Lewrie wished he had begun to play-act yawns and beg off after Almack’s, but there he was in the Cocoa Tree, one of the fastest gaming clubs in London, nodding, bowing, and smiling (a tad forced by then, his smiles) to yet another parcel of simpering “hoo-raws.” Percy was dead-set on entering the Long Rooms to find a game, and Lewrie had to follow along.
“Do you care for a flutter of the cards tonight, Sir Alan?” he asked, craning his neck to find an empty chair and a game he liked.
“I’ve really no head for gambling, mil… Percy,” Lewrie said with a grin and shake of his head. “Got my fingers burned and learned my lesson before I went into the Navy.”
“Are you sure you’re English, sir?” Lydia teased, tossing back her head to laugh, her arm under his once more. “Why, wagering is the national disease!”
“Got cured of it,” Lewrie told her, chuckling.
“I wager the wagers Alan makes against the French are deeper than any I’ve ever made!” Lord Percy hooted. “Wager wagers, hey? Well, you two can support me whilst I take a risk or two. I say, there’s an opening for vingt-et-un. Smashing!”
“Keep your head, Percy,” Lydia cautioned her brother. “You’ve taken on nigh your daily half-dozen.”
“A gentleman who can’t manage half a dozen bottles of wine per day is no proper gentleman, Lydia,” Lord Percy scoffed. “She’s of a piece with you, Alan… do the stakes near an hundred pounds, Lydia’ll go all squeamish and quaking. There must’ve been a miser in the family tree long ago, and she inherited, ha ha!”
“Let us know whether you’re winning or losing large, Percy,” she told him with a wry tone. “Scream or groan, and we’ll come running to your rescue. Captain Lewrie will surely join me for more champagne?”
“By this time o’ night, I’m about ready for a pot o’ tea,” he had to admit to her, feeling well and truly “foxed.”
“Now I know you’re not English, Captain Lewrie!” Lydia teased again. “There must be a West Country Methodist, or a Scottish Calvinist, in your family tree.”
“Well, my mother’s family is from Devonshire,” Lewrie quipped.
“A pot of tea, then… with Devonshire cream,” Lydia decided, smiling most fetchingly, and with lowered lashes.
They found a comparatively quiet corner table in the outer public halls, and ordered tea with scones and jam, which didn’t even seem to faze the waiter; odder things had been called for at the Cocoa Tree.
Over several restoring cups, which cleared some of the fumes in Lewrie’s head, Lydia led him through his background; how his mother had died in childbirth, and Sir Hugo had come back to take him in…
“That Willoughby?” Lydia almost gasped. “The ‘Hell-Fire Club’ Willoughby? Good God, Sir Alan, he’s almost as scandalous as I!” She laughed in delight, then lowered her head to peer hard at him, cocking her head over to one side. “Do you take after your mother, now, or do you take after him? Do you share his proclivities, even my less-than-good repute might be in jeopardy!”
“Just a simple sailor, me, Lydia,” Lewrie japed.
“You’re aware… my divorce and all that?” she asked intently.
“Father told me a bit, this afternoon,” he admitted, shrugging. “Sounds as if you got saddled with the Devil’s first-born son.”
“He was, and he is,” Lydia told him, looking a bit relieved by his answer, “and I’m well shot of him. You have children?”
And Lewrie had to explain how both his sons were in the Royal Navy, and how Sewallis had managed to forge and scrounge his way into a Midshipman’s berth, which much amused her. His daughter, Charlotte, well… “She’s with my brother-in-law and his wife in Anglesgreen. Never heard of it? Halfway ’twixt Guildford and Petersfield, a little place. Best, really. My father’s country place is there, but there’s no one to care for Charlotte… even if Governour thinks it was all my fault, our going to Paris, and Caroline’s murder, and… the last I saw of Charlotte, over a year ago, she blamed me, too.”
“You don’t have a seat, yourself?” Lydia asked, her voice going a touch cool for his lack.
