"Well, there it is."
She rose and walked over behind his chair. She hesitated for a moment, then slipped her arms around his neck and nuzzled her cheek against his. There were so many things shed wanted to say to him over the years. Now suddenly it was almost too late, and still she couldn't find the words. She wanted to hold him now, but something still stopped her.
Silently he touched her hand, then reached for his cane and stood. "I've ordered the carriage horses kept harnessed, in case." He was already halfway to the door. "I suppose I'd best go down to the Point first, just to be sure."
"I want to go with you." She grabbed the bridle and ran after him. To let him get away, with so much still unsaid. . . .
"No, you'll stay here, and for once that's an order." He took her hand and squeezed it. "I didn't tell you that five members of the Assembly have already called for surrender. Five out of twenty-two. I wonder how many more'll be ready to join them after tonight. If the Assembly votes to give in, Katy, you know it'll probably mean a trial in London for me." He kissed her on the cheek. "You'll have to look out for yourself then, and that'll be time aplenty to go chasing around the island in the dark." He drew back. "In the meantime, you'd best decide what you plan to do about this Winston fellow if that happens. Don't go losing your heart to him. He's a rogue who'll not do the right thing by you. Or any woman. Mark it. A father still can see a few things. He's already got one woman, that ship of his, and a seaman like that never has room for anyone else."
She had to concede that, in truth, there was something to what he said. Up till now shed been managing to keep things in balance. But was she starting to let desire overrule that better judgment? For the hundredth time she warned herself to keep her head.
"In the first place I don't wish to marry Hugh Winston. So it's just as well, isn't it, that he's got his ship. I see all too well what he is. I'm going to marry Anthony, and try and make the best of things." Her eyes hardened. "And secondly, we're not going to lose. You just have to delay the Assembly from voting a surrender. Hugh thinks the militia can drive them back."
"Aye, we may hold out for a time. We've got trained gunners for every breastwork on the west and south coasts. But how long before some of the militia starts defecting? Then what can we do? With guns at our backs as well . . ." He exhaled pensively. "By the way, on the subject of Winston, I've noticed something a trifle incongruous about that man. He appears to know a lot more about cannon and fortifications than a seaman reasonably ought, probably as much or more even than Anthony Walrond. Has he ever said where he learned it?"
"He never talks much about his past." She had found herself increasingly puzzled, and not a little infuriated, by Winston's secretiveness. Probably the only woman he ever confided in was Joan Fuller. "But sometimes I get the idea he may have learned a lot of what he knows from a Frenchman. Now and then he slips and uses a French name for something. I'd almost guess he helped a band of Frenchmen set up defenses somewhere in the Caribbean once."
Dalby Bedford quietly sucked in his breath and tried to mask his dismay. The only "band of Frenchmen" to fit that description would be the little settlement of planters on the French side of St. Christopher, or the Cow-Killers on Tortuga. And Hugh Winston hardly looked like a planter.