H.M.S. COCKEREL

'Uhm, mademoiselle la vicomtesse…' Lewrie began to explain.

'Oh, oui, Alain!' Phoebe bobbed as she laughed with delight. 'La vicomtesse! She eez la ver' sweet jeune fille. Ver' charmante. Speak vis me avec beaucoup de bonte… as eef I am bien eleve, uhm… well-born as 'er? Ver' gracieuse, mon chou. Avant, I nevair be connais vis someone si grande, vis pareil… to know someone so well- manner. Figurez-vous!'

'Aye, she is,' he replied, stepping closer to her at the bulwark to speak more guardedly. She took his right hand under her left. 'One hopes, though, Phoebe… Sophie is a very young girl, fifteen? Out of her convent barely six months, and that… forced out. Taken from the oven before she was fully baked, if you will.'

He didn't think he was doing a very good job of this; Phoebe was chuckling at his statement.

'Innocent, Phoebe,' he scowled. 'Eager to think the best of anyone. A few moments ago, when you were so familiar with me, calling me Alan, 'stead of… well… she got an inkling of our relationship. And that's why she lit out, d'ye see. Off on her own. Embarrassed.'

'Mon dieu, j'ai marche dans le merde,' Phoebe sighed, looking more and more stricken as she gathered his import. 'Quel con, ma!'

'Maybe it's not as bad as that, Phoebe,' he comforted, squeezing her hand on the rail. 'Perhaps I took her wrong, and…'

'Non, I mak' ze emmerdement, encore,' she groaned, near to crying. 'I am ze paysanne… un cul terreux. Wan' to be somebody, someday, an' 'ave non ze manners. Ze village girl! Laputain, oui? An' now, you talk a moi, comme la putain. Tell me I do wrong.'

'Phoebe…' he groaned, wondering if it was really worth it.

'Mademoiselle Sophie 'as tell me beaucoup concernant vous, mon cheri,' Phoebe said in a flat voice, her face set against her misery. She turned to cock a brow at him and chuckle sardonically. 'Zat you are marry? Zat en Angleterre, you 'ave le wife an' trois enfants?'

'Uhm, ah…' he groaned once more, gut-punched. Two nights in a row, now, they'd bedded together, and their one night aboard ship, crammed into the chart room and a nar-rowish fold-down bed cot, had been as maddening, as heavenly as the first, as inspiringly passionate and tender. No matter that he'd fulfilled his obligation, gotten her into a ship, and she could walk away as free as larks, her 'debt' paid, too. He was sure he was going to miss that, painfully. 'Aye, I do,' Lewrie was forced to confess, slumping moodily against the bulwarks. 'Phoebe, I know I have no right to rail at you, I'm sorry. I simply wished you might… for your own sake… be careful who knows about us. It hurt Sophie, I think. And it hurt you, if you wish to be her friend…'

'Pauvre Alain, mon chou,' she laughed softly, half-turning towards him, taking his hand with both of her tiny ones. 'You mak' amour comme 1'homme francais mais… in you' 'ead, you are anglais. You are marry?' she said fondly, studying his sea-roughened hand, lifting her gaze to his face, her brown eyes huge once more, mesmerising and besotting. 'Zen you are marry. J'comprend mais, je m'en fous… do not care. Ze jeune fille comme moi, she be viz beaucoup d'hommes 'oo are… marry. I do wrong. Merci bien, you correc' me. En public, ne pas encore emmerdements pour vous. Forgive me, I say you talk a moi comme putain, zat ees wrong. You correc' me, parce que… because you s'ink of 'er embarrassment. An' my embarrassment. Not on'y you' embarrassment.'

'Well…' he sighed. That wasn't exactly what he'd intended, but… if she wanted to take it that way, he'd be more than willing.

'You are good an' kin', tres affectueux vis me. I feel aussi a vous, Alain,' she sighed, turning his hand over to peer into his palm. Then she laid his hand down firmly on the railing, slid half a step to the side, and crossed her arms on the bulwark to peer out, peeking at him from time to time, behaving with seemingly public decorum.

'I do nozzing encore mak' you feel… honteux? Shame? But you mus' tell me. En private,' she twinkled briefly. 'Wan I be viz pauvre Barnaby… forgive, plais, mais… 'e waz not le bon homme. I mak' eem anger, I ask concernant vous. Forgive, j'sais 'e waz votre ami, mais… eez vrai… true? An' toujours I weesh I be vis you, zat ees you wan' me, non eem. You seulement talk a moi, si gentil. You laugh, so easy? Mak' me laugh, aussi, an' 'appy wan you are zere. Now we are lovers, I know ze amitie an' affection I feel au milieu… uhm, nous…' Phoebe paused, waving a hand to grasp the right word.

