Free For My Country's Freedom by Alexander Kent

affair. The Prince Regent’s dislike for the prime minister has worsened, I am given to believe. He will not be missed.”
    Bolitho took a tall, beautifully shaped goblet from a tray and saw the footman’s eyes dart between them. Did Sillitoe obtain all his intelligence from men like this? The extent of his knowledge was uncanny, the power that that knowledge would represent almost dangerous.
    Sillitoe was saying, “About forty of us, I understand.”
    Bolitho glanced at Catherine. Sillitoe would know exactly how many, and the worth and perhaps the secrets of each and every one of them.
    He had returned his attention to Catherine now, his hooded eyes giving nothing away. “There will be many wines at table . . .”
    She touched the diamond fan at her breast. “I take heed of your warning, Sir Paul. Our host gains entertainment and amusement from his guests if they imbibe too freely, is that it?”
    Sillitoe bowed. “You are perceptive as always, Lady Catherine. I knew I had no need to mention it.”
    Bolitho saw faces turning away when he caught them staring. Well, let them stare, damn them. He could easily imagine some of these men making fools of themselves, and ladies becoming the perhaps not unwilling prey of others. He had seen it happen in army establishments often enough. Was that what they thought now, watching Catherine, seeing her defiance of convention as a threat to their own manhood, or a challenge to it?
    He thought of her in those last days in the sun-blistered long-boat, keeping his hopes alive when to everyone else rescue had seemed impossible, and the prospect of death their only escape. Even now, as she turned to glance around the room, the faint scars of sunburn on her bare shoulders were still visible after all the months since Golden Plover had smashed on to the reef. Suddenly he wanted to take her in his arms, to keep holding her until the terrible pictures in his mind were no more.
    Instead, he asked, “When I am away . . .” He saw her stiffen, and knew Sillitoe was trying not to listen. “I would wish for nothing dearer than a portrait of you.”
    She tilted her chin and he saw a pulse beating in her throat. “I would be happy to oblige you, Richard.” She reached out and gripped his hand. It was as if the room were completely empty. “Your thoughts are always of me, never for yourself . . .”
    She turned away as the doors were flung open and an equerry called importantly, “Pray be upstanding for His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Regent of all England!”
    Bolitho studied him intently as he entered the colourful gathering. For one so heavy he walked with a light step; he even seemed to glide, and Bolitho was reminded suddenly of a ship of the line, losing the wind even as she floated smoothly to her anchorage.
    He was not quite certain what he had expected: something perhaps between Gillray’s cruel cartoons and the paintings he had seen at the Admiralty. He was about six years younger than Bolitho but his excesses had worn badly. A devotee of fashion, he was elegantly dressed, his hair swept forward in the very latest style, while his lips remained pursed in a little amused smile.
    As he moved slowly down the room women curtsied deeply while their partners bowed, flushed with pleasure if they were noticed.
    But the Prince, “Prinny” as Sillitoe had outrageously called him, looked straight at Bolitho and then, more deliberately, at Catherine. “So you are my new admiral.” He bowed his head to Catherine who had subsided into a curtsy. “Please rise, Lady Catherine.” His eyes rested on the glittering pendant and what lay beneath. “This is an honour. You will sit with me.” He offered his hand to Bolitho. “You have a good tailor, sir. Do I know him?”
    Bolitho kept his face impassive. A courier to Falmouth and a letter of instructions to the tailor there, old Joshua Miller,