The Captain`s Vengeance

exclaimed.

Charite broke out in giggles, gave him a congratulatory embrace, then sat back and took away his wineglass to set on the nightstand on her side of the bed. Lewrie snuggled down in bed, expecting a hug…

She spun about and leaped atop him, pinning him to the mattress and his hands to the pillows, shifting demandingly astride of him.

'You have the six preservatifs remaining, mon c?ur?' Charite coo-asked, writhing against his groin, her face and eyes alight with greed. 'Ooh, tres bien!'

'Laisser les bons temps rouler!''Lewrie hooted in return.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Mr. Pollock appeared to be in fine fettle when Lewrie trundled into the eatery he had specified for breakfast. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, as some might put it, in point of fact, and bubbling over with bonhomie as he untucked his napkin from under his chin and courteously rose to greet him.

'Ah, good morning to you, Mister Willoughby. I trust you slept well? The set of rooms I suggested proved pleasing?' Pollock gushed.

'Barely a wink,' Lewrie replied as he dragged back a chair and sat down at the table, smirking, despite his seeming complaint.

'Oh, so sorry,' Mr. Pollock said, frowning in concern as he sat down himself. ' 'Twas a quiet place when I lodged there. Nothing too disturbing or dangerous, I trust?'

'The company I kept, actually,' Lewrie said with a worldly leer.

'Ahem!' Pollock shied, primly nigh-appalled. 'This will not… descend to common talk, will it, Mister Willoughby? A gentleman never tells, after all, ah… ahem! What?'

What a fine hymn-singer he is! Lewrie wolfishly thought; After what my lady concierge told me about him and his 'shore wife. ' Kept her there, beforehand! A lovely near- White Octoroon she said! Put me to spyin', my man, you'l1 never know what /'// discover!

'I didn't intend to give you chapter and verse, no,' Lewrie said to soothe Pollock. 'Most p'culiar, though… I wandered into the Pigeon Coop cabaret you mentioned, and there was this most adorable wee fellow…'

'Hey, what?' Pollock nearly screeched, blanching. 'Ahem?'

'She was a girl, Mister Pollock… play-acting in men's togs,' Lewrie quickly assured him. 'Made sure o' that! A full inspection… keel to truck. She said she was from a proper Creole family here in town… out for a stolen night of gambling and fun whilst her folks are in the country. Well-spoken and mannered, obviously educ-'

'Well, I rather doubt that, Mister Willoughby,' Pollock drawled back, once he'd gotten over his utter shock and no longer looked like he'd dive out the window shutters in disgust; now he was condescending and simpering with superior local lore. 'Proper young Creole ladies never indulge in such, in such low haunts. Sons, however, are expected to, are even encouraged to sloth, indolence, and vice. Daughters, good'uns, might as well be raised to be nuns. No no, sir! I suspect you were spun a merry tale by a cunning bawd who earns a high 'socket fee,' ahem!… for her ah, novelty,' Pollock tut-tutted, blushing.

'Didn't ask for tuppence,' Lewrie rejoined quickly, boasting a bit. 'Well, a brace of champagnes, and she did take me for ten pounds at Boure before we left the cabaret. Intriguin' game, that, but never a word about being for hire. Oddest, most intriguing girl, too…'

Pollock winced, as if Lewrie would descend to Billingsgate smut to describe his evening, but was saved by the waiter's arrival. A cup and saucer was placed before Lewrie without asking, and a stout coffee was poured. 'The omelettes are quite good here,' Pollock said instead.

'French style… piss-runny and underdone?' Lewrie scoffed.

'A Catalan Spaniard owns the place, so they're properly done,' Pollock advised. 'Quite succulent with their ham or bacon.' To which suggestion Lewrie took heed and placed a hearty four-egg order.

His coffee was stout and strong, the best ever passed his lips, but with an odd, bitter aftertaste, a tang that put Lewrie in mind of the ink-black council brew the Muskogee Indians inaptly termed 'White Drink' that caused copious perspiring, pissing, and purifying puking.

'South American or Mexican coffee beans, hereabouts,' Pollock explained, 'though I do prefer the Turk or Arabica. The climate and soil in Louisiana is much too damp for coffee, and sometimes subject to frost. With the war on, the locals eke out their imports with the local equivalent, chicory. Tasty, once you develop a palate to it. With sugar and cream. Lots of cream, I'd advise, which makes what the French call a cafe au lait.'

'Hmmm… better,' Lewrie agreed, after a liberal admixture and a second taste. A smallish platter of little crescent-shaped sugared rolls sat between them, on which Pollock had been snacking before his own breakfast arrived, and Lewrie tasted one… or two or three. A French breakfast, he'd found in his Mediterranean travels, always did lean towards a lot of breads.

'Towards the end, the girl seemed quite taken with me,' Lewrie continued his tale, in a confidential voice.

'Indeed,' Mr. Pollock frostily commented. 'Ahem?'

'She mentioned the possibility that ex-Lieutenant Willoughby, RN, might make his fortune as captain of a New Orleans-owned merchant ship, maybe even end up master of an entire fleet of merchantmen, did I play my cards right. All sorts of hints that their new crops of rice and cotton are the coming thing, and that she was on good terms of some sort with a fair number of the rich and powerful who'd fund the ships I'd design, or go survey and buy for 'em. Damme, but these… whatevers are good!'

'She did, did she?' Pollock mused aloud, perking up and giving at least one ear to Lewrie's tale. 'Well, well… oh, but that might have been but wee-hours 'pillow talk,' ' he piffled a moment later as he tore one of those little rolls in two, stared at both bites, as if unable to decide which to swallow first, and mulled all that over.

'Not the sort of offer one hears from a common trull, don't ye know,' Lewrie pointed out. 'Usually, the well- pleased strumpets hint at 'going under the protection' of the lout, is he a gentleman of any means… or making him her bully-buck and pimp for a cut of the profits t' keep her safe on the streets. Lurk near her rooms…'

'Indeed.' Pollock icily glared at him.

'Well… or so I've heard,' Lewrie replied, shifty-eyed, making a throat-clearing 'Ahem' of his own before furthering his point. 'The way she suggested it, her understanding of syndicates and such, and her air of… actual gentility was what convinced me that it might be-'

'Dressed in men's attire, I b'lieve you said she was?' Pollock interrupted.

'Aye, and with a false mustachio pasted on her upper lip, too,' Lewrie sulkily insisted.

'Well, surely… ahem!' Pollock brightened, bestowing upon his breakfast partner an almost pitiable look, 'a girl out on the town who dresses so… perhaps well-raised once, as you described, I grant you… might delight in spinning phantasms about herself, about what she could do for you. Telling you everything or anything she thought you wished to hear once she'd sounded you out. Either for your monetary support and, uh… protection later on, or… scalping you for ten pounds, or fourty Spanish dollars, was her night's earnings. Anything she dreamt up afterward was moonbeams, and you her, ah… pleasurable, but unwitting, baa-lamb, Lew… Willoughby.'

'Well, now really!' Lewrie objected, though not too strongly. There was a sordid possibility that he'd been gulled. God knows, it wouldn't have been the first time! He crossed his arms and grumped.

'And was this after you fed her your, ah… alias?'

'Aye,' Lewrie replied, tight-lipped.

'And did she supply one of her own?' Pollock asked, nigh leering.