The Captain`s Vengeance

'Charite Bonsecours, she said she was,' Lewrie told him. 'And in the course of our card game, she introduced me to a pair of brothers by name of Darbone, who sat in with us.'

'Oh, sir,' Pollock commiserated with a world-weary shake of his head. ' 'She was their handmaiden most-like! An attractive lure to get you bedazzled, off your guard, and skinned by a pair of sharps!'

'They barely won five silver dollars each off me, ten at most,' Lewrie countered, 'and they each bought a fresh bottle of champagne to keep the game going, 'cause… well, I got the impression as we were intent on leaving for my rooms that… they seemed more jealous than disappointed. And, sir! If she was their man-trap, why wasn't she in a revealing, gauzy gown, with her poonts hangin' out? Why suited, booted, and damn-near spurred?'

'I know of the Darbones, though I cannot recall…' Mr. Pollock deeply frowned, almost chewed on a thumbnail. 'I know most of the established Creole families, if just in passing. What were their names?'

'One was Baltasar, t'other, ah… Claude,' Lewrie dredged up at last. 'They were all fair-haired, chestnut-ey, I'd say, and blue eyed. In fact, they all three bore a striking resemblance to each other.'

'Oh, half the Creoles in Louisiana fit that description,' Mr. Pollock pooh-poohed. 'They all marry their distinguished cousins.'

'So one of the Darbone brothers said, about the resemblance… nothing about the cross-eyed cousins part,' Lewrie replied. 'She was a very fetching girl, most…'

'Hmmm… pity you were not intrigued enough to follow her home and get to the bottom of the matter,' Pollock grumpily commented.

'By cock-crow, 'twas all I could do to hand her down the stairs to the door!' Lewrie countered with a smug look. 'Had an old captain, said whenever he made a grand night of it ashore, by the time he'd come back aboard, he hadn't had a wink, and one more passionate kiss, or a cold breakfast, would've killed him!'

'And one had hopes you wouldn't boast, ahem, ' Pollock despaired with a heavy sigh. 'Still… Charite Bonsecours, didje say? Hmmm, how old? Under twenty, or about twenty, ah-ha. I can't say that I am able to place her, though French Creole families don't trot their females out, in the main. Not quite as bad as Hindoo purdah, but…'

'Well, perhaps your wife, being a local lady, might know 'em,' Lewrie offhandedly suggested, slyly watching Pollock's reaction.

'My wife!' Pollock instantly bristled. 'How did you-'

'My concierge, your former landlady, told me she took the young lady you boarded with as your epouse,' Lewrie said, intrigued, and wondering what it was he'd said to nettle the man.

'Yes, well… ahem, ' Pollock said, strangling, purpling, and tugging at his neck-stock. 'My wife, of course.'

'Once we've eat, shouldn't we call on her to ask what she knows about the Bonsecours and the Darbones?' Lewrie coyly hinted, his mien as seemingly guileless as the densest, most uninterested cully.

'I doubt there's need of that, Mister Willoughby,' he snipped back, as if scandalised by the suggestion. 'Colette is, ah… ahem! indisposed.'

She that ugly? Lewrie maliciously thought; Is he ashamed about her, 'cause she 's not lily-white or he's proper-married somewhere? I just have t 'clap eyes on her 'fore we leave New Orleans!

'Wouldn't it be worth it to run this Charite Bonsecours to her lodgings, then?' Lewrie suggested, 'to see if she knows what she was boasting about? If I posed ready to bolt your employment and enter theirs, it might lead to the ones who back our pirates. I might even get hired to be a pirate captain myself!'

'I s'pose we could…' Pollock somberly mused. 'It might not cause too much harm. Could you dissemble well enough. Ah, breakfast!' he cried, instead, glad for the interruption.

Middling large platters were slid before them, holding omelettes as big as roof shingles, oozing cheese and done to a perfect firm turn, laced with bits of red onion and bell pepper. Each platter bore slabs of ham as large- about as ox hooves, half an inch thick. A woven straw basket of piping-hot croissants arrived, too, a fist-sized ball of soft and sweating fresh, salted butter, and an array of local preserves.

'Tasty,' Pollock enthused over each ravishing bite, 'and all for a song, don't ye know. You'll not find this in an English four-penny ordinary… which is the equivalent cost, here. I've come to love New Orleans… though not its summer climate. Or its current owners,' he muttered from the side of his mouth.

'I expect it'd be much cleaner, were someone other than the Dons in charge,' Lewrie said, snickering. 'Put in gutters or something… shovel up the horse dung, hire indigents to sweep the garbage into the river, at least. Town drains… gurgle, gurgle, gurgle!'

'We'll not talk of that,' Pollock warned in a faint whisper. 'Dung and garbage?' Lewrie twinklingly quipped. 'Why not?' 'The, ah… change of ownership, ahem,' Pollock hissed, leaning closer in the act of reaching for the salt cellar.

'Oh,' an only slightly chastened Lewrie replied.

'As for our other matter, sir,' Pollock continued to mutter. 'Both Lanxade and Balfa have been seen in New Orleans within the past two days. Done up in new finery… Balfa in shoes and stockings, for a rare once, and shop- ' ping like an unexpected heir. You ride well, do you, Mister Willoughby?' Pollock suddenly queried, putting Lewrie off his stride with the question.

'Hmm? Aye, main-well, in point of fact,' Lewrie answered, at a loss. 'We plan to gallop out to their secret 'rondy' and scrag 'em in broad daylight?'

'Their present whereabouts are unknown to me, their exact location,' Pollock said, shying back again by Lewrie's aggressive air. 'I merely suggest that we go for a long ride today. You're new here… I, as your putative employer, must show you the sights, orient you to the city,' Pollock explained, buttering a roll. 'It may be that whilst gadding about, we either spot them and their lair, or make discrete enquiries of them. 77/ do that part, I'm known, and, ah… harmless, ha! In the course of things, we could also survey Lake Pontchartrain, what the lay of the land looks like to you.'

Well, I wasn 't going to draw sword, yell 'Yoicks, Tally Ho, ' and charge at the first sight of 'em! Lewrie told himself; I ain 't a total fool. A passin'-fair fool at

times, but…

'Are we not successful today, we could ride tomorrow as well, does the weather turn off fair,' Pollock suggested, louder this time, as if nattering with a new employee for real, playing the genial host to a brand-new city. 'Out east, there's still land going begging, if you can believe it. We'll take a good look at it, shall we?'

We find Lanxade and Balfa, though, we whistle up my sailors for a 'hoarding action ' and leave 'em bleedin ' on the cobbles like steers in a Wapping slaughterhouse, Lewrie grimly decided to himself, steeling himself to action; Aye, let's be at it. And that other nonsense.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

'Shameless!' Helio de Guilleri spat, still seething after what she'd done; had been seething since she and that lout, a common sailor, a despicable Englishman, had left the Pigeon Coop hours before.

'Do quit stomping about, cher,' Charite lazily scolded, covering another weary yawn, 'or Madame D'Ablemont below us will be angry and send the concierge after you. I told both of you that someone had to sound him out, to see if he was dangerous to us. And I did,' she concluded, with a well-hidden, secretly pleased grin.

'Oh, please!' Helio snapped, angry enough to want to seize her and deliver a good