by David McDine
‘No,’ Jane agreed, ‘merely ladies expressing our patriotism through our form of dress – at present.’
He had recovered his wits enough to stutter: ‘And most patriotic and ch-charming you three look.’ But the next guests were moving down the line, and to his huge relief, he and Armstrong were able to escape into the ballroom.
As they accepted glasses of champagne from a footman, they were approached by a portly, young, crimson-faced yeomanry officer who pointed at him and called out, ‘Good God – it’s the pirate admiral!’
Anson’s stomach clenched as he recognised the loud-mouth he had encountered en route to Maidstone and at the royal review.
He forced himself to give a jocular response. ‘Not quite an admiral just yet, I fear, Chitterling.’
‘Taken the trouble to remember who I am, eh?’
Beside Anson and Armstrong, in their plain navy frock coats, the yeomanry officer – all silver braid and buttons with red stable belt, broad stripe down his overall trousers and with spurs a-jangling – looked like a peacock next to a pair of magpies.
Acting under previous orders, Anson’s sisters Elizabeth and Anne appeared and dragged a delighted Armstrong off, insisting that he join them in the dancing, leaving their brother and the yeomanry officer glaring at one another.
Chitterling prodded Anson in the ribs and crowed: ‘Should have had that soldier boy who was with you flogged for firin’ his musket. Frightened the damned horses!’
‘It was purely accidental—’
‘Damned if it was! The cretin did it on purpose – and I’ll tell you, if I ever see him again he’ll feel the flat of my sabre on his back. And that’s just for starters.’
Anson shrugged. ‘I daresay a marine who’s been in as many real fights as him will be able to handle himself against a farmer on horseback.’
As soon as the words were out, he realised he had gone too far. Once again, this was neither the time nor place to provoke a public argument, and he really had better things to do than to embark on some kind of vendetta with this preening, podgy poltroon.
But it was too late. His adversary had turned a deeper shade of crimson. ‘Why, you jumped up water rat! You’ll pay for that remark—’ He looked around to see if anyone else had heard, but there was no one close. Putting his jowly face up close to Anson, he hissed: ‘If anyone had heard what you said I would have been forced to call you out, here and now. But, in deference to our hosts, I will forego that pleasure.’
‘Very wise.’ Anson had battened down his temper now. He fixed the peacock with an icy stare and with heavy sarcasm told him: ‘Of course I am scared witless, but I am happy to oblige you at another time – and in another place.’
Once again Chitterling misread this as a climb-down and dug himself in deeper. ‘I’ve been hearing about you, Master Anson. You’re the fellow who got himself captured, broke his parole and scurried back to England when the Froggies’ backs were turned, ain’t you? An officer who gives his parole and then sneaks away is a poor sort of gentleman. So much for honour!’
‘That is a lie. I never gave my parole. You are beginning to irritate me, and much against my better judgment I may be forced to teach you manners.’ He glared icily at Chitterling whose face betrayed a hint of unease.
The duel of stares was brought to an end by the arrival of the Brax sisters.
Charlotte grabbed Anson’s arm. ‘I see you’ve made friends with Dickie Chitterling, but we cannot have you boys hiding in corners chatting about horses and boats. So we’ve come to drag you off to dance.’
‘A pleasure Charlotte!’ brayed Chitterling, relieved at this timely intervention. Taking her free arm he pulled her away from Anson and almost dragged her into the line-up of dancers, giggling as she went: ‘Steady on, Dickie. I’m not one of your mares!’
In a flash, Jane was on Anson’s arm and leading him into the fray. But, as he submitted to the inevitable, he caught the youngest sister Isobel’s eye, read her disappointment at being left out and vowed to ask her to partner him later. He noted that although only 14 or 15 she was already showing signs of her eldest sister’s voluptuousness, but he suspected her character and demeanour more matched that of Jane.
The music grew louder as the players hired from Canterbury warmed to their task on violin, double bass, flute, horn and the Brax family’s expensive new Broadwood piano, and guests whirled to country dance reels and rounds.
