THE GUN KETCH

Chapter 7

Hounds yelped, handlers cursed, and riders jollied themselves in mounting and boasts, as servants of Embleton Hall made their way between the fidgety horses with trays of stirrup cups to hand up to eager hunters. And tried to avoid the stalings on the drive and the grass, the fresh puddles of urine as fine horses tittupped and farted prior to a morning's run across country.

Harry Embleton reined his overeager stallion in roughly as he attempted to join the Chiswick party. At the dinner and dance the night before, he'd suspected there was something different about Caroline. She'd danced with him three times; a bloody wonder, that. And she'd been pleasant, for once, though distant, as was her usual wont, but he'd sensed it was for a different reason. For awhile he'd imagined that she was finally coming 'round, that Governour had worked on her long enough to incline her affections towards him. But then, she had danced five times with that interloping Lieutenant Lewrie, and had evinced such a rosy-cheeked elation towards him that it had taken all of his self-control not to have rushed onto the chalked dance floor to pull the smarmy devil away and thrust him from the house! The common, jumped-up… son of a whore!

That Lieutenant Lewrie danced extremely well, with such liquid grace and style to any music, and set every eligible girl to twittering like so many brainless hens, was infuriating as well.

And what did all those curious stares and giggles, those sly looks from the girls mean, he wondered? They had been directed at him as much as Caroline… surely that meant something wondrous was about to occur! But, they giggled and leered at Lewrie, too!

He had thought to ask of Governour, Millicent, or her uncle, butcould not stoop so low as to gamer gossip. A young man in his class and position could not; would not!

"A fine morning for the fox, Reverend," he said, tipping his hat to the vicar as he passed him and his daughter Emily. Emily had once been spooned by Governour Chiswick, had "set her cap" for him, in fact; now she'd lost Governour, it was not much of a secret she pined for Harry. There were few suitable bachelors left in the parish. Surprisingly, she did not gush over him so blatantly as would be her custom, and only looked away, reddening a trifle.

"Aye, 'twill be, young sir," the vicar agreed, though shying. Devil take the lot of 'em, what was the matter this morning? Harry wondered. Do I look like I have leprosy?

"Harry, me lad!" Roger Oakes bellowed, waving to him to come see him. "A wager? Twenty guineas, first to the hitching rail?"

Harry turned his horse's head to join him, distracted. "Twenty's an insult, Roger," Harry sneered. "Make it fifty." "Done!" Oakes replied heartily. "Mind you, you kill that fine animal, no matter you're first, and the wager's off."

"If he goes under, as your poor prad may, then I've lost both race and guineas. Good enough for you, you scapegrace?"

"Aye,- fair enough. Hoy, lad. Brandy here for two," Oakes ordered a scurrying footman. "Been down to the church, Harry?" he asked as two more of their fellows joined them.

"Not since Sunday last," Harry shrugged, looking over his shoulder at Caroline, who was beaming and laughing with Governour, Millicent and the dashing Lieutenant Lewrie, missing the wink Oakes tipped the others.

"What's posted makes interesting reading," Oakes sniggered. "Damn yer blood, Oakes," Harry snapped, having just about all he could take of leering, winking, and tittering, of odd reactions to his presence. "What's got into everyone today? And what's so bloody important posted at church?"

"Banns," Oakes smiled maliciously. "To be read o' Sunday, and read last night, I'm told. That makes two, I'm thinking. But, then, there may be a need of haste, aye lads?" And the rest chuckled over the rims of their stirrup cups.

"And who's the unfortunate young drab?" Harry smiled, sensing a wry jape or two over some yokel's slut. Or a juicy scandal.

"Caroline Chiswick, of all people," Roger informed him with a wink. "Damme, when we met Lewrie, he told you your virginity was secure. Didn't say anything about the lovely Caroline, though, did he? Ha ha! Damned fast workers, the Navy!"

"Goddamn you…" Harry shouted, striking the cup from Oakes's amazed hand. "Devil take you, you…!"

