“Tom!” my brother protested, aghast.

“Damn all friends, I say!”

And Tom Seagrave stalked off without a word of apology.

My brother stared after him. “I have half a mind to call him out! This is the basest ingratitude — and after all I have done, too!”

I restrained him with one gloved hand. “It is a hard thing for an independent man to utter thanks. Seagrave must know himself indebted to your goodness; he shall reflect, and regret his harsh words, when anger has passed. Surely you see so much?”

“I see nothing but a man determined to go to the Devil, Frank muttered. “He might at least have told us where he was last night.”

“As to that—” I said, “surely it is obvious?”

Chapter 13

Mr. Pethering Pays a Call

26 February 1807, cont.

“NOTHING ABOUT THIS WRETCHED BUSINESS IS OBVIOUS to me,” Frank commented bitterly as we made for the Portsmouth hoy.

I glanced at him sidelong. “There is a woman in Seagrave's case, Fly. Men never plead silence on the subject of their movements without they fancy themselves honour-bound to shield a lady's virtue. In their ponderous reticence they succeed in exposing that which they would most protect.”

“You suspect poor Tom of an illicit attachment?”

“Why else would your friend refuse to say where he was last night?”

“For any number of reasons! A man may have his privacy, after all!”

“Tom Seagrave has been careless in defending his; he must not be surprised to find it invaded. Mary tells me that Lucky Tom is everywhere known as a taker of prizes — not all of them ships. The ladies of her naval acquaintance regard Captain Seagrave as one who cannot keep his breeches on.”

Frank snorted. “Mary does not understand the meaning of the phrase.”

“I fear she does.”

My brother saw me safely into the hoy beside Mr. Hill, the surgeon; Etienne LaForge already sat in the bow, his manacled hands held before him like a penitent's. The Frenchman's face was flushed, his expression turned inwards. He was in the grip of fever or anxiety — the one hardly distinguishable from the other.

“I do not mean to make out that Tom is a saint, Jane,” my brother persisted. “l do not have to tell you what the Navy is. Women are left at home, to commit every kind of folly in unguarded idleness, while the men exist without sight of England for years, sometimes, at a stretch. Neglect and thoughtlessness may account for every kind of misery on both sides. But Tom has always seemed happy in his wife.”

“His wife, however, is hardly happy in her husband.” I drew my brother a little apart from the others and spoke in a lowered tone. It was imperative, now, that I acquaint Frank with Louisa Seagrave's opinions regarding the Captain. He was astounded; nothing in life had prepared him for such bitterness of feeling on the part of a spouse; and he seemed to feel her betrayal as though it were his own.

“Is she mad?” he cried. “When Tom is most in need of support, she must go blathering to a recent acquaintance that he deserves to hang! The woman can only be bird-witted!”

“She is anything but,” I replied evenly. “Her wisdom in revealing so much to a relative stranger must, of course, be disputed; but I believe her to have spoken from an agony of spirit that would not be gainsaid. Remember that she never accused Tom Seagrave of the French captain's murder. She is most unhappy in her union; she cannot respect or confide in the man who shares her fate; she does not approve of his way of life, and will not entrust her children to his care at sea. So much is certain. It remains for us to determine how much weight to accord her words.”

“None at all, if I am to be consulted,” Frank muttered belligerendy. “She is a shrew and an ungrateful wretch, and Seagrave should be quit of her directly.”

“Frank—”

He turned upon me. “You cannot take her part, Jane. You cannot wish the man to hang, simply because a boy of seven was killed in battle. Boys of every age are dropped over the side; it is the nature of war.”

“Then women are well out of it,” I retorted bitterly. “You must not apply the coldness of a man's heart, trained to command and to hurl lives into the breach, with the tender feelings of a mother.”

“Louisa Seagrave has done the reverse,” Frank declared, “and the application is ill-judged. I know for a fact that Tom was most seriously cut-up about young Carruthers's loss; he felt the lad's death acutely. But if he were to feel every such death in excess of its due—”

“—he should be incapable of command,” I concluded bleakly. “I quite see your point”

We sailed up the Solent with the wind on the quarter and the threat of storm ominous at our backs. I could not be easy; my mind had received new information. I considered of my brother's life in a harsher light, I knew, of course, that he was daily witness to scenes of brutality; that he lived in the closest proximity with the baser instincts of man; that he was constantly exposed to mortal danger. But his love for the naval life had superseded every objection in the hearts of his family. We saw that Frank could not do otherwise than he had done, and the honour he had won seemed recompense enough for sacrifice. I had never considered, however, that he must play at God. Each action — each decision as captain to engage the Enemy — must bring with it the certainty of death for some among his men. My brother lived with the consequences as surely as he lived by the noon reckoning. I could not gaze at his beloved profile — already aged unnaturally by privation and war — without feeling equal parts pity and pride confounded in my heart.

We sailed on in silence for a period, the rough seas slapping and tugging at the hoy's bow. Mr. Hill fell sound asleep, with his hands clasped over his breast; Etienne LaForge sat slumped by his side, looking quite ill. It was probable that the excitement and fatigue of the morning had sapped his strength, already delicate from prolonged fever; he could not achieve Wool House too soon. I burned with indignation at the thought of the Frenchman's incarceration; his precarious health demanded a decent room with clean linen, a steady fire, and adequate victuals. I must speak to Admiral Bertie. The surgeon should be housed as an officer, in the home of a naval family. Perhaps Mr. Hill — or even Mrs. Davies — might find the man a room….

At my side Frank expelled a heavy sigh. “Lord knows I should prefer that Tom carry a tendre for a lady not his wife, than to suppose him a murderer — but it seems an unhappy choice.”

“You were ready enough to believe the latter while disputing in the naval yard.”

“Perhaps I was over-hasty there. A lesser man might kill for vengeance, but Tom did not earn his reputation through impulse and unreason. I should be surprised, upon reflection, did your Frenchman's tale of rank betrayal overrule Seagrave's good sense.”

“This murder was not, however, the act of a hasty man,” I observed thoughtfully. “Death by impulse requires a knife or a pistol — something carried against attack, and deployed without thought, in the heat of passion or self-defence. But a garotte—”

“—would suggest that Chessyre's killer came upon him from behind. That he crept up by stealth, and slipped the iron band deliberately about his neck, and pulled it taut. Yes, I quite seize your meaning, Jane. The murder was determined, organised, and carried out with despatch. That much is of a piece with Tom's usual tactics in war.”

“Then a casual brigand we must discard. Three choices remain to us,” I concluded. “Either Chessyre was killed by his companion in plotting, to prevent him divulging all?? knew; or he was killed by Tom Seagrave, from vengeance. Or lastly by one of Seagrave's friends, who thought to tip the scales of justice in the Captain's favour by weighting them with the corpse of his accuser.”