He is, thought Nat, a very happy man, and I am so glad for him. When Olivia told me that he was keeping Kitty as a friend—oh, and he was so much in love with her!—I prayed that the girl would grow some sense and see her luck. Olivia insists that most women swoon away at the mere sight of him, but women are very queer cattle. To me, he appears a fine-looking man who happens to be a decent man. I am even more pleased that Kitty is no minx.

The women came inside laughing and talking rather feverishly, Kitty holding baby William with such a glow in her eyes that Nat blinked, wondering why he had ever considered her plain. Little Mary and Sarah remained outside to play with an utterly bewildered MacTavish; whether he looked to his left or to his right, he saw an identical child.

“I am very fond of all your friends and their wives, Richard, but I confess I like the Lucases best,” said Kitty after they had gone, coming to stand behind his chair and draw his head against her belly. Eyes closed, he rested there contentedly.

Her world had opened up beyond imagination, in so many different directions. That first night of love had been a dazzling dream; she called it so because dreams to her were far nicer than life. In dreams, magical and impossible things happened, like farmhouses in Faversham surrounded by flower gardens. Yet the night had been a reality that continued into the following night, and all the nights thereafter. The hands she had thought beautiful to look at had moved upon her body with the cool smoothness of silk velvet.

“Why are your hands not hard and calloused?” she had asked at some moment, stretching and flexing under their rhythmic caress.

“Because I am a master gunsmith by craft, so I value them. Every corn and scar destroys a part of the sensitivity a gunsmith cannot work without. I wrap them in rags whenever I cannot find gloves,” he had explained.

And that had answered one of her questions. The trouble was that the majority of them he refused to answer, like what sort of life had he lived in Bristol? What were the details of his conviction? How many wives had he had? Did he have living children in Bristol? How had the daughter who would be her age die? His reply was always a smile, after which he would turn her queries aside firmly but kindly. So she had ceased to plague him. If and when he was ready to tell her, he would. Perhaps he was never going to be ready.

Oh, how he could make love! Though she had listened to literally hundreds of conversations between women about the sexual importunities of men, the nuisance it was to have to oblige them, Kitty looked forward to her nights. They were the greatest pleasure she had ever known. If she felt him reach for her in the early hours she turned to him in delight, roused by a kiss on her breast, his mouth against the side of her neck. Nor was she a passive recipient; Kitty adored learning how to rouse and please him.

But she did not believe that she was in love with him. Yes, she loved him; that was true. His immense age, she had concluded, served only to make him a better lover, a better companion. Yet simply looking at him did not arouse desire in her, nor did her heart flutter, her breath vanish. Only when he touched her or she touched him did the warmth and want begin. Every day he would tell her as naturally and spontaneously as a child that he loved her, that she was the beginning and the end of his world. And she would pay attention, flattered that he said such gratifying things, body and soul unmoved.

Today, however, was special. For once she initiated a demonstration of affection by cradling his head against her.

“Richard?” she asked, gazing down at his cropped dark hair and wishing that he would grow it; it had the potential to curl.

“Mmmmm?”

“I am with child.”

At first he stilled absolutely, then looked up at her with a face transfigured by joy. Leaping to his feet, he whirled her off the ground and kissed her and kissed her. “Oh, Kitty! My love, my angel!” The exaltation faded, he looked afraid. “Ye’re sure?”

“Olivia says I have fallen, though I was already sure.”

“When?

“Late February or early March, we think. Olivia says that you quickened me at once, just like Nat. She says that means we will be fruitful, that there will be as many children as we wish.”

He took her hand and kissed it reverently. “Ye’re well?”

“Very, all considered. I have had no courses since you took me. I am a little sick sometimes, but nothing like being at sea.”

“Are ye pleased, Kitty? It is very soon.”

“Oh, Richard, it is a dream! I am”—she found a new word—“ecstatic. Truly ecstatic! My own baby!”

On Monday morning Richard heard through the grapevine that Major Robert Ross was gravely ill. On Tuesday morning he was summoned by Private Bailey to wait upon the Major at once.

Ross had been put upstairs in the large room he usually used as a study because one floor up insulated him from importunate visitors. When Richard followed Mrs. Richard Morgan—very anxious and subdued—up the stairs and entered the room, he was shocked. The Major’s face was greyer than his eyes, sunken glazed into black sockets; he lay as rigid as a board with his arms by his sides, their hands curiously expectant.

“Sir?”

“Morgan? Good. Stand where I can see ye. Mrs. Morgan, ye can go. Surgeon Callam will be here soon,” Ross said steadily.

Suddenly his body spasmed dreadfully and his lips drew back in a rictus from his teeth; fight though he did to remain silent, he emitted a groan that Richard knew in any other man would have emerged a scream. He suffered through the bout, groaning, hands clenched into the counterpane like claws; this was what they had expected, must be ready for. Richard waited quietly, understanding that Ross wanted neither sympathy nor assistance. Finally his agony retreated to leave his face drenched in sweat.

“Better for a while,” he said then. “’Tis a kidney stone, Callam says. Wentworth agrees. Considen and Jamison disagree.”

“I would believe Callam and Wentworth, sir.”

“Aye, I do. Jamison could not castrate a cat and Considen is a wonder at drawing teeth.”

“Do not waste your energies, sir. What can I do?”

“Be aware that I may die. Callam is giving me something he says relaxes the tube between kidney and bladder in the hope that I may pass the stone. To do so is my only salvation.”

“I will pray for ye, sir,” said Richard, meaning it.

“’Twill help more than Callam’s medicaments, I suspect.”

Another spasm came on, was endured.

“If I die before a ship comes,” he said when it was over, “this place will be in parlous condition. Captain Hill is a fucken fool and Ralph Clark is mentally about the same age as my son. Faddy is a simpleton as well as a child. War will break out between my marines and the soldiers of the New South Wales Corps, with every felon villain from Francis to Peck enlisting with Hill. It will be a bloodbath, which is why I intend to pass this fucken stone no matter what. No matter what.”

“Ye’ll pass it, sir. The stone does not exist can break you,” said Richard with a smile. “Is there anything else I can do?”

“Aye. I have already seen Mr. Donovan and some others, and authorized the issue of muskets. Ye’ll be given one too, Morgan. At least the marine muskets fire, thanks to ye. The New South Wales Corps take no care of their weapons and I have not volunteered your services to Hill. Keep in touch with Donovan—and do not trust Andrew Hume, who has sided with Hill and participates in his felonies. Hume is a fraud, Morgan, he knows no more about flax processing than I do, but he sits there in Phillipsburgh like a spider fancying that between himself and Hill, they control half of this island.”