“I’m forgiven?” Sharpe asked, amused.
“You defended a lady, Sharpe,” Dalton said, frowning at Sharpe’s light tone. “How can any reasonable man object?”
The Frenchman made arrangements for a sheet of canvas to be nailed over the broken partition and for the lieutenant’s body to be taken away. He also insisted that the lanterns be removed from the window.
Sharpe stood the lanterns on the empty sideboard. “I’ll sleep in here,” he announced, “just in case any other bloody Frenchman gets lonely.”
Lord William opened his mouth to protest, then thought better of it. The corpse was taken away and a piece of frayed sailcloth nailed over the partition. Then Sharpe slept in Pohlmann’s bed as the ship sailed on, taking him to captivity.
The next two days were tedious. The wind was light so the ship rolled and made slow progress, so slow that Tufnell guessed it would take nearer six days to reach Mauritius, and that was good, for it meant there was more time for a British warship to see the great captured Indiaman wallowing in the long swells. None of the passengers could go on deck and the heat in the cabins was stifling. Sharpe passed the time as best he could. Major Dalton lent him a book called Tristram Shandy, but Sharpe could make neither head nor tail of it. Just lying and staring at the ceiling was more rewarding. The barrister tried to teach Sharpe backgammon, but Sharpe was not interested in gambling and so Fazackerly went off to find more willing prey. Lieutenant Tufnell showed him how to tie some knots, and that passed some hours between the meals which were all burgoo enlivened with dried peas. Mrs. Fairley embroidered a shawl, her husband growled and paced and fretted, Major Dalton attempted to compile an accurate account of the battle at Assaye which needed Sharpe’s constant advice, the ship sailed slowly on and Sharpe did not see Lady Grace during the daytime.
She came to his cabin on the second night, arriving while he was asleep and waking him by putting a hand on his mouth so he did not cry out. “The maid’s asleep,” she whispered, and in the silence that followed Sharpe could hear Lord William’s drug-induced snores beyond the makeshift canvas screen.
She lay beside Sharpe, one leg across his, and did not speak for a long time. “When he came in,” she finally whispered, “he said he wanted my jewels. That was all. My jewels. Then he told me he was going to cut William’s throat if I didn’t do what he wanted.”
“It’s all right,” Sharpe tried to soothe her.
She shook her head abruptly. “And then he told me that he hated all aristos. That was what he said, ‘aristos,’ and said we should all be guillotined. He said he was going to kill us both and claim that William had attacked him and that I had died of a fever.”
“He’s the one feeding the fishes now,” Sharpe said. He had heard a splash the previous morning and knew it was Bursay’s body being launched into eternity.
“You don’t hate aristos, do you?” Grace asked after a long pause.
“I’ve only met you, your husband and Sir Arthur. Is he an aristo?”
She nodded. “His father’s the Earl of Mornington.”
“So I like two out of three,” Sharpe said. “That’s not bad.”
“You like Arthur?”
Sharpe shrugged. “I don’t know that I like him, but I’d like him to like me. I admire him.”
“But you don’t like William?”
“Do you?”
She paused. “No. My father made me marry him. He’s rich, very rich, and my family isn’t. He was reckoned a good match, a very good match. I liked him once, but not now. Not now.”
“He hates me,” Sharpe said.
“He’s frightened of you.”
Sharpe smiled. “He’s a lord, though, isn’t he? And I’m nothing.”
“You’re here, though,” Grace said, kissing him on the cheek, “and he isn’t.” She kissed him again. “And if he found me here I would be ruined. My name would be a disgrace. I would never see society again. I might never see anyone again.”
Sharpe thought of Malachi Braithwaite and was grateful that the secretary was mewed up in the steerage where he could not add to his suspicions of Sharpe and Lady Grace. “You mean your husband would kill you?” Sharpe asked her.