A Jester’s Fortune

CHAPTER 6

Peter Rushton and Clotworthy Chute, of all people! He hadn't seen or heard from them in years-for which he'd thanked a Merciful God more than once. At Harrow, Peter had been the Honourable, a second son not in line to inherit estates or peerage, dissolute and devilish, and out like most second or third sons to enjoy life to the dregs, instead of becoming boresome-but-proper firstborn heirs. The Navy, and the King's Regiments, were positively stiff with such young wastrels. Peter would have gotten the lesser title once his father had gone toes-up-Sir Peter Rushton, Bart., hereditary knight and baronet. Whilst his older brother-from what Alan could recall of a visit from that worthy to Harrow, in the short term Lewrie had spent there, a rather grim and forbidding hymn-singer-would rise from his current knighthood to be the next true baron, heir of all and a true peer of the realm. And Peter would remain on a short leash and a miserly annual remittance for the rest of his natural life-if his stern father and dour brother had any say in the matter! When flush, Peter tended to spread himself rather wide cross the world, beyond even his own rather thin-stretched bounds of sanity, in an orgy of Spending and Getting, rantipoling and gambling, a true Buck Of The First Head who made even the most dissolute and depraved gawp in awe of his daring. Last Alan knew, Peters short leash was Ј1,000 a year-a sum that could go in a single evening.

Clotworthy Chute, well… Clotworthy had always been the oily young swine, who could toady to his betters with the latest jest or the juiciest gossip, could badger and terrorise his inferiors, knew where and how to obtain drink, whores, copies of exams or alter test results, made small loans or steered fellow students who were "skint" or overextended to usurers of his own ilk. Tuppence here, sixpence there… then on to shillings, half-crowns and pounds. Last he'd seen of Clotworthy in London, winter of '84, he'd become a polished "Captain Sharp" who lured newly inherited young "Chaw-Bacon" heirs, or "Country-Put" heiresses into both vice and poverty, posing as their smiling guide to what was Fashionable and Fast; finagling a hefty commission for his services, if not a loan he'd never repay. Chute knew to the pence just how much a body was worth, at first sight-and exactly how much he'd be able to "touch" them for.

Ain't the sort o' people I could ever introduce to Caroline, he told himself; nor the sort one wants down to the country for a week or two, either! Besides-they know too much about my younger days, and damme'f I want any o' that comin' out, now!

"So, what brings you to Venice, Peter?" Lewrie began charily. "Kiss his ring, Alan, old son," Clotworthy wheezed. His fast life had included many good feeds, Lewrie noted; Clotworthy Chute was quickly going to tripes-and-trullibubs. "Or his big toe, haw haw! I name to you, sir…" Here, Clotworthy had himself another good whinnying wheeze. "… the Right Honourable Lord Peter Rushton… Baron!" "Mine arse on a band-box!" Lewrie recoiled in utter shock. "That's 'mine arse on a bandbox,' milord)." Peter whooped with glee. "Gawd, Alan… the look on yer face!" "Well…"

" 'Turne, quod optanti Divum promittere nemo-auderet, volvenda Dies en attulit ultro,' you old scoundrel," Lord Peter cited. "I blieve they beat that'un into us, hey? 'What none of the gods would have dared promise to your prayers, see what rolling Time has brought, unasked'? Pater passed over, round '86. Spent a horrid three years in the country… Desmond swore 'twas the Army for me or nothing; nor any money, either. Bought me a set of Colours with the 17th Dragoons. Not a captaincy, damn him, and told me to live on my Army pay. Army pay, I ask you! Why, the mess-bills took that the first week! But then, last year, Desmond had the good grace to pass over, as well-"

"Food poisoning, they said," Clotworthy interjected gaily. '"A Frenchified, saucy something wasn't it, milord?"

"A made-dish remove, a la Mayonnaise," Peter gushed. "Took him off by morning… fiancee, too, damn near. And her parents."

"The last time she tries to impress a suitor with her cookin', I Warrant!" Clotworthy barked. "Avoid 'em, Alan, old dear. Avoid made-dishes like the very Plague!"

"… just shy of his wedding, d'ye see, Alan, so there wasn't an heir left standing," Peter breezed on, still sounding amazed by such a turn of fortune. "Acres, rents, title, seat in Lord's… Christ, can you feature it?"