Anson had been taught to dance passably well by his sisters and cousins as a child, but was rusty and awkward now – a hornpipe being more to his taste than a stately minuet or even a more boisterous quadrille. But with a fixed, slightly anxious expression he concentrated hard, always a half step behind, as he followed his partner’s moves – praying that he would end up in the right place when the music stopped.
Eventually, after he had been led around the dance floor by both Jane and Isobel, the moment came when Charlotte Drax emerged from a noisy group of volunteer officers and tacked across the ballroom towards him.
‘Now, Mr Anson, I have seen you dancing with both my sisters – twice with Jane. So now it is most definitely my turn to have you …’ And when the next dance was announced she tucked her arm through his so that her bosom squeezed against him as she led him onto the floor.
Anson was able to acquit himself without capsizing or colliding, but he was no natural dancer and gritted his teeth throughout the ordeal, raising his eyebrows in mock alarm as he passed the euphoric Commander Armstrong, currently paired with Elizabeth, her sister Anne glaring jealously from the sidelines.
Each time he crossed paths with Charlotte, she gave him a coquettish pout. It was a sultry night, and when the music stopped she again grabbed his arm and appeared to be close to swooning.
Anxiously he asked: ‘Are you alright Miss, er, Charlotte?’
‘I need air.’ She fanned herself with her spare hand and, her arm interlocked with his, marched him out into a broad passageway and then through a side door onto a terrace.
There was something almost premeditated about the manner in which she had performed the cutting-out manoeuvre, thought Anson, and, once outside, far from being revived by the night air, she collapsed against him, cooing weakly: ‘I feel so faint, please don’t let me fall …’
He clasped her tightly to keep her from falling, and she leaned her head on his chest, moaning softly: ‘My buttons – they’re too tight. I can’t breathe.’
Charlotte was indeed breathing in short gasps and the buttons on her military-style jacket were clearly under great strain. Supporting her with his left arm, he set about freeing her top few buttons.
That mission accomplished, she murmured: ‘More …’ and he happily obliged, his fingers fumbling with each remaining button until the jacket fell open, revealing only some kind of thin shift that barely covered her ample bust and diving cleavage.
Suddenly revived, she glanced up at him, smiling, and triumphantly looked down at the objects of his obvious fascination. Then she reached both arms around his neck, pulled him towards her and with lips slightly parted pressed a lingering kiss on his. Anson’s hands went up to her now-freed breasts, but the sudden sound of voices close by made them both start and he pulled away from her.
Two of the older male guests had emerged from the ballroom and were chatting about the effect of the war on corn prices.
‘Warm night, what?’ one greeted them.
Anson stammered: ‘Very, er very warm indeed …’
‘But a little cooler out here, eh?’
Charlotte muttered softly: ‘Coitus interruptus!’ and, as she turned away, Anson could see that she was deftly buttoning up her jacket, apparently totally recovered from her swoon.
She said loudly so that the newcomers could hear: ‘I’ve cooled down now, Mr Anson. Perhaps you will kindly escort me back to the ballroom?’
Anson dutifully obeyed, although he was far from cool. The minx had set his blood on fire and as he led her back into the ballroom she sq
ueezed his hand, whispered: ‘We must continue the business in hand quite soon …’and made a beeline for another group of cackling volunteer officers, leaving him both elated and disturbed.
As he watched her laughing and joking with them, Jane and Isobel appeared at his side. The elder girl wagged her finger at him. ‘Now that Charlotte has let you off the leash for the moment, we insist that you mark our cards, Mr Anson. I still have two spaces on my dance programme.’
‘And I have three!’ Isobel volunteered with a winning smile.
*
On their way back to overnight at the rectory, Armstrong, his tongue loosened by Brax champagne, chattered happily about the delightful evening he had enjoyed as the focus of the Anson sisters’ attention. ‘Such delightful, charming, girls, mon vieux!’
