Havoc`s Sword

play-nip at his chin and paw his collarbone for attention, grunt-mewing most-plaintive. It took a good ten minutes to cosset him, and then Toulon became a heavy, hot, and furry chest plaster which he had to stroke one-handed, and read his naval letters with the other. Toulon closed his eyes and couched his large head on forepaws high under Lewrie's jaws, all a'rumble and now a'bliss, his wee breath tickling at the hollow of his master's throat.

'You're not going to sleep, there, d'ye know,' Lewrie chid him.

'Mmrrf.' Damn' nigh petulant, and 'I will if I've a mind.'

The official 'bumf' done at last, Lewrie set the last enquiry aside and eyed the pile of personal letters. Padgett, his clerk, had already written up replies for him in answer to the business matters; they merely awaited his signature. Getting to the quill and inkwell, shifting Toulon, though, would be the very Devil after his two days of absence. Lewrie sidled in his chair, squirming and reaching out with his right hand to haul in a fat personal letter without waking Toulon, fingers scrabbling cross the desk…

'Mmarr.' You heartless bastard, the ram-cat fussed as he was deposed. He was suffered to arch, slit his eyes, yawn, and curl about in his master's lap as Lewrie at last got both hands free with which to break the seal on a missive from his father, Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby, and unfold its several sheets. His, at least, were safe to read.

'Does he displease, you can eat it later,' Lewrie promised his cat, who was already eying the crinkly paper with some interest.

'My dearest wastrel son,' Sir Hugo's epistle began.

'I must really be in trouble back home,' Lewrie deduced. 'Still, rather.'

'Greetings and Salutations to you, avidly gathering the flowers of the sea, far off in the Caribbean! I trust your Flowers, meaning to say, prize-moneys, blossom nicely, and that your Constitution, ever a Corinthian 'weed's' hardiness, continues to Thrive. Pardon, pray, any discontinuity to this letter, but, the most momentous News having just arrived, I needs must convey it straightaway as the first item of interest, my previous first page be hanged.

'On the first day of August, your gallant Admiral Nelson hunted an elusive French Fleet to its lair in Aboukir Bay in Egypt, and in an action that spanned nigh eight hours, took, sank, or burned every damned one of them, their massive flagship L'Ocean, and their plucky Admiral de Brueys (or some such-like Frog spelling!) consumed in a Twinkling when she was blown to Atoms! All London, all Britain, is agog!'

'Good Christ!' Lewrie breathed, in awe, in instant pleasure… and in a tiny bit of pique to be swinging at his anchors, or cruising fruitless upon a pretty but empty sea, and to have missed it! Nelson. The man had such hellish luck.

Though details were scanty, his father waxed most rapturous on 'what little he knew. The French had landed on Malta and had taken it from the decrepit and corrupt Knights of St. John, who had held it as their feudal fief since the Crusades, cutting the Mediterranean in two and giving the Frogs a base from which to oust Admiral Jervis from those seas for a second time. Ah!

'That wee Frog you spoke of, that crude Corsican upstart by name of Napoleon Buenaparte (or some such) led their army. Why the Devil a French expedition went to Egypt, God only knows. It ain't like they'd march from there to Bengal. Had I been in command, it would have been Sardinia and Sicily, my next conquest, but the tiny bastard is French, ever an over-vaunting and gasconading Race, are they not; hence, as Unpredictable and Inexplicable as so many young misses!'

'Yer grandfather's found himself a new dictionary, puss,' Lewrie cynically confided to his cat.

'Bless me, but were you in England at this time, and did but go out in Publick in uniform, you'd not be able to buy a drink for a fortnight, Alan,' his father went on. 'Nor would you suffer to set foot on the ground, for being 'chaired' as lustily as a Member 'pon Hustings at a by-election. And, I dare say, even your poor wife Caroline, so hotly set against all things Nautical, might (for a brief respite, mind!) be more Forgiving and Charitable towards you.'

'Hmmph,' Lewrie muttered. 'That'll be the day.'

The second page had a great deal crossed out, as though the news had interrupted earlier thoughts; and Sir Hugo too abstemious to waste a fresh sheet of highly taxed paper on his own son.

