The French Admiral (3 page)

Alan was led to a small bedroom over the house's side porch that had a balcony of its own. The windows were open for a breeze and the gauzy drapes stirred in a soft river wind. Once in the room he shucked his coat and removed his neck-cloth. His girl, named Bess, came to him and kissed him gently, playing the innocent at first, but warmed up quickly when he embraced her and began to fondle her firm buttocks and hips. The servant arrived with a bottle and two glasses, interrupting them. Alan almost kicked him out the door and shut it.

Bess poured them each a glass of hock, then arranged herself on the narrow bed, parting her morning gown to reveal splendid legs.

“Ya been long in the King's Navy?” she asked as he undressed.

“Too damned long,” he laughed, removing his waistcoat. “You been long with this Lady Jane?”

“Too damn' long,” the girl smiled back with honest amusement.

“I'm off a frigate,” he told her as he kicked off his shoes and began to undo his breeches. “The
Desperate,
twenty guns, just put into port this morning,” he went on, intent on his prize lolling on the sheets. Once in his birthday suit, he slipped into bed beside her and they embraced once more, and she began to moan expertly at his touches, shamming high passion at once, “Oh, mah chuck, oh, ya make me tangle all over.”

“Here, how long do we have?” Alan asked.

“This ain't no hop-about place,” Bess said throatily as he kissed her shoulders and neck. “No rush, ah reckon. What tahm hit be?”

“Just after one,” Alan said. “We have to leave by five.”

“Well, we kin have hours t'gether, then,” she groaned, pawing at him as though she was trying to save herself from drowning. “Mos' men don't come hyuh 'til way after dark, hit bein' so hot an' all.”

“Then let's not play as if we're on the clock,” Alan said, undoing the last lacings to her bodice. “Let's spend our hours together trying to please each other, instead of all this sham.”

Bess smiled up at him, broke off her acting and gave him a hug which almost resembled fondness. She rolled over to fetch their wine.

“Ah thank ahm gonna lahk ya, Alan,” she said. “Hyuh, have a drank. Le's do take ouh tahm. Hit happens sa seldom.”

After that, Bess was pleasantly exuberant in bed, eschewing the normal bawd's loud performance that could not be credited. She was only seventeen, she told him as they fondled and nestled in postcoital ease, once a virgin in the Piedmont but ruined by soldiers from both sides in the partisan fighting, left behind when her last lover marched off to Wilmington. Whether true or not, Alan found it a better-than-average whore's tale.

Other than whoring, she had no trade skills and no regard for the usual servant's or washerwoman's wages. The work was easy, the money she got to keep was good, and Lady Jane took care of all her needs. She did not cry penury or guilt like most of the sorrowful stories Alan had heard from rented quim, and seemed content and blasé with the life, as long as her beauty and health lasted.

“And what will you do when you're older?” Alan asked her as he stretched naked beside her after another bout.

“Take me passage ta London an' open a house o' my own, ah reckon,” she said with a smirk. “Bigges' city ah ever seed was Chawlst'n, but ah'd admire ta see London.”

Alan described his former life and all the pleasures of the world's greatest city, which delighted her. In the process he touched on why he had been banished to the Navy, and under further careful coaching he bragged on what he had seen and done in the Indies.

“But whut brought ya hyuh ta the Caralinas?” she prodded.

“Going north to New York,” Alan said without thinking. “There is a French fleet on the loose under an Admiral de Grasse. We took a Frog merchantman two weeks ago and found out what they're up to in the Chesapeake or the Delaware, and we're going to find them and stop them. It was me that found the letters from de Grasse to Rochambeau and Washington.”

“Jus' one li'l frigate's gonna stop 'em?” she teased fetchingly.

“Whole damn' Leeward Islands fleet,” Alan boasted. “Ships up from Saint Lucia, too. Fourteen sail of the line. Would have been more, but Rodney took his treasure fleet home and took three ships with him. It's going to be one hell of a fight when we meet up with those Frogs.”

“Ya thank that'll end the fightin'?” she asked. “Six month ago, ah'd've been glad ta see people stop akillin' each other. Nouh, all ya sailors'll go back ta England an' the troops, too. That'll be bad for business. Pooh, ah'll never save up enough ta get ta London.”

“But with peace, Charlestown will be bustling again, and there still will be a garrison,” Alan said, accepting another glass of the wine. It was beginning to taste pleasant, too pleasant, and he vowed to make it his last until the stirrup cup at the door, or they would go back aboard half foxed and Treghues would be furious. “I wager you could get five guineas for your services and go home rich as Moll Flanders.”

