The Surprise, fully refurbished with her new masts, fixed bulkheads, repaired figurehead and invisible but marvellous gold bottom, dashed through the water under a cloud of canvas. Jack Aubrey stood at his usual station on the quarterdeck and gazed up into the shrouds with a benign approval upon his face that belied his emotional state. He felt profoundly frustrated and put out.

They had been at sea a week now, and they’d made thundering good speed with a steady, stout topgallant breeze throughout. Before setting sail, the hunting parties had done amazingly well and the hold was full of enough soft tack to last them at least another fortnight. The hands were all eager to get home, and every man-jack aboard was aware that the Surprise’s sailing qualities had been restored to normal and she was as swift on a bowline as ever when the Captain handled her.

Equally, every man-jack aboard was also aware that the Captain was not in his usual high spirits. He tried, oh he tried very hard and most times he looked decently cheerful, but his crew knew him well enough to be able to tell that it was only skin deep. And they also knew very well that wasn’t that he’d slung his cot in a minuscule room off the gun room, next to the Doctor’s, keeping the midshipmen up all night with his powerful snore. He was expected to surrender his cabin to a passenger of the stature of the Duchess of Marlborough, and Captain Aubrey had done so with commendable grace. His men had known him for many years at sea and they knew he could rough it out with the best of them. It wasn’t that at all.  It was something else; something deeper.

“Which it’s summat to do with Her Duchessness, mark my words,” murmured Killick to the bosun’s mate, a shrewish look upon his face. “Cap’n and her had a falling out of some sorts, an’ I’ll wager me best coat he’s sweet on ‘er. And she on ‘im. Which it’s understandable, he’s a handsome lookin’ cove an’ all, and brave, and a real gentleman … Just don’t get ‘is taste in music, all that screeching and scraping. Move downwind, Wheeler, I’m gettin’ the Cap’n ‘is coffee.”

“Killick, Killick there!” drifted down from the quarterdeck. “Light along the coffee, damn you; handsomely now.”

“Which it is coming, already!” bellowed Killick with a bushy frown, giving Wheeler a significant look.

In her sleeping cabin, Cat sat listlessly plucking a string on her harp from time to time. Jack had been in the great cabin earlier, just as she’d insisted. According to her instructions, they shared the day use of the great cabin. She refused to rob Jack of his working space. So he’d come and he’d sat writing in his log, going through his papers, pouring over his maps, and she had had the opportunity to quietly observe him through the open sleeping cabin door. He’d looked up but once, and their eyes had locked and lingered for far, far too long. Shortly after, he’d scraped his chair back and had all but stormed out the cabin.

She heard him now, pacing up and down, up and down incessantly, and she wondered for the umpteenth time how she could be so continually, painfully aware of Jack Aubrey’s location and actions. She almost felt where he was on the ship, what he was doing, and her heart went out to him again and again, although she still stood by what she had said to him on Isla Fortuna. It was all said in anguish, but it was still true: every man she’d ever known in her young life had used her most brutally – her father, the Duke, LaSalle - and she simply couldn’t trust anyone. Not even Jack.

But Jack is different, her heart whispered again and again, yet her mind intervened every time: not that different. Jack had wanted to do with her exactly what the Duke and LaSalle had wanted to do with her. He was a man. He was a big, beautiful, kind, brave, silly, amazing man, but still he was a man. She could not trust him.

And yet, her heart whispered, and yet. She sighed and plucked another string.

Up on the quarterdeck, Jack hesitated in his continuous pacing for the slightest of moments when he heard the fragile harp note drift up through the companion window. A perfect G. Cat was directly below him. His heart was a hard fist in his chest and for the millionth time he fought the urge to storm down the companion ladder, thunder back into the great cabin, dash into Cat’s sleeping quarters, gather her up in his arms and kiss her until she would surrender to him, willingly, happily, and he could love her with all the passion he had in him. He fought the urge hard, and won, but it was a close shave.

“If only we were to run into a prize,” Jack softly grumbled, thinking how some real action would take his mind off the Duchess and he’d be able to burn off some of this unspent raw energy. If he didn’t get to blow off some steam soon, he’d hang himself from the yardarm from mere pent-up misery.

Another crisp turn on the quarterdeck and Jack opened his mouth to order a brisk round of gunning practice; a meagre substitute for a real action but better than nothing, and after all, he had always found the smell of gunpowder invigorating.

“On deck below,’ bellowed Franthis the Lithp from the mainmast lookout, unwittingly clapping a stopper over the order Jack had been about to issue. “Thail ho, Frog man ‘o’ war’, hull up.”

“Where away, Franthis?” Jack roared, a maniacal glee invading his visage. “Hell and death, this is exactly what I was praying for,” to himself, and again in his mighty sea-going voice: “Where away for all love!”

“Two pointth off the tharboard bow, all canvath flying,” Franthis hollered in response.

Jack had already clapped onto the shrouds and momentarily came over the side of the lookout platform, joining Franthis with his good glass slung around his neck. “Up you go, Franthis, into the crothtreeth,” said he, his enthusiasm barely contained. He put his glass to his eye and muttered to himself: “By God, it’s the Victoire, old Bones Apart’s new barky off the Boston wharf. What a war machine she is; 36 guns, bluff bow, just look at those lines … I have to wonder if the Surprise will outsail her with her current rigging … we do have the weather gauge and I can be reasonably sure she hasn’t seen us, the light is in our favour.”’ He leaned out, filled his lungs with air and roared, “beat to quarters!” and as the drum roll called the ship into action, he shot down to the quarterdeck on his favourite backstay, his hair flying out behind him.

A furious dashing about broke out, and to the untrained eye it all looked very unordered, but the experienced crew of the Surprise knew exactly what they were on about. Jack did not give it another thought. He motioned the signal mid closer. “French colours, and distress signal according to Captain LaSalle’s code book. Handsomely now. Pullings? Ah, there you are. Tom, lubberly sailing, as if we’ve lost our rudder and can’t come up into the wind. And rig a sail over the starboard side, gun ports open underneath. Don’t let the sail touch the water or it will work as a sea anchor. I mean to conceal the Surprise’s paint and trick Victoire’s captain into believing we’re still Indomitable. He’ll think LaSalle request his assistance. I’ll wear LaSalle’s old coat for as long as possible. We’ll let her come up to us until we’re yardarm to yardarm, hoist our colours as swiftly as we can then throw all we have at them. If we make an impression at all, we’ll board. If not, we’ll be off before Victoire will gather her wits, we’ll still have the weather gauge and will run away from her perfectly smartly. Now if you will excuse me, I must see to the Duchess.”

Jack plunged down the ladder, ducked automatically to enter the cabin and met a worried Cat as she came out of her sleeping cabin.

“Captain … will we fight?” she asked, pale-faced.

“Your Grace,” Jack made an elegant leg. “It appears we will; I am here to ask you to stay in your cabin and remain calm. I am quite convinced we will …”

“But I want to help! Shall I not go to Doctor Maturin’s sickbay and assist him with the wounded? I simply cannot sit around uselessly while you go out …” she stepped closer involuntarily, “and risk your life … Lord, Jack …”

Jack could, in the face of the upcoming battle, not win the war raging in his heart now. He teetered for a moment then lunged forward and roughly pulled Cat into his embrace, turning around and around with her in his arms. Neither of them spoke. They just held on to each other for dear life for as long as they dared then gave each other a long, meaningful look.