“You’d like the army,” Sharpe said. “We’re always going for long walks.”
She lay silent for a while, then stroked his hair. “I dream sometimes of William’s death,” she said softly. “Not when I’m asleep, but when I’m awake. That’s dreadful.”
“It’s human,” Sharpe said. “I think of it too.”
“I wish he’d fall overboard,” she said. “Or slip down a ladder. He won’t though.” Not without help, Sharpe thought, and he pushed that idea away. Killing Braithwaite was one thing—the private secretary had been a blackmailer—but Lord William had done nothing except be haughty and married to a woman Sharpe loved. Yet Sharpe did think of killing him, though how it could be done he did not know. Lord William was hardly likely to descend into the hold and he was never on deck in the dark of the night when a man might be pushed over the side. “If he died,” Grace said quietly, “I’d be wealthy. I would sell the London house and live in the country. I’d make a great library with a fireplace, walk the dogs, and you could live with me. I’d be Mrs. Richard Sharpe.”
For a moment Sharpe thought he had misheard her, then he smiled. “You’d miss society,” he said.
“I hate society,” she said vehemently. “Vapid conversation, stupid people, endless rivalry. I shall be a recluse, Richard, with books from the floor to the ceiling.”
“And what will I do?”
“Make love to me,” she said, “and glower at the neighbors.”
“I reckon I could manage that,” Sharpe said, knowing it was a dream, except that all it would take was one man’s death to make the dream come true. “Is there a gunport in your husband’s cabin?” he asked, knowing he should not ask the question.
“Yes, why?”
“Nothing,” he said, but he had been wondering whether he could go into the cabin at night and overpower Lord William and heave him through the gunport, but then he dismissed the idea. Lord William’s cabin, like Sharpe’s, was under the poop and close to the ship’s wheel, and Sharpe doubted he could commit murder and dispose of the body without alerting the officer on watch. Even the creak of the opening gun-port would be too loud.
“He’s never ill,” Grace said on another afternoon when she had risked coming to Sharpe’s cabin. “He’s never ill.”
Sharpe knew what she was thinking and he was thinking it himself, but he doubted Lord William would have the decency to die of some convenient disease. “Perhaps he’ll be killed in the fight with the Revenant,” Sharpe said.
Grace smiled. “He’ll be down below, my love, safe beneath the water line.”
“He’s a man!” Sharpe said, surprised. “He’ll have to fight.”
“He’s a politician, my dear, and he assassinates, he does not fight. He will tell me his life is too precious to be risked, and he will really believe it! Though when we reach England he will modestly claim to have played a part in the Revenanfs defeat and I, like a loyal wife, will sit there and smile while the company admires him. He is a politician.”
Footsteps sounded outside the cabin, in the space behind the wheel and under the overhang of the poop. Sharpe listened apprehensively, expecting the steps to go away as they usually did, but this time they came right to his door. Grace clutched his hand, then shuddered as a knock sounded. Sharpe did not respond, then the bolted door shook as someone tried to force it open. “Who is it?” Sharpe called, pretending to have been asleep.
“Midshipman Collier, sir.”
“What do you want?”
“You’re wanted in the captain’s quarters, sir.”
“Tell him I’ll be there in a minute, Harry,” Sharpe said. His heart was racing.
“You should go,” Grace whispered.
Sharpe dressed, buckled his sword belt, leaned over to kiss her, then slipped out of the door. Chase was standing by the larboard shrouds, gazing at the dot on the horizon that was the Revenant. “You wanted me, sir?” Sharpe asked.
“Not me, Sharpe, not me,” Chase said. “It’s Lord William who wants you.
“Lord William?” Sharpe could not keep the surprise from his voice.
Chase raised an eyebrow as if to suggest that Sharpe had brought this trouble on himself, then jerked his head toward his dining cabin. Sharpe felt a rising panic, subdued it by telling himself Braithwaite had not left a damning letter, straightened his red coat, then went to the dining cabin’s door beneath the poop.