"So, what brought you…" Lewrie insisted, not anywhere near being able to feature it. And wondering, with Clotworthy Chute along to help Peter spend his newfound fortune, if there'd be a farthing of that immense wealth left in six months!

"Grand Tour, old son." Peter chuckled. "Late to the game, but here we are, seein' the sights and all."

"Pete… uhm, milord," Lewrie amended, "I don't know you quite noticed, but… anyone tell you there's a war on?"

"Well, of course there is, Alan!" Peter hoorawed. "Spent time in the Light Dragoons, after all. But that's way over there. No, we came over to Copenhagen on a Swedish ship, neutral as anything. Spent some time there… lovely little city, stap me'f it ain't! By coach, into the Germanies. Dreadful boresome, that…"

"Women like blacksmiths," Clotworthy shivered. "All arms an' moustachioes. Spit a lot, too. All that German, I expect."

"… Berlin, too." Peter laughed easily. "Lord, might as well be in Roosia. Flat as a tabletop, and cold as charity. Sullen brutes in the streets, worse than the London Mob. Bavaria, though…!" Peter said in awe. "Then, Vienna, too! Splendid place!" he brayed. "Then down to Venice for Carnival Season. Leagues away from the fighting… bloody leagues away! Might even do Florence, Rome… there's talk of Constantinople 'fore we're done. See the splendours of the mysterious East, hmm? Or the Holy Land."

"Well, hmm, milord…" Clotworthy demurred. "That's Shockley's little side-trip, him and his new bride. And he can be a stodgy sort."

"Our traveling companions, Alan…" Peter told him. "Met them in Vienna. Sir Malcolm Shockley, baronet. Int'restin' fellow, do you enjoy investments, enterprises and such. Beastly rich, d'ye see…"

"More int'restin'z his bride, rather," Clotworthy snickered as he snagged a brace of champagnes from a newly arrived tray: one for his "patron" Lord Peter-and one for himself, of course.

"Well, yayss…" Peter drawled, lifting a brow significantly. "A little batter-puddin'… all peaches an' cream. A few years on her, but… still a 'goer.' "

"And, has she 'gone' yet for you… milord?" Alan drawled back, lifting his own brow.

"Hang it, Alan, 'twill always be Peter and Alan betwixt us!" "Then…?" Lewrie prompted suggestively.

"No, damn her eyes." Peter sighed. "Not sayin' she don't have the rovin' eye, but… so far, she ain't rove in my direction. I just may be too poor. Told you Shockley was beastly rich. Iron, coal and Lord, I don't know what else!"

"Leather-goods, wool-spinnin' and cardin'," Clotworthy related with a sage tap on his noggin. And if anybody would know a rich man's business better than that man himself, trust Clotworthy Chute to know it, Alan told himself with a wry grin. "Five years ago, he was little more'n a Midlands farmer… bringin' in the sheaves, hey? Vast estate, but poor soil, so I heard. The sober, hardworkiri squirearchy sort."

Clotworthy seemed to shiver at that image he presented, as if it were an unnatural condition beyond the pale.

"But when the war began, he… bless me!… went into Trade! Or the next closest to it." Clotworthy posed with a faint sneer for an un-gentlemanly nearness to made money. As if this Shockley were the cobbler or miner himself! Shrewd investments, crops and such, were one thing in English Society-but dealing with it directly, with no agent or solicitor as a buffer, was quite another!

"Now he makes uniforms, boots and knapsacks, saddles and all." Peter frowned in amused disdain. "That rocky estate of his turned out to be just riddled with oceans of coal and iron ore! So, he turned out his tenants and started grubbin'. Mines, smelters, foundries… steam engine woolen mills…? Makes just about everything now. And rakes in his guineas by the hogshead. By the hogshead, I tell you, Alan! Put some funds in with him soon as I get back home, I believe."

"Long as you don't spend 'em 'fore you get there, Peter," Alan chid him gently. "Still gamble deep?"

"Found religion," Peter quipped.

"You… bloody what?" Lewrie hooted. "You?"

"Income, and out-go, Alan," Peter joshed. "The ledgers. Long as Pater was payin' my bills… well, he couldn't let a son of his be known as a public debtor, now, could he? So, he covered me. Then it was Desmonds turn… such as it was. Inherit, though… know there's damn-all to fall back on if I squander it. Mean t'say…"

"Now it's your money, that is," Lewrie interpreted.