The Master of the Hunt was summoning riders, and the Master of Hounds, his own father, was pacing away, blowing his shrill horn to get things started. There was a good scent laid down with a brush to spur the hounds into the countryside, where they'd be sure to get a true spoor, and they were off in a brindle, speckled flood, yelping and baying as if they'd treed or denned something already.

"Apologize or owe me satisfaction, damn you, Harry!" Oakes demanded, face white with umbrage. He took Harry's wrist in his hand to hold him. "I'll not take that, even from a friend!"

"You'll have to stand in line, you bastard!" Harry screeched, tears in his eyes. "Someone else owes me satisfaction first!" He twisted free and put spurs to his stallion, making it rear and whicker with anger at his treatment.

"Now you've done it, Roger," one of the stalwarts commented as they got under way, "that lunatic is going to kill somebody!"

"If he doesn't kill himself first," Oakes shrugged, unfazed.

Off her own land, in public, Caroline was required by Society to ride a sidesaddle, so they made slower going in the middle of the pack of riders. Sometimes at a trot, sometimes at a sedate walk, as the hounds cast back and forth near the edge of Embleton lands.

They milled about for awhile before the hounds at last had a scent, and then they were off once more, this time at a lope behind the Masters and the hounds.

The first jump, once the pack increased speed, they took side by side, and Alan whooped in joy, sharing a brief grin of pleasure with Caroline. It had been years since he'd hunted down in Kent, in the times his father Sir Hugo still had acreage and the privilege of the hunt; 1779 since Alan had gone down for a summer after his last expulsion, just before his unwilling entry into the Navy. He had to admit he was rusty as a rider, but it was coming back to him, as was the heady exaltation of galloping cross-country and devil take the hindmost.

There was a second jump over a narrow but high-banked stream, and a third not two musket shots later, this time over a hedge, onto Chiswick land. And then the pack veered left toward the great house.Moments later, the hounds were circling and leaping around an oak tree, baying and yelping loud as the Hound of Cerberus, and they reined in behind the Master in confusion.

"Oh, bloody hell!" Sir Romney chortled. "Damned dogs've treed a cat, damn my eyes! Heel, sirs! Come away, damn you all, heel!"

"Good God, it's William Pitt!" Caroline gasped as the ragged ram-cat lay hunkered on a high-enough limb, bottled up and spitting, and raking the air with one paw, claws extended, at any hound's nose that came within scratching distance.

"Your pardons, milord?" Alan asked of Sir Romney as he rode up to him. "Might I pass you for just a moment? He's my cat, d'you see. And Caroline has been…"

Harry rode up as well, having gotten a later start off the mark from his house, but galloping all the way. He sawed his reins, setting the stallion back on its quarters and skidding dirt with its hooves beside them, jostling both men's mounts.

"Harry, we've treed Mister Lewrie's beast, yonder!" Sir Romney laughed as handlers began to drive the dogs off, beating at them with switches. "Think his tail'd make a good brush on my walls, hey?"

Harry gave Lewrie a black glower and spurred past him to ride under the tree, reaching up with his riding crop to slash at the cat, making Pitt howl with each lashlike blow, forcing the cat to slink backwards on the limb and climb higher.

"Feed the bastard to the dogs!" Harry almost screamed.

Lewrie spurred forward as well. Harry's actions had awakened the hounds to return to the tree and redouble their yelps, howls and blood lust. They were now almost uncontrollable.

"Damn you, sir!" Alan barked in his quarter-deck voice. "You hurt that cat, and you'll answer to me!"

"Goddamn you!" Harry shouted back. Alan took hold of his whip hand and pulled it down to waist level. Harry struck out with a left, letting go of the reins, striking Alan in the cheek and knocking his hat off. And, as Alan rocked back upright, Harry slashed him across his face with the riding crop as the excited horses circled and bit at each other. Lewrie's gelding shied away from Harry's stallion to the right, and Lewrie yanked reins to circle him small and return to what was now a fight.

"Damn you, Harry, what's got into you?" Sir Romney demanded in a hoarse shout above the gasps and cries of the other riders at this outrageous conduct. "Stop, I say, boy! Hear me?"

