“What’d you tell him, then?”
“The truth,” she said, bald-faced. “Though elderly, he is far too cynical to accept lies. He winced at that. Screwed up his face. But he nodded … as if he understood.”
She heaved a wry little laugh, a hitching of her shoulders.
“I expect that he left more than a few offspring in his path in his younger days,” she commented.
“Me, included. I’m the only one he owned up to, and took as his own. Not as a Willoughby, though. Trust me, ’tis a long, sad story, and there was a pot of money involved.”
“He is wealthy, now?” Theoni suddenly asked.
“Aye, he is,” Lewrie answered, suddenly on his guard, suddenly feeling a sinking in his innards. Of jealousy? he wondered. “Some.”
“Then the world is no longer at risk,” Theoni said, laughing at that news. “Well-fed sharks do not bite, usually. He might even turn mellow … into a safe supper guest who doesn’t have to sing.”
Lewrie burst into a side-aching peal of laughter.
“Oh, God! My father … safe!” He hooted. “He’d steal the coins from his own eyes on his deathbed … and pinch the chambermaid with the winding sheet!”
“Then I see where you got your spirit.” Theoni tittered.
“Aye … blood will tell, they say,” Lewrie replied, sobering, recalling just where, and how, that adage had most recently been used.
“So what will you do now?” Theoni enquired.
“God knows,” Lewrie said with a frown, slouching back into the settee. “Saw my solicitor, made some arrangements … safeguarded some funds and such … . . Most-like, it’s back down to Sheerness for me, to put Proteus back in the water and toddle off to sea. What I’m good at. Where I don’t get in much trouble. Mostly.”
“But that was where you got in trouble with me, Alan,” Theoni pointed out with a becoming smirk. “At sea.”
“Aye, it was,” he agreed, enfired by the look in her eyes, as if she wouldn’t mind a tad more “trouble,” should he dare risk it. All of a sudden, the tension between them became as palpable, and as visible, as St. Elmo’s Fire surging in the top-masts of a storm-cast ship!
“I … uh,” he croaked, groping for lucidity. “I’d best …”
“How to say this?” she puzzled aloud, frowning. “Though I wish you no pain in your life, Alan … and I certainly do not wish to complicate things even worse than they are, I will never regret being your lover … even for such a short but blissful time. I will never regret having your son. I feel … blessed! He will be the part of you that I will have, always. All the part of you that I expected to have in this life, knowing that your wife … but now?”
“Theoni, I …” Lewrie croaked again, sure now that coming was a bad idea, that yawning before him was a gaping abyss that could sear his soul in Hellfire, should he abandon all his vows, his …
“I told your father the truth when he came, as I said,” Theoni continued, sliding close once more and gazing at him with such an open and frank expression. “I told him that I loved you, Alan. That when I married my late husband, it was arranged … for the business. After a time, I came to love him, I was comfortable and content, and I had Michael, but … that’s why I asked you to come call upon me today. To tell you that whatever happens, I am sorry for causing any rift. I did not pray that you and your wife would part, and that I do regret, now that I know it.
“But I want you to know that whatever happens, should you feel free, should you truly be free,” she went on, stumbling a bit, waving a hand in haste, her words tumbling together, “that I will always be here for you. Not just as a ‘dear friend,’ Alan, but as someone who really loves you! Who would be yours completely, but for fortune!”
“Theoni …” he said with a dry gulp.
“Oh, I know!” she almost whimpered, getting to her feet to dash away and hide her face with her long chestnut hair, as if ashamed of his seeming rejection. “I only make it worse! But if I wait to tell you in a letter, and you a thousand miles away at sea, you’d never see me as … !”
She turned to face him, though with eyes downcast at the floor, arms crossed tight below her bodice. Her eyes were wet with tears!
“If you ever come to me, no matter what your English Society has to say about it … about us,” she vowed, chin up of a sudden, proudly and almost defiantly forlorn, “I will deny you nothing. Whatever we may make of stolen time together, open time together, it makes no difference. I know I’m not English, the sort one can take into the public, I know it’s brazen and sinful of me, but I cannot help that, Alan. I love you so much, I have no shame!” she vowed, her face screwing up.
