The King's Commission

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Here, now,” Alan replied, warning her off as he got an inkling of a change in their relationship beyond the physical.

  “As long as you pleasure me to utter ruin, I could support any desire you have,” she promised. “You would be at sea part of the time, but once back in port, you could lodge ashore with me. No more visiting and having to skulk away.”

  “But what would that do to your good name in Society?” he protested, sitting up and fluffing up the many pillows to sit upright.

  “This is not my only residence, dearest Alan.” She chuckled, rising to get herself some more gin. By this time, she was a trifle unsteady on her feet, and he was sure it was the drink that had given her courage enough to make her proposition. “I have property of my own, mostly rentals. I cannot count on my husband to play me fair should he have the good grace to die. There are children to consider. But over the years, I have provided for my own security. Now I could lease you a lovely flat … I own this building entire. Would you prefer a suite here? Or would you like a set of rooms with a harbor view, closer to the piers. You tell me, and I shall move my things next door to you. We shall be no more than friendly neighbors, should anyone remark on our companionship. Of course, the rooms would cost you nothing. And I could furnish them to your taste, and put it down to my fondness for you. And the way you bull me all over the lot. The fob and chain are only a token of what I could offer the young man who so eagerly tops me so well … and often.”

  Her smile was positively vulpine, though she meant it to be seductive; the hawkish nose had a lot to do with it.

  “Whew,” Alan wheezed. “That’s a damned handsome offer, from a handsome piece of woman, I might add.”

  “Then you will?”

  “Seems a waste, when I’d get ashore so seldom.” He stalled, gaining time to think this over. “And people would talk anyway.”

  “Aye, people would,” she allowed breezily. “People already do, no matter what one does in Society. Rumors are more interesting than truth, don’t ye know, and the naughtier the better. There’s not one woman on this accursed island who hasn’t been whispered about, only half of them with good cause. Only fools marry for love, unless they both have wealth and security of their own, or know how to pile it up, as I have. That victory celebration at the Beaumans’ … I know more than two dozen women there who already have their own pleasurable arrangements with other men, and their husbands have theirs as well. God, don’t admit you’re truly an innocent!”

  “No one in their right minds has ever called me innocent.” Alan laughed.

  “The only important thing about our wretched English society is to be discreet, and one may do anything one wants,” Betty Hillwood said with a sneer. “And if one has money, then no one will even utter one peep of remonstrance. You won’t hear sermons preached against anyone like me, as long as I give to the alms box and pay the Poor’s Rate on time. One only gets exposed when one goes broke.”

  “Or gets too careless?” Alan finished for her, taking a sip of wine from an offered glass.

  “Exactly, though I hardly have to tell you that, Alan dearest. You’re discreet in your visits to me, I trust.”

  “Completely,” he assured her. The last thing he needed was for anyone to know that he was courting Lucy Beauman and rogering Betty Hillwood at the same time.

  “Who knows, you may even wish to return to England with me.”

  “Eh?”

  “After the war, when the seas are safe, I’ll go back to London where I may live in a proper style,” Betty prophesied, downing her gin and pouring another. “You shall be on half-pay by then, and as you say, London will not have gotten any cheaper. My husband can stay here and rot for all I care … he’s probably peppered to his eyebrows with the pox by now, anyway. You would have servants, fine clothes, anything your heart could ask. And you would have me. And I could have you, every night and day. We could live together, or apart, but only a bit apart. I would want you to spear me and split me until I scream for sheer joy.”

  Now what do you say, fool? Alan thought, trying to plaster his most disarming smile on his face as he pondered this new development. She may be a good ride, but I’m damned if I want a steady diet of Hillwood mutton. And I’m not so poverty-stricken I need to be supported. ’Tis flatterin’, I’ll grant, but she’s a little long in the tooth for more than a few hours.

