Fortunately Roger had reached the chemists before it shut, and before he left the village he had remembered Rowan mentioning that she liked whiskey and had bought a bottle of it. A half bottle would have been much easier to carry, but it was Hobson's-choice-and-lucky-to-get-it. And then there was the matter of cooking a meal for them both. He rather regretted now the number of times he had made sure he was somewhere else when Susan wanted a hand with the cooking, but he had potatoes and bacon, so he bought tomatoes as well and some mushrooms. He couldn't carry any more on the Norton, or he would have bought eggs too.

There were eggs, sitting in a bowl on the doorstep of the cottage when he got back. There were three of them, each with something pencilled on the shell in rather wobbly letters: AB, MR and BFTDR. Tucked in among the eggs was a note. The writing was far too neat to be Nancy's.

Eggs laid this morning. Look in string bag on hook by door. MB

And there was a small lettuce and a good chunk of Cook's rich, sticky ginger cake, wrapped in paper.

Roger detached some snails who were eagerly making their way up the door jamb towards the lettuce and cake, and lobbed them gently into a nearby hydrangea. He unlocked the door. He could cook an impressive enough meal for Rowan with this. There was not after all, much in the way of tidying up to do before she arrived, since he had only spent a night in the cottage so far this time. He hoped Rowan would think to bring his shaving kit from the houseboat.

Everything that needed peeling, slicing and being partly boiled had been peeled, sliced and partly boiled. The table was laid with a white cloth and Titty's blue and white Cornishware plates. The kettle was hot. Now it was just a question of waiting.

It was a long way to row.

And she'd have to go back to the houseboat for her things first. Surely she wouldn't have to wait until Nancy got back to the houseboat.

Maybe she did.

And here she was. She had brought Scarab and so of course she had had to tack up the Lake against the light wind that had sprung up that afternoon. She had changed out of her farming clothes too; the blue sweater suited her. She had remembered to bring his shaving kit. He made a fresh pot of tea for her to drink while he shaved. It was a good sized tea pot, and they both got a second mug each out of it while he cooked.

"What do the letters on the shells mean?" Rowan asked as she looked at the eggs.

"I had wondered too. I think it's which hen laid them. It looks as if Jane put the initials on. Nothing to do but watch them fry for a minute or so. We may as well use the time well."

Was there just a slight hesitation before she accepted the invitation of his open arms? If there was, it was slight indeed and she held him as closely as he held her. She smelled very slightly of Pear's soap and her soft, chin-length curls tickled his neck.

"I think supper is very nearly burning," She murmured sometime later.

Nearly burning isn't the same as burning, and the supper was heartily appreciated by both of them. For a while, the conversation was sporadic and covered only "indifferent matters". From discussing what they would do tomorrow they passed to the weather, and Roger asked, "Why did Nancy suddenly turn up at the Dixons, I wonder? She can't have sailed this morning, it was far too calm, and it's a longish row from Rio."

"She walked," Rowan said, "I think she carried her little boy some of the way, although he didn't seem too keen on the idea."

"He's a good little Walker for his age," Roger commented.

"That was dreadful," Rowan informed him calmly.

"I know, but I've got to keep in practice to embarrass them all with dreadful jokes when they're thirteen."

There was a silence. It had a not altogether relaxed quality.

Rowan continued, "She came to bring me a letter. From Giles. It seems that Nancy and your brother have been interfering."

"Nancy will interfere with anything or everything if she thinks it's going to help," Roger said. Perhaps he was being a bit unfair. That didn't matter now. "But John generally sticks to the task in hand, which is HMS Bravery at the… oh. Giles serves on Bravery, doesn't he?"

Rowan nodded.

"I wish he'd kept his mouth shut."

"Maybe John didn't give him much choice. Look here, they haven't actually told him where you are. Just passed on a letter or your brother would have write to you directly."

Rowan gave a small laugh, totally without humour.

