A King's Commander (24 page)

Christ, if he was here now, I'd strangle him, Lewrie thought in once-more impotently distanced rage; and quite damn' gladly, too! By God, he's done me no favors!

Yet, miracle of miracles, and with the unstinting, damned near ferociously tender care of Sophie de Maubeuge, Caroline had rallied . . . she'd lived! The crisis was over, sometime in late February, and since Caroline was well on her way to a full restoration of her health, but still too weak to pen much more than spidery hen-scratches, Governor thought it was time he was told. In morbidly excruciating detail.

• • •

And what the hell was I doin' in late February, Lewrie sneered to himself, scathing himself again with self-loathing? Why, I was on top of a Corsican whore, dickerin' with criminal prize agents . . . too full o'lust for Mammon . . . an' just plain old lust! . . . t'give family more'n the idle, passin' thought!

When did I get his damned letter? Late April. Just after a night ashore with Phoebe, damn my blood! Feelin' like the Devil's Own Buck-of-the-First-Head, with nothin' on my mind but more quim, and breakfast! Noble, honorable . . . Arduous Service, mine arse!

He felt guilt, a shipload of raging, bellowing Guilt. Not just for his dalliances, for his venal concerns placed ahead of family, but for his smugness, his conceit, his blithe disregard for life's lessons.

How fortunate he'd been so far, and how cocksure he'd breezed through. Battle, wounds . . . that he'd not lost an eye like Nelson, or a limb like Lilycrop; that he'd been exposed to the most hellish fevers in
both
the Indies, China, that he hadn't come down with sepsis or lockjaw fever from a cut in battle, or those two unspeakably daft duels he'd fought in his callow, feckless youth. That it was such a wonder he'd lived
this
long was some assurance that he always would!

Or that those close to him would be just as fortunate, and that he could pay them no mind, dismiss them from his thoughts once he had sailed them under the horizon—and gaily assume that they'd be there at home, unchanged, pristine and untouched, like porcelain gewgaws he might collect, like marionettes stashed in a glass-front cabinet until the next performance. Which would occur whenever it suited
his
lights!

Sobering, to think he could have lost them all. Wife, children, heir, love, and joy . . . shameful and sobering, to consider what he'd been up to while all this near-horror had happened.

Hadn't he
seen
it? How many couples birthed ten, twelve babes, and ended burying all but two? A man with means, and the best physicians on retainer, might lose two, three wives to child-bed fever before they interred him, as well, at the “ripe old age” of fifty!

• • •

That letter, and the ones that had followed from Governor and his mother-in-law Charlotte, finally a shaky one from his dearest Caroline herself, had brought him relief, but little joy. Perhaps this was what the reverends called an epiphany. Perhaps it had occurred in some ironic conjunction with seeing a stern, tarry-handed fire-eater such as Horatio Nelson spoon and coo over his mort, Adelaide Correglia, making an utter fool of himself, even though he still spoke of his dear Fanny back in Norfolk as some sort of household goddess. Or of seeing the dour, taciturn, and inarticulate Captain Thomas Fremantle chortle and blush as he tried to play the
gallant
with his Greek doxy at the opera in Leghorn.

How much of a purblind fool do
I
look? he'd wondered. How huge the quim-struck cully have
I
been? Hmm . . .

Whatever. As drenched as a dog doused with a bucket of water to get him off a bitch in season, he'd cooled to Phoebe. Turned surly and short. Made excuses, invented duties that kept him aboard
Jester
until he could hide from her no more.

And what a muck I made o'
that,
he squirmed, working his mouth on his weakness as the squadron stood on nor'west toward Cape Sepet.

He'd gone to break it off, cut swift and clean. To make amends to Caroline, even if she never learned of it. Pray
God
she never learned of it! But, in explaining himself, and his reasons . . . And it hadn't helped that Phoebe that day had looked so fetching, so damned handsome! Neither had it helped that her huge brown eyes had filled with tears so readily at his sudden, and inexplicable, dismissal and betrayal.

