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smiled. “You thought my brother was something more than that, did you?”
    Then she said in a quiet, firm tone, “I never questioned that Jonas was a sailor, nor will I you. Just say you’ll come back to me an’ none other.”
    She moved quickly before Allday could reply and reappeared with a tankard of rum, which she put into his hands, her own around them like small paws.
    â€œNow you just sit there and enjoy your pipe.” She stood back, hands on her hips. “I’ll make you some victuals, which you must surely need after one o’ those men-of-war!” She was excited, like a young girl again.
    Allday waited until she had turned to a cupboard. “Mr Ferguson will be calling for me later.”
    She turned, and he saw the understanding in her face. “You are a very honourable man, John Allday.” She went into the kitchen to fetch his “victuals,” but called over her shoulder, “But you could have stayed. I wanted you to know that.”
    It was pitch-dark with only the sliver of a moon to lighten the sky when Ferguson pulled into the inn yard with his pony and trap. He waited until Allday’s figure loomed out of the gloom and the trap tilted over on its springs.
    Allday glanced back at the inn where only one window showed any light.
    â€œI’d have taken you in for a wet, Bryan. But I’d rather we waited ’til we’re back home.”
    Bryan was too anxious to smile. It was his home, the only one he had.
    They clattered along the track in silence, the pony tossing its head when a fox passed briefly through the glow of the lanterns. The bonfires were all out now. There would be plenty of headaches when the dawn called the men back to the fields and the milk-sheds.
    Eventually he could stand it no longer.
    â€œHow was it, John? I can tell from your breath she’s been stuffing you with food and drink!”
    â€œWe talked.” He thought of the touch of her hands on his. The way she looked at him, and how her eyes smiled when she spoke. “The time went fast. Seemed only a dog-watch.”
    He thought too of the catch in her voice when she said over her shoulder, “But you could have stayed. I wanted you to know that.” An honourable man. He had never seen himself in that light.
    He turned on his seat and said almost defiantly, “We’re to be wed, an’ that’s no error!”
    The two weeks that followed Anemone ’s brief visit to Falmouth to land her passengers seemed to pass with the speed of light. For Bolitho and his Catherine it was a world of fantasy and rediscovery, and days and nights of love which left them spent in one another’s arms. There had been shyness too, as on the day of Bolitho’s return, when like conspirators they had ridden to that cove they called their own, to avoid well-meaning callers at the house, to be with one another and nobody else. It was a small crescent of pale sand wedged between two towering cliffs, and it had been a landing-place for any smuggler daring or reckless enough to chance a passage through the jagged reefs until a rock fall had closed the only way out.
    Leaving their horses on the cliff path they had climbed down to the hard-packed sand, where she had pulled off her boots and pressed her own prints in the beach. Then they had embraced one another, and she had seen the sudden shyness, the hesitation of a man still unsure, doubting perhaps that the love was his for the asking.
    It was their place and always would be. He had watched her throw aside her clothes as she had done aboard the Golden Plover at the start of their brutal ordeal, but when she had faced him there had been a wildness and a passion he had not seen before. The sun had touched their nakedness and the sand had been warm beneath them when they had realised that the tide was turning once again; and they had splashed through the hissing, lapping water, the sea’s embrace sharp and