“Good God! To consider such a scene!”

“It was dreadful,” Mary muttered in a choked voice. “Beyond the power of words to describe. We saw the flames throughout the night, and Frank would not stay, but must hurry to the aid of those who fought the fires. He was gone well past dawn, Jane, and I could not sleep for fearing—”

He laid his hand over hers, and she bowed her head to his shoulder. “I determined to carry Mary and the child to Southampton this morning, to remain in Mamma’s care until Portsmouth is deemed safe.”

“Are the prospects so very bad, Frank?”

“Do not ask me to describe what I saw last night,” my brother said harshly. “It defied even my worst experience of battle. In war, one expects devastation — one meets it with a certain fortitude — but to affix the horrors of engagement upon a well-loved scene, familiar through years of association—”

Years, indeed. It was at the Royal Naval College in Portsmouth that Frank had learned his love of the sea, at the tender age of twelve. He had been hauling or dropping anchor in those waters all his life.

“But did no one witness the fiend who sparked so grave a crime?” I enquired.

“That is the question that must consume us all! I should have said an army was required to liberate those hulks—”

“Not a bit of it,” spat Jeb Hawkins. “At dead o’night, when the crews are settin’ skeleton watch? All that’s needful is one greased monkey lithe enough to climb up through the chains — slit a throat or two on the quiet, like — and pilfer the guard’s keys. Then you’ve an entire hulk what’s crying for blood and freedom, and the monkey’s off about his business on the next scow down the line.”

My brother frowned, and might have hurled a biting retort — for in his eyes, the pride and vigilance of the Royal Navy required an enemy legion, to suffer such an ignominious action. I grasped his wrist, however, to forestall dispute.

“What of the prisoners now?” I enquired. “Have any been recovered?”

He shook his head. “Too many slipped unnoticed into the darkness, Jane. We feared for the fate of several ships of the line, moored likewise in Spithead, and subject to the ravages of fire, to spare much effort in pursuing the French. It is a heavy business, to protect a fighting vessel from its own stores of gunpowder. We are lucky that none of them exploded last night, and in an instant set off all the others!”

If you commanded the direction of Enemy forces... where next should you aim your imps of Hell?

It was as Lord Harold had predicted. So much of chaos, and of death, in the wee hours; a strike unlooked-for, despite the Navy’s vigilance. The liberation of the hulks should bring in its train a creeping fear, that not even His Majesty’s strongest ports could be defended against an enemy as clever as it was insidious.

Did his lordship know already what had occurred? Word should have been sent along the Navy signal lines, from Portsmouth to the Admiralty, as soon as the dawn had broken. That the evil had occurred in Lord Harold’s absence — when Orlando should unaccountably be silenced — when Mrs. Challoner entertained a party of friends in seeming innocence, and balls of light flared at midnight from the Abbey walls—

Had Sophia or her gallant Mr. Ord signalled the attack from the ruined heights?

“Hundreds of the French, still at large,” I murmured, and thought of the black-cloaked figure who had fled the Abbey passage not an hour ago.

“That is what Frank meant,” Mary added, “when he declared the theft of Mr. Hawkins’s boat to be worrisome in the extreme.”

“The skiff was stolen, no doubt, by a freed prisoner, who lurked along the shingle, and observed all that you did,” my brother declared. “He thanked God and the Emperor when you appeared in his view, Jane, complete with vessel and nuncheon!”

“—Which is halfway across the Channel now, and may he drown before he ever sees Calais!” Hawkins spat once more into the bilge, drew his pipe from his nankeen pocket — and saw that the tobacco was wet with seawater. He subsided into morose silence. I endured my mother’s strictures regarding

the idiotishness of girls left too long upon the shelf; promised her I should never again quit the house of an early morning without informing her of my direction; and refused to pen a note to Mrs. Challoner denying myself the honour of attending her evening party.

“What can it be to you, Jane, to give up this small pleasure?” my mother demanded in exasperation. “It is not as though you bear the woman any great affection; and now your brother is come, you might plead the necessity of a family engagement. Frank thinks of taking Mary to the theatre in French Street while he is ashore — for, you know, his time is not his own, and he may be ordered back to sea at any moment. Cannot you remain quietly at home with the baby and Martha Lloyd tomorrow, and allow your brother to enjoy an evening with his wife?”

It was a simple enough request. I apprehended how selfish I must seem — how lost to everything but my own petty concerns. Being prevented from sharing so much as a word of the truth — that the attack on Portsmouth required me to exert vigilance in the only quarter I might suspect — I was left with but the appearance of disappointed hopes, and a mulish insistence that I could not fail Mrs. Challoner.

“Cannot Frank and Mary be persuaded to the theatre this evening instead? For I should gladly look after little Mary Jane tonight. But tomorrow, Mamma, is quite out of the question—”

“Mary is resting at present, and cannot say whether she shall summon even enough strength to descend for dinner. You know that she is a very poor sailor, particularly in so small a vessel as the hoy. And with Martha not yet able to set her foot to the floor—”

“Frank,” I called to my brother as he appeared at the foot of the stairs, “would you care to take a turn along the Water Gate Quay? We might learn what news there is of Portsmouth on the wharves, and stop at the butcher’s in our way, for the procuring of Cook’s joint.”

“That is a capital idea!” my brother cried. “Do not trouble yourself, Mamma, with fetching your purse — for I shall supply the joint this evening, in gratitude for all your kindness to my poor Mary.”

• • •

I formed a desperate resolution as we walked through Butcher’s Row, and came out along the High, and turned our faces towards the sea. My brother is a fellow of considerable understanding, when dealing with matters nautical; but his notions of chivalry and the proper station of women are charmingly Gothick. He might ignore the vital nature of what I should tell him, and fix instead upon the impropriety of Lord Harold’s every action.

“Should you not like to see the theatre this evening, Fly? For who knows when you shall be called back to the St. Alban’s. Never put off until tomorrow the chance that might be seized today.”

“Very true,” he said with a look of humour in his eye; “and you might serve me admirably this evening, without the slightest disarrangement of your plans for tomorrow. What is this Mrs. Challoner, Jane, that she commands such attention? I will allow her to be a very dashing young woman — but I should not have thought her quite in your style.”

“Frank,” I said abruptly, “I must take you into my confidence on a matter of gravest import — but first, you must assure me that no word of what I tell you will pass to Mary, or, God forbid — to Mamma.”

His sandy brows came down at this. “I know that you should never fall into error, Jane, by your own inclination — and so must assume that no wrongdoing is involved in your tale.”

“None on my part. You are aware of my acquaintance with a gentleman by the name of Lord Harold Trowbridge?”

“Cass mentioned something of him, once,” he said in an altered tone. “The fellow is a blackguard, I collect, who treated you most shabbily. Has he descended upon Southampton?”