Frankly, their
rencontre
had not been one of his shining moments.

“Pauvre homme,”
she'd muttered brokenly, her face crammed into a lace handkerchief, and she'd rushed to throw herself into his arms—to comfort
him!
Crying and clucking, stroking and soothing, as if
he
was the one to worry about!

“Phoebe, I
do
love them all, more than my own life, d'ye see . . .” he'd muttered. “And nearly lost them, so . . . mean t'say . . . this. We . . .”

“But, zey are recover', Alain
mon amour, merci à Dieu!
”
Phoebe had shushed. “'Ow 'orrid eet mus' 'ave been fo' you. 'Ow thankful you mus' be,
mon coeur!
An' no one, you may tell. But, you tell
me.
”

There had been that; what captain could unbend, let his tears flow, show weakness before his inferiors. Oh, he'd had Cony and Cox'n Andrews in, given them the bald facts, with hopes that Maggy Cony, and their infant son might be weathering it. But, how long he'd pondered, fretted, wished to weep, to scream, to beg God to spare 'em . . .

“Surely, you must see, dear Phoebe . . .” he'd stammered. “Mademoiselle Aretino, rather, hahumm!—that this, that our . . .”

“You mus' tell me ev'rysing, dear Alain!” she'd insisted.

So he had. Sitting together on a sofa. Embraced. And his own tears had, at last, come, no matter that he'd held them in control this long, and what was another hour of a sad duty?

Wept on her damn' tits, Lewrie railed at himself! Went to end it, and I ended up toppin' her! Again! Yorktown . . . Toulon . . . there'd been a power of rogerin', the days before the end o' both, 'twixt soldiers an' camp followers. Like tellin' Death t'go bugger himself. Long as we're playin' at life-makin', you can just piss off!

He'd taken his comfort with Phoebe, the comfort and sympathy she had been so eager to offer. And he'd been so grateful to receive. But it had felt so perverse a thing to do, even more worthy of guilt than before, when he'd been unaware, that he'd ended despising her to her face. Which was to say, that he'd despised himself, and had simply found a suitable target.

They'd had a high old row; shouting, cursing, flinging expensive gewgaws at each other. And damn his blood, if they hadn't gone right back to ranti-polin' in the heat of the moment! He'd spent the night. And had awakened even more confused, even more dithering than when he'd climbed the hill-street to her . . . no, “their” house.

The sudden transfer to Nelson's squadron had come as a godsend. If he couldn't make up his own bloody-weak mind, he thought, then the Navy would make it up for him. If he hadn't the “nutmegs” to tell Phoebe off proper, then perhaps time and distance from San Fiorenzo'd do it for him.

God, y'er such a bloody coward, me lad, Alan told himself; such a weak, venal, spineless . . . but, damme, why's she have to be so sweet about it, so . . . ?

“Still no signal for a change of course, sir,” Lieutenant Knolles said at his side. “We're standing in rather close to Cape Sepet, and those batteries.”

“Hmm?” Lewrie grunted in alarm, certain his quavery musings had been spoken aloud, in even a tiny mutter or whisper. That just bloody
everyone
knew his business; or soon would.

“Standing on, sir,” Knolles repeated, with a quizzical expression. He took off his hat, ran his fingers through his blond hair, and clapped it on again, in a gesture Lewrie had come to know as concern.

“Why, for spite, I s'pose, Mister Knolles,” Lewrie allowed, now he was back in the real world. “To trail our coats right to their doorstep. Rub their cowardly noses in it.”

“I see, sir.” Knolles nodded, with a slight, wolfish grin. “Though, just what it is we're rubbing their noses
in
is beyond me, at the moment.” Lewrie shrugged, damned by his irresolute dithering beyond all glee of his own witticism. Knolles, though, and those on the quarterdeck nearest them, rewarded him with a tiny, appreciative chuckle, even so. As if to mollify the mourner.

