The Baltic Gambit l-15

by Dewey Lambdin

  "Swedish iron ore, aye," Lewrie stuck in, hoping to trump him on one item, at least; or, hustle him along to his main point.

  "Em?" Twigg said, looking puzzled, for a rare once, and peering at Lewrie like he would at a talking cat. "Iron ore, yes. I must allow I had not thought of that, harumph."

  Well, damme! Lewrie chortled in silence.

  "All good reasons to squash this pestiferous League of the North as soon as possible," Twigg added, after another sip of his brandy.

  "West to east, sir," Lewrie said, smiling, and crossing his legs with ankle upon knee. "The ice melts at Copenhagen first, and Karlskrona in Sweden, second. The Russian ports of Reval and Kronstadt thaw last, so… we should engage them in like order, as I'm sure that Admiral Nelson has already considered."

  "You impress me, Lewrie," Twigg said in genuine wonder (or what passed for it, at least). "It would seem that you have not squandered your free time ashore in idle pleasures… not completely, hmm? You are, quite implausibly, still alive, despite running into the lovely Durschenko mort… her well-armed and tetchy father, more to the point."

  "She seems t'be as well informed of my daily whereabouts as you seem t'be, Mister Twigg," Lewrie answered, shifting uneasily, changing one leg to cross for another. "She knows I'm married, since Cape Town, and went nose-high and disdainful of me for it, yet…" He shrugged.

  "And the equally entrancing Widow Theoni Kavares Connor, she of the currant trade fortune," Twigg drawled with a simper. "Oh, yayss."

  He took a deep sip of brandy, smiling, and, for such an imperious fellow, almost mellowing to a soft chuckle of amusement. "I'm told that she, rather uncannily, is present wherever you go, as well, Lewrie."

  "As good an intelligence service as yours, I expect," Lewrie said, rather morosely, and took time to sip his drink.

  "And, upon that head, I have news which shall astound you," Mr. Twigg mysteriously imparted in a harsh whisper, leaning closer. "Ah! Hudgins, my dear fellow… is our table ready?"

  "It is, Mister Twigg," the dignified major-domo assured Twigg. "The one you requested, in the alcoves, for privacy. You gentlemen are ready to dine?"

  "Yes, let us repair to our dinner," Twigg decided, rising with the sudden, leggy spring a very large and lean grasshopper might flex. "I would have requested you dine me in at the Madeira Club, Lewrie… though I doubt you would wish my discovery revealed on your home ground. Good as the kitchen is at the Madeira, as excellent as are its wine cellars, still… it has become a rather dull establishment."

  A-bloody-men! Lewrie thought.

  "Oh, good enough when first started," Twigg allowed, "when the squirearchy down to London were its principal lodgers-but Good God!-now it is all Trade and all these 'new-men,' those self-made fellows in God knows what enterprises… and rigourously humourless, to boot! Such a commercial and grasping yet suddenly respectable lot."

  "Good for cleanin' up my father's odour in London Society, his partnering with Sir Malcolm Shockley, in it," Lewrie commented.

  "And yours, for lodging there," Twigg could not help remarking.

  Ouch, and ow, Lewrie could only complain in silence.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Twigg, like all know-it-alls who held information that one must know, or dearly wished to know, maddeningly kept his secrets through their repast; though Lewrie thought it a hellish-good repast, and well worth the wait. The sliding doors to their private alcove room swept open to reveal yet another splendid course; a chicken soup laced with tangy tarragon, followed by roast squabs with green beans in lieu of a springtime asparagus, though dressed with a cheesy Hollandaise sauce. A bottle of pinot gris came with the first two courses, and remained just long enough to accompany the mid-meal salad of hot-house brussel sprouts and lettuce with a drippy-bacon dressing. Then came the main entrйe, the sliced prime rib of beef with peas and frittered potatoes, all sloshed down with a fresh bottle (or two) of claret, and thickly sliced slabs of bread, buttered and toasted with garlic. White bread, and the recent law bedamned.

  Apple pie, a sauterne in counterpoint, then port, cheese, and sweet biscuits followed all that, and a silver pot of coffee was put upon the small sideboard to await their pleasure.

  "Now, to the matter at hand," Mr. Twigg said at last, as those doors were swept shut at his gestured command, making Lewrie thank a Merciful God that the trivial chattering, entertaining as it had been, was over. "Your anonymous tormentor, Captain Lewrie… your wife's tormentor, rather… my 'Irregulars' have smoaked out the identity of the author of those scurrilous letters."

