“The officer is from your son’s ship?” Lydia asked once he was seated with her again, and getting a warm-up of his coffee.
“Aye, he is,” Lewrie happily told her. “God, I haven’t seen Sewallis since May of 1803, and damned few letters from him in the meantime. Haven’t seen Benjamin Rodgers, his captain, in a dog’s age, either! The Adriatic, in ’96!” I must buy him at least
“And treat your son to something better than salt meats, too?” Lydia asked, looking a touch sombre.
“Of course!” Lewrie declared, his head full of plans.
“Captain Rodgers knew you early on, I think you said. When… when your wife was alive,” Lydia continued, fiddling nervously with a coffee spoon. “Perhaps I should not be present when… if they’ve kept up with the papers. I might bring bad feelings…”
He peered at her gravely, taking a long breath, then reached to take her free hand. “Lydia, I don’t give a damn what they’ve read or what they’ve heard. I’m done with mourning Caroline’s passing, and I’m fortunate enough to have met someone new who’s become dear to me. I’m not the sort t’sneak about, or shove you into an
“You’ve become very dear to me, as well, Alan,” Lydia told him with a fond, almost shy smile. “If you wish me to meet them and be with you, then I shall. Gladly.”
“Such a grand lass!” Lewrie congratulated her.
“Know who that was?” Lt. Stiles was telling his wife once they had gone above stairs to their temporary lodgings. “‘Black Alan’ Lewrie, the one who was tried for stealing slaves to crew his ship, and got away with it! A real fighting frigate captain, knighted and made Baronet last year. The ‘Ram-Cat’, some call him. Oh, he’s made a name for himself!”
“The ‘Ram-Cat’?” his wife asked, puzzled.
“For the scrapping way he goes after England’s enemies. Or for keeping pet cats since his first command.” Lt. Stiles breezed off.
“Well, which is it?” Mrs. Styles asked.
“I’m
“I’ll write a quick note,” Lewrie was planning. “Two, really, and find a bum-boat t’bear ’em out to
“So, you may be gone ’til dusk,” Lydia speculated, “and not be back ’til tomorrow morning? Since you cannot be out of your ship at night?”
“Oh, well, there is that,” Lewrie said back, deflating. “You would be twiddlin’ yer thumbs, with the weather too foul for shopping. Not that shopping in Portsmouth’s got a jot on London, hey?”
“Surely there are art gallerys that feature nautical paintings,” Lydia mused. “Something realistic depicting a frigate, to remind me of you when you’re gone. And realistic enough to allow me to lecture Percy on every detail,” she added with a mischievous grin and another impish wrinkle of her nose. “He’s bored
“You’d go out in this raw chill? You’d catch your death!” he objected.
“And you won’t risk the same?” Lydia scoffed. “Go then, and I’ll see you on the morrow. I’ll dine in alone this evening. And I will tuck myself in with a good novel. And sleep by myself,” she said as she leaned closer, her lips curled in secret amusement. “Though I will confess that that will not be as warm, or as blissful, as that nap of ours.”
“I wish I could kiss you this instant,” Lewrie told her in a hoarse mutter, after a quick peek round the dining rooms.
“One to warm you just before you go out into the cold,” Lydia promised.
“With expectations of more, tomorrow,” Lewrie wished aloud.
“Most assuredly,” she vowed.
CHAPTER THREE
“Well, damme!” Captain Benjamin Rodgers boomed as he barrelled up to the starboard gangway and entry-port of his two-decker Third Rate to greet an un-looked-for arrival. “Will ya look at who turns up? I haven’t clapped eyes on ya in ages, and here ya are. Hallo, Alan, and how the Devil do ya keep?” he hoorawed taking hands with his old compatriot from the Bahamas between the wars, and the Adriatic.
“Main-well, all considered, Benjamin, and how the Devil are you? It
“The word you’re looking for is
“A sight for sore eyes, no matter,” Lewrie assured him.
“Let’s go aft and get out of this bloody raw wind,” Rodgers insisted. “What say ya to a glass or three of hot punch?”
“I say lead on, soonest!” Lewrie laughed.
Once out of boat-cloaks, hats, swords, and mittens, and warming their hands and backsides near a Franklin- pattern iron stove, Rodgers let out a slow whistle. “Knight of the Bath?” he said, jutting his chin at Lewrie’s sash and star. “I may have to bang my head on the deck in
“Last Spring,” Lewrie said with a grimace. “S’posed t’be for a squadron-to-squadron fight off the coast of Louisiana, but it’s my belief that it was for Caroline. Some cynical bastards used her murder t’stir up war fever. This is the reward. I don’t like wearin’ it.”
“Then why do you?” Rodgers asked, cocking his head over.
“A lady’s insistence,” Lewrie told him, heading for a leather-covered chair by the settee grouping.
“Life does go on,” Rodgers said, joining him. “Punch, Dugan,” he called to his cabin servant. “Truly, I’m sorry I couldn’t come to Anglesgreen and attend her funeral, but I was too far off when I got word of it. God, I can picture the two of you to the life, newlyweds at Nassau. What a grand house she made of that gatehouse cottage off East Bay. She was a grand girl, and damn the French for killing her.”
“Your letter was most comforting, all the same,” Lewrie replied. “Did you ever marry?”
“Aye, I finally did!” Rodgers boasted, pointing to an oil portrait that was hung above the sideboard in his great-cabins dining coach. Lewrie turned to peer at it, discovering an image of a pert-faced and blue-eyed woman with masses of dark brown hair. “Susannah and I met in Reading, just after I paid off my last ship after the Peace of Amiens, and hit it right off. Imagine, a ‘scaly fish’ like me, well into my fourties, turned ‘calf-eyed cully’ over a lady of twenty-seven, but… it’s been grand. We even have a boy, he’s two, now. I’ve even had to re-learn dancing, can you feature it, haw?”
“I’m glad for ye, Benjamin,” Lewrie was quick to say. “Though, it’s hard t’be a father in our trade. Or a
