It was dusk. All day the ship had sailed hard east. Aubrey had busied himself with the Lieutenants, whom he had summoned shortly after midnight, a few hours after Cicely and Stephen had partaken in Jack's hospitality. Sails had been seen on the horizon and the torch-signal unique to the Royal Navy which visually questioned in the dark whether the ship was one of their own.

It had taken all night for the ship to tighten the sheets, to have them as drawn in as possible as they tacked into the headwind. Was it the "Formidable"? Cicely couldn't help wondering as she left Stephen with Jack again and taken her leave to bed.

Now, as the men assembled on the maindeck, flanked by their middies, Lieutenants Blakeney and Mowett next to Jack, the day's efforts had not gone to waste. Indeed there was sail and indeed it was British. "Surprise" would be on its shoulder in less than six hours to ascertain what action they would take together because, Jack had determined, beyond the British frigate were other ships, bearing the tricolore.

Cicely sat at the bottom of the steps on the middle deck as she listened to Jack speaking. It seemed like a lifetime ago that she would have been one of the men herself. Equally, she thought as she wriggled a little to ease the discomfort around her left hip, she could hardly ignore the ship's workings by its crew, so intimately did she know it.

"Men of the Surprise. We have worked hard here today, the Sabbath, and for what, you may ask." A few expected, "aye's" went up; it was expected of an open question made by a commander; it added texture to the speech. "Less than a fortnight ago our Admiral Lord Nelson began an attack of the Spanish and French fleets at Cadiz. We fought them just off Cape Trafalgar. Lord Nelson took all of the ships as prizes - "

" - hurrah!""

" - all except four. A rear group, so cowardly as to face us they would not, once the heat was on and the guns were blazing, made a run for the North!" Cries of "shame" rebounded beneath Jack Aubrey, and despite not being able to see his face Cicely was confident that Jack would be nodding with his men. "The Lord Admiral confided on us and two other, undamaged as we were by the Trafalgar battle that we should pursue, capture and claim as prizes these ships!"

Cicely peered up though the hatch now and could see Jack's face. Next to him Stephen, who had remained with him the night as she slept, or attempted to at least. Was there another orator as skilled as Jack? Lod Nelson, perhaps. When Jack Aubrey spoke it was hypnotic. Cicely swore that even if the most opposed man to one of his plans had listened to the Captain then Aubrey would have a proselyte under his hand within a minute. She turned her head to one side, as the rain drenching the deck now was beginning to drown out the captain.

"We are to drive them together, herd them into a group. More ships are in the area, so we will be acting togther. By this time tomorrow, the battle will be over. Our Lord Nelson began the task of defeating the Navy. We will finish the job!"

To the sound of cheers Cicely got to her feet, making her way back to the cabin. Maybe she would read, she thought as the boards squeaked under foot, the rain seeping down and making the lower planks damp.

There were some out of date "London Times" newspapers that she had found in the hold, future use unknown. She needed to do something, Cicely knew, to ensure that Jack knew that she was complying with her word of being involved with the ship in its engagement, but she knew her mind would not settle to Stephen's work, and she would not do it justice. "London Times" it would be.

Closing the cabin door behind her, Cicely wondered why she was so nervous. Probably because a small part of her, the part which had successfully borne her from her father and ultimately to Stephen was the same part which took satisfaction in seamanship: the preparations above were tempting. But she knew she must – and would – keep her promise to never masquerade as a boy and work on a Royal Navy ship. It was a kind of dowry she had paid to the Lord Nelson when he bent the law to the limit by allowing her to be married under his very own chaplain.

The other reason she felt nervous was because of Stephen. His work kept him aboard the "Surprise", and her with it, until they reached Sarawak and she would depart the ship to live with her mother's brother. Her Uncle had, by all accounts, made good money in the natural wood-growing there, and he had been given status, of a sort. It would take nearly five months to reach Borneo, even if there were no more diversions – too little a time, Cicely knew, for her and Stephen to be together before they parted again.

