“The boy should be here when the Lion returns,” said Jake. “We’ll call him Lion.”

“There is no such name,” I said.

“We’ll make one.”

“Would you saddle the boy with such a name? He will be laughed at throughout his life.”

“Much he’ll care.”

“As a compromise we’ll call him Penn after your father.”

Christmas came and with it the messenger from the Abbey bringing gifts but most welcome of all letters. Honey was happy at the Abbey. Edwina was well. “How peaceful it all is, Catharine,” she wrote. “Tenerife seems far away.”

And Luis? I wondered. Did Honey ever think of the two husbands who had been murdered—one before her eyes? I myself could not forget the sight of Felipe lying in his blood, slain by the man who was my second husband. I missed his courtesy; sometimes I found myself comparing Jake with him.

We lived in violent times and life was cheap. Men such as Jake Pennlyon thought little of running a man through the heart. I trembled to think of the slaughter there would be when the Rampant Lion met a Spanish galleon on the sea.

This hatred of men for men, when would it end? I hoped that by the time my little Roberto was a man it would be over.

It was the end of January when the Rampant Lion came home. It had been a bleak month with cold winds blowing in from the east. Then it had turned warm and with the warmth came the inevitable rain. There was a heavy mist and out of this suddenly there loomed the ship. She was dangerously near the shore and the mist clung eerily to her masts; Jake at the window saw her first.

“God’s Death!” he cried and stared at her.

I looked at him and saw that his deep color had faded.

“What’s wrong?” I cried.

“God’s Death!” he cried. “What have they done to the Lion?”

Then he was out of the house. He was running down to the Hoe. I followed him. I stood on the shore watching the small boat row out to the shattered ship.

What a day that was! I shall never forget the dampness of the mist and that still, almost lakelike sea. And there she was, his beloved ship, with one of her masts shot off and a hole in her side.

It was a mercy she had managed to limp back to the Hoe.

I saw the faces of men, blackened by sun, gaunt from near starvation and many of them wounded.

There was little I could do.

I felt tender toward Jake as I saw the bleak horror in his face. He loved this ship and she had been ill-treated.

I knew then how he must have looked when he came back from his voyage to find that the Spaniards had taken me.

It was an old story. The ship had encountered a mightier one. There was no need to say that that ship had been a Spaniard.

She had sought to take her, but by mercy that had not happened. The Rampant Lion had suffered almost mortal wounds, but she had given a good account of herself. She had inflicted such deadly havoc on her enemy that the Spaniard had had to limp away, thus enabling the Lion to do likewise.

Captain Girling had been fatally wounded, but he had lived for four days after the attack. He had nobly directed his crew from the pallet which he had had brought on deck. He had known he was dying, but his great concern had been to bring the poor wounded Lion back to her master. Only when he knew that could be done did he die.

One of the sailors kept saying: “It were as though he keep his strength till then, Captain ’Lyon. It was though he clung to life till he knew she could make port.”

Jake was quieter than I had expected. I had imagined he would fly into recrimination; but he was seaman enough to understand exactly what had happened.

The Lion had not disgraced him or herself; she had stood up nobly against a more powerful adversary. She had given as good as she had taken. Perhaps better, he promised himself. He took satisfaction in picturing the sinking of the Spaniard. He was certain she had gone to the bottom of the sea.

He called curses on her and her crew. But his great concern was with the Lion. He stayed on her throughout the rest of the day and far into the night while he tried to satisfy himself that she could be made seaworthy again.

Then he came back.

“It shows what she can do, Cat,” Jake said to me. “I’d always known it. There’s not another of her class who wouldn’t have gone down, but here she is and in a matter of months she will be herself again. I’ll see to that.”

This was indeed a time of disaster. The day after the Lion had arrived home, my pains started. It was too early and my child was born dead.

What made the tragedy more hard to bear was that the child had been a little boy.

I was desperately ill. The fact that I had lost my longed-for child did nothing to help my recovery, and for two weeks it was believed I could not survive.

Jake came and sat by my bed. Poor Jake! I loved him then. His Rampant Lion all but a wreck, the son he had so desired was lost to him. And I, whom he loved in his fashion, was about to die.

I heard afterward that he was almost demented and threatened the doctors that if I died he would kill them, that he spent his time between my sickroom and his ship; it was not until the end of the second week when it became apparent that I had a good chance of recovery and that the Rampant Lion would sail again that he became his old self.

I was delirious often; I was not entirely sure where I was. Often during that period I believed I was in the Hacienda and that soon Don Felipe would come into the room. Once I thought I saw him standing by the bed, holding the candle high while he looked at me. At another I was holding my son in my arms and he was watching us.

One night I came out of my delirium and saw that it was Jake who stood by my bed. I saw his clenched fists and heard his muttered words.

“You are calling to him! Stop it. You gave him a son. Yet you cannot give me one.”

I was afraid suddenly, afraid for Roberto because I understood in that moment how violent Jake’s feelings could be. I knew the fact that I had borne Felipe a son would be like a canker in his mind, and that his fierce hatred of Felipe, of Spain and all things Spanish would be concentrated on my son.

I wanted to appeal to him. “Jake,” I said, “I am going to die…”

He knelt by the bed and took my hand; he kissed it fiercely, possessively. “You are going to live,” he said, and it was like a command. “You are going to live for me and the sons we shall have.”

I understood something of his feelings for me. He needed me in his life; he could not contemplate being without me. His lips were on my hand. “Be well,” he said. “Be strong. Love me, hate me, but stay with me.”

I felt secure then, but when I began to get better my anxieties about Roberto returned. What would have happened to him if I had died? I asked myself.

It was in this mood that I sent for Manuela.

Manuela had been unobtrusive since her arrival in England; if she was homesick for Spain she had never shown it; and she and Roberto had something in common because they were both of Spanish blood.

So while I lay weakly in my bed, I summoned her and bade her sit beside me and assure me that there was no one in earshot.

“Manuela,” I said, “tell me, are you happy in England?”

She answered: “It has become my home.”

“You have been good to Roberto. He trusts you more than he does the others.”

“We speak Spanish together. It is pleasant to speak as though one is at home.”

“I have thought a great deal about him while I have been lying here. He is young yet, Manuela, and not able to take care of himself.”

“The Captain hates him, Señora. It is because he is the son of Don Felipe and you are his mother.”

“I have come close to death, Manuela. I clung to life because I feared for Roberto.”