The King

'I shall be forever in your debt, Alan,' Burgess assured him, taking his hand and giving it a hearty squeeze of gratitude. He was all but piping his eyes in joy at his sudden salvation from civilian dullness. 'Don't fear what Caroline thinks.'

'Well, he didn't make it sound like Canterbury Fair, you know. God, what have I gotten you into? If anything happens to you, and it sounds hellish like it might, I'll never forgive myself. And neither would your dear sister,' Alan objected.

'You've given me the world, Alan!' Burgess said with a catch in his voice, his face aglow like a martyr promised crucifixion before sunup. 'Oh, 'tis fine for Governour to farm and pore over the accounts. He's set up with a vicar's daughter in the county. But for me, Alan… you remember when you took me aboard your frigate during the siege as a guest of the wardroom?- Just the smell of a ship…'

'Foul as they smell,' Alan drolly pointed out.

'The smell of distance,' Burgess waxed lyrical. 'Of adventure in faraway places. Hemp and tar, salt and spices…'

'Pea-soup farts and rotting cheese,' Alan said, scowling.

'To lay eyes on the East Indies, to live a life of new things to taste and smell, my God, how wondrous it's going to be!' Burgess went on in his rapture. 'Oh, it'll be hard, I know. And it'll like as not be dangerous. But the chance for glory! More'n most people'd ever suspect! You must know, I'm not cut out to be a farmer. Before the Revolution, I'd half a mind to run off and trade with the Cherokee over the Appalachians. To see what there was to see, cross mountains and rivers, all the way to the other ocean. And now you've given me my chance, Alan. I'll break free. Now I'll know what you felt as a sailor. You do not know how much I've sometimes envied you your life as a Sea Officer.'

'Just as long as you do come back a chicken-nabob,' Alan said, realizing there was nothing he could say to dissuade Burgess from making a total fool of himself. 'And when you do fetch home all those diamonds and rubies, better tote along a small sack for me as well. I mean, damme, who'd have thought old Sir Onsley would have a place for you? I warned you going in, it was a slim hope, a clerking position at best. This, though… well, maybe you should think about it…'

'I'd have never forgiven you, for certain, if that was all I could aspire to,' Burgess cracked, thumping him on the knee. 'Damme, you should be glad for me, Alan. Glad as I am.'

'Well, if it pleases you, Burge, there's nothing more I can say,' Alan surrendered. How could he tell him he thought the lad was not cut out for desperate doings, any more than he was cut out for farming? How do you tell a friend you think him too starry-eyed to prosper?

'Alan Lewrie, I should despise you!' Caroline hissed at him harshly, once the celebration had begun. She took him by the hand and led him to sit with her on a ratty older sofa away from the others, who were singing and mixing a large bowl of lemons, sugar, hot water and gin for a gala punch.

'Caroline, I swear I had no idea…' he began. It was the first time he'd ever seen her angry at anything or anyone, and it was most disconcerting to be the target of her anger.

'This… this hush-hush adventure you've gotten poor Burge into,' she whispered. 'No word of what it was? No inkling of how much danger there'll be?'

'None. Only that he's to keep mum and be ready to be received in a few days, one way or another,' Alan told her sadly, feeling just a trifle sheepish under her hot glare. 'I was all amort that the old fool'd offer anything at all, much less something like this, I tell you truly. And Burgess didn't have to accept it so quickly, either. He could have asked for a few days to think it over, but no, he had to just leap up and go all shiny-eyed over it. Don't take it out on me, I beg you, Caroline. I did what Governour and your mother bade me. I used what influence I could. How was I to know it'd turn out like this?'

'But so far away from us,' Caroline insisted. 'With the chance we'll never see him again in this life! Oh, I know it isn't your fault, Alan, but… you must see how frightened I am for him. He's always been so…'

'Unprepared for how cruel life can be?' Alan whispered back.

'You recognized it, too?' she gasped, taking his hand and wringing it like a washcloth, pressing his hand to her troubled breast, surely unaware in her bereavement of what she was doing.

God Almighty, Alan thought, feeling his innards lurch at the touch of her. I could spend the rest of the day like this!

'He'll go under, sure as Fate, I know it,' she said, weeping softly.

'It's what he wants, Caroline,' Alan told her. 'Better one chance at an adventurous life than drudging on a farm and feeling trapped. He told me as much. God pity him, he envies me all the shit… sorry… I've been through. All the exciting and exotic places I've sailed. And he may prosper. I've seen others do so, in the Navy. God help me, I prospered, and I didn't know a futtock shroud from a horse's fetlock when I first began.'

'But you're the sort of man who does prosper, Alan,' she told him, lowering her hand, and his, to her lap before her mother noticed. 'If only I knew there was someone as courageous and steady as you to look after him out there in India, or wherever he's going to be.'

'Me?' Alan tried a smile. 'Mine arse on a bandbox! I'm not as steady as you think. No one is, outside their memoirs.'

'Well, I think you are,' she whispered. 'So sure and capable. As you were when I first met you. When you organized us into your ship to escape Wilmington. Momma in her vapors and poor Daddy half out of his mind with grief, and poor me so weak and helpless.'

'I never thought you weak and helpless,' Alan assured her. 'I have always considered you the most resourceful and clever of females, Caroline.'

That softened her up right smartly.

'Say you forgive me. Please,' he beseeched.

'Oh, Alan, I do forgive you,' she relented, and gave him a wee smile, sad and wan though it was. 'He'll not have to purchase this commission. Which shall please Uncle Phineas. If it comes to fruition. There is a possibility it may not, isn't there? There's many a slip t'wixt the cup and the lip. Pray God they may choose a more experienced officer in his stead!'

'Which would crush poor Burgess, though,' Alan sighed. 'And he'd be right back where he started. I know you can't stay in London hoping much longer. He'd be back to counting sheep. It would kill him.'

'No, we can't,' she agreed. 'I must own to you, Alan, that I hoped you would be here. That we might regain our acquaintance. Your letters meant so much to me. Your… memory. Oh, pray do come to see us down in Surrey! Now that we have had a chance to speak almost daily, and to be together like this, I remember all over again how much I have delighted in your companionship. I would so enjoy you being our guest in the country. When the weather is better. And we could write each other in the meantimes. Could we not, Alan?' she suggested sweetly.

'Nothing would give me greater delight as well, Caroline,' he told her. 'I've never known anyone I like talking to more than you.'

'Come take a cup of cheer, you two!' Governour ordered from the far end of the room. There was no more privacy for them. Caroline wiped her face quickly with a handkerchief from her sleeve and put on a happy expression for her family.

'We must dine together tonight,' Mrs. Chiswick insisted, half gone on a large glass of gin punch already. 'It'll be sad even so, knowing my little Burge will be going off among the heathens, but we'll know he's doing something for King and Country. As he did so nobly during the Rebellion.' She stifled her fears-almost.

With your shield or on it, like the Spartans, Alan thought grimly. Why don't they all fall down bawling instead of acting so proud, he wondered? God knows, I'd be into the sackcloth and ashes by now.

'And our benefactor, Alan Lewrie,' Governour proposed. 'He must be guest of honor tonight!'

They raised their glasses and toasted him, making him feel even more a total fool than he had a moment before.

'Make no fuss over me,' Alan suggested. 'And I wouldn't feel right, anyway. Spend your time with Burgess. Sir Onsley didn't say when the summons would come. Besides, I cannot.'

'Alan!' Caroline cried in sudden disappointment.

'I have a dinner invitation already that I cannot break,' he told them, setting his glass down. 'But I hope you shall let me treat you to supper another night, once we've learned what Burgess is down for. Would you allow