'Why, I ...' Sue flushed and bit her lip. 'But the ship is moving.'

For already the anchor was clanking up, and at that moment the boat in which she had come from the shore was hoisted over the gunwale. 'How do I get ashore?'

'The answer to that, Mistress Huys, is that you either swim or take yourself below.'

She stared at him in horror. 'But you are going to war.'

'We are going to fight a battle, madam, but successfully, you have my word on that. There are women below decks. They will see to your requirements, and they will also find you something worthwhile to do, I promise you. Captain Douglas, show Mistress Huys to the orlop.'

Matt gazed at Sue, at the angry flush on her face. But Douglas already held her arm. He turned to follow them, and was stopped by a word from the admiral.

'Boy. Avast there.'

Matt waited, while Sue was hurried down the ladders to the waist, amidst the interested gazes of the gunners who were stripping off their shirts and preparing their buckets and lanyards, while above them the sailors released the huge folds of white canvas which came clouding downwards from the yards, already filling with the gentle offshore breeze.

'I'll not wait for the Queen herself,' Rodney said. 'But I'd not have any harm come to Robert Hilton's sister. So she must stay below. And the same applies to you, I'd wager. If I do not win today, Matthew Hilton, then am I a disgraced and broken man. If I do win, then am I a hero, and free from any man's judgement. Either way your future is bound up with mine. You'd best get below with the women.'

'And who'll take my place at the cannon, Sir George?'

'They'll manage, boy.'

But a curious tingle had taken possession of Matt's veins, perhaps encouraged by the very presence of Sue, more certainly created by the excitement around him. He shook his head. 'I'll stay my place, Sir George, with your permission.'

Rodney gazed at him for some seconds, then smiled. 'Now I know you're a Hilton. Get to your post.'

Which had been, he reflected sadly, as silly and quixotic a gesture as one could make. He could have spent the night below decks with Sue. God alone knew what she was doing down there, what she would have to say to the women, whose every sentence contained an oath, who knew nothing of perfume or fine clothes, who would regard her as an upstart and might well ill-treat her. But then, God alone knew what she was doing here, how she had managed to persuade Dirk to let her go when he had refused even to allow her to visit her family in Jamaica.

But she was here. There was the tremendous thought. Sue was a few feet below him, breathing and smiling and being, and waiting, until he could take her in his arms. And she had brought his freedom. He had but to survive. And that no longer seemed difficult.

He stretched his cramped muscles, peered along the gun barrel. They had now stood to their guns for a full twenty-four hours, had slept by them and eaten by them, been allowed to leave their posts for only minute at a time depending on the calls of nature. Yesterday all had been excitement at the imminence of the conflict. By noon the entire fleet had been underway, and the white squadron under Rodney's personal command had already been abeam of Pigeon Island, with the mountains of Martinique hull down on the northern horizon, and the red squadron under Hood's command spread out in front of them, behind only the screen of frigates. The enemy had been out of sight, but rumours were already roaming the decks of an armada of perhaps a hundred and fifty ships, mostly transports crowded with men and artillery to reduce Jamaica, but none the less with those thirty-five battleships bringing up the rear, two less than the British fleet, to be sure, but with a much heavier weight of metal.

And in the middle of the afternoon, as the wind had freshened, they had sighted the enemy, some twelve miles north of the main fleet. Then a great cheer had echoed from end to end of every vessel. Forgotten had been the grumbles and private quarrels, as each man had felt his heartbeat quicken at the thought of action. Even he had felt a responsive surge to his body. But that had been a forlorn hope. The wind had remained fresh, and even strong as the great ships had swept up the coast of Martinique, and the spray had come cascading over the bows to slither along the decks and leave them wet and slippery. Then the possibility of an action that evening had seemed imminent. But dusk had meant a steady drop in the breeze, and since midnight they had hardly moved, drifting along through the darkness. Dawn had brought the reason; they were under the lee of the huge mountain peaks of Dominica, where the trade wind could not reach them, and the French were emerging beyond it, into the passage between the Carib isle and the French island of Guadeloupe, a dangerous fast running current divided by the mass of small islands which Columbus had called the Saintes from the day on which he had first espied them.

'They're away,' said McLeod the gunner, looking at his linstock as if it was diseased. 'We'll not take them now.'

'Then look there, you daft fool.' Arbuckle had a telescope levelled. 'The aft squadron is turning back. By Christ, 'tis Hood. He's caught the wind.'

Like the other gunners, Matt scrambled into the lower rigging to watch, as every eye on board the ship was turned north. For Arbuckle was right. Hood's squadron of the red, having, like the rest of the fleet, drifted with the current throughout the night and early morning, had at last emerged into the open water, where the wind was fresh; they could see the distant whitecaps even from the Formidable. Thus carried forward, and separated from the main body, with Admiral Drake's squadron of the blue still more miles astern, the twelve battleships of the vanguard were isolated, temporarily cut off from any assistance. As de Grasse had noticed, and now a squadron of French ships had put about to run down with the wind at their sterns.

'Tis de Vaudreuil,' Arbuckle grumbled. 'They say he is the best seaman in the froggie fleet.'

Orders were issuing from the poop, and there was a rustle from the main peak as the red battle flag broke out. The men broke into a cheer, and in that instant the rumble of distant gunfire came rippling across the bright morning. Matt discovered himself in a rash of sweat, suddenly afraid that they would indeed miss the conflict, his brain a torment of conflicting thoughts and emotions, ranging from a wonder at how Sue felt, trapped below the waterline, waiting for the wounded to be brought down to the cockpit, to what the Caribs must be thinking, as they lined their forested cliffs and watched the white man at play with all the mighty achievements of his gifted civilization.

How slowly the ship seemed to move, and all those around it, while the cannon continued to boom, coming closer and closer, but yet too far off. Arbuckle kept them informed. 'Typical froggie tactics,' he said. 'They'll not close. Not even de Vaudreuil. He's pounding at long range. Sammy Hood will stand that without flinching.'

'Run out your guns,' came the order from the quarterdeck, where Mr. Hill paced to and fro, sword slapping his thigh, cocked hat placed at an angle. The great ports were clewed up and in that instant the Formidable heeled to its first puff of wind.

'Aye,' Arbuckle said. 'Won't be long now, lads.'

Dominica was beginning to drop astern, and in front of them the ocean was lost beneath the mass of white sails, and the rolling black smoke which arose from those nearest. It was impossible to decide whether or not any of the British fleet were damaged; none had dropped out of line.

‘Load your pieces,' came the order, and the ball was taken up from the waiting mound, passed to Matt. He held it in both arms, for it weighed twenty-four pounds, hugged it against his belly, and was assisted by his mate, Davis, as they forced it into the breech, while McLeod busied himself with the filter tube which they had been told would give them twice the speed and twice the reliability of the French gunners, who still poured powder down an open touchhole.

Now the noise was very loud, the crashing of the guns mingling with the continuous swish of the water around the bows and the thrumming of the rigging as the wind freshened ever minute. The order was given, 'Wear ship', and the seamen were scrambling aloft to trim the yards. The Formidable heeled even more as she turned into her station in the line, and the command came, 'Give fire.'

The entire battleship seemed to leap out of the waves. The noise left Matt senseless for a moment, and he could not see much less breathe as he was enveloped in a cloud of acrid black smoke. The thud of the rope's end across his shoulders seemed no more than natural in these suddenly hellish surroundings.

'Load, you scum. Load, you bastards,' screamed Arbuckle. Another twenty-four-pound ball was pressed into Matt's arms, and passed by him and Davis into the breech.

'Quickly now.' Lieutenant Hill walked behind them, hands clasped behind his back. 'We'll not lag behind the others. Quickly now.'

Once again the ship exploded and the decks heaved. Matt shook his head to clear the smoke and the ringing in his ears, and discovered himself on the deck. Holding another cannon-ball in his arms. A blood-wet cannon-ball? He stared down at the features of Mr. Hill, so suddenly arrested in mid-sentence, mouth still open, cocked hat incredibly still in place and only now slipping to one side, eyes staring at the heaven he was already entering, blood draining from the empty neck, flowing down Matt's trousers. He seemed isolated in time and space, by a tremendous noise which obliterated thought, and by streaming blood which was filling his mouth, his eyes, his nose, his ears. He wanted to vomit, but never knew whether he did or not. He discovered hands lifting him from the deck, and saw faces, tight with fear and tension. The head had been taken from his arms.

The brilliant sunlight disappeared, and he decided he was below deck. Was the ship sinking? It still heaved, but he could again identify sound and the tremendous ringing in his ears began to dwindle. He struck something hard, and found himself on the deck, staring at the beams only a few feet above his head, at the swinging lanterns, and at the faces, female faces now, anxiously staring. And at Sue.

Her lips were moving, and she was pillowing him in her arms, forgetting the blood which drenched her gown. 'Matt?

He turned away, and Sue knelt beside him again, holding the mug to his lips. 'Oh, Matt,' she whispered.

He drank, and coughed. 'What happened to me?'

'The gun port next to yours was struck, and you were knocked over by the blast.'

'Mr. Hill ...'

"They say his head was taken right off. Oh, Matt, I'm so afraid.'

And then she smiled, to belie her words. 'And so happy, to be here with you.'

He finished the rum, sat up. ‘I must be on deck.'

'Ten minutes, Dr. Blane said.' Still she held his shoulders. 'Oh, Matt, my darling Matt. When I saw you brought in, all covered in blood ... I did not know then it was the lieutenant's. And then, when I saw your back ... what did they do to you, dearest?'

'I was flogged for insubordination. Oh, several weeks ago. But Sue, to have you here, to understand ...'

'I came for you, Matt. Do you imagine I could ever sleep easy in my bed again, not knowing where you were, not knowing if you were alive or dead? It was simply a matter of obtaining Robert's help. You saw the admiral's reaction. Not even he will consider going against the Hiltons.'

'But ...' Matt listened to the sudden silence, as the guns fell silent. 'What has happened?'

One of the women had crept up the ladder to the lower gun deck to ascertain the reason for the ceasefire. Now she came back into the noisome gloom of the cockpit. 'The froggies have borne away,' she said. 'Not a ship taken or sunk. The whole lot is in full chase northwards.'

'Then Rodney has failed,' Sue said.

'I doubt that, Mistress Huys,' Dr. Blane said. 'Sir George has a task to perform, and he will catch de Grasse if he must chase him halfway around the world. We'll be to action again soon enough.'

'Soon enough,' she whispered. And once again hugged Matt close. 'Oh, Matt, Matt. Promise me you will not be killed.'

He smiled into her ear, and stroked her hair. 'I'd be that unlucky, would you not say, to be brought down twice in the same battle. But should you not take care, my sweet? The doctor is looking at you with a great deal of interest. Perhaps your affections are somewhat more than to be expected from a cousin.'

'Then let him look his fill,' she said. 'How do you suppose I left Statia?' 'How? But...'

'Dirk refused me permission. So I stowed away on a sloop for Port Antonio.' She smiled at him in turn, and kissed him on the nose. 'I did not tell Robert, of course, pretended that Dirk and I were as one on the necessity of regaining you from this infamous place. But he will know by now. The whole world will know by now. I must be your woman now, darling Matt. For be sure I can belong to no one else, having deserted my husband.'

THE GUEST

' 'Tis demented he is.' Gunner McLeod leaned on the barrel of his cannon and stared at the blackness. ' 'Tis too old, you see, Mr. Arbuckle, sixty-four years, to command a fleet at sea. He's not stood the strain.'

'And then there is the gout, Mr. Arbuckle,' Davis put in. 'Ah, 'tis a crippling illness, the gout. Affects the mind it does.'

'God blast the pair of you for mutinous dogs,' Arbuckle growled. 'You talk as if you understand strategy. As if you understand ships. As if you understand men. You understand that gun, McLeod. That lifeless lump of metal is your talent. You'd best leave the command of a fleet at sea to them that's been trained to it.'

'Then you tell us why we've turned away,' McLeod insisted. 'Six hours, and we've beat into this wind, and on the port tack. You watch, by dawn we'll be on the wrong side of Dominica, all over again.'

'I've no knowledge of the admiral's mind,' Arbuckle said. 'But I'll tell you this. Rodney has never been beat. And he'll not be beat this time, either. You may reckon on that.'

Matt wished they would stop talking. Yet it was strange. For two days after the action off Dominica they had clung on the heels of the French, watching them slowly draw away to the north, suggesting their bottoms were a sight cleaner than the British ships. For two days the admiral had sat on the quarterdeck - he was unable even to mount the ladder to the poop, his leg was that swollen with the gout - as indeed he had been on deck since the fleet had left Gros Islets Bay.

And then yesterday two of the French rearguard had been in collision. When the news had been reported to the flagship, Rodney had snapped his fingers with happiness. The crippled ships had drifted, slowly pushed to the west by the brisk north-easterly wind. And the orders had been given for the entire British fleet to alter course to cut them out. There was a gamble. To forgo even the slightest chance of defeating de Grasse, and the Jamaica expedition, for the sake of picking up two already crippled vessels, would involve the admiral in a court martial. But Rodney apparently knew his man. The honour of the French fleet was at stake; de Grasse would not abandon his two lame ducks. And so they had watched, breathlessly, as the whole French fleet had put about, and come bearing majestically down on the British; great, yellow varnished hulls, magnificently dotted with the still closed red gunports, plunging into the swell, topped by the utterly beautiful spreads of white canvas billowing in the breeze. Theirs was still the advantage; the wind was behind them - they had the magic weather gauge which would decide whether or not they accepted battle, and should they decide to accept it, what form it would take. But they were coming. And at dusk they had still been drawing closer, ever closer.

