[when she touches him, he initially looks a bit more alert, chin raising, then grasps her hand, fully for support. It is so, so rare now for him to be unable to withstand any sort of physical contact, but it does happen sometimes. From women it's automatically easier. He steadies somewhat, though he tries to remember not to hold her tiny hand too tightly.]
I didn't learn the rest of the story for two more years. I was captured by the Spanish--neutral, at the time, but they didn't know what to do with me. So they kept me in one of their prisons. Five times, I tried to escape. The last time, they... [Okay, absolutely no one in Luceti knows this except for Horatio. He lets out a breath. It's part of the story.] They put me in a hole in the earth with no room to stand up or lie down, and locked me in for a month. When I came out, I could not walk and I was half-mad. And shortly after, Horatio...carelessly wandered into the midst of the Spanish fleet after they'd allied themselves with France, and he and his men were sent to the same prison.
[There is a long, long pause, during which his voice evens out.]
I think I knew that...I think I'd reckoned by then that Simpson had cut the mooring line during the attack, and set me adrift, and that it would not have happened had Horatio not stood against him. He thought he had no hold over us anymore, and so tried to kill me. So when Horatio came, good God his was the last face in all the world I wanted to see.
He told me Simpson was dead. He'd tried to kill us both, that night, and he and Horatio fought another duel over it. Simpson fired early and so had to stand and take fire, but Horatio couldn't shoot him in cold blood. He fired into the air instead. Simpson almost stabbed him in the back for his generosity when Pellew gunned him down himself. Horatio never forgave himself for it, Jilly. He still hasn't. He believes he owed it to me, somehow, as if it would have made any difference. He tortures himself over it to this day. But when he told me, all I could hear was that Horatio Hornblower has all the luck in the world, saved by his captain, and already acting-lieutenant while I rotted in a Spanish cell.
[Action]
I didn't learn the rest of the story for two more years. I was captured by the Spanish--neutral, at the time, but they didn't know what to do with me. So they kept me in one of their prisons. Five times, I tried to escape. The last time, they... [Okay, absolutely no one in Luceti knows this except for Horatio. He lets out a breath. It's part of the story.] They put me in a hole in the earth with no room to stand up or lie down, and locked me in for a month. When I came out, I could not walk and I was half-mad. And shortly after, Horatio...carelessly wandered into the midst of the Spanish fleet after they'd allied themselves with France, and he and his men were sent to the same prison.
[There is a long, long pause, during which his voice evens out.]
I think I knew that...I think I'd reckoned by then that Simpson had cut the mooring line during the attack, and set me adrift, and that it would not have happened had Horatio not stood against him. He thought he had no hold over us anymore, and so tried to kill me. So when Horatio came, good God his was the last face in all the world I wanted to see.
He told me Simpson was dead. He'd tried to kill us both, that night, and he and Horatio fought another duel over it. Simpson fired early and so had to stand and take fire, but Horatio couldn't shoot him in cold blood. He fired into the air instead. Simpson almost stabbed him in the back for his generosity when Pellew gunned him down himself. Horatio never forgave himself for it, Jilly. He still hasn't. He believes he owed it to me, somehow, as if it would have made any difference. He tortures himself over it to this day. But when he told me, all I could hear was that Horatio Hornblower has all the luck in the world, saved by his captain, and already acting-lieutenant while I rotted in a Spanish cell.