Darkening Sea Read Online Free PDF

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    â€œThey’ve gone to find one another again.” She touched his hair, her thoughts, like his, drifting, remembering.
    Even down in the town they looked at her ladyship differently now. Once she had been the whore Sir Richard Bolitho had abandoned his wife for, who would turn any man’s head with her beauty and her proud defiance. There would always be dislike and contempt from some, but the awe at what she had done and endured aboard the ill-fated Golden Plover and the squalor and the fight for survival she had shared with the others in that open boat had changed almost everything.
    It was said that she had cut down one of the mutineers with her own Spanish comb when Bolitho’s plan to retake the vessel had misfired.
    Some women had tried to imagine what it would be like to share a small boat with the good and the bad, the desperate and the lustful when everything else seemed lost. The men watched her pass and imagined themselves alone with the vice-admiral’s woman.
    Grace Ferguson came out of her dreaming with a start. “It’ll be lamb for tonight, Bryan.” She was in charge once more. “And some of that Frenchie wine they both seem to like.”
    He looked at her with amusement. “Champagne, they call it, my dear.”
    As she made to hurry away to begin her preparations she paused and hugged him.
    â€œI’ll tell you one thing. They can be no happier than we’ve been in spite of all th’ devils that plagued us!”
    Ferguson stared after her. Even now, she could still surprise him.

2 A VERY HONOURABLE M AN
    B RYAN F ERGUSON reined his little trap to a halt and watched his friend as he stared down the lane towards the inn. The Stag’s Head was pleasantly situated in the tiny hamlet of Fallowfield on the Helford River. It was almost dusk, but on this balmy June evening he could still see the glint of a stretch of the river through a rank of tall trees, and the air was alive with late birdsong and the buzz of insects.
    John Allday was wearing his best blue jacket with the special gilt buttons Bolitho had given him. Each button bore the Bolitho crest, and Allday had been bursting with pride at the gesture: one of the family, as he had described himself many times.
    Ferguson watched his friend’s uncertainty, a nervousness he had not seen in Allday since he had first visited the Stag after saving the life of the woman who now owned it: Unis Polin, the comely widow of a master’s mate in the old Hyperion. She had been attacked by two footpads even as she had driven her few belongings down to this very place.
    Ferguson considered it. With his face tanned like leather, and in his fine blue coat and nankeen breeches, to most people Allday would seem the perfect example of Jack Tar, the sure shield against the French or any other enemy who dared to come against His Britannic Majesty’s navy. He had seen and done almost everything. To a privileged few he was also known as more than just Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho’s coxswain. He was his true friend. For some it was hard to picture one without the other.
    But on this evening it was difficult for Ferguson to see him as that same confident man. He ventured, “Losing your nerve, John?”
    Allday licked his lips. “To you an’ none other I’ll confess that I’m all aback. I’ve thought of the moment and of her, right enough. When Anemone showed her copper as we tacked past Rosemullion Head yonder, my head was packed so full of notions I could barely see straight. But now . . .”
    â€œAfraid of making a fool of yourself?”
    â€œSomething like that. Tom Ozzard thinks as much.”
    Ferguson shook his head. “Oh, him! What does he know about women?”
    Allday glanced at him. “Not too sure o’ that either.”
    Ferguson laid his hand on Allday’s arm. It felt like a piece of timber.
    â€œShe’s a fine woman. Just what you need when