King, Ship, and Sword

'And it now seems there's t'be a Langlie heir in the near future, Caroline. Sophie says to inform you she is… enceinte. Or grosse, d'ye prefer the colloquial French. Expectin', ha! Here, I'll let you read it for yourself.'

'Later,' Caroline demurred. She and Sophie: once one of those lying letters had arrived declaring that Lewrie had been topping her, too, Caroline had turned from fond to outright spiteful towards Sophie, spurring the girl to flee to London into the dubious aegis of Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby, her adored, adopted grand-pиre. Even now, after Sophie and Anthony Langlie had wed and those slanders had been found to be utterly false, Caroline still seemed glad to be shot of her. Lewrie doubted if she would read that letter.

'What is the rest of the post?' his wife asked after putting the glad tidings from Burgess Chiswick aside.

'Oh, there's two from the boys,' Lewrie told her, still engrossed.

'Oh, you!' she cried, only a tad vexed, springing from her seat to the desk to paw through the stack. 'One would think you'd set them aside as if you were still captain of a ship! Official things first, and personal last. You'd deprive me of word from my dear lads?' she said, but it was a teasing, almost fond admonishment for his lapse.

'Apologies, m'dear,' Lewrie told her.

'Hmm… dear old Wilmington?' Caroline puzzled, looking over a travel-stained letter. 'Oh, your old friend, is he not engaged in business there? The one who sent a deposition for your trial?'

'Christopher Cashman, aye,' Lewrie agreed. 'He bought into an import-export and chandlery… Livesey, Seabright, and Cashman. Has offices and warehouses on Water Street, he wrote me. The sawmill on Eagle's Island cross the river… '

'Why, we knew the Liveseys… before the Revolution. Rebels, though decent people in the main,' Caroline fondly reminisced of her girlhood home in the Cape Fear Low Country. 'The only Seabright that I recall was a new-come from England… an officer of the Royal Artillery who'd emigrated for land. Married a Livesey, I think he did. He was a rebel, too. Helped manage the guns at Widow Moore's Creek bridge… when our friends and neighbours from the Scot settlements at Cross Creek and Campbelltown were slaughtered. Ah, well. And… who is Desmond McGillivery, from Charleston?'

'Say who again?' Lewrie started; he'd missed that'un when he'd hurriedly sorted through them, and, good as things seemed to be going with his wife, they could turn to sheep-shit the instant she learned that Desmond McGillivery was yet another of his bastards, a result of his brief, very unofficial 'wedding' to a captured Cherokee slave of the Muskogee Indians when he'd been up the Apalachicola to entice them into war against the Yankee Doodle frontier. 'Oh! I remember! He was a Midshipman in the American Navy I met back in Ninety-Eight. His uncle was captain of one of their cobbled-together warships going after the Frogs when America and France got huffy with each other. I felt sad for the lad… His mother was Indian, don't ye know. We've corresponded… on and off. Wonder what he's up to now?'

Caroline paid that letter no more attention, enrapt by those from Sewallis and Hugh, and thought no more about it.

Whew! Lewrie secretly gloated; cheated death again! He would reply to Desmond's letter… very much on the sly. And pay stricter attention to the senders' names the next time he collected the mails.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Wonder of wonders, domestic relations took an even sweeter turn as Spring progressed, as Sewallis and Hugh returned from their school for the summer and filled the house with japes, pranks, and laughter. There were more family rides together, more companionable breakfasts, walking tours of the farm through sheep, cattle, and foals, nattering with day labourers and their few permanent employees, and yarns from Liam Desmond and Patrick Furfy about battles and grand adventures.

The Lewries even went visiting, as a travelling troupe; first to High Wycombe to attend Burgess and Theodora's nuptials, then up to London for some major shopping, and, lastly, down to the Langlies' at Horsham, in Kent, to visit with Sophie and her husband and in-laws. Even Lewrie's father, Sir Hugo, had coached down for that'un, for he'd always been doting-fond of Sophie, as she had been of him, her replacement grand- pиre.

Lodgings, well… they could reach London in a day, but once there, their favourite old haunt in Willis's Rooms, convenient to all the best shops and sights, could only accommodate so many guests, in so many beds. Charlotte and the boys could be bedded down on cots or in one nearby room. Lewrie and his wife were forced to share a bed-stead of their own… together.

The same arrangements were forced upon them halfway to the wedding at High Wycombe, and in a posting house in the town, as well, and the jaunt to Horsham not only forced Alan and Caroline to sleep in the same bed on the way, but, once there, Mr. and Mrs. Langlie insisted upon putting them up at their house, assuming that Capt. and Mrs. Lewrie were just another typical married couple who naturally shared a bed- chamber!

Perhaps it was the joy of Burgess's wedding, perhaps the relit notion of Romance (and a slew of wines and brandies taken aboard during the day!) but… Alan and Caroline found themselves in such close proximity, in such companionable darkness, and in such thin summer sleeping clothes, that Nature at last had its way. And in the mornings after such enforced intimacies, Caroline expressed such fondness and affection that Lewrie could imagine that their years' long bitterness had been no more than a quickly forgotten little spat over her paying too much for a new bonnet!

And even more miraculous was the fact that, once back home in Anglesgreen, there was no more of that damnable guest chamber for him. Lewrie was back in his wife's good graces… though he hadn't a clue how it had come about! Indeed, so content with things did she seem that Caroline could even abide a mid-Summer visit from Sir Hugo, down from London for a spell of country life. He'd never been one of her favourite relations, yet…

'More cool tea?' Caroline asked Sir Hugo as they all sat in the shade of an oak near the back-garden of the house. 'Or might you be more partial to the lemonade?'

'The tea, m'dear, thankee kindly,' Sir Hugo replied, sprawled in a slat chair near the table, and idly fanning himself, for it was a warmish afternoon. 'That rob o' lemon drink makes me gaseous. Just a dollop o' lemon in the tea's sufficient.'

A wasp now and then hummed about the sweetness of the lemonade or the napkin-covered plates of scones or sandwiches. Horses snorted, neighed, and clopped as Patrick Furfy walked them in circles in the paddock. Cattle lowed as calves butted for their milk; and it was almost so quiet as to be able to hear sheep munching grass. Except for the children, of course.

Charlotte sat at-table primly enough, to all appearances in her style of hair and gown a miniature adult, though she did tend to prate cooing nonsense to her newest doll and that damned lap dog of hers. Sewallis and Hugh were on their knees, sailing their model frigates at each other over a close-mowed green 'sea' and ordering their sailors about, just ready to open fire.

Lewrie sat sprawled in an equal un-tidyness in a chair on the other side of the table, a wide-brimmed straw farmer's hat set low on his eyebrows, one eye open for the shrill argument to come over 'first broadsides' and what 'damage' the boys' guns had done to the other one's hull or rigging.

'Have you ever been to Paris, or to France, Sir Hugo?' Caroline casually enquired.

Halloa, what's that? Lewrie thought.

'France?' Sir Hugo scoffed. 'Can't say that I have, d'ye not count Calais. Was in Holland, for a time, d'ye see, and… found it more convenient t'return t'England through Calais,' he breezed off.

Haw! Lewrie silently sneered.

Long ago, when a Captain in the 4th Regiment of Foot, the King's Own, he scampered off from his 'wife,'