“I don’t give a toss for her dowry,” Lewrie bluntly told him. “Percy’ll most-like gamble them into debtor’s prison, anyway.”
“Usually, when a man says a thing like that, that it isn’t about the money, it usually really is,” Peel said, chuckling in worldly-wise fashion. “You, though, Alan… I can take you at your word. I could…
“I don’t know whether that’s a compliment or not,” Lewrie wryly replied. “Too honest for my own good, or a bloody fool.”
“Contemplating marriage, though, are you?” Peel too-idly asked.
“No, and neither does Lydia,” Lewrie told him with a guffaw of denial. “Once bitten, twice shy for her, and me… well, I never got the hang of it, and if she wed me, her reputation’d be
“Well, some might say you were made for each other,” Peel said with a shrug. “Both of you scandalous?” he added, with a twinkle.
“A bad marriage to a depraved animal was not her fault, and I think you demean the lady, Peel,” Lewrie shot back.
“My pardons, pray forgive me,” Peel quickly retracted, placing a hand on his breast, “for I only know what the papers made of it for years, the divorcement and all. I meant but to tease, but…”
“Forgiven,” Lewrie allowed, more slowly.
“Heard from your nautical sons, lately?” Peel asked, smiling benignly as he changed the subject.
“Aye, I have!” Lewrie enthused. “Hugh’s with Thorn Charlton, on the Brest blockade. Foul weather, cold victuals two days out of four, but he seems t’love it. Sewallis, well… he’s more guarded, yet he
“Your father, Sir Hugo, spoke of it to Mister Twigg, and Twigg related it to me,” Peel admitted. “Keep it
“You have a letter sent to
“Indeed,” Lewrie said over the rim of his tankard, keeping his phyz as inscrutable as he could.
“Recall I told you back in the summer how hard it is to maintain communication with people willing to keep us informed of doings over in France?” Peel said, beginning to peel the onion, at it were. “The French open and read every letter, and have cut off all correspondence with Great Britain?”
“Yes, I recall,” Lewrie stonily replied, refusing to be drawn.
“Yet, we still have
“Ah, cleverness,” Lewrie warily commented, heavy-eyed.
“As draconian as the French police-state is, with the guillotine the reward for espionage and treason against the Emperor Napoleon, there are few who’d dare keep us informed,” Peel continued, sounding like a chapman trying to flog a dubious product. “So we must do all we can to maintain contact with them, and at the same time do all we can to protect them from exposure. What they do for us is incredibly brave, and rashly dangerous, should they be discovered. Those brave few are rather admirable.”
“I doubt the Frogs’d think so,” Lewrie said, cracking a smile; a damned wee’un. “Depends on one’s point of view.”
“You are familiar with one of them,” Peel hinted, all a’twinkle again.
“I rather doubt it’s Guillaume Choundas,” Lewrie scoffed. “I think I put paid t’that ugly bastard.”
“No, not him!” Peel informed him, laughing. “Do you ever fight a duel, let me know when and where, so I can get a good seat, and
“There were only two people I knew who were there when… No!” Lewrie gasped. “
“Let us say that
That had been Lewrie’s doing, requiring him to go up the Mississippi to New Orleans in
“The bitch shot me!” Lewrie exclaimed in heat. “With a Girandoni air-rifle like that’un yonder,” he said, jerking an arm towards his personal weapons rack. “Would’ve killed me, too, if the flask’d had enough compressed air in it!”
“For which the Crown, Mister Twigg, and I are grateful that she did not,” Peel said, sounding earnest.
“Broke her wee, black heart, did Bonaparte?” Lewrie sneered in baby-talk. “Bloody
“I know, Lewrie… Alan,” Jemmy Peel sombrely said. “And for her forlorn loss, her gallant stab at fomenting a French Creole revolution in New Orleans, Charite de Guilleri won the admiration of the finest
“Bloody good for her,” Lewrie sneered again.
“She’s the highest, and closest placed source, we ever could
“Unless Fouche’s
Like all the people who specialised in skullduggery for King and Country whom Lewrie had encountered, James Peel all but goggled at him, as if Toulon and Chalky had begun to sing “God Save The King” in perfect two-part harmony. No one
“We considered that, quite seriously, for a goodly time,” Peel confessed, after a long moment’s contemplation, “but decided that it would be too convoluted a scheme. Fouche, or his associate,
“No, the ‘fellow,’ as you put it, is with the Treasury,” Peel revealed, “and Charite de Guilleri is with… everybody. But, before she begins to produce for the Crown, she wishes to hear from you.”
“What? Lure me t’the back o’ some deep inlet for a reunion?” Lewrie sneered. “No, thankee.”
“Nothing face-to-face, no,” Peel quickly countered. “That would be much too dangerous for the both of you. She wishes you to reply to her letter. She asks for your forgiveness,” he softly added.
“Forgiveness?” Lewrie exclaimed. “Not