Ramage's Trial Read Online Free PDF

because of the emergency. With the Prince of Wales now involved, it would be quite normal for the Admiralty to take control again. Which is what the letter must be about. And, he asked himself, what was he getting so depressed about? Just break the seal and read the stylized wording, hallowed by tradition…He reached for the paper-knife and slid it under the seal. Slowly he unfolded the cover. Inside was one sealed letter marked “Personal and Private”, and another which was clearly orders.
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    â€œMy dear Ramage,” [the letter began (a glance at the signature showed it was from the First Lord),] “regard this letter as relaying a rumour, not necessarily fact, but I feel it my duty to keep you informed about such a delicate matter. As you know, Admiral Clinton sent back to England the Murex brig which you so skilfully cut out of Brest, and she was bringing home Lady Ramage and the former captain of the Calypso .”
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    And that, Ramage noted, was a very discreet way of describing that drunken scoundrel, and he could imagine the Earl then wondering how to describe Sarah. The First Lord knew Ramage did not use his title in the service, but Sarah was titled both as the daughter of the Marquis and as the wife of an earl’s son who bore one of his father’s titles.
    Ramage suddenly jerked himself out of the reverie: Earl St Vincent, a man who could make sword steel look like putty, was not a man who ordinarily relayed rumours.
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    â€œThe Murex brig was due in Spithead two weeks ago. She has not yet arrived. The weather has been good with a brisk southwester blowing – and a messenger was sent to Plymouth with orders that I should be notified the moment she arrives. All the other southern ports have been similarly instructed.
    â€œThus it is my unpleasant duty to inform you that at the time the messenger leaves for Falmouth with this letter in tonight’s pouch, we have no news. I have talked with your father and with the Marquis, and while both agree with me that there are many possible reasons why the Murex should not have arrived, ranging from dismasting to taking a prize and having to shepherd her in, we all felt that you should be informed, which I have now done, and remain your obedient servant, St Vincent.”
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    Sarah was, at best, a prisoner of the French. At worst she had been killed or drowned when the brig was captured or sunk by bad weather or a French ship of war or privateer. A brief honeymoon and, because of some mutinous scoundrels and a drunken young post-captain, she was dead. Killed because she had been witless enough to fall in love with Nicholas Ramage.
    The cabin darkened and shrank round him: his body tightened as an uncontrollable spasm drove out every thought except the one that he had dreaded – Sarah was dead. He was alone, and had lost the love he had begun to despair of ever finding. Yes, he had earlier loved Gianna, but that had eventually only served as a yardstick by which he could measure the depth of his love for Sarah. He began to curse the injustice of it: many couples had twenty, thirty and even more years of marriage before one or other of them went over the standing part of the foresheet. But he and Sarah had been together, as man and wife, for how long – a month? They had known each other for a few months. The stark, blinding unfairness of it all. Why Sarah? Why hadn’t a roundshot cut him in half instead? This thought calmed him down. Lord St Vincent was not saying that she was dead: only that she was dead or a prisoner, and given the usual ratio of casualties in an action, the odds were ninety-eight to one that she had been taken prisoner.
    How a crowd of French privateersmen would treat a woman prisoner sent another muscle-tightening spasm of rage through his body, but to have her alive…Then he felt himself calming slightly: it was impossible to imagine Sarah dead. Yet surely all lovers must feel their partners