Loosely based on the events of CS Forester's books, rather than the movies, with references to the ultimate fan fiction, Northcote Parkinson's Life and Time of Horatio Hornblower. I'm a lifelong Georgette Heyer addict, too, so don't be surprised if you find something of her regency universe and if old Douro (Wellington) is very much present! I don't own anything, etc.

English is not my mother tongue nor my everyday language. Please forgive any fault or poor grammar, and kindly point them to me.

Classical Sonata (String quartet)

Prelude – allegro moderato

Since he had resigned himself to accompany his wife for yet another Season, Hornblower had dragged himself to ton parties, convincing himself he just did it for the pleasure to see Barbara in her own element.

As usual, he had efficiently managed to ruin most of the enjoyment he could expect by making himself feel absolutely out of place. That he personally knew all the naval and army officers present, as well as half his peers in the House of Lords who attended tonight, he of course dismissed on first thought - painfully concentrating on the awful sight of the harp and pianoforte with which guests would shortly been entertained with. He only grudgingly admitted that he would find more than solace when he would be able to retire to the card table. No shortage of good players tonight.

The musical ordeal had been mercifully brief, and endured thanks to an excellent champagne and the sight of his wife's flushing cheeks when he was late in letting go of her hand while sitting by her side.

He was repairing to the card room, when he heard himself hailed on the starboard side, from a group of officers.

"Ah! Admiral Hornblower!" Oddly enough, the man seemed genuinely happy to greet him. And more than just a little bit on the go, which might be why he was smiling so warmly.

"Your Royal Highness." Respectfully inclining his upper body, he felt himself smiling foolishly, too - that is, smiling at full sail, instead of the half smile he usually permitted himself. He wondered briefly if he had drunk somewhat more than usual, but did not feel like it. Yet, he could not help smiling.

The Prince of Seitz-Bunau had been a winning lad, thrown straight from St James into the ordeals of an ordinary and very green midshipman in a very ordinary warship. He had courageously and unfailingly accepted it, and done his duty. He barely knew a word of English when he had come aboard, but of course, a boy his age had picked it soon enough, though maybe not the language to be expected of royalty.

After they left Atropos, they had never met again, but he had heard something of his subsequent well-greased career as a flag officer, before leaving the navy altogether and being appointed ADC to Wellington in Vienna, as an attempt to push the interests of Seitz-Bunau in the treaty.

Knowing his brother in law, it wouldn't have been much easier for the prince than in Atropos... In fact, certainly much less. At least, he had survived the following campaign in Belgium. He was now officially a reigning Prince and the head of his house, though Seitz-Bunau was anything if not assimilated by Prussia.

The grown man who faced him was dignified enough, but there was still something in his face of the laughing eager boy he had been fifteen years ago. Grown man? With a pang, Hornblower realized that the prince was in fact almost middle-aged, since he was himself... Nearly fifty!

Slow movement - Adagio

"Gentlemen, you know Admiral Hornblower has been my first captain, and took me to a life of adventure and treasure hunting in my tender days." He spoke rather thickly, but not unkindly. He raised his glass in a toast, "to Atropos, Admiral."

Hornblower felt like rolling his eyes at what might be coming. He hated the degrading or silly things people would do or say in drunkenness, even if the prince seemed to carry it well. He had the devil of a time to keep smiling. Remember he is Royalty. And he's been at Waterloo. You didn't. You were dallying in France with Marie, almost wrecking your career... and your marriage.

So what was he to say, but take it as graciously as possible, grab another glass and return, "To Atropos. She was a fine little ship, wasn't she? a 22. Though not much compared with your next ship, Ocean. She was a 100."

"Yes, when I transferred on Admiral Collingwood's flag ship it was at first a relief, coming back to the life I was born to. The hardest duty I had was to keep my braids and breeches as neat as possible and my buttons shining. But thanks to my service with you, I was at least a first-rate signal middy. And I've never seen so much action again after leaving Atropos, 'till Waterloo, of course."

Hornblower noticed at last that the people surrendering the Prince were all seasoned officers of Wellington's staff. Old cronies stuff, best leave it alone. "I don't think anyone would compare, your Royal Highness. Atropos didn't free the world of Napoleon, but the Navy at least held things going until the Army could do it." He raised his glass again in a silent toast, ready to escape reminiscences and army men as soon as possible.

