Should it ever come my time, Alan thought, cringing at the very idea; that's
'Wouldn't do you a bit of good, would it, Toulon?' Lewrie told the ram-cat. 'Can't abide your sponge-down now, much less a swim.'
'Christ, what use is a selkie who can't swim?' Lewrie snorted, forcing himself to chuckle. Like most good English seamen, he could not swim a single lick. If a ship went down, most of them said that trying to swim only prolonged the inevitable. Or saved one just long enough to be eaten by something, right after one got one's hopes up, and…
'Damme!' Lewrie sighed, taking another refreshing draught of his brandy, shoving another fey feeling away.
Poor little Josephs, he pondered, instead; barely got his sea legs, and bam! Maybe it
A lad about Sewallis's age and size, Lewrie mourned with infinite regret; dreams shattered, terrified-started!- heartbroken, then dead, long 'fore his time!
There came the faint sound of a fiddle tune from the gun deck. Slow, lugubrious, and atonal, like what Captain Ayscough aboard
But this was one he recognized-the funeral song played for Stuart hopes, and the dead of Culloden, after the '45: 'The Flowers of the Forest.' His eyes pricked with remorseful tears. He thought, for an instant, of ordering the fiddler to cease, but…
Toulon climbed to his shoulder, to snuffle at his ear. Lewrie felt him stiffen, heard him chitter, as he did at the sight of a seabird. Claws dug into his shoulder, and the little ram-kitten's tail, which lashed before his nose, bottled up to double-size. He made his chatter again! A seabird,
Or a selkie in their wake!
'I'll not look!' he whispered, keeping his gaze firmly ahead, and taking another deep draught of brandy. 'I
And he didn't, though Toulon continued to knead and shiver his little chops, quavering, and would not get down. And lashing his tiny tail, thick as a pistol swab brush, in a frenzy. Lewrie did turn his head just enough to see Toulon's neck, his whole body, straining aft, intent as only a cat may be intent, upon
'Rot!' Lewrie muttered harshly. 'Rot, I say!
Purring like anything.
Book II
A double tide tosses me, uncertain of my course;
as when a rushing tide wages mad warfare, and from
both sides conflicting floods lash the seas and the
fluctuating waters boil, even so is my heart tossed.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
CHAPTER
1
A quick inventory, a circular course for his jittery right hand along his uniform. Cuffs shot, waistcoat tugged straight, hat set on just so. Wash-leather purse full of guineas still safe, and, a blank note-of-hand snugly ensconced in a coat pocket… well, then.
A deep, spine-straightening breath before he rapped on the door. As he waited for someone within to answer, Lewrie experimented with a range of expressions on his face. Smile? No. Frown? That wouldn't do, either. Something in-between, perhaps? Though he suspected that 'something in-between' would resemble a gas attack, or a pair of too-tight shoes. He was striving hellish hard for Ambivalent!
And why the Devil'd she remove herself to
'Yessir?' A mob-capped oldish maidservant inquired of him as the door opened with a rusty creak, at last.
'Commander Alan Lewrie…' he flummoxed out, not sure exactly what sort of expression his phyz wore, then. 'Come to call upon Mademoiselle Phoebe Aretino. Is she in?'
'God be praised, sir!' The square old crone cried in delight, clapping her hands together, and raising enough noise to wake the entire neighborhood. 'You're her Navy fella, come back at last! Come you in, sir! Come you
She bawled that with the door standing wide open. Cartmen and vendors were stopped dead in their tracks in the narrow, steep little street that straggled uphill from the Old Moles. A curate and his wife out for an invigorating uphill stroll, both clad in old rusty-black dominйe ditto, were frowning heavily as Lewrie sought some way short of strangulation to stifle the old mort's bellows.
'Mistress Phoebe!' the woman halloed upstairs. ''Tis Commander Lewrie! He's come, ma'am! Hurry!'
At least he could use his foot to slam that heavy old door, to keep their reunion somewhat private, as a delighted shriek came from above, quickly followed by the patter of petite feet on the carpet and floorboards and stairs. Lewrie's lips twitched as he attempted to regain the composure of his face anew. And trying to recall just exactly which demeanor he'd thought most suitable.
'Alain!' Phoebe cried breathlessly-almost brokenly, as she appeared on the tiny middle landing of the narrow pair of stairs. Her brown eyes were fawn-huge and lambent, as if suddenly aswim with tears of joy, and her cheeks flush with emotion.
Oh, damme, Lewrie thought with a shudder, a definite lurching in his chest, and an instant, tumbledy flood of warmth; why the Devil she have to look
He went to raise his right hand, as if to doff the hat he didn't wear to her in genteel salute, but it got no higher than his midchest, appearing to her as an invitation, before she dashed down the stairs to fling herself upon him with such a fierce ardor that he was almost driven backward, off his heels, to the floor.
He rocked one heel backward to balance, put his arms about her to hold her up, savoring all over again just how tiny, how petite and perfectly formed Phoebe Aretino was. With her arms about his neck and most happily
