Reefs and Shoals

“Do I live to eighty, they’ll still find something delicious to write about me,” Lydia groused in a small voice.

“Nonsense!” Lewrie hooted. “They’ve Nelson and Emma Hamilton t’write about, or the doings of all those damned Bohemian poets.”

“Well…”

Lewrie yawned and slowly stretched against her.

“Lady Caroline Lamb,” he added. “ There’s a road smash, and good for daily scandals.” He yawned again, louder and longer.

“Now you’ll get me started,” Lydia said, covering her mouth as she snuggled closer, and lower down the bed.

“Let’s try something novel,” Lewrie suggested. “Ye know, we’ve never…”

She stiffened and slid away from him a few inches, bracing herself on an elbow. “Something novel? Something un-natural? Bind me to the headboard posts? Just what perversion do you desire, sir? Do you drop your pretense, at last, like the beast I foolishly wed?”

“Lydia… Lydia, I mean nothing at all like that!” he gently insisted. “ Reliant ’s in Channel Fleet, and no officer is allowed to sleep out of his ship. We’ve never had the time before to just cuddle up, nod off, and sleep together. Take a long, snuggly nap?”

Rumour had it that her ex-husband had been driven by scandal to his country estates, wore a bell round his neck like a leper to warn off objects of his beastly desires, and would bugger ducks, geese, and stray sheep if he couldn’t run down anything bipedal, male or female, young or old.

“Just… sleep?” Lydia mused with her head cocked over, and a wry look on her face. She screwed her lips to one side as if biting her cheek for a moment. Then, with a rush, she was back close beside him, snuggling under the heavy covers. “I’m sorry I mistook…”

“After that bastard, you’d be right t’suspect,” Lewrie allowed. “Said it yourself, though… I’m so easily pleased,” he japed.

It’ll be like bein’ married to a parson’s daughter, he thought with a well-stifled groan; and goodbye to fellatio forever!

For all the innuendos and charges laid during Lydia’s two years of waiting for Parliament to grant her divorce, and what a scandalous bawd she’d been painted, she was surprisingly shy and “conventional”. He could only caress, stroke, and kiss so low down her belly, then no further. She might slide atop him and “ride St. George’s lance” now and again, but anything more outre was right out.

It was not that Lewrie was a devotee of the outre, but now and then some rare variety, some surprise, was pleasing, he’d found.

That’s why men keep mistresses, or go to brothels, he thought with a secret grin.

“Yes, let’s… what do sailors call a nap?” Lydia agreed.

“They ‘caulk off’, take a ‘caulk’,” Lewrie softly whispered. “Do two sailors board a coach, one’ll ask the other does he prefer to ‘caulk or yarn’: nap or trade stories.”

“Caulk or yarn, sir?” Lydia asked with an impish tone.

“Caulk,” Lewrie said with a chuckle.

Dodged another bullet, Lewrie congratulated himself after some minutes, when her breath against his chest became slow and regular, right at the edge of sleep himself; Ye cheated death, again!

CHAPTER TWO

The old George Inn did set the best table that Lewrie knew of in Portsmouth, which made it the favourite destination for those Navy officers who could afford to dine or lodge there, and their mid-day meal was no exception. After a good two-hour nap, a slow and languourous awakening with much snuggling, caressing, fond mutual regardings-and a delightful if conventional bout of lovemaking-Lewrie and Lydia had risen, dressed, and come down to the dining rooms, he with his sash and star of a Knight of the Bath, at her insistence, to dine.

Hopes for a good salad in mid-winter were moot, but there was a hearty and hot tarragon chicken soup, followed by servings of haddock in lemon and drawn butter, then a course of sliced roast beef, all with roast potatoes and peas, sloshed down with glasses of Rhenish and one shared bottle of claret. Lewrie went for pound cake with cream and raspberry jam, whilst Lydia settled for sweet biscuits and coffee. She was a light diner, Lewrie had noted before, always leaving portions of her dishes un-eaten, and ordering only a few items, not the usual ritual of fish-fowl-swine-roast beef or beefsteak that could take hours to put away. “But I’ve always had a light appetite,” she had explained once, and to Lewrie’s cocked brow when she’d passed on cheese and nuts this time, she leaned over to put her head close to his and said, “You must know, Alan, that I am so easily pleased,” which made the both of them laugh, no matter who else dined with them, or what they thought of their intimate moment.

“More coffee, sir?” a servant asked.

“Aye,” Lewrie agreed.

There was a bustle in the entrance hall as someone new arrived, accompanied by a blast of cold air. It was a Navy officer, a Lieutenant in his early thirties, and a pleasant-enough looking young woman with him, both swaddled in travelling cloaks. Behind them came a civilian servant bearing the woman’s luggage, and a sailor loaded down with the Lieutenant’s. Once the door was shut against the snow, they shucked their cloaks and embraced.

“A fond reunion, do you imagine?” Lydia asked him.

“Seems so,” Lewrie agreed. “Hell’s Bells!”

“Do you know him?” Lydia asked him.

“No, but his man,” Lewrie told her, plucking his napkin from his lap and dabbing his mouth, ready to rise. “He’s off Aeneas, my son’s ship!” he quickly explained.

Atop the sailor’s head was a wide-brimmed and low-crowned flat tarred hat with a long black ribbon band trailing down his coat collar. Painted in white lettering on the front of the hat was his ship’s name.

“Excuse me for a moment,” Lewrie pled, getting to his feet and going to the opened double doors from the dining room to the entrance hall.

The Lieutenant and his lady-revealed to be husband and wife, once their gloves were off and their wedding bands in plain sight-were lost in joy to be re-united, oblivious.

“My pardons, sir,” Lewrie began. “Ahem…”

The young wife spotted him and inclined her head to direct her husband’s attention from rapt adoration.

“Captain Alan Lewrie, sir. Hope you’ll forgive me for intruding on your moment, but you are off the Aeneas seventy-four, Captain Benjamin Rodgers?”

“Aye, I am, sir. Allow me to name myself to you, Captain. I am Robert Stiles. My wife, Judith,” the officer replied. She dropped a passable curtsy. “We came in just yesterday afternoon, from the Brest blockade. Do you know Captain Rodgers, sir?”

“Happy t’make your acquaintance, Mister Stiles, Mistress Stiles. Captain Rodgers and I are old friends, but more to the point is the fact that my son Sewallis, is one of your Midshipmen.”

“Oh, Mister Lewrie, aye!” Lt. Stiles said in a gush, laughing. “Forgive me for not making the connexion at once, sir. He’s one of ours, right enough, right Carter?” he said to the sailor who’d borne his shore-going traps.

“An’ a fine gennulman ’e be, sir, is Mister Lewrie,” the sailor assured him. “As smart as paint,” he added with a grin and wink.

“Glad t’hear it,” Lewrie said, a bit relieved. “I’ll attempt to get in touch with Captain Rodgers, at once, treat him to a shore supper, perhaps go aboard to see Sewallis. Thankee, Mister Stiles, and I apologise again for interrupting you and your wife. My very best wishes for a long and joyous stay in port!”

* * *