  “You must know, Betty, that I’ve been up to the Beauman place quite often.” He temporized, trying to be honest without hurting her feelings. “Their daughter Lucy and I … well, nothing’s been said one way or the other, but eventually, I would wish to settle down and wed … somebody, wouldn’t I? And where would that leave you? I mean,” he added with a sudden burst of inspiration, “it takes an Act of Parliament to get a divorce, and your husband could maybe stand going his own way, but no man wants to be known as an outright cuckold. Why risk his anger and your reputation going for more than we have now?”

  “He’s been cuckold since ’72!” Betty declared, exasperated with his sudden cold feet. “Not, I’ll grant, by anyone that could even approach your talent at it, dearest. And as for the Beaumans … that pack of ‘Chaw-Bacons’! For all their airs, they’ve not been long off the hay-wagon, with the manners of stable-hands. Oh, they’re rich, I’ll allow, and you see security with that little chit, do you? Well, let me tell you, she’s not been pining away for you to sail back into her life. No party is complete without her, and her pack of admirers just slavering for a grope at her, and she’s not exactly been shy at being groped at, I’ll wager.”

  “Now hold on!” Alan grunted, not wanting to hear anything bad about Lucy. He was indeed fond of her, money aside, and the last time Mrs. Hillwood had given him the dirt on someone, Lieutenant Kenyon for instance, one of his grandest illusions had been shattered. He would hear no smear on Lucy’s character. “You may dislike the whole family. And frankly, they are a bit rough around the edges, I’ll admit, but that’s no reason to slander her.”

  “Oh, poor dear Alan,” Betty muttered cynically. “Do you think you’re the only buck pawing the ground she’s walked on? She’s young, beautiful and ungodly rich into the bargain. But could she ever give you half the pleasure I’ve given you just this day? Or would she most likely be so shy and inexperienced a jaded rogue like you would scare the breath out of her? Though where she gets her purity is beyond me.”

  “What do you mean, damnit?”

  “Peace, my love. I speak of the Beaumans, of course. Father off with a girl he keeps … in one of my apartments, I might add.”

  “Really?” Alan blurted, sitting back on his heels at some really lively gossip.

  “Hugh, the eldest son,” Betty smirked, swaying her hips seductively as she came back to the bed and stretched out near him, “he’s right fond of ‘fancies,’ he is.”

  “Fancies,” Alan stated; he’d heard the term before back in the Carolinas with the Chiswick family, but hadn’t known what it meant.

  “Very pale, very elegant-looking Samboes. House-servant quality, half white or almost white. You’ve seen them around town.” She chuckled, swinging her glass back and forth, without spilling a drop. “Hugh can’t get enough of them. Over on Portland Bight, where they have one of their sugar plantations, Hugh keeps a stable of them; not in the house except when Anne and the children are in town, though. I believe Mrs. Beauman is the only one that doesn’t know about her own men-folk, but I could be wrong. But then, many women suffer in silence for the sake of the children, or their security. Unlike me.”

  “Well, stap me,” Alan said, amazed at the ways of the world, though he should have known better by then. “The whole damned family?”

  “Mrs. Beauman, no,” Betty sighed. “She really is a sweet thing, but not too observant of most goings-on. Anne, Hugh’s wife … well, I think she’s aware of it, but as long as she doesn’t have to be enceinte over and over, I doubt she minds that much. No woman wishes to have a child a year and never have another hope of anyth
ing else until her womb shrivels. There was the most delicious doings two years ago, my dear!”

  Betty snuggled closer to impart her intimate information.

  “Do tell,” Alan replied, leaning closer.

  “During the slave revolt, all the women-folk came into Kingston for safety, while the men were off with the militia and the troops.” Betty snickered in glee. “And there was this one glorious young officer from the garrison, a captain, who took a particular fancy for the handsome Anne Beauman. As far as decorum allowed, they were inseparable.”

  “And did you rent him rooms, too?” Alan mocked.

