"Nicholas is not as beautiful as all that," she said with a straight face. "Come, sit down again; the Captain's cabin in the twilight is so cosy. That saloon - horrible! Like some cheap inn! Now tell me what you two did in the West Indies."

"Nothing much," Yorke said warily. "Deuced hot, of course."

"Too hot to flirt with beautiful women?"

"Oh, much too hot," Yorke said emphatically.

"That is not what I hear," Gianna said. "The rustling palm trees, the perfume of frangipani, an enormous moon ... is that not romantic, Mr Yorke?"

"Indeed it is. But you can't hear the palms rustling for the buzz of mosquitoes, and you can't stand still long enough to look at the moon for the itching of their bites. Even if you could, you'd be eaten alive by sandflies - 'No-see-'ems' they're called in some of the islands - and their bites are like red-hot needles jabbed in you."

Yorke hoped she was convinced, and looking at her and listening to her talking in that delightfully accented voice that one heard with the loins rather than the ears, he suddenly remembered the many occasions back in the Caribbean when Ramage had not heard him say something. He would give a start and Yorke had guessed he'd suddenly come back from wherever his thoughts had been. For a moment he would look confused; then he'd seem embarrassed. Now Yorke realized what iron control Ramage had. In the isolation of the West Indies, it was a rare man who could have resisted the urge to ease the loneliness by talking of the woman he loved so desperately and who was nearly five thousand miles away. Yet until he met her, the only things Yorke knew about her had been the few admiring anecdotes which Southwick had related like an adoring grandfather describing his favourite grandchild.

Yorke had often heard men describing beautiful women, but when he'd eventually met the women he'd been disappointed. Sometimes a woman's beauty matched the words used to describe her, but usually she proved to be as characterless as a piece of statuary.

In a bitter way - just jealousy, if he was honest with himself - Yorke had pieced together Southwick's occasional descriptions and pictured a beautiful shrew: a young woman who used her beauty to mesmerize men and her power as the ruler of a small state to bully them. Wilful, making everyone rush round for the sake of a whim, sulky when thwarted ... The moment he had heard she was coming back with them in the Arabella, Yorke admitted to himself he half thought of moving over to the Princess Louise.

But how wrong he had been: she was all Southwick had said, and more. More because Southwick could not appreciate her love of music, the breadth of her reading, the subtlety of a patrician mind completely free of the restraints normally ingrained in women.

Would Ramage ever be able to marry her? Perhaps not. If she was ever to return to rule Volterra a foreign husband might be too much for those Tuscans to accept. Religion - would that be an obstacle? Ramage a Protestant, and Gianna presumably a Roman Catholic? Obviously they would be the main problems. Apart from that, everything was in his favour: heir to one of the oldest earldoms in the country, he spoke perfect Italian, and from all accounts understood the Italians as well as a non-Italian ever could.

Yet would she be allowed to marry the man she loved? Would she be forced - for political or dynastic reasons - to marry some dreary and corpulent ruler of a neighbouring state? If that ever happened Yorke pitied the poor fellow! How could he compete with the memories she would have of the handsome young Englishman who rescued her from Napoleon's cavalry and took her away in his ship...

"A penny for your thoughts, Mr Yorke..."

Now he was daydreaming about her!

"I was thinking about your secret admirers, ma'am."

"And who are they?" she demanded.

"All the former Tritons on board this ship who served in the Kathleen, and the worthy Captain Wilson, Much and Bowen..."

"So few?" she teased.

"I'm not including myself because I don't - with the Captain's permission - have to keep it a secret."

Ramage wagged a warning finger. "If you think flattery will get you an extra dance, you're wasting your time."

"A dance?" Gianna asked. "With whom is Mr Yorke going to dance - and when?"

"In a weak moment, when the chances of us ever getting back to England seemed very remote," Ramage explained, "I told him I would give a ball in your honour - and let him have one dance."

"Hmm, you'll be charging people soon. A guinea to dance with the crazy Italian lady," she said with a sniff. "Mr Yorke, I shall give a ball - and you can be my partner as often as you wish. But you must both excuse me now; I must see how Rossi is getting on with our dinner. He's having trouble with that wretched seaman, Nicholas."

"I'm not surprised. Two cooks in one kitchen!"

"Cook!" she exclaimed crossly. "That other man is an assassin !"

With that she left the cabin and the two men sat in almost complete darkness. It was not classical beauty, Yorke mused; it was a great deal more than that. Classical beauty tended to be cold. Her mouth was too wide and her lips too warm, if you measured her by those standards. Her eyes too large - and too lively. Her skin was golden, not the alabaster white and pink that classical beauty dictated. Yet if she walked on to the floor at one of the Prince of Wales's famous grand balls, every woman present would demand to know who she was, and hate her for being there!

"You'll have dinner with us?" Ramage asked.

"No, I'll eat in the saloon with the others. The captain of one of the King's ships dines alone - unless there is a charming passenger on board. You don't need a chaperone for your first evening together!"

The excitement of her first day at sea had left Gianna tired, and as soon as dinner was finished and Rossi had cleared the table she had smiled ruefully at Ramage and said she was going to bed. Ramage took her to her cabin and then went up on deck to have a chat with Southwick, who was on watch.

The Portuguese coast was now a thin black line low and vague on the dark eastern horizon. Ramage had decided quite deliberately not to beat far out into the Atlantic; instead he planned to clear Cabo Finisterra by only a few miles, even though the Spanish bases of Coruña and Ferrol were just a short distance round the Cape to the eastward. British frigates - if not a sizeable squadron - were keeping a close watch on them even as the Arabella stretched along the coast, and the packet would probably be safer close in.

After a glance at the slate recording the Arabella's recent courses and speeds, Ramage looked at the two helmsmen, their faces lit faintly by the light in the binnacle box, nodded to Southwick and went below to his cabin again. The Master had been given his night orders, which he would later pass on to Much: orders which covered any likely eventuality. A major wind shift or change in its strength, sighting another vessel, doubt concerning the ship's position - any of these circumstances and many more would result in the captain being called.

In the meantime Ramage was now feeling sleepy and decided he might well spend an hour or two beginning a draft of his report to the Admiralty. He took the lantern from the centre of the cabin's forward bulkhead, where it lit up the table, and hooked it on the bracket on the starboard side of the bulkhead, so that he would see to work at the desk.

For the next hour he wrote and crossed out, tore up complete pages and started again. The Arabella was rolling; not heavily, just enough to make it necessary to wedge the inkwell. He was thankful the desk had been built athwartships against the bulkhead, so that he faced forward: it made it less tiring than if he had to face outboard.