Then the wind, as usual, had dropped, and while the great ships had wallowed slowly onwards, the boats had been swung out, and the captains had been rowed across to assemble on the flagship's quarterdeck, and listen to the admiral's plans. And no sooner had they regained their ships than had come the whispered commands, douse all lights, and trim your yards. The Royal Navy was putting about. As the French swept out of the north-east, the British made off on the port tack, south-east, into the empty night. It was incredible, but it was happening. Rodney had declined battle and was standing away.

And so the gun crews whispered amongst themselves in incredulous dismay. Whereas he should be singing for joy, Matt thought, and pondering his own problems. No battle meant no risk of death or mutilation. And Rodney would doubtless be court-martialled in any event. And their destination would remain Jamaica.

And what then? It was still difficult for Matt to grasp what had happened. Sue had left Dirk, had left her home and her husband, had left her respectability and indeed her honour, to chase behind him. What had she said, that first rainswept afternoon, more than a year ago? That she was not for an idle hour, but forever? And she had meant every word of it. What a remarkable woman. But what a remarkable responsibility had she thrust upon his shoulders. He was slowly realizing, as he crouched beside his gun and thought of her, perhaps sleeping, but surely dreaming of him, three decks away, that all his fife he had done no more than dream, of fine actions and fine achievements, certainly, but still dreams, of one day being a second Beldham, the finest batsman in England, of one day equalling the skill and prowess of Jack Broughton, knowing in his heart that he could never be either of those, but because of his small skill at both, cricket and boxing, pretending to himself that he might, were he prepared to devote his life to it. And then Gislane. He had dreamed, of defying the world, his world, with her at his side, and felt ten feet tall for the dream. But had it not always been a dream, never to be exposed to the bright light of day? Had he not fallen at the very first hurdle, and, for all his feeble efforts, been afraid to get back to his feet?

But now the dreams were rolled up into a ball and thrown over the side. Sue had forced him into reality, for the first time. She was here, and she had deserted all, for him. He could no longer say, to himself or to her, let us ponder and plan, and decide what is to be done. It had happened, and the course on which she had embarked, and on which he must necessarily escort her, would not be checked or altered until they reached their graves.

He did not know whether to shout for joy or weep with apprehension.

Men, all around him, were scurrying about their tasks. Orders were being whispered: 'Wear ship.'

The yards were being backed, and the Formidable was coming about. If Matt could see nothing but the white splashes where the bluff bows cut the waves, he could feel the wind, no longer on the left side of his face, but on the right.

Arbuckle was consulting his watch. 'Two o'clock,' he said. 'Oh, aye, lads. The admiral knows what he's about.'

'By Christ,' McLeod muttered. 'By Christ, but he's a cool one.'

Even Matt was suddenly lost in admiration for the moral courage of a man who could take such a decision. For now it became clear. As the English lights had been doused, and the night was moonless, the French, not knowing where they were, would either heave to, plunge on into the darkness, or come about to beat back to the north-east. Either way, they would have been confident that the English must remain south-west of them, and downwind, only able to follow, not to dictate. But by standing away close-hauled on the port tack for six hours, and now coming about on the starboard tack, Rodney would hope to place himself upwind of the French during the darkness, and between them and the cloud of transports still making north. Tomorrow morning de Grasse must either fight, on Rodney's terms, or abandon his army and run south-west.

Suddenly he was caught by the excitement, by the confidence which seemed to be spreading through the entire ship. Their admiral was once again proving himself the boldest, and the best, fighting seaman afloat. Eagerly they peered into the darkness, dimly making out the canvas of the other vessels around them, all having altered course at precisely the same moment, as had obviously been decided during that conference yesterday evening. What would the dawn reveal, he wondered? What would the dawn bring, in fact? But half an hour ago he had been congratulating himself that there was going to be no battle. Now ... he could not say for sure what he wanted.

The light came suddenly; there was no twilight in the West Indies. One moment it was dark as pitch, the next clear enough to see twenty miles, and the glowing red ball of the sun was already peeping above the empty Atlantic to the east. But how surprising was the scene, too unexpected for Matt to grasp it, for the moment. No spray ever reached the quarterdeck, but last night it had been breaking fairly steadily on the bow as the ship had beat into the north easterly. Now the Formidable, and all the British fleet, once again steered north east, but there was no breaking water. Waves, certainly, and whitecaps, but running with them.

'By Christ,' McLeod whispered. 'By Christ. Can you beat that for luck. The wind's veered.'

Matt looked up, at the canvas ballooning as the wind filled it, just as the French canvas had billowed the previous afternoon. Fortune favours the brave, he thought.

Lord Cranstoun, the Scottish volunteer nobleman who had taken the place of Lieutenant Hill in charge of the guns, and who was alone on deck, the admiral and his staff having gone below to breakfast, had also observed the change in the wind direction. He ran to the companion ladder, and encountered the flag captain, Sir Charles Douglas, coming up. 'Sir Charles,' he shouted. 'Sir Charles. The wind has veered. It is fair, man. Fair.'

Douglas gave a hasty glance aloft, and then at the sea. 'God fights for us, my Lord,' he remarked, and turned back down the ladder.

Or perhaps he merely wants a battle, Matt thought, seizing the salt pork and biscuit which was being brought round by the cook's mate, chewing without tasting, staring forward. It truly was, he supposed, the most beautiful sight he would ever see. The sun was now clear of the horizon, and like the breeze, directing its light immediately down the wide passage between Dominica and Guadeloupe - some twenty miles of water. Fifteen miles away, dead ahead of the British fleet, were the scattered islets of the Saintes; and beyond even them was the blue-grey cloud of Guadeloupe, while to the south Dominica was etched on the clear morning sky. Closer yet to the north, from eight to twelve miles off, straggling somewhat and certainly lacking any close formation, was the French fleet, still steering south of west, and exactly broadside on to the British. The sun reflected from their topsides, even winked from the open gunports as the heavy brass was run out, and sparkled too from the breaking white horses which surrounded them.

And bearing down on them in line ahead were the thirty seven battleships of the British navy; in the van, as the whole fleet had gone about at two o'clock, was Admiral Drake's squadron of the blue. The white squadron was in the centre, and Hood's red squadron now brought up the rear. They ran onwards, propelled by the fresh fair wind, gunports open, pennants and flags streaming in the breeze, hurrying for the exact centre of the French fleet. And this was to be a big ship battle only; the frigates, having done their job of shadowing the enemy until contact would be assured, had hauled away, knowing that a single broadside from one of these seventy-four-gun monsters would send them to the bottom.

There came a rumble of fire from in front of them, travelling slowly towards the wind, reaching the English fleet long after the black smoke had clouded upwards into the morning air. Then there was more and more black smoke, and the white horses doubled in number as the cannon-balls plunged into the waves. But the French fire was inaccurate, and the British did not respond. There was something peculiarly menacing about the manner in which the huge ships kept silently on their way, awaiting the command to wheel into line parallel with the French, and then to return fire. The midshipman with the signal pad in his hand stood beside the admiral. But Rodney was watching the French through his telescope, as was Douglas.

'By heaven,' said the flag captain. 'By heaven.'

'Aye,' Rodney said, snapping his fingers with indecision.

Matt peered over the gunwale to see what was exciting them; the French fleet, already become disorganized during the night, had insensibly coagulated into two halves, separated by several miles of open water.

' 'Tis the way to do it, Sir George,' Douglas said.

Rodney bit his lip. It was also the way to that court-martial he feared, should he discard conventional naval tactics and then be defeated.

'The fleet waits for orders, Sir George,' Douglas said. 'It must be now, or never.'

Rodney looked through his telescope once again, then snapped it shut. 'We'll stand on, Charles. Signal no ship to wear, and no ship to give fire, until my command. We'll break their line, by God.'

The leading ship of the blue squadron, the Marlborough seventy-four, was already right up to the French line, and receiving shot from some four of the enemy, but still there was no answering fire. For the admiral had not given the signal. He sat in his chair, his telescope again to his eye, staring forward, while every man on board the Formidable, and surely every signal and gunnery officer in the entire fleet, watched him. Matt felt his palms become wet with sweat; the balls were plunging into the sea on every side, and he could remember as if it had been only a few seconds previously the explosion of three days ago.

The rhythm of the bells rang out; four couplets. It was eight o'clock in the morning, and the entire day was a cataclysm of sound. As the last stroke died away Rodney nodded his head to Captain Symonds, and the seaman who had been standing by the halliard gave it a little jerk and sent the red bunting streaming upwards.

'Fire, you hounds of hell,' shouted Lord Cranstoun. 'Fire you devils from the pit.'

The guns were already double-shotted. No doubt every gun in the fleet was double-shotted, and waiting. The noise was unlike any Matt had ever heard before. He turned his head as he seemed to leave the deck, as the ship seemed to leave the sea, and saw a vessel close by on the starboard beam, glimpsed the fleur-de-lis streaming from her masthead, and then lost her in the tremendous cloud of smoke which seemed to isolate him in time and space. But already Davis was pressing another ball into his arms, and he was feeding it into the smoking breech, and McLeod was pouring powder into his tube, and the breech was slamming to and the cannon was exploding again, all in a matter of seconds. Time seemed to cease, or to hasten onwards. Nothing mattered, save the sweat-wet ball and the smoking breech. He heard noise, nothing but noise, now and then interspersed by a shriek or a hoarse yell. He trod in blood and kicked his foot clear. He felt, rather than saw, a spar come crashing to the deck beside him. He blinked into the gloom and saw nothing but smoke. He scrabbled for the next ball and realized that it was no longer Davis. He took it, crammed it into the breech, turned back for the next, gazed in horror at the powder-blackened face, the powder-scorched yellow hair trailing free, the powder-encrusted white shift which was all she wore, the red blood which stained her fingers and her toes. He crammed that ball too into the breech, swung back as the day yet again exploded, watched her lips move, could not understand what was being said for a moment, stared past her at the admiral himself, leaning on his stick, his hat gone and his wig tinged with black.

'What? What?' he shouted. 'What means this, woman?'

'I could not stay below,' Sue insisted. 'In that darkness? That stench? Matt is here. I belong beside him.'

Rodney almost smiled. 'Proof enough, madam. Proof enough. Now get back to your place as a woman, or I'll set a marine to you.'

'Please,' Matt begged.

She gazed at him for a moment, and her tongue came out to circle her lips, and then she turned and disappeared into the gloom. Impossibly, a trace of musk hung on the air for just a moment.

'God damn,' Rodney said. 'You Hiltons. You Hiltons.'

She seemed to take the battle with her. A bugle rang out, and the guns fell silent. It took some moments for the smoke to clear, and even then for some minutes it was difficult to decide what had happened, what was still happening. There was still firing on every side, although most of it was distant. Closer at hand there was endless heart-rending sound, the crashing of timbers, the screams of tormented men. For the smoke was at last lifting, to reveal that the French line had been split in three places, whether by accident or design Matt could not tell. The ships were scattered, several were sinking, others were on fire, drifting helplessly while the wind carried the contending fleets apart. The Formidable had herself suffered, and parties of marines were taking wounded men below, but no British ship had experienced anything like the beating received by the French.

' 'Tis the speed of our firing,' Arbuckle said, his voice hoarse. 'Why lads, we sent off three to every one we took.'

'Aye,' McLeod said sombrely. 'Or we'd be taking the fate of those poor lads.'

Matt looked down at the sea, and nearly retched with horror. The Formidable was perhaps half a mile from the nearest French ship, which was clearly sinking. She had lost her foremast and even as he watched her mainmast went overboard, and her foredeck was already running water. Her boats being as shattered as her bulwarks, her crew were taking to the sea. But what a sea. "Wherever he looked there were black fins, carving the tortured waves, almost seeming to shout their joy at the feast which had been granted them. The men already in the water were shrieking their terror at the fate which was about to overtake them, and the very blue was turning red as the sharks started their attack.

Matt looked aloft to see if there was sufficient wind to move the Formidable back towards her victim, but the breeze had died, and the sails were drooping against the yards. He turned towards the cluster of officers gathered round the admiral, offering their congratulations, for there could be no question that the victory was his, even supposing there was tidying up to be done.

'Sir George,' Matt cried. 'Those men are being eaten alive.'

The officers stared at him in amazement, and Arbuckle, about to grasp him by the shoulder and drag him back to the gun, stood still, face crimson with embarrassment.

'And you would rescue them?' Rodney demanded. 'Do you imagine a boat could live in the midst of those monsters?'

‘I would try, sir.'

'You Hiltons,' the admiral muttered, and glanced at Douglas. ‘You Hiltons.'

'The battle is recommencing, Sir George,' said Lord Cranstoun, pointing to the west where the English van and the main French body were drifting back within range.

'So it is,' Rodney agreed. 'We should get over there, by whatever means we can.'

'Sir George ...' Matt said again.

