"Tasty," Pollock enthused over each ravishing bite, "and all for a song, don't ye know. You'll not find this in an English four-penny ordinary… which is the equivalent cost, here. I've come to love New Orleans… though not its summer climate. Or its current owners," he muttered from the side of his mouth.
"I expect it'd be much cleaner, were someone other than the Dons in charge," Lewrie said, snickering. "Put in gutters or something… shovel up the horse dung, hire indigents to sweep the garbage into the river, at least. Town drains… gurgle, gurgle, gurgle!"
"We'll not talk of that," Pollock warned in a faint whisper. "Dung and garbage?" Lewrie twinklingly quipped. "Why not?" "The, ah… change of ownership, ahem," Pollock hissed, leaning closer in the act of reaching for the salt cellar.
"Oh," an only slightly chastened Lewrie replied.
"As for our other matter, sir," Pollock continued to mutter. "Both Lanxade and Balfa have been seen in New Orleans within the past two days. Done up in new finery… Balfa in shoes and stockings, for a rare once, and shop- " ping like an unexpected heir. You ride well, do you, Mister Willoughby?" Pollock suddenly queried, putting Lewrie off his stride with the question.
"Hmm? Aye, main-well, in point of fact," Lewrie answered, at a loss. "We plan to gallop out to their secret 'rondy' and scrag 'em in broad daylight?"
"Their present whereabouts are unknown to me, their exact location," Pollock said, shying back again by Lewrie's aggressive air. "I merely suggest that we go for a long ride today. You're new here… I, as your putative employer, must show you the sights, orient you to the city," Pollock explained, buttering a roll. "It may be that whilst gadding about, we either spot them and their lair, or make discrete enquiries of them. 77/ do that part, I'm known, and, ah… harmless, ha! In the course of things, we could also survey Lake Pontchartrain, what the lay of the land looks like to you."
Well, I wasn 't going to draw sword, yell 'Yoicks, Tally Ho, ' and charge at the first sight of 'em! Lewrie told himself; I ain 't a total fool. A passin'-fair fool at
times, but…
"Are we not successful today, we could ride tomorrow as well, does the weather turn off fair," Pollock suggested, louder this time, as if nattering with a new employee for real, playing the genial host to a brand-new city. "Out east, there's still land going begging, if you can believe it. We'll take a good look at it, shall we?"
We find Lanxade and Balfa, though, we whistle up my sailors for a 'hoarding action ' and leave 'em bleedin ' on the cobbles like steers in a Wapping slaughterhouse, Lewrie grimly decided to himself, steeling himself to action; Aye, let's be at it. And that other nonsense.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
"Shameless!" Helio de Guilleri spat, still seething after what she'd done; had been seething since she and that lout, a common sailor, a despicable Englishman, had left the Pigeon Coop hours before.
"Do quit stomping about, cher," Charite lazily scolded, covering another weary yawn, "or Madame D'Ablemont below us will be angry and send the concierge after you. I told both of you that someone had to sound him out, to see if he was dangerous to us. And I did," she concluded, with a well-hidden, secretly pleased grin.
"Oh, please!" Helio snapped, angry enough to want to seize her and deliver a good shaking. "You debased yourself!"
Charite paused over her light breakfast of melon, strawberries, and rolls, fixing him with an imperious glare, one elegant brow cocked in vexation. "If my good name, and our family's, worries you so much, mon frere, why is it only now that you deplore my nighttime prowlings, when you were more than aware of my nature before?"
"Nom d'un chien, Charite!" Helio barked. "The man is a lowly, a common… Anglo-Saxon. An Anglais! A Protestant Anglais!"
"Ah!" Charite responded, as if her brother had announced a revelation. "So… I am only to 'play' with dashing and proper Creoles of good family, cher? Is that what you demand? I am always the soul of caution and discretion, and so I was with him. Besides, he believes I am a Bonsecour, so no gossip will touch the de Guilleris."
She switched from a frostily arch coo of annoyance to a twinkly merriment the next moment. "I had the courage and skill, and the allure of my sex, to beard him when you never could, and I think him harmless to us. Alain Weelooby," she said, butchering the name, "was a British Navy officer, but he was court-martialed and found guilty of theft, in their Impress Service, now a mere hired hand with Panton, Leslie. He is a widower, an embittered lifelong failure, just scraping by, though he dreams of making a fortune at last in the Americas," she told them, outlining all she had learned from him in the wee hours. It was almost hilarious to her to see the stricken looks on her brothers' faces as she laid out his bleak biography.
"He will go north on the river, leading his company's shalopes, or help guard their pack-trains," Charite blithely informed them. "He has read all about the 'Noble Savages,' the Indians, and is panting to see them! The usual printed lies, and Monsieur Rousseau's idiocy," she sneered between sips of cafe au lait.
"So he says," younger brother Hippolyte objected, a skeptical frown on his face. "But, what is an Anglais Navy officer doing here, just months after we took one of their prize ships? It doesn't sound like coincidence to me! Panton, Leslie is said to have ties to the British government, even if the Spanish let them come and go as they please. Everyone knows that. They might have sent a clever spy."
" Cher Hippolyte," Charite replied with barely patient scorn in her voice. "What sort of man steals from his own Navy? Is that their idea of a trustworthy spy… a thief stupid enough to be caught out? Would they even trust such a man with expense money for his espionage, lest he drink it up or abscond with it? If the British do send a spy to New Orleans, I think they would choose someone more… upstanding. I believe him," she stated, dismissing their qualms. "His arrival is coincidence… and he is harmless. And malleable." She chuckled.
Charite nibbled on a melon slice whilst her male relations sulkily dithered. Men, she had found, were hopelessly easy to manipulate. Her new Alain might be even easier than most… though he was a sweet, gentle, but hungry amour; rather endearing and impressive in his own fashion, she happily recalled. But a man, one too easily distracted by his sensual side, his greed, to ever be a real success at anything; so easily led by his verge wherever she wished.
Yet he did possess nautical knowledge and skills, she thought. Alain was an experienced fighting officer, hard-handed… Oh, but how those hard hands delighted! Could she lead him, one cautious step at a time, into their service, Charite found herself fantasising? He could be just venal enough. With piles of loot, gold, and… her as his reward, which way would he jump?
Charite had planned to go right to bed after a cool bath and a restorative light breakfast, yet here it was well past eight o'clock in the morning, and Helio and Hippolyte were still intent on belabouring her daring, her long, shameful absence.