"Ummm, yess," she muttered, shaking with husky amusement as well. "Devour me, Alan. Ooooh, yess! Ummmm!"
Tumescent as a belaying pin, he slid back into her for the second time in half an hour, and she leaned back and flung her arms to the ceiling to ride St. George on his member, grinding her hips down against his, clasping him with her thighs and moaning with heartfelt abandon as his hands kept possession of her heavy breasts, leaning forward into his grasp with her hands clawed into his shoulders and grinning and crying out, wincing with each thrust and movement. Panting and grunting as their pace quickened.
She looked magnificent, perspiration sheened on her body, her nipples hard and rasping on his hungry palms, her soft thighs clasping and slipping with sweat and her heels under his buttocks to drive him deeper. Her hair was matted and a stray lock clung to the corner of her crumpled mouth as it hung open. Hot, burning dark eyes glowed down at him, urging him on, begging him for more…
"Well, damme!" a petulant voice interposed.
"Sufferin' shit!" Alan gasped, looking toward the door to espy a very thin, reedy Lord Roger Cantner standing in the doorway.
I think I've been here before, Alan thought sadly. Christ, this time I'm going to get my young arse killed!
"My dear," Lady Delia said, looking back over her shoulder, calm as you'd like, "you're back early."
"How… how dare…" Lord Cantner sputtered. "That young swine, behind me back, you whore!"
"Surely you must have known, Roger dear," Delia replied, still astride and making no moves to break away. "If not about Alan, then about any of the others." She did pull up a sheet to cover herself, Alan included, for which he felt only slightly grateful.
Get the fuck off, you cow! he screamed mentally. Let me get on my feet and out of here! I need clothing, and a head start!
"Me own wife!" Lord Cantner tried to howl in outrage. But it came out little more than a petulant screech.
"In name only, Roger, as we both are well aware. A wife may expect conjugal relations now and again," Delia said, smiling wickedly. "Of a successful, and pleasing, nature, n'est-ce pas?"
Lord Cantner put a hand to the hilt of his smallsword, and Alan gulped in total fear, his suntanned complexion aiming white as Delia's flesh.
But Lady Cantner only chuckled deep in her throat at that threat. "Would you run me through, dear Roger? Or Alan? That's murder, you know. Too public a thing to share with the Mob. And you might swing for it at Tyburn, even so."
Alan couldn't credit it. Under the secrecy of the sheet, she was stirring her hips once more, as if she wanted to torment the old cuckold into mayhem! And, God help him, what should have shriveled up like a deflated haggis was now hard as a marlinspike inside her!
God, I promise you, let me get out of this with a whole skin and I'll be good, I swear! he prayed silently. I'll marry Caroline Chiswick, I'll be monogamous as a bloody swan forever-more!
"Or would you rather go to Pickering Place and duel for your honor, my dear," Delia almost snickered. "Come slap him if you wish. I'll hold him down for you."
"For God's sake!" Alan finally gave voice.
"You little bastard!" Lord Cantner rasped, his sour little mouth working around what was left of his teeth. "Should have known when I come in on ye an' this bitch aboard that schooner, you all snivelin' on her tits, oh, I knew then ye were spoonin'' her yer cream-pot love even then! One o' me own I praised t' the skies!"
The hand had, however, dropped away from the sword hilt and both were wringing themselves in quandary. Alan felt a moment of hope.
"Murder, then, Roger dear?" Delia sniffed at her husband's indecisiveness. "A challenge to a duel? No? Then please be good enough, after me fruitless years we have spent together, to go away and make up your mind and leave me to my pleasures."
Lord Cantner stamped one of his little feet and gave out with another feeble bleat of displeasure. "Bedamned to ye, ye bitch! And Goddamn yer traitorous blood, Mister Lewrie! I'll see the both of ye in hell, I swear I shall. You'll pay. Oh, my yes, you'll pay. I'll have both yer heart's blood, ye see if I don't!"
But, amazingly, the old man quavered out another unintelligible warning, and doddered out the door, slamming it behind him!
"Well, I'm damned!" Alan gasped, going limp as Italian pasta against the pillows. "Christ, that's torn it! He'll have me dead!"
"He won't, dearest," Delia cooed, stirring her hips to revive him as coolly as if one of the servants had dropped off clean towels and departed.
