cannot even keep yourself? Zut, putain!'
'Well, nobody said…' Lewrie began, daunted by her intensity.
'And then you give me babies,' Charite further fantasised, one hand flying in objection as if swatting flies, 'and after a few, I am the fat, dull matrone and you take your pleasures elsewhere, kein? I become hideous to you? Non! I wish never to be a matrone! No matter how grand the man, there is so much more to life, certain! I wish to do more with my life than marry, breed, and die anonymously, Alain.'
'Well, /think you're famous,' he essayed, much confused.
'Even so… ' Charite said, her heat evaporating as she turned pensive and lay down atop him again, her head on his shoulder and her voice muffled against his neck. 'I would have your babies, Alain. I would be your belle amie. Just so long as I am the only one!' she concluded, with a mock-fierce nip at his earlobe. 'And when you are among the Indians, you do not take a lover there!'
'Well, I might be more among the Yankee Doodles than Indians,' Lewrie said, yelping as if really nipped and playfully wrestling with her 'til he had her under his weight, her wrists pinned by his hands.
'Oh, they are even worse!' she snarled, wriggling and thrashing.
'How fair could they be, in their homespun junk, and all muddy barefeet?' Lewrie snickered, feeling even more risible as she squirmed most fetchingly under him, belly to belly, even pinioned as she was. 'You wouldn't trust me out of your sight, would you? Would you? I thought so. You'd have me clerking for Pollock, here in New Orelans. All ink blots and smudges on my nose, in a countinghouse, instead of adventuring.'
'No, you can have your adventures, Alain,' she insisted. 'Just so you come back to me… often. Always,' she softly, fondly, added.
'But what could I do to earn a living, if I don't go venturing for Panton, Leslie?' Lewrie innocently asked, thinking it about time to try to dredge some information from her.
'I told you, cher, Learn the river trade from your adventures, prove yourself, then… meet with those wealthy men I mentioned, who wish to own their own ships before the Americans control all the shipping trade,' Charite reiterated, turning still between his thighs. 'If you wish to begin at once, I could introduce you to Monsieur Maurepas, the banker, He is in touch with… oh, im alors! Putain! I cannot. You must go upriver, I must go to my parents' plantations. It will be weeks and weeks before I could introduce you properly.'
There's a name t'conjure with! Lewrie silently exulted, to hear one of Pollock's suspicions almost confirmed.
'Though, he is… many of his associates,' Charite hemmed and hawed, writhing beneath him as if spurred more by dread than pleasure. 'They are proud Creoles, Alain, tu comprends F French Creoles, who hate the Spanish subjugation and wish to be a part of la belle France once more. France is strong, and Spain is weak, and they believe that someone must save them, before the Americans… or you 'Bloodies' eat us up!' she spelled out for him, though turning the traditional epithet for Englishmen to a joke, instead of a taunt. 'You must be careful in your dealings with them, mon coeur, before one of them spins out some fanciful dream about revolution against Spain. Oh, how do you English say, to… ' she asked, frustrated.
''Take it with a grain of salt,' d'ye mean, love?' He chuckled. 'D'ye mean that, one… or a lot of 'em… might want me to smuggle arms? Start a Louisiana Navy? Turn privateer, or some such, and take Spanish prizes? Bein' a former naval officer might tempt 'em?'
Damme, that was knacky of me! he quietly chortled; Perhaps I can do subtle'!
'Oui, with the grain of salt, vraiment,' Charite quickly agreed.
'But you're happy enough under the Spanish?' he further asked.
'Mon amour, I am most happy this moment, under you!' she teased with a coquettish stirring under him. 'Mais non, the Spanish… such a horrible set of tyrants. And so bad for trade as well! Everyone I talk to says so. Papa, Monsieur Maurepas, our factors… If I were a man, /would be tempted to do something rash. To rid Louisiana of any taint of Spain… even their id-10ms!
'When I met you, you came close to being a man,' Lewrie pointed out. 'Though… thank God you aren't. Most surely aren't!' he said, sliding down her so he could kiss her nipples and circle her areolae on the tip of his tongue.
She knows more than she wants t'tell me, Lewrie furiously schemed; Her papa's in on it, I'll wager, maybe even her brothers. Damme… have I already met 'em, two nights ago? They were aliso alike, and…
'Oh la, Alain,' Charite said, sounding as if she was mournfully wailing in exasperation at men's folly, 'I fear, if someone gave you a chance to fight, do what you were trained for, you would leap for joy, and turn… pirate, if you thought it would be grand adventure. And, paid enough! Men… mon Dieu!' she spat in a flouncing huff.
'Something in what ye say, Charite darlin',' he frankly seemed to confess, breaking off his teasing ministrations to look her in the eyes. 'I never did get many opportunities to… swashbuckle. Boring blockade work in all weathers… paper wars and ink smuts? Boresome. Hellish-boresome, most of my undistinguished naval career was. But I doubt I'd really do anything that damn fool.'
'Bon!' she approved with some heat. 'Good!'
'Not 'til they promised I'd be an Admiral,' Lewrie cagily japed. 'Not 'til it looked like it'd succeed. Look at John Paul Jones, that Yankee Doodle. Catherine the Great of Russia made him an Admiral over her whole fleet! Why, there's been dozens of ambitious Royal Navy men, taken service under foreign colours, some with the Admiralty's connivance and blessings, too, who didn't look like they'd ever make senior Post-Captain in their own service.
'The Swedes even made me an offer… not much of one, but,' he added with a deprecatory shrug, suddenly inspired to feel her out even farther. 'Not a command, actually-not a ship of my own. Arsenal clerking, counting cannon barrels or some such. I turned 'em down and tried for merchant service… where I'd at least be at sea, ' he lied.
'You would be tempted,' Charite stated, peering closely at him, not in the expected disapproval at such insanity that she had evinced just moments before, but in a speculative, calculating… weighing of his sentiment, with the faintest hint of a smile touching the corners of her mouth and eyes… as if he'd said or done something clever.
'Well, if they threw you in,' he japed, shrugging again and forcing an inane grin onto his phyz to quash her slightest suspicions.
'Oh, la! Oh, zut alors, mon chou!' Charite suddenly snapped as she turned forceful in her attempts to slide out from underneath him. 'The hour! It is growing dark, and I must go!'
'Oh, damme, no!' Lewrie said with a crushed groan. 'Surely you could stay for a little longer, darlin'. Just a quarter hour more?' he entreated, gone all pleading puppy-eyed. He sat up, though, rocked on his heels once more as she lithely sprang down from the high bedstead au naturel, as boldly bare as she'd been born, fetching her discarded chemise off the back of a nearby chair and wriggling it down over her head. Damme, we were almost there, too! he thought; This close to…
'Lace me up, cher?' she asked, clapping her undone bustier
