H.M.S. COCKEREL

Chapter 2

'Ave 'at owf in a tick, sir," his groom told him as he alit in his stable yard. Bodkins took the reins and tied the horse, then knelt with a rag so Lewrie could prop his boot on a wooden bucket. " 'Ere ye be, sir… good'z noo."

"Thankee, Bodkins," Lewrie replied, free at last of rank goo. "Be sure he gets a good, warm rubdown. 'Tis a fearsome cold night."

" 'At I will, sir, never ye fear," the groom said. " 'Ere, Thomas, me lad. Untack 'e master's horse."

It was a fine new stone stable, attached to the older thatched-roof house that now served as the carriage house for two coaches; one light and open for good weather, and an older, boxy enclosed coach. Lewrie petted and fussed over the gelding before the stableboy led him away for his well-ieserved oats and rubdown. Lewrie crossed the stable yard, sure that his workers had shoveled before dark, sure he would;ncounter no more messy surprises lying in wait, on past the lulking older "wattle and daub" original barn where the prod-icts of the farm were stored to tide him, his kith and kin, and lis beasts, through the rest of the winter.

Uncle Phineas had leased them, and that quite grudgingly, 160 acres, a corner of his vast holdings at the foot of his lane, like a gatehouse to the manor proper. But it was close to the village and the Chiddingfold Road, and quite handy. A sheeper had been renting when they left in '86, but it was vacant upon their return. Acreage enough to run a middling flock of sheep, a few beef cattle and dairy animals, swine, goats, turkeys and chickens, with orchards and grape arbors enough for the home-farm to feed quite well. There was enough cleared land for a decently profitable crop of wheat and hay in addition to the sheep, with wood lots, kitchen gardens, access to three creeks and several sweet wells. Hops and barley gave them homebrew beer, and they were awash in preserved fruits.

The new house, though! The old thatched-roof cottage had been a two-story, smoky, bug-infested horror, and, since wages and construction materials had been quite low, they had run up a presentable new stone and gray brick Georgian house, for about a quarter of what a London manse its size might have cost. It gave Alan pleasure to know that it was as fine as anything Governour in his new wealth had built, or as uncle Phineas' gloomy old red-brick pile. The perverse old bastard would not part with land permanently, but had been bludgeoned into a long-term lease which would expire long after he did, so Alan had no fear of losing his Ј800 investment. And it made Phineas grind what few teeth he had left in his head, so it was more than worth every penny.

They had a slate roof as tight as a well-caulked and coppered ship of the line, and enough fireplaces to keep it snug and cozy on all but the iciest nights-windows enough, too, to keep it breezy and well lit in the warmer seasons. Fashion had demanded, and with Granny Lewrie's last bequest the Lewries could afford, a Palladian facade for the center hall, in imitation of Inigo Jones.

He stopped to admire it in the lantern light, taking cheer at the sight of amber-glowing windows and fuming chimneys confronting the frigid night. Even coming from the rear, between the now bleak kitchen gardens and the ornamental flower gardens and shrubberies on the west side near him, it was imposing, big as a brig!

The central hall jutted towards him, which held the kitchens, the still rooms, butler's pantry, storerooms and laundry facilities. Just off the kitchens, they had a private bathing room, with a marble tub big enough for two. Nearest him, too, was an intimate dining room where they most often took breakfast, or dined en famille, overlooking the cheery ornamental garden that was Caroline's pride. Nearer still was the library and music room, and his private study, in the front of the house, adjacent to a receiving parlour just off the foyer and its cloakroom. The hall was tiled and paneled, with a broad staircase which led up to a landing, and another pair-of-stairs. And beyond in the east wing was a dining hall and main parlour almost big enough to host a middling-sized guest list for a dance. Unfortunately, that was little used so far-one needed guests who'd accept one's invitations. So furnishings beyond bare bones were far from complete.