Rodney turned to him. 'You are a confoundedly impertinent fellow, Matthew Hilton. Were you destined for a career in the navy I doubt it would be a very long one.' Then he smiled. 'But it might carry its share of honour. One boat. You'll command, Mr. Arbuckle.'

'Me, sir?' Arbuckle cried in consternation.

'I must have a quartermaster in a boat, sir,' Rodney said. 'But Mr. Hilton has spent his entire life in these waters. He'll know how to deal with the sharks.'

'Volunteers,' Matt shouted. 'I'll need volunteers.'

Several men came forward at once, and one of the few undamaged boats was hastily swung out.

'By Christ,' Arbuckle grumbled as he took his place in the stern. 'I hope you know what you are about.'

Matt said nothing. He was in the bows, a boarding pike in his hands, gazing in disgust as they approached the water, watching the seething, bubbling waves as the sharks coursed to and fro, listening to shriek after shriek as here a leg, there an arm, there a whole waist was taken in the gnashing jaws.

'Give way,' Arbuckle bellowed as the falls were cast free. 'Give way, as you value your lives.'

The oars thrust into the waves, and the boat surged away from the battleship's side. Now the entire gunwale was lined with men, breaking into cheers as Matt dashed his pike into the water to drive a fin to one side, and into shouts of warning as a row of serrated teeth would seize upon one of the blades. But the stout ash was too much even for the sharks, and they were hurled aside, revealing their white underbellies as they rolled over.

'There are none alive,' Arbuckle shrieked, heaving on the tiller.

'There,' Matt bellowed. 'There.'

Four men were clinging to the fallen mainmast, legs dangling in the water, while the fins circled closer.

'Easy,' Arbuckle bawled. 'Easy. Should that lance hole us, we are dead men.'

'Back your oars,' Matt shouted. 'Back your oars.' For indeed the mast was coming close. And the first Frenchman was reaching for him, arms outstretched. 'Here. Ici. Ici.'

But even as their fingers touched there was a flurry of red-tinged water, and the man shrieked and disappeared. Matt struck down with vicious anger, again and again, and the boat heaved as a heavy body struck it.

'You'll capsize us, you crazy fool,' Arbuckle shrieked.

'Monsieur,' cried the remaining Frenchman. 'Monsieur.'

His face was pale, but it was a fine face, and he did not lack courage, leaving the mast to swim for them. Matt struck again as a fin loomed close, and then discarded the pike and leaned into the water. His fingers touched flesh, and then cloth, and the leather of the man's belt. He heaved with all his strength and fell backwards, and for a moment supposed he had fallen overboard, his entire heart seeming to cloud into his mouth in horror. Then he found himself lying in the bottom of the boat, panting.

'Give way,' Arbuckle bawled above him. 'Give way.' He looked down at Matt. 'All that risk,' he said. 'All that risk, to save one man.'

'Indeed, sir,' gasped the Frenchman, speaking perfect English. 'The risk was unwarranted. But then, you could have saved no one better.' He leaned across the dripping bilges, and seized Matt's hand. 'I'm your slave for life, sir. My name is Louis Corbeau.'

Gunfire rippled from end to end of Kingston Harbour. The fort on Port Royal point had begun it, but the feu de joie had been taken up by every vessel at anchor, and was replied to in kind by the fleet as it slowly handed its sails and turned up towards the wind before letting its anchors go, to bring each great battleship to anchor in a perfect line.

Already the boats were setting out from the shore, the leaders containing every dignitary in Jamaica; Rodney's frigates had done their work of spreading consternation and joy amongst the plantocracy.

In the first boat, making for the flagship, was the new Governor, Sir Archibald Campbell. With him were the members of his Executive Council, and also the leader of the Jamaican plantocracy, Robert Hilton. The boatswains' whistles sounded, and the red-coated marines clicked to attention in the waist as the guests climbed the ladders to the deck.

'Sir George.' Campbell hurried forward, perspiring in the heat of the brilliant midday sunshine. 'Blessed is your name. Why, sir, from this day forth Jamaica has no other national hero. This I declare, sir, for all time.'

Rodney bowed, a trifle stiffly; he supported himself upon his stick. 'I was fortunate enough to be able to perform my duty, Sir Archibald. May I have the honour to present His Excellency Monsieur Francois Joseph Paul de Grasse-Briancon, Knight of Malta, Grand Cross of the Order of St. Louis, Chevalier of the Order of Cincinatus, Comte de Grasse and Marquis de Grasse-Tilly; Sir Archibald Campbell, K.C.B., Governor of Jamaica.'

'My pleasure, Your Excellency,' said the French admiral, a tall, heavy man, with the swarthy complexion of the Provencal, also bowing as he took the Governor's hand.

'Bless my soul,'Campbell acknowledged. 'This is an honour I'd never have supposed possible, in these circumstances.'

'The fortunes of war, Your Excellency,' de Grasse agreed. 'I can but hope that, had our circumstances been reversed, I should have been enabled to grant your admiral and yourself as much courtesy as I have received.'

'Bless my soul,' Campbell said again. 'Bless my soul. You'll not have met Mr. Robert Hilton.'

'Alas, no,' the Count said. 'But I have heard sufficient of your name, sir. One of your ancestors fought with DuCasse.'

'That would be Christopher Hilton, the buccaneer, Count,' Robert said. 'They were friends as boys.' But he was more anxious to speak with Rodney. 'My congratulations, George,' he said. 'You are all of a hero, and as you have saved my plantation from the Dons, you have in any event my deepest gratitude. Now tell me you have also saved my cousin, and I shall be your friend for life.'

Rodney smiled. 'You'll excuse us, gentlemen.' He limped in front of Robert into the shelter of the poop, where Matt waited, with Sue and Louis Corbeau. Once the battle had been won it had been possible for the officers' quarters to be restored to their normal comfort, and Sue had been installed in the admiral's own suite for the three-day voyage to Jamaica; she had had the luxury of a bath and now looked as cool and self-possessed as ever in her life. 'Why, Robert,' she smiled, at the utter consternation on his face. 'You'd think I was a ghost.'

'By God,' Robert cried. 'By God. But where did you find her, George? She was for St. Lucia when last I heard.' 'And caught up with us there, as she intended,' Rodney agreed. 'But as we were at that moment informed that the frogs were putting to sea, why, she had no choice but to come along.'

'By God,' Robert said again. ‘You were in the battle?' 'And more than that, Robert,' Rodney said, before Sue could reply. 'She found herself on deck fighting a gun.' 'What? What?'

'I was like to be violently ill, below decks in the heat and the smoke and the scent of blood,' Sue explained. ‘I but sought the fresher air on deck.'

'At a sad cost to discipline,' Rodney said. 'But none the less, it is actions like hers which give this glorious old navy of ours its legends and its tradition. And truth to tell, I think she was concerned about her cousin.'

Robert gazed at his sister, his mouth opening and then closing again, and turned to look at Matt. 'By God,' he said. 'Another survivor.'

'And all of a hero, I do assure you,' Rodney said. 'Let me present Monsieur Louis Corbeau.'

'My great pleasure, Mr. Hilton.' The Frenchman bowed. He was as tall as Matt, but not so broad in the shoulder. Indeed, if there was a single word to describe him, it would be elegant, even in his ill-fitting clothes, borrowed from Lord Cranstoun. Nor were his features less distinguished, with the high forehead and long nose hanging over the tremendous wide gash of a mouth and the big chin. His hair was black as midnight, and lay loose on his shoulders, and his eyes were also black, and more filled with life than any Robert could recall.

'Corbeau?' he asked. 'Corbeau? You'll not pretend your father was Pierre Corbeau.' 'The same, Mr. Hilton.'

'By God,' Robert said. 'Why, sir, I sat you on my knee when you were a babe. And was christened by your bladder. By God. And does Rio Blanco still thrive?'

'It yields to no plantation in the Indies, Mr. Hilton. Save Hilltop, of course.'

'Aye. Aye. Your father was always a diplomat also. I was sorry to learn of his death, boy, even if he was a froggie. Yellow fever, they said.'

'It is the curse of St. Domingue, Mr. Hilton.'

'But... you were with de Grasse in Martinique?'

'You forget, sir, I own a plantation at Trois Islets, as well as Rio Blanco, much as you also own Green Grove. And I was there, endeavouring to repair the damage done by that storm of two years ago - you will not credit this, Mr. Hilton, but there was scarce a house left standing on my estate -when the Count de Grasse arrived with his ships, calling for volunteers, gentlemen, as well as common people, to help him beat Admiral Rodney here.' He paused and smiled.

'And got beat himself, by God,' Robert shouted. 'I like that, sir. I like that.'

'But you have not heard the heart of the matter, sir,' Corbeau said. 'My ship was sunk, and I was thrown into the most busy water I have ever seen. I suspect every shark in the Caribbean had found its way to that spot.'

'It was quite horrible, Robert,' Sue said. ‘I shall never forget the screams of those men to my dying day.'

'And your young cousin here would have a ship's boat away to see what could be done,' Rodney said. 'With the rest of the battle still to be fought. But it was a brave thing.'

'And so you see me, forever in the Hilton debt,' Corbeau said, still smiling, but now at Sue. 'Nor could I have found a more charming family to owe my gratitude.'

'So you are all of a hero, Matt,' Robert said. 'Have you nothing to say?'

'I wondered perhaps what you might have to say to me, Robert,' Matt said. 'You will observe that I am no longer in Statia.'

'Aye. Aye.' Robert was suddenly serious. 'There is much ... aye, much to be discussed. Have I your permission to take these two rascals ashore, George?'

'With my pleasure,' Rodney said. 'I doubt not we could make Matt into a brilliant seaman, given time. But I also doubt whether the Royal Navy has that much time. As for you, Mistress Huys, you may be sure that if the Battle of the Saintes will fill my memory for every day of the rest of my life, your role in it will be a considerable part of that recollection.' He kissed her hand. 'It has been my pleasure.'

'You'll excuse us, Corbeau,' Robert said. 'My family is in a state of turmoil. But you'll dine. Oh, yes, you'll dine. And you, George. I'll expect you tomorrow night.'

'But I am coming with you,' Corbeau said, looking from Matt to Suzanne to the admiral in a mixture of amusement and dismay.

'What? What?'

'Monsieur is a prisoner of war, Robert,' Rodney said. 'But he is also a prominent planter, and a gentleman, and it was your cousin dragged him from the mouths of the sharks. I have agreed to release him into your custody, on parole, until the conclusion of peace.'

'By God,' Robert said. 'By God. Then you'd best come along.' He stamped to the gangway, where Arbuckle waited, with McLeod and the gun crew.

'God bless you, Mr. Hilton,' said the quartermaster. 'You'll do well, sir. You'll do well.'

Matt shook their hands and discovered to his distress that his eyes were moist. ‘Do you know, I almost wish I were staying, and a week ago I'd have regarded such a thought as sheer madness. Mr. Arbuckle, may your prize money amount to millions. McLeod, I'll never hear a cannon again in my life but I'll think of you.'

'And God bless you, mistress,' they shouted after Suzanne, who was already on her way down to the boat. 'We'll drink to you for fifty years, on how you served the gun at the Saintes.'

Suzanne smiled and waved even as she flushed; her eyes were also bright.

'By God,' Robert said. 'You're a right pair. A right pair.' He stared at the warship as the boat pulled for the shore. 'You'll not credit this, Corbeau, but I had considered this cousin of mine as little better than a dandy. Cricket, bah.'

'Cricket?' Corbeau asked. 'What is this cricket?'

'We'll not go into that now. So you're a hero, Matt. And you're set fair to becoming a legend, Sue. By God, but you'd best prepare to become one sooner than that. There's not a woman in Kingston but will spit in your teeth, given the chance.'

Suzanne's face was as composed as ever. 'Be sure that I also am capable of spitting, Robert. And what of Dirk?'

'By God,' Robert said. 'By God. I don't see how you dare utter his name. One whore in the family is bad. But two ... how can a man have ever been so cursed.'

'You have not answered my question,' she said coldly.

'He is presently unable to leave Statia, because of this confounded war. Which is as well for you.' He gazed at Matt. 'Both of you. But he has written. He wishes to know, reasonably enough, how I stand in this lamentable matter.'

The boat was pulling in to the dock. 'And how do you stand, brother?' Suzanne asked, very quietly.

'By God,' Robert said. 'By God.' He climbed ashore in front of her. 'I've a surprise for you.'

'Sue,' Georgiana screamed, debouching from the carriage in a cascade of skirts and bows, leaving her hat behind her on the ground. 'Oh, dearest, darling, Sue.'

'One winter was bad,' Georgiana declared. 'But two ... and the people were so boring. Especially the men. So absolutely boring.' She smiled happily at Louis Corbeau who smiled back.

'And did you receive no proposals at all?' Suzanne asked. She sat between Matt and Robert, facing forward as the carriage bounced over the road outside Kingston.

'Oh, dozens. Absolutely dozens.' She winked. 'Most of them of an utterly scandalous nature. It seems, darling Robert, that we did not do things right. You just cannot abandon a young lady of quality in London, either in the care of her cousin ...' she gave Matt a scornful glance, 'such as that might be, or in the care of a housekeeper. Do you know, I was at one reception, and I heard some dreadful old hag, a duchess or something, talking about that frightful colonial girl, who, and do you know, she began to whisper, lives with her servants.'