  “No, but it was powerful wondrous how often Anne had to go out to shop, and never found anything worth buying, and how often young Captain McIntyre was away from his quarters. A friend of mine, Mrs. Howard, the frumpy one you met? Well, servants may come and go with no notice, and she set her maid to watch, and it appears that Captain McIntyre would enter certain lodgings every day, and soon after, the lovely Anne Beauman would enter those same lodgings and stay for three or four hours at a stretch. Then they would leave separately, she first, and him about a quarter-hour later.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Ah, the estimable young captain was carried off by the Yellow Fever after he went back into the field, and Mistress Anne was seen no more about Kingston for about a year, off to Portland Bight, no matter that the slaves were still in revolt. ’Twas said Hugh came back in a furious choler and dragged her off.”

  “Damme, that’s amazing. I’d have never thought her capable.”

  “When disappointed or crossed, anyone is capable, Alan dear,” she told him condescendingly. “Not only capable, but eager and willing to do almost anything to get their own back.”

  He succeeded in getting the subject changed to one she liked a whole lot better, which did not require words, avoiding any more speculation on her offer as well. And once she took on a larger cargo of Holland gin than was good for her trim, he could leave her snoring it off. He sponged down once more, dressed and headed out, and the servant girl slipped back in the door as he slipped out, still as silent as the Sphinx. Down the steps to the courtyard with its fountain, fish pond and flower beds off which all the lodgings opened, then out the double iron gate to the bright street, which shimmered in heat.

  He stood there a moment, almost sneezing at the change from a fairly cool, thick-walled building, to the sharp warmth of late afternoon.

  I’m going to break this off, he decided. Good as Betty Hillwood wanted to be to him, and as wanton a ride as she was, her proposition was nothing he wanted to be part of. While he did not consider himself one of God’s innocents, Betty Hillwood could make him feel like a gawking choir-boy with her sour, jaded outlook on the world, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to share her state of mind.

  “I mean, damme, pleasure’s fine, but my God!” he groused as he began to stroll off, trying to stick to the shadows where the sun did not strike with such ferocity. I’ve never heard a good word pass her lips ’bout anyone or anything, have I?

  He had just finished four straight hours with a woman who would fulfill his every desire, and he should have been skipping and laughing with delight at his good fortune. She had given him a chain and fob worth an easy fifty or sixty guineas, but he had little joy from it.

  “I’m not one for the Blue-Devils,” he muttered, pondering his moodiness. “Must be her, the sour bitch. No wonder her husband took off for the back-country, if that’s the sort of thing he had to hear all the time. Well, thankee for the gift, and thankee for all the quim, Betty dear, but that’s the last time I sport with you, or give ear to your poison.”

  Besides, he assured himself, looking for a cause for joy, wasn’t he handsome and pleasing enough to have a younger and prettier wench if the humors took him again? Didn’t Lucy Beauman go faint at the sight of him? He had bigger fish to fry, and Betty Hillwood was a possible embarrassment if word got out about their affair. She would be nice to look back on, but that was all.

  He headed for “The Grapes,” the cheery red brick inn and public house at the foot of the docks and the landing stage, for a last cool mug of ale or beer before taking a bum-boat out to Shrike.

  The heat was killing, and all his pleasurable exertions had left him loose-hipped and a trifle weak in the knees, so when hearing the clatter of a coach coming down the road from behind him, he gladly shifted over towards the nearest wall, into a patch of shade, and leaned on the wall to take a breather. He turned to see if the coach would miss him in the narrow lane, and was amazed to see that the light open two-horse carriage bore Mrs. Anne Beauman and her maid. He lifted his hat and gave a bow as they neared, and the carriage squeaked to a stop, rocking on its leather suspension straps.

  “Mistress Beauman, a good day to you, ma’am.”

  “Mister Lewrie.” She beamed back at him, looking fetching in a white and pale-blue gown, and a wide straw hat that echoed her colors. “Are you forced to walk in this oppressive heat, sir?”

  “Shank’s ponies, ma’am, for journeys too short for a coach,” Alan laughed lightly in reply.

  “So formal, Alan,” she admonished. “And just two days ago it was Anne. Get you in and we shall deliver you to your destination.”

  “My undying thanks, Anne,” Alan said, as the footman got down from the rear postillion, folded down the iron step and opened the low door for him. Alan settled into the rear-facing forward seat next to a large, wrapped bundle. “I am only going to the docks, Anne, if that is not too large an imposition on your time.”