Over his head in the west wing was the nursery, the children's small bedrooms and the governess' quarters. Over the entry hall was their own spacious bedchamber and intimate study (actually, Caroline's sewing room, so far). There were three more bed-chambers for guests in the east wing-once again, vacant and unused. Hopefully, once the last Lewrie was out of "nappies," they planned to convert the nursery into a classroom for a private tutor, with lodgings in the east wing.

"I'm home!" He called out hopefully as he entered through the garden doors to his cozy study. He sailed his wide-brimmed farmer's hat at a wall peg and shrugged off his cloak, draping it over a wing chair near the cheery fireplace. Warmth was what he wished that instant, the Fires of Hell if he could get 'em. He raised the tails of his coat and backed so close to the hearth that his heels were almost between the firedogs.

"Didn' 'ear ya come in, sir," Will Cony said, entering from the central hall. " 'Spected ya through th' front, I did. I'll take yer things, 'ang 'em up f r ya, sir. Aye, 'ere's 'at of cat, Pitt, sir!"

The grizzled old battler shambled into the room, stalking slow and regal. William Pitt the ram-cat was getting on in years, spending most his days lazing in windows or patches of sunlight, but he still ruled the farm with fang and claw, and even the dogs slunk tail-tucked in terror when he was out and rambling.

Pitt's haughty entrance was disturbed, though, by the arrival of his middle son Hugh, who darted between Cony's knees, leaped the cat, and dashed for him, whooping like a Red Indian. Sewallis, his firstborn, entered behind him. William Pitt, outraged and his dignity destroyed, turned, raked the air in Sewallis' general direction, hissed and moaned before hopping up on his favorite wing chair to wash furiously. And Alan noted that Sewallis shied away from the cat, giving him a wide berth. That was all he had time for before Hugh tackled his leg, howling a greeting.

Alan laughed and reached down to pick him up, to lift him over his head and give him a light toss, making Hugh shriek with joy.

"There's my bold lad!" Alan rejoiced. "There's my dev'lish man! What mischief you been into today, hey?"

"Pwaying, daddy!" Hugh wriggled as he shouted his reply.

"Good Christ, you're in that much trouble again? I surely hope not\ Oh, play-ing, you mean, ha ha. And here's Sewallis. Come here, my boy. How was your day? Been keeping your brother out of scrapes?"

"Yes, father." Sewallis replied with his usual reserve. He cast a wary look over his shoulder in Pitt's direction to determine how safe movement might be, then dashed with unwonted haste as Lewrie held out his arms. The boy came to him dutifully for a more sedate welcome-home hug, and a kiss on the forehead.

"Good to be home," Alan told them both. "Cold as the Devil out tonight."

"Wa' yoo bwing me, daddy?" Hugh coaxed in an almost unintelligible voice. He was only three, and still having trouble pronouncing his "R's," so much so that even a doting daddy, who should have been familiar enough with baby talk, had difficulty understanding him. The boy's eyes gleamed, sly with expectation, clinging to Lewrie's knees, his tiny fingers beginning to probe all the pockets he could reach.

Thievery, Lewrie thought: runs in the family, don't it. Boy has a promising set of careers open to him, long as he doesn't get caught. Few years practice, though…

"Why, I brought myself, boy!" Alan chaffered, kneeling to eye level with them. "You don't get a pretty or a sweet every time I ride to town, do you?"

"Yess, ah dool" Hugh hollered.

"A body'd think I had to bribe you lads for affection."

"No puddy?" Hugh gaped, beginning to screw his face up for a heartfelt bawl of disappointment. This was betrayal at its blackest.

"Don't be a baby, Hugh, 'course he did." Sewallis chid him with a very adult-sounding touch of vexation.

Alan glanced at his eldest. Both the boys were "breeched" in adult clothing: stockings, shoes, breeches and waist-coats, shirts and stocks, their baby hair grown long enough to be plaited or drawn into a man's queue. But Sewallis suddenly sounded so very mature for his tender five years. Always had, Lewrie realized. Even young as Hugh, the boy had always been aloof, quiet and reserved (call it what you really think, damnit!)-timid-with none of the neck-or-nothing exuberance, the silliness or the folly of a normal boy. Scared of the cat? And for God's sake, he hardly ever goes near the damned pony I got 'em. A Lewrie afraid of a horse? An Englishman shy of a horse!