"No, don't worry. They haven't and you don't have to choose sides. In fact, Nancy seems to have gone rather cloak-and-dagger about it."

"She does that."

There was a long pause. Roger's plate was empty. Rowan had given up on the last of her lettuce.

"Was the letter … I mean, was it a good thing, or not?"

"I haven't read it yet." She managed to look embarrassed, defiant and utterly gorgeous. He leaned across the corner of the table and kissed her.

"Do you want to read it?"

"I should. Far too Lawrie-ish not to."

Roger opened his mouth, hesitated and closed it again. It would be pointless to tell Rowan that didn't matter. He wasn't exactly sure what she meant by "too Lawrie-ish", but whatever it was, if Rowan thought being "Lawrie-ish" was unacceptable she wouldn't thank him for telling her it was OK not to read the letter. Besides, surely the curiosity would be unbearable?

"I'll wash up. You can read it now if you want to – or not. Ginger cake for pudding. I thought we could sit in front of the fire."

He had been in two minds about lighting the fire. The day itself had been quite warm enough, but a wood fire seemed a romantic sort of thing. The sky was clouding over and the evening had definitely turned cooler. He brought her a good slice of the ginger cake, and poured her some whisky.

Rowan moved straight away from sitting on the ancient little two seater sofa onto the heath rug. Roger found this quite understandable. The thing was tolerable only as a backrest. Titty said it had been left in the cottage. Roger could understand why, even with furniture so hard to get.

He finished the washing up, and left everything but the cutlery to drain. Drying it seemed a waste of time when there was a perfectly good draining board and gravity was pretty reliable.

Whatever was in the letter was much worse than he imagined it would be. Rowans' slice of cake lay on its plate untouched. The whisky in her glass was at a higher level than he'd poured it. Her knees were drawn up tightly, with her arms clasped around her bare shins. Her right cheek was resting on her knees, so that he was presented with a head full of soft curls, a deeper gold than usual in the evening light from the little windows and the flames of the fire. And she was sitting still. Very still. There was tenseness about her which spoke of a misery beyond tears, even for Rowan, who so seldom wept.

Roger sat down next to her and put his arm around her shoulders. She didn't push him away, but it seemed a very long time indeed before she leaned her weight ever so slightly towards him, and then a little while later she shifted her head to put her chin on her knees. She took another sip of the whisky.

"John and Nancy really messed it up, didn't they? I'm sorry," Roger said.

"Not their fault. Giles wrote the letter. They just passed it on. If anyone needs to apologise for their older brother, it's me."

"The only thing, that I know of," Roger said, feeling his way very carefully, "that Giles has done that I mind is that this letter has obviously hurt you a great deal. And you are the last person who should be apologising for that."

"It's not that."

There was another very long silence. Rowan occasionally took a pensive sip of whisky. A little over half-way down the glass, she said, "I'm such an idiot."

"If you've done anything idiotic, I've yet to hear of it."

"It's what I couldn't - didn't want to- see. And it's my own fault."

Roger didn't think there was anything very much he could say to this. He poured a very circumspect amount of whisky into his own glass. This was not the time to risk saying anything rash. "He's sided with your parents?"

"Not exactly – well, sort of. And I'm kicking myself, because it's really Giles being how Giles has always been all along. Only when it didn't hurt me, I didn't really take it in. Not properly."

"A stuffed shirt?"

"No – well, yes really, but in his own way."

There was another long pause and a certain amount of meditative whisky sipping, mostly by Rowan.

"Giles is – mostly - good fun, competent about things and mostly doesn't fuss. And he's mostly not too keen on it when other people cause a fuss."

"Only this time…?"

"Only this time … he can't see, doesn't want to I suppose, that I couldn't just sit there and agree with father – which is mostly what it amounts to."

"So, he's blaming you?"

"Not really. At least that's not what he says, although he does imply it, I suppose. He's busy blaming Ann for my reaction and then wants me to apologise and go back to running the farm."

