Troubled Waters

see the others out of his rooms.

'Well, then,' Lewrie said, as well, ready to head back to the George Inn. Oddly, he didn't feel that much in danger; not in Portsmouth, not in a Navy seaport, surely! He had his frigate and her crew, and a most secure place to sleep soundly, where any lurking assassin couldn't reach him. There'd be so many senior officers and their own attendants at the George that even a lone knifeman would feel daunted to enter. No, it would only be on the road that danger lay, right?

Oh, shit, Lewrie suddenly recalled; Caroline's still waitin' to tear a strip o' hide off mine arse, for some reason.

He had no decent excuse for haring back to Savage for shelter from her simmering displeasure, either. Not for long, at any rate!

This ain't goin' t'be pretty, he told himself.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

'Tea, please, Abigail,' Lewrie requested, once he had shed his hat, coat, presentation sword, and snake-clasp belt. At least, he thought Caroline's new maidservant's name was Abigail; it was hard to recall, since he'd only clapped 'top-lights' on her two days before… though for convenience sake, most housemaids got called 'Abigail' no matter what their bloody names really were.

'Jane, sir,' the stout girl with a bulldog's face meekly said.

'Jane, then, and yer pardons,' Lewrie corrected himself.

They're gettin' uglier, he thought as he steeled himself to see his wife. Evidently, Caroline would not trust him to keep his fingers off any live-in household help but trolls, or the women who'd win the side of bacon at the annual village ugly-face contest without trying.

'Jane' returned with the tea, but Lewrie only had a sip or two to restore himself, and appear soberer after all that palaver with Mr. Twigg amp; Co., before Caroline emerged from her bedroom in an 'at-home' dress and more comfortable slippers.

'You may go, Jane,' Caroline said in a level tone. 'The children are now changed, and ready for a stroll. Take them, please.'

'Yes'm.'

Lewrie studiously applied himself to sugaring and creaming his tea, slurping down one cup as the children thundered from their rooms, and tromped noisily belowstairs for the outside world… and God help Jane, and Portsmouth… and got a second cup ready for consumption before Caroline swept to a settee and sat… arms crossed, her brow furrowed, and her gaze piercing.

'And what was of such import that required the better part of two hours,

husband?' Caroline coolly enquired.

'Savin' my bloody neck from the noose,' Lewrie told her. 'That the Beau-mans are in London, and what my attorney plans t'do about 'em. How we're t'go, and when…'

'You're just dashing off again?' his wife scoffed. 'When?' 'T'morrow, very early,' Lewrie told her. She wasn't yet so hot she was throwing things, so he dared to amble over to a wing-back chair by the fireplace with his cup and saucer, and sit himself down. Not in easy reach, it went without saying!

'I see,' Caroline muttered with a nod of her head, then heaved one of her exasperated sighs. 'I suppose I should expect no better of you, after all these years. Absence, and indifference.'

'I could stay with you here, dearest, but the next time ye saw me'd be swingin' in the wind at Newgate,' Lewrie posed. 'Rather see me hang?' he tried to jape, with a lop-sided grin.

'Hmm' was her answer to that.

'Oh, for God's sake, Caroline!' Lewrie griped, crossing his legs and shifting uneasily on his chair. 'We were makin' some progress on a reconciliation. Now, you… you've been in a pet ever since you came down from home. What's the matter? The weddin's over, and it came off damn' near perfect. I'd've thought ye'd feel relieved, 'stead o'…'

'It did,' Caroline said, with no joy of arranging a successful ceremony, breakfast, and beginning on good terms with the new in-laws. 'Now I'm shot of her, and God help the Langlies. The coy… jade is now their worry,' she spat, and Lewrie could read 'bitch' or 'whore' in place of the term she chose.

'Caroline… there never was a single thing 'twixt Sophie and me,' Lewrie assured her, as he had dozens of times before. 'I made a solemn oath to a dyin' man… a friend, no matter he was French… and I honoured that pledge. We honoured, rather, for 'twas you, most of the time, who saw to her raisin'. Did she ever dally with anyone? You ever suspect Sophie's morals, ever hear or see anything with your own senses that led you to believe she played either of us false?

'Or… do ye place complete trust in those damned letters?' he pointedly asked. He didn't relish a fight with her, and knew that he had set one off, after months of tippy-toeing, but he was simply tired of being treated like a leper.

Her fierce frown, and the way one slippered foot and shin jiggled, was all the answer she made, and was all he needed to know.

'What, you've gotten another 'un?' he tried to tease. 'Darlin', they're all lyin' packets!'

'Oh. Was your Corsican whore, Phoebe Aretino, a made-up fantasy, Alan?' was Caroline's vexed reply. 'Or was she real? In Genoa, there was a Claudia something-or-other… was she spun from thin air? That slutty mort who bore your bastard child, Theoni Kavares Connor… I read of you and her long before seeing them both in Hyde Park! Just fever dreams, were they, you… bastard}'

'Now, now…' Lewrie tried to shush her, setting aside his tea and pushing hands towards her. They'd never lodge at the George Inn again, if she went on like that, and as loudly!

'Whore-monger … Corinthian… rakehell!' Caroline skreeched. 'Just like your bloody father… like ail your line, most-like! The other letters proved true, so why not the ones about your precious and sordid Sophie, hah? Like the one about that vulgar circus bitch!'

'What?' Lewrie gawped, rowed beyond genteel temperance and volume himself. 'Eudoxia Durschenko? You must be joking! Or, somebody must. I told you, Caroline, she set her cap for me, but I never laid a fing-'

'Vain and prideful bastard!'

'You got a fresh letter, is that it?' Lewrie demanded. 'Let me see it!'

'So you can destroy it, then call me 'tetched'?' she accused.

'I've never seen one of 'em,' Lewrie explained, getting to his feet. 'I've told you and told you, 'tis someone who despises me… thinks I done him wrong somehow, and is gettin' his own back, through you My father described one t'me, just after the Nore Mutiny. Fine bond paper, Spencerian copper-plate hand, all that? I'd hoped Mister Twigg could've found out more. I told him of 'em last year, and-'

'Another of your circle of whore-mongers?' Caroline scoffed. 'Why, does he wish to read them, late at night, Alan? Or, is he ready to swear on a Bible and lie for you… convince me that they're all false… then laugh with you, at me, behind my back?'

She sprang from the settee and began to pace the room, and the proper 'languid' graces bedamned. She was all but stomping.

'Caroline… Zachariah Twigg is most certainly no friend of mine' Lewrie tried to explain, almost finding some faint amusement in the very idea. 'His place at the Foreign Office is that of a spy, a meddler and intriguer overseas. Toppled rajahs and foreign princes who stood in England 's way… a cut-throat, an assassin, and probably still is, despite his official retirement. One of the most dangerous men ever I met, but… not a real friend to anyone, or me. He knows forgeries, hand-writing, or knows people who do. I thought that he'd be able to 'smoak out' the identity of your