"Of course I brought you something," Alan announced, "just as Sewallis said, little man. Can you keep a secret?"

Hugh agreed with a firm nod as Alan peered into corners, like a housebreaker unloading his ill-gotten gains in a slum alley, an eye out for the previous owners.

"Rare treats," he promised. Hugh was giggling now, dancing in impatience and wonder. Sewallis.,. well, he was a little wide-eyed, but ever the little stoic. "I made an arrangement with a pirate and a smuggler, lads. Fiercest, meanest set of blackguards you ever did wish to see. Off they went, far as the East Indies. Down to Malabar. Oh, 'tis a mysterious, fearsome place-elephants, and snakes thick as my legs, heathen princes and headhunters. The pirate, he took 'em, and the smuggler, he got 'em out, one step ahead o' the headhunters. Then six months at sea on a tall 'John Company' ship they came, all the way from pagan Hindoo India. 'Round the Cape of Good Hope, over to the Argentine and the Plate for a slant o' wind-"

"Mister Lewrie-oh, excuse me." Mistress McGowan, the cheerless governess, had entered the room. She didn't approve of parents and children mixing except at teatime, perhaps after supper for an awkward moment or two of stilted conversation. Certainly not of parents who really wished to spend time with their children.

"Firewood and water, then off to St. Helena, the crossroads of the Atlantic, m'dears. Thence 'cross the Westerlies, daring all the French privateers, to Ushant. Up our good English Channel, into the Pool o' London up the Thames. From mysterious Malabar … a delight fit for the mighty Moghuls themselves!" He reached into his tail-coat pocket as the boys fidgeted.

"And here they be-cinnamon sticks!" he cried as he produced them, to howls of rapture and leaping, clutching little hands.

"Oh, sir," Mistress McGowan simpered. "You'll spoil their supper. La, I do allow you cosset these lads something sinful. Come along, Sewallis, Hugh. There's good boys. Wash up and dress. Sweets later, if you're good. Waste no more of your father's time. Mister Lewrie, sir, mistress says to tell you that table is set, and you may sup as soon as you've washed the road away. Come, lads. Now."

"No, now!" Hugh demanded petulantly, but it was not to be. He saw his treat tucked into Mistress McGowan's apron pocket. Lewrie stood, with none of the magic of the moment left but the stickiness of the cinnamon sticks on his fingers. And feeling as ordered about as the boys did as they were chivvied off.

"Well, damme," he groused, returning to the fireplace for a warmup. "Ain't this my own house? Ain't they my own lads, to cosset as I wish? Cosset 'em? Aye, damned right I will. And how dare that… that hired bitch gainsay me, hey?"

Cony only shrugged in reply. "Got water'n towels laid out, sir. Bit of a wash afore supper?"

"I suppose so, Cony," Lewrie huffed. "Damn my eyes, but there's a hellish lot of… domesticity about these days. Aye, I'll come up. I'll be a good boy. Ain't we all learned to be such…. good ladsl"

"Ahum!" Cony coughed into his fist to hide a rueful grin of sympathy. "Aye, sir."

Alan paused in the central hallway, though, peering at the two portraits hung there side by side; his and Caroline's. His had been done in '83, just after the Revolution, whenhe'dbeen a twenty-one-year-old lieutenant. Caroline's had been painted by a talented (but annoying) artist in the Bahamas, just after they'd arrived in 1786, when she was twenty-three, and a newlywed.