  "Who is it?" Lewrie demanded, perking up.

  "When you delivered to me two letters at your ward's marriage in Portsmouth last year, or was it at my town home here in London? No matter the exact location, recall I did remark that the author of them was obviously a person of some means, possessed of a good, copper-plate hand, and the purse with which to purchase very fine, heavy bond paper."

  Oh God, but he will prose on! Lewrie thought; Preen, rather!

  "Unfortunately, such fine writing paper is available throughout London, and many of the larger cities and towns," Twigg said, frowning, "so until the unknown author sent a letter to your wife, insinuating your further adulterous doings, and was caught in the act, we had very little to go on, other than the clues unknowingly included in each of them… to wit, the proximity of certain suspected persons to you at the moment when you indulged your proclivity for the fairer sex, ahem."

  Coming, so is bloody Christmas! Lewrie silently fumed, wishing he could lay hands on Twigg, take him by the lapels, and shake it out of him… assuming Lewrie lived after doing it, it went without saying, for, as he could attest, Zachariah Twigg, one of the Foreign Office's master spies and cut-throats, was a thoroughly dangerous man.

  "I could, however, reduce the number of suspects to those who could have witnessed, or heard of, your doings," Twigg archly related, "and, through the employment of my 'Irregulars,' discreetly surveill those in England."

  Twigg employed upwards of an hundred of his so-called Baker Street Irregulars, for his town-house upon that thoroughfare was the very centre of his spider's web, the lair from which he directed minor spies to keep an eye on foreign embassies, even the friendly ones, and foreign individuals who kept too lively a correspondence with people on the Continent. Chamber-maids and street vendors, messenger lads, cooks, sweeps, and beggars, as well as an host of "Sharps" from London's criminal element who could pick the right pocket, crack the right window or door in the dead of night or the light of day; copyists who could forge false information or duplicate hidden documents quickly, so the house-breakers could put the originals back where they'd found them with no one, any foreign spy, the wiser 'til some other of Twigg's minions, recruited from the military (who could safeguard the innocent, or corner the guilty) either leave them bleeding in some dark alley, or simply spirit them away as if they'd never been, never to be seen again.

  "Sir Malcolm Shockley's wife, Lucy, who was once one of those Jamaican Beaumans, came to mind," Twigg simpered on, "for the first of these letters appeared soon after you ran into her in Venice in '96, whilst she was on her honeymoon tour of the Continent with Sir Malcolm… and sporting with that Commander William Fillebrowne, who took your former mistress on. Tsk-tsk," Twigg said with a twitch of his mouth. "A rather disreputable baggage, for all her beauty. As for Fillebrowne, well… he's the spiteful sort. He proved that by throwing his possession of Phoebe Aretino in your face so tauntingly, yet… he's been at sea since, and nowhere near any of your recent slips, so we could eliminate him."

  "All this, and the King's business, too?" Lewrie sourly asked. "Two jobs for the price o' one, or something like that?"

  "If you do not wish to know, Lewrie…," Twigg warned.

  "Say on, then," Lewrie surrendered with a long sigh.

  "I was able to place a maidservant in the Shockley residence, to keep an eye on her correspondence," Twigg proudly explained, "with an assistant coachman, as well, able
to report quickly, and, the most likely to be given the task of carrying any such letters. Lady Lucy, I have determined, is not your tormentor."

  "Well, that's a relief, I s'pose," Lewrie said, going for the coffee, cream, and sugar on the sideboard.

  "Pour one for me, as well… noir, no sugar," Twigg ordered. "For a time, I considered that the letters might have been a French ploy, 'til I realised that no matter the wrath of Guillaume Choundas… the Americans exchanged him home in '99, did you know that?… there was no real advantage in it, not with you so junior and un-important in the greater scheme of things."

  Demean me some more, I ask you. Please! Lewrie fumed.

  "That Lombardian female spy they set upon you in Genoa, that Claudia Mastandrea, I therefore dismissed," Twigg said with a pleased sniff as he sipped his coffee, "as I did your former mistress, Phoebe Aretino, for, though she may have prospered greatly the last few years, and could buy expensive paper, she is not as literate, nor possessed of a fine handwriting, as our culprit."

