wroth with each other, and Sophie had fled to London, to live with his father, Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby, and had been (for Sir Hugo and his unsavoury repute) introduced into London society, Lewrie had figured that the girl surely had struck upon another, by then; one with richer estate and prospects, perhaps, who would not turn his nose up at a penniless 'foreign' girl with but a mediocre paraphernalia to bring to the marriage, and but a miserly 'dot' of annual support, no matter how radiantly fetching and lovely, how well-schooled in social graces, but… it seemed that 'absence makes the heart grow fonder.'
Lewrie could almost understand it; when he'd first met her at Toulon in '93, Sophie and her firebrand brother and woeful mother had been living with an equally impoverished cousin, Baron Charles Auguste de Crillart, one of those 'Royalist' French naval officers hounded from the service during the Terror, and ejected from his seat in the People's Assembly for being too damned reasonable and moderate… stances both highly suspect and rare in those bloody days.
Sophie had evinced all the signs of being in teenaged 'cream-pot love' with her older cousin. In defending the hundreds of refugees of the fall of Toulon, de Crillart had sacrificed his life, and poor wee Sophie had lost her brother in the final boarding of the lone French corvette that had caught up with their weary old, half-armed frigate, as well. To make things even more grievous, a last broadside from the corvette had smashed in the stern, down low, slaughtering her mother, to boot, and Sophie would have had no one to look after her, if not for Lewrie honouring his pledge to the dying Charles de Crillart to see to his kinfolk. Lewrie and Caroline had been her saviours; Caroline in the beginning with her whole- hearted charity, and Lewrie streaked with their common foes' blood, smudged with spent gunpowder, hatless, and a sword in his hand at the end of that battle… the battle that resulted in the corvette becoming HMS Jester, Lewrie's first wartime command.
Did I seem a replacement for poor Charles? Lewrie took time to maunder; was an officer from someone's navy Sophie's destiny?
He gave himself a mental shake, plastering a smile upon his phyz for the introductions. Mr. Anthony Langlie, Senior, was a squirearchy gentleman-farmer of good appearance, an equal to his son's handsomeness, well dressed and obviously a man of some means, whose lands-640 acres in freehold-lay close by to Horsham. Mrs. Langlie made just as impressive an appearance, not the typical 'country dumpling' he expected; still a quite fetching and tastefully dressed lady in her fourties. The Langlies were the sort of educated and polished couple one might meet in a fashionable drawing room in London, yet not so grand and high-nosed. If they were to be in-law kin, Lewrie could contemplate future time with them might present him with conversation that did not consist solely of sheep husbandry and how the apple crop was doing!
Admittedly, the Langlies did eye him in a fashion that Lewrie could only deem… chary. No matter the good reports they had of him through their son during his service as First Lieutenant aboard Proteus, there were those many articles in the newspapers, some hints of infamy, the taints of the 'tar brush,'
and all.
'Well, then… Mister Langlie, sir… Mistress Langlie, ma'am, quite delighted to meet you, at last,' Lewrie said after the requisite bows and hand clasps and pledges of 'yer servant' and such. 'After a three-year commission with your son, I feel deeply honoured for him to become my son-in-law, for there's no finer officer in the Navy, to my lights, nor a finer gentleman. Didn't exactly realise the depths of their feelings for each other… the drudgery of duty, and all that… that they'd sent each other miniature portraits, and such, 'til he asked for Sophie's hand. They'll make a grand couple, let me assure you, and you'll be getting a sweet and honest daughter-in-law, good in the pantry, still-room, at housewifery? My wife, Caroline, has seen to that.'
Like shakin'fins with a shark, they're thinkin', Lewrie could conjure as they simpered polite agreement with him; or marryin' into a tribe o' head-huntin' cannibals from the Great South Seas!
Lewrie was introduced to Langlie's officers and Midshipmen, and got a much better, almost hero-worshipping, reception from them, young 'Mids' especially, who all but goggled and gulped, as if being presented to Nelson, for all they'd heard of his derring-do. Lewrie made the introductions of his own officers, and the 'Mids' off Orpheus looked upon those worthies, heroes in their own right during the fight that had taken the French frigate L 'Uranie after nigh I a two-hour battle in the middle of a raging gale, much the same, Langlie's Midshipmen in awe of the saltiness of Mr. Grace, even though he had come up from the Nore fisheries, and was several grades of 'gentility' below their own typical squirearchy or low-order nobility backgrounds.
'Ah, hmm,' Langlie quibbled, looking at his pocket-watch.
'Ah, indeed, sir,' Lewrie agreed, looking at his own. 'I fear that I'm due away to the George to collect the bridal party. You will excuse me, Mister Langlie… Ma'am? And, I will see you all at the church quite soon. Mister Adair?'
'Aye, sir,' his Second Officer piped up.
'Coffee or tea only, do you please, or my wife will kill me,' Lewrie cautioned.
'Keep 'em somewhat sober, Mister Whitney,' Langlie also said in like vein to his First Officer.
'Aye aye, sir.'
And, for a brief, shared moment of inner amusement, Lewrie and Langlie looked each other in the eye, taut grins breaking out on both their faces and nodding (winking, on Lewrie's part) in recognition of the fact that both of them, Post-Captain or new-minted Commander, were in command of King's ships, and were mature leaders of men.
Moulded ye, Langlie … damned if I didn't, Lewrie could think as he took his leave; though I had better than good material to work with. You're on yer own bottom, now… in more ways than one. And, God help the French… Sophie excepted, o'course.
At the grander George Inn, where the wedding breakfast would be held, Lewrie spoke with the owner, took a peek into the private dining rooms, already laid for the celebration, then trotted abovestairs to his family's lodgings.
'Ah, there ye are, at long last,' his father, Major-General Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby, grumbled as he entered their rooms.
'Father,' Lewrie answered, heading for the bedrooms.
'I'd not dare go in there, at the moment, me lad,' his father cautioned. 'A massive bout of the vapours, all's not quite 'tiddly,' and I heard voices raised in high dudgeon not a minute past. Brandy?' Sir Hugo laconically offered, lifting a squat bottle to him.
'Ah, no, thankee,' Lewrie demurred. 'Not before the ceremony's done'd be best. They're in a pet? At logger- heads, or…?'
At one time, Caroline had been all Christian sympathy and welcoming, doting 'step-mother' to Sophie, when she'd first arrived from Gibraltar. But, once those anonymous 'you must know of your husband's doings' letters had come, and kept coming, and had suggested that he and Sophie had been lovers, Caroline had turned spiteful on the girl, which was why Sophie had fled Anglesgreen in tears of betrayed trust, and ended up with Lewrie's father, the most unimaginable 'port in the storm,' for Sir Hugo was known far and wide as an infamous lecher and. 'beard-splitting' rakehell. It was Caroline's duty to stand in lieu of her real mother at such a time as Sophie's wedding, and to every outward sign, she was fulfilling that role, but… what she actually thought was anyone's guess.
Lewrie took a dithering step closer to the bedrooms.
'Suit yourself,' Sir Hugo said with a sigh as he leaned back in his chair and crossed one knee-booted leg over the other. ' 'Tis not a shrieking pet, thankee Jesus. Last-minute 'where's me pearl drops?'-I gather-a general bout of the 'fantods.' Women's nerves,' he scoffed. 'So… now you've met the Langlies, what was your impression?'