Cicely knew that her time with Stephen therein HMS Surprise was limited and precious. Until he gained his commission and they could choose their own lives together they would be apart again. She looked over at the desk as the gun carriages were drawn into place on the deck above– she had not spent nearly six months of her life doing hard, cruel work whre the future was unknown to her, for nothing – Cicely had always chosen the path that honoured her love for Stephen, even when she had been told he was dead.

She wanted more than anything just to be by his side without the worry that he would have got a lead which told him where the now-missing spy-traitor William Wickham was, which was something Cicely knew was very likely to happen.

Just to be by his side was all that she wanted.

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Six bells on the middle watch. Early hours of the morning. Cicely opened her eyes. There was to be a battle this day; the enemy, like a wounded cat, would not surrender without giving them its all. Four ships had escaped, she knew. It would be dangerous and the outcomes unknown. Fighing undirected and without plan.

But with an objective. To avail victory over these enemy ships by whatever intellectual scheme and skill, using wit and fast-thinking. Exactly the conditions in which the captain of the "Surprise" thrived.

The urge to get up and engage with the men, to slip into her role was strong, but dull. Outside the window was not being lashed as it had been – the rain had stopped and the waves less angry.

She tried to move, wondering why it was so difficult and her answer came from the regular breathing close to her ear. Stephen was holding her, sleeping as they had been, his arm loosely coiled around her. Cicely relaxed as the hammering of feet above signalled the readying of the ship – despite the edge she was feeling because of the day that was to come, the honey-smooth contentment in her stomach meant that she could have lain back into his arms again.

"Something worries you." Stephen's voice was soft next to her ear, his breath warm as he spoke.

"Just the battle," she replied. "So much could happen. The men..." Cicely turned sharply to Stephen. "Will you be beside them."

"Indeed. They will need me. The cockpit is prepared."

The waves lapped the wood beside them. Cicely closed her eyes. The men...some of them lining up on the quayside waiting for their chance as crew of the "Surprise" - or any ship that would have them wearing the British flag following Trafalgar – eager, or desperate, for work, as she had done almost three years before in Sao Paulo. She would begin her job as nurse as soon as the battle ended – or before - her scholars of the last week working in their primary role, the cockpit in many men-o'war being used for the purpose. They do need you, she agreed silently, as does Jack. But I need you more...

A door, which she had banged shut and closed with a million nails and wooden bars was, in her mind, straining to release the thought which she dare not think now that her husband was alive and they were back together. She closed her mental eye to it and focused on the day.

"You could be killed," Cicely whispered to his chest. "God knows how much I was crushed when I thought that you were. And I dare not think of the future." Because it was right that Jack had shown her the letter, but it was too early to ask for her to do the right thing for the sake of the Navy because the thought of leaving him in a few months' time was too much to contemplate.

Stephen pulled her close, a his arms strong, his clever hands holding her, and somehow understood her unspoken qualification to herself of her words.

"You do the best thing you can to hasten the rest of our lives together, my beautiful darling. I will be a short time away; you will find something worthwhile to do. Would it help you to feel better to know that, shortly after you left we had Captain Baker, of the "Phoenix" and his lieutenant aboard? They found our four ships two days ago after another ship told them of their course. Captain Baker believes they are heading to Rochefort, to dock.

"He decided to harry them south, where Commodore Strachan was supposed to and spent all day yesterday chasing them far into roughly that area. He has ageed action with Strachan. There are four of Strachan's ships; two others had the same idea as "Phoenix" and followed the French ships. Unless any more chance on her, there are at least three more than their number. Jack and Captain Baker then agreed our role. We have a good chance," Stephen concluded, "especially seeing as all of the enemy's ships jettisoned half their guns to make them lighter!"

In the darkness Cicely shared the pinprick of joy. The enemy ships would be outgunned as well as outnumbered! More than good odds. As long as luck was on their side, the British ships would win the day. She felt Stephen sigh again and she smiled inwardly, not least at the apparent effort to recount the events from less than six hours ago and explain them to her.

"Will you do something for me, Cicely? Remain here while the battle ensues? Bar the door so I know you are safe?" When she hadn't replied, Stephen had raised his shoulders up to look at her in the eye. "Will you? Because I know that you, my darling beloved Cicely would fight like a tiger alongside the men, bettering a good number of them. But you pushed my skill as a surgeon to its limits a fortnight ago and I never want to have to operate on you again!"

