“He fell,” Lady Grace said.
“Did he?” Lord William asked, his tone suggesting how much he was enjoying this discussion. A thunderous blow shook the ship, then something scraped quick and hard against the hull. Lord William settled himself more comfortably. “I must confess I have wondered whether he did indeed fall.”
“How else could he have died?” Grace asked.
“And what a cogent question that is, my dear.” Lord William pretended to think about it for a while. “Of course, a quite different construction could be placed on the unfortunate man’s death if we were to discover that he was particularly disliked by anyone aboard. Like you? You told me he was odious.”
“He was,” Lady Grace said bitterly.
“But I do not think you could have killed him,” Lord William said with a smile. “Perhaps he had other enemies? Enemies who could make his death appear an accident? Odysseus, in the unlikely event that he could ever have encountered young Braithwaite, would surely have had no trouble disguising such a murder?”
“He fell,” Lady Grace insisted tiredly.
“And yet, and yet,” Lord William said, frowning in thought. “I confess I did not much like Braithwaite. His pathetic ambition was too naked for my tastes. He lacked subtlety and could not disguise his ridiculous envy of privilege. Once in England I should have been forced to relinquish his services, but he must have had a higher opinion of me than I of him, for he chose to confide in me.”
Lady Grace watched her husband. The swaying lanterns made the shadows either side of his body shift ominously. A cannon ball thumped into the lower deck above them and the ship’s ribs carried the harsh sound down into the lady hole, but for once Lady Grace did not flinch at the noise. She was scratching at a shred of oakum with her right hand, trying to imagine how it felt to a small child in a cold foundling home.
“Perhaps he did not exactly confide in me,” Lord William said pedantically, “for, naturally, I did not encourage intimacy, yet he did have a premonition of his death. Do you think, perhaps, he was possessed of some prophetic powers?”
“I know nothing of him,” Grace said distantly.
“I almost feel sorry for him,” Lord William said, “for he lived in fear.”
“A sea voyage can engender nervousness,” Lady Grace said.
“So much fear,” Lord William went on, blithely ignoring his wife’s words, “that before he died he left a sealed letter among my papers. `To be opened,’ the letter said, `in the event of my death.’ ” He sneered. “Such a very dramatic ascription, wouldn’t you say? So dramatic that I hesitated to obey it, for I expected it to contain nothing more than his pathetic resentments and self-justifications. Indeed, I was so aghast at the thought of hearing from Braithwaite beyond the grave that I very nearly threw the letter overboard, but a Christian sense of duty made me pay him attention, and I confess he did not write uninterestingly.” Lord William smiled at his wife, then delicately took the folded paper from between the pages of his Odyssey. “Here, my dear, is young Braithwaite’s legacy to our connubial happiness. Please read it, for I have been so looking forward to your construal of its contents.” He held the letter toward her and though Lady Grace hesitated, her heart sinking, she knew she must obey. It was either that or listen as her husband read the letter aloud and so, without a word, she took the paper.
Her husband closed his hand about the hilt of his pistol.
The Pucelle’s bowsprit tore the jib boom from the Spanish ship. And Lady Grace read her doom.
The stern of the French ship was so close that Sharpe felt he could have reached out and touched it. Her name was written in golden letters placed on a black band between two sets of the stern’s lavishly gilded windows. Neptune. The British had a Neptune in the fight, a three-decked ship with ninety-eight guns, while this Neptune was a two-decker, though Sharpe had the impression she was bigger than the Pucelle. Her stern was a foot or more higher than the Pucelle’s forecastle and it was lined with French marines armed with muskets. Their bullets banged on the deck or buried themselves in the hammock nettings. Just beneath the enemy’s gun smoke a shield was carved into the taffrail. The shield was surmounted by an eagle and on either side of the crest were sheaves of wooden flags, all of them, like the shield itself, painted with the French tricolor, but the paint had weathered and Sharpe could see faded gold traces of the old royalist fleur-de-lys beneath the red, white and blue. He fired his musket, obliterating the view with smoke, then Clouter, who had deliberately waited until his carronade could fire directly down the center line of the French Neptune, pulled the lanyard.