“Caroline and I were her uncle Phineas’s tenants. We ran up a house, built new barns and stables, but, after her passing, I couldn’t stand the place… all hers, d’ye see… and then Uncle Phineas decided that my other brother-in-law, Burgess Chiswick, and his new wife needed a place of their own, and turfed me out, so he could sell it to Burgess’s new in-laws, the Trencher family,” Lewrie explained. “Now, my father’s place is home… do I ever get a chance t’go there, what with the war and all. Twice the acres, twice the house, even if Sir Hugo opted for a one-storey Hindoo-style bungalow. Rambles all over the place, and even has an ancient Celtic hill-fort tower, later a Roman watch tower, he’s partially rebuilt. Mine, when he passes, but-”
“Lydia, darling Lydia!” a man interrupted, coming to loom over their table. “Pardons, sir,” he added, very perfunctorily, as if the presence of another man was of no concern, and good manners were not necessary. “How delightful you look this evening, my dear!” the gallant continued. “The colour of your gown makes you simply ravishing!”
“Why, hullo, Georgey,” Lydia rejoined, turning arch and bored-sounding once more, extending her hand to be slobbered over. “Alan, may I name to you George Hare. Georgey… allow me to name to you Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet,” Lydia said, pointedly using Lewrie’s Christian name, and Hare’s diminutive.
“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Hare replied, tossing off a brief bow from the waist before turning his attention back to Lydia.
“Yer servant, sir,” Lewrie gruffly responded, striving for the blandest note, as if the fellow made no impression, though he felt an urge to slap the interloper silly, or demand what the Devil he was doing by intruding. Damme, does she know everyone in London? he fumed.
“Lydia, my dear, have you given consideration to my invitation to Lady Samples’ supper party on Saturday? It will be ever so gay an affair… music, dancing, and ecarte?”
“Unfortunately, I cannot attend, Georgey,” Lydia said with the weariest drawl, drawing back her hand. “Percy and I thought of going to the country for the weekend. Some time en famille, n’est-ce pas?”
“Well, perhaps a brisk canter through the parks before then,” Hare suggested with a hopeful expression.
“We shall see, the weather permitting,” Lydia said, all but feigning a yawn. “I can promise nothing.”
“Ehm, well… does it not rain, I’ll send a note round,” the fellow pressed, knowing he was being snubbed but determined not to show it, and stubbornly determined to arrange a meeting with her. “Yer servant, sir… your undying, humble servant, Lydia,” he said, bowing himself away.
“Such an unctuous, beastly boor!” Lydia huffed once he was gone. “Can he not see how heartily I despise him? My apologies, Alan. Your grand night should not have been interrupted by such a toadying, money-hunting… oily pimp!” she all but spat, her face fierce with anger.
“I gather his sort turn up rather a lot?” Lewrie said, feigning an amused grimace, though he wasn’t much amused; it had been irksome!
“Some more subtle than others,” Lydia told him, making shivers of disgust, then smiling faintly. “My mis-fortune at marriage… that is the reason I dread re-entering that particular institution,” Lydia said with a head-cocked shrug before peering intently into his eyes. “Though try telling that to all the swaggering jackanapes who can’t imagine a woman who won’t swoon at the sight of them! To be single, I am thought un-natural… a condition only cured by throwing my self, and my dowry, into some new man’s dungeons! To be re-enslaved!”
“Then don’t,” Lewrie told her with a grin. “Enjoy your life.”
“Georgey Hare’s one of the worst,” Lydia went on, stunned for a second by Lewrie’s bald directive. “His family’s decently well-off, and he’s a thousand per annum, so he can play at the law…”
“I don’t like attorneys, much,” Lewrie japed. “Except when in need o’ one.”