'Between us?' Lewrie supplied.

'Oui, between us, merci bien,' she nodded quickly, rewarding him with another of her radiant smiles. 'Zat eez so rare, en ze life I know. Avant you retournes a votre ship, avant I retourne a mes affaires,' she sobered. 'Am 'appy, now. 'Ow long ve 'ave, Alain mon chou? Une week, deux… ze mont ', une annee? Encore, je m'en fous. Long as you are mon cher ami. My loving frien'. An' I am votre jeune Me, an' votre amour. I demande nozzing more. I do nozzing more, mak' you be shame a moi, promesse! You weesh ze jeune dame, zan I be. En public,' she concluded with a softly muttered leer and a shift of her hips.

'I'm sorry, Phoebe,' Alan softened, knowing it wouldn't work-couldn't work, for very long, but… 'I didn't mean to sound angry with you. Forgive me. Truth? Uhm, en verite? I was just as worried about what people would say about us. About me. Can't help that. God save me, I'm a horrid beast of a man. A poor excuse. God save me, again… with a gun to my head, this instant, I couldn't walk away from you.'

'B'lief moi, Alain,' she snorted in gentle self-mockery. 'I know 'ow beas'ly men can be. You are not one of zem. Toi, je t'adore.'

'Toi, je t'adore, aussi,' he whispered, knowing he was throwing his mind away, and caring not one whit. 'Long as no one gets hurt.'

'Bien!' she laughed, suddenly girlish again, bouncing on her toes as if she wanted to fling her arms around his neck and kiss him in front of the entire world. 'An' now I 'ave ma grand amoureux, comme amant tu crйe partout, back, encore! An' monte comme un ane. Comme le Franchouillard, mais le plus formidable!'

'I'm what?' he chuckled. 'Comment? Je ne comprend pas tous…'

She cut her eyes about the deck before stepping closer to whisper, blushing with her daring. 'I say, vous est ze mos' creative lover, like ze Frenchman, but more formidable, mon amour merveilleux. An ze, uhm… mon Dieu, so easy to say en franзais, mais…' She tittered into her hands, red as a beet, stifling a howl of laughter. 'Equipй le plus, comme l'вne? Ze… donkey? La, mon Dieu, pardon…!'

'Ah?' he coughed sternly, though pleased beyond all measure. 'Well, hmm… mean t'say!'

She coughed as well, flipped up her hood to partially hide her amusement and her embarrassment. 'I be good now, Alain mon coeur, I promesse. Jusqu' а ce soir. Until tonight, n'est-ce pas? Au revoir, mon amour. Au revoir.'

'I would be most honoured, should you be able to dine with me, mademoiselle,' he said, on public show once more, doffing his hat to her and bowing her away. She dropped him a rather good curtsy, then fled.

'Bloody Hell, until tonight, then,' he crowed in a secret mutter, rocking on the balls of his feet. 'Bank on that, ma chйrie.'

Chapter 4

The last diners had been served, the last families had slowly shuffled forward to the galley on the mess deck, with poor pewter or wood messware, soldier's issue tin plates and cups, or aristocratic china with sterling silver. Where they'd eaten had been their problem to solve, since there were too many for wardroom, midshipmen and great-cabin tables, for the petty-officers' messes. But they had all gotten a full belly of boiled potatoes, a quarter- loaf of crusty dry bread, a slice of cheese, and a portion of salt-beef carved off hard joints. And a half-pint of vin ordinaire.

So much shipping had mustered round Fort St. Louis that they had moved Radical in the late afternoon to a new anchorage close by the Cape Sepet peninsula, just under the battery named 'The Brothers,' waiting for the signal to sortie. Waiting for Captain Sir William Sidney Smith and his party, and the Spanish under Admiral Don Juan de Langara, to begin the destruction of the French fleet.

There was not another inch of room in the Great Road. Seventeen Spanish sail of the line, and God knew how many lesser warships in attendance. Twenty-one British, plus frigates, sloops and brigs of war… and French warships taken from the basin.

Commerce-de-Marseille, the magnificent 120-gunned 1st Rate, the