His father had completed his London house, and was now ensconced on Panton Street, convenient to Drury Lane and the theatres, Covent Garden and the Haymarket, his haunts of old. And the comely women of the 'commercial persuasion' should he get the itch. Hired an excellent man to run his acres at Anglesgreen; had taken on suitable house servants; had furnished the town house deuced well (if he did say so, himself) at a reasonable expense, thankee, with the proper style suitable to a semi-retired general officer of some means-having made the recent acquaintance of Lewrie's erstwhile admirer, Sir Malcolm Shockley, Baronet, who had put him in the way of several new investment opportunities beyond his shares in East India Company, etc…

'… though I must own that Lady Lucy, his wife, is a horrid coy Baggage, little better than a common strumpet,' his father groused, at long distance. 'Both times I've dined with them, both times I've dined them in in return, her slippered little toes have nigh stroked my boots Raw. What you saw in her, in your early days, I quite understand, and admire your Taste, in point of fact, for she is the most fetching Mort, but you may thank your lucky Stars you and she formed no permanent Congress, else you'd have worn her 'horns' since '84! Poor

Shockley! So unobservant to her doings-as most men are, thank God, for I in my green youth (and you in yours, no error) both profitted from 'abandoned' women.

'Hard though it may be for you to feature it, and hard as it is for me to admit, sorely tempted though I am to give her a Tumble, there is her Husband, a most decent Fellow, and the very idea of abusing his Trust and Hospitality quite rightly daunts me. Notwithstanding losing immense profits from our mutual Enterprises, d'ye see! Pecuniary fear of Loss is not my only motive, however. Besides, I've a new one, hired by the half-evening who bears a passing likeness to Lady Lucy, new-come from Leeds, of most fetching Aspect, and (or so I speculate) as ripely blessed, and of similar pleasingly round Dimensions, not above twenty, who avails when fantasies anent Lucy come upon me.'

'Oh, good for you, ye old beard-splitter,' Lewrie groaned.

His father had been round to see Theoni Connor and Lewrie's by-blow, Alan James Connor, too, reporting that he was now a pretty little lad of two, toddling and prattling. Theoni sent her love, o' course.

'By the by,' Sir Hugo gushed onward, 'that gentlemen's Lodgings I proposed, with Sir Malcolm Shockley's eager backing once I had laid out the Particulars and Advantages to him, is now open. We obtained a rather fine 1st Rate residence, only slightly gone to seed. Upon your safe return (pray God) to England, you will be in awe.

'It sits on the corner of Wigmore St. and Duke St., just off and convenient to Oxford Baker Sts., thus easy to find, with dependable carriage service, and convenient to Govt., Finance, etc. It takes the entire corner, in point of fact, quite a palazzo, now set up for fifty with all the desired Amenities; common room, reading room, dining, etc. I myself, lacking my Panton St. house, would be tempted to engage a set of rooms, and, needless to say, should you and Caroline not have Reconciled by your return from foreign Service, you will be assured of a most lavish roof over your head, all at a tidy discount for kin, ho!'

'Notice he don't offer t'put me up under his own roof, catlin'?' Lewrie softly scoffed. 'Nor free, either, the old miser.'

He interpreted Toulon's blink and ear-flick to mean 'ain't it a miserable shame.'

Unfortunately, his father had had little progress to report when it came to making Caroline see sense. She was not going to pursue any Bill of Divorcement; quite rightly they had both surmised that it would be too expensive a proposition, with too much public shame attached… and too much enforced contact with her old, spurned beau, Harry Embleton, who, as her Member of Commons, would have to present the Bill in London. At least Caroline had sense enough to avoid that otter-faced fool!

There had been, by last report, no further 'dear friend' notes sent her, for the simple reason, Sir Hugo concluded, that he was at sea, beyond the reach of that anonymous gossip's spiteful ken, and all his previous peccadilloes had been revealed. Supposedly.

'You are, I trust,' his father had snidely penned, 'if not keeping your breeches buttoned, at least possessed of enough Caution to not flaunt any of your Venereal doings in Publick, hmm?'

'As if you ever did,' Lewrie grumbled. 'Swear t'Christ, did he get to Heaven, he'd tip