"T'was a long way to Waterloo, Admiral," said the tall man with a tired smile and a useless arm. Colborne, Governor of Guernsey. If anyone was Wellington's man, it was him. He had been all the way in his wake, from Portugal to Belgium. A hero.

The hero seldom came to London these days, and so, for once he was not in the mood for silence. "Don't think we army men are ungrateful. Without Trafalgar and officers like you..."

'I wasn't at Trafalgar."

"Yet, you were given the honor of organizing the naval procession at Nelson's funerals. Utterly unbelievable for a junior captain who would have had nothing to do with the victory."

Hornblower wondered where and when someone at the Admiralty had blundered.

Colborne seemed to read his mind and quietly said, "I can put two and two together, and if you got the honor, certainly the Admiralty meant it. If you don't care for that, I can at least tell you the peninsula army was more than grateful for your actions with Leithgton squadron. Ciudad Rodrigo had capitulated to Massena, we had had Coa too, and reached a stalemate, and any successful action in Spain was God sent."

For the life of him, Hornblower wouldn't have been able to say anything. Sutherland meant only surrender and was a raw injury, all the more for having been probed often, considering options time and again and what he could have done to avoid it, given the odds. But he never managed to avoid it. Surrender.

"...So, the Gerona road affair was a genial coup and bought us a whole month 'til Pino could reorganise..." Warming to his subject, Colborne had not realized that he was leading himself to Rosas Bay. And does one speak of the rope in the house of the hanged? For no King's officer would shy at speaking of death or sacrifice, silly orders, even defeat, but handing down one's sword and the colours... People did not speak overtly of this.

But the man who had saved the day for Wellington at Waterloo in romping the Imperial Guard was no moral coward either. And if not a friend, he was a good acquaintance, and a rather kind man.

If his colour slightly heightened in contrast to Hornblower's ashen brow, he plunged into it bravely, as usual. "Of course you wish me to the devil and that nobody would grate you with talks of honorable surrender and very honorably acquitted and all that. But we army men had seen much defeat for years before Moore and the Duke shaped us back into something... So, of Rosas Bay, we saw only the ruin of the french squadron. We could admire your facing four to one knowing that nothing could be done that would change the odds."

The men of this little group had indeed left their youth in the endless battles, death, desperate marches and counter marches in the peninsula and southern France. They were brother in arms, so none would exactly understand the loneliness of command and decision of a navy captain. Only Arthur could understand that, and neither of them was so free with his feelings to reach the intimacy to fully share it.

As often, he knew a violent revulsion of feelings, and as lonely as he had felt in his burden at the time, and resentful of being called back to Rosas Bay, he suddenly felt himself warmed to these army comrades, realizing that they indeed could share part of it. So, he unbent a little to loose his feelings, and became talkative as it was a story that could not show him to much advantage. He could tell them about the agony of his ship, torn apart and going adrift. About the slow silencing of the guns as more men fell after each new battering. About the ship ensign that was missing when there was nothing left to save the last of them, so that he could not even strike down the colours to stop the killing until they finally managed to display the french colours as proof of surrender. He skipped most of the details about the loss of his sword, first salvaged of all its ornamental gold and then denied him as a pirate.

They offered the shame of Cintra, the betrayals after Talavera.

They all reached a good melancholy understanding. Everyone agreed the champagne was excellent.

The Prince of Seitz-Bunau had not been through all that, so he recounted drolly the unbelievable sight of the Ottoman Mejidieh when she trapped them in Marmorice Bay, or his first tastes of the strict discipline of the ship, not so very different in essence to court etiquette, apart for the ceaseless drilling - which made them all laugh.

"Later, I often recalled how ascetic your own cabin had been. That you ate the board's ordinary fare like anyone."

"I was not ascetic," thought Hornblower cynically, "I was poor".

"You knew by name every sailor and powder boy. I remember I was shocked on Ocean when I discovered most officers didn't know the men of their own division. I wondered how there had been so few floggings in Atropos, and yet no slacking in discipline." Hornblower had always despised himself for the cowardice he displayed in his unusual abhorrence of corporal punishments, so he was not very comfortable on that one.

The Prince totally misinterpreted it and said all around with a pleasantly self deprecating tone: "The most deserved canning aboard Atropos was that of Mr Midshipman Prince," he bowed to the company, "who fell overboard while having fun with his mates, though the ship was pursued by a Spanish frigate. Captain Hornblower managed to detain the Dons with false signals long enough to get his midshipman back aboard. And then, gentlemen, he ensured that said midshipman understood the lesson of never endangering his mates."

