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The unexpected requirement to explain himself was irksome, but Hervey was pleased nevertheless – proud even – of this evidence of his daughter’s intelligence and sensibility. It boded well, for he had never, he hoped, been of the belief, as were many, that a woman ought to have no opinion on any matter of substance. Quite the opposite indeed. And besides, the females of his acquaintance had hardly been of a reticent persuasion either. He smiled again, perhaps a shade indulgently, but certainly warmly. ‘You know, my dear Georgiana, these things – I trust you will not misunderstand me – will be so much the better addressed when you are older. But for the moment I believe I can say that there are many roads to marriage, and that after starting on one it is not necessarily the wiser to depart from it when the ways become heavy, for all roads have their difficulties. It was on the best road in the country that my good friend Major Strickland was killed, a road well made and fast – admitting of too much speed indeed.’ He suddenly wondered if the morbid metaphor were entirely apt.

‘I do not believe I agree with you, Papa, but I understand what it is that you say, and Aunt Elizabeth has always impressed on me that that is as it must be.’

Hervey could not have faulted his sister’s regulation. He nodded.

‘Aunt Elizabeth always says we must be especially attentive to what you say because we may not see things as do you, who moves in society.’

Hervey stifled an embarrassed cough. He reckoned he probably owed more to Elizabeth’s sound sense, learned as it may have been very parochially, than to that of elevated society. ‘Yes, well, that is very proper of your aunt.’

‘Will you come with us to Major Heinrici’s, then, this afternoon, Papa? The youngest Miss Heinrici has her birthday today – she is seven – and there is to be a party.’

In that instant, Hervey almost said that he would, not for his sister’s sake (although he would have to admit to the merest softening in his attitude on account of Georgiana’s advocacy), but because seeing his daughter’s delight at the prospect was truly engaging. To do so, however, would be an implicit disloyalty to his friend Peto; and his scruple – and his stomach – would not permit it. Elizabeth had lost her way. These things happened while travelling. It was not always easy to tell that a road led nowhere. Even the best of guides could take the wrong turning in a storm. But he, Elizabeth’s brother, could see things very well. He knew which was the right road, and what steps she must take to regain it. He would help her. That was his brotherly duty, unwelcome as first it might be.

VI

THE COMMON ROUND

HMS Prince Rupert, the first morning at sea

The unlit sail gave Peto a night of broken sleep.

A quarter of an hour after first sighting, the ship had turned east to steer the same course as Rupert, some half a mile off the starboard beam. Lieutenant Lambe reported this while Peto and Rebecca Codrington were still at table. Peto had listened with care but with no great concern. Sailing as they both now were before the wind, the other ship no longer had the advantage. He asked where was Archer: Lambe said she was eight or nine cables, a mile perhaps, ahead and to larboard still. It was where Peto would have expected her to be – pity, since intercepting an unknown ship was precisely the thing a sloop did well. He had a mind to order a warning shot across the unlit’s bows, which would have the merit too of signalling to Archer to attend on new orders, but that would mean the sloop heaving to while Rupert came up within hailing distance. They could signal with lights, but Peto knew it was a hit and miss affair for all but the simplest of codes. If he were really troubled by having an unlit sail on his starboard beam he would clear for action, yet the likelihood of there being a Turkish man-of-war this far west was surely very slim; and he was not going to turn out the entire crew merely to demonstrate that he had the will to do so.

He therefore told Lambe to have the watch keep a sharp eye, to fire a warning gun if cloud covered the moon and the lookouts lost sight of her, and to report to him hourly. Then at first light the midshipman on the forecastle recognized her as a Genoan pinnace, and Lambe signalled Archer to intercept her and enquire why she sailed unlit – which by four bells of the morning watch she was able to do. Archer reported that the Genoan’s captain claimed she had been shadowed by pirates since leaving Ceuta, and, darkened, had sought to shake them off while taking ‘sanctuary’ close on a man-of-war. Peto had no reason to doubt him, and wished the Genoan well by return, especially since her captain sent across a fair-sized parmijan and half a dozen flasks of Tuscan red.