"Give me time - he has fifteen years or so advantage on me! Ah, this is Clarges Street."

Just then, Raven stopped the carriage, asked a passerby for directions, and called to Ramage: "We're almost there, sir. The house is this end."

The houses were small but well proportioned. As he reached for his hat and gloves and hitched at his sword, Ramage tried to recall the last time he had seen the admiral. He had been only a commodore then. Yes, Bastia, in Corsica, when Commodore Nelson had given him his first command, the Kathleen cutter. After that he had seen him only in the distance, striding his quarterdeck (a minuscule figure recognizable in the telescope lens only because of his stance) in the brief minutes at the battle of Cape St Vincent before the Kathleen cutter was sunk by a Spanish three-decker.

That battle had brought Nelson a baronetcy. It had also brought Sir John Jervis the earldom (of St Vincent) that he did not deserve but, as father had said, St Vincent had done his best to make it up to Nelson ever since.

The carriage came to a stop. Ramage heard Raven pulling on the brake; then the folding steps clattered down, the door was flung open and a grinning Raven stood waiting to help Sarah down. Grinning, Ramage knew, because Raven, long accustomed to rural life and more used to setting snares than opening carriage doors, was enjoying the sudden change (quite apart from being proud of his new livery of dark blue edged with gold) and delighting in the gold griffin now painted on the door of the carriage Ramage had also inherited from his uncle.

Ramage followed Sarah, then took her arm and led her to the front door, which was suddenly and unexpectedly opened by a small figure in plain uniform, one empty sleeve pinned across his breast, a green shade over his left eye.

"Welcome, Ramages! I heard the carriage and guessed it was you," he explained to Sarah, taking her parasol and putting it in the stand just inside the door. "Follow me, I am the major domo and butler. Lady Hamilton is waiting upstairs with Horatia."

It was the same rather high-pitched and nasal voice with the flat Norfolk accent: the curly hair was greyer. The face was tanned and thinner, too - no doubt about that, but it only emphasized the strong bone structure. The single good eye sharp, the small body (he was shorter than Sarah) as erect as ever, the single hand gesticulating. In a moment, in a brief phrase, he had both welcomed them and set the tone of the meeting with Lady Hamilton and his young daughter: now there would be no uncomfortable pauses, searching for the right word or phrase: here was the same Nelson he had met years ago: a coiled spring. One knew it was under control, but at the same time had no doubts about its latent power.

The drawing room upstairs was large, high-ceilinged and furnished with considerable taste. Sarah, at first not seeing Lady Hamilton, paused at the doorway, intrigued by a pair of urns - urns? No, they were amphorae, and surely that was coral growing on them? Recovered from the sea?

Nelson stopped when he noticed her interest. "Some of the late Sir William's treasures, which he left to me. We have the finest ones down at Merton: perhaps we can lure you and your husband there one day and show them off. Ah, there is Lady Hamilton!"

Sarah saw a small, beautiful and graceful woman rising from a chair in an alcove. Brown and curling hair, a body perhaps now a little plump, a friendly face also now plump, but with the fullness of happiness and contentment.

Nelson introduced them and she said with unfeigned pleasure: "At last, Captain Ramage! Horatio did not tell me you were so handsome. And you have a lovely wife!"

Before Ramage could answer, Lady Hamilton looked down. A vivacious little girl was tugging shyly at her skirt. "Yes, yes. This is the Captain Ramage who wrote all those exciting letters in the Gazette, and this lady is his beautiful wife. May I introduce Horatia?"

It was all done so naturally that Sarah took an instant liking to the woman. Warm, doting on Nelson and their child, well informed apparently, taking an interest in everything that went on round her and - if this room was anything to go by, and it was her house - a woman of refined tastes.

Oh yes, there were stories about Emma Hart (passed on to Sir William by his nephew) who became Nelson's mistress, but Sarah could understand and forgive Nelson's infatuation.

Sarah had twice met his wife, Lady Nelson, and the former Mrs Nesbit (widowed in the West Indies when her Army major husband died of one of those vile tropical diseases) was by comparison a cold and shrivelled person: Sarah could imagine that the warm and spontaneous Nelson would find her chilly, not unresponsive but instead - well, just plain and dull.

He should never have married her, Sarah thought; but from what Nicholas said the young Nelson had fallen in love with a married woman in Antigua - wife of the commissioner at English Harbour, she remembered - and when the couple were sent back to England, a broken-hearted Nelson had then met the young widow Fanny Nesbit on one of the nearby islands. Wasn't she staying with her uncle, who owned a large plantation on Nevis? Sarah had a picture of interfering female cousins plotting to marry Fanny off to the young frigate captain . . . and this was how it all ended up.

Nelson made her comfortable in a chair close to Lady Hamilton, and Sarah found herself talking to an excited Horatia, anxious to display her new pink dress and shoes. Nelson waited until Horatia stopped for a moment (she was explaining that she now had piano lessons and was nearly five years old) and then said apologetically to Sarah: "I am taking your husband to the next room for a few minutes' chat: once we've got that out of the way we can enjoy ourselves!"

What had Nicholas done? Yet the admiral seemed friendly enough. Nicholas had not served under Nelson for several years. She shrugged and then was embarrassed to find that Lady Hamilton had noticed. Would she misinterpret it?

As Ramage turned to follow Nelson from the room, Lady Hamilton said: "The life I lead! My late husband Sir William, when we were at the Embassy in Naples, was forever breaking up conversations by taking away husbands for discreet talks . . . His Lordship, by the way, thinks highly of your husband."

"I'm very glad," Sarah said, "but Nicholas has not served with him for several years."

"Ah, no, but His Lordship has read all the Gazette letters: he has them among his papers. In fact he was reading the one about how your husband rescued all the hostages - and you!- in Italy, and concluded by reading it aloud to Horatia and me. It was enthralling! Fancy finding you, when he thought you were dead! Dead," she repeated, the word obviously reminding her of some incident. "I worry about His Lordship. Do you know, he has been wounded more than twenty times? He lost the arm at Tenerife, the eye in Corsica. At the Nile a splinter nearly knocked his head off and cut his forehead. I think that last battle, Copenhagen, was a miracle: all those dead, and Horatio for once not even scratched!"

Nelson had taken Ramage to the next room, which he obviously used as a study. He gestured to Ramage to sit in a leather-covered armchair beside the unlit fire, and sat in the opposite one. He adjusted his eyeshade - Ramage noticed he had chosen the chair with its back to the window, so that he did not face the light - and said: "Well, you've had a busy few years since I last saw you!"

"And you, sir," Ramage said with a grin. "I am jealous that I was not with you at Aboukir Bay and Copenhagen."

"Ah yes, interesting actions. Hard pounding, against the Danes. It was touch and go. The Danes and the Dutch - we need parity when we fight 'em, unless we use better tactics."

"Tell me, sir," Ramage asked, "did the success of your tactics at the Nile influence you at Copenhagen?"