Piccadilly had a selection of coffee houses, and Anne chose one with an air of refinement, not too many smoking men pounding on tables over politics. They were soon sitting in a window, a prime location, and she was pouring for him. A full carafe and the satisfaction of no other errands before them conspired to allow Hornblower to actually relax, stretching out his legs and even venturing to smile at his lovely companion.
Horatio realized that somewhere between tea and coffee he'd become comfortable with Miss Kennedy. She was utterly unlike any girl he had spoken to before, being both obviously and intensely feminine, from her fashionable dress and round bosom and mass of bronze hair in curls-and yet so very like her masculine brother, forward in manner and philosophy. In truth, she was a great deal more comfortable to be near than Kennedy, her beauty less intimidating because she was not so sharp and full of edges. She was merry without being frivolous, teasing but not cruel, clever in her observations, and listened to his own with a flattering attention. He felt… safe…. with Anne. Her wealth and confidence and charm formed a bubble around them that left the world at just enough of a distance to be enjoyable. Everyone was pleasant to them. Everything tasted well. Even the din and clatter of street and coffeehouse held no threat, because she was not concerned by it.
Just looking at her made him feel warm. In fact he had not been cold all day, despite the February gloom. Though that might be because of the energy needed to keep up with her busy movements and peppering conversation. Those gray eyes held no storm, but they were challenging. And her momentary silence as she treated her coffee with cream and sugar-he took his own unadulterated-began to have a slightly discomfiting air of evaluation. Knowing her brother, Horatio sought to forestall any impertinent questions by daring one of his own.
"Kennedy told me that he went to sea at thirteen. I suppose it was very hard to say goodbye to your brother at so tender an age?"
She cocked her head at him, narrowed eyes trying to discern his intent. She stirred another half-teaspoon of sugar into her coffee, and gave a small shrug before replying. "He went away to school at eight, that was more difficult. We were inseparable before, but after four years of education, I was used to the absences. And he was so excited to be leaving, to make his way in the world and have adventures!" Anne gave Horatio a brilliant smile, that made his heart thump oddly, though her eyes were fixed on a memory, not him. "I think I was more upset that I could not be off on a journey of my own, than worried that he would come to harm. After all, father had sailed for so many years, and always come back to us." She took a few sips of her sweetened drink.
"Kennedy did come back," Horatio ventured. "And suffered no harm?" The prying tone was perhaps unsubtle, and brought her full attention back.
"Nothing lasting, not from that first posting." Her brow furrowed slightly. "Though he used up all his luck there." Horatio hoped his inquiring look was not too plaintive. "You haven't heard about The Guardian?" She gave a little confused laugh. "I would think Archie full of the story. No? Not even in the papers?"
Horatio was abashed. Was his friend famous as well as rich and titled? "I was away at school myself at that age, and we were not allowed to read broadsheets."
Anne had another long sip, and adopted a slightly bored tone. "There is a scrapbook somewhere, I suppose I could find it..." She was just like her brother. As soon as she realized she had a secret he wanted, the temptation was there to tease. "But now tell me which of the books you are most looking forward to reading…."
"Miss Kennedy." Horatio gave her the satisfaction of a pleading tone, and she relented, with another little laugh.
"The barest sketch then. It is a grim tale for a lovely day. Really you should ask my brother directly. Arch does it well, he has that knack for the little details," Horatio nodded, thinking on how often he supposed his fellow midshipman guilty of embellishment. She took a breath to organize her thoughts, then began. "The Guardian was a fifth-rater, finished up too late for the Rebellion. It didn't go into service until it was outfitted in 1789 as convict transport. Arch was supposed to sail to Botany Bay on her maiden voyage, with a load of prisoners and supplies for the colony."
"Australia?" Horatio was surprised, Kennedy had never mentioned being on that exotic continent, but waved Anne to continue.
"Yes. They left in early September and sailed south for almost three months. We received our last letter after Epiphany, dated a month earlier, when the ship was just about to sail from the Cape of Good Hope. Then there was nothing." For the first time, Horatio realized Miss Kennedy had something of her brother's capacity for aching melancholy as well as cherubic humor. He did not like that cast on her features. "On Christmas Eve, they'd struck an iceberg while trying to take on water, and holed her badly below the waterline."
Horatio winced. "How did they make it back?"
"Most didn't. They tried to make repairs, but were taking on so much water it seemed hopeless. Then a gale took most of their sails. As many as could of the prisoners and crew abandoned ship, hoping to make land back to Africa. With more than three hundred aboard, there weren't boats enough for all. The captain, Lieutenant Riou, elected to remain behind to try and sail her across 1300 miles of open ocean. Staying with him by choice were Archie and sixty other stalwarts-officers, ratings, and convicts."
Horatio gaped, "And they succeeded?"
"Obviously." She gave a wry smile. "They used barrels under the deck to keep her afloat. The poor Guardian was little more than a raft at this point. Then manned pumps around the clock, and tacked as best they could with their remaining canvas. It took them nine weeks. A marvelous feat of sailing, I'm told. A wonder that they survived at all, much less made it back to Capetown. Yet not a single man-or woman, the daughter of one of the superintendants was with them- died on the Guardian. She made it there intact, in fact she was only scuttled when they tried to push for home. Beached by a storm-in April-a hundred miles north of Capetown. That ship was cursed!" She shook her head and took a little refreshment before ending the story. Horatio remembered his coffee then, as well.
