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"This… this hush-hush adventure you've gotten poor Burge into," she whispered. "No word of what it was? No inkling of how much danger there'll be?"
"None. Only that he's to keep mum and be ready to be received in a few days, one way or another," Alan told her sadly, feeling just a trifle sheepish under her hot glare. "I was all amort that the old fool'd offer anything at all, much less something like this, I tell you truly. And Burgess didn't have to accept it so quickly, either. He could have asked for a few days to think it over, but no, he had to just leap up and go all shiny-eyed over it. Don't take it out on me, I beg you, Caroline. I did what Governour and your mother bade me. I used what influence I could. How was I to know it'd turn out like this?"
"But so far away from us," Caroline insisted. "With the chance we'll never see him again in this life! Oh, I know it isn't your fault, Alan, but… you must see how frightened I am for him. He's always been so…"
"Unprepared for how cruel life can be?" Alan whispered back.
"You recognized it, too?" she gasped, taking his hand and wringing it like a washcloth, pressing his hand to her troubled breast, surely unaware in her bereavement of what she was doing.
God Almighty, Alan thought, feeling his innards lurch at the touch of her. I could spend the rest of the day like this!
"He'll go under, sure as Fate, I know it," she said, weeping softly.
"It's what he wants, Caroline," Alan told her. "Better one chance at an adventurous life than drudging on a farm and feeling trapped. He told me as much. God pity him, he envies me all the shit… sorry… I've been through. All the exciting and exotic places I've sailed. And he may prosper. I've seen others do so, in the Navy. God help me, I prospered, and I didn't know a futtock shroud from a horse's fetlock when I first began."
"But you're the sort of man who does prosper, Alan," she told him, lowering her hand, and his, to her lap before her mother noticed. "If only I knew there was someone as courageous and steady as you to look after him out there in India, or wherever he's going to be."
"Me?" Alan tried a smile. "Mine arse on a bandbox! I'm not as steady as you think. No one is, outside their memoirs."
"Well, I think you are," she whispered. "So sure and capable. As you were when I first met you. When you organized us into your ship to escape Wilmington. Momma in her vapors and poor Daddy half out of his mind with grief, and poor me so weak and helpless."
"I never thought you weak and helpless," Alan assured her. "I have always considered you the most resourceful and clever of females, Caroline."
That softened her up right smartly.
"Say you forgive me. Please," he beseeched.
"Oh, Alan, I do forgive you," she relented, and gave him a wee smile, sad and wan though it was. "He'll not have to purchase this commission. Which shall please Uncle Phineas. If it comes to fruition. There is a possibility it may not, isn't there? There's many a slip t'wixt the cup and the lip. Pray God they may choose a more experienced officer in his stead!"
"Which would crush poor Burgess, though," Alan sighed. "And he'd be right back where he started. I know you can't stay in London hoping much longer. He'd be back to counting sheep. It would kill him."
"No, we can't," she agreed. "I must own to you, Alan, that I hoped you would be here. That we might regain our acquaintance. Your letters meant so much to me. Your… memory. Oh, pray do come to see us down in Surrey! Now that we have had a chance to speak almost daily, and to be together like this, I remember all over again how much I have delighted in your companionship. I would so enjoy you being our guest in the country. When the weather is better. And we could write each other in the meantimes. Could we not, Alan?" she suggested sweetly.
"Nothing would give me greater delight as well, Caroline," he told her. "I've never known anyone I like talking to more than you."
"Come take a cup of cheer, you two!" Governour ordered from the far end of the room. There was no more privacy for them. Caroline wiped her face quickly with a handkerchief from her sleeve and put on a happy expression for her family.
"We must dine together tonight," Mrs. Chiswick insisted, half gone on a large glass of gin punch already. "It'll be sad even so, knowing my little Burge will be going off among the heathens, but we'll know he's doing something for King and Country. As he did so nobly during the Rebellion." She stifled her fears-almost.
With your shield or on it, like the Spartans, Alan thought grimly. Why don't they all fall down bawling instead of acting so proud, he wondered? God knows, I'd be into the sackcloth and ashes by now.
"And our benefactor, Alan Lewrie," Governour proposed. "He must be guest of honor tonight!"
They raised their glasses and toasted him, making him feel even more a total fool than he had a moment before.
"Make no fuss over me," Alan suggested. "And I wouldn't feel right, anyway. Spend your time with Burgess. Sir Onsley didn't say when the summons would come. Besides, I cannot."
"Alan!" Caroline cried in sudden disappointment.
"I have a dinner invitation already that I cannot break," he told them, setting his glass down. "But I hope you shall let me treat you to supper another night, once we've learned what Burgess is down for. Would you allow that?"
Caroline saw him down to the first floor, and dismissed the house's servant to help him on with his watchcoat herself, tugging his collar snug about him and smoothing the fabric to lie flat.
"I wish you could have stayed, Alan. I begrudge every minute you are away from… from our family, now we're reunited," she said, with a hitch in her voice. "I… we feel so much gratitude, and admiration for you, for so many things you've done for us."