"Easy for you to say!" Alan raved, after drawing a deep breath.
"Alan, don't flatter yourself; you're not the first," Delia said, giggling. "We've slept in separate rooms almost from the wedding night, and he knows his limitations at his age. Would he take the risk of dueling my darling lad? He shakes too much to hold a pistol, and the weight of a sword is quite beyond him for more than a minute. He's too stubborn to die and leave me everything. And too proud to ask Parliament for a bill of divorce. He's known about you."
"Then how could he play cards with me if he did? How could he stand to have me eat his fare?"
"What he knows is one thing," Delia grinned, leaning down to him once more. "What he wants others of his circle to know is quite another. They believe him capable in bed, and I give no sign he's not. I brought enough money to this miserable marriage to walk out anytime I cared to. So far, I have not. My family was rich Trade. He was respectable aristocracy. So we have no heir as of yet. Before he dies, I shall present him with what he wants most. Had he his wits about him, he'd have sent word on ahead from Dover he was returning. I expect the sea voyage upset him, poor thing."
"By God, you're a cool 'un!" Alan marveled. He'd thought he'd met some crafty, scheming women in his time, and had suffered at their hands more than once. But he'd never seen the like before. Even Mrs. Betty Hillwood back on Jamaica hadn't been this icy.
"If he hadn't been addled by mal de men I'd have known when to receive him back, and you would not have been in this predicament. We'd have been sitting around the card table, or truly having breakfast, when he arrived," she went on. "He'd have known what we'd been up to in his absence, but he'd have been spared the actuality."
"Well, he wasn't," Alan said, trying to lever her off him so he could get dressed and obey his instincts to take a long vacation in Scotland. Perhaps change his name and herd sheep with the Chiswicks down in Surrey until Lord Cantner had the good grace to die. "And he's seen the actuality. You said he has his pride. That means he'll get even, no matter what you think he'll do. You heard what he said. He'll hire himself some dockyard toughs to stop my business!"
"I give you my best assurances, dearest, sweetest, Alan, that he shall do no such thing," she said, laughing, hugely amused. "You don't know what a relief it is to end this pitiful charade at last. Just like that night he retired early, remember? Oh, I surely do. And we sat up playing backgammon until he was fast asleep?"
"Yes." It had been one hell of a night, sneaking into her chambers trying not to make a sound, tumbling onto the carpet before a ruddy fire, all the while the old man had snored in the room next door, and all night long, they had lurched fearful between strokes each time he'd coughed, muttered or turned over, only to begin again.
She pressed back down on him, trying to revive his flagging interest in the proceedings.
"I shall most like have to get out of town for a while," Alan told her. "I mean, I can't just trail my colors in his face, can I?"
"Oh, do spend some time in Bath! Warm spa waters, gambling in the Long Rooms. Beau Nash is dead and it's getting more lively, now he isn't there to demand decorum," Delia enthused. "I could join you there for a couple of weeks if you wish."
"Let's not press our luck, hmm?" Alan snapped. "Don't rub salt in the wound. I'll be an old hound, too, one of these days, and I'd surely kill the first young pup that sniffed around my wife!"
"How possessive you suddenly are!" she pouted. "Darling, if we must indeed be parted… give me somethin
g to remember you by."
"In for the penny, in for the pound?" he scowled.
"Something like that," she teased.
"Sorry, m'dear, I'm off like a bloody hare!"
"Cony, pack a bag for me," Alan said, back in the safety of his lodgings. "I feel the urge to take the waters somewhere."
"We goin' t' Bath'r Brighton, sir? Ahn't never been!"
"Somewhere. Anywhere. No, I'll need you to take this note to Courts' for me. I'll pack myself. Post some letters for me after. And get us a couple of horses," he added. "And make sure they're the fastest ones alive."
"Fer in the mornin', sir?" Cony asked in all innocence.
"Ah… hmm," Alan replied. "I should think tonight would be devilish fine."
"T'night, sir? If'n ya want, sir. 'Course, hit'd be 'ard t' find a decent inn that late on the road. An' the country a'swarmin' with 'ighwaymen now the vet'rins is outa work."