Lewrie spurred his mount forward to rush him, like a joust. The horses met right shoulder to right shoulder, and Lewrie swept out an arm to drag Harry from his saddle to sprawl heavily on the ground, then leapt down to finish him.

Harry twisted 'round and almost got to his feet, though he'd landed hard and lost half his wind. He slashed once more with the crop, grunting "You bastard!" with the effort. Alan ducked the blow to his right, letting the leather crack on the back of his coat, and then brought both fists upwards and to his left, right into Harry's startled face! Harry Embleton was almost lifted off his feet and did a half-turn, yelping in a sudden pain, to go down hard and stay down, rolling on his back with both hands to his nose, too hurt and out of wind to rise.

"Damn you, sir!" Sir Romney snarled, "If you've hurt my boy, I'll…" He threatened, his own crop raised as if to strike Lewrie to protect his son.

"He struck me, milord," Alan snapped, whirling to face him, his eyes aflame. "With fist and crop. Not the actions of a gentleman, milord! I'm within my rights as an English gentleman to demand satisfaction from him. Is that your desire, milord?"

Sir Romney looked into those eyes. Odd; he'd recalled them as being light, genial blue. But in anger, Lewrie's eyes glinted as bright and steely gray, and as hard, as a drawn sword. And in them, he saw implacable rage… and murder!

What Harry had done, for whatever mystifying reason, smacked of lunacy, Sir Romney shivered. And truly, totally unforgivable; and so public! The best of local Society, the cream of the landed gentry and superior classes the parish and county could boast had seen it!

"No," Sir Romney grunted unwillingly, the surrender wrenched out of him. Slowly, he lowered his fist to the pommel of the saddle. And he lowered his eyes, unable to match glares with the young man.

"See to your son, milord," Lewrie ordered. "And call off your hounds." Ordered, to a man whose every whim, whose every pronouncement was nearly sacred writ to parish, village, and county. Without waiting to see if that order would be obeyed, sublimely confident that it would be, Lewrie turned to see to his horse, to gentle him and stroke him over for possible injury.

"Mr. Lane, Toby… get the pack away and home," Sir Romney sighed, dismounting to go to Harry and help him to his feet, to pry his hands away from his face to look upon his smashed nose.

Caroline rode forward to join Alan as he remounted, sure his gelding had suffered no hurt. "Good God, Alan, are you alright?"She put out a gloved hand to his cheek and turned his face to look at it "He welted you with his crop," she huffed, by turns solicitous to him, and outraged at Harry. "And bruised your cheek!"

"Nothing a cold cloth and a measure of brandy won't heal." He smiled, reaching up to take her hand in fondness for a moment. "Now, how to get Pitt out of this tree?"

Alan rode under the limb and drew rein. He stood high as he might in his stirrups and reached up, wiggling enticing fingers.

"Come to me, Pitt," he cooed. "Come on down, you silly fart. Don't hiss at me… 'twasn't me treed your silly arse! Pitt, these dogs'll tear you apart if you don't come down to me. Come on, now."

The cat slunk backwards towards the trunk, reached the fork and mewed uncertainly as it turned tail-downward, and inch by wary inch, began to crab down the trunk toward Alan's outstretched hands.

"There's a brave little man," Alan encouraged. "Now come to me, that's the lad." He stretched upwards and put a hand under Pitt's tail, another 'round his middle. It was like trying to peel off barnacles. "Let go the tree, you stupid little…"

Pitt at last turned his head and leapt, curling up in a ball of angry fur as Alan fumbled him onto the saddle and his lap. Once there, William Pitt lay still, suffering for once the indignity of being enclosed and held, though he trilled deep in his throat, moaned and hissed, licking his chops at the affront.

Sir Romney had walked Harry back to his horse, away from the softly gossiping onlookers. Suddenly, he broke away from his father and advanced on Alan and Caroline, to end standing by her stirrup.

"Is it true, Caroline?" Harry demanded in a broken voice. "Is it true you're to wed this…?"

"It is, Harry," Caroline nodded somberly.

"And all we've been to each other means nothing to you?" he fumed, gaining strength from what to him felt like betrayal.

