!"
"We've come to see the gentlemen at Lloyd's," Sarah pointed out as a grinning Hanson let down the steps with a crash, opened the door of the carriage and, pushing his spectacles back up again, blinked and welcomed them. "Your father is just coming, sir. Leave the luggage to Raven and me."
Admiral the Earl of Blazey, hook-nosed and white-haired, came to the front door just as Sarah reached it. In his usual courtly fashion he kissed her hand before giving her a fatherly hug.
"We guessed you'd be here today: your father and mother are calling this evening." He shook hands with his son. "Your mother is busy with her dressmaker but she'll be ready as soon as you've washed off the grime of London. We could do with a shower of rain to lay the dust," he grumbled, looking up at the clear blue sky.
Ramage followed Sarah up to their rooms on the second floor. These two rooms had been his since he was a child and father had bought the Palace Street house: a bedroom and what had first been a nursery, then a playroom and finally a study. Finally, that is, until Sarah arrived: now with a third change of furniture it was their dressing room.
Undressing room, he reflected. In three or four minutes Sarah would be standing there naked, washing herself with a grace and ease of movement that always left him breathless. How often, in boyhood and bachelor days, he had spent hours lying on his bed, his head a whirl of wild fantasies and furious longings.
She walked across the room, undoing the ribbon of her bonnet and running a hand through her long, tawny hair. She checked that the jug on the marble washstand was full of water and that there was soap in the black alabaster container that Ramage recognized as one of the half dozen his mother had bought at Volterra many years ago when they had lived in Italy.
There was a knock at the door and Hanson's wife called: "Two jugs of hot water: I'll leave them outside the door, ma'am."
While Ramage collected them and used the contents of one to fill the basin, Sarah undid the silver clip at the neck of her pearl-grey travelling cloak, took it off and hung it in one of the two large wardrobes.
"Oh, I feel grimy," she said. "Help me unbutton this, or that water will be cool before I'm ready."
Undressing her was still one of the most erotic sensations he had experienced and, noticing it, Sarah smiled. "What will I do when you no longer enjoy helping me undress?"
"Refuse to push my wheelchair," Ramage said cheerfully, lifting off her dress and then beginning to unlace her drawers. "Do you begrudge me a look at those bosoms?" He cupped one in his hand and kissed the nipple.
She pushed him away. "Stop it, you're making me think of other things -" she gestured towards the dark-blue curtains of the four-poster bed which could be seen through the door, "- while that water is getting cold."
As she began washing, he stripped off his clothes. How comfortable it was, not to be wearing uniform. The stock round his neck was tied lower and less tightly than demanded with uniform; his waistcoat had shrunk compared with the bulky fashion of ten years ago and did not ruck up under his coat. And, despite the protests of his tailor, the breeches were cut with a comfortable fullness, so he could sit down without the feeling that he was cutting off his legs at the knees and, more important, take them off without assistance.
Tailors are more conservative than North Briton fanners and they have a more nose-in-the-air attitude than the wife of the most recently knighted nabob. A much shorter waistcoat, more comfortable breeches, less padding in his coat... the damned tailor would have continued protesting if he had not been afraid of losing the custom of the son and heir of the Earl of Blazey who was, in his own right, not unknown as a frigate captain.
"My back," Sarah said, turning towards him and offering soap and flannel. "My, you look so fierce!"
"Pure lust,"Ramage said. "No, I was having an imaginary argument with my tailor."
As Sarah turned slightly when he took the soap and flannel, she gave a slight sniff and Ramage chuckled, guessing what she would say. "Darling, one doesn't argue with one's tailor."
" 'Argue' wasn't the right word, but I've heard you and your dressmaker bickering over where to put a plaquet or a pleat or a couple of buttons. And as for hats ..."
"That's enough," Sarah said, holding his hand. "That's not my back. Now please rinse off the soap and dry me."
While Sarah and Hanson's wife unpacked their trunks, shook the creases out of clothes and hung them in the wardrobes, Ramage went down to the sitting room and found his father reading the Morning Post, having finished The Times.
"It seems odd, having you back and a married man," the earl said. "This Lloyd's business is long overdue. You should have had half a dozen presentation swords by now!"
"One is quite enough," Ramage said. "Imagine all this presentation business ... it was so peaceful down in Aldington!"