"We'll go well-armed," Alan told him. Count on being well-armed, he thought. He had a Ferguson rifle from his time with the Chiswicks, a saddle musketoon, his brace of naval pistols and another brace of dragoon pistols, his hanger, and there was a cutlass around somewhere for Cony to wear as well. Damned right, he'd go armed! He wouldn't put it past Lord Cantner to raise a battalion of pursuers, no matter what Delia thought, with a hundred guineas for the man who harvested his liver?
Cony went off with a note for the bankers, and Alan wrested a traveling valise from his armoire and began cramming things into it any-old-how. But he was interrupted by a scratch at the door.
"Ah, Abigail, my little chuck," he said, not pausing in his haste.
"I gotta talk to you, sir?" she said, tremulous as the first time he'd clapped eyes on her. "You packin' t' go some'r's?"
"Just for a couple of weeks." Alan shrugged it off.
"Alan," she drawled out, and he stopped packing long enough to take her in his arms, give her a fond kiss, and set her down out of the way.
"Be back sooner or later. We'll have more fun, hey?' "Don't know as I'll be here when you gets back, Alan me love."
"Oh? Why?"
"Well, the housekeeper'll prob'ly turn me out without no ref'rence," she intoned with a hard gulp.
"Did she discover about our little arrangement?" Alan asked, abandoning his packing once more. "How'd it happen?"
"I think I'm gonna have a baby, Alan," she managed to say, her lower lip quivering, and tears starting to flow from her eyes. "Yours."
"Well, shit, what next?" he sighed, and sat down at the table with her as her face screwed up and copious tears bubbled out.
"Alan!" she wailed. "Wha's gonna happen t' me? I can't care for a baby! I'll be out in the streets, an' no house'U take me on, not with a littl'un comin'. Alan, you gotta do somethin'!"
I knew it was too good to last, I knew it, I knew it! God, he thought miserably, remember that promise about swans? I think I meant it this time!
"Umm, are you sure, Abigail? Absolutely sure, I mean…"
"Hadn't had me courses this month. An' I get sick as anythin' o' the mornin's, I do! My stomach feels a little hard, too. Here, feel of it. Don't it feel diff'runt to you? I can't have no baby, an' me a spinster girl, Alan. Parish'll turn me out an' tell me t' move along t' the next. Same with that'un, too, I reckon. I seen it before, I have, back in Evesham. Girls havin' t' run off t' Birmingham, an' nothin' good at the end of it. But if I was t' be married, I could cry widow, blame it on a farmboy…"
"What? Married?" Alan exclaimed in shock.
"Yes," she bawled, putting her face down on the table and blubbering fit to bust. "Say you will, jus' t' let me have the record for the parish! I'm sorry! I thought we was bein' so careful, you with your cundum an' all. Don' let me be rooned, Alan, if you love me…"
In the middle of this, while Alan was trying to think of some way to escape being bound to the little mort for all eternity, there was another scratching at the door.
"Wait your bloody turn, damn yer eyes!" Alan barked with his best quarterdeck rasp, which startled Abigail into a fit of hiccups. "What?" he demanded, flinging the door open.
"Lieutenant Alan Lewrie, Royal Navy?" The messenger from the Admiralty sniffed at his unexpected greeting. He took in the bawling girl at the table, and gave another audible sniff.
"I am."
"Then this is for you, sir. If you will be so good as to sign here to shew I have delivered it to you? I have a stub of pencil, sir. No need for a pen," the old pensioner intoned with all the hauteur of a flag officer. "I was instructed to await your reply, sir."
Alan scribbled off his name and slammed the door in the man's face. He broke the blue wax wafer on the parchment and opened it to read it.
"Bloody, bloody, flaming Hell!" he muttered.
"Sir;
Our Lords Commissioners of The Admiralty have seen fit to offer you an active commission, the exact nature of which we shall be glad to discover to you should you deem yourself able to accept immediate Employment. You shall be appointed 4th Lt. into a Ship of the Line, the 80-gun 3rd Rate Telesto, now lying in-ordinary in the port of Plymouth, for three years' Commission in foreign waters.
Please communicate to us your Availability, or state reasons why you cannot fulfill a term of active service, pursuant to the customary usages such as loss of half-pay, reduction in seniority from the roll of commission Sea Officers, etc.
Yr obdt srvnt,
Phillip Stephens, Sec. to Admlty"
"God, I meant that bit about the swans, but this is a trifle extreme, don't you think?" he said to the ceiling.
