Second to None Read Online Free Page B

when she had kissed him, had held him tightly as if unable or unwilling to break away.
    He had taken her hand to his lips but she had shaken her head, and had looked into his face, as if afraid to lose something. He could still feel it like a physical force.
    â€˜No, dear Adam. Just hold me.’ She had lifted her chin. ‘Kiss me.’
    He touched the bed, trying to keep the image at bay.
Kiss me.
Were they both so alone now that they needed reassurance? Was that the true reason for Catherine’s departure on this terrible day?
    He closed the door behind them and walked down the stairs. Some of the candles had gone, or had burned so low as to be useless, but those by the hearth had been replaced. One of the servant girls must have done it. He smiled. No secrets in this old house.
    He swallowed some brandy and ran his fingers along the carvings above the fireplace. The family motto,
For My Country’s Freedom,
worn smooth by many hands. Men leaving home. Men inspired by great deeds. Men in doubt, or afraid.
    He sat down again.
    The house, the reputation he must follow, the people who relied on him, it would all take time to accept or even understand.
    And tomorrow he would be the captain again, all he had ever wanted.
    He looked at the darkening stairs and imagined Bolitho coming down to face some new challenge, to accept a responsibility which might and did finally destroy him.
    I would give everything I have just to hear your voice and take your hand again, Uncle.
    But only the wind answered him.
    The two riders had dismounted and stood partly sheltered by fallen rock, holding their horses’ heads, staring out at the whitecapped waters of Falmouth Bay.
    â€˜Reckon she’ll come, Tom?’
    The senior coastguard tugged his hat more securely over his forehead. ‘Mister Ferguson seemed to think so. Wanted us to keep an eye open, just in case.’
    The other man wanted to talk. ‘’Course, you
knows
her ladyship, Tom.’
    â€˜We’ve had a few words once or twice.’ He would have smiled, but his heart was too heavy. His young companion meant well enough, and with a few years of service along these shores he might amount to something. Know Lady Catherine Somervell? How could he describe her? Even if he had wanted to?
    He watched the great span of uneasy water, the serried ranks of short waves broken as if by some giant’s comb, while the wind tested its strength.
    It was noon, or soon would be. When they had ridden up from town along the cliff path he had seen the small groups of people. It was uncanny, like some part of a Cornish myth, and there were plenty of those to choose from. A town, a port which lived off the sea, and had lost far too many of its sons to have no respect for the dangers.
    Describe her?
Like the time he had tried to prevent her from seeing the slight, battered corpse of the girl who had committed suicide from Trystan’s Leap. He had watched her hold the girl in her arms, unfasten her torn and soaking clothes to seek a scar, some identifying mark, when all features had been destroyed by the fall and the sea. On that little crescent of beach in the dropping tide after they had dragged her through the surf. It was something he would never forget, nor wanted to.
    At length he said, ‘A beautiful lady.’ He recalled what one of Ferguson’s friends had said of her. ‘A sailor’s woman.’
    He had been in the church with all the others, had seen her then, so upright, so proud.
Describe her?
    â€˜Never too busy or too important to pass the time o’ day. Made you feel like you
was
somebody. Not like a few I could mention!’
    His companion looked at him and thought he understood.
    Then he said, ‘You was right, Tom. She’s comin’ now.’
    Tom removed his hat and watched the solitary figure approaching.
    â€˜Say nothing. Not today.’
    She was wearing the faded old boat cloak she often used for these