“Oh, let us speak no more of Georgey, or his slimy ilk,” Lydia said with a huff of exasperation, slumping into her chair and looking pouty-sad. “I know!” She perked up, instantly turning mischievous and leaning over the table towards him. “Do we wait upon Percy, it will be dawn before he leaves the Long Rooms. Winning or losing, he can’t be dragged away by a team of bullocks! Will you trust me, Sir Alan, to find some place more amenable to quiet conversation?”
Could we really be “aboard”? Lewrie devoutly wished to himself, amazed by her daring. “God, yes!” he quickly agreed.
“Then let us go,” she said, determined.
“Are you… comfortable, Alan?” Lydia asked in a whisper as she lay beside him, her head propped up on the pillows and her forearm.
“Most comfortable,” he told her, stretching and sighing blissfully, half-turned towards her with his right arm under her pillows. “And damned grateful, thankee very much!”
Her long dark blond hair was down, and her grin was impish and infectious. By the light of a single candle on the night-stand, her green eyes sparkled like emeralds as she regarded him, as if inspecting him for warts. She grew sombre for a moment.
“I mean… are you comfortable with your… estate in life?” she amended, waving her free hand in the air. “Do you aspire to…?”
“D’ye mean t’ask if I aim for wealth?” he countered, sitting up a bit. “Never gave it much thought, really. No, really!” he insisted to her moue of dis-belief. “Look… I’ve my father’s house and land when he passes, and he came back from India a ‘chicken-nabob,’ so I’ll not have t’go beggin’. In the meantime, there’s my Navy pay, and I’ve been more fortunate than most when it comes to prize-money. There’s a goodly sum in the Three Percents, inherited plate, jewellery and such, and a tidy sum at Coutts’. I’m not after yer money, if that’s what you’re wonderin’. Aye, I’m ‘comfortable,’ as ye say, Lydia. ‘On my own bottom,’ as the Navy says. Do you fear I am?”
“It’s what I fear from every man,” she confessed, cuddling up onto his chest to drape herself atop him.
“Well, the proof’s in the pudding, as they say,” Lewrie said, a bit miffed that she would even ask, though he still stroked her bare back and shoulders with delight. “Of course, that’d require that you’d allow me t’know you better.”
“You do not think you know me a trifle better than you did this morning, Alan? Yesterday morning, by this time?” she lazily teased, shifting a slim thigh over him in response to his stroking.
“And I’d admire to know a lot more, Lydia,” Lewrie told her as she raised her head to look at him.
“I would admire that, too,” she whispered, earnestly, intently staring at him for a moment before sliding up to kiss him deep, with her breath still musky from the after-glow of their lovemaking.
He had hoped, but hadn’t been too sure where they were headed. They had tried a less-fashionable tavern, and though it was still open for business so late, it was too full of half-drunk young couples who were much too loud. Her coach had taken them to her family house in Grosvenor Street, after which she’d called for coffee, cream, and sugar from the sleepy few servants still awake, and dismissed them for the night. They had sat close upon a settee, turned towards each other, inclining their heads closer and closer as they’d whispered and laughed, and… then she’d drawn him to his feet and had led him on tip-toes in stockinged feet to a spare bed-chamber, giggling at their daring ’til locked in… and Lewrie’s fondest wish had been realised.
Lydia was very slim, as slim as Tess the Irish lass in “Mother Batson’s” brothel in Panton Street, as girlish-slim as his late wife had been when they’d first wed, her flesh firm but so silkily soft, as if he ran his fingertips through fine-milled talcum powder. Their un-dressing had been slow and tentative, despite Lewrie’s urgent and fierce wants after two years of celibacy since his return from Paris; he didn’t wish to frighten her off at the last moment. On Lydia’s part, she had shown a shyness that Lewrie wouldn’t have expected in a woman so out-spoken, or one with an allegedly scandalous past. There had been just the one small, dim candle to light them under the covers, with Lewrie’s back turned as she’d slipped beneath them, and her head partially averted as he did so; she hadn’t come to his side ’til the sheet was pulled up to their chins, and he had slid a light hand over her taut but tantalisingly soft belly.