“Jus' as long as ah don't never have ta go back ta the Piedmont,” she said, growing a little sad. She snuggled up closer beside him to throw a leg over and hug him close. “God, hit wuz horrible up there.”

Here comes the sympathy plea, Alan thought sourly. Never knew a whore yet who wouldn't try to weep you out of more money.

“I've heard tales about how partisan the fighting was.”

“Not jus' the fightin', Alan,” she said into his shoulder. “Iver been upta the back country?”

“No.”

“Hit's this rebellion,” she said. “Won't leave nobody alone. Ya gotta be fer one side er t'other nouh. Neighbors turnin' agin each other, burnin' each other out fer spaht. Rebels aburnin' out Tories, Tories raidin' Rebels, the Regulators runnin' round makin' people choose the Rebels're die. An' when they fight, they don't take prisoners no more. Maybe some o' the reg'lar troops still do, but mosta the militia on both sides jus' shoot 'em all. Iver hear tell o' Tarleton's Quarter?”

“I've barely heard of this Tarleton. Cavalry, isn't he?” Alan sighed, shifting to a more comfortable position in the sticky heat.

“They wuz a fight at Waxhaws, an' Tarleton had 'em beat, an' the Rebels raised white flags fer quarter, but the Legion tore 'em apart anyways and kilt most of 'em. After that, the Rebels started doin' the same. Hit's been Tidewater people agin Piedmont, Rebel or Tory, rich agin pore, Regulators agin King's men—nobody's safe no more up thar. When Clinton took Chawlst'n last year, hit seemed the safest place. We wuz taggin' with the Legion, me an' Momma. Come hyuh where we could be safe, an' be took keer of lahk real ladies, not Piedmont hill trash. Cayn't blame me fer wantin' that, nouh kin ya, ner wantin' away from all that warrin'?”

She raised her head and looked him in the eyes. “You better kill them Frogs're the Rebels'll come back ta take Chawlst'n, er they'll be blood in the streets afore they through with the Tidewater Tories, an' all who serve 'em.”

“Surely not a poor young whore with no politics?” Alan teased.

“Hey, hit's no skin offa yore ass,” she heated up suddenly, angry at being belittled. “Yore out at sea, where they fight clean. You hain't seen yore neighbors laid out lahk daid hawgs jus' 'cause they give food an' shelter ta Rebels that woulda looted 'em iffen they hadn't. Er seen another fam'ly burned out the next naght when the Rebels come back ta get even with whatever people they thought wuz the closest Tories. Rich dumb-butts lahk you kin call it a war, but hit ain't nothin' but murderin'.”

“Take it easy, now, 'twas not my doing,” Alan said softly.

“Mah folks didn' want no part of hit,” she said, now in full cry with tears beginning to streak her face. “We jus' wanted ta be left alone. But first one side an' then t'other come around atellin' us ta choose up sides er die.”

“Time I was going,” Alan said, rising to dress.

“Goddamn you,” she cried, punching him in the chest. “Mah daddy got hung by a pack o' scum said he was fer King George, jus' 'cause he paid part o' what he owed in tax when the King's man come round with a sword ta make him pay up. Wouldn't even listen to him. An' not a month later we got burned out an' lost ever'thin' 'cause a lyin' dog Regulator got caught an' give our name ta the Tory militia. But hit don't bother the lahks o' you none, does it? Well, you jus' go on an' get yer blueblood arse kilt, an' ah only wish ta God hit wuz yore fam'ly sufferin'.”

She collapsed in tears, flinging herself back onto the bed, and sobbed into a pillow to muffle her distress or to hide her lack of real tears. Alan wasn't sure which. Alan picked up his shirt from the floor and started to put it on over his head, but stopped to look down on her bare body as she wept.

Damme, I'm a foolish cully to be taken in like this, he thought, knowing that he should walk out and leave her to her tears, but moved all the same, no matter how stupid he considered himself to fall for a whore's story. He dropped the shirt and sat down on the bed to stroke her back. She hissed something unintelligible at him, but he persisted until she turned to him and took refuge in his arms, wetting his chest with real tears and snuffling and hiccuping with remembered terror and sadness.