"Exactly!" Peter barked. "And nowhere near what I suspected… well. Ill take a hazard now and again, still. But…"

Lewrie looked at Clotworthy, who looked back at him and then tossed his gaze heavenward and rolled his eyes in failure, as if to complain that his free ride had gotten wary, and what he'd expected as his due wasn't to be forthcoming. Lewrie had to smile in commiseration. He remembered Peter as a charmingly amusing wastrel… but no one could ever have called him a stupid wastrel. And Peter had known Chute's wily ways, ever and anon. Amused by them, certainly, but never so much so as to be lured that far. No gullible cully, he; no calf-headed innocent! "So, what brings you to Venice, Clotworthy?" Alan wondered. "An heir." Clotworthy shrugged. "Series of young heirs, rather, who put their silly heads together and realised I'd gulled 'em. Before the Bow Street Runners and the magistrates could be sicced on me… and I still had all that lovely money!" He chuckled with bald-faced honesty. "Mean t'say, Alan…! I worked damn hard for it, if I do say so myself, and damme if they'd get a groat of it back before I'd had my joy of it! A long vacation in foreign climes seemed to be in order. And since Peter was off to soak up Culture…"

"Can you ever go back, though, Chute?" Lewrie asked him. "Year'r two…" Clotworthy shrugged, appropriating an entire tray of champagne for the three of them from an irritated servant, who was clad in some livery that was grander than most full admirals back home. "Under another name, perhaps? The old fox never… ah!"

"Lord Peter!" some woman called out gaily. "Look at all I've won! Oh, aren't Venetian casinos simply heavenly?"

They turned to greet the newcomer, a short, petite blonde, who came forward with a spread lace handkerchief literally heaped with an entire pint of glittering Venetian sequins and ducats. Dribbling gold coins, which her maidservants scurried to retrieve before some Venetian loser found a way to retrieve his own fortune from her cast-offs. She was clad in a frothy but slimmer new-style gown, all shimmering silks and gauzy half-nothings which bared her arms and upper breast. A most impressive, milk-pale, sweetly cherubic breast, Lewrie noted, first of all. Infantlike, and only slightly pudgy arms, sure to be as soft and yielding as a baby's bottom, every toothsome morsel of her.

She was with a greyer older man, one who dressed neatly, soberly in bottle-green "ditto," though his watch-chain and fob, shoes and the gilt buckles upon them, the fineness of his linen, announced him as a man of great, though refined and subdued, wealth.

"Ah, Sir Malcolm… Lady Lucy," Peter began smoothly. "Allow me to name to you an old friend-"

"Oh, my God!" Lady Lucy Shockley shrilled aloud, causing a hitch to the orchestra. "It is you!" She declared, quite forgetting her new-won gold and strewing it over the marble floor in a tinkling shower.

"Is it… you?" Lewrie gasped in return, though thinking, Damme, one bloody surprise a night is quite enough!

And shivering in stupefaction to see her again, after so many years. Shivering, too, to see the furrow of irritation form on Sir Malcolm Shockley's brow. The man was the size of a Grenadier Guard, and people that big and brawny-and that bloody rich!-were best not nettled! No husband, in fact, with a face that wroth!

"Ma'am…" Lewrie tried to most-civilly purr, to begin a saluting "leg" of a bow. But she was up to him, upon him, before he could put one foot forward, and squealing with a most public delight. "S-so good to see you…" Lewrie stuttered. "Been years and years, what?" He added, for Sir Malcolm's benefit. And his own safety.

"Alan Lewrie!" she whooped. "Why, just look at you!"

"Lady Shockley… Lucy… Lady Lucy, uhmm…!" He gawped back.

Lady Lucy Shockley now… but long before, back in 1781, when he'd been a "newly" in the Caribbean-HMS Ariadne had been condemned, he'd served aboard the Parrot schooner, had come down with Yellow Jack, and had awakened to a vision from Heaven-Lucy Beau-man, niece to his admiral, Sir Onsley Matthews, sent to Antigua to avoid the slave rebellions on Jamaica-and his unofficial "nurse" as he'd regained health. So fair-complected, so fair-haired, so petite and promisingly rounded! So blessed with eyes the colour of tropical shoal-waters! So unbelievably rich!. And, at seventeen, so smitten with him.

Unfortunately, Lewrie recalled, about as ignorant as sheep! And pray God she's gotten wiser, since! he sighed.