'She got sick soon after we wed,' Lewrie continued, his voice most believably husky, with many a pause to marshall fresh stages in a tale of woe. 'All the coal smoke… she began to suffer a wracking cough, sometimes spotted her handkerchief… We tried an apothecary at first. Then a naval surgeon I knew. He sent us to a proper physician, who sent us to a London physician, and it all cost so bloody, bloody much, and… nigh onto an hundred pounds, yet she still went weaker and paler, wasting away. And carrying our first child as-'
Charite flung herself on him, trembling fingers pressed on his mouth. She kissed him with a fierce, life-giving hunger for almost a whole minute, then sank her head into the small of his neck, sobbing!
You mis'rable, fraud bastard! Lewrie scathed himself, glad that she could not see his face. He wanted her yet wasn't sure he could look her in the eyes, not after this. His wife, Caroline, had sickened once, when he'd been so far away in the Mediterranean, and it had been a near-run thing that she'd lived and, recalling that, and his being so estranged from her sweetness now, his own eyes grew moist, but… the shudders that took him, that could have been mistaken for response to his old grief for a dead wife, were the result of sour amusement! At himself, mostly, for being such a charlatan, for being such a good liar!
'You stole to save her. Oh, Alain. That is so… noble,' she said at last, rising on one elbow and swiping her tears. 'You were almost… admirable!'
'Didn't help, though,' Lewrie said, flinging an arm over his eyes as a mask. 'I was court-martialed and flung out. Signed aboard a Yankee ship in Falmouth as a mate and got by. But the captain, an idiot, wrecked her off the Cape Fear. Ran her on a shoal they call the Lump, 'twixt Old and New Inlets into Wilmington. I decided to be an American… New world, new life?… and damned if aboard my next ship, as Second Mate, a British frigate didn't stop us and nearly press me 'cause they said my certificate was fraudulent? Hah!'
'So, you come on a Yankee ship to New Orleans?' she asked, and he fretfully caught what sounded hellish- like… connivance, gentle, beguiling probing in her tone; this made him forget his false tales and perk up and take notice.
'No,' he answered, wondering why she sounded so curious about his means of transport. 'I came on the Azucena del Oeste. She's the Panton, Leslie Company brig. British-owned, but Spanish-flagged, if you can feature it. They hired me on at Charleston, after I cooled my heels there a few weeks, looking for another ship. Where I washed up when Wilmington had nothing to offer,' he quickly stuck in, about to confuse himself. 'As a new American, I can go inland, up the Mississippi to the Yankee settlements. They talked up the opportunity… and this part of the world, like it was the Promised Land. 'Get in on the beginning,' they swore. A little outside my normal line o' work, but for command of river boats now and then, but… it sounded damn' promising. And…' he paused, allowed himself some bashfulness, as if coaxing a shy miss to bed; back on his stride once more. 'Indians to see… hundreds of miles of unspoiled wilderness! I s'pose I like the idea of a… a fresh, new adventure, and nothing the same, twice! A share of the profits, for my share of the risk, and… do I find a parcel of land that suits, well… start my own freehold.'
'That is what you do for Panton, Leslie, Alain?'
'Filled in as a ship's mate, on the way here. Head up guards for their pack-trains,' Lewrie speculated, as if he meant it. 'Hoist my own 'broad pendant' someday… commodore of the canoes or barges, if their river trade from New Orleans gets that big.'
'So… you would come back often to New Orleans, mon cher?' Charite teasingly asked, her blue eyes merry and beguiling once more. She leaned against him, stroking him with a sleek, soft thigh, breasts pressed against the side of his chest. And Lewrie was delighted that her near-side nipple was beginning to stiffen.
'Now, would you find that so extremely… pleasurable?' he teased right back, immensely relieved that they seemed done with his bogus curriculum vitae and were back to intimate trifles. He stroked her bare hip, purring to her, his voice deep and inveigling.
'Alain…' Charite posed, frowning in thought and coyly biting on her delectable lower lip for a second or two, 'New Orleans is going to be a tres important seaport, no matter how far from the ocean. The American trade up the Great River, what our planters grow… not only the cane for sugar, molasses, and rum, but now the rice and cotton, and both so much closer to get than from India or China, n'est-ce pas? If our businessmen need to send goods out where they can make profit, other than in Spanish ports,' she sneered, 'we will need ships of our own, else the Yankees or Spaniards rob us blind. The, uh…'
'The carrying charges, aye,' Lewrie said with a nod and a sip of his wine, 'the freight. So?'
'Upriver, up and down all the bayous, there are so many rich men,' Charite slyly enthused, cuddling up to him so she could look him directly in the eyes, 'men who would pay to have ships of their own to carry their goods, to bring in the fine things they desire, even from China or India! They would form the, ah… syndicates, oui? to create a fleet of their own ships. And, those rich men would pay a capitaine extremely well to manage the nautical details that they do not know … n 'est-ce pas, mon amour ami? '
'What? D' ye mean they'd hire me on?' Lewrie laughed, picturing that fantasy. 'So I could be an underpaid mate again?'
'Non, Alain… a capitaine of your own ship,' Charite cajoled, 'The sort of ship our rich men would pay you to design and have built, then command! With a share in the profits, perhaps? And later, after the profits grow very huge, you command all the ships, one of the syndicate directeurs. A seat on the board of a firm as important and rich as your old British East India Company, peut-etre? A seat on the board of a bank… a planter with hundreds of arpents of land, with the town house and the country mansion, aussi/ Hundreds of slaves to work your lands and make you even richer, to serve at your every beck and call…'
And I'm t 'mount you every time you feel an itch, hey? he thought in amusement; Though, damme… it does sound tempting!
Lewrie shammed a far-off, speculating expression, one eyebrow cocked. Was Charite posing a legitimate proposition? Or was it merely a girlish daydream? She could not be much older than nineteen or twenty in his estimation, not that long away from dry tutors and even drier chaperoning nuns, raised as bleakly as most Catholic girls were. Though, she had galloped a good distance from whatever tutors and nuns had driven into her, Lewrie cynically thought. And dammit…
She was absolutely lovely. From her speech and manners-minus her odd penchants for drinking, card-playing, men's clothing, and fucking notwithstanding-Charite obviously came from good family and ran in rich (though sporting) circles. So…
Why ain't she married off and cloistered already? he worried; That's the way they do it in Popery, ain't it? Get 'em engaged soon as they're fourteen, wed em off at seventeen? Damme, why hasn't some beau-nasty put in a bid… or does she scare most of 'em off? Black sheep? Blotted her copy book, has she?
'Now, that'd be, ah… that'd show the bloody Royal Navy!' Alan decided to tell her, just to see where it would lead. For if someone in New Orleans wanted his own ship, they came much cheaper if pirated, and even an innocent interest in a ship of his own might smoak out a seller who'd been involved in stealing ships, and Charite would be the one who might steer him to that seller, that supposed 'syndicate' that backed the piracy; and her all unwitting! And in the meantime… she'd be his temporary 'ride,' even if nothing came from it!
Oh, what fun! Lewrie lewdly chortled to himself.
'Captain Alan Willoughby, of the Willoughby Navigation Company! I rather like the sound of that,' he
