He had overheard the two of them in Sharpe’s quarters aboard the Calliope and, painful though it was to relate, the sounds emanating – that was the word he used, emanating – from the cabin suggested that her ladyship had quite forgotten her high station. Braithwaite had written in a cheap ink, a faded brown that had bled into the damp paper, and was hard to read in the dim lady hole. At first, the confidential secretary related, he had not believed the evidence of his own ears, and scarce even dared credit it when he had glimpsed the Lady Grace leaving the lower-deck steerage in the darkness before dawn, so he had thought it his duty to confront Sharpe with his suspicions. ‘But when I taxed Ensign Sharpe with my accusations,’ he wrote, ‘and upbraided him for taking advantage of her ladyship, he did not deny the circumstances, but instead threatened me with murder.’ Braithwaite had underlined the word ‘murder’. ‘It was that circumstance, my lord, which constrained my cowardly tongue from its bounden duty.’ It gave him no pleasure, Braithwaite concluded the letter, to inform his lordship of these shameful events, especially as his lordship had ever shown him such excessive kindnesses.
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