'But this did not deter the men,' Robert remarked.

'On the contrary. They clustered like bees. But most wished only to get their hands beneath my shift.' She smiled at Corbeau. 'Are all men like that, monsieur?'

The Frenchman continued to smile. 'Without exception, Miss Hilton. Alas, most young women are like you, and choose to guard their virtues with the utmost determination. So we are forced to marry the gorgeous creatures.'

'Hilltop, at last,' Robert said. 'And just soon enough. Now mark me well, Georgiana, and you, Matt. I have enough on my mind without continuing this stupid feud. I've watched you the whole journey, seen you glowering at each other. Kiss your cousin, Matt, and there's an end to the matter.'

'And suppose I do not wish to be kissed by that lout? A common seaman,' Georgiana declared. 'He ever had the instincts of a common seaman.'

'By God, Miss, but you'll do as I say. Now and always,' Robert growled as the carriage came to a stop.

Georgiana pouted, and then pursed her lips. Matt leaned forward and brushed her mouth with his. Maurice was already opening the door. 'Oh, Mistress Suzanne,' he cried. 'Mr. Matt? But man, we did hear so much. We did fear that you was dead and gone.'

'Oh, be quiet man,' Robert snorted, getting down. 'Georgiana, you'll entertain Monsieur Gorbeau to a glass of punch. Suzanne, you'll come with me. You too, Matt.'

'Are we then to be whipped like runaway children?' Suzanne inquired, still speaking quietly, but with flints of steel seeming to form parts of her eyes.

'By God,' Robert shouted. 'It would be nothing less than you deserve.' He stamped up the stairs.

'And is Rio Blanco anything like Hilltop, Mr. Corbeau?' Georgiana inquired, tucking her arm through his.

Corbeau watched Suzanne's hips moving beneath her skirt as she mounted the stairs in front of him. 'Rio Blanco is more beautiful, Miss Georgiana. If only because of the river which gives it the name.'

'Oh, fie on you,' Georgiana shouted. 'You are a despicable froggie.'

'You'll excuse my sister, Mr. Corbeau,' Suzanne said from the foot of the great staircase. 'And me, for the moment. We'd best hear what the old tyrant has to say, Matt. Robert,' she called. 'We shall pay our respects to Aunt Becky, first.'

Robert stopped at the landing, looked down at her. 'Becky is dead,' he said. 'She had a seizure the day after you left for St. Lucia on the packet. There's the effects of your absurdities mounting all around you.'

Suzanne had stopped, and colour flamed into her cheeks. 'Then I should like to see her grave.'

'And so you shall, when I am done with you.' Robert stamped into the room he kept as an office; the walls were lined with books, which were never read, and the furniture consisted of a huge desk, and half a dozen cane chairs. He sat down, sweeping field returns and slave registers to one side. A little, bald-headed man hastily got to his feet from a smaller desk in the corner. 'Out, man, out,' Robert bellowed. 'We have serious matters to discuss.'

'Good morning to you, Mr. Hardiman,' Suzanne said. 'I hope we are not interrupting your work.'

'No trouble, Miss Suzanne. No trouble. Glad to have you back.' Hardiman sidled towards the door. 'Good to see you again, Mr. Matthew. Good to see you again.' He closed the door behind himself.

'Sit down,' Robert shouted. 'Sit down, the pair of you.'

Suzanne had already taken a chair immediately before the desk. Now she removed her hat, and fanned herself. Her hair scattered lightly before the self-created breeze. Matt sat beside her. His brain was in a whirl. It had, indeed, been in a whirl since leaving the Formidable. Or perhaps, he was beginning to think, it had been in a whirl for too long before that. Now he only knew that he was entirely at Suzanne's mercy. But that was a pointless exercise. She had come on deck to work the gun beside him. She had made herself into a deathless legend. It was not likely that she would ever desert him now. So then, where did that leave him?

Robert was sifting papers, not looking at them, but with some embarrassment. 'Now,' he said. 'I have penned a letter to Dirk which I have not yet despatched, because I deemed it best that you should yourself carry it, Sue. In it I have done my best to explain the situation, have offered him my most profound apologies for what has happened, and have begged him to take you back as my friend, and as the gentleman I know he is, and because he loves you, which I know he does. I have no doubt at all that when he sees you again, when he holds you once again in his arms, and when you add your entreaties to my own, he will be prepared to forgive you this escapade, and who knows, in time you may even regain your previous felicity. Of course there is absolutely no hope of your ever being accepted in polite society again, at least, not for many, many years. But there it is. You will at least have a husband. Now, then, as for you, you young scoundrel...'

‘I beg your pardon,' Suzanne said. 'But we have not finished talking about me, and it is useless discussing Matt until that is done.'

'What?' Robert demanded. 'What? I am afraid it would be very unwise of either of you ever to attempt to see each other again. Scandals of this nature are only mended by strict behaviour and confidence in the ability of the human race to forget.'

'Robert, sometimes you are capable of playing the absolute fool,' Suzanne said, without anger.

'What? What did you say?'

'Do you seriously suppose I intend to return to Dirk Huys? Even supposing I did not love Matt, and had acted out of some whim, do you possibly imagine that I could go back to my husband, and experience all the continued humiliations which would be heaped upon me, as well, no doubt, as the physical mistreatment? I should have to be demented.'

'By God,' Robert said. 'By God.'

'But as it happens,' Suzanne continued, speaking very quietly and very clearly, 'I am in love with Matt. And I propose to continue being in love with him. I never loved Dirk, as you well know. You elected that I should marry your friend, and I was not then twenty-one years of age. I am now twenty-three, and I have had three years of living with that great boring hulk of a man. I think I have obeyed you long enough.'

'By God.' Robert stared at Matt in absolute consternation.

'So you see,' Suzanne continued, 'wherever Matt goes, whatever Matt does, I shall also go and do. And whatever befalls him, shall undoubtedly befall me also.' She held up her hand as Robert would have exploded again. 'And before you have a seizure, let me remind you, and Matt, that he also is now more than twenty-one years of age, and entitled to form his own life. He has for too long been concerned with your opinions.'

'By God,' Robert said. 'By God. That any man can be so unfortunate ...'

'As to be handicapped by two whores as sisters, you were no doubt going to say,' Suzanne interrupted. 'I think you are totally wrong. I think that, in forcing me to marry Dirk, you were then making me act the whore. I have come to my senses.'

'Senses,' Robert bellowed. 'Senses? By God. By God. And suppose I cut you both off without a shilling, turn you from my door, leave you to starve upon the streets of Kingston?'

'Then at least we shall starve in each other's arms,' Suzanne said. 'Unless Matt has some better suggestion.'

Certainly she had fought alone long enough; but Matt's mind was once again reeling. That Sue, dearest, darling, magnificent Sue, should be willing to sacrifice all for him, seemed an utterly incomprehensible concept.

'Well?' Robert demanded.

'I am not entirely bereft of wits or accomplishments,' Matt said. 'Why, I doubt not that your friend George Rodney would be happy enough to have me back. Certainly we could find refuge with Louis.'

Now why, he wondered, did Suzanne suddenly frown.

'Oh, aye, Corbeau,' Robert said. 'You'd do well to be wary of that gentleman, the pair of you. Oh, he is a gentleman, do not mistake me on that. But the French planters, well, and especially those of St. Domingue, have a different attitude to life than us. Not that it is relevant. Have you considered what you will do when Dirk comes looking for you, pistol in hand? As he most certainly will once this accursed war is done. He could take the mole from your cheek without bruising the flesh.'

'Then I shall have to practise,' Matt said quietly.

'By God,' Robert said again. 'By God.' He got up, turned his back on them, and stared out of the window.

'No doubt you would like us to take our leave,' Suzanne said.

'And what of the cause of all this misfortune?' Robert asked, still not looking at them. 'As I recall the matter, when last we met, Matthew, your heart was irretrievably gone in favour of a nigger.'

Matt felt his cheeks burning, and looked at Suzanne. But both her face and her eyes were quite cool, as she returned his gaze.

'Well?' Robert demanded.

Matt licked his lips. ‘I doubt Dirk, were he standing here with a loaded weapon, could have done quite so much pain to me,' he said. 'My honour demands that I find Gislane, Robert. Be sure that I shall do so. Nevis is still only a few days' sail.'

'Your honour? By God. Nevis, by God. And what of the dishonour you have inflicted upon Sue?'

'I love her as she loves me,' Matt said. 'I shall remain by her side for the rest of my life, if she will but have me. No doubt you were right, and my affection for Gislane was no more than infatuation, but...'

'But now you would set up a menage a trois? Oh, very French you are suddenly become. What do you say to that, Sue?'

'I well understand Matt's predicament, Robert. I also respect his desire to behave in an honourable fashion.'

'Bah. Words. Words, by God. I wonder I do not take my whip to the pair of you, indeed I do.'

'Because I would twist it from your hands and break it over your head,' Matt said, his embarrassment taking refuge in a sudden anger.

'By God,' Robert said, in total wonder.

Suzanne smiled, for the first time that morning.

Matt waited.

Robert filled his lungs with air, and allowed them to explode. 'What a family to be cursed with,' he remarked.

'I do not think we are any different to any other members of the family,' Suzanne said. ‘I think we Hiltons, and the Warners as well, perhaps have a truer sense of values than ordinary folk.'

‘Values, by God. Values.' Robert sat down again, and leaned across his desk. 'Now you listen to me. Two whores and a scoundrel, by God, are my lot, no doubt decided by God to punish my pride. But as you are my lot, by God, I must make the best of it. Sue, you are determined upon this course?'

'I have made that plain, I think.'

'Aye. So you have. Then you shall take ship to Green Grove, tomorrow.' He banged the desk as she would have protested. 'Matt will go with you. God alone knows what Antigua society will make of it, but at least they are less in numbers than Jamaican society. You will live there as you choose, for three years. I wish you to swear me that. Three years, never leaving that island.'

'But...' Matt began.

'You'll hear me out, by God. In that time, I will accomplish what I can with Dirk, and attempt to persuade him to divorce Sue. I cannot see why he should not, as she has utterly disgraced him. Then you may marry, and live honourably at least in the sight of God. Three years, Matt. Then we'll talk about the future. By God, boy, you'd be a fool as well as a blackguard to refuse me that.'

Matt glanced at Suzanne. Now at last the pink was gathering in her cheeks. But she would not attempt to persuade him either way.

'Three years,' he said, half to himself. Oh, Robert was cunning enough. After three more years, Gislane would be nothing but a memory. Could be nothing but a memory. And he would be then an utter scoundrel. But he would have Suzanne, and would be able to keep her, honourably, and in comfort. Christ, he thought, what a tangled world we can create by but a single careless moment. Had I not confided in Georgiana that October afternoon ...

Suzanne was still staring at him. He reached across to take her hand. 'I never doubted that blood was thicker than your notions of propriety,' he said. 'And I doubt that three years will be long enough, for Sue and me to honeymoon.'

'Cricket? What is this cricket?' asked Louis Corbeau.

Georgiana had reined her horse on the edge of the racecourse, and now she clucked her tongue impatiently. 'Oh, really, Louis. It is an utterly foolish game, played with sticks and a ball.'

'Tennis,' Corbeau suggested. 'We call it tennis.'

'No you do not,' she insisted. 'We also play at tennis. This is altogether different, and even less intelligent. But do we have to talk about Matt all the time?'

'And should I not? Were he not the man he is, I would not be the man I am.' He smiled as he spoke; when she was angry, or even pretending to be angry, she was twice as pretty as when her rather waspish features were in repose. It was a thousand pities that she was the unattached one, while her truly lovely sister - lovely in every way, he had no doubt at all - was hopelessly compromised. But yet, this girl promised much, in her laughter, in her flights of humour, in the traces of utter delight his practised eye could discern beneath the thin muslin.

'And that is probably the only good deed he has ever accomplished,' Georgiana agreed, walking her horse over the track. 'You will be attending the races, Louis?'

'But of course, Miss Georgiana. I have no choice, as I am your prisoner.'

'Now there's an attractive thought,' she said, and her ill-humour disappeared into one of her beguiling laughs.

Because, he thought, it was impossible not to be continually amazed at the workings of fate. It had never occurred to him to plan his life before, or even for one moment to consider the future further than a day ahead. He was thirty-one, and for the first twenty-five years of his life he had pursued nothing more important than pleasure, whether in Cap Francois or in Paris or in Fort Royal. The death of dear Papa six years ago had been no more than an interlude of sorrow; the plantations had been so well organized they had required nothing more than the assurance that there remained a Corbeau's hand on the whip to continue as prosperous as ever in the past. Even the Great Storm which had bankrupted so many lesser men had been no more than an irritation to him. He had elected to spend a year in Martinique entirely because it had occurred to him that it might be a good idea to get married, partly to preserve the name and heritage, of course, and partly because of what had happened to Helene. He had lost his temper, as he often did when drunk, and hit her, and she had cracked her skull open.