He’d risen, drawn by her retreat; he stood non-plussed, short of enfolding her in comfort, or lust, or whatever it was that he felt at that moment!
“Theoni, I had no idea, I …” he stammered. Now he knew that he really should go, instanter. But he couldn’t, of course.
She raised one hand to dab at her eyes, and that tore it! Lewrie stepped forward and embraced her as best he could, and her arms went about his neck, her tears and muffled sobs trickled on his neck, and their loins pressed together so fiercely; almost grinding.
“There, there … there, there,” he whispered, stroking her back. “I never knew! Theoni, I knew it was special, it felt so righteous, if one can use that word, so … holy, but I never thought … !”
Leave, leave, leave, and never a backward glance! he thought in agony; be a man, for once!
“You did care for me, Alan?” Theoni asked, hot breath searing him. “Really cared, not just for a little while?”
“Well, o’ course I did! But, we both knew the circumstances of our lives. We took solace …”
“And pleasure,” Theoni added, with a hiccoughy chuckle, and an easing of her fierce grip to something more … fond.
“Aye, that too. Lashings of pleasure!” he admitted, recalling all too well those stolen hours in his great-cabins, in that lodging she’d taken in Lisbon before her packet ship had departed. “I don’t know what’s to happen, though, Theoni, and I can’t just walk away from Caroline so easily … mean t’say, I can’t cause you pain, hanging by your thumbs with false hopes, and … I won’t make you go through that, I won’t!”
There, he thought, despite himself; that felt right-righteous!
“I know that, Alan, I trust you!” she declared, “But, even if your wife and you reconcile, I would still long to be near you as we are now … as we were then,” she added, suggestively.
“I must go,” he stated, far too late.
“I know,” she acquiesced, easing her grip on him, yet loath to release him completely. “We must wait and see what happens. After all that has passed between us, though … I wanted you to know how I feel. Oh, that you were a bachelor when you fought the Serb pirates for me!”
“Saved a lot o’ woe, all round,” Alan sadly chuckled, forehead to forehead, and equally loath to let go of her flesh, enraptured by a heady aroma of clean hair, rosemary and thyme, commingled with a newer scent of light rosewater. They lifted their chins at the same time, their noses bumped—her artfully wee and sculptured nose!—then their lips. Searching, hungrily writhing, her breath already hot and musky with arousal!
“I must go,” he repeated, after a long few moments of bliss.
“I know that, too, dearest Alan,” she whispered back so fondly, toying with the back of his neck with her nails, sending chills down his spine, straight to his groin! “It is too soon, too shocking, atop the other shock you have taken. Too early. But before your ship puts back to sea, if you want me, I will come to you, I promise. And I will ask you for no promise in return, no matter how things stand. I truly do love you, so I could not do otherwise. Now, go! Be a hero!”
She turned playful, after a moment of shuddery truth, as if to shoo him away with a spank on the hindquarters.
“Theoni … no matter how things fall out, thankee,” he said.
“I have your darli
ng namesake son,” she replied. “It is me who should be thankful.”
She gave him one last parting kiss in gratitude.
“Now, go, before I become so tempted that … !” she gushed, now shoving him towards the hallway. “Be England’s hero, Alan. You are already mine. Write me, for I will surely write you, and … oh, please go, before … !”
“I’ll write,” he promised her, fetching his own hat and cloak.
“I’ll come to … Sheerness?” she suddenly proposed.
“Sheer-Nasty? You’ll hate it! Dreadful-boresome hole!” he japed.
“With you, it will be Paradise,” she swore with a smile.
Egads, what’d I just promise? he asked himself once by the kerb; does Caroline despise me now, why make it worse? But … she can’t loathe me more! In for the penny, in for the pound, oh God … !
BOOK ONE
Longa exilias et vastum maris acquor arandum.
Long exile is thy lot, a vast stretch of sea thou must plow.