Early morning tropical light, with her lush flower garden and the impossibly emerald and aquamarine waters of East Bay, which had fronted their small home as a backdrop, she in a wide-brimmed straw hat and off-shoulder morning gown, her clear complexion and her hazel eyes bright and dewy as West Indies dawn, and her long, light brown, almost taffy-blonde hair flowing carefree and loose, teased by the ever-pressing, flirtatious trades…

Had Caroline changed? Not in features, so much as… she was still lissome and slim, no matter birthing three children. She still rode almost every day, walked the acres, kept active as so many sparrows. Oh, there were laugh lines now around her eyes and mouth, more than before, her graceful hands and fingers sparer of flesh. Where, though, had that Caroline gone, he wondered?

And for himself, well, like it or not, not a fortnight before, on Epiphany, he had gone over the edge. He was thirty \ Middle-aged, and Caroline soon to follow by spring.

As if I don't have enough complaints, God help us, he thought.

He felt vaguely queasy and unsettled at the fetching of such a prominent seamark. Like espying the peaks of Dominica, which signified arrival on-passage to the Caribbean, yet knowing that whatever West Indies port of call one was bound for, no matter how joyous the passage, was no more than a week's sailing downwind. And no beating against the inevitability of those insistent Nor'east Trades had ever availed.

Lieutenant Alan Lewrie, RN, peered out at him from the picture with a hopeful grin, the hint of devilment in his eyes that were grey or blue by mood. Shiny, midbrown hair, sun-bleached to light brown and curling slightly at the temples and forehead, yet drawn back into a proper seaman's plaited pigtail, lay over the ears and tumbled over the uniform coat's collar. It was a youthful courtier's lean face he saw, though tanned by blistering sun and sea glare beyond a courtier's fashionable paleness. And the slight hint of the vertical scar upon one cheek-the result of a duel for another girl's honour, a girl now long gone, in point of fact-the artist had wished to suppress that, but Alan had been quite proud of his disfigurement at the time and insisted it be rendered exactly. Just as they had disputed the teeth-baring grin, too; English gentlemen were supposed to be sober and dignified in life, and limned so in portraits for posterity.

Yes, he'd wash up, he decided, taking the first of the stairs. And see if he, at the advanced age of thirty, even slightly resembled the young "sprog" he used to be.

Thirty, Jesus, he thought! And he used to spurn women who had gotten a little long in tooth. If only he'd known then in his feckless days what he knew at present!

There, he thought, almost satisfied. His reflection didn't vary much from the portrait downstairs after he had washed and toweled.

Much, he amended.

He'd been eating well, and even with rugged, outdoorsy country pursuits he was not exactly the lean-cheeked courtier of his youth, nor so pale as a titled lord. But it was near enough.

Cony finished brushing his coat and waistcoat and he redonned them. He'd slipped out of his top boots and exchanged them for a pair of indoor shoes, little more than soft-leather pumps, more like women's dancing slippers than anything else. Insubstantial though they felt, they were all "the go" lately.

Standing well back from Caroline's dressing mirror, he perused his form as well. He had been eating well, after all, though there was no snugness to the sewn-to-be-snug, buff-coloured suede breeches beyond what fashion demanded. His bottle-green coat and waist-coat sat well upon him, he thought-though they were new, run up before Christmas, so what comparison would they be?

Well, there's my uniforms, he sighed, almost relieved.

They'd changed the Regulations for Sea Officers' dress in '87, whilst he was overseas, and though he'd gone on the half-pay list as soon as Alacrity had paid off, he'd faced the expense of meeting the new dress regulations so he could call upon the Councillor of the Cheque each three months, about the time of the quarterly assizes, to prove that he was alive, that he still possessed all his requisite parts, that he was eligible for future sea duty, and to collect what was laughably termed Half-Pay. He'd just come back from the Admiralty in London, just before his birthday, and his uniform had fit him admirably well.

Damme, though… He frowned, lifting his coattails to study the heft and span of his buttocks. Hmmm…?

"Supper is served, sir… mistress," Cony announced at last, as the rum punches at the Olde Ploughman threatened to consume his stomach lining.

"My dear," Alan beamed, rising to greet Caroline as she swept into the smaller second parlour, where he'd been kicking his heels.

