The King`s Commission

your husband on and I'll chop him to flinders! If he wants to blaze, I'll put a pistol ball right through him! If that makes you a deliriously happy widow into the bargain, then be damned to you!'

'You shall regret this,' she rasped, her face paling. 'I thought you were a young man of my own tastes, grown beyond the petty strictures of our hypocritical society. But I now see you're just another common sort. A secret hymn-singer with no courage to live his own life.'

'Better that than a draggled whore who has to hire men to top her.' He grinned, finished his wine and flung the glass across the room to shatter on the stuccoed wall. 'Damme, have I ruined the set? A pity, ain't it. Bye, love.'

On his way to Hugh Beauman's town house, he bought a light gutta-percha cane, little thicker than his index finger. When the servant announced him, Anne came running out into the front hall.

'Hugh is not here, Alan. And you should not be,' she warned.

'Where is he, then?' Alan asked. 'I have things to discuss with him.'

'He went to father Beauman's. Oh, surely, you won't fight him! He's ready to kill you! Do anything but fight him.'

'When he asks, tell him this. You took the risk to your repute to warn me off Betty Hillwood, do you understand?' Alan told her. 'You knew, you would have sent me a letter, but you saw me in town and took the risk. There is nothing between us and you touched my hand once.'

'He would not believe me,' she almost wailed, sure that blood would be spilled before the day was out.

'Blame it all on Betty Hillwood, remember that. She started the rumor, her or her friends, to get even with me.'

'He will not speak to me, so how may I tell him anything?'

'Because of Captain Mclntyre?' Alan asked.

'How… Oh God.'

'I'll not see you hurt any more, Anne,' he promised. 'I've most like lost any chance with Lucy, but I'll get you out of this. Remember what I said.'

'Lieutenant Alan Lewrie, sirs,' the butler announced, and Alan stalked past him to confront Hugh Beauman and his father, both of whom looked shocked that he would even dare show his face to them. But after they got over their shock, their angry expressions prophecied a hanging.

'There, sir,' Alan said, flinging the gutta-percha walking stick to the parqueted floor at Hugh Beauman's feet. 'If you feel the need to use that on me, feel free. Should you wish it occur in the main plaza, we may go there, and I shall be completely at your disposal. I shall not defend myself.'

His boldness disarmed them, as he thought it might, allowing him to present his case before they dredged their thoughts back into order.

'Mister Beauman, Master Hugh, I have been a complete, callow fool, and I humbly beg your forgiveness for any taint of scandal that might have touched your family. But I assure you as God's my witness Mistress Anne Beauman is completely blameless. If you will indulge me?'

'Um, yes, little privacy, what?' Beauman, Sr., stammered, waving his hand towards a small parlor or study off the main hall. Once the doors were shut, Alan took the offensive once more.

'I would take a public whipping to settle this if that is what it takes,' he repeated.

'You squired my wife about the town, sir,' Hugh began, working up his anger once more, now that they were in private. 'You were seen fondling her, sir. What manner of man would expose a proper lady to that, dragging her into a public-house, sir?'

'Because I needed warning, sir, and she took the risk to her reputation to repair a greater risk to the Beauman family reputation. You should be thanking her, as I do.'

'Warnin'?' the older man scoffed. 'About what?'

'About Betty Hillwood, sir,' Alan replied. 'That's what I was a fool about. I was visiting her, to work off the humors of the blood.'

'Ah,' Mr. Beauman coughed. 'I see. You an'… at clicket, eh?'

'Like foxes, sir,' Alan admitted with a worldly smile. 'Better her than a public-house whore-less chance of the pox.'

There was a chance they would understand: the Beaumans were an earthy lot. From what he had heard of them, they could empathize.

'Being in the company of such a beautiful young lady as your Lucy raised my humors to the boiling point, and I thought it best to release that tension, sirs. And if my suit was to be a long one-and you note I use the past tense, sirs, since my foolish behavior has raised such a tempest I doubt you could entertain my hopes further-I feared the frustration would cause me to do something untoward.'

'Damme, you're a bold 'un!' Mr. Beauman gaped. 'You sport with another woman to avoid rapin' my daughter if your… bloody humors… get outa hand, and I suppose you think we should be thankin' ya?'

It was the longest and most complete sentence Mr. Beauman had ever uttered, and it stopped Alan cold in his tracks for a moment.

'What man, faced with a long courtship of a sweet and proper young lady, could do otherwise, sir, and retain his sanity?' Alan asked them. 'In your own courting days, Mister Beauman, was there no release for you? Did not the long delay of hoped for satisfaction drive you to distraction?'

'Well, there was a tavern wench'r two…' the older man began to maunder.

'Father, that's not the bloody point! He's ruined Anne's good name, and I want satisfaction,' Hugh barked, bringing them back to the meat of the matter.

'But Mrs. Hillwood is the point, sir,' Alan doggedly went on. 'Who do you think started the rumor in the first place? Her and her friend Mrs. Howard, sending their servants to peep and pry and report back with gossip to liven their lives, or give them an advantage. I met Anne as I was leaving Mrs. Hillwood's. She would have warned me off with a letter, but she took the risk to accost me, then and there. I rode in her carriage down to the dress-maker's and went inside with her. I stood by the door, feeling like a damned fool to even be in the place. Not a word, not a gesture of anything improper occurred, sir. We then went for something cool to drink to revive her as she was wilting in the heat, and to find a place where she could impart her timely warning that I should best stop visiting the woman, not only for the good of the Beauman family name, but for mine own. To stress how important it was, as she spoke of her fondness for Lucy and the Beauman family, she touched my wrist once. And as I poured out my own problem with Mrs. Hillwood, I admit to taking her hand and beseeching her what to do about the mess I had made. That is all that passed between us, Master Hugh. I did not think that an establishment so seemingly refined as the Frenchman's… what you may call it… a restaurant… would be looked upon as a public place. Back in London, it has become the custom that ladies may frequent eating establishments, as long as they do not contain rooms to let. All the quality do so, and I didn't know it was any different here on Jamaica.'

When in doubt, trot out the aristocracy as an example, he told himself. No one wants to appear out of the latest fashion.

'You swear on your honor?' Hugh Beauman demanded, unready to relent.

'For a gentleman to say it is to swear to its truth, sir,' Alan shot back, a little high- handed at the slight of his honor, though he sometimes doubted if he truly had any to slight or get huffy about. 'If you demand more, then I swear on my honor as an English gentleman and as a commission Sea Officer that events happened as I said.'

'What problem with Betty… Mrs. Hillwood, sir?' the older man asked.

Thank bloody Christ for you, Alan though gratefully. 'The lady became a bother, Mister Beauman. She took a greater fancy to me than I thought was good. She gave me this chain and fob, and promised more of the same, if I became her kept man and topped her regular. When I told her no, she vowed to get even, no matter who got hurt. If not by this rumor she spread about me and Anne, then by another means, a letter I was foolish enough to write her.'

'What sort o' letter?' Mr. Beauman asked, fetching out a squat brandy decanter and beginning to pour himself a drink.

'A rather risquй… no, I don't think risquй does it justice. Pornographic, would be more like, sir,' Alan confessed, putting on his best shame-face and hoping they would eat this up like plum duff. 'She dictated it, I wrote it. As a game, you see. Between bouts.'

'Ah?'