And there his ambition had encountered its very first check. Rose Tascher had no longer been in Martinique. She had married, above herself indeed, for de la Pagerie had been of little account, and in fact he had been one of those bankrupted by the storm. But Rose had become the wife of young de Beauharnais, son of the governor general and an officer in the army, and had departed for Paris. He had almost followed, but changed his mind. Louis Corbeau was no chaser after other men's wives; he desired only possession, when he desired. To share was quite beyond his nature, a fault he well recognized in himself, except that he preferred to regard it as a virtue.

So then, throwing himself into the reconstruction of the Trois Islets' plantation with all his energy, while feeling utterly disheartened, it had seemed no more than a logical, lime-consuming adventure to go to war, when de Grasse and de Bouille had summoned the youth of the Indies to their colours. A war which had ended so suddenly and so abruptly in a shark-infested ocean, from where he had been transplanted, in a quite miraculous fashion, to this stronghold of the plantocracy.

He was envious, certainly. Planting was in his blood. He knew no other way of life. And Rio Blanco was several times the size even of Hilltop; there was more land to be had in the vastness of St. Domingue. But was Rio Blanco as efficiently run? That he doubted. His rides with Georgiana had been quite a revelation. Here was concentrated wealth, being continually reconcentrated. And fate had chosen to plant him in the very centre of it. There was an interesting consideration. Especially as fate had also elected to plant an Eve in her garden of Eden with him. And also a serpent? He had not been able to discern one, as yet.

'You are very thoughtful.' Once again Georgiana reined her horse. 'You have been unusually thoughtful ever since Matt and Sue departed.'

'Perhaps I worry for them. I regard them both as my benefactors, you know. And with all these privateers...'

'Oh, rubbish. Robert says the war will be over this time next year. They are already discussing peace.'

'Oh, indeed, Miss Georgiana. But who is to convince the privateers of that?'

She glanced at him, and her tongue, red and wet, showed between her teeth for just a moment in a gesture which was peculiarly her own. ‘I don't believe you are thinking of them at all, Louis. I believe you are thinking of me.'

He had been warned that she was an uncommonly direct young woman. 'Would that displease you?'

She guided her horse into the paddock beside the stand, and slipped from the saddle. 'On the contrary, sir. It would displease me, intensely, were you not thinking of me. Am I not beautiful?'

He joined her on the ground. 'Indeed you are.'

She pouted at him. 'But you think Sue is prettier? Don't trouble to deny it. Everyone thinks Sue is prettier. And do you know what is so amusing? They think Sue is much nicer, too. They think Sue is a poor lovesick fool who has been led astray, just as they think I am a whore. But really she is the whore, running away after her own cousin. Wouldn't you say?'

She was very close, her face upturned towards him, no longer shaded by the broad-brimmed hat. And they were alone in the paddock, half a mile from the house or the village, on a still, hot morning; he could watch beads of sweat forming on her upper lip, and had the strangest desire to kiss them away. But then, this girl continually aroused strange desires in him. As perhaps she intended to do. He would really be unwise to fall into any trap she might be laying unless he was sure that he had dug the deeper hole.

'I think,' he said, 'that you are jealous because it is she Matt has taken off with.'

Her frown was genuine, he was sure. 'Me? Jealous of that ... that lout? Oh, really, Louis, if you knew...'

'Why do you hate him? Why don't you tell me?'

'I absolutely refuse to discuss him for one moment longer.' She turned away with a flounce, started up the steps to the lowest tier of the stand, and missed her step. She gave a little shriek and fell backwards, but the whole thing had been so patently planned that he was ready for her, and caught her round the thighs, discovering to his delight that his suspicions were no more than justified, and she wore but a single shift beneath her gown. His fingers slipped on the flesh beneath, and then lodged under her breast; he could feel each rib.

She turned, in his arms, dragging her nipples across his palms. 'Upstairs,' she whispered. 'There is a couch.'

He tightened his grip and swept her from the ground, started up the steps, while her arms went round his neck and she kissed him on the mouth again and again, licking his lips, his nose, his eyes, his chin, seeming to count his teeth. She was utterly abandoned, and gurgled with delight, as she was a delight to hold. So then, he thought, as he emerged on to the floor level, I have after all fallen into her trap. Or has she fallen into mine?

And does it matter? She is Suzanne's sister. And Suzanne is unavailable. Presently. Pie wondered how long it would take that gorgeous creature to grow tired of that over-solemn little boy.

His knees hit the couch before he realized how close it was, and he fell forward. Georgiana gave a little shriek of pleasure and landed on her back, and seemed to bounce back into his arms as he sat down. Her skirt rode up, and his hands, starting at her ankles, and sliding past the leather of her boots, were already touching the sweat-damp warmth of her flesh.

'Oh, God,' she whispered. 'Oh, God, Oh, Louis, how I have waited ...' her own hands came down to seize him and fumble at his belt, as she then guided him to his goal, arching her body and rolling her tongue round and round her lips, seizing his mouth with hers and forcing her tongue into it until she filled every millimetre of space, throwing her legs round his thighs to hold him closer, tearing at his shirt with her nails, and ripping through the material to scratch his back, and then uttering another little shriek, and this time the pleasure was mingled with pain. Then it was too late for him; he was imprisoned and could not have withdrawn, except to thrust again, had he been commanded at gunpoint. But even as his body sagged on to hers, and he felt her legs relaxing to fall beside him, and her head lolled backwards to allow her mouth to flop open, and her eyes drooped half-shut, although she continued to stare at him with an almost frightening intensity, the alarm bells were jangling in his brain.

He pushed himself on to his elbow, gazed down at her. 'They said you were wanton.' 'Who said?'

'Well ... does not your brother always refer to you as a whore?'

Now her eyes were wide again, and her tongue was returning into her mouth, and her nostrils were dilating as she breathed. 'No doubt you'll have heard the story.'

'Indeed I have.'

'And now you will know it to be untrue. My maidenhead belongs to you, dearest Louis. No one else. Did I not say, that it is Sue who is really the whore in our family?'

He stared at her for some seconds. And then burst out laughing, his chest thumping against her breasts. 'I have been out-generalled, sweet Georgiana. And I accept my defeat gracefully, as I must. But then, who could wish for a sweeter captor.' He kissed her on the mouth, slowly. And surely, he thought happily, all these roads also lead to Rome.

'Again?' she begged. 'Can you do it again? This time it will not hurt. Will it?'

‘I have no idea,' he said. 'Certainly it will not hurt me.'

'Oh, you are a wretched man.' She pouted, and smiled, almost in the same instant. 'Are all men wretched?'

'It seems so,' he said. 'You may count upon it that I am an utter scoundrel, mademoiselle. As my wife, you will suffer untold agonies. I promise you.'

Her tongue slowly circled her lips in that anticipatory gesture he was coming to recognize. 'Then begin now. I count myself as your wife from this moment.'

'Alas,' he said. 'It will be necessary to wait, for at least a few minutes.' He rolled off her, and held her in the crook of his arm while he rested on his elbow. 'You can while away the tedious moments by telling me why you hate Matt.'

'Constellation,' bellowed Robert Hilton. 'Constellation,' screamed Georgiana Hilton. 'Constellation,' shouted Sir Archibald Campbell. 'Eclipse,' roared Louis Corbeau. 'Eclipse,' called Lord Cranstoun. 'Constellation,' bawled Sir Charles Douglas. 'Eclipse,' said Sir George Rodney.

'Suzanne,' whispered Lady Campbell to Mistress Ellison. 'You remember Suzanne. A lovely girl. But my dear...'

'He's her cousin, you know,' Mistress Ellison said darkly. ‘I mean my dear Harriet, they ought to be locked up. It's positively criminal.'

'And that poor man Huys,' Lady Campbell said. 'What a position to be in. Oh, I do wish this noise would stop.'

The horses swept up to the stand. There were six of them altogether, but only the Hilton mare and Sir Archibald's stallion were in it. And now the roars of the competing parties seemed to raise the very heavens; it was four in the afternoon, and this was the last event of the day, as it was the premier event of the day, and the very sun, now beginning its stately decline in the west, seemed to be gathering itself together for a last burning effort as it bore down on the flying dust, the sweating horses, the straining Negro jockeys and their varicoloured silk shirts, the stand, crowded with everyone who was anyone in either Kingston or Spanish Town, a kaleidoscope of pale greens and pinks and blues belonging to the ladies, sombre browns and blacks of the gentlemen's coats, dotted with the brilliant blue of the naval officers or the even more brilliant scarlet jackets of the officers of the garrison and the marines, and then the slaves themselves, for race day at Hilltop was a holiday, gathered in a vast crowd, well over a thousand strong, all in clean white cottons, in the cleared area beyond the paddock.

And now the horses were past, and the dust filtered slowly through the still air, coating faces and arms and expensive gowns, causing the onlookers to cough and sneeze.

'Constellation,' Robert said. 'Now there, Sir Archibald, is a filly for you.'

'Aye,' Campbell said. 'Only a short head, though.'

'Enough, sir, enough,' said General Lake. 'That is fifteen hundred pounds.'

'Gad, sir, I'll have my whip to that jockey,' Campbell grumbled.

'And now,' said Lady Campbell, 'they are installed at Green Grove, if you please. Living openly together, in the utmost sin. Do you know, my dear Marjorie, I very nearly refused to come this afternoon.'

'It makes the blood curdle,' Mistress Ellison agreed. 'But what was poor dear Robert to do? I feel so sorry for that man.'

Lady Campbell snorted. Marjorie Ellison had lived in Jamaica too long, that was her trouble. So once upon a time she had had hopes of becoming mistress of Hilltop; no doubt it had been a fortunate escape. ‘I doubt,' she remarked, 'that he is any better than either his sister or his cousin; they all come from the same tainted stock. And as for that child Georgiana...'

Georgiana was leading the route down to the paddock, where the steaming horses were being unsaddled, and the jockeys were receiving their rewards.

'Here's a purse for you, Abraham,' Robert bellowed. 'A hundred guineas, by God. You rode well, well, by God, sir.'

'I thanking you, Master Robert, suh,' Abraham grinned, and held the bag to his ear to hear it jingle. 'You going to sell me free, suh?'

'I will not, you black devil. You'll ride for me until you drop, by God.'

'Wretched nigger,' Sir Archibald shouted at Eclipse's rider. 'The whip, man. The whip. Have you never learned how to use the whip?'

'Man, Excellency, sir,' explained the boy. ‘I did think he would take she. I really tliink so.'

'Ah, bah, you'll come up to the house, my dear, for sangaree?' He had discovered his wife and Mistress Ellison at his elbow.

'I suppose we must,' Lady Campbell said, but her eyes gleamed as she watched Georgiana, arm tucked through Louis Corbeau's, head against his shoulder as she chattered away.

'I'm afraid my officers and I must decline your kind invitation to dinner, Robert,' Rodney said. 'We must catch the tide.'

'It's an outrage,' Robert declared. 'An outrage. Why, George, so to treat the nation's hero ...'

Rodney's smile was sufficiently confident to dispel any fears for his future. 'I imagine our Whiggish masters dispatched the frigate before the news of the battle can have reached them,' he said. 'They have accused me of monstrous crimes. Statia is only the half of it. No doubt your impeachment stands amongst them.'

'But I have written to abandon the action,' Robert protested.

'And no doubt that also has not yet gained London. I find the whole thing more amusing than disturbing. There'll be a great to-do when the Count and his officers reach Plymouth, and the news gets abroad.' He took Robert's hand. 'Meanwhile, my month here has been of the happiest. No doubt I shall not return. Sixty-four is a shade too old for active campaigning, and this gout gets no better. You'll give my best regards to your young scoundrel of a cousin, and his so beautiful lady.'

'I'll do that,' Robert promised. 'You do not then join in the general condemnation of the pair?'

Rodney shrugged. 'He would appear to be one of those men who has been destined either for greatness or disaster. It is too early to decide which.' He laid his finger alongside his nose, 'You'd do well to remember you have another sister.'

'That wretched girl.' Robert frowned at the pair, leading the procession back towards the carriages. 'Aye, I'll remember it, by God,' .

But it was midnight before the last of the guest equipages went rumbling down the drive, and Maurice led the servants round the house to accumulate the glasses and the devastated plates of cold meat and jellies, and to douse the candles.

'Georgiana,' Robert bellowed, stamping on the verandah. 'Georgiana.'

'She has retired,' Corbeau said. 'It has been a long day.'

Robert peered at him through an alcoholic fug; the Frenchman's cravat had been released, and he had discarded his coat. 'And did you tuck her in, sir?'

Corbeau pretended to frown. 'Surely you do not mean to quarrel, Robert?'

Robert threw himself into a chair, and was immediately surrounded by his terriers, crawling over his feet to scramble on to his lap. ‘You think you'd take me, boy? Over-confidence is a great weakness. I'd killed my first man when you were still sucking.'

'I meant, sir,' Corbeau said, 'that I should have to kneel and beg your forgiveness. I could quarrel neither with my host, my captor, nor my future brother-in-law.'

'What? What? Ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha.' Robert sat up, scattering the dogs. 'You've spoken to her?'

'Indeed I have, if you will forgive me.' Corbeau collected a half-empty bottle of wine from a passing tray, and dragged up a chair.

'And she is willing. Oh, yes, she is willing.'

Corbeau drank, and offered the bottle. 'I think she will accept my troth, subject to your approval of course, Robert.'