"Sorry, dearest, but I simply had to stop by the nursery to look in on little Charlotte," Caroline smiled in reply, coming to his arms for a welcome hug and an affectionate, wifely, kiss. Alan took her up off her feet, unwilling to let a pat and a peck on the lips suffice. Children be damned, servants be damned, he thought, I want a proper welcome!

"Alan!" Caroline chid him, but not sternly at all as she gave him what he demanded. He could hear Hugh blowing indignant bubbles of revulsion as they kissed again.

"Nothin' to sneer at, Hugh," Alan chortled softly as he let her go at last. "Take my word for it."

There was a rare light in Caroline's eyes as she knelt to give her sons a peck, too. "Ah, little Hugh. What? You'll flinch from my kiss? And Sewallis, our little angel! That's my little man, you 11 not wipe off your mother's affections."

"And how is Charlotte?" Alan asked as he offered his arm to lead Caroline into the informal dining room.

"Simply perfect, of course," Caroline chuckled, filled with a maternal warmth. Baby Charlotte, named for her maternal grandmother, was barely twelve months old and still nursing.

Soon to stop, please God, Lewrie begged silently. No matter they could afford wet nurses, no matter how unfashionable for English ladies, Caroline had insisted upon it with every child, months and bloody months of nursing! Months and months of baby talk, billing and cooing between swaddled babe and doting mama, and God help the man who interfered or tried to conduct an adult conversation. Alan espied a tiny, darker damp spot on her demure woolen bodice-a dottle of lovingly egested milk, and noted the flush of pleasure she usually bore after a feeding.

Hugh made another blubber-lipped sound of disapproval as he was helped into a chair by the governess.

"You'll appreciate girls in your own time, me lad," Lewrie cautioned him. "Even a little sister."

He pulled out Caroline's chair to seat her at the foot of the table, saw Cony and Mistress McGowan get the boys placed, and took his own seat at the head. Before he could unfold his napery, out rushed a maid with a steaming tureen of soup, and Cony was uncorking a bottle of hock with a cheery "thwocking" sound.

"Hearty chicken soup, with a dash of tarragon," Caroline announced, urging them all to dig in. 'Takes the winter chill away. Out it goes… then up? 'As a ship goes out to sea, so my spoon goes out from me'\ And young gentlemen never lean over their bowls, do they, Hugh?"

Hugh gulped what looked like a heaping shovel-full into his greedy maw, hunched over his plate with the spoon held like a ladle in a clumsy little paw. His cheeks puffed out like a squirrel's as he tried to swallow, and a line of creamy soup frothed between his lips. Followed a second later by the entire mouthful, since it was so hot. He began to fan, buttock-dance on his chair and bawl.

"Small sips, that's the way, Hugh. Lord…" Caroline sighed, rising to rush to his side to sponge him down and comfort him. "See how Sewallis does it? There, there, Hugh, you're not hurt. Take a sip of water, there's my little baby…"

Oh, for God's sake, Lewrie thought, eyeing them. One son prim as a parson, one looking like he'd just spewed a dog's dinner, and a dowdy wife! A matronly wife! Definitely matronly.

Well, she is a matron, ain't she, he qualified to himself. A young'un, thank the Lord. Seven years wed. Bloom off the rose, and all that. Still, she wore a fiercely white, starched mobcap, with her hair up and almost hidden beneath it; a heavy old woolen gown drab as a titmouse, with wrist-length sleeves and a high-cut bodice, totally unadorned by even a hint of lace; a pale natural wool shawl over her shoulders which plumped and disguised even more of her youth; and a bib-fronted, slightly stained dishclout of an apron, useful during child-rearing of an infant still incontinently in nappies, but Lord!

And that baby talk-all the time, he thought, feeling guilty and disloyal comparing his (mostly) delightful wife to the fetchingly handsome girl she once had been.

"I'll take them, ma'am," Mistress McGowan volunteered from the kitchen doors, summoned by the noises. "La, they're too excitable for a sit-down supper. Not utensil trained, neither. Come, boys? We'll finish supper in the kitchen. Let mummy and daddy eat their meal in peace, and you may see them later, before bedtime."

