He had not changed. His features were as handsome and his manners were as gallant as before. ‘I swear, your Ladyship, each time I come to Slains young Mistress Paterson looks lovelier.’
He kissed her hand with warmth, and though Sophia did not welcome his attentions, she was nonetheless relieved to know that he, like all the others except Kirsty, had not noticed her condition. For in truth it did not show—she was but five months gone, her stomach still was flat, although it had begun to soften, and the fashion of her gowns was so forgiving that she knew it might be some time yet before she was found out. She felt quite healthy, with an energy that fired her from within and made her happy with the world. It was perhaps this radiance, she thought, that Captain Gordon had perceived.
He stayed to dinner, and when wine was poured he took his glass in hand and raised it in a toast to young King James. ‘God grant that he comes soon.’
The countess drank, and set her glass down, smiling. ‘Were it up to God alone, I do not doubt but that the king would have been here already. But God passes His affairs into the hands of men, and there the trouble lies.’
‘What says the Duke of Perth, your brother? He is there at Saint-Germain, and has the king’s ear, does he not? What does he take to be the cause of their delay?’
‘He tells me little in his letters, out of fear they will be read by other eyes than mine. But he is as impatient as the rest of us,’ she said. ‘I sense the problem does not lie at Saint-Germain, but at Versailles. The King of France does hold the purse-strings of this venture, after all, and the ships cannot set sail without his order.’
Captain Gordon said, ‘In their defense, I must admit the winds of late have not been very favorable. Last month when setting out from Yarmouth we were damaged so severely in a gale that we were forced to put back altogether, and a few weeks afterwards, when coming into Leith, we found the winds so bad that it was not until some three days after we had dropped our anchor that I could be rowed ashore. Not that I minded, for in truth I had all but exhausted my store of tricks for delaying the voyage.’
The earl asked him, ‘Why would you wish to do that?’
‘Why, to give the French fleet a fair run at our coast. I had hoped they would have brought young James across before now, for there was a long time when my ship and I were being settled into our positions in this new united Royal Navy of Great Britain. Both Captain Hamilton and I appeared before the Navy Board the first few days in August, to receive our new commissions and the new names of our ships, there being English ships already named the Royal William and the Royal Mary. My ship is now the Edinburgh, while Captain Hamilton’s is called the Glascow. After this our ships were both surveyed to judge how fit they were for service, which took time, and then both ships were ordered brought into a dry dock for refitting, so for all that time there was no ship assigned to cruise this northern coast. The king would have done well had he but seized that as his moment. But,’ he said, and shrugged, ‘for reasons that do pass my understanding, he did not, and I was after ordered northward. There was little I could do but make my progress slow, by means of varied misadventures. You’ll have heard, no doubt, what did befall the Edinburgh at Leith?’ He glanced around at their expectant faces. ‘No? Then you have been deprived of a diverting tale. My crew,’ he said, ‘did mutiny.’
The countess raised her eyebrows in astonishment. ‘Your crew?’
‘I know. ’Tis difficult to fathom, is it not, when I am so well loved by those I do command.’ His smile held a good-natured conceit. ‘I can assure you, it was not an easy thing to manage.’ Slicing off a piece of beef, he speared it with his knife point. ‘Several days before, I stirred a rumor round that we’d be bound for the West Indies after Leith. My men, who for the most part have been pressed to service, taken from their homes against their will, have little liking for the prospect of a passage to the Indies, with its dangers and its depravations. By the time we’d reached the Road of Leith, they were fair fevered with anxiety. And so I went ashore, and stayed there some time on the pretext of my waiting on the Treasury to clear my old accounts, and sure enough, while I was gone, one hundred of my crewmen made good their escape in boats.’ He grinned. ‘It took two weeks for us to round them up and coax them back aboard. And in that time, of course, I could not sail.’
The countess could not quite achieve a look of disapproval. ‘I do hope you did not punish them when they returned.’