"Ah yes, how did you get on with that lawyer? Did Rufus leave everything in good order?"
Ramage nodded. "Yes, and with handsome bequests to his staff, whom I'm keeping on anyway."
"That fellow Raven," the earl said. "He's a good chap but mixed up with the Marsh smugglers, you know. Rufus told me."
"He helped me get to France that time - you remember? I don't think anyone knows the Marsh better."
The earl laughed dryly and said: "Who better than a poacher to guard the pheasants!"
The old admiral thought a moment and then said gruffly: "This probably isn't the right time to mention it, but now you're married I've got to make another will to take care of Sarah - the family jewels and that sort of thing, quite apart from when you start a family - so I have to ask you this: how are you treating Treffry Hall?"
Ramage looked puzzled. "How do you mean, father?"
"Well, you know you inherit the St Kew estate. That's a dam' big house and fifteen thousand acres of Cornwall. It's not the lush land you have in Kent, though: more rocks than blades of grass. But when I've gone over the standing part of the foresheet, will you keep open both places - and this house here?"
Ramage shrugged, not because of indifference but because he did not want to contemplate his father dying. "It won't arise for a long time! You look as if you'll weather a good many more years yet!"
"Don't be squeamish," the admiral said impatiently. "I've got to go sometime - although the way you get yourself into scrapes, I may well outlast you. But I've got to draw up a new will which allows for me outlasting you and you outlasting me - and covers Sarah."
"Backing the horse to win and lose!" Ramage said lightly.
"Exactly. If you don't, lawyers get rich, and there's no better goldmine for lawyers than the probate court: give them a disputed will and they dig away until there's nothing left of the estate."
"I see your point," Ramage said. "What exactly do you want to know?"
"Well, obviously the earldom comes to you the moment I die. St Kew Hall - the house itself - is entailed to the eldest son. So that comes to you as well and goes on to your eldest son and grandson. But the land itself isn't entailed. I've bought up a few farms (to help out the owners) and doubled the acreage since I inherited the house from your grandfather. Fifteen thousand acres is a lot of land. Now you have Rufus's place, do you want all that land in Cornwall? If you carry on farming, I'll tell you right now you'll make a lot more profit from Treffry Hall than St Kew: Rufus had some of the richest land in the country, let alone county. Do you want an estate at one end of the country and a second at the other? With Palace Street in between?"
The question was a sensible one, but how the devil did one answer? Ramage knew he could not compare St Kew and Treffry Hall. For a start you could lose Treffry Hall in the St Kew house, and if you dropped the Kentish acres among the Cornish ones it would take a day's riding to find them.
But places were memories, the bits and pieces that made up a life. Part of his childhood had been spent in Italy with his mother, part at St Kew, and there had been many happy holidays at "Uncle Rufus's place", much of the time spent out on the Marsh with Raven.
Palace Street came into a different category. It was within walking distance of Parliament and the Admiralty, and of Downing Street, and the rest of the ministers' offices come to that, so when he inherited the earldom and had to attend Parliament regularly (when he retired from the Navy, in other words) he would need Palace Street: it was the perfect town house: not too big but ideally placed, close to Parliament but far enough away from the drawing rooms of Grosvenor and Berkeley Squares . . .
But did he have to choose between St Kew and Treffry Hall? Was that what his father meant? Hellfire and damnation, what would Sarah want? He sensed that Sarah had fallen in love with Treffry Hall: the rolling and rich green countryside of Kent, the North Downs rising on one side and the flat plain of Romney Marsh to the south and meeting the sea intrigued her: no matter what the weather, the clouds ensured an ever-changing view whichever way one looked.
Sarah. Yes, sons and daughters. There would be some, though at the moment he did not welcome the idea. Where would Sarah want them to grow up? He knew instinctively that she would choose Aldington: it was wonderful riding country - he pictured children graduating from ponies to hunters - and there were plenty of oaks and beeches to climb, and Treffry Hall's orchards meant scraped knees and fun, scrumping apples and cherries, and hurling sticks up at the chestnut trees to bring down the prickly cases. Finding horse chestnuts and playing conkers, and cheating by gently roasting them or pickling them in vinegar . . . "Mine's a twicer." "Go on, hold it up: mine's a twelver . . ." Yes, they'd need at least two sons.
