"Well, if there's nothing to worry about, then I can come with you."

"But a King's ship can't carry passengers," he said lamely, and then remembered the phrase in his orders, written in specially by Nepean to cover people like Yorke who were passengers from Jamaica.

She sensed he was only making excuses and stood up. "I'm going to see Mr Frere. I shall tell him to order you to take me. Ah - you didn't know I knew about that, did you. But when he decided to tell that frigate to get ready, he explained to me that an ambassador can give orders to the captain of a ship. He says the task of the Navy and the Army is to carry out the policies of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Is he correct, Lieutenant?"

He was, and Ramage knew he would be wise to agree now, rather than force an issue she was bound to win.

"Darling - it will be dangerous."

She shrugged and pointed to her left shoulder. "The French shot me once - remember?"

"Of course I remember. I'll never forget the night in that damned boat. I thought you were going to die."

"Did you?" She sounded surprised. "Oh, Nico, you shouldn't have worried. Anyway, you hadn't fallen in love with me then," she said matter-of-factly.

"How do you know? I nearly went crazy. Why I-"

"When did you fall in love with me, then?" she asked curiously. "It was still dark. You saw me for the first time - oh, about midnight, and I was shot soon after."

"What does it matter?" Ramage snapped, thoroughly exasperated.

"Oh! You say you love me and grumble because you worried about me one night - one night," she repeated, her voice rising, "when I worry about you every night of the year. How can you love me when you can't even remember when it happened?"

"I'll look it up in the ship's log," Ramage said angrily. "Now, get packed and let's go on board, otherwise you can wait for the next packet."

"Ha, listen to him," she said furiously. "You bully - oh, to think I wanted to rescue you! I wish they hadn't passed the Act. I'd have stayed in England and you'd have rotted in a French prison for years and years-"

He put his arms round her and kissed her. "And you'd have slowly turned into an old walnut..."

The two burly boatmen groaned and swore as they lowered Gianna's trunk so that it rested on the centre thwarts. "You told me you had very little luggage," Ramage said mildly. "I don't think these two fellows would believe you."

"It's only one trunk," Gianna protested crossly. "I'd have had more if your mother hadn't interfered."

Knowing that his mother did not believe in travelling with the minimum of luggage, Ramage shuddered at the thought of what Gianna had intended to bring.

Finally the trunk was lashed down and the boatmen looked at each other in bewilderment. There was now little room left for two passengers in the small boat, which made up with brightly coloured paintwork what it now lacked in stability.

Ramage pointed to the forward thwart, and when the men protested that Gianna would get splashed by spray he held up his boat cloak.

Five minutes later, with the two of them wrapped in the cloak, the lugsail hoisted and drawing, and the two men aft, one handling the sheet and the other at the tiller, the boat was heading for the Arabella.

The French mate is going to be puzzled, Ramage thought: instead of Kerguelen and the two Britons returning, there's only one Briton with a strange lady and an enormous trunk...

As the boat tacked for the last board that would bring her down to the Arabella, Ramage noticed that the packet's boat was secured astern by its painter. Perhaps Kerguelen had sent it back, with orders to the crew to return later when he and Yorke had sampled enough of what Lisbon had to offer.

Ramage pictured Southwick's face when he looked down into the boat ... The Master's attitude towards Gianna was a curious mixture of awe, respect and affection: Ramage had the feeling the old man had never quite reconciled the ruler of Volterra with the tomboy of the voyage from Corsica to Gibraltar; the occasionally cold and imperious Marchesa with the laughing girl he hoped his captain would marry. The attitude of Jackson, Rossi, Stafford and the other Tritons who had helped rescue her a couple of years ago was both simple and straightforward: they worshipped her. Every letter Ramage had ever received from her always mentioned their names, and when he told them that the Marchesa was inquiring about them their delight was both spontaneous and genuine.

The privateersmen weren't keeping a very good lookout: not a man in sight on deck. Well, once the boatmen hooked on he would be able to rouse out a couple of seamen to help with the trunk.

The Arabella was a pretty ship: nice sheer, graceful yet powerful. Sad to think of all that rot aft, hidden under the paint. I hope that damned rudder holds, he thought to himself...

Forty yards to go. He turned to Gianna and grinned. "Soon be home!" She squeezed his hand and smoothed her hair.

Suddenly there was a deep bellow: "What ship?"

"Triton!" A startled Ramage shouted in an automatic answer to the time-honoured challenge from a King's ship; a reply indicating the captain was in the boat. He realized his mistake just as Gianna nudged him and as he shouted, "Belay that - Lady Arabella!" a couple of dozen faces suddenly appeared along the bulwark: grinning and freshly shaven faces topped by hats carefully squared and hair neatly combed: the faces of Tritons - and Frenchmen. And Southwick, Kerguelen, Yorke, Bowen and Wilson looking down at them from the gangway ...

As he helped Gianna on board, whispering that Yorke and Kerguelen must have hurried back to prepare a surprise, a bosun's call trilled and a moment later Kerguelen stepped forward, sweeping off his hat in a graceful bow: "M'selle - welcome on board the Lady Arabella!”

Ramage introduced the Frenchman, and then Yorke, Bowen, Much and Wilson, and Gianna was very much the cool Marchesa. When she saw there were no more strangers to meet she turned to Southwick and as the Master stood awkwardly, obviously uncertain whether or not to salute, she stepped up to him, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on the cheek.

The privateersmen, delighted onlookers, cheered heartily and a moment later the Tritons joined in.

"Mr Souswick," she said, and Ramage remembered she always had trouble pronouncing the name, "you look five years younger!"

"Thrive on trouble, ma'am, and I want to say how glad we are to see you."

"Because I am more trouble, eh, Mr Souswick?" The Master went red as Gianna laughed, and she cut short his explanation. "I don't believe a word you say - Nicholas has spent half the morning telling me what a nuisance women are on board a ship."

She looked round. "Jackson! Stafford! And you Rossi! Sta bene? Piu grasso - you eat too well in the Royal Navy!"

Within a minute or two Gianna's tiny figure was hidden by a throng of former Tritons, all eager to add their quota to the welcome she received, and as Ramage turned to speak to Kerguelen he was startled to see three burly Frenchmen hoisting the trunk on board, cheerfully cursing and speculating in their broad Breton accents how many yards of smuggled French lace had gone into making the gowns inside.

Kerguelen slapped him on the shoulder. "You never expected to see a crowd of French cut-throats acting as Cupid's assistants, eh?"

"And you never pictured yourself as Cupid," Ramage said with a grin, "but thanks. Whose idea was the reception committee?"

Kerguelen shrugged his shoulders. "Yorke and I decided to come back early and have a cabin tidied up ready. I freed all your men, incidentally. Then-"

"How did you know she would be sailing with us?"

"Even an Englishman couldn't be so unromantic as to let her return in the Princess Louise" Kerguelen said sarcastically. "Anyway, by the time the cabin was ready, Southwick and that American were so excited they started holystoning the decks, and then my men asked what was going on. When I explained that your - ah, fiancée - was coming on board, they joined in, and as soon as the ship looked tidy they all vanished below, and half an hour later they were shaven, hair tidied and rigged in clean shirts and trousers."