'Then I approve, by God. Oh, yes, I approve. With her safely married, I can breathe again. I'll have the lawyers draw up the contracts tomorrow.'

'There are matters to be discussed.'

'Details,' Robert said. 'You wish a dowry? Take what you will.'

'A dowry interests me not in the least,' Corbeau said. 'I mean, firstly, that there must be some delay in the affair.' 'Oh, yes?'

'Well, sir, I will not take Georgiana as my wife while I am a prisoner in your house.'

^‘A prisoner, by God.'

‘Nor can I really ask her to engage in the perils of a voyage back to Rio Blanco, at least until I have returned there myself, and made sure the plantation is ready to receive her. She understands this herself, and is happy to agree.'

'Once the betrothal is official,' Robert said, 'you can wait as long as you like.'

'It will be official by the time we finish this discussion,' Corbeau said, getting up and pacing the floor, while the servants hurriedly got out of his way. 'You'll understand, dear Robert, that mine is a very old family in these parts.'

'Ha ha/ Robert said. 'Ha ha ha ha ha. You seem to have forgotten that I am descended from the very first Englishman ever to plant a colony in the West Indies.'

'There was a Corbeau with d'Esnambuo.'

'A quartermaster, I believe. At that time Sir Thomas Warner was already governor of St. Kitts.'

'I'll not quarrel, Robert, and there's an end to it. I would merely say that while the Corbeaux have renewed their blood time and again with the best Paris can offer, the Warners and the Hiltons have had their mishaps.' He held up his hand. 'Hear me out, I beg of you. The past is the past, and there is an end to it. 'Tis the present and the future that concerns me. I understand that Matt is to be your heir.'

'Aha,' Robert said. 'I begin to get your drift. I have hopes of placing that pair in a slightly less compromising position, given time. Dirk has not yet replied to my letter, but he is a reasonable man.'

'As to whether or not their children are bastards, means very little to me,' Corbeau said. 'I admire, indeed I love them both. I am concerned about the other shadow in Matt's life.'

Robert frowned at him. 'Other matter? By God, that wretched sister of mine has been gossiping as usual.'

'You are speaking of my future wife, sir,' Corbeau said coldly. 'In my opinion she but did her duty.'

'And has your family no skeletons in its closet?'

'Oh, indeed we have, Robert. But none, at the moment in any event, like to overshadow our future prosperity.'

'Nor do we.'

'Indeed? I understand that young Matt, a very positive fellow, I have observed, even if he has not yet learned that constancy of purpose which can lead to a successful life, fell deeply in love with a mulatto girl, some two years ago, am I not right? She was removed from his reach by Georgiana, greatly to her credit, indeed, and in pursuit of her he comes chasing back to the West Indies. That is certainly an evidence of love. Now, you in your wisdom sent him to Statia, and there, being a young man with red blood in his veins who has just tasted the delights of the feminine world for the first time, he seduces your other sister, and she, being married to a man she does not love...' he held up his hand. 'Oh, come now, Robert, you cannot persist in that fiction any longer, surely? Suzanne chooses to fall in love with this handsome young man. And so she in turn chases behind him all over the Caribbean, and now they are preparing to settle down in happy sin. Again I repeat, they are welcome to it. But I would like to hear what proof you have, firstly, that Matt will not fall out of love with Sue as easily as he appears to have fallen in, and then revert to his passion for Gislane, which still taxes at the least his honour, I know; or worse, what is likely to happen should Gislane reappear in his life. The Caribbean is not so large an area that this is impossible. Or even, in my opinion, unlikely. And you will agree, dear brother-in-law, that either such eventuality will bring the utmost disaster upon your family. Which I now have the honour to call my family.'

'Ha.' Robert got up, paced the room, waved his arms and the servants disappeared. 'I understand your concern, Louis, truly I do. I can only reassure you as best I may. As for the vagaries of Matt's heart, I can offer no opinion. But even should he manage to recreate his first passion, which will be a very unusual experience, I can tell you, he will not find the girl again. And for that same reason, she is unlikely to encounter him again by chance.'

Corbeau frowned. 'You have not done away with the girl?'

'I am no murderer, sir.'

'But... how can you be so sure? Georgiana says she was sold to Hodge of Nevis. My God, that is but ten miles from

'Oh, indeed you do. But Gislane is no longer on Nevis.'

'I must ask you to be more explicit.'

Robert glanced at him, then sighed, and sat down again. 'You'll understand this is a most secret matter, Corbeau, which has hitherto been known only to myself.'

'I'll respect your confidence. But I have a right to know.'

Again Robert sighed. 'I suppose you do. Well, you may suppose I was well aware that Nevis is altogether too close, to either Statia or Antigua. I visited Hodges privily, oh, more than a year gone - the girl had only just arrived - and convinced him that he should sell her again.'

'Convinced him, by heaven. I like that. Sell her where?'

'To a Dutchman.'

'My God. A planter?'

Robert nodded.

'My God,' Corbeau said again. 'Knowing their reputation?'

'Knowing their refusal to countenance any restrictions on their treatment of their slaves, if that is what you mean. Nor do your people, Corbeau.'

'Yet are we somewhat more refined. You have a heart of stone, Robert.'

'I have a duty to protect my family, you mean. As you were just insisting.'

'Aye. Oh, I admire you. Yet am I not convinced. A Dutch planter? Not from Statia, obviously. And there is little enough planting on Saba. Where did you find this man?'

'She was sent to Essequibo.'

Corbeau stared at him. 'The River Coast? That great swamp, where Europeans die like flies?'

Robert shrugged. 'She is only part European.'

'My God,' Corbeau said again. 'And the man's name?'

'I have no idea,' Robert said. 'I thought it best.'

Corbeau nodded. 'Smartly done, to be sure. You are to be congratulated, sir. However, I am afraid I must press you just a shade further. You have done, I admit it freely, everything in your power, short of that murder which repels you, to your honour, to ensure that this girl never again threatens the future of the Hiltons. Yet are there very many strange coincidences in life, some good, some disastrous. It is at least possible that she might escape the Guyanese swamps, or that Matt may learn what happened to her, and chase behind her. What then?'

'The idea is impossible.'

'If it is so impossible you can at least consider it.' 'What would you have me say?'

Corbeau sat beside him. 'Listen to me. I am thinking now of my children, Georgiana's children. No matter what happens, you'll agree they will be the only truly legitimate heirs to your estates. Dirk Huys will never divorce Sue, and you know that as well as I. Now Matt is entitled to his inheritance, so long as he acts the part. God knows, I would stand between no man and what is rightfully his. But should he act less than the part, why, then, the Hiltons of the future must be protected.'

Robert gazed at him for some seconds. 'You're a cunning fellow, Louis. Yet I cannot gainsay your point. Very well. Should Matt ever introduce Gislane into this house or Green Grove, he shall forfeit his inheritance, should I still be living, and I shall insert a clause to that effect in perpetuity, into my Will. In which case the Hilton estates will devolve upon the children of Georgiana.' He sighed. 'And a famous name will quite disappear.'

Corbeau laughed, and clapped him on the shoulder. 'You take altogether too gloomy a view of the situation, Robert. As you say and hope, perhaps Matt is indeed in love with Sue, and we worry needlessly. But to have taken the proper precautions, that were the sensible thing to do. Now I am for bed.' He went to the archway into the hall, stopped, and looked over his shoulder. 'Tell me, Robert. This Gislane, Georgiana even has to admit that she is quite the most beautiful creature she has ever seen. Is that a fact?'

'What? Oh, aye. Entrancing. Do you know, I last saw her, naked and triced up to a bar. Indeed I saved her from a flogging. And she had then spent four months on a slaver. And yet... by God, Louis, I nearly took her for myself. Try to imagine every bit of high yellow you have ever known, take each of their very best points, from toe to tit, and put them all together, and you'd have that girl. As to what she'd be like now, after a year of Dutch company, well, I cannot say.'

'An intriguing thought,' Corbeau agreed. 'But between Georgiana and yourself, you almost make me understand Matt's point of view. 'Tis an odd world we live in, to be sure.'

THE PLANTER

Green Grove was the largest plantation on Antigua, and yet was by some degree smaller than Hilltop. It was far more beautiful; its compactness gave an impression of tremendous fertility - seen from the gentle hill which overlooked at once the canefields and the Great House and the slave village and the beach beyond, and the Leper Island, it was simple to understand how it had first obtained its name, even in the month after grinding.

It was also the most evocative of the Hilton possessions. Here Kit Hilton the buccaneer had come courting, and here he had wooed the beautiful Meg Warner, despite the opposition of her family and indeed of all Antigua society. Here they had lived their stormy lives, loving and hating each other with equal intensity, and here Meg had contracted the leprosy which, had left her even more notorious in death than she had been in life. Her bones still lay on the Leper Island, even if the island was now deserted, shunned by all as a place of evil spirits; the Government had itself taken over the segregated treatment of the disease and built its own lazaretto close to St. John's.

But it was Meg Hilton's spirit which dominated these fields, and this house. And Meg, with her single-minded determination to have what she wanted, regardless of legal or moral impediment, would surely be smiling on this latest example of Hilton perversity, Hilton disregard for convention. Matt felt it in his bones, knew it in the swelling of his heart, as the gig started its downward journey. He glanced at Sue, and found her watching him.

He closed his fingers over hers. 'Happy?'

'If you will be happy. Matt.'

He pursed his lips to blow her a kiss. 'I am happy whenever I am near enough to touch you.'

Now at last she smiled. 'There is a challenge no woman should resist. I shall always be near enough to touch, Matt. Until you grow tired of me.'

'There is an incomprehensible thought.' He watched the drive unfolding in front of the horses, the muscles flexing in Thomas Henry's shoulders as he tightened the reins; the slaves on Green Grove had always retained the double names invented by Marguerite. But there were so many incomprehensible thoughts, chasing about his head, demanding to be exposed. He had spoken no more than the truth; when Sue was within an arm's length he knew no doubts, no fears, would accept no self-condemnation. Yet was she also right. Their love depended on their physical joy in each other, and it was difficult to see that lasting a lifetime, through sickness and inevitable separation, even if neither of them doubted it would at least survive the current scandal.

But there was the sum of her problem. She had acted as a Hilton, thrown up husband and respectability for the company of a man she had chosen to love. Her business must be to keep him, if only to justify herself. But what of him? How simple to say, why, I am the same. I saw, I loved, and now my existence is controlled from embrace to embrace. Except that he had used those thoughts, enjoyed those emotions, once before, and in so doing brought catastrophe upon a girl who had done no more than respond. Perhaps, he thought, this is what truly frightens me, that having destroyed Gislane, merely by loving, I am now in the process of destroying Sue. But Sue could never be destroyed; no matter what happened to her, she would face life, and treat life, and conquer life, as a Hilton. Not a slave.

So, then, every moment he sat here, or rode the dams at Green Grove, or drank his punch and sangaree on the front verandah, he was compounding his crime. He had, to all intents and purposes, committed murder, and was taking his ease while his victim still died.

But always his conscience foundered upon the same rock.

The pressure of Suzanne's fingers tightened on his own, and he started. She smiled at him, but her eyes remained solemn. No doubt she was sufficiently used to his brown studies, and sufficiently aware of their cause.

But now too the time for thought was past, at least for a while. The gig was pounding up the driveway, and as it was late afternoon they were encountering files of slaves returning from the fields, driven by the whips of their overseers. They stared at the carriage in disinterested bemusement, two visitors for Mistress Lander's dinner table, perhaps. But one of the overseers recognized Sue, and then Matt, and raised his hat, and called out to another. Here was a fruitful cause for speculation in the white compound.

The gig rolled to a stop. Green Grove Great House was but a smaller version of that at Hilltop, from the carefully constructed mound of earth on which the house stood, through the deep verandahs and the reinforced doors, past the mahogany floors and the cedar walls, to the huge skylights in the roof; Hilltop was in fact no more than an enlarged copy of the original Hilton house. And on the verandah were Thomas Arthur the butler, and Jane Lander herself, a tall, angular Scotswoman, complexion bleached yellow by an adult lifetime in the tropics, grey-streaked black hair drawn back in a tight bun to emphasize the pointed forcefulness of her features. She was frowning at the sudden appearance of an unexpected carriage, and the frown was only deepening as she recognized the occupants, even as she hurried down the stairs behind her butler to assist Suzanne to the ground.

'Mistress Huys,' she cried, and bit her lip. 'How good to see you. Matthew, is that you?' She could remember him as a babe.

'The bad penny himself, Jane,' he cried. 'Ian home yet?'

'I expect him shortly. But come inside. Come inside. There are mosquitoes. Thomas Arthur, you'll prepare sangaree. Is this a visit...' she checked, to glance at Suzanne, and flush.

'I am afraid we are come to stay, Jane, Suzanne said, lifting her skirt to climb the stairs. 'We? I... I do not understand.'

'Robert has decided it is time I become a planter,' Matt explained. 'Of course Ian will continue to oversee the plantation. Make no mistake about that. No doubt in the next twenty years or so I will learn the business.'

She glanced at him, before her eyes seemed to roll back to Suzanne. Antigua was only a dozen miles from St. Eustatius; they had seen the Dutch island on the northern horizon as they had sailed past St. Kitts.