Treffry Hall for when the children were young: that was certain, and certainly for Sarah if she was widowed. But St Kew went with the earldom, and the Ramage family had roots in the St Kew countryside going back many generations. Centuries, in fact, and one did not cast them away lightly. For fifty miles around St Kew, the Earl of Blazey represented everything to the people: the man they went to for help when they had money troubles; the man they appealed to for justice; the man who could (if it was at all possible) get things done in far-off London. This was where noblesse oblige gave a hefty tug: yes, the Ramage family owned a vast estate, but living in the village on that estate were scores of people who considered the earl (whatever century it was) to be their guardian: a sort of father who saw they were protected against everything from highwaymen to unjust eviction, and who made sure the rent collector called with extra food and a bottle of wine when there was illness in the house, and put a special tick against their names in the "Paid" column of the rent book and far from taking a penny made sure on the earl's behalf that there was enough money in the house.
Treffry Hall or St Kew . . . what a choice to have to make!
"Do I have to choose now?" he asked his father.
"You don't have to choose at all," the admiral said. "It's not a case of one or the other, although I'd like to know something about the St Kew land. But don't forget the marquis . . . It's all right while you are alive and living in England, but supposing I've gone and something happens to you and then the marquis passes on. Sarah will inherit from you and from him. She's the only child - and God knows how many square miles he owns! Three estates, Rockley, St Kew and Treffry Hall. Going it a bit strong, even if you're still alive, retired from the Navy and rumbling away in the Lords demanding new laws against poachers! Especially if this fellow Pitt brings in any more of his fancy taxes."
"I'd forgotten the Marquis of Rockley," Ramage admitted, "but it's difficult talking to Sarah about what happens when her father dies ..."
"And that's how lawyers grow rich and so many judges sit on the probate bench. Face up to death when you're young, my lad; it doesn't have such a frightening face as when you're my age," the admiral said. "Anyway, talk it over with Sarah, and plan for a big family, but let me know what you've decided before you leave: I really must get this new will settled: your mother is particularly fussed about all the Ramage jewellery - she wants to make sure Sarah gets it without lawyer scrapping."
"Very well," Ramage said, "but Sarah's not going to like it: the prospect of father- and mother-in-law, husband and father and mother all dying on her!"
"I'm sure none of us are in any hurry to go," the earl said, "but while you are at Lloyd's, just inquire if any underwriter will insure your life while you're serving at sea commanding one of the King's ships. You're not a good risk!"
"Let's change the subject. Who will be at this damned Lloyd's Patriotic Fund presentation?"
"You're going to be surprised. First the usual Lloyd's people - the Master and Committee, and various folk from the City. I hear the Lord Mayor is attending and that's quite an honour. You're the famous young frigate captain. You with the little ships, Nelson with the big fleets!"
"Sarah's father and mother are coming," Ramage said, adding with a laugh: "Between you, the fathers will probably bring along a quarter of the House of Lords."
"All those whose opinions matter, anyway," the earl growled contentedly. "For years your Gazette letters were the only good news they had to read. Anyway, I hear the Admiralty will be well represented."
That was a surprise: the Admiralty's attitude towards the Patriotic Fund swords of honour presented by Lloyd's was hard to understand. It acted as though jealous because it had nothing of its own to present to deserving officers, but at the same time its view was that officers were only doing their duty and therefore needed no presentation swords. However, despite this dog-in-the-manger attitude they could not afford to offend the Committee of Lloyd's which, apart from anything else, organized the sailings of all convoys.
"Who can we expect from the Admiralty? Is Mr Secretary Marsden taking a day off from attending to the Board's affairs?"
"He might be; I don't know. But I met the new First Lord, Barham, in the House yesterday and he said he'd never met you but would be there - curious, I think. Having Lord St Vincent applauding should also satisfy you: he told me he hoped to come. Probably the only sign of praise you'll ever get from him," the earl added. "And Lord Nelson's just arrived in Town and tells me he will be there - with Lady Hamilton, I fear."
"So he's back in England after that long chase . . . Well, don't be too critical of the lady," Ramage said. "If she inspired him at the Nile and then Copenhagen, I don't care if she has two heads and three legs . . . after all, but for him Sir John Jervis would have had a miserable defeat at Cape St Vincent, not a victory, so he wouldn't have received an earldom and a name to go with it . . ."
