Hell's Fire - By Brian Freemantle Page 0,71

laughing at us.’

Bligh stumped angrily towards the park, holding his wife’s hand in the crook of his arm. He was tense with rage, she could feel, the muscles strained beneath the cloth of his coat.

The palace grounds were crowded. Brightly coloured pavilions, like medieval jousting tents, had been erected in several places and two bands played at separate ends of the walkway. Two stages had been erected for theatrical entertainments and between the tents the servants moved in constant procession, burdened with trays of drinks.

The reception had been carefully planned. Every foreign ambassador was in attendance, in case another country imagined the King’s weak health meant any more colonies could go the way of the Americas. To make the point as diplomatically clear as possible, the Prince of Wales had been sent to Brighton, to indicate his dispensability.

‘It’s so exciting,’ Betsy glowed, hugging her husband’s arm.

Bligh was staring around, looking for faces he recognised. He hadn’t been at all satisfied with the acceptance within the houses of influence in the capital of his rejection of the court martial innuendo. Only four letters, he recalled. And two of them unsigned and abusive. Which was why this afternoon was so important. He had to meet the King, he decided. Only the briefest encounter would be necessary before such an audience. It would make him acceptable. And his narrative, too. Then they’d change their stance, these popinjays and fops with little ability beyond the bottle and the boudoir and even that open to question.

He felt his wife stiffen and followed her look. Lady Harpindcne was parading slowly along the walkway towards them, a swarthily handsome, sharp-faced youth of little more than nineteen, dressed completely in white silk, even to his shoes, in fawning attention. Mrs Wittingdon was dutifully in place a few yards behind, her purple-faced merchant husband uninterestedly at her arm.

‘Why, Mrs Bligh!’ greeted the baronet’s wife, in that familiar voice of constant surprise. ‘And the worthy captain, too, I do declare.’

‘Your servant, ma’am,’ bowed Bligh. He could never understand why such people were so important to Betsy.

‘I haven’t made a mistake, have I?’ giggled the woman. ‘It is still captain? I haven’t missed a promotion in the Gazette?’

Elizabeth felt her husband’s arm go taut.

‘No, ma’am,’ she hurried. ‘The only thing you might have missed was my husband’s award from the Society.’

‘Cleverly done,’ praised Wittingdon, thickly, reaching the group. ‘Country indebted to you.’

The man was drunk, Bligh realised. But the praise still warmed him.

‘Thank you, sir,’ he said.

‘Such a brave man,’ gushed Lady Harpindene. ‘Despite all those nasty stories. I want you to know, captain, that everyone at my husband’s club is laughing at them.’

‘I mind they are, ma’am,’ said Bligh, heavily. ‘There seems to be much laughter these days.’

‘Not at your expense, surely, captain,’ intruded Mrs Wittingdon.

Both women were staring around them, Bligh realised, knowing themselves to be the point of attention and wanting to see who was observing them. Harpies, he decided. Both of them.

‘What an unusual necklace,’ said Lady Harpindene, turning to her youthful companion, so that he stared at Elizabeth’s jewellery, eyes wide in mock amazement. Both women sniggered.

‘It must be something very cute and unusual from the country,’ patronised Mrs Wittingdon, whose décolletage was studded with rubies. ‘Something native to the Isle of Man, perhaps.’

‘I’m surprised at your mistake, ma’am,’ returned Elizabeth. ‘With the frequency with which you both go to the country, I’d have thought you would know that not to be the case.’

‘It’s called coral,’ identified Bligh, sensing the importance to his wife of the exchange. ‘Rarer than any gem. Only necklace of its kind in England. The King has some, of course. Personal present.’

Both women shifted, deflated.

‘You must excuse us, ladies,’ apologised Bligh, knowing they were ahead in the exchange. ‘Someone I have to see.’

He hurried his wife around them, trying to keep Sir Joseph Banks in sight.

‘I was very proud of you, then,’ said Elizabeth, softly. ‘And you didn’t lose your temper.’

‘Sluts,’ dismissed Bligh, cursorily. ‘Stupid to bother yourself with them.’

Sir Joseph saw them approach and turned gratefully towards them. He had been scouring the park ever since the man he had positioned especially to alert him of the Blighs’ arrival had told him of the stupid scene with the boatman. Pitt had been furious at his promise to Bligh, Banks remembered, insisting he be personally responsible for the man during his attendance.

‘Sir Joseph,’ greeted Bligh.

‘Your servant, ma’am,’ said Banks, lifting Elizabeth’s hand to his lips. ‘You look quite lovely … quite lovely