  "Leaving…!" Lewrie pressed.

  "I even considered that your former ward, la Vicomtesse Sophie de Maubeuge, might have written them, if only to pique your wife and her interference in her early flirtations with that idiot neighbour of yours, Harry Embleton. To escape the dreariness of Anglesgreen for the delights of London… as she managed to do at last."

  "Sophie? Never!" Lewrie was certain enough to declare.

  "Indeed, the young lady in question is sweet-natured and kindly… intelligent and commonsensical," Twigg admitted.

  "Leaving…?" Lewrie posed again.

  "Theoni Kavares Connor, Lewrie," Twigg said with a triumphant smile. "The mother of your bastard."

  "What? Why, the bitch!" Lewrie exploded. "Not three days ago, she was… well, it could have been embarrassing."

  "I know of it, and it was," Twigg archly declared, sniggering, quite enjoying watching Lewrie slowly twist in the wind. "Consider… the letters to your wife began in '96, just after you rescued her from those Adriatic pirates, then bedded her on your passage back to Gibraltar. Did you blab your peccadillos, did you boast your older conquests to her?"

  "Christ, no!" Lewrie gawped. "Mean t'say, what gentlemen'd be that foolish?"

  Twigg looked down the length of his long nose at Lewrie as if he suspected that Lewrie was that sort of gentleman.

  Superior bastard! Lewrie fumed to himself.

  "Right, she was grateful for her life, her son's life," Lewrie said to fill the embarrassing silence. "That, and pleasin' sport after Lights-Out, well… and, fleein' the Greek Isles for good to come to England a step ahead of the French? Not sure she'd keep the fortune in the currant trade her dead husband'd made, and fear of how his kin would receive her?"

  "She fell in love with you, Lewrie," Twigg said, "for all those reasons, and your skill at 'rogering,' I'd imagine. Then, to discover that she would bear your child… and also discover what a rakehell you are, yet still wished to keep you… '' He trailed off with a gleeful smirk, to take a sip of his coffee. "Amazing, how women find cads so intriguing, and do anything to delude themselves, and wish to keep their unworthy men. Had she any sense at all, given your history with the ladies… soon as she ferreted it out… that she didn't simply write you off as a bad penny. The boy, I expect…"

  "As if she needed me t'support him," Lewrie scoffed. "She's as rich as the Walpoles… richer! And it's not as if she needed me for the Guinea Stamp. Her husband wasn't that long dead that she couldn't explain the boy's birthing as legitimate."

  "So many bastards," Twigg pretended to be shocked. "One of them a Midshipman in the American Navy, of all things! Half yours, t'other half a Cherokee 'princess'? My word, sir! One could refer to your offspring round this world as the Lewriean Miscellany."

  "How'd ye know o' that 'un?" Lewrie asked, much humbled and pale.

  "I have my ways, do I not?" Twigg smugly simpered.

  "Mmm, d'ye mean there's others ye…?"

  "For me to know." Twigg almost laughed out loud for a rare once. "And for you to confront in future, Lewrie."

  "Sure it was Theoni," Lewrie said; it was not a question, really. One thing he was sure of was that Twigg knew what he was talking about, when he finally got round to it.

  "Watchers on the house, a street urchin for running messages in my employ always at hand to deliver her correspondence," Twigg said. "She don't write her own, ye know… no, she has a cultured personal maidservant for that, who polishes things up, and owns the fine hand.

  "Evidently," Twigg said, reaching inside his double-breasted tail-coat to a breast pocket, and withdrawing one of the poisonous billets-doux, "your lack of attentiveness to Mistress Theoni Connor of late, and your public sham of respectability for Society the last two years to satisfy Wilberforce and his crowd, prompted her to take desperate measures."

  "Something about Eudoxia," Lewrie quickly determined. "She's the only young woman I've been within sniffin' distance, lately. Am I right? Damme, Theoni's little tantrum at Ranelagh Gardens t'other day… desperation?"

  "Exactly, Lewrie," Twigg informed him. "For here is a fresh one addressed to your wife… one designed to even further infuriate your good… if put-upon… Caroline. The good-scribbling maid was caught red-handed with it, on her way to the posting house so the coach could deliver it to your house in Anglesgreen. We have her confession, are you interested."