"They had to await rescue and transfer. We didn't see Archie until fall though we'd known he was alive by summer. So he did not totally shock us when he turned up, brown and skinny and haunted and proud."
Horatio played over thoughts of this dramatic tale, wondering how it might feel to be in a crippled ship, so far from home. How brave Archie had been, to stay aboard the dying vessel. Would he have stayed? "What of the men in the jolly boats?"
"Only one boat was rescued, fifteen souls. The rest were lost. And it was not just the men taken by the sea that made it a tragedy. New South Wales was in a terrible need of provisions, that never arrived. There was a famine."
Horatio nodded soberly, and drank his coffee. He heard the clink of china, then a warm touch shook him out of his thoughts. Anne seemed to be playing with the knuckles of his left hand under the table where it lay against his thigh. He flinched, startled and of a sudden prickling with tension, his gloom dispelled by confusion.
For her part, Miss Kennedy's expression was almost innocence, just a light play of humor on lips as mobile and full as her brother's. "Did I misremember the code? Or tap the wrong fingers? Let me try again." Horatio still so startled at the feel of unexpected feminine digits, gentle and stroking against his own, he didn't comprehend her question at first. Then the tentative movements resolved not into a caress, but the deliberate press of the finger code he and Archie had devised, one long ago afternoon. She was using the numbers, he thought, and translated it at last to the day-flag 9 for Distress? In need of immediate assistance?
Making bold, he took her hand in turn, and a little clumsily with nerves, tapped out the reply, day-flag 27: Not in want thereof. He was both disappointed and relieved when she drew back from him, with a little smile. "Mr. Kennedy has taught you Howe's Code?" he asked, in the normal fashion. It was a scandal to be honest, such things were to be restricted to the Navy, for the sake of their safety and military effectiveness.
She smiled and looked mysterious. "I know it. The how, never you mind. But the secret of Horatio's Code he did relay to me. I've been teaching it to Margaret, too, for it's just as useful, you know, in a dining room, as a gunroom. Only we have begun to devise our own orders. Perhaps if you are lucky, we might share our codebook."
Horatio couldn't help blushing at this evidence of the popularity of his little whim. His stomach knotted a bit, with the thought that it was not just his and Archie's. But it was precious too, that Kennedy's sisters would take so eagerly to it, for love and interest in their brother's affairs. "You must have a great deal of naval knowledge, growing up in it, so. I had the benefit of your experience, already Mr. Kennedy lent me your signal flags while I was learning the code myself." He reddened a little further, to admit at seventeen to be playing with such toys.
Anne did not take opportunity to jibe at him though, only smiled sweetly."I made those for him for the Minerva! I did not know he still had them. So much went missing, between all of his adventures."
"The Minerva? Was that his ship after the Guardian? He has pictures of India in his room." He tried not to sound too eager, at this chance to fill in yet another gap in his friend's mysterious history.
"Yes. Arch is quite clever with pen and brush, you should see his portraits from the theater…." This time she only teased Horatio for a few moments before telling him what he wished to know. "The H.M.S. Minerva was his second posting. Mother threatened to go back to America, she was so angry with father, for we'd only just gotten Arch back from Africa." Horatio understood from her crispness that it was not just Lady Anne who had been furious, for all that Miss Kennedy was still speaking with offhand lightness. "But Archie was much valued after the Guardian-all those who stayed with the ship were given commendations. So father was able to find him a slot on a ship bound for India. They were sailing right into a war, with all the chance for glory and advancement that entails." And there, the bitterness, just underneath.
Horatio was sorry to have dispelled his companion's good mood again, with his questions, and tried to make amends. "I suppose there are stories there, but for another time."
"Yes, but for tales of the Minerva and the Perseverance, you must apply to Arch directly. He has never told me anything more than what we could read in the newspapers. But whatever happened must have been horrible. He was never the same since." She tried to pass it off with a pained little smile, but her cup rattled as she returned it to her saucer.
He found himself catching up from her lap that soft, broad-palmed little hand, so different to another, sea rough and scarred, yet so alike.
With just a single squeeze of acknowledgement, she went on. "We had him back almost a year, before father shipped him off to Justinian last August. That was the worst of our partings. Father insisted it was time, but he was so unhappy there until you came. I saw Archie, just before Christmas, before your arrival, and… " she stopped and made herself release him. His bones had begun to hurt from the tightness of her grip. Anne took a deep sip, both hands on her cup, then went on more calmly, but with deep feeling. "Thank you for your friendship, Mr. Hornblower."
"He has been more than a good friend to me, Miss Kennedy." Far more, and sometimes much less.
"I would beg a favor of you, Mr. Hornblower. When you pry those stories out of him, will you write me what you can of it? What will not breach the confidence of the Navy or of the brotherhood of arms? We have lost him now, three times. I want to know, if we lose him again, how to bring him home."
The weight of the request sat heavily between them. Horatio did not know if he himself wanted the answers to his questions, much less to relate them to a gentlewoman and relative, with more claim to sympathetic pain than he. Yet after a swallow, Horatio nodded acceptance, and swept a forefinger across those delicate knuckles, still pressed to the porcelain. Yes.
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