The word had surely spread through the ship, as the word always will, in an eye-blink, Lewrie was certain. Since then, the people had been walking on eggshells around him. Though they certainly sympathized with his plight, they couldn't commiserate until he allowed it, till he even mentioned his family. He was approached like a new widower who was barely launched into his period of mourning; cosseted gently, without actually broaching the subject of what he needed cosseting for!

Hellish challenge, Lewrie thought; to be captain of a ship, and thought lucky. Sure, they're wond'rin' . . . if I'm not blessed, if I can have a near-fatal sickness back home, am I suddenly just a runof-the-mill captain?
Jester
still a lucky ship, or . . .

To their north, the French fleet was entering harbor, just as he had predicted, without even trying to turn and show their fangs. Their van was already inside the bay, only their topmasts showing above the rugged heights of Cape Sepet, and the main body around their flagship brailing up square sails to slow as they entered the Bay of Toulon.

“'Ere's a sloop o' war, fetched to, sir,” Mister Buchanon pointed out to their left. “Just below th' batt'ries at Cape Sepet. One o' 'eir corvettes, like us. 'Bout our size, sir. Twenty—twenty-two guns, I make her.”

A most sleek and jaunty corvette she was, too, presenting her larboard profile to them, about two miles off and about an equal distance from the sheltering guns. New, Lewrie thought, noting her yellow pale upperworks, still pristine and virginal under a fresh-from-the-yards first coat of linseed oils. A black lower chain wale that set off her saucily curved sheer line, and a broad white gunwale. Though her sails belied that newness; they were of a more-worn dun than most French ships sported, from spending more time at sea since her launching,

“Signal, from
Agamemnon,
sir!” Hyde interrupted at last. “The squadron . . .” he read off slowly, “Wear . . . to starboard tack. Course easterly. And, make all sail conformable with the weather, sir.”

“For Genoa.” Lewrie nodded, suddenly feeling a weight depart his weary shoulders. Dither enough, and someone else'll make your decision for you; and have sense enough to be damn' grateful when they do, Alan almost snickered in relief. “With the Frogs run back to their pond, I trust we'll have a
much
quieter passage, this time, hey, Mister Knolles?”

“Indeed, sir,” Knolles replied, chuckling.

“Very well, Mister Hyde. Hoist the Affirmative. Mister Knolles, pipe Hands to Stations to Wear Ship.”

A glance astern to
Agamemnon,
then past her to Hotham's line of battle, which had already begun to turn east in rigid line-ahead order; the lead ship hardening up across what little wind there was, and the one next astern of her sheeting home and bracing in to turn in her wake, once the lead ship's stern galleries were mid-ships abeam. Going back to San Fiorenzo Bay, he supposed, their dubiously performed duties done, for the time being. And another fine chance for a victory lost.

“Signal's down, sir!” Hyde shouted.

“Wear-ho, Mister Knolles,” Lewrie directed moodily. “Put the ship about to the starboard tack.”

There was a thin warlike sound down to leeward that turned his attention north once more, a flat, slamming thud of a gun. That French corvette had just shot off a lee gun, the traditional challenge to combat! The misty single bloom of gun smoke rose over her decks, obscured by her hull and sails.

Would they . . . ? But
Agamemnon
showed no sign that Nelson had even taken notice; no directions to
Jester,
or another of the powerful frigates in the squadron to go teach that Frenchman some manners.

“What a lot of gall, I must say, sir!” Knolles all but yelped in spite of himself, once the ship had her head around.

“That's the French for you, Mister Knolles.” Lewrie felt like japing. “Just like women. Always have to have the last bloody word, d'ye see . . . in everything. And . . . full to their hairlines with 'Gaul,' don't ye know.” He simpered.

“Oh, merciful God, sir,” Midshipman Spendlove groaned at just how bad a jape it was. “Ow!”

“You wouldn't be just the slightest bit French, yourself, would you, Mister Spendlove?” Lewrie snickered, feeling his mood brightening at last, now that
Jester
's
bowsprit pointed to someplace more promising. “Do I detect a touch of ‘Gaul' in you, as well, sir?”