"Perhaps that's best…" Caroline surrendered, though she did cock a chary eyebrow in the governess' direction, and furrowed her forehead in what Alan had long ago learned was simmering vexation.

"Good soup," Alan commented a minute or two of weighty silence later. "Meaty. And the tarragon brings out the flavor wonderfully well. As do all your spices, dear."

"I'm pleased you're pleased with it, love," Caroline smiled in reply, though with half her attention on the feeding noises from the closed kitchen doors.

"About Mistress McGowan…" Alan posed in a soft voice. "I'm not entirely happy to have our own lives ordered about so. We are not her favorite sort of parents, and-"

"I have noticed," Caroline sighed between dainty spoonfuls. "I will speak to her. If she cannot alter her ways, well-"

"You are mistress in your own house, dear," Alan comforted her. "And a damned fine one, I assure you. I will not have your sensible ways upset, nor you distressed, by a mere servant."

'Thankee, Alan," Caroline beamed at him this time. "I promise I will speak to her."

"Damned good soup," he commented again, raising an eyebrow. "Too bad little Charlotte isn't ready for soup such as this. Think of what she's missing, poor tyke. Why, it may be a week or two more before she's even able to take mere gruels and paps, d'ye think, dear?"

Tell me I can have you back, hey? he pleaded, with the merest sign of innocent inquisitiveness on his phiz. Once Caroline put a child on a solid diet and left off nursing, he could play once more with those twin peaks of his delight. Once, that is, she stopped producing milk. He'd rushed it the week before, and still felt embarrassed by the almost perverse, cloyingly sweet taste of mother's milk which had flooded his mouth in the throes of passionate foreplay.

"Oh, I think more than a week or so, Alan," Caroline told him, colouring herself at the memory. "Perhaps another month. She will take tiny spoonfuls of thin paps now, but…" Caroline shrugged in explanation, which was no explanation at all, save for the heavy way her breasts brushed and lifted beneath her prim bodice. Nursing was a very private pleasure-almost as good a pleasure as mel Lewrie wondered. It seemed so. Domesticity, he groaned to himself, keeping his face bland as he hid behind a sip of hock. Ain't it grand, thankee Jesus!

"And how was the village?" Caroline inquired, changing the subject deftly.

"Quiet as usual. Same old complaints. Same old faces." He grimaced slightly and laid aside his spoon. Caroline rang a tiny china bell for the soup to be removed and the mutton chops to be fetched in. "Talk of the French. Bags of it."

"Anything new?" she asked, frowning.

"Fear, mostly. Even the tenant farmers are getting worried all that levelling, Jacobin talk about equality will come here someday. Now they've murdered their king and queen-"

"Perhaps it'll die out, like Nootka Sound," Caroline prayed. "A great deal of commotion, then. It's been ten years since America went the same way, and nothing's come of that," she stated, to reassure them both. "Englishmen aren't as crazed as the French, thank God, nor as empty-headed as the Rebels were. There's nothing wrong with English society needs changing! Let the whole world turn upside down, we'll be here, season to season, sane and orderly, as usual."

"We may, dear," Alan countered gently. "But the Germanies, the rest of Europe… First the Colonies went unhinged, now France, and as bloody as you could ask for. Didn't call it the Terror for nought, y'know. There were no aristocrats to butcher in the Colonies, and a fair number of them were Rebels to start with… My pardons."

Caroline's brother George hadbeen butchered, by Chiswick relatives in the lower Cape Fear of North Carolina. And that pregnant woman murdered in her bed Alan had discovered outside Yorktown, before the siege set in, her unborn babe pinned to the log walls with a rusty bayonet!

"First the Colonies, then France, God knows where next- not England, o' course," he reiterated after a bite of succulent mutton chop, heavy with hot mustard, Navy style. "But if this plague spreads, how long before we're alone in a sea of hostile Republicans?"