"I could not, not tonight, Caroline. I fear for him, too, and I couldn't have sat there with him."
"I understand," she replied softly. "I shall do my weeping in private, too."
She raised her arms and he took her in his arms, holding her snug and safe, stroking her back as she almost gave way to her emotions, whispering "there, there" to comfort her if he was able and secretly enjoying the closeness, and the feel of her slimness against him. How tiny her waist was, how neat her breasts felt. How sweet and clean she smelt: her hair and her slight hint of Hungary Water scent.
Caroline peeked over her shoulder to see if any of the servants of the lodging house were about, then turned her face up to his and closed her eyes. With an offer like that, Alan could not turn it down.
He kissed her. As gently and as shyly as he had just that once years before. Her lips parted just a little and her clean breath mingled with his. Then her eyes flew open and her arms locked behind his neck, pulling him down to her and there was nothing shy about it.
"I must ask your forgiveness once more," Alan muttered, shaken to his core by this entrancing creature all over again as she fell away slightly, dropped back from tiptoe and leaned back to regard him with such a smile of wonder and delight.
"Mine arse on a bandbox, Alan Lewrie," she said, grinning, and then whispered with secret glee, "Between us, I pray there shall never be anything to forgive."
"My God!" he gasped.
"All the English ladies tell me it's most improper to be quite as forward as I am," she added, laughing. "I'm but a crude rustic from America, don't you know. Do sup with us tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that. Spend your every waking moment with us. With me. I would enjoy it so awfully much, before we're parted again."
"You'd be scandalized," Alan gawped. "Governour would run me through!"
"I trust to your gentlemanly nature, Alan. And to your sense of decency. What harm to my good name could you ever do me?"
God help the poor mort, Alan thought. If you only knew I had no sense of decency, you'd run screaming behind your momma's skirts!
"Lord knows, I'd think of something. Sooner or later," he admitted at last. He tried to pass it off as a jape.
"I would trust to the affection you already show for me," she said with such a solemn little face it almost made his ears ring. "As I trust how admirable I hold you in mine."
One more quick kiss, and then he had to go, out into another freezing cold afternoon, but warmed right through by her regard and the feel of her lingering upon him.
"Damme, she's the sweetest, dearest young thing!" he said to himself as he trudged along the street, dodging darting youngsters, mongers and traders. "Oh, if only… what? Christ on a cross, Lewrie, you're cunt-struck! Next thing you know, you'll be thinking of asking for her hand! And haven't I done enough to her family already?"
"Dear Alan," Lady Delia cooed as he entered her morning room and took the preferred hand to kiss. She stroked his face with a hot-house rose she'd been toying with.
"Delighted to see you again, milady," he told her soberly.
"Do be seated and break your fast with me, sir," she said. She turned to her servants and told them they could depart on their errands. Once the door was shut, she was out of her chair in a twinkling, into his arms and raining kisses and endearments upon him. Devil a bite of roll or sip of tea he got until they had fallen into a swoon across her soft bed in the other room, strewn their clothing to the winds and slaked their lusts with the frenzy of rutting stoats.
Lewrie lay back on her soft pillows, panting and grinning, so pleased with the world in general, and his lot in it in particular. A young girl in love with him he'd half a mind- merely half a mind so far-to pursue with fantasies of wedded bliss, tender and succulent young Abigail to roger all over his suite whenever he wanted her, and Lady Delia Cantner to top the bargain off. For as long as his luck was in, he'd not shed a tear.
Of course, if he went down to Surrey and pursued Caroline, he would have to give up all this, he pondered as he got his breath back. Well, Abigail was merely a convenience, nothing more, and her delight was in her obvious hero-worship and her talented young body. She'd play the game with another lodger, get her couple of shillings for her troubles from another man. Lady Delia, though. That was fun, he had to admit. Part of it was the covert glee of covering old Lord Cantner's lawful blanket, sneaking and taking their pleasure as they just had, with the servants out of the way, and playing the "Merry Andrew" the next moment, a devoted family protege when the stupid old colt's-tooth was around. Nothing lasting there, either, ecstatic as it was. He knew if he begged off, Lady Delia would have another admirer gnawing on her magnificent breasts as quick as she could change her dress. There were legions of them waiting in line for a chance at her. Affectionate as their relationship was, it was not love, not the sort of Jove that Caroline's eyes promised. And he was getting a little jaded with simple sex, Alan thought. Once his grandmother died, and he inherited, he'd have enough to care for the lovely Caroline in the manner she deserved.
"I have seen so little of you these past few days, my chuck," Delia crooned, sliding a thigh over him. "Those beastly friends of yours have kept you from me."
"I believe you just made up for it, m'dear," Alan chuckled.
"Not a jot of it," she promised. "And did you secure your friend a place at last?"
"That I did," Alan replied, expressing his doubts he'd done Burgess any favors. Lady Delia had put out some feelers for him as well, though with his lordship out of the country, there was little direct she could do without his presence.
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