"Wot?" Abigail hiccuped.
"Not you. Look, my girl. Marriage just ain't in the cards, see?" Alan told her matter-of-factly. "Yes, I'm going away. I've been ordered to go to sea. I'll give you some money to take care of you, and to see to your lying in. That's the best I can do."
"Oh, my God, you heartless bastard," she wailed.
"Twenty pounds to see you through, Abigail. And another twenty pounds so the baby's looked after. Tell people whatever you like. I can't marry you, and you know it. I'd make you bloody miserable."
"Miserable's I am now?" she spat, changing emotions quickly.
"Worse, most likely," he replied, trying to gentle her. He knelt down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders,
and held her even as she tried to shrug him off. "Look, girl, I'm fond enough of you. You're a sweet little chit, that you really are. There's plenty of homes would like a healthy baby, if you don't want to keep him, or her. You'll have about six years' wages for food and lodging, if you don't squander it on foolishness. And there are houses that'll have you. I'll write you a letter of reference if you want. I'll say you worked for me. Blame it… blame it on some sailor who took advantage of you on your day off. Tell the parish you were raped by some sailor you never saw before or since. Long's you have money to keep yourself, and you're not on their Poor's Rate, they won't care a whit."
"But you won't marry me," she sobbed, quieter now, and put her arms around him sadly.
"I'm going to foreign waters, Abigail. Three years and more. Dry your eyes, now. Call me a bastard if you like, but I'll try to do right by you, as much as I'm able. But marry you… I'm sorry."
He shooed her out, scribbled a quick acceptance letter for the Admiralty messenger, who fled before his old soul was corrupted any more than it most probably was, and sat down to relish a huge glass of brandy. God knew, he needed it about then.
Chapter 5
The more he thought about the arrival of the Admiralty's offer of immediate employment, the better he was resigned to it. A commission in foreign waters, far away from Lord Cantner's wrath, and any hulking minions he might hire, was probably the best thing. It also got him out of London, out of England, so little Abigail could not cry "belly plea" on him before a magistrate if she found his terms of settlement unacceptable, once she had a chance to put her little brain to work on them.
Surprisingly, Cony had seemed suddenly eager to go to sea with
him as a seaman and cabin-servant as well. The Matthewses said they'd store his furnishings in the garret of his lodgings on Panton Street, though Sir Onsley had been mystifying as all Hell about why Fate had chosen that exact moment to bless him with active service. The old Admiral had made offers before, but nothing had ever come of them, and after three years' privation in the Navy, Alan was not exactly "cherry-merry" to go to sea again, though he showed game enough when Sir Onsley talked about the possibility.
There had come another letter from the Admiralty before the week was out, though, delivered by the same pensioner porter, and this one had advised him to travel to Plymouth at once, in civilian clothes. What had been the point of that, he speculated? At least, his route took him through Guildford, where the Chiswicks resided. It was the final disappointment to his feelings to learn that they were not at home. He sighed heavily, left a letter for Caroline with their housekeeper and got back on the road.
"I thinks they's a rider comin' up a'hind of us, sir," Cony warned. Once leaving Guildford, they had taken the coast road for Plymouth, from Dorchester to Bridport and Honiton, skirted south of Exeter for Ashburton across the southern end of the Dartmoor Forest. Highwaymen were rife with so many veterans discharged with nothing but their needs, but so far they had traveled safely enough in company with other wayfarers.
Ever since leaving their last inn that morning, they had seen no one, though when they stopped to rest their horses they had thought they could hear one, perhaps two, riders behind them. The wintry air was chill. Snow lay thin and bedraggled on the muddy ground like a sugar glace on soaked fields. Rooks cried but did not fly in the fog that had enveloped them. It was thinning now, not from any wind but from the mid-morning sun, and sounds carried as they do in a fog, easy to hear from afar but without any true sense of which direction they came from.
They were two men on horseback, with a two-horse hired wagon to bear their sea-chests, driven by an ancient waggoner and his helper of about fourteen. They had gotten on the road just before dawn, and now stood listening, about halfway between Buckfastleigh and Brent Hill. A lonely place. A perfect place for an ambush, Alan thought. He cocked an ear towards the road behind him, trying to ignore the creaking of saddle leather and bitt chains.
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