Hornblower had totally forgotten that episode, and was startled to see the prince bowing again to him, saying earnestly, "I never forgot, sir." He could still resent the only canning he had ever received himself.

"Mmm! An interesting education to be sure. Royal orders have been know to be bestowed for less, your Royal Highness". That silly joke was from one who was an outsider, a Hyde Park officer, one who would not recognize action if he saw it. None of their little group cared for his joining in.

The Prince was a prince, and rather good at his job, so he merely smiled. "I don't think Admiral Hornblower is in need of any rattle of mine. He already knows it has been an honor to serve with him."

Brave lad! thought Hornblower. He indeed had learned more in those few months in Atropos than in seven years on flagships. But nobody could have taught him if he hadn't had it in him. "And it has been mine to serve with you, your Royal Highness."

Now.

"Now gentlemen, would any of you care for a rubber of whist?"

Dance movement - Minuet and trio

"Yes, such displays of affection are most unusual in a husband, but I've always heard she was his chère amie months before they married..."

"They scarcely waited 'till she was out of mourning."

"They say she sailed on his ship all unchaperoned and he a married man..."

Delightful horrified shudders were dissimulated with glee behind the fans.

"Of course, they married her off to poor Leighton as soon as possible."

"I wonder how she dared let him go alone to Jamaica."

"Oh, she said she couldn't let the boy alone, but..."

"She finally managed to get there just before he left his command. At least, they came back together."

"Well, they seem to have reconciled well enough now. Though she's much aged since they returned after that awful shipwreck. The sun of the Indies and the sea wind make you wrinkle so much."

Barbara was perfectly aware of the whispers, repeated for the benefit of newly married ladies who had missed all the fun as innocent maiden, and of the speculating glances at her husband.

The only innuendos who annoyed her concerned his escapade in France when he nearly got himself killed with de Graçay. Of course, the world would know there was a very beautiful lady who had died in that stupid upraise. And that he had been in hiding for months in her castle during his first escape.

She had been mad with fright and worry when she had heard he was missing once again in France. Of course, she had forgiven when he had come back to her.

At least, he had not lied. He had not been able to say anything. He had just needed her.

Later, she had been uncomfortably aware people thought it served her right for leaving her husband to go playing hostess to Arthur in Vienna. Even her best friends had been less than sympathetic: when one was married to Horatio Hornblower, one did not give him the opportunity of feeling alone while amusing oneself at the Dancing Congress.

She had forgiven, but she had let him simmer in his absurd jealousy of Rodney. Until the time where only truth could remain in front of impending death and she told him she had only ever loved him.

Hold your head.

She bore herself across the room to salute an old school friend, with such a perfect sample of the famous Wellesley air that she startled her elder brother, who briefly wondered if it was a family gathering and if Arthur was there, too. Bad enough already to have half the place in hero worship of his brother in law.

Handfuls of mundane smiles later, Barbara managed a glance in the card room. Horatio was earnestly engaged in battle, so she could hand back some delicious gossip for at least another hour.

Finale - Sonata rondo form (faster movement)

"Did you enjoy yourself, dear?" whispered Horatio in her ear while they returned home. He could feel her nodding in the darkness of the coach.

"Charlotte - Charlotte Cooper, you don't know her, dear, but she was my dearest friend in Bombay, she's just returned from India. Her husband's retiring."

"Silly of me, but I hadn't realized you would know the Prince of Seitz-Bunau too, darling."

"Of course, I met him in Vienna. He was always full of tales of you."

"The champagne was excellent."

"The flower baskets were delightful, but the scent of hyacinth in a confined room is really a little too much."

"Alexander was really careless in the last rubber. Not his style. I wonder what's wrong with him."

"Richard wore a very fine waistcoat tonight. Just the style I would like for your next one, but of course not so bright. You don't need that. "

"I wonder how I failed to see he would have the queen of diamonds."

"It would be a fine idea to go to Ireland in the summer, as soon as the end of Richard's term."

"Yes, too long since we last walked along the cliff... Always reminds me of your bright eyes and hair blowing when we rounded the Horn, my love."

"Oh, Horatio."

Later, they finally agreed the party had been pleasurable, but really nothing out of the ordinary.

So, an ordinary evening in the life of Lord and Lady Hornblower. Indeed.