'And I have elected to be a planter's wife, if it is possible,' Suzanne said, with that coolness which however well Matt knew to be affected, was certainly her greatest asset. Now she drew off her gloves and sat down.

'Oh, my dear,' Jane cried, joining her on the settee, her mind apparently made up. 'There will be a divorce?'

Suzanne took a glass of sangaree from Thomas Arthur's tray, and waited while Matt did the same. 'Not in the immediate future. Dirk is a possessive man.'

'Oh. Oh, dear. I ... I must see to your rooms, of course.' Jane got up. 'You will remain in the front room, Matt, and...'

'Matt will move into the master bedroom, with me, Jane,' Suzanne said. 'We may as well understand each other, and our situation. I have no doubt at all, from the way Joanna Chester averted her eyes when she happened to see us disembarking this morning, that all Antigua is well aware of what has happened. So please do not pretend to be ignorant. I have left my husband, in order to become Matt's mistress. As I said just now, I hope in time to become his wife, but there is little possibility of that for some years. In that time I have no desire or intention to act the nun.'

Jane Lander stared at her. 'But...'

'Green Grove will become the centre of endless gossip, and all who live here will doubtless be ostracized. It has happened before, Jane, and certainly it will happen again.'

^‘Oh, my God ...' Jane gazed past Matt at her husband.

Ian Lander was no taller than his wife, and had somewhat less strong a face. But now it was cold. 'I'm sorry I was not in St. John's to meet you, Matthew. I was not informed you were coming.'

'I have Robert's letter here.' Matt pulled it from his pocket, and waited, while Lander slit the envelope and perused its contents, his frown deepening the while.

‘I think I will go upstairs and change for supper,' Suzanne decided. ‘I have been wearing these clothes for two days; the captain would not let us leave the deck as we sneaked past St. Kitts for fear Dillon's people would rush out upon us. Do you think one of the girls could draw me a bath, Jane?'

‘I will see to it,' Jane Lander said, but she hesitated, as her husband was clearly reaching the end of his study.

'Mr. Hilton says you are to assume full control of the plantation,' he said, gazing at Matt.

Matt nodded. 'I understand that was his intention. I have promised him to devote myself utterly to the task, for a period of at least three years.'

Landers gaze drifted in the direction of Suzanne, who was again on her feet. 'And in that time —'

'I shall be living here also, Ian.' Sue's cheeks glowed, but with anger rather than embarrassment, Matt had no doubt.

The manager drew a long breath. ‘I doubt you will have much use for my services in the future, in these circumstances.' He did not specify to whom he was speaking.

'Oh, what rubbish, Ian,' Matt shouted. 'I have forgotten all I ever knew about planting, if indeed I ever knew anything at all. Without you the plantation would rapidly descend to ruin.'

'Aye,' said the Scot. 'But I doubt...'

'We shall be happy to help you in every possible way, Matthew,' Jane said, quietly. 'And you, of course, Mistress Huys. I will see to your bath.'

She left the room, and Sue hesitated only long enough to gaze at Matt, and speak to him with her eyes, demanding strength. He nodded. 'You attend your bath, Sue; I am sure Ian and I have a great deal to discuss. You'll sit down, Ian, and tell me of the plantation. And take a glass of sangaree.'

Lander sat down, rolled his glass in his hands as he listened to Suzanne's boots on the stairs. 'It is said, when the war ends, that Dirk Huys will go seeking the man who has dishonoured his name.'

'I shall not ask any man on this plantation to fight my battles, Ian.'

Lander sighed. 'You grew up on Antigua, Matt. You'll recall its size. Dirk is but the half of your problem.'

'What, will anyone refuse to ship Hilton sugar?' Matt took another glass. 'Barton would give him short shrift.'

'Oh, aye. No one will refuse our sugar, Matt. And Mistress Huys must be the most beautiful woman to walk these boards since Miss Meg, God rest her soul. But to stare at that sea, and the island, and those fields, endlessly, will become a purgatory with the best of company.'

Here was an immediate crisis; Ian clearly could not forget that he had been Ned Hilton's best friend. Matt drained his second glass, and set it down with great care. 'I'll bow to your knowledge, your experience, in the field and in the factory, Ian. Not once we mount those stairs. And by heaven I'll break the head of the first man who utters a word against Mistress Huys.' He stood up. 'And I'll hold the men responsible for the tongues of their wives. Remember that.'

Dawn was the best time of the day. It seldom changed its hour, invariably arrived between five and six of the morning. The Great House faced south, and the master bedroom was on the south-facing wall, so that the light was never piercing, but rather a tremendous pink and yellow glow, which ranged into the windows, slid up and down the walls, set up an aura around the white mosquito netting which shrouded the tent bed and left the occupants inside invisible.

The netting did more than repel insects; it also excluded anything short of a gale, and the tropical night which began hot, and cooled somewhat after midnight, was by dawn again close and warm. By then the sheets had been rolled back by their sleepily kicking feet, and they were uncovered.

But the first intimation of dawn was not yet time for movement. He loved to watch her awake, and was content to wait for it to happen naturally. He also loved to listen to the sounds of the awaking plantation, the stealthy whisper from downstairs as the servants began their mammoth task of sweeping and dusting and expelling ants and spiders, the neighing of the horses as they were taken from the stable for exercise, the incessant tolling of the bell from the slave compound, summoning the unfortunate blacks to another day of endless, unrewarded labour.

His own part in this was as yet small. In the two months they had lived here they had unashamedly honeymooned. Besides, it was the slackest time of the year. Grinding had been completed but ten weeks earlier, and the field hands were concerned solely with preserving the young shoots from the attacks of weeds. As the plants grew stronger, and able to defend themselves, the field work would diminish for a spell, and then the business of maintaining and improving the plantation would commence. Roads would be re-surfaced, houses would be re-roofed. Honeymooning or not, Sue was already making notes of where she wanted paint renewed, and what changes she would have made in the furnishings of the house. She pursued her course as chatelaine of Green Grove with the careless energy of a woman who had been born simply to perform this duty; nor had she been disturbed. Predictably, no one had come to call on the runaway Hilton sinners, and they had not as yet ventured into St. John's.

His daily task consisted of no more than a leisurely ride through the fields, before the sun grew too hot, and the obligatory daily inspection of the dispensary, to chat with the sick and receive William Arthur's report on which were likely to survive. It had been Lander's idea that he should immediately commence taking the chair at the morning punishment sessions, but this he had declined, for the time being; Green Grove appeared to run smoothly, and the blacks appeared to be happy, if blacks ever were happy. He wished to get to know them all again before he stepped in as their immediate master. For the time being he was content to be a remote figure with eventual power over them all, and for that reason, he reminded himself, the more formidable, from their point of view.

Which was specious enough. If he ever had the courage to admit the truth to himself, it would have to be that he feared them. Not physically, but for the memories they threatened to recreate for him, memories which always hovered on the brink of his consciousness, which he knew but waited on his own conscience, his own determination, whether to allow them to overwhelm him altogether, or whether the planter in him would in time submerge them. Memories which for the moment could only certainly be lost in Sue's arms.

She sighed, and eyes still shut, blew a strand of hair from its resting place on her mouth. But she was awake. Matt reached down, rested the curled fingers of his right hand behind her left knee, which lay across both his legs, and slowly stroked the nails up, along the back of the thigh, over the gentle curve of the buttock, into the pit of the back and up to the smooth shoulders. As he did so her entire body undulated, like a cat's. And she smiled, and discovered one eye to be open.

His fingers crossed her shoulders and commenced the descent, pausing at the soft swell of her breast, hovering to finger her nipple into erectness, sliding past her rib cage and navel to arrive at her groin and gently scratch the curly mat. This she enjoyed more than orgasm itself, and her tongue came out from between her teeth - strangely reminiscent of Georgiana, this - to touch his own, as she pushed her body closer to his to force his fingers deeper, and then, quite without warning, rolled away from him, sitting up in the same movement, thrusting the netting aside with her toes.

'Sue?' He caught her wrist, gently pulled her back.

She rested her head on his shoulder. 'You cannot enter me, Matt. I'm pregnant.'

He twisted to see into her face. 'You cannot know.'

'I am sure enough. I have been becoming sure, over the past week. I am now on my third month.' She smiled, that slow, lazy smile he liked so much, and kissed him on the chin. 'It must have happened on our first night in Jamaica, after the Saintes. The first time for over a year. We were both uncommonly anxious.'

'We must get you to a surgeon.'

'What nonsense. I would but ask you to forgive me. You must make a choice from amongst the mulatto girls on the plantation, for the time. Unless a Negress will do.'

'Neither will do.'

Her smile had faded, and her gaze seemed to be searching for his heart. 'Aye,' she said at last. 'I sometimes wish you had bedded the girl, Matt. Then perhaps she'd be easier to forget.'

'And now you must forgive me. Perhaps I wish no woman but you.'

'That would be a strange man indeed. Then I must service you with my hands and my mouth. If that will satisfy you.'

He kissed her on the nose. 'Just to lie here with you satisfies me, sweetheart.' But he got out of the bed, pulled on his clothes. 'A son, do you think?'

'Does it matter so much?'

'No. Not the sex. The fact of it. Surely now...'

She shrugged. 'He is a man of strong passions.'

They had heard nothing from Dirk, or of Dirk, had assumed this was because the French had taken St. Eustatia back, and even if the Hollanders were officially their allies, were retaining it for the duration of the war. But hostilities had entirely ceased, except for privateering; peace was expected every day.

Her hand squeezed his. 'But I agree, if he is at all human, he must now understand that it can never again be him and me.'

Matt nodded, sat down to lace his boots. Suddenly he was afraid to look at her, the naked beauty of her, standing in front of him. Damask.

'Do you fear him, Matt?'

Never before had she risked such a question. But then, perhaps never before had the answer been so important.

'I don't think I am afraid of him,' he said, carefully. 'I know I will be defeated should I have to face him, weapon in hand. This is a certainty, like the knowledge that I could not jump from this window without at least breaking my leg. Yet, supposing the house were on fire, I would jump from this window and hope that I might not break my leg. I do not know what that makes me.'

She was smiling again. 'An optimist, certainly. I like optimists. And I promise you this, Matt, that should Dirk elect to fight you, then must he also fight me.'

'You did not have to say that. I was already sure of it.'

She nodded. 'You must ride aback alone, from now on. I wish to take no risks.'

He nodded, picked up his hat and whip, went down the stairs, drank the huge mug of sweetened coffee which was waiting for him. He wished no more in the early mornings, looked forward to the breakfast he would enjoy, with Sue, when he returned from the morning ride.

Ian Lander also waited, his face even grimmer than usual this morning. 'Bobman is here.'

Matt adjusted his hat. 'Who would Bobman be?'

'You've not forgotten Bobman? The jumper from St. John's.'

'I remember the jumper,' Matt said. 'What can he want?' 'We've four for punishment.'

Matt frowned at him. 'There's been no one in the stocks.'

' 'Tis a system of my own, Matthew. It seems a terrible waste of labour, to lock a man in the stocks for upwards of a month. Bobman is not a regular visitor. So those I have condemned work in the fields until he comes. I have kept them back this morning.'

'You should have informed me of this before,' Matt said. His coffee seemed to have solidified into lead in his belly.

'You did not ask, and I forgot. But there are only four. It will take but a few minutes. Yet must you be there, as you are here.'

Matt walked down the steps, stared down the drive, at the triangles. They were already filled, three men and a girl, stripped naked and suspended by their wrists.

Lander was at his side. 'Robert Peter, guilty of insubordination,' he said. 'Three dozen. Robert William, guilty of insubordination, three dozen. Petronella Petronella, guilty of stealing, six dozen.'

'Six dozen?' Matt halted. 'For the girl?'

'Well, Matthew, stealing is something I am determined to stamp out. Petronella Petronella was a house girl, and she took a silver spoon and tried to sell it in the market in St. John's.'

'When was this?'

'About a week before you arrived.'

'She has been confined since then?'

'No. I told you, I consider that sort of action a total waste. I told her to expect punishment, and then removed her from the house and placed her in the fields.'

'And since then she has been waiting,' Matt said thoughtfully. 'And the fourth?'

'His name is Ulysses Edward, and he is guilty of making a sacrifice to a voodoo god, and incidentally of stealing one chicken. I have decided twelve dozen lashes for him.'

'Twelve dozen lashes?' Matt asked incredulously. 'For stealing a chicken?'

'That were the least of his offences,' Lander insisted. 'You have been in England too long, Matt, away from the superstitions and cruelties of these people. Voodoo is a serious matter.'

'God give me patience,' Matt cried. 'It is their religion, is it not? You may call it a superstition, Ian, but no doubt they would call Christianity a superstition.'

'Now really, Matthew, there is no necessity to be blasphemous.'

'As Rousseau would no doubt call all religion a superstition,' Matt insisted.

'I have never read Master Rousseau,' Lander remarked. 'I do not believe in obscene literature.'

'Aye,' Matt said. 'It is all a matter of obscenity, to you.'

Lander walked ahead, down the drive, to where the cluster of overseers was waiting with the huge black man known as Bobman. 'We'll begin with this one,' he said, jerking his chin at Ulysses Edward. 'He's a recent purchase, Bobman, from somewhere in the recesses of the Congo, and filled with blasphemous ideas. Take the skin from his back. Twelve dozen lashes.'