"Pray God it will blow over like a summer storm, then," Caroline shuddered, all but crossing herself. Cony fetched out a bottle of burgundy, more suited to mutton, to replace the lighter hock. "And if you are called back, well, it would not be for long."

Nootka Sound, '91: an incredibly petty spat between Spain and England over fishing and furs halfway 'round the world on the grim and forbidding coast of America, almost to the Pole, almost to northernmost Asia! The Fleet had been called up to prepare for war, ships laid up inordinary had been refitted, and new construction begun. Alan had spent six weeks in active commission, first officer into a 5th Rate thirty-six-gun frigate upriver at Chatham, before saner and cooler heads prevailed and the whole business had deflated like one of those Frogs', Montgolfier's, hot-air balloons.

"Another Nootka Sound, I'm certain, dearest," he promised her.

Their bed-chamber was snugly warm, and Alan Lewrie was fighting the urge to yawn, to succumb to sleep-hoping for better things to do in the shank of a cold winter evening. They'd finished supper, taken the boys into the small parlour and let them prate, babble and play as wild as they wished for an hour before shooing them off to bed. Alan and Caroline had played a duet, a medley of reassuringly old country ballads- she on her flute, he on his cheap tin flageolet. Years of practice, and he still sounded so terrible he would not play for any guest. She'd beaten him four games out of seven at backgammon and finished the bottle of claret with him, flushed with victory, liquor and so much happily domestic contentment that she'd quite forgotten her previous worries.

The cook, governess, maidservant, his man Cony, the scullery wenches and the rest of their burgeoning household were all now belowstairs or tucked away in their garrets. Caroline was seated before a mirror at her dressing table, mobcap and dowdy woolen apparel gone, replaced by a flimsy dressing gown. Her hair was down and loose, long and shiny as she slowly and methodically brushed it.

Lewrie was under the pile of coverlets and quilts, with the steamy clothes-iron heat of the recently removed warming pan under his buttocks and back. The fireplace glowed cheery and hot across the chamber, its amber dancing flames reflected into the room by a brass backplate, throwing shadows on paneling and wallpapers.

Beneath his fine linen nightshirt he was happily encouraging a cock-stand.

He smiled in eager anticipation, admiring her reflection in the mirror as she smiled a pleased and secretive smile to herself. She posed her hair, arms lifted, exposing a graceful neck and slim arms, slim back shifting beneath her silken gown. She went back to stroking her hair, underbrushing now, with her head cocked over to one side. In her mirror, shadow breasts rustled against silk, fuller and heavier, so very much more promising than when she was girlish.

When they'd met in Wilmington, North Carolina, during the evacuation, she could not have weighed eight stone sopping wet, and that with half a dozen petticoats. Slim and coltish, still-not the usual apple-dumpling matron, after all. Perhaps a half stone more, Alan wondered? Just the slightest bit fuller in hips and upper thighs-but it was such succulent, acquiescent, yielding and secret excess. Sweeter, softer than ever before, as soft as gosling down.

His fingers began to twitch with a life of their own as he contemplated the butter-softness of the luscious bottom he'd soon be stroking.

"Not much needs seeing to tomorrow, I fear, dear," she said to him, colouring a little as she saw his intent, reflected gaze.

"Muck out, feed the stock," Alan yawned, jaws creaking in struggle against it. "Have the beef cattle driven to the stock-pens. Not a morsel of pasturage left for 'em. And we don't wish to risk any spring calves, if the weather turns off colder."

"You're beginning to anticipate a farm, after all," she replied with a light chuckle, but it was very matter-of-fact. As if sensing that she'd been too blunt and critical of his farming skills, Caroline crinkled her large hazel eyes at him via the mirror, pursed her lips and blew him a distant kiss across the bed-chamber.