AENEID, BOOK II 780
PUBLIUS VERGILIUS MARO “VIRGIL”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Cold, cold, cold! Faint skifts of snow littered the cobbles of the street before the tavern and posting house, lay between the stones to make a stark chequerboard, and skittered as dry as sand when a gust of icy wind stirred. It was false dawn, the “iffy” time that outlined roofs and chimneypots with faint light, whilst the bulk of the street still lay in darkness, here and there pinpricked by only a few faint lanthorns by the entrances to homes or commercial establishments, and upon the quays, where false dawn drew black-on-charcoal traceries of rigging and masts aboard the ships that lay alongside.
Tiny, glim-like lights glowed at taffrails and entry-ports on those docked vessels; a few more ghosted across the harbour waters as guard boats rowed about to prevent desertion or smuggling. Hired boats and ships’ boats stroked or sailed to and fro, even at that ungodly hour, bearing officers ashore, or taking officers or mates from a night of shore comforts, perhaps even pleasure, in Sheerness.
Barely visible against the darkness, and a fine sea-haze off the North Sea, fishermen were setting out, no matter the cold or the risk, to dredge, rake, or net a meagre day’s profit. Some sailed, a very good omen, with tiny masthead lanthorns aglow that created eerie tan blots of lit, shivering canvas—while the boats were invisibly dark—as if a plague of weary Jack O’Lanterns were on the prowl.
There was a decent slant of wind, out of the Nor‘Nor’east for once; not enough to dissipate the cold sea mists, nor enough to toss the many ships anchored in the Little Nore or Great Nore, but it’d do, for Lewrie’s purposes; and after the night before …
Lewrie heaved a troubled but mostly contented sigh, recalling.
There had been a fine sunset, rare for winter, as red as any one could wish, that had lingered for an hour or more, much like a summer sunset; “Red Skies At Night, Sailor’s Delight.”
And wasn’t it just! Lewrie told himself.
The glass barometer filled with coloured water by the door of his posting house had shown little rising in the narrow upper neck, a sign of higher pressure that had happily coincided with that sunset, and now a shift of wind, as well. HMS Proteus would not fight close-hauled to make her offing, then jog down-coast to The Downs or Goodwin Sands to re-anchor and wait for a good down-Channel slant, but could head out boldly, round Dover and bowl along like a Cambridge Coach, perhaps as far as Portsmouth, before the wind turned foul, as it always would in winter. Foul, and perilous!
The costly travelling clock on the mantel chimed five times, in civilian manner, as far-off ships’ bells struck Two Bells of the predawn watch; a cacophanous tinkling disagreement ’twixt lieutenants’ or mates’ timepieces and sand-glasses, that put him in mind of the myriad of wind chimes he had heard in Canton, between the wars.
The night before, Gawd … !
A final round of shopping for last-minute cabin stores such as quills, ink, and paper, a new book or two, a chest of dried meats and hardskinned sausages for Toulon’s sustenance. They’d supped at a new and rather fine public house that featured large boiled lobsters aswim in drawn butter, some ham, boiled carrots, and winter potatoes, a green salad, a roast quail each, completed by cherry trifle. Then, as old Samuel Pepys had so often writ in his diary, “ … and so to bed,” most daringly nude for a few moments in the chilly room, no matter the big fireplace, the warming pans and enfolding bedstead curtains, the thick down-filled quilts and extra blankets. Bliss, strenuous bliss!
Unconscious of doing so, he had drawn out his pocket watch and opened it to compare its reckoning against her mantel clock and those ships’ bells. With a firm-lipped sigh and a slight nod, he shut it up with a definite clack of finality.
“I must go,” Lewrie softly pronounced.
“I know,” Theoni Kavares Connor sadly replied, barely mouthing her words, her eyes already moistly aglitter. “I promised not to go on so, but … two years or more, so far away …”
She reached across the remains of their breakfast table to twine her fingers in his; slim, graceful, but incredibly strong and urgent.
“It’s what sailors do,” he told her. “We’re not known for bein’ a dependable lot.” He strove to be winsome and Devil-I-Care, as well as noncommittal. Noncommittal won, with “winsome” a distant second.
“‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’?” Theoni asked, citing an old adage, striving for a cheery note herself, forcing a smile.
“‘Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise’,” Lewrie countered, tongue-in-cheek.