The Negro's head jerked, to suggest that he understood English, but his expression, composed and almost withdrawn, did not change.

'Oh, aye, Mr. Lander,' agreed Bobman. 'And what he done?'

'He has prayed to Damballah Oueddo,' said one of the overseers.

'I have yet to be taught where is the crime in praying to one's own version of God,' Matt said, having reached the party.

Lander exchanged glances with his overseers, and drew a long breath. 'It is not as simple a matter as you think, Matthew. This god to whom they pray, this Damballah, the mighty serpent, is dedicated to the destruction of the white people in the West Indies, to the murder of us all, to the murder of you, Matthew. And Mistress Huys.'

'Something to think about,' Matt said. 'Especially when you remember the Romans no doubt considered that the preaching of Jesus Christ was devoted entirely to the murder of all Roman non-believers and the destruction of their property.'

'Aye,' Lander said. 'And this fellow should count himself lucky that we do not treat him as the Romans treated the early Christians.'

'Oh, indeed,' Matt agreed. 'The point I am arguing, however, is whether you consider yourself a Christian, Ian, or an early Roman.'

Lander stared at him.

'I flogging this man or not?' Bobman demanded, of the attorney.

'Get to it,' the Scot growled.

And suddenly Matt was angry, as he had been angry on board the Formidable, as he had been angry in his bedroom when facing Georgiana. Suddenly he knew how much of a specious coward he had been over the months which had passed since Gislane had been swept from his life. His cowardice had cost him her, forever, and in its place, mysteriously and magnificently, had brought him Sue. But he knew now that he could no longer be a coward, and expect even her constant love. And now he was about to be a father.

'You'll address yourself to me, God damn you,' he shouted, and their heads jerked in surprise. 'You're flogging no one here today, Bobman. Take your leave.'

Bobman's astonished gaze turned towards Lander; he rolled his eyes. 'But what is this, man, Mr. Lander?'

‘Your cousin put me in charge of this plantation, Matthew,' protested the manager.

'Until he sent me here as its owner, Ian. You'll not forget that.'

Lander changed his tactics. 'And if we send Bobman away, who's to carry out the flogging? I've no wish to harm the blacks.'

'You've no wish to harm them, Ian. I'm glad to hear you say that. Neither have I, save where it is absolutely necessary. There'll be no flogging here. Munroe, cut them down.'

The head overseer hesitated, watching Lander, and received a quick nod.

'And bring them here,' Matt said.

The four slaves were brought before him, faces bemused with their rapid change of fortune. 'You,' Matt said. 'Ulysses Edward. I'll punish no man for believing in a god, whoever he may be. Get back to your field gang.'

'But...' Lander began, and stopped. Ulysses Edward was already jog-trotting his way up the drive.

'Petronella Petronella,' Matt said. 'You stole a spoon from the house, and sold it in the market. Who to?'

Her head swung to and fro. ‘I didn't sell it, massa. I didn't have the time.'

'We got the spoon back, Matthew,' Lander said. 'It is the deed I proposed to punish.'

'As indeed it should be,' Matt agreed. 'You have spent six weeks in the field, Petronella Petronella. Yet I do not think you have been punished enough. For the next four weeks you'll lose your day off. Now get back up to the house and tell Mistress Huys what I have decreed.'

The girl scuttled away, while Lander scratched his head.

'By no means,' Matt said. 'They sought to prove themselves men, difficult enough in the circumstances in which they must live. You'd quarrel with me, would you, Robert William?' He addressed the larger of the two Negroes.

'Oh, no, massa. Not with you, massa.' His eyes rolled towards Munroe.

'To quarrel with one of my overseers is to quarrel with me,' Matt insisted. 'You'd best think on that. From this moment, any quarrel on this plantation is a quarrel with me. I'll not flog you, Robert William. I'll not flog any man. But by heaven I'll break your jaw, and that's a sight more painful. You understand me?'

'Oh, yes, massa.' Robert William grinned, as he looked down on his master, several inches the shorter.

'You're mad,' Lander declared. 'Clear out of your senses.'

Matt watched the slave. 'You're amused,' he said. 'I like my people to laugh. But I like them to understand me, too. You'd be free, Robert William, to insult who you please. Tell the truth.'

Robert William shifted his feet in the dust. 'Well, massa, we all must want to be free.'

'Only men can be free,' Matt said. 'You can have your freedom this minute, if you're man enough. I say so, before witnesses. Bobman, you're my witness too. I give Robert William his freedom. He has but to walk off the plantation. But to do that he must walk past me. Can you do that, Robert William?'

The Negro stared at him. 'You meaning that, massa?'

'Mad,' Lander groaned. 'Munroe, fetch me a pistol.'

'You'll not move, Munroe,' Matt said, never taking his gaze from Robert William's face. 'Yes, I mean it. I have said it, before witnesses. Have you ever known my father to break his word? I say you shall not leave here, Robert William. But if you do, you are free. And there are no weapons ranged against you.'

Robert William hesitated; sweat globules were forming on his forehead and shoulders. Then he lowered his head and ran for the drive. Matt caught his shoulder and spun him round. Robert William's arms came up in gigantic, bearlike swings, which Matt avoided with the greatest of ease. He stepped inside the Negro's fist, his own arms pumping straight from the shoulder as Jack Broughton had taught him. And as Jack Broughton had also taught him, he made no move for the head, which could only bruise his hands, but instead struck deep for the pit of the belly, hurling all his weight into each blow, and then jumping backwards before the milling black arms could encompass him. But they had in any event lost their power. Robert William's legs had been robbed of all strength by the hammer blows into his solar plexus, and now they gave way, leaving him kneeling and gasping, his head lolling, his arms useless at his side.

'Get up, man,' Matt said. 'Get up, and either oppose me again, or return to your field gang.' Slowly Robert William reached his feet, still seeking breath. He stared at Matt for a moment, dropped his gaze to the fists which had destroyed him, then turned and shambled along the track to the canefields.

'Now it is your tum, Robert Arthur,' Matt said, quietly. 'Man, massa, I gone to work,' Robert Arthur said, and followed his friend.

'By Christ,' Munroe whispered. 'Mad,' Lander said. 'Mad.'

'That is how the blacks shall be treated from now on, Ian,' Matt said. 'Straight up, as human beings. And the overseer who cannot face a Negro with his fists and the power of his mind is not worth his pay. You'd best pass the word on that to your mates, Munroe.'

'Oh, aye, Mr. Hilton, I'll do that,' Munroe agreed, and turned for his mule.

'I'll not stand for it,' Lander declared. 'You'll run no plantation by such tom-fool methods, Matt Hilton.'

'I seem to remember that this plantation was run in a manner very like it, by Kit Hilton, after Marguerite Hilton died. And successfully.'

'Aye,' Lander said. 'So they say. I was not alive then. And the idea didn't survive the captain's death, now did it? And he was an altogether exceptional man. You've a way to travel before you reach his stature, Matt.'

'No doubt you're right, Ian. I'll not do it by refusing to start, now, will I?'

'You'll persist in this madness?'

'I'll persist in my endeavour to remind the Negro that he is a man like myself, and maybe become more of one, myself, in the process, if that is what you mean.'

'You'll do so without my aid,' Lander declared, and stared at the young man, brows drawn together.

Matt hesitated, then shrugged; no doubt he had always known it must come to this. 'Then I am sorry, Ian. You'll have no trouble finding employment elsewhere. I'll write you a reference.'

'You ... you're dismissing me?'

'I'd say you've just dismissed yourself. A plantation can have only one master.'

'By Christ,' Lander said. 'By Christ. We'll see about that.' He turned and made for the house. Matt followed more slowly. Suzanne sat in her rocking-chair on the verandah, sipping chocolate.

'You'll have heard,' Matt said.

'I saw as well,' she said. 'Are you hurt?'

He shook his head. 'I took no risks. I was well taught.' He sat beside her. 'You blame me?'

She smiled. 'I'm surprised you waited this long, Matt. You've a deep wayward streak. But then, so have I. Just as long as you want me at your shoulder, I'll be content to stand there.'

Dr. Thomas Coke stood on the front verandah of Green Grove Great House, his hat held in both hands. He was aware of heat, of trickling perspiration. But then, he was always aware of heat; in three years he had never managed to become acclimatized to the perpetual West Indian summer. He found it incredible that he should be standing here, in the month of November, wearing a light jacket over a shirt, no vest, and not a glove or a topcoat in sight, while the sun scorched the drive up which he had just ridden.

But today's heat was increased by his surroundings. He did not know what he would find here, what he wanted to find here. He had heard enough. All the West Indies had heard enough, of Matt Hilton and his mad experiments, of the beautiful girl who had abandoned husband and friends and even family to live at his side. But then, where was the angry impetuous boy with whom he had shared the passage from England? And where was the dream for which he had actively been searching?

But at least some of the rumours were obviously true. Green Grove was grinding. The canefields resembled a battlefield, littered with scorched and dismembered plants; those nearest the house were still being cleared, the cut stalks being piled on to the carts which would take them to the factory - and the slaves sang as they worked. The factory itself belched black smoke, drifting southward and westward across the Caribbean Sea, and hummed with the chatter of a hundred men and the grinding of the machinery; he had paused to watch the huge treadwheel being mounted endlessly by muscular black men, naked, save for their loincloths, and sweating as they placed one foot in front of the other, and had marvelled - he had been on other estates at grinding, and never had the great wheel moved without the impetus of the white man with the whip. Here there was no white man at all.

He had ridden past the slave compound, and been smiled at by the children and the old women. He had seen no triangles. There were stocks, and in one of the stocks there was a black man, head bowed, but back unmarked; when he had heard the hooves he had jerked into wakefulness, and looked at the visitor, and he too had smiled, uncovering a vast array of brilliant teeth.

And the butler who had taken his card into the house had been no less happy, as was the girl who had hastened on to the verandah with a glass of punch to set his head swinging. So then, he wondered, what could have wrought such a miracle? Or would who be a better word?

Suzanne moved slowly, descending the great staircase with much care and advancing across the parquet floor of the hall towards the open front door; her babe was cradled in her left arm, and chewed at the bodice of her gown. And she smiled, with all the unearthly beauty of the nursing mother. 'Dr. Coke. Matt has told me so much about you. I have sent to the factory to call him.'

Her flesh was amazingly dry. 'I must apologize for disturbing you in this manner.'

She sat down in the rocking-chair placed for her by the butler. 'His name is Anthony, Dr. Coke, and I am sure he is as pleased to see a visitor as I. I assume you are familiar with our circumstances?'

'People talk, if that is what you mean.' He sat beside her. 'I would have come sooner. But travel is that difficult. Or I should say has been that difficult. But now peace has been signed ...'

'Has it, Dr. Coke?'

'Oh, indeed, Mistress ...' he bit his lip.

Her smile widened into a laugh. 'It is difficult, isn't it? I think it would be best were you to call me Suzanne, and then I could call you Tom, and we could forget formality.'

'It will be my pleasure, Suzanne,' he said. 'St. John's is in great celebration. All the West Indies, I imagine will be in great celebration. I find it incredible that you cannot know.'

'My great-grandmother died on this plantation, of leprosy,' Suzanne said, thoughtfully. ‘I cannot believe that even during the last stages of her illness Green Grove was as shunned as it has been this last year.' Her gaze turned away from him. 'Matt will explain.'

The horse waited at the foot of the steps, and Matt was already on his way up. He wore no shirt, and his chest and shoulders were burned mahogany. Now he took off his hat, and extended a powerful arm. 'Tom Coke. I'd have thought you back in England by now.'

'Matt.' Coke grasped his hand. 'No, no. My task is here. And to this day it has been an uncommonly unsatisfactory one. I have not the time to recount the number of plantations from which I have been forcibly expelled, from Barbados to Jamaica. But here...'

'Here you'll stay, Tom,' Matt said, and drained a mug of punch. Coke observed that Suzanne watched him constantly, scarce seeming to blink. She loved him, there could be no question of that; but there was something more than love in her gaze.

Matt kissed his son on the head, and sat down. 'Because here you'll find what you were looking for, I'll warrant.'

‘I have found the rumours difficult to credit,' Coke admitted. 'Have you truly abolished the whip?'

'We have,' Matt said. 'And I will wager you any sum you care to mention that my crop this year is as good or better than last. There will be a bitter draught for my critics in the House. They expect Green Grove to declare bankruptcy at the least.'

'Then will they hate you the more,' Coke observed, soberly. 'And what has been the reaction of your cousin in Jamaica?'

Matt exchanged a glance with Suzanne. 'Why, there has been no reaction at all, to our knowledge.'

'We know Ian Lander returned to Jamaica when Matt dismissed him,' Suzanne said. 'But there has been a remarkable absence of letters.'

'I suppose the war is playing its usual havoc with shipping,' Matt said.

'But the war is now ending,' Suzanne said. 'So Tom says.'

'Peace was signed at Versailles last month,' Coke said. 'America is free, but that apart, all the colonial conquests are to be restored, save that Great Britain will retain Tobago. You can thank Admiral Rodney's victory at the Saintes for that achievement at the least. But you were there. I had forgotten.'

'We were both there,' Matt said.