"After four years it's about time, don't you think?" he said, shifting under the covers. She was smiling that particular, that secret, heavy-lidded smile-it promised to be an intimate evening indeed! "Like the Navy, knots an' rope," he rambled on, putting his hands beneath his head on the pillows, thoroughly at ease now. " 'Cept for the bosuns who'd flog my bottom raw if I got things wrong. Thank God. 'Can't birth a lamb, Mister Lewrie? Ton my word, sir! No way to bind a sheave, Mister Lewrie! Bosun, dozen o' y'r best, at once, sir! Bend over, kiss the gunner's daughter, Mister Lewrie!' Or is it the farmer's daughter, hmm?"

Caroline giggled, then went back to stroking her hair, humming a tune to herself, almost crooning. "Oh," she paused. "We're invited to a game supper at Govemour's and Milli-cent's. Friday night. He bagged a stag, and it should be well hung by roasting time."

"And Uncle Phineas and his dull compatriots will be there?" Alan frowned with displeasure. "Dear as I love well-hung venison… Pity he didn't bag Uncle Phineas. Might be too tough an old boar to chew, though."

"We're to bring a covered dish," Caroline went on, resuming her stroke. "I thought a dessert would be best from us. Hmm?"

"A tart fruit jumble, that'd go well with venison," he suggested, stifling another yawn. "Something half wild, like that red-currant preserve you put up in the fall."

"Mmm, yes, that might do main-well." She put aside her brush and bound her hair at last into a long, single tress. She rose from her dressing table, let the dressing gown fall open over her bedgown and crossed to the fireplace. William Pitt, their ancient tawny ram-cat, lay stretched out on the narrow padded bench in front of the fire like a rather large orange-coloured plum duff. He was whimpering and grunting in his sleep. Caroline touched his grizzled head and he woke enough to look up, thrust the top of his head against her hand, and turn over to lie facing Lewrie, all four heavy paws together as he stretched. The one good eye regarded the bed. The stubby tail curled lazily as he recalled how cozy-warm it was to sleep with humans on cold winter nights.

Not tonight, you little bastard, Alan gloated at him.

Caroline blew out the last remaining candle and came to the high bedstead, slowly undoing the fastenings of her dressing gown, shrugging it off her shoulders to puddle at her elbows. Her hips swayed in the flickering amber darkness. He put out a hand to her.

And little Charlotte took that exact, and unfortunate, instant to wake, either wet, hungry, lonely, bored or terrified- perhaps a combination of all five-and began to bawl her little head off.

Even in the near dark Alan could see Caroline's face go empty and vacant, then vexed, then subsumed with worry, and after that she had no more thought for her husband than she might for the Man in the Moon. With frantic, matronly haste she did back up her robe and was out the door and down the hall for the nursery.

"Bloody…!" Alan Lewrie groaned in a soft whimper, head back on the pillows in sudden defeat, though still up on his elbows in welcome. "Bloody Hell!" he moaned, collapsing.

"Marrrh," William Pitt announced in a grumpy, closed-mouthed trill as he hopped up on the foot of the bed, as if he had known how the evening would fall out. He padded slowly up the covers, tacking cautiously around the slowly sinking seamount of his master's fading tumescence, and flopped himself sideways against Lewrie's upper chest, leaning his whole, and not inconsiderable, weight against him. Pitt's good eye regarded Lewrie with commiseration, his one undamaged ear gave a tiny twitch and he yawned again, as close to a grin as felines may essay, baring his remaining teeth and mismatched fangs. One heavy, round paw, big as an unhusked walnut, reached out and patted at Alan's chin, claws nicely sheathed, to give comfort. And to demand some for himself.

Lewrie slid an arm down from inside the warm, recently inviting covers to pet him and scratch the top of his head, the shaggy ruff of fur around his thick neck.

"You knew, didn't you, Pitt?" Lewrie whispered, resignedly. "I wish to God I knew how you do these things."

"Murpphh," William Pitt harrumphed, beginning to pun-loud and rattling, like a bilge-pump chain. He closed his eyes in bliss.

At least somebody 'round here's blissful, Lewrie thought. And most uncharitably, too.