40
A few days later, a sealed letter, heavily scented, arrived for him at the Rose.
He opened it to read a two-line message:
‘We have unfinished business. If you wish like me to resume where we left off, name the day, time and (discreet) place. Another interruption would be too maddening …’
It was signed simply ‘C’ and it did not require a genius to know that this was not Chitterling inviting him to a duel, but Charlotte suggesting an assignation. And he blushed with a mixture of desire and apprehension.
*
Anson could not sleep. It was impossible to banish Charlotte’s seductive message from his thoughts. He tried to think of other things, and in his mind he went back over those few sweet hours with Thérèse at the Auberge du Marin.
But always that brief encounter on the terrace came back to him. The rise and fall of her bosom, her full pouting lips, her small hand brushing his thigh and her suggestive remarks that left so little to the imagination, had captivated him.
Her obvious availability gnawed at him, yet he knew she was trouble. Of course he could arrange a tryst, but what then? As far as she was concerned, potential husbands were clearly in season. Once he succumbed, would she drag him off to the altar? His parents would be delighted for him to marry into the Brax family with their vast acreage and elevated position in so-called county society.
Squire Brax himself had given him the strongest of hints that he would be acceptable as a husband for his eldest daughter. But if he succumbed, how long would it be before the fever wore off and Charlotte became bored with his obsession with the navy and the war and offered her affections elsewhere? And there was little doubt in his mind that she was perfectly capable of that. He had noted the familiar way she had handled that brainless dandy Chitterling at the ball, and suspected she was potentially as wayward and predatory as her father was, by common repute.
It seemed he tossed and turned for hours. Would one encounter necessarily have to lead to a lasting liaison? Having captured him, would she quickly tire of the thrill of the chase and move on to her next prey? Or was there a slight desperation in her flirtatious behaviour – a need to find a suitable husband before, as her father had blatantly stated, she ran to fat like her mother?
Marriage to her, and at this time, did not attract him. A short, passionate affair did. But what had passed unnoticed at a French inn would surely be noticed here in his home county. Sam Fagg might call it ‘shittin’ in yer own nest’. His parents would insist that he did the right thing. Honour would be at stake.
The battle raged to and fro in his mind, but finally exhaustion overcame him and he fell into a restless sleep, dreaming fitfully of her and of fighting the ghastly Chitterling for her hand.
He awoke as dawn was breaking, pulled back the curtain at the window overlooking the street, and sat at the small oak table that served him as a desk. Charging his pen, he carefully wrote a brief note and addressed it to Miss Charlotte Brax, Brax Hall, Farthingham. It read:
‘Dear Miss Brax
Should you, perhaps accompanied by your sisters, be visiting Folkestone in the coming weeks I should be honoured if you would consent to dine with me and a brother officer here at the Rose Inn which is a respectable establishment favoured by local society and which can with notice provide a good table. I have ascertained that suitable rooms for you and your sisters could be provided if it proved necessary to stay overnight.
I have the honour to be
Your humble servant
O Anson, Lieutenant, Royal Navy.’
Satisfied that should others have sight of the note, they would see that it properly observed the niceties. He was certain, too, that if Charlotte really was setting her cap at him, she would realise why he had worded his invitation so politely – and would surely find a way to elude her chaperones when the moment came.
*
Armstrong’s departure for Fairlight, and Fagg’s return, had heralded a period of intensive training for the detachment, and drills with the great guns, muskets, half pikes and cutlasses improved apace.
Anson told himself that if the French could invade in daylight they could equally come in darkness, so he arranged a night exercise, with the boat crews rowing towards Dungeness and practising with the carronades, albeit more dumbshow.
They rowed back at first light, and, tired after his night’s work, Anson ate a large breakfast at the Rose before retiring to his room to catch up with some sleep.
He must have slept soundly for several hours until noise from the street woke him, but he remained on his bed, drifting in and out of sleep until a sudden creak of the sprung floorboard outside his room jerked him into full consciousness.
