“I heard that in the markets,” Maddalena said, looking up at him, again. “The Major … Hughes, he did not explain much to me, or why the French would do so. He boasted that he might have the chance to march with a proper army to defeat the French, and how he would liberate Lisbon, if they did. He did not think that I was able to understand important matters,” she said, with a sad bitterness.
“Portugal and Sweden are the last hold-outs from his Continental System, and he can’t get at Sweden, so…” Lewrie explained, laying it all out for her. “You’re safe as houses here at Gibraltar, but not at home in Oporto, or your hometown of Covilhā.”
He poured them both refills from the wine bottle, and she took a sip or two, looking towards the harbour, and the streets, looking pensive and thoughtful. At last, she turned her gaze to Lewrie, again, frankly and directly.
“To stay here and be safe from the French, Captain Lewrie, I am in need of a protector,” she said in a soft tone, smiling a little. “The first time we saw each other at the ristoran,” she said, using the Spanish word, “and when you dined with us … I felt you wished to be … you flirted with your eyes? Yes?”
Her slim hands were in motion, inches above the tablecloth, in hesitant, embarrassed fiddling.
“Yes, I did,” Lewrie confessed with a smile. “Yes, I do want to protect you, Maddalena. That, and a lot more, and what’s taken us so long?” he joked, which drew forth a hearty laugh from her, and both her hands took hold of his, this time, as she gazed at him longingly. “And I dare say I’ll do ye a great deal better than Hughes ever did.”
“I knew from the first that you would be a much kinder, a much more … pleasant man,” Maddalena replied, beaming. “I wished from the first, that … I day-dreamed?”
Lewrie knew that there was a mutual attraction between them, but he wasn’t going to bet the bank on how sincere her protestations of affection were.
“First things first, then,” Lewrie said, letting go her hands and reaching for his glass to clink against hers to seal the bargain. “There’s a branch of my London bank here, and I’ll be needin’ t’make a draught on my accounts. Then, we’ll go settle with your landlord. After that, a grand supper, your choice of the chop-house!”
“Then let us go … how do I call you?” Maddalena asked with an impish expression, “Captain, or Lewrie, or…?”
“My given name’s Alan, Maddalena,” he told her.
“Alan,” she whispered as if it pleased her to her toes.
* * *
“Ye don’t get much for two pounds a month,” Lewrie commented, once they had climbed up the stairs to the second storey above the ground floor of her lodging house. There was one large, un-glazed window with inside shutters for night, with a rickety two-place dining table in front of it. Over to the left was a hard-seated, worn settee, a pair of wing-back chairs, and some end tables. Most of the right-hand wall was taken up with a waist-high stone hearth with an iron grill for cooking, the wood and kindling stored in buckets, and some pots, pans, kitchen tools, and a whisk and bucket to sweep out the embers. There was a doorway which led to the second room on the right-hand side, in which there was a decidedly ugly armoire and a couple of traveller’s chests, a vanity table and stool with a large mirror, and an ancient wooden bed-stead with a high and garishly-carved headboard, and a mattress as thin as charity, held up by rope suspension. He gave the mattress a hard shove, and it emitted some alarming squeaks. To make matters even worse, Maddalena’s windows overlooked a steep, narrow side street that led further uphill from the High Street, and he estimated that he could have spit and hit the narrow iron balconies on the other side!
“‘A poor thing, but mine own’, hey?” Lewrie quoted.
“It is cool, most of the day,” she told him. Indeed, the lodging house was in the permanent shadow of the mountainous Rock.
“Love what ye’ve done with it, even so,” Lewrie allowed with a grin, for the coverlet on the bed was nice, the bed linens smelled as fresh as new-laundered and sun-dried. There were many candleholders, most black wrought iron, but some made of shiny pewter. In both of the rooms, there were rather good Turkey carpets, some colourful end table coverings, and the settee had been draped with a large, intricately-figured cloth to disguise its age. She’d hung some paintings she’d found in the used-goods markets that weren’t all that bad, and of course there was a cross on one wall in the main room and a wood crucifix near the bed-stead. Despite Hughes’s parsimony, she had made the best of it, with planters and flowers on the outer window sills, some potted plants inside to brighten things up, and … there was a large wire cage in which a reddish warbler flitted and cheeped.
“So many need lodgings, so the prices are high, and you find what you can find,” Maddalena said by way of apologising, going to the bird cage to whisper and coo to the warbler, which came to her inviting fingers and began to sing its song.
“Down the hallway, in front,” Lewrie said, sticking his head out the front, door. “It’s open.”
“Ah, sim, a grain trader rented it, a man who had the temporary license?” Maddalena said, joining him at the door. “But, he lost the right for some reason, and gave it up yesterday.”
“Let’s go look,” Lewrie prompted, leading her down the hall. “Now, this is much better!” he declared, after a quick look about.
The corner unit’s two windows were glazed double doors which led to a wide iron balcony, and both of its rooms were much larger, to boot. The planked floors admittedly creaked, here and there, but it was much nicer, and they had been polished. Like Maddalena’s it came furnished, but the appointments were newer and showed much less wear.
“How much did he pay for it, I wonder?” Lewrie mused aloud.
“Oh, I think I heard that it was three pounds a month,” she said with a rueful look, as if that was simply too extravagant.
“Let’s see your landlord,” Lewrie announced.
A quarter-hour later, and Lewrie had taken the better lodgings for her, laying out £18 for the next six months, with another pound to see that all her own things would be moved for her, immediately. That lit a fire under her landlord, another of those English expatriates who’d served at Gibraltar and taken their retirement there. He whistled up some porters idling at a nearby tavern, and within the next hour, all her chests and household goods, her plants and linens, all her decorations, and the bird cage had been shifted. She and Lewrie had seen to her wardrobe, and it had proved to be a thin selection of clothing, which he swore that he would improve, at once.
“Deus, I cannot believe it!” Maddalena exclaimed after the last porter had gone and the door had been closed. She clutched her new key to her chest for a moment, then flung out her arms and whirled about in delight, dancing round the much larger main room.
“Done good, did I?” Lewrie teased.
She laughed, and came to him to give him a hug in gratitude, a hug which turned into a long, closely pressed embrace.
Damme, but does she feel promisin’! Lewrie thought in a delight of his own. He considered it too early on to grope her, but she felt slim and lean, and the press of her breasts against his waist-coat and shirt front bespoke firmness, and perhaps more to her than what her gown had hidden. The hoped-for revelation made his crutch tighten.
“Alan, I knew that you would be a kind man, but this! A very kind man you are,” she said, almost purring with her cheek against his, and giving him a squeeze. “And one so generous!”
“D’ye think you’ll be happier here?” he asked with a wide grin.
“Immensely happy!” she declared, breaking away at last, and leading him to sit with her on the settee.
“What else d’ye need? A cook? A maidservant?” he prompted to show her even more generosity.
“I have always cooked for myself, or my family,” she shrugged the idea off. “Living alone, I do not need a maid, like the grand ladies. What would I do with myself if there was someone else to do all the work?” She found the concept amusing. “Even if this is much larger, where would I keep a maid? Maybe … oh, once a week, I may need a woman to come in and help with the cleaning, but only for a few hours. There is a laundrywoman nearby, and the markets, when I need something, and I do it by myself.”