  “None at all,” she replied, reaching over to touch his knee with her large laced fan as the coachee whipped up. “You come ashore, though, without paying court to our dear Lucy? How remiss of you,” she teased.

  “I only had the few hours today,” Alan replied, reddening slightly.

  “Then I shall not tell her I saw you, or she would feel slighted, no matter the reason.” Anne chuckled, going back to fanning herself. With one backward glance, she got her black maid to adjust the large parasol over her head so the sun would not strike her and ruin her complexion.

  Now why, Alan speculated in appraisal, would Hugh Beauman want to dally with one of his fancies, when he could sport with this one any night?

  In bright sunlight, Anne Beauman appeared even more exotic than before, her hair and complexion dark, making Alan wonder if she were the off-spring of some island racial mix herself. Possibly some Spanish blood, or sprung from those “Black Irish” sired by the survivors of the Armada? There had been damned few Black island women that had tempted him, and he could not think why anyone would spurn the charms of such a handsome woman for those of some slave in the back-country, even if the slave was close to European. But then, why was he fond of chamber-maids and willing widows? he asked himself. Perhaps it was an acquired taste.

  “Not much wind today,” Alan observed as the coach clattered on its way towards the center of town. “I wonder you’re out yourself.”

  “House-keeping errands, I’m afraid,” she replied with a brief frown. “My newest gown in that bundle next to you was spotted with soup, and no one seems to be able to get it out. I was hoping my dress-maker could run up a new panel so I could wear it Sunday. And what brings you ashore?”

  “Oh, just some shopping.”

  “Only poor shops up the way you came,” Anne pointed out. “You must have been in search of a bargain.”

  “And a little sight-seeing. Just to get off the ship for a few hours, see some new faces.”

  “And did you see anyone interesting? Any new sights?” Anne rejoined, mildly amused, as though she knew what he had been doing, and with whom.

  “Not much up that way, you are right,” Alan replied, flushing with heat under his clothes at her probing. “Might I offer you some reward for saving me from a long, hot walk? A cool drink, perhaps?”

  “There is no need to reward me, Alan, though I must admit something cool would feel welcome. I had no idea it w
as this hot!” Anne said, plying the fan more energetically. “Where would you have in mind?”

  “Well, there’s ‘The Grapes,’” he suggested, unable to think up anyplace else on short notice—he had not been ashore in Kingston often enough to know all its establishments.

  “Hmm,” she frowned, “a sailor’s haunt, I fear. Not quite genteel, is it.”

  “I thought it was rather nice.” Alan shrugged.

  “A bit too many Navy officers and merchant captains, trading factors and such. There are few places a lady may go away from home. Ah!” She brightened. “There is, however, a small public house near my dress-maker’s. Baltasar’s. The emigré Frenchman who is the proprietor styles it as a restaurant, quite the latest thing in Paris, he says. No lodgings, just food and drink. Can you imagine?”

  “The hard part is imagining how the man turns a profit,” Alan said, grinning. Chop-houses and public-houses were usually close by bagnios, had rooms to let for private dining and discreet sport with dinner companions, or could trot out a chambermaid or a prostitute for their patrons. Without that sideline, he could not see how money could be made, not in a harbor town, at any rate.

  “If you do not mind me seeing to my errand first?” Anne asked, as though eager to try the place. “If I do not delay you from returning to your ship at the proper time?”

  He was forced to walk her into the dress-maker’s shop, where several island ladies of social note were taking rest from the day’s warmth, gossiping and killing time, while fabrics and laces were considered, the latest points of style were admired or denigrated, and the small staff bustled about to fetch out requests. Alan felt like a total fool standing by the door with his hat under his arm, feeling the cool gaze of the women. They glanced at him, scowling a bit at the effrontery of a man to invade their sanctuary from husbands, shot glances at Anne, and then shifted to gaze most significantly at each other.

  Damn all this feminine truck! Alan fumed, trying to look patient, calm, and innocent, though he felt as examined as if he had gone in naked as the day he was born.