Might be just the once, so make the most of it, he’d cautioned himself, savouring every moment as if it was the very last they would share, that he would have with any woman, slowly sliding down her body to worship her graceful neck, her ears, her breasts, and her stomach, at last to the tops of her slim thighs, her belly, and her fine corn-silk blond fluff, then even further down…
Hoping against hope, Lewrie had brought along four of his Half-Moon Street sheep-gut cundums; there was an awkward moment to don one and return, but by then Lydia had been more than eager, her bottom lip almost trembling as she drew him down to her with a kitteny mew. Again, despite the brute lust roaring in his head, he’d begun slow, pausing a time or two to contain himself… before Lydia had begun to urge him on to a canter, to a gallop, with breathless wee cries of, “Yes, oh yes!”
Too much wine, too late at night, Lewrie couldn’t fathom how, but the world had evaporated from his senses. The mattress and sheets might as well have been a cloud, and the only things that existed were their bodies and their joinings, and then Lydia had been grasping and raking his back, clinging with upraised thighs, crying out as guardedly as she could to avoid waking the house staff, and Lewrie could let go, groaning like the timbers of a storm-wracked ship, and wishing he could roar like a lion in triumph and mind-frying pleasure!
“What’s the time?” Lydia asked in a whisper, breaking off from kissing his mouth, his shoulder, and rolling off him a bit to peer at a mantel clock, with her hair mussed most prettily, and some longer strands dangling over her face.
“Uhm… a bit after four,” Lewrie told her after a squint of his own. “Should I be going, before the house wakes?” He felt like crossing his fingers to hear her answer, for he certainly didn’t wish to go!
“Not quite yet,” Lydia said, swiping her hair back in place and bestowing upon him a sly, impish, and teasing look as she settled back half atop him and resumed her kissing. “We’re the idle class, Alan. We take cocoa and toast at ten, and don’t stir out ’til after noon, do you know. At least Percy has his regiment, his clubs, coffee houses, and a seat in Lords, when he bothers to attend. The servants don’t stir ’til half past five. Or so our butler tells us.”
“No sleep-walkers on staff, are there?” Lewrie japed.
“All sound sleepers, for all I know of them,” Lydia told him, chuckling. “There’s still time… for us. If you wish, that is? If you find me pleasing?” Oddly, that struck Lewrie’s ear as a plea to be found pleasing, and pretty.
“Aye, by God I do… and there’s no other place I’d rather be right now for a… for a bloody knighthood!” he told her, which caused them both to laugh, almost loud enough to wake the house for a bit, ’til he drew her down to him and held her close, and their lips met in sweet, light brushings, curled with glee at first.
“Make love to me, Alan,” Lydia whispered, urgently, but sounding shy, as if amazed at her own daring to even ask.
“Make love to me, Lydia,” Lewrie whispered back, his own voice grave and earnest, peering intently into her eyes and wondering why he had ever thought her less than hellish-handsome. With her hair down, and her bored and arch expression blown to far horizons, she was very lovely… to him, at least; which was all that mattered, wasn’t it? Here, this moment, she even seemed vulnerable. Not a stiff member of the aristocracy, but an ordinary woman with wants and needs.
And so she did, and he did, make love one more time before he had to go, more hungrily this time, more fiercely, thrashing and panting to an almost simultaneous bliss. Then lay entwined and cuddling and kissing and gently stroking ’til the mantel clock reached 5.
“Where did we leave our shoes?” Lewrie muttered, his head well fuddled by then, as he peered about the parlour; they hadn’t been in the bed-chamber.
“We left them by the settee,” Lydia whispered back, giggling. “How remiss of us.”
“How embarrassing that could’ve been,” Lewrie said as he found his and sat to slip them on.
“Oh, I am loath to let you go, though I must!” Lydia declared as he got to his feet again, and she came to embrace him, dressed only in a silk robe, almost as soft as her flesh, and warmed by her warmth. Lewrie slowly ran his hands up and down her slim back, down to her narrow hips and wee bottom, purring in her ear. “I must. You must, else… it’s almost half past five.”
“ ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow’…,” Lewrie said, chuckling.
“… ‘that I should say goodnight ’til it be morrow,’ yes! And all that, but…!” she insisted, laughing again and breaking away to lead him by the hand to the foyer, and the front door. “I’ll not send you out into lawless London un-protected, Alan. Here.”
“Well, hullo!” Lewrie said; she had handed him a wee one-barrel pocket pistol to shove into his uniform coat.
“Even here in the West End, there’s foot-pads aplenty, and I’d not wish any harm to come to you,” Lydia assured him. “Mind, now… I expect you to return it!” she teased, her eyes alight.
“Let’s set a time for that,” Lewrie said with a grin. “Supper tonight? There’s a grand chop-house I know in Savoy Street. Hellish-fine wine cellar, and emigre French chefs, t’boot. Eight-ish? And no clubs after. As few of your host of admirers as possible.”
“Sir, I would be delighted to accept your kind invitation,” she said, dipping him a graceful curtsy, grinning back. “But, you must go at once!” Lydia insisted, play-shoving him to the door.
There was just one wee problem with his leaving; the door was locked tight, and though several bolts could be withdrawn, there was no key in sight!
“Un emmerdement, as the Frogs’d say,” Lewrie whispered. “Don’t think askin’ yer butler’d do much good, would it?”
“Oh, God!” Lydia breathed, opening every drawer in the massive oak side-board table where the mail, page-delivered notes, and calling cards ended in a large silver tray. “Here’s one!”
“Too small… that’s surely for one of the drawers. Let me look,” Lewrie offered, infected by Lydia’s urgency. “Aha!” Far back in the lowest drawer there was a huge housekey, strung with a hank of ribbon and a pasteboard tag. “This’un’s big enough for the Bank of England.” He inserted it, gave it a turn, and let out a happy sigh as the main lock clanked open.
Thank God for efficient house-keepers! Lewrie thought as the door yawned open to the front stoop and the street with nary a creak; the hinges had been well-oiled!
“You’re off to your Madeira Club?” Lydia asked as he stepped out to the stoop, clutching her robe about her more tightly. “I will send round a note.”
“Hmm?” Lewrie asked, wondering why a note was necessary, if he had set the time when he would coach to collect her.
“My treat… a surprise,” she told him, smiling inscrutably. “Here… your lodgings? Neither is suitable, are they, Alan?”
“Damme, but you’re a grand girl, Lydia!”
“Now shoo, scat! Begone! And thank God it isn’t raining!” she urged, swinging the door shut yet blowing him a kiss just before it closed completely.
Damme if she ain’t a grand woman! Lewrie told himself as he plodded east down Grosvenor Street, looking for a carriage, beaming and whistling “The Bowld Soldier Boy,” the tune used when the rum issue was fetched on deck aboard Reliant. At half past five A.M., it was not quite dawn, but milk-seller wenches with cloth-covered buckets yoked over their shoulders were already stirring to cry their wares to the waking houses. Horse- or pony-drawn two-wheeled carts and traps were clopping along, their axles squealing, filled with fruit or vegetables, and young girls yawned as they carried baskets of fresh flowers. The tin-smiths and tinkers were out, the rag-buyers and -sellers halloed their goods. Knife sharpeners, bakery boys with their trays of hot loaves and rolls, old women with baskets of eggs, venomous-looking, un-shaven men with fletches of bacon… the street vendors of the city were already out in force.
And all found it amusing to see a Navy Post-Captain, a man with the sash and star of knighthood, walking when he could ride, and the fellow appeared stubbled, mussed, and perhaps even a trifle “foxed”-did he even know which part of London he was in?
Lewrie took great delight in doffing his hat to the vendors, offering cheery “good mornings.” He could not recall being happier in years!