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consequences as inevitable as the surge of the tides.
    She did not blame Faulkner for acting as he had, but she resented the fact that while she understood his reactions, he could not understand her own plight. Were they the soulmates he had fondly supposed he might have acted with more sympathy. Were he the sophisticate he thought he was, he might have deployed more worldliness but, as she – and Mainwaring – knew, the peculiarities of his impoverished background and the singular nature of Mainwaring’s upbringing of his protégé had ensured that Kit Faulkner, though bright, was lopsided in his character.
    As for her, she was no stranger to living on her wits. Swallowing some wine she crossed the landing and knocked upon Mainwaring’s door.
    Mainwaring caught up with Faulkner at Helvoetsluys the following afternoon after a hard ride. He was stiff, resented the costs of the hire of the horse and regarded Faulkner with a certain irritation. The younger man sat behind his table in the great cabin of the
Phoenix
. It was a modest space, lit by the late-afternoon sunshine flooding in through stern windows, neatly fitted out in polished wood, the home of a modestly successful master mariner. Mainwaring noted the papers, chiefly a Dutch chart of the Thames Estuary over which Faulkner was bent. He did not look up as Mainwaring eased himself down into a creaking chair and sat back, regarding his younger friend.
    Faulkner was in middle life, though still short of his fortieth year, and a fine-looking man who, although he had removed his wig and wore an old and threadbare grey coat, bore himself with a confidence that Mainwaring flattered he had recognized many years earlier. But Faulkner’s origins had ill prepared him for the station to which sheer ability, along with a little assistance from Mainwaring himself, had elevated him.
    For some moments a palpable silence hung between them. Then Faulkner picked up his dividers, splayed them and marched them with practised ease across the chart and laid them off against the scale of latitude that ran, from north to south, up the side of the chart. Still preoccupied, with his eyes downcast, Faulkner said in a low voice, ‘If you have come as her ambassador, I shall pay you no attention.’
    â€˜I come as your admiral,’ Mainwaring responded, watching Faulkner as he finally looked up. His eyes looked tired, not those of a man who had wept, but of one who had not slept well – if at all.
    â€˜You have orders for me?’ Faulkner said, his voice tight, controlled.
    â€˜I had hoped you would ease an old man’s burden and have suggestions for me.’
    â€˜Indeed, Sir Henry.’ Faulkner paused. ‘Well, if you want my opinion and as I suggested yesterday, we might make a demonstration off the Nore and snap up a prize or two.’
    â€˜And when could you sail?’
    â€˜Whenever you give the word, the wind serves and the ice permits.’
    â€˜You are eager to be gone?’
    â€˜Oh, for God’s sake, I beg you not to toy with me.’
    â€˜I would not do that,’ Mainwaring said sufficiently sharply to remind Faulkner that whatever their private relationship, he was, in name at least, Faulkner’s superior in rank.
    â€˜Of course, Sir Henry,’ Faulkner said, his voice again level. ‘Forgive me.’
    Mainwaring raised his hand in a deprecatory gesture, as if there was nothing to forgive. There was indeed iron in the younger man, he noted again, a product of those early years of abject penury which, allied as it was with a quick intelligence, produced a character of singular distinction. In different times, Mainwaring thought, Faulkner might have risen far by his own abilities and with a woman of Katherine’s beauty . . .
    â€˜How is she?’ Faulkner asked casually, bending over the chart again.
    â€˜Distraught. She came to me last night and begged me to come to you.’
    â€˜Not as an