"I know, I know," the earl said, "and St Vincent knows it, too. He's tried to pay off that debt by pushing Nelson: command for the Nile, then Copenhagen . . ."
"Copenhagen?" Ramage said sarcastically, an eyebrow raised. "Surely My Lord St Vincent guarded himself by putting that nincompoop Hyde Parker in command - and Parker's nervousness and limp hand nearly lost the day!"
"Be fair, be fair," the earl chided. "I know you have no very high opinion of Lord St Vincent after the battle which gained him the earldom, but at Copenhagen he knew Nelson as second-in-command would twist Hyde Parker round his little finger, if necessary - as indeed he did, and won a fantastic victory."
"Then why not have the courage to put Nelson in complete command from the start? Hyde Parker wasted days fiddling about off Elsinore when he should have been down to the south at Copenhagen. After all those luxurious years of West Indian sun and blue seas, the dark nights and cold green seas of the Cattegat frightened him."
. The old admiral laughed and started to fill his pipe. "You're not going to get me into that argument again. Anyway, now St Vincent is out and Middleton is in as First Lord, created Lord Barham for the purpose, perhaps things will be different. I've known him for most of my life as Charles Middleton, and it's difficult to remember he was recently ennobled."
"What sort of man is he?"
The earl shrugged. "About fourteenth on the list of admirals of the white, just below Duncan and just above St Vincent. In his eighties now, but a very good organizer and clear-headed: apparently he has shaken up the Admiralty Office - it needed it. Everyone's precise task is now written down; clerks have to be at their desks by ten o'clock; even sea lords arrive earlier. Barham himself is usually at work by daybreak."
"Sounds a welcome change," Ramage commented. "Those clerks for the most part are a crowd of insolent time-servers - sons of creditors, tailors' nephews, friends of cousins, and so on. "
"Ah, Lord Nelson," the earl exclaimed, "I nearly forgot. He's in Town from Merton for only three or four days, staying at Lady Hamilton's place in Clarges Street, and he asks that you call on him. Seeing him at Clarges Street will save you from going all the way down to Merton."
"Did he give you any idea what he wants to see me about?" Ramage asked cautiously. "From what the newspapers say, I should think that now he's back everyone in London wants to shake his hand and give him dinner ..."
"That's exactly why, if I were you, I'd send Raven round to Clarges Street at once to suggest a day and time."
Sarah came into the room at that moment. "Who lives in Clarges Street?" she asked. "Oh yes, that wretched man Charles James Fox, if I remember rightly. I went to his house one day with father and mother. And doesn't Lord Nelson's friend have a house at the other end?"
"It's all right, you can say Lady Hamilton's name out loud - father is very broad-minded," Ramage said teasingly.
"Who are we going to see, then, Fox or the famous lady?"
"I don't know that 'we' are going to see anyone," Ramage said. "Apparently Lord Nelson has asked me to call on him. Told me, through father," Ramage corrected himself.
"Then it's 'we'," Sarah said blithely. "I've always wanted to meet His Lordship, and who can resist meeting the famous lady? I wonder if their child is with them, Horatia."
"She is usually referred to as His lordship's god-daughter," Ramage said stiffly.
Sarah waved a hand airly. "Unless you're a servant, legitimacy only matters if you're inheriting property or a title. If Lady Hamilton inspires Nelson - and clearly she does - then hurrah for England if she has a dozen such children, particularly if it produces a dozen great victories. We need a few more at this moment!"
The earl sighed and was about to chide Sarah when she sat down on a sofa and wagged a finger at him. "Before you start disapproving of Lady Hamilton (who after all is a widow now, although admittedly she wasn't when Horatia was born), let me tell you this. If Nicholas had been unhappily married when we first met, then you might have had a Nichola in your family, with people gossiping about 'the notorious Lady Sarah'!"
The earl sighed again, and then smiled. "Yes, I believe you, and Nichola would have been just as welcome in the family," he admitted, "as 'the notorious Lady Sarah'."
"That's easy enough to say now," Sarah said reflectively, "but supposing ..."
