A King`s Trade

topped black riding boots, and waving a crop over his head. Smiling, beaming with enjoyment and pleasure.

Twigg? Lewrie gawped to himself, gape-jawed for true; he never smiled, not a day in his mis'rable life!

But it was him, to the life, the spitting image of that coldly calculating 'chief spider' behind a myriad of bloody-handed schemes on the King's enemies. And, at that moment, as he shaded his eyes with a hand to his brow-the one holding the whip, o' course!-Mr. Zachariah Twigg could be mistaken for the nicest sort of genial, and wealthy, country squire who couldn't swat a wasp without regrets.

'Aha!' Zachariah Twigg called out, sounding so welcoming that Lewrie, for an instant, thought himself the victim of a sorry supper and a bilious dream. Or, wishing that he was! 'Captain Lewrie, you have arrived, ha ha! Alight, and let me look at you, me lad!'

Spur away! Lewrie warned himself; Spur away, now, and ride like Blades! Though he was so taken aback that he meekly let his horse go onwards at a sedate plod to the cobblings of the stableyard, drew rein, and swung down as a groom came up to accept the reins and tend to his rented horse.

'Honoria, pray allow me to name to you one of my young acquaintances from the Far East, and the Mediterranean, Captain Alan Lewrie of the Proteus frigate… Captain Lewrie, my daughter, Mistress Honoria Staples. I'd introduce you to my grandchildren, Thomas and Susannah, but I fear they're having too much fun with their new ponies, ha ha! A stout fellow, full of pluck and daring, is Captain Lewrie, my dear, an energetic and clever champion of our fair land, and a perfect terror to Britain 's foes, from our first encounter to the present!'

'Your servant, ma'am,' Lewrie managed to respond, at last, with a gulp and bob of his head as he doffed his hat to her and gave her a jerky bow, feeling so deliriously put-off that he nearly blushed to be so gawkish and clumsy, like a farm labourer introduced to a princess, all but shuffling muddy shoes and tugging his forelock.

Clever, daring… plucky? Lewrie felt like goggling to hear an introduction such as that from Twigg, of all people; God above… me?

'A comrade of old, of course,' Mrs. Staples replied, bowing her head gracefully, and beaming in seeming understanding. 'Your servant, Captain Lewrie, and delighted to make your acquaintance. And… you have old times to take stock of, I'm bound, Father? The children and I should be going, then… may I get them off their new ponies,' she stated with a merry twinkle, 'though you and Johnathon… my husband, Captain Lewrie… a man as fond of springing surprises on people as Father… spent far too much on them.'

'You'll not dine here, my pet?' Twigg cooed, looking devilish-disappointed that they would not. Damn his blood, but he was almost… wheedling] Or doing a damn' good sham of it.

'I told cook we'd be back by one, and there's just time for us to get home before everything goes cold,' his daughter chuckled, holding up a lace-gloved hand to her children as they completed their lap of the grounds. 'Rein in, children, and alight! You've shewn Grandfather your presents, and we must go. I mean it! No, you mayn't ride them back; they're too fractious, yet. It will rest them to be led at the coach's boot, unsaddled.'

'Brush and curry, then stable them proper, once you're home, as well, my dears,' Zachariah Twigg fondly cautioned. 'See to your beasts first. You look after them, and they'll look after you. Remember, you are English, not cruel Dons or Frenchmen.'

'Yes, Grandfather,' the children chorused, though unhappy about leaving, or dismounting. Quick as a wink, the team of roans was back in harness and the handsome closed coach led out into the drive, ready for departure.

'See you all on Sunday, my dears,' Twigg promised as he hoisted the children in, then handed in his daughter, giving her a peck on the cheek like the doting-est 'granther' in all Creation. 'Church, dinner, then we'll all go for a long ride together, after.'

Twigg, in church, hmm… Lewrie silently pondered, wondering if even the most enthusiastic missionaries, desperate for congregants, in the worst stews of Wapping or Seven Dials, would dare have him.

'Delighted to meet you, ma'am,' Lewrie offered, again. 'And you, sir,' she replied, though distracted by keeping both her rambunctious, chatter-box offspring in check. Then, off the coach clattered at a sedate pace, with the ponies trotting in-trail.

'Well, that was… s'prisin',' Lewrie said with a droll leer, once the coach was out of earshot.

'Think I spent all my life lurking in the world's dark corners, 'thout a private life outside of service to King and Country?' Twigg snapped. 'Frankly… yes,' Lewrie baldly stated, lifting one eyebrow. 'But not a patch on yours, Lewrie,' Twigg shot back, purring in his old, supercilious fashion, looking down his long nose. 'You have spread your 'presence' so widely, and indiscriminately, about the earth, 'tis a wonder you had time for a public life, haw haw.'

All Lewrie could do was remind himself that he'd come to beg at his superior's table and beggars had to suffer abuse in silence; that, and grind his teeth. 'Well now, you are come, at last,' Twigg said, seeming to relent. 'Let us go into the house, where we may discover what may save you from a well-deserved hanging.'

CHAPTER FIVE

The interior of Zachariah Twigg's 'humble' abode was just about as disconcertingly out-of-character to the man he'd known as the stucco outer facade. Once they were past the requisite tiling of the entry hall, done in red-veined Italian marble, the floors of the central passageway were shiny contrasting parquetry, laid out in a complex geometric pattern.

'Teak and holly,' Twigg tersely allowed, 'the teak brought from India.'

'Indeed,' Lewrie said, as a servant came for his cloak, hat, and sword. The servant was a Hindoo, a short, wizened little fellow, with a bristling grey-white mustachio that stuck out almost to his ears, as stiff as a ship's anchor-bearing cat-heads, above a thick, round white beard. He wore a tan silk turban above a European's white shirt and neck-stock, a glossy yellow silk waist-coat, and a voluminous pair of native pyjammy breeches, his suiting completed by thick white cotton stockings, in deference to the weather perhaps, but with stout leather elephant or bullock hide sandals on his feet.

'Namaste, El-Looy sahib,' he said, with a faint attempt at a smile.

'Aha!' Lewrie barked back in further surprise. 'Ajit Roy, is it you? Namaste t'you, too,' he said, placing his hands together before his chin and sketching out a brief bow. 'Haven't heard myself called that in fifteen years!'

'Yayss,' Twigg drawled in his superior, amused manner of old. 'There's a thousand other things you've been called, since, hmm?'

'Now, damme…' Lewrie began to bristle, before recalling what peril he was in, and why he'd come. Grovel; fawn! He warned himself.

'The kutch bohjan kamraa, Ajit,' Twigg ordered. 'No need to use the formal dining room… 'mongst old companions,' he could not help adding with a faintly amused sneer. 'Laanaa hamen sherry, first, Ajit.'

'Je haan, sahib, 'Twigg's old servant replied, bowing and smiling. 'This way, Lewrie,' Twigg commanded, stalking off on his long legs, hands tucked under the tails of his coat, and leaving Lewrie no choice but to follow.

The well-plastered walls were tawny yellow, set off nicely with heavy crown mouldings, wainscottings, and baseboards, false-columned at intervals, with lighter mouldings to frame gilt-framed portraits, and exotic foreign scenes. Clive of India still led his small army versus native rajahs' hordes, and grimly- smug relatives peered down with familial asperity. All the floors were teak planking, though strewn with wool or goat-hair carpets, all light, subtle Chinee or colourful Hindi, with not an Axminster or Turkey carpet in sight.