Honour This Day by Alexander Kent Read Free Book Online

dressed in black who had been standing motionless beside the Viscount reached out to steady his arm, while through the mass of candles he saw staring faces, surprise, curiosity, caught like onlookers in a painter’s canvas.
    â€œI beg your pardon, Ma’am!” Bolitho regained his balance and tried not to shade his eye as the mist swirled across it. It was like drowning, falling through deeper and deeper water.
    He said, “I am all right—” then stared at the lady’s gown. It was not black, but of an exquisite green shot-silk which shone, and seemed to change colour in its folds and curves as the light that had blinded him revealed her for the first time. The gown was cut wide and low from her shoulders, and the hair he remembered so clearly as being long and as dark as his own, was piled in plaits above her ears.
    The faces, the returning murmur of speculative chatter faded away. He had known her then as Catherine Pareja. Kate.
    He was staring, his momentary blindness forgotten as he saw her eyes, her sudden anxiety giving way to an enforced calm. She had known he was to be here. His was the only surprise.
    Somervell’s voice seemed to come from a great distance. He was calm again, his composure recovered.
    â€œOf course, I had forgotten. You have met before.”
    Bolitho took her proffered hand and lowered his face to it. Even her perfume was the same.
    He heard her reply, “Some while ago.”
    When Bolitho looked up she seemed strangely remote and self-assured. Indifferent even.
    She added, “One could never forget a hero.”
    She held out her arm for her husband and turned towards the watching faces.
    Bolitho felt an ache in his heart. She was wearing the long gold filigree earrings he had bought her in that other unreal world, in London.
    Footmen advanced with trays of glittering glasses, and the small orchestra came to life once again.
    Across the wine and past the flushed, posturing faces their eyes met and excluded everyone.
    Glassport was saying something to him but he barely heard. After all that had happened, it was still there between them. It must be quenched before it destroyed them both.

3 K ING’S RANSOM
    B OLITHO leaned back in his chair as a white-gloved hand whisked away the half-emptied plate and quickly replaced it with another. He could not remember how many courses he had been offered nor how many times the various goblets and fine glasses had been refilled.
    The air was full of noise, the mingled voices of those present, at a guess some forty officers, officials and their ladies with the small contingent from Hyperion ’s wardroom divided amongst them. The long room and its extended table was brightly lit by candles, beyond which the shadows seemed to sway in a dance of their own as the many footmen and servants bustled back and forth to maintain a steady supply of food and wine.
    They must have garnered servants from several houses, Bolitho thought, and he could gather from the occasional savage under-tones of the senior footman that there had been several disasters between kitchen and table.
    He was seated at Catherine’s right hand, and as the conversation and laughter swirled around them he was very aware of her, although she gave little hint of her own feelings at his presence. At the far end of the table Bolitho saw her husband, Viscount Somervell, sipping his wine and listening with apparent boredom to Commodore Glassport’s resonant and thickening tones. Occasionally Somervell appeared to glance along the table’s length, excluding everyone but his wife or Bolitho. Interest, awareness? It was impossible to determine.
    As the doors swung open from time to time to a procession of sweating servants Bolitho saw the candles shiver in the smoky air. Otherwise there was little hint of movement, and he pictured Haven, safe in his cabin, or brooding over his possible role in the future. He might show more animation when he learned