“She was a doctor’s daughter. She knew what she was getting into when she married me,” Peter replied dryly. “Besides, Sarah had heard me speak of you often and was anxious to meet you. Though not, perhaps, in this particular way. It’s a miracle I recognized you under all the blood and bandages. After all, it had been . . . what—a dozen years?—since we had seen each other.”
As soon as he had recognized his old friend, Peter whisked him away to his own Spanish-style villa, where the captain would have the best possible nursing. Had the winds of fate not brought the Harringtons to Gibraltar, Alex might have died, and would certainly have been crippled had he survived. Instead, he exhibited remarkable powers of recuperation—within a month he was beating Peter at cards and teaching bawdy sailor songs to the three-year-old son of the house. From the cook to the spaniel, everyone in the house adored him.
Alex swung his long legs off the bed and reached for the cane he still needed. The whole left side of his body had been ripped by metal fragments when a cannonball shattered on the quarterdeck where he was directing the fight against a French ship of the line. He had stayed in command until the battle was won, the French ship secured, and his own frigate,Antagonist, on course to nearby Gibraltar with her prize. Only then did he collapse.
Even during the years of peace after the American Revolution, Alex had always found employment shipboard while many of his fellow officers cooled their heels on shore at half pay. Since hostilities had resumed, he had risen rapidly to a command of his own. While it was assumed that his aristocratic lineage had aided his advancement, even his most grudging critics could not deny his brilliance, courage, and luck.
Tightening the sash of his blue robe around his lean waist, Alex crossed the room to the window and back with hardly any resort to the cane. “See?” he said triumphantly as he lowered himself onto the edge of the bed. “It should be obvious even to a fusty old medical man like yourself that I am as good as new. When are you going to let me go back to my ship? She’s almost refitted, and so am I.”
“You’ve been practicing,” Peter said judiciously, then paused, his mouth a little dry. He had avoided this moment for weeks but could no longer. Looking his old friend in the eye, he said quietly, “You’re not going back to theAntagonist. Not right now, and perhaps not ever.”
“Why not? Am I up for court-martial?” Alex said. His words were flippant, but his eyes were very still.
Peter followed his friend’s cue and kept his tone light. “You remember how long I had to operate, picking pieces of your precious ship out of your hide?”
Alex grimaced. “Remember? Every day of that operation is graven on my liver.”
Peter chuckled. “I suppose it felt like days, but after all the brandy you put away before and during the operation, I’m surprised you remember anything. I’m sure the head you had next day had more to do with your brandy than my knife.” He paused, then said gravely, “I did my best, but I’m positive there is at least one large shell fragment left in your chest. That’s why you still feel so much pain.” At Alex’s instinctive movement of negation, he said acidly, “Don’t bother trying to lie to me. I noticed it was your right arm you used most in that pillow fight.”
Alex shrugged. “What does it matter? Half the old salts in the navy have a musket ball in them somewhere. Helps ’em predict weather.”
Pete sighed. He had known Alex wouldn’t make this easy. “The difference is the location. I couldn’t risk any more probing around in the area. You would have died on the table.” He stopped a moment, then continued, “You know that musket balls and shell fragments can migrate away from their original location?”
At Alex’s nod, he continued, “There is a good likelihood that the fragment may settle down and stay where it is for the next fifty years, just giving you twinges. Or it may move outward to where it can be removed surgically, or even work its own way out. It isn’t as if a bodywantsthat kind of thing inside.” He stopped once more, then said baldly, “Or it may migrate inward until it hits an organ or a major blood vessel.”
Alex looked at him levelly. “In which case I die.”
Peter held his eye and nodded. “Exactly so.”
Alex shifted his gaze out the window to the rock that dominated the colony. After a minute he said, “I’ll admit it would hardly be fair to my crew to drop dead suddenly. Bad for morale. Sailors are a superstitious lot.”
Peter broke the silence after another few moments had passed. “I’m sorry. I know how much you love the navy. A year from now, if your condition is stable, you can take a new command. But for the moment, I can’t in good conscience release you to active duty.”
Alex swung his head back, a devilish light in his eyes. “You must be joking! A man would have to bemadto love the navy! Weevily biscuits, endless boring patrols, living packed together closer than rats in Seven Dials, no women for months on end . . . and ships aren’t built for men my height—I still seem to bang my head at least once a day.” He inspected his scarred left forearm, then said quietly, “The navy doesn’t own the sea. No one can take that away from me.”
“I suppose you’ll be going back to England?”
“It looks like I can’t avoid it.” The note in Alex’s voice was so odd that Peter glanced at him sharply. Still looking down, his friend said, “Remember the letter that was delivered yesterday—the one that had been following me all over the Mediterranean for months?”‘ He looked up to see Peter’s nod, then said flatly, “My mother is dead.”
Peter exhaled sharply. Lady Serena Kingsley had been one of the most notorious women of her generation, a legendary beauty whose amorality was exceeded only by her cold-blooded selfishness. She had made the Kingsley household a hell for her family and servants, while her husband, Arthur, withdrew from the unpleasantness as much as possible, leaving his children to her vicious moods.
Alex said dryly, “You needn’t bother to grope for condolences. Her demise has been greeted with near-universal relief, particularly by those of her lovers who feared she might pen her memoirs someday. And don’t look so crushingly sympathetic—I accepted what she was years ago.”
He knit his fingers together and looked down at them broodingly. “I’m a coward, Peter.” He looked up at his friend’s small exclamation with a lopsided smile. “Oh, not in the usual way. It isn’t all that hard to face death. After all, life is invariably a fatal condition. But when it comes to people, I’ve been a coward all my life. I’m sure you know that a major reason I entered the navy at fourteen was to get away from home.”
He accepted Peter’s nod, then continued, “I ran then, and I would have kept on running if you hadn’t just closed the door. I’ve scarcely spent three months in London over the last fifteen years. My brother and sister are near strangers. They have every right to hate me.”
“Why should they do that?” Peter asked quietly.
“Because I left them alone with that . . . that”—he searched for a term—“black widow spider. And I never did a damned thing to help them.”
Peter’s voice was gentle. “You’re too hard on yourself. Lady Serena was the most difficult woman I have ever known. You were a boy then—what could you do about her? It was your father’s job to control his wife, not yours.”
Alex refused the comfort. “I could have done more. And I certainly ought to have gone home two years ago when my father died. Annabelle and Jonathan are my responsibility, and I have failed them.”
“Your service in the navy has been of value to the country.”
Alex shrugged. “There is no shortage of eager lieutenants panting for their own commands. Any of them could do what I have done.”
