'… is not to be entered into unadvisedly, nor lightly; but reverently, deliberately…' the vicar intoned, his voice ringing in stony, rebuking echoes from the transept of St. George's of the village of Anglesgreen.
'… and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by God,' the vicar continued, casting a chary eye upon the couple before him, which made Alan almost wilt. He directed bis gaze to his right, where Caroline stood flushed and trembling, ready to faint with joy, and the smile she bestowed upon him at that moment was so radiant, so shudderingly glorious, that he found himself quaking as well, not
'Into this Holy Union, Alan Lewrie, gentleman, and Caroline Chiswick, spinster, now come to be joined. If any of you assembled may show cause why they may not be lawfully married, speak now; or else forever after hold your peace,' the vicar warned, wincing at the words, as if he expected the Hon. Harry Embleton to charge through the doors at the back of the nave on horseback with sword in hand. The crowd… a devilish
'I require and charge you both, here in the presence of God, that if either of you know any reason why you may not be united in matrimony lawfully, and in accordance with God's Word, you do now confess it,' the reverend rushed on in breathy relief.
The tiniest quirk of a smile touched Alan's lips, in spite of his best intentions, as he mulled over his passionate, albeit brief, 'marriage' to a Cherokee/Muskogee Indian girl named Soft Rabbit, and wondered if it counted. No, he sighed, no benefit of proper clergy there, he thought; no way out. Damme, and my enthusiasms for quim!
How
'Caroline, will you have this man to be your lawful husband, to live together in the covenant of marriage?' the vicar inquired, not without what to Alan seemed a cocked brow in amazement. 'Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all others, be faithful unto him as long as you both shall live?'
'I will,' Caroline declared without a pause, with a tremulous eagerness and vigor, delivering upon Lewrie once more a visage of pure adoration.
'Alan,' the vicar intoned, rounding upon him, and to Alan's already fevered senses seeming to frown the
Forsake
Yet found himself declaring for all time, 'I will,' with a force born on a quarter-deck that echoed off the ancient stones like a pronouncement of doom.
There was a tentative Giving In Marriage by Uncle Phineas, in his role of
There was no backing out now, Alan thought; in for the penny, in for the pound, ain't I? Ye Gods, it may not be that bad-I do care for her, well as a rogue like me may care for anyone. I might even call it love. Much as 1 know what
H''d returned her squeeze, and they secretly leaned their shoulders against each other, and he became enveloped in the light, citrony scent of her Hungary Water perfume again.
Chapter 1
It was springtime in England! Springtime in Surrey, and the High Road south from Guildford to Anglesgreen was aflutter with the stirrings of butterflies. Young birds flitted and swooped, or sat and chirped at their good fortune to be young, alive, and English. Bees buzzed, and if one listened hard enough, one could hear green buds and tender shoots sigh with delight in the somewhat warm wind.
Two young men rode along the verge of the roadway to avoid the muddy spatters and deep ruts carved by winter traffic, and the creaking wagons and wains of the local farmers, the occasional flock of sheep being moved from one grazing to another.
One young fellow was a countryman, towheaded and sinewy on a middling hired mare, leading a pack horse upon which were strapped a few traveling bags of cylindrical leather, or pouchlike carpet material. He was dressed in a sailor's slop-trousers, shirt and neckerchief, with a low-crowned, flat-brimmed hat of black-tarred straw on the back of his head, and he gazed with a rustic's fondness on the verdant green countryside, recognizing merit and worth in well-tended flocks and fields, of trimmed hedgerows and woods.
The other was revealed a gentleman by his better horse, by the fineness of his buff-colored breeches and waistcoat, the newness of his plum-colored coat and dark beaver cocked hat, and the sheen of his top boots. This young gentleman snared the attention of passing travelers, and the interest of the farm-girls, whose sap was stirring after a long, miserable winter. There
He was three inches shy of six feet tall, trim and lean. Hair of middle, almost light, brown, crowned his head, and fell in a short queue at the back of his collar, bound with a bow of black satin,and the hair was not drawn back severely, but allowed to curl slightly and naturally at his temples, over his ears, like the bust of a Roman or Greek warrior. The face was tanned much darker than most fashionable young gentlemen would care to display, providing a background for eyes that would occasionally crinkle in delightful greetings to young farm-girls, eyes that were sometimes gray, sometimes blue. And upon one cheek, there was a slight white pucker of a scar, which gave him the dashing, rakehell air of past, and present, danger. Soldier, or sailor, most judged him. A young man who held the King's Commission from his clothing, and the way he bore himself, from his fine manners when he lifted his military-cut hat in greeting, from the effortless way he rode as if born to a house of means, with stables and the license of the hunt which did not come to the son of a crofter or tenant.
Lt. Alan Lewrie, Royal Navy, was feeling pleased as punch with himself, and with life in general, at that moment. The spirited roan gelding he rode was a sound mount, and there was nothing better to his way of thinking than to be in the saddle in the middle of a spring morning. Had his father not practically press-ganged him into the Sea Service, he might have considered a career (a short one until he inherited, he reminded himself) in a cavalry regiment What else was there for a younger son that befitted one raised the way he had been! Trade? A clerking job? Certainly not the clergy, he shuddered!
Much as he had at first despised the life he had discovered in the Fleet (and still looked upon with a chary eye as one of continual deprivation and bleakness), he had in his luggage orders that would put him in command of a ship of war, would transport him a quarter of the way around the world to the Bahamas and the West Indies, for three years of steady pay, at five shillings
And the world, for once, was at peace. Ninety percent of the Fleet was laid up in-ordinary and there would be no round-shot round his ears for a change. He did, good as he felt, admittedly suffer a tiny twinge of feyness from past experience whenever life tasted so succulently sweet. But it was a
He had been far to the west country, to Wheddon Cross in Devonshire to visit his grandmother Lewrie, now a Nuttbush, which stratagem by the old lady had saved the estate from his father's clutches, though to his cost. She had faded since his last visit in 1784, but was still among the living; though that, mercifully, could not be said of the dour old squint-a-pipes she' d wed to transfer coverture, and the inheritance, out of Sir Hugo's reach.
And now he was due at the Chiswick estate, there to languish in a lotus-eater's paradise of sleeping late, riding