“Quoting a revolutionary?” Theoni attempted to tease. “The American rebel, Benjamin Franklin … Poor Richard’s Almanack, I believe?”
“Knew I’d heard it somewhere.” Lewrie chuckled as he rose, with her hand still in his—leading and prompting his departure. Theoni sprang to her feet and rushed to embrace him, pressing her soft, sleek body tight to his in a twinkling, still toast-warm from the bed and their last “eye opener” bout, still redolent of perfume, musk, and sex.
“You’re certainly healthy, dear Alan,” she snickered against his cheek, as he stroked her back, so pliable and tender beneath the flimsy and revealing morning gown she wore, despite the chill. “Last night … it was heavenly!” Theoni sighed in recalled bliss.
“Don’t know much about the ‘wealthy’ or the ‘wise,’ though,” he pointed out, his voice deep and gravelly. “Nobody with a lick o’ sense would get out o’ bed so early, nor sail off to the West Indies, if …”
Nor take such a hellish risk as this! he chid himself, and not for the first time since the week before, when Theoni had breezed into Sheerness and announced her presence! Madness, sheer madness!
She rose on tip-toe to kiss him, as if to stifle any objections he might have voiced, her slim arms a vise about his neck, her breasts heavy and hot against his shirt and waistcoat.
“But you must,” she said more soberly, after a long moment. “I will write you! I’ll write daily … long reams of letters, what you call ‘sea letters’!”
“As shall I,” he found himself promising in return; such vows were easy at pre-dawn partings, though fulfilling them was a different story … depending on the excuses of Stern Duty once back aboard his ship, with its ocean of minutiae.
“Oh, I can hardly bear it!” she whimpered, going helpless and slack against him, forcing him to hold her tighter. “So few days we’ve had … hours, really!”
“But rather nice hours,” Lewrie muttered in her hair.
“And when you return, there must be many, many more!” she vowed with some heat. “Nothing will keep us apart then. It would be unjust if … No matter how things fall out, I’ll …”
“I know, Theoni,” Lewrie cooed back, both hands now sliding up and down her slim back, from her hips and wee bottom to breast-level, to hoist and fondle … .
There came a rap upon the door.
“Damn!” Theoni fussed, stepping back and
quickly gathering her dressing gown over her bed-gown and morning wrap, and scowling crosspatch for a second before vigourously brushing her hair into order.
“Enter?”
“‘Ere fer yer traps, sir,” the manservant chearly said, bustling in with a boy servant in his wake. “Sailin’ t‘day, are we, Cap’um?”
“Aye,” Lewrie replied, hands guiltily behind his back, quarterdeck fashion; as if to say, “I never touched her, honest!”
“Just th’ one wee chest, an’ these two soft bags, sir?”
“Aye, that’s the lot,” Lewrie answered.
“A fine mornin’ t’set sail, Cap‘um sir. Clear skies, an’ fair winds,” the manservant nattered on. “Does yer gig come t’fetch ya, or should I whistle ya up a boat, yer honour?”
“A hired boat would suit, thankee,” Lewrie told him. “I’ll be down, directly. T’settle the reckoning, and …”
“Rightee-ho, then, sir … Missuz Lewrie,” the servant said as he doffed his battered tricorne to them and departed with the luggage.
Ouch! Lewrie thought with a wince; salt in the wound, why don’t ye, ye clueless bastard!
When he turned red-faced to Theoni, though, he noted that she was amused, smiling to herself in the mantel mirror as she fiddled with the long reddish-chestnut curls at either side of her neck.
He slung his hanger through the sword-frog on his belt and took up his boat cloak to swirl about his shoulders, gathering his cocked hat and a pair of wool mittens … the ones that Caroline had knitted for him! His mouth made a tiny tic of ruefulness.
“There … think I’ll pass muster?” he asked, once his hat was firmly clapped upon his head.
“Always, dear Alan,” Theoni assured him, smiling even wider as she came to his side once more, flinging her warmth against him, kissing a’tip-toe. “The handsomest … most fetching … bravest … and cleverest … hungriest Sea Officer in all Creation!” She even managed to giggle between compliments and teasing, coy kisses.
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