  "Theoni knows of this?" Lewrie asked. "Well, no wonder I've not run into her the last few days. Thought it was our spat, but… ''

  "Desperation, indeed, to see her schemes produce so little fruit over the years, and you off at sea, not exactly as diligent as earlier in answering her letters," Twigg elaborated. "We have a second, meant for Eudoxia Durschenko… the usual anonymous 'dear friend, you must know,' laying out what an unfaithful cully you are. To deflect her before the girl puts any more stock in you."

  "Hah! Fat lot o' good that'd do!" Lewrie said with a wry laugh. "Eudoxia's known I'm married since Cape Town, as I said, and her papa already hates me worse than cold, boiled mutton! B'sides, did Theoni have it scribbled in proper English, I doubt either one of 'em could make heads or tails of it."

  "Then why does she seem to run into you so often, Lewrie?" Mr. Twigg sarcastically posed to him. "And, why… when she does… does she evince such delight to do so, even with her very watchful father at her side… hmmm?"

  "Well, er… em," Lewrie stammered, half intrigued by the sudden possibilities, and half appalled with the image of how dead he'd be should he run the risk. "Surely, she must see that it's daft. Not to be. Better she takes up with the Prince of Wales, he's int'rested."

  "With 'Florizel'?" Twigg scoffed. "Now there's a slender reed. Poor fellow… all he wishes is to be liked, to be loved by one and all. Or, merely appreciated. Good a King as he is, George the Third has been saddled with a sorry set of offspring. Oh, there may be some gewgaws and presents from the Heir, but they'd come with social ruin."

  "For actresses and circus performers, that might be good publicity," Lewrie cynically said, draining the last of his cool coffee and going to the sideboard for fresh.

  "You should warn her off, no matter," Twigg told him, snapping his fingers and pointing to his own empty cup.

  "Me? Why me?" Lewrie asked. Talk to Eudoxia, or pour ye bloody coffee, either one! he thought.

  "For the good of the Crown, Lewrie," Twigg told him, impatient to have to explain things to Lewrie, and for more coffee. "I cannot, for doing so would make it an official matter. The people's love for the Royal Family is paramount to continuing the war effort, and another bloody scandal involving 'Prinnie,' as some are wont to call him, would harm that. Frankly, I serve on sufferance as a partially retired consultant, and to interfere in the Heir's doings would be the ruin of me."

  "But since I'm already ruined, there's no loss?" Lewrie snapped.

  "That is pretty much it, yayss," Twigg drawled, smiling cruelly.

  "Mine arse on a band-box," Lewrie said with a resigne
d, defeated sigh. He poured Twigg his desired cup, too.

  "Hash things out with Theoni… stop her business," Lewrie said as he sat back down, idly stirring sugar and cream into his own coffee. "Coach home and confront Caroline with the truth, too? God o' Mercy!"

  "Well, it is not as if you have much of anything else better to do, Lewrie," Twigg purred, "what with how things stand with you at Admiralty, at present."

  "Oh, thank you just so bloody much!" Lewrie barked.

  "Do you want to be reconciled with your wife, Lewrie?" Mr. Twigg asked with a piercing, probing stare.

  "Well, o' course I do!" Lewrie shot back.

  Hold on, do I really? he had to wonder, though; Aye, for our children, if nothing else. It's not as if I've any other women in my life… that I could dally with openly, anyway. Nelson can get away with his affair with Emma Hamilton, but…

  "Even if we don't," Lewrie told Twigg, "after all the tears that Theoni put her through… I put her through!… I owe Caroline a semblance of a marriage."

  "She would never believe a word that crossed your lips," Twigg said, matter-of-factly for a change, with none of his usual top-lofty acid. "Leave that to me. After all, 'twas I who sicced you on Claudia Mastandrea in Genoa, for the good of the Crown. That still leaves your Corsican mistress, Phoebe Aretino, and Theoni Connor to deal with, but… one could be explained by long separation, and the other by wounds and laudanum, in the beginning. And the machinations of a scandalous and crafty, spiteful, and possessive home-wrecking bitch."

  "You would do that?" Lewrie asked with his head cocked over; it just wasn't like Twigg to be charitable, or very much care about people who were (sometimes) useful to him.

  "You've done me excellent service over the years, Lewrie," Twigg told him. "Perhaps I feel as if I owe it to you. I will coach to your home town with the evidence, including the maid's confessions, and the last letter… to Caroline, at any rate. No need to include the one written to Eudoxia directly, hmm?"