“There, there,” he said, rocking her gently like a child. God, what if she is telling the truth about what happened? Never let it be said of me that I had a lick of sense when it came to women, especially when they spring a leak, he told himself. Maybe part of her tale is real and not some plea for an extra shilling or two. I'd not like to be back in those wilds with every hand turned against me, either.

“There, there,” he soothed, stroking her back and keeping her close and snug until her sobs became less powerful.

“Hey, ahm sorry,” she whispered, snuffling. “Ah don't want ya ta get kilt, ah didn't mean that. Hit's jus' . . .”

“Well, I don't want to get killed, either,” he said, and she shrugged in sad mirth against him. “No harm done. Tell me about it.”

“Las' thang ah thought ah'd iver do's become a whore,” she sniffed, now bereft of strong emotion, almost flat in tone. “Thought ah'd marry one o' the neighbor boys. Didn't know which yit, but that's the way o' thangs. He'd run a farm er a store, an' we'd have babies an' live a normal life, ya know? My daddy'd live a good long lahf, an' my momma wouldn't be owin' ever' meal ta the next man with silver, Rebel er Tory. Me, either.”

“I am sorry things turned out this way,” Alan said gently, feeling that he meant it, for all his native cynicism. He drew her back down on the bed where she nestled to him like a little girl.

“We weren't rich er nothin', jus' makin' hit from crop ta crop, same's ever'body else,” she said in a tiny voice. “When they burned us out, we lost hit all, jus' the clothes we stood up in an' some stuff airin' on the line 'stead of in the cabin. Half the people wuz agin us 'cause they thought we wuz Tories after they hung Daddy, rest wuz agin us after what that Regulator said an' we got burned out. Only folks we could take up with wuz the soldiers.”

“And you started following the army,” he said.

“First off twuz Rebels.” She shrugged. “They took us in over what happened on our farm, but they wuz chased all over hell an' we couldn't keep up, an' all we got wuz sore feet an' pore rations. Then the good people called us whores anyways, an' wouldn't give us a bye yore leave. Called us pore trash't needed runnin' from one parish ta n'other.”

“Save us all from the smugly moral,” Alan said, minding Treghues.

“Ran inta Tarleton's Legion an' took up with them, got a warsh tub an' some soap ta earn our keep, but soldiers never have much money, not rankers, noways. Told us we couldn't stay less'n we wuz doing more'n takin' in warsh.”

“You and your mother?” Alan said.

“Momma weren't that old. Had me when she wuz sixteen, an' ah wuz the oldes' child. She took up with a foot sergeant who didn't mind the two other kids. Best of a bad deal, he wuz. Ah s'pose she's still with him. Least she's still eatin' well iffen she is, 'cause he's the biggest chicken thief in the Legion. A real hard man, but kind enough.”

“And what about you?”

“Momma trahed ta stick me ta warshin', but twern't easy,” she admitted. “Finally, a corp'rl give me a sack dress he'd stole if ah'd go off in the woods with him. Weren't much of a dress, at that,” she said with a fleeting smile.

“And the corporal?” Alan asked, feeling her turn to a better mood than just a few minutes before.

“He weren't much, neither.” This time she laughed aloud. “But we could get us money enough fer food an' beddin', an' Momma didn't ask where hit come from after that. I didn't whore fer jus' anybody, though.”

“For the officers?” Alan asked, pouring them both more wine.

“Hell, yes,” she snorted, now out of tears and laid back at ease. “This cap'n was all worked up 'bout the morals o' his men, but that didn't stop him from havin' me hisself. Then Tom Woods come 'round with an order ta move on, from that cap'n, if ah wasn't takin' up with jus' one of 'em. Anyways, Tom wuz from England and he looked sa
grand
up on his horse, an' sa clean all the tahm. Not lahk the soldiers comin' round. Ah had me on a new dress, had mah hair warshed an' a li'l scent an' ah could tell raght off he didn't want me run off lahk the cap'n said fer him ta do. He got down an' talked ta me, an' next thang ah knowed, he wuz offerin' ta take me on as his mistress, iffen ah'd a mind fer it. Hit seemed lahk a good deal, an' a way ta get back at the cap'n, sa ah said shore! Got some new dresses, a pony ta ride an' a cart an' pony fer Momma an' her stuff, too. Oh, mah Tom had a slew o' money! He wuz real proud o' me, lahked me ta look good an' show me off ta the other officers, even Colonel Tarleton. Colonel even come sniffin' 'round an' offered me a guinea to lay with him.”