Howard, lieutenant-colonel of Grenadiers, had in successive ranks and with very few interruptions served twenty years and more at the Horse Guards (it seemed that every commander-in-chief, including the Duke of Wellington, had thought him indispensable), and was a staunch friend and supporter. Somehow he’d managed to get the letter into the official bag, and thus overland; so its date was not too antique …

It began with the whys and wherefores of various comings and goings in uniform, adding explanation to the announcements in the Gazette, and then (Hervey supposed) the gossip of White’s club, or whatever drawing room his old friend had been gracing, relating to Lord Melbourne:

After my lord Grey resigned in July, His Majesty, obliged to appoint another of the Whigs in his place, as the Tories were not strong enough to support a government, sent for my lord Melbourne. Lord M however was not at first inclined to go, for he thought he would not enjoy the extra work that accompanied the office! Tom Young – his secretary you’ll recall – told me Lord M said to him ‘I think it’s a damned bore. I am in many minds as to what to do’ and that he, Young, told him ‘Why, damn it all, such a position was never held by any Greek or Roman, and if it only lasts three months, it will be worth while to have been Prime Minister of England’ & that Lord M replied ‘By God, that’s true. I’ll go!’

Hervey smiled. He’d take pleasure in showing that to St Alban. It would do no harm to tilt a little at his certainty of Whig high-mindedness. But as he read on – there were four close-written sheets – he found nothing touching directly on himself. Yet if Melbourne were now prime minister, surely it couldn’t be long before Lord Hill thought it meet to approach him on the matter? After Bristol, his lordship had told him he’d put his name before Lord Goderich, the secretary at war, as a mere formality before submitting it to the King, and that Goderich had said that in the present circumstances he felt he couldn’t countenance it – and that he, Hill, knew that Goderich had canvassed Melbourne’s opinion and several others’, perhaps even Grey’s. Goderich had apparently said that once the sea was calmer he’d have no objection whatsoever. He, Hervey, had then asked Lord Hill how long he thought that might be, and Hill had said after the passage of the Reform bill. Well, the bill had been enacted these good two years, and still there was nothing. Would the ‘sea’ ever be calm enough? For there was but one consolation on relinquishing command – the gradation list.

So what now stayed Lord Hill’s hand?

He sighed and took up Kat’s letter, which had come by the Cape. He’d stared at the seal long enough; now he would screw up his courage to break it.