"We have been neighbors, Mister Embleton," Caroline continued. "I have never encouraged your attentions. Had you misunderstood my cordiality for something more, for that I offer my apologies, Harry."

"He's a nobody!" Harry groused, a little muffled from the hurt to his nose, which was now oozing blood and mucus, and swelling large as an angry turnip. "Not landed, not…"

"I love him with all my heart," Caroline replied, turning to Alan as she said it, rewarding her choice of mate with an expression that left no doubts, even among the onlookers out of ear-shot.

"Be-damned to you, then!" Harry raged, pink-tinged tears trickling past his nose. "You cheap, bloody whore! You silly, misguided… brainless… faithless… bitchl"

Alan, encumbered with Pitt in his lap, began to spur forward, but Caroline acted for herself. She leaned forward and lashed Harry with her reins, with which she had been nervously toying, across his ruined beak! Harry yelped in redoubled agony and sprang away, hands up to protect his face once more, hunching over as Caroline rode forward, herding him like a steer and lashing at him.

"That for your slurs, Harry Embleton!" she cried. "That for your cruelty! Slander me, will you? Put your dogs on our cat, will you? That for a purse-proud… Tom-Noddy! You vile wretch!"

"Caroline, for God's sake!" Alan shouted, riding up even with her and taking her hands, taking her reins to stop her and lead her away before even more lasting harm was done. "Drop it! Dead'un!"

"Damn him!" She spat, her color up and her hazel eyes ablaze.

"I think he got your point, m'dear," Alan told her. And he could not help himself from betraying his feelings with an approving smile. Caroline blew out a deep breath and looked at him, then she began to smile, too; lowered her head and bit her lip to keep from laughing out loud at the sight of Harry scuttling away, though no more blows struck him.

"By God, you're a Tartar, no error!" Alan told her. "I hope you have not deceived me with amiability. Am I to wed a termagant?" he cajoled, leading her towards the Chiswick house.

"Oh, Alan, no!" Caroline softened at last "You must never think that of me! It's simply his… I am sorry I usurped your place as my defender, darling. But the fool rowed me beyond… he struck you, Alan! He'd have killed Pitt to spite us. And what he called me! Had I a gun, I'd have soon shot him as looked at him. Had I a sword, I'd have run him through, God help me!"

"Sounds termagant to me," Alan said, tongue in cheek.

"I promise I shall be a proper wife to you, Alan." She calmed. "Properly demure and so very affectionate and complaisant. Surely, I trust to your affectionate and gentle nature. There will be nothing but the sweetest tranquility and joy between us. I know that, sure as I know anything in this life!"

"A 'goody,'" Alan japed. "Your uncle's favorite word."

"Oh, aye, a 'goody'!" Caroline replied, throwing her head backto chuckle with wry amusement. "Though I fear he favors 'economical' the more! Your 'goody,' at last, my dearest love."

They took hands between, riding knee to knee, and gazed into each other's eyes.

Damme, Alan thought, but she's got more bottom than any woman ever I did see! With her wits, and her fire, I'm in for a lively old time with her. Might be more interesting than I thought. Who said a marriage had to be drab as ditchwater?

"Your uncle won't care for this much," he sobered.

"Dearest Alan, I don't know anyone in Anglesgreen who will," she rejoined. "This is the stuff Welsh feuds are made of. Will you duel him?" she asked suddenly, realizing the ramifications. "I beg of you, do not!"

"He's a hen-hearted buffle-head." Alan sneered. "And he got a lot worse than he gave, after all. I doubt Sir Romney wants his boy carved up any more than he already is. He'll be a lifetime living this shame down, and I doubt he's the nutmegs to do more than slink away to London or Guildford. Away from all his friends and neighbors who saw his beastly behavior."

"He looked and sounded completely daft, Alan," Caroline said with a frown. "Oh, Lord, what if he found the bottom to challenge you? Crossed in love, bested before his contemporaries…"

"By you, as well, Caroline," Alan laughed heartily. "If indeed he does summon up the stones, I'll be your second!"

\