'Three guests,' Ramage called, remembering Martin and Paolo. As she waved to acknowledge that she had heard he thought of Gianna, and suddenly she seemed even more distant in both time and space.

The great cabin of the Earl of Dodsworth was impressive. Athwartships, in front of the sternlights, was a long table with a smaller one at each side of the cabin running parallel to the centreline and leaving a hollow square between for stewards using the big sideboard at the forward side of the cabin.

As Ramage walked through the door, Martin and Paolo behind him, he saw that half a dozen people were sitting at the big table - clearly 'the captain's table' - while six more sat at one side table and two couples at the other. He saw her walking across the cabin towards him, obviously acting as the hostess.

The light from the stern windows was behind her. She was wearing a light mustard-coloured morning dress, nipped in at the waist and tight across the bust, but flaring out from the hips. Her hair was not quite blonde - tawny perhaps - but the light reflecting on it showed it was brushed out loosely, not braided.

He was deliberately avoiding looking at her face: he had seen every man and woman in the cabin was watching him and the men were rising - and yes, the women were clapping gently!

She gave a little curtsy and said: 'Because I am the only person who has really met you .. .' She paused for a moment and Ramage glanced up: there was no mistaking her meaning. '... I have been given the task of introducing you - all three of you,' she corrected herself, 'to everyone present.'

Ramage took Paolo's arm. Now he would hear her name! 'May I present Lieutenant Martin and Midshipman the Count Orsini.'

Paolo took her hand and kissed it.

'Ah, we have been reading about the Count's exploits in a recent copy of the Gazette,' she said and no one but Ramage seemed to notice that she had not offered her name.

She led the way to the top table and introduced him first to the elderly man who had come from the next cabin, and the grey-haired woman sitting next to him, a woman whose fine-boned face still had an almost haunting mature beauty.

'The Marquis of Rockley, the Marchioness: may I present Captain Ramage, Lieutenant Martin and Midshipman the Count Orsini...'

Rockley? Somewhere in Cambridgeshire. Friends of the Temples and of Pitt. As he went through the ritual of being introduced, Ramage tried to place the couple more exactly, but in a few moments he was being introduced to the next couple. He recognized the name as belonging to a Kentish landowner active in Parliament. The last man was an officer in the military service of the Honourable East India Company, and Ramage apologized for his borrowed uniform, admitting to be uncertain to which regiment it belonged. The man laughed a little too loudly at the idea of a naval officer in a soldier's uniform, but the woman with him looked embarrassed.

Ramage managed to glance at 'Miss for now' but she was looking away, deliberately it seemed. What was unusual about this uniform?

Finally, with the last introduction completed, and before the woman had shown them to their chairs, the old Marquis stood up and tapped a glass with a knife to get everyone's attention.

'If I may have a moment... you all know the identity of the gallant captain who gave us a sleepless night and at dawn presented us with our freedom. I know you want me to give him our thanks, and ask him to thank his officers and men as well. We know he and his men have more work to do tonight, and our prayers will be with them.'

No reply was needed and amid clapping and hearty 'Hear, hears' Ramage sat at the head of the table, finding the Marquis on his right and 'Miss for now' on his left. Just as he noted the white cloth and napkins and was wondering what was going to happen next, Rossi marched in carrying a huge silver tea urn, followed by Jackson and Stafford with trays of various dishes.

She was smiling at his bewilderment. 'A surprise for you: we hatched it up while slaving round the galley fire!'

'I don't get such service in my own ship,' Ramage protested mockingly. 'I have one incredibly slow steward...'

'The terms of the peace treaty,' the Marquis said. 'Could you give me some idea . . . ?'

Ramage, realizing that this would be the first information from anything approaching an official source that the Marquis had heard, apologized for not having mentioned it earlier and told him all he could remember.

'A sad business,' the Marquis commented. 'We won the war and now we've lost the peace. Still, Bonaparte will try again. Now tell me what brings your ship to this strange island?'

Ramage described the omission in the Treaty and the British government's intention of taking advantage of it. The Marquis nodded. 'I should not care to be one of the garrison,' he commented.

A few moments later he asked: 'Do you know India, Ramage?'

Ramage shook his head. 'Their Lordships have kept me in the West Indies and the Mediterranean, I'm afraid.'

'Breakfast tends to be a more social occasion out there than in England. It is not unusual to have guests arriving unexpectedly for breakfast.'

'It is not unknown in the Ilha da Trinidade,' 'Miss for now' said, laughing easily.

'I hope you have made our apologies for not sending out the proper invitations, Sarah,' the Marquis said, smiling.

'His Lordship hasn't left cards yet, father.'

She was watching him and he saw that she was a woman who could smile with her eyes. And talk, too, and at this moment her eyes were saying: 'There - now you know my first name, and you have met my parents, but you wonder about that uniform you are wearing.'

It all passed in a moment and Ramage said in a humorous apology: 'My card case is in another uniform, which I forgot to bring with me.'

'Think nothing of it,' the Marquis said, pushing his cup towards Rossi, who was unused to wrestling with a large urn and its two taps. 'We half expected you. In fact your arrival has cost me a guinea.'

Ramage raised his eyebrows questioningly and Sarah said: 'My father didn't think you could rescue us before the pirates cut our throats . . .'

'The guinea?'

'Oh, I bet him a guinea you would find a way.'

'Obviously you are an optimist! If he won he could hardly collect!'

She shrugged her shoulders as though dismissing any such thoughts of losing. 'After all, you did find a way.'

Her matter-of-fact acceptance of it all irritated him; too much was being taken for granted.

'We shan't know if we've been successful until nightfall.'

The Marquis was quick to spot that Ramage had not spoken out of pique. 'In what way, Captain? After all, we're free and our former guards are your prisoners.'

'Yes, but supposing a boat comes from the Lynx and they find they have neither guards nor hostages now in this ship or the Amethyst

'What will they do?' the Marchioness asked.

'I can only guess, ma'am. Certainly raise the alarm, which will mean the hostages in the Heliotrope and Friesland will be murdered, then probably the Lynx will try to escape.'

'Will she succeed?' Sarah's voice was almost a whisper.

'I doubt it. My second lieutenant, now in command of the Calypso, has his orders.'

'But has he enough experience?'

Her question was so harshly spoken that her father murmured: 'Sarah!'

Ramage suddenly found he had lost all appetite for breakfast. 'All my officers have been in action many times. The two left on board the Calypso have been in battle more times, I imagine, than the people in this cabin have seen a full moon rise. Now, if you'll excuse -'

He put his hands on the table and began pushing back his chair. She touched his left hand with her fingertips and murmured: 'I'm sorry: please stay. Don't spoil our first breakfast.'