Instantly his feet were on the floor and he reached for his sword, unsheathing it with a faint rasp of steel. This might be the landlord with a message or, equally likely, it could be MacIntyre coming to search his room, unaware that anyone was there, or to kill him if he knew he was abed. Anson was, as yet, blissfully unaware of the former bosun’s fate.
Stepping silently behind the door, he steeled himself as it creaked open and made a grab from behind at the figure entering in the half light. A distinctly feminine squeal and soft yielding flesh told him this was no hairy Glaswegian bosun, and as he made to let go the interloper turned in his arms and laid her head on his chest.
‘Dear me, Mr Anson, I hoped you would be eager, but not that eager!’
Astonished, he looked down at Charlotte Brax, dropped his sword and stammered, ‘I’m so s-sorry. Please accept my apologies. I thought you were—’
‘Please don’t tell me you were expecting some other young lady. You’ll hurt my pride most terribly if you were!’
Still clutching her, Anson protested: ‘N-no, of course not. I thought you might be a bosun I have just had to dismiss.’
She registered pretended shock. ‘Now you have really insulted me – taking me for a hairy, smelly sailor! It must be this jacket.’ She was wearing the same brocaded military-style creation that he had helped her unbutton so ardently on the terrace at the Brax Hall ball.
‘No, no, no – the man I was expecting has a grudge, a score to settle, and when I heard the floorboard creak I thought he might be—’
‘Coming to kill you? How exciting! So you don’t normally greet your lady visitors in your nightshirt with your weapon unsheathed?’ She made the remark sound so suggestive that he pulled away slightly in case she was referring to his growing reaction to the way she was clinging and wriggling against him.
‘I, er, I assure you I don’t have lady visitors—’
‘Women, then?’ How was it that she always had an answer and managed to give everything she said an erotic twist?
‘No, no w-women either.’
She laughed. ‘Your most discreet landlord kindly directed me to come straight up. I told him I was your sister!’
‘Good grief!’
‘So, big brother, I can feel that you like me. Are you going to show me just how pleased you are to see your little sister?’ And she raised her pouting lips to be kissed.
He obliged her, gently at first, and then fiercely as passion flared. All inhibitions flown, he guided her b
ack towards the bed and they sank down together. The buttons parted again, she hauled her skirt down, and he pulled her silk chemise over her head and fell upon her bosom, kissing and caressing feverishly.
Her small chubby hands tugged at his nightshirt. Over his head it went and, naked, they grappled one another, sinking back on the bed and melting together as they made love urgently, fiercely, greedily.
*
Temporarily spent, they lay back, his arm beneath her. She made no attempt to cover herself and through half-open eyes he studied her shapely body, bordering on becoming over-ripe. Good grief, he thought, but she was a desirable, seductive creature like no other he had known. And, as she teased him about the speed of his onslaught and broadside, he realised, too, that this was far from the first time for her.
Where, when and with whom had she learned? In the heat of the moment he had cared not.
They dozed, she aroused him again, and it was early afternoon before they dressed and made their way down to the dining room, Charlotte announcing to the landlord: ‘I’m absolutely starving. Kindly bring me a beef steak, thick and rare, and the same, I think, for my brother. He’s a little shrivelled in appearance, don’t you think, and is in need of building up!’
With a knowing smile, the landlord touched his forehead. ‘Certainly Miss, er, Anson, I’ll get the cook onto it right away.’
Anson looked heavenwards with resignation, and as he led Charlotte to a table she whispered: ‘Mrs Anson would sound better …’
She chattered away throughout the meal and Anson let it all wash over him as he ate – until she mentioned that Chitterling had called upon her at Brax Hall twice already this week.
He looked up startled. ‘Chitterling? What’s that oaf to you?’
Charlotte smiled happily at his obvious jealousy. ‘He must have fancied his chances with me after I danced with him at the ball. Oh, he’s a pompous clodhopper I know, and if you give him half a chance his hands are all over you like an octopus …’