"I thought you said …"

"Yes, that would be up to father, not me. I suppose Giles doesn't want to see that."

"I suppose your father might have changed his mind. If he can't contact you to ask you to come back…"

"He could. If he wanted to. I wrote to Ann. I wrote to Nick, too. I didn't give my address the first time and then I thought I was being a bit silly and wrote and sent it. After all, no one is likely to turn up and make a scene."

There was another long silence, with some more thoughtful sipping, at least on Rowan's part.

"Even if he asked, I wouldn't. It would be stupidity of the highest order to beg for something I didn't really want in the first place. And I won't beg anyway. It would only be for a month or too anyway, and I'm not going through this again for anything."

"Would it be this again?" Roger could not help holding Rowan a little closer and smoothing one of her curls. This wasn't the time to enquire about the implications for them of what she had just said.

"From Giles, certainly. It's the possibility of him having to give up his career in the navy that bothers him most. Not that he says that in the letter. Not directly. But once you read the whole letter."

"But look here, your father can't be that far off retirement, probably. If he goes at the usual age. And it is his farm."

"Yes."

Another long silence.

"The thing is Ann can be very, very irritating. She takes things seriously, and she doesn't hide that she takes things seriously. And then she flaps about things. Even before – I don't think Father really liked her. Only he hides it better that Nicola! And the rest of us…. I don't quite know how to put it…."

"Strive for a charming nonchalance of manner?"

"Not strive. Because then that wouldn't be nochelant. I mean nonchalant. And Lawrie doesn't really. Not all the time. I mean, it depends on who she's being, with Lawrie."

"Ann doesn't seem a bad sort," Roger ventured. "Just a bit trying, maybe. And there's a peg for every hole they say. Or a hole for every peg."

"Just on a different peg board from the rest of the family." Rowan gave a slight half-giggle. "But she's got guts, in her own way, for all that she's so blinking cautious. Even if it does mean being at outs with the rest of us. And, when push comes to shove, Giles is quite happy to let father push Ann out for ever, I'm sorry, I'm not saying it clearly."

"That's OK."

"It's just finding someone isn't the person you thought they were. And Giles being so bloody conventional about this, because it suits Giles. Ann's harming no-one after all."

And Rowan started telling him about the Oeschli affair* and the events leading to the destruction of Surfrider, and they shared the piece ginger cake. Gradually the pauses grew longer in the telling and Rowan relaxed into his arms. He stroked her hair. She came to the end of the tale, more or less. Roger was rather relieved that he wasn't expected to pass comment on it.

It was more or less completely dark outside now, although it seemed warmer, rather than cooler than it had before. Rowan tilted her head a little.

"I'd quite like to be kissed."

Roger was more than happy to oblige, and there was a pleasant interval of firelight and caresses and hands not necessarily outside clothes and clothes not necessarily fastened. Rowan was gradually getting drowsier though, and the level on the whisky bottle offered enough of an explanation, never mind her crack of dawn start and how hard she worked.

"Come on, Rowan," he said gently. "Time to get you to bed."

"Us to bed," She corrected him, but not very clearly.

"Yes, but different beds, tonight."

She began to object, but not very coherently. Roger stood up.

"Because you're drunk, and you're gorgeous, and you're Rowan, and you mean more than anything else to me and you deserve better. And we have all tomorrow and tomorrow night."

Rowan stopped complaining and began to stand up. She paused and evidently decide to let him help her up after all.

There was a rather rickety looking chair in Edward's room that evidently did duty as a bedside table. Roger placed an enamel mug full of water on it. He kissed Rowan and fetched another enamel mug full of water. (She was more than half asleep now, but her lips still clung to his when he kissed her again.) He locked the front door, but left the key in the lock, although he really didn't think she'd be up first. He went to bed himself, but it was a while before he settled down to sleep.

Thank you to Fergus for information-confirmation and extra punctuation.