“Hmmm,” was Lydia’s comment to that. She put one brow up in quizzical thought, eying him over quite carefully.
“What?” Lewrie asked, wondering if she was contemplating…! “What are you thinking?”
“Well, in the first instance, I was wondering what poor Percy would say, did I dash off with you, married or not,” Lydia confessed, a grin spreading. “Secondly, I was wondering if I were brazen enough to propose to you, and lastly… I asked myself what I might say did you propose to me!”
Oh, shit! Here we go again! Lewrie told himself, hoping that his phyz didn’t mirror the stricken feeling inside him. He’d been in “Cream-pot Love” with his late wife, Caroline, and had admitted “there’s a girl worth marrying… someday, perhaps, maybe!” before circumstances anent her future had dragooned him into proposing, to give her an out from the beastly attentions of her neighbour Harry Embleton, or her only other options: marry a much older tenant farmer, or take a position as governess to someone’s children, far from family.
“And, did you come to some conclusions?” Lewrie whimsically asked, wishing he could cross his fingers.
“God, the look on your face, Alan!” Lydia said, laughing out loud. “Have I frightened you into next week?”
“Astonished, not frightened, really,” Lewrie breezed off. “You have a knack for that,” he added with a teasing smile.
“As for Percy and Society, I don’t give a toss,” Lydia said with a cynical jerk of her head. “I’m already scandalous, so what else would they expect? And, no… as fond as I’ve become of you, I am not that un-conventional, at bottom. The man must do the asking. Lastly…”
“Hmm?” Lewrie prompted.
“Fond as I am, I would refuse,” Lydia told him, turning sombre.
“Mean t’say…?” Lewrie flummoxed. Not that he would be asking, but it irked that she would have spurned him if he had!
“After all I’ve been through, Alan, my dear, I’ve too many fears to be settled, before I place myself, and my heart, at the mercy of any man again, without knowing him so completely that I could overcome my trepidations. I told you once, remember?” she slowly explained.
“At the Cocoa Tree, wasn’t it?” Lewrie replied. “Tea and scones in a quiet corner, while Percy was in the Long Rooms, gambling. You told me you’d never willingly re-enter such a slavish institution as marriage. And what did I tell you?”
“To suit myself, and enjoy my life,” Lydia replied, grinning, pleased that he could recall.
“ Do you enjoy your life?” Lewrie asked her softly.
“I began to, that very night,” she answered, “and ’til now, I must own that I have, immensely. But I would not marry you. Even for a sea voyage to the splendours of Cathay. Not yet.”
“Call it early days?” Lewrie fondly teased.
“Early days,” Lydia whispered back, beaming at him, though he discerned the rising moisture in her eyes. Before her tears came, he scooped her to him and kissed her long and gently.
“I will pack and coach back to London tomorrow,” she told him, her face pressed to his gilt-laced coat collar. “You will have many things to attend to, and I would be in the way… at the best, quite ignored, so…”
“I’ll settle your lodgings,” Lewrie offered.
“You will not!” she chuckled for a moment. “You, as you said, are ‘comfortable’, but I am rich. Consider it my gift to you.”
“Your being here’s been the real gift,” Lewrie assured her.
“That night at the Cocoa Tree, later that night,” Lydia teased. “Recall where we went?”
“Your house in Grosvenor Street,” Lewrie supplied promptly.
“And what did I ask you there, dear Alan?”
“You said… ‘Make love to me’,” Lewrie quite gladly recalled, leaning back to look her in the eyes, knowing that he was beaming like the hugest fool in the Universe.
“Such a keen memory you have!” she praised him. “Do, please?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Whether HMS Reliant had received sailing orders or not, all the business of provisioning and victualling for sea was continual. Spare spars and replacement sails, huge bolts of cloth from which to fashion or repair the existing ones; livestock for fresh meat issue in harbour, and for the first week or so on passage… Captain Alan Lewrie was in sanguine takings that only a day or two more to take aboard last-minute items, and he could take his frigate to sea just as soon as the winter winds swung round to a favourable quarter. Then…
“Currant jam, of course, sir?” his cook, Yeovill, suggested as he went down a long list of “necessities” to be purchased for Lewrie’s comfort from a chandlery.
“I’ve developed a taste for raspberry,” Lewrie mused aloud with a grin. “Those tarts and popovers o’ yours? Dried currants and raisins for duffs, aye, but…”
“Midshipman Houghton… SAH!” the Marine sentry shouted, with a crash of his musket butt and his boots on the deck planking, beyond.
“Enter,” Lewrie bade.
“Good morning, sir!” Midshipman Houghton said, right cheerily, as he stood before Lewrie’s desk in the day-cabin, hat under his arm, and all but rocking on the balls of his feet. “I fear I must depart the ship, sir. My Lieutenancy’s come through.”
“Good God!” Lewrie gawped. “Well, congratulatons, of course.”
When Lewrie had fitted Reliant out for sea in May of 1803, when the war with imperial, Napoleonic France had broken out again, Midshipman Houghton had been his senior and most experienced at twenty-one, and had already faced one board of harsh Post-Captains’ grilling for promotion. Houghton was very competent, in a stolidly quiet way, but not the sharpest nail in the keg; he’d always struck Lewrie as rather dull. Whilst Reliant had been at Sheerness the previous Spring, he’d finally become a Passed Midshipman, but no immediate commission. The secret nature of their work with catamaran torpedoes that Summer might have been the factor.
“Where are ye bound, and how soon, Mister Houghton?”
“I’m to be Fifth Officer aboard the Victorious, a Third Rate, sir, just in with a Spanish prize sloop, and her First was promoted to Commander, so there’s an opening, and, well… my uncle’s one of the civilians on the Board of Admiralty, so…”
I’d known that, I’d’ve cultivated the fart a lot hotter! Lewrie told himself.
“Immediate, is it? Well, if you must,” Lewrie said, rising to shake Houghton’s hand and offer him a parting “stirrup cup” of brandy, though pondering how he’d fill Houghton’s experienced but dull shoes. Could he advance one of the Master’s Mates? Eldridge and Nightingale were in their mid-to-late twenties, and were good at their trade, but… might he be able to cultivate a little “interest” from stuffy old Admiral Lord Gardner, Port Admiral of Portsmouth, or from Admiral the Honourable Cornwallis, head of Channel Fleet, of which Reliant was yet a part ’til sailing?
“Sorry to place you a fellow short, sir, but…” Houghton said.
“Oh, tosh!” Lewrie quickly assured him. “That’s the Navy’s way. Never can be sure of anything, one year to the next. And, when a man gets a shot at promotion, he’d be a fool t’turn it down outta sentiment. We’ll send you off in my gig, with my boat crew, to make a good show for your new captain. A brandy with you, Lieutenant Houghton?”
“Ehm… thank you most kindly for the offer, sir, but, I’d not wish to report myself aboard my new ship with spirits on my breath, if you see my point, sir?” Houghton hedged.
“Coffee, then, t’warm yer long row,” Lewrie decided. “Pettus, a coffee for Lieutnenant Houghton, and a top-up for me,” he bade his cabin steward.
“Accepted most gladly, sir,” Houghton brightened. “And might I say that the last two years aboard Reliant have not only been most instructive, but… delightfully exciting, Captain Lewrie, sir. I shall consider serving under you one of the…”