Jack is deeply dismayed when a ill-judged fling in Nova Scotia threatens to come back to England and reveal his perfidy. He's thrilled to be ordered back to sea, this time to transport his friend Stephen to co-opt a Catalan base to England's side. Meanwhile, Stephen has just returned from a trip to Paris, where he presented a scholarly paper (very badly, though it was well received) and found a place for Diana to stay for her confinement. The mission is a success, the base is taken--and then on the way home, flush with success, they are captured by the French. They suspect Stephen is a spy, and so while Jack scrapes away at their prison walls searching for escape, Stephen spends day after day trying to seem as innocent as possible to his captors, all the while keeping a capsule of poison precariously held in his cheek. This book contains a number of subversions of a reader's expectations. Jack is scared of a woman coming back to England with his bastard--and instead she marries another and he seems to have gotten away with it. Stephen and Diana battle over her pregnancy--only for it to end apparently naturally, thus making it unnecessary for him to blame her for getting an abortion, or for either of them to raise the child fathered by their enemy, the vicious Johnson. Jack scrapes away at his French prison walls, and much of the book is given over to the complications of shifting the stone--and the very same moment he finally breaks through, French spies (who want to get Stephen out of the country) unlock the prison door and help them escape, so that all Jack's work is unnecessary, though appreciated.
This is also the book where finally, FINALLY, after six books of tension and torment, Diana consents to marry Stephen. Their coming together at last is a little odd, for me, because Stephen is only just coming to love her again (after realizing he'd fallen out of love with her because she'd grown too "coarse" in the previous book) and because Stephen is so very willing to control and deceive her. I don't like that he seems to think he needs to manage her. She's a grown-ass woman, she's dealt with spies and maharajahs and love affairs before--she doesn't need Stephen pretending that she was the reason he got free. It felt patronizing--almost as patronizing as his disturbing refusal to let her make her own medical decisions:
"'That is why I have come to you, the only friend I can rely on. You understand these things. You are a physician. Stephen, I couldn't bear to have that man's child. It would be a monster. I know that in India women used to take a root called holi--'
'There my dear, there is certain proof that your judgment is astray, otherwise you would never have thought of such a course, nor would you have ever said such a thing to me. My whole function is to preserve life, not to take it away. The oath I have sworn, and all my convictions--'
'Stephen, I beg of you not to fail me.' She sat twisting her fingers together, and in a low pleading voice she murmured, 'Stephen, Stephen.'
'Diana, you must marry me.'
She shook her head. Each knew that the other was immovable, and they sat in a miserable silence until the door burst open."
Stephen's reluctance is pretty rich coming from a man who talked dispassionately about gunning down or knifing a cadre of Frenchmen just pages ago. Ah well, even he cannot be perfect. And in fact, I find I like Maturin least when he's silently martyring himself, as he has a tendency to do, and like him most when he's squabbling with Aubrey over silly things like bad jokes and seaman slang. When I think O'Brian thinks Maturin is being particularly impressive, I actually dislike him.
Overall, another fantastic installment of a great series. I can't wait to read the next!