A Jester’s Fortune

No, directly across from him was Lucy, smiling so sweetly that butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, her huge aquamarine eyes so saintly-wide and cherub-innocent…! Yet, in one covert second, when conversation had lagged and the only sound was the scrape of knives and forks on fine Venetian glass plates-she'd cut her eyes to him, to see, had he noticed! And she had seemed almost amused when he'd drawn his feet away from her soft, slippered caress, or scooted his chair back a wary inch or so more!

Why, the brainless, pox-riddled trull! he'd snorted in affront. Not wed a year, and she's makin' sheep eyes at me again? Me, a man wed and… well, maybe what's in my soul shows, plain as day. But no! Not again. Not with her, certain!

They'd caught up on family doings. Her father and mother back in England, in the Midlands, along with her foppish brother Ledyard. Floss and her husband, her oldest brother and his wife Anne… and a rather sultry and seductive Anne, Lewrie had recalled in spite of his best intentions!… still in Jamaica running the plantations and the sugar, rum and molasses trade. There'd been a first husband, but he'd died in '89. There were children, now old enough to be left in care of governesses, or Eton school. Sir Malcolm's brood was grown, adult and away on their own pursuits.

'Heavens, Alan,' Lucy had almost wailed in remembered grief. 'After… I was disconsolate. Even after two years of mourning. But mother and father insisted I go to Bath to take the waters. And a bit of joy. And suddenly, one night in the Long Rooms…!'

She'd given Sir Malcolm a doting smile at that point, tousled a stray lock of his hair over his ear. And the old colts-tooth had almost whinnied in shy delight to be so fawned over!

'Neighbours… not twenty miles betwixt us, all that time, but of different parishes…!' Lucy had gushed. 'Father an investor, in the early days, though Shockley had never come to call upon us.'

'How fortunate are life's turnings,' Sir Malcolm had managed, blushing to the roots of his hair, but gazing upon his dazzling younger wife with nigh-on total adoration. 'How surprising…'

'Serendipity, sir,' Lewrie had recalled. 'From Dr. Johnson's lexicography. I think. To seek one thing of value, and unexpectedly come upon another of even greater delight, totally unlooked for.'

'How true, sir!' Sir Malcolm had sworn with heat. 'How true!'

And God help the poor bastard, Lewrie thought, tossing off his Rhenish. She always was a brainless bit o' baggage. Spooning over the old toad… and running her toes over me at the same time! And over Fillebrowne, when I wouldn't serve, I think.

Round dessert, Lucy had turned to Fillebrowne for a time, and he'd gotten a strangled look, just after she'd shifted in her chair. Followed by lidded, half-hooded eyes, Alan remembered. And a damned smug air about him, too!

Damme, is she so bound and determined to put 'horns' on Sir Malcolm Shockley, she ain't particular who tops her, 'long's it's done? She'd been just close enough to reach him with her tiny foot; he'd got that sleepy ram-cat look right after. A righteous man, Lewrie suspected, Sir Malcolm hadn't noticed. But then, the husband was always the last to suspect, in any event. And well Lewrie knew of that, and prospered from it in his wilder days among the 'grass widows.'

Should he suspect her himself? he wondered. An innocent man'd not. But then, he wasn't an innocent, was he? An innocent man would never have even caught that play between them. If that was what it was.

It wouldn't square up, dammit! What he'd known of Lucy Beauman in the West Indies, with her wide-eyed innocence, her blessed lack of worldly knowledge and weariness, well… perhaps people changed over a decade. But not by that much, surely.

And she'd been so fluttery and charming as she'd seen him out, as he'd departed before Fillebrowne. Just as if any flirtation between her and Fillebrowne had never occurred, and he was still her target! A ploy to let him know she was available? Alan speculated. A way to whet his interest, by using Fillebrowne-to make him jealous?

'Pahh!' He spat softly.

'Sir?' His cabin-steward asked, leaving off his silent puttering. 'A top-up, Aspinall,' he told him. 'And before I forget again, tell my cook I'll dine aboard Lionheart this evening.'

'Aye, sir,' Aspinall replied, headed for the wine-cabinet. Not that I didn't wish to top her long ago, Alan recalled, in his reckless, wild single days. Well, more reckless than he was now, he amended. In his teens, sure the Navy was a short wartime career, he'd been a penniless but handsome midshipman, 'bout the most fetchin' Mid there was in the entire West Indies, he reckoned smugly to himself. Dashing and rakehell, a born Corinthian, with that damme-boy glint to his eye that made prim maidens' hearts go all aflutter. The bad'uns always got the interest of the good'uns! And her family had been so rich, whilst he hadn't a hope of an inheritance, a living of any sort, beyond a poor remittance from his father-whenever Sir Hugo had remembered, or felt like, sending it. There had been hopes for a match, her family had been almost disposed to it, should he make something of himself, earn a commission. Well, he'd blown the gaff to the wide, now, hadn't he? He'd thought about her, even years after, had fantasies alone in his narrow bed-cot, and months at sea…

No, stop yourself, you damn fool! he chid himself sternly. She is married. So am I. And not a 'grass widow,' put out to pasture once the heirs were born, and a bored husband off with a mistress for sport.

And Sir Malcolms so perishiri big! he reminded himself. Not of the 'understanding' sort of fast-livers, or the City aristocrat circle, who'd stand aside or tolerate weekend 'country house' games. Not the kind, Lewrie thought, who'd partake of a mistress on the side, either. One of those 'all or nothing' gentlemen, in such decent love.

He'd have his fetchin' little wife all to himself, Lewrie realised, or put both of 'em in the cold, cold ground and be satisfied with the nothing. Made enough of a fool of myself, anyway, with Phoebe Aretino, and I'll not make that mistake again!

And certainly not with a married woman, not a married English lady-Mean t'say, damme… there are rules! 'Less both parties are amenable-that's the way it's always worked! But for a man to intrude into a reasonably happy marriage, well… that, he'd always held, was a caddish deceit.

Now, Zachariah Twigg trots Claudia Mastandrea 'cross my hawse again, he mused as Aspinall refilled his wineglass and he took a sip to cool his blood… or I cross some fetchin' mort's hawse… hmm. A night or two of 'puttin' the leg over,' four thousand miles and nigh on two years away from home, well… no harm in that. Long as it's foreign mutton… a mort I don't know. A decently amusin' courtesan… not a street whore… o' the commercial persuasion…?

But not Lucy. Definitely not! he swore to himself. And no matter how temptin' the bait she offers. Swear it, God. Swear it on a stack o' Bibles!

He put his left hand out as if to make that oath that instant. Unfortunately, his hand came down upon the desk, half upon a pile of notes from the Ship's Surgeon, Mr. Howse, and half-upon Toulon's rear, quite near his 'nutmegs.' Lewrie glanced down. Howse's notes were on the number of seamen treated with the Mercury Cure for the Pox, after their last stay in port, out of Discipline.

He didn't think that boded too well as an omen for that stern 'resolve' of his.

CHAPTER 8

One in the morning, and he'd been called from his bed, a regal and welcoming-soft real bed, in the palazzio of Count Salmatori, after a brief, bone-weary and dreamless sleep since eleven, when the Piedmontese legates had arrived in Cherasco. And still, they tried to quibble, these Royalists, these trimmers, who thought war a game, and victories and defeats temporary intrusions into their elegant lives of luxuries and privilege, serenely hair-splitting to maintain a shred of Divine Right for their odious king, Victor Amadeus.

Signores Salier de la Tour and Costa de Beauregard were both bland and vexingly obscure and sneaking. The