Cicely leaned into her husband, taking care not to lean on the side which he had verbally highlighted as his handiwork.

"I will," she replied. "I promised you." And I promised the Admiral as a condition of our marriage. She smiled to herself, the expression hidden in the darkness.

Stephen extracted his arm from under his wife, bending to kiss her forehead in acknowlegement, before taking his leave, pulling his spectacles over from his desk and clasping his hand over his medical tools as he stepped into the early-morning winter darkness.

Cicely watched the door swing a little on its hinges, the light of the ships' lamps beyond illuminating the mid-deck without, glancing at Stephen's haphazardly-strewn ornithological writing before getting to her feet and securing the door with its cross-beam.

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"It was the "Santa Margarita" which closed the stern on the damned "Scipion"!" These were the words that were in Cicely's head now as she felt the saline drops of spray soak her face as William Rathbone, Margarita's captain beamed with pride into her mind.

"And "Formidable"," Thomas Baker, captain of "Phoenix" who had joined Rathbone at the fore, had replied at Richard Strachan's retelling, "not so now, eh, Aubrey?" Jack, Cicely pictured his face now, red and merry from rum had spent the evening hosting the captains of the engagement.

"Quite so, Thomas, quite so."

Indeed, it was an appropriate end to the Battle of Trafalgar. Fitzroy, Captain of "Aeolus", and "Pique" under Captain Ross, Alan Gardner, whose ship, "Hero", had been indeed heroic, by at first descending with the former upon Scipion with determination and then later tempting "Dougay-Trouin" to fire upon them, acquiring a little damage to their hull, but depriving the French frigate of precious firepower.

The battle had begun as dawn had broken. Quarters were beaten as the order of battle was carried out, each man from the lowliest powder monkey, through gunner, midshipman, lieutenant and captain himself. Cecilia had busied herself with newspapers dated six months before as she'd borne the solitude.

Both English and French had formed line to face one another by noon as Strachan had conveyed to be the strategy, but just off Cape Ortegal, outnumbered, and a hotheaded decision by Dumanour to engage Namur split their defensive line still further, and Scipion and Formidable struck their colours, Revolutionaire's Captain Hotham having encouraged this most strongly by aiming his nine-pounders towards the hull of "Formidable".

But "Mont Blanc" and "Dougay-Trouin" broke into a chase – ultmately brought to nought by HMS Hero and HMS Caesar, whose captains Gardner and Strachan himself, had brought yield submission after a fierce battering.

The battle had lasted nine hours, nine stomach-gnawing hours during which Cicely had done her best to settle with distractions once the papers had been discarded; mending (again); Stephen's work...even sleep, none of which had worked for long, but had secured outright supremacy of the Royal Navy over the oceans.

The ships, as now, in the haze of the rain and mist ahead of them, had been driven on before them, their officers imprisoned in the lower decks under Royal Marine guard, and the officers had allowed themselves a short time to celebrate their eminent success, the climax of the Trafalgar action, allowing Cicely to meet once more captains who had witnessed her marriage (or re-marriage), and some she had not; many had been at Aubrey's trial.

Strachan had given a speech to their success and that they were to sail for England, and at that point Cicely had experienced a variety of emotion: pride, of course, at the valour and courageousness of both the captains and the men beneath, several of whom she had nursed under Stephen that evening, but rather fewer, fortunately, than expected. Gratitude that so few lives were lost.

Happiness buzzed about her like a swarm of happy bees that the end of her involvement in all of this was – beginning as it had done so in the country of her birth when she had had been pursued by Wigg (the sting in the tale) although that had stilled to nothing as the captains, prior to retuning to their prizes, toasted the battle as Jack had called it. Stephen had reached for her hand.

"And yourself, Aubrey!" Baker, his slight stature almost a mirror to that of the Admiral himself, "I happened to be pursuing down to intercept Allemand of the Rochefort squadron and came across Dumanoir before you had arrived. I pursued them towards where we estimated Strachan to be - "

" - keeping the French out of our business in the Atlantic shipping!" interjected the more robust Strachan, beaming at his peers,

" - then we came across you!" He clapped Jack on the back, congratulatorily.