The earl looked at her squarely. "You forget Gianna, my dear. Nicholas couldn't have married her because she is a Catholic - or, to be more exact, she wouldn't have married him because he is a Protestant, and anyway she could never return to rule Volterra with a Protestant husband. But believe me, the countess and I were quite prepared for an eventuality such as you mention!"
A startled Ramage blurted: "Were you, father?"
"Of course! For the first two or three years, anyway; then we realized that your feelings for her were changing."
"I should hope so," Sarah said mildly, and then asked curiously: "But you really were quite ready for a grandchild born the wrong side of the blanket?"
"Quite ready? Well, to be perfectly honest the countess was readier than I: Nicholas can do no wrong in her eyes. But had Gianna had such child, yes, I would have accepted it. We were very fond of her, you know. Are fond of her," he corrected himself, and all of them thought of the young Marchesa di Volterra, the lively and lovely Gianna, whose fate was still a mystery: had she been assassinated by Napoleon's men, or imprisoned?
"Well, you've no grandchildren yet," Ramage said hastily, "and I must write a note to Lord Nelson. How long has he been back in London?"
"Only a few days. We were all very worried when he seemed to vanish."
Ramage nodded. "Yes, he took a risk making for the West Indies after leaving the Mediterranean, instead of coming north - but he was right! Villeneuve had fled across the Atlantic, not made for Brest or Coruña."
The earl lit his pipe, and as soon as it was drawing satisfactorily, asked Ramage: "Would you have risked it?"
"I might. After all, once he sailed through the Strait from the Mediterranean, Villeneuve could only go north, to join the Spanish in Cadiz or Coruña, or to Brest, where he'd risk being blockaded, or to the West Indies. What a prize Jamaica would have been, and all those convoys captured . . . Bonaparte would have kissed him on both cheeks!"
"Well, I was talking to Radnor in the House the other day, and his son is a midshipman in Nelson's flagship. That doesn't make the lad an authority on the chase across the Atlantic and back, but he knew Nelson's feelings on board the Victory and reported them to his father, the earl."
"And so the Earl of Radnor approves?" Sarah asked.
"He does now, though he was pretty windy at the time. As we all were."
"Nelson's young, outspoken, just a parson's son, and he wants Society to accept his mistress. The fact is none of you are comfortable with him; you don't really trust him," Ramage commented bitterly. "Had that old fool Hyde Parker been in command of that fleet, you'd have all said: 'Well, Hyde Parker knows what he is doing: he spent four years in Jamaica.' But all he learned in those four years was how to get rich from prize money: Copenhagen showed that a young man with an agile mind was needed for the fighting part."
"You seem particularly vindictive towards the worthy Sir Hyde," the earl protested.
"I should think so!" Ramage exclaimed. "He started off badly at Copenhagen. Given command, he stays abed with his new young wife in Great Yarmouth instead of sailing at once for Denmark with the fleet. When he gets there, he hovers off Elsinore, giving the Danes all that time to prepare the defences of Copenhagen . . . how many hundreds of seamen's lives - British and Danish - did those two delays cost?"
"You favour young admirals with young mistresses, then," the earl observed teasingly.
"Young admirals, yes. If such a man can only have the woman he loves by defying convention and making her his mistress, well and good. Then there's a hope that when it comes to fighting battles he'll defy convention and throw those dam' Fighting Instructions overboard. As Nelson did at the Nile! Parker would never have dared to do what Nelson did at Aboukir Bay. Nor would Parker dare do at Copenhagen what Nelson did, even though it was for all intents and purposes a repeat of Nelson's tactics at the Nile. So give me a man who defies convention when necessary: he's more likely to win the battle."
"Do you defy convention?" the earl inquired mischievously and then almost immediately waved his pipe to dismiss the remark. "No, that's unfair: no conventions so far have governed the sort of things you've done; you -" he grinned, "- favour the bizarre rather than the unconventional!"
"Which heading do I come under - bizarre or unconventional?" Sarah inquired sweetly.
"Oh, bizarre; definitely bizarre. After all, didn't Nicholas find you in mysterious circumstances off some island near Brazil?"
"At least my father-in-law is more unconventional than Nicholas's; I'm afraid my father is rectitude personified."
"We need a stable marquis in the family," the earl said, eyes twinkling. "It adds respectability to what would otherwise be a rout."