And now it was done, and they were advancing their northern longitudes far faster than Cicely imagined that they would and the feeling of dread, that had begun the previous night, at the marking of their success, had developed from a seed planted in her stomach to a healthy sproutling, and was growing with the journey, not west now, as had been "Surprise's" original orders, bearing her to Sarawak.

A "mere diverson", was how Aubrey had down-played their journey north to England, to Portsmouth, once the captains had reboarded their respective ships and lieutenants had been promoted to acting captains while they, in pairs, had seen fit to share responsibility for the prizes lest the French tried to evade their fate again.

At least there was one person who was fearing their destination more than her. On his own ship, Comte-Admiral Dumanoir would be wearing the ignominy as a shroud.

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Five days later and they had passed the Needles, off the west of the Isle of Wight. The weather front had not lifted and the weather was probably worse than that which they had endured up the west coast of France – free of attack of any sort – past Les Ercehous, where James Fillings had carried out his treachery, the greater Channel Islands and then due North East and towards Portsmouth.

Little had been discussed about what would happen when they docked; should she return to England the terms of her marriage would be null and void and all claim from her father or her father's prospective husband for her Magistrate Benjamin Wigg.

But by not disembarking meant she had not touched British soil. She was under the protection of her husband as long as she did not leave HMS Surprise.

She had confided little of her concerns to Stephen, only that she would be sorry to see him go to the business that he had in London. Two days he would be away, but had said no more. Cicely knew that William Wickham, once Stephen's spymaster who turned coat-tails as a double agent, engaging the weak James Fillings as Nelson's assassin, attempting himself the deed and had fled with one of the four escaped French ships. He had not said whether Wickham had been located on any of the ships, but she fervently hoped that, as a Jacobin in the pay of the notorious French spymaster Fouche, that he had, and this had prompted his business in the capital.

"I need to set some affairs in order," he had told her, kissing her tenderly the evening before. And while her mind wanted to speculate, to fill the void lacking in further detail she had instead acquiesed to sleep.

As half of the marines now departed the "Surprise", as custodians of the French prisoners until they were secured on land, Cicely bade Stephen a short, but sorry goodbye. Two days would be a long time and she promised that she would keep herself occupied with her cross-checking of his notes with Erasmus Darwin's "Zoonomia".

"We will be here a week," Jack had told her, seeing her face as the company departed. "I now am in possession of orders to take the "Surprirse" south, to Brazil again." Brazil. Stephen had told her that he also had business in Brazil, from letters and discussions from another naturalist, a Prussian, Count von Humbolt.

And, as Cicely went about her duties, with a weight almost visible on her shoulders Jack Aubrey recalled his own conversation with his surgeon, in which he'd asked Stephen whether it wasn't too soon to leave her, seeing as she had, up to three weeks before, thought him to be dead.

"She has risked so much on her own behalf to be with you," Jack had continued the evening before, as they had followed the pilot into Portsmouth harbour.

"It can not be avoided," Stephen had replied, in almost a half-whispr. "I amto visit Toby Hamilton, seeing as Wickham is no longer loyal. And wherever he is, damn him, no-one can say. There are other matters to which I must attend with the Royal Society, and several other things. Out voyage to the South Seas will mean I will not be here for another two years - "

" - at least," agreed Jack, watching Lieutenant Blakeney steer a skilful course behind the tiny boat before them.

" - and some things need to be set in order and will not wait."

"We sail Saturday," Jack reminded his friend, not wishing to press him further. "We will be in the South Americas by Yuletide, and, ha! Easter Island by Passiontide." He watched his friend glance towards the steps towards the lower gun-decks.

"Cicely has work and will be quite safe with me. She will no more cross to land as she would walk the face of the sun."

"She promised that my notes will be in order and wishes me to convey she will be true to her word to play no other role than my wife." Stephen grinned at Jack's expression, before leaving him to the business of docking and other intricacies of seamanship for the company of his beloved.