THE GUN KETCH

Chapter 4

She rode as if the Hounds of Hell were at her heels, astride the older-style saddle and bent over low, her light brown hair touched with gold streaming from beneath her straw bonnet like flame. Her mare was a good'un, making it hard for Alan's gelding to keep up for at least half a mile, until they thundered up a rising down towards a patch of wood lot, their mounts sucking and blowing like bellows.

At last they slowed to a walk as they neared the summit, and Alan could draw alongside her to see what had vexed her so.

"Good little mare you have there," he complimented her. "And you ride prettily. But what was all the hurry?"

"I just wanted to get out from under foot," she replied, just a touch wan, though flushed with the exertion and the excitement of a hard ride. "I liked our little house near the road better, instead of all the coming and going around Uncle's. At least down there, we felt… settled and at peace. Snug in our own house, at last."

"I don't see why you had to move, really," Alan said as their mounts cropped grass after getting their wind back. "Surely the maid that cares for your father could have come there instead."

"Uncle insisted on it," Caroline replied with a wry grin, which flitted away quickly. "He insists on rather a lot of things, I fear."

"Caroline, is there something the matter here?" Alan asked. "Far be it from me to presume to intrude in your family's affairs, but…"

"Oh, Alan, you who've done so much for this family already," she warmed to him, leaning over to lay a gloved hand on his sleeve. "As if we don't consider you kin by now… of sorts! You do not intrude to ask me anything."

"Then what's going on?" he shrugged.

"When Father lost his leg and fell ill, he was months in bed," Caroline sighed, looking away down the toppling downs toward the sea to the south. "Governour was head of the family, then. But he was still estate manager to Uncle Phiqeas. And just married to Millicent Embleton. So, by rights, Uncle Phineas is the master of the land. And of our lives. What did the Romans call it… paterfamilias'!"

"And the booty that Burgess sent home from India did not help?"

"Only in improving our finances," Caroline said with a frown. "But not in our station, you see. We are still tenants. Relatives, yes, but mostly tenants when it comes to Uncle Phineas. We had hoped for a warmer reception from blood kin."

"I remember in London, when we were finding Burge his situation, your uncle did not sound wholly… solicitous and charitable to you."

"It was his obligation, nothing more," Caroline told him. "A chore of blood. He was eldest, responsible for his younger brother's folly. That's what our plantation was in the Carolinas… folly. Their father united the two estates after my granduncle died without issue. I've always felt Uncle Phineas feared that Father would split it again, even after getting a fair price for it when he sailed for the Colonies. He didn't have to pay him a shilling for it, after all. He was the eldest, due to inherit everything."

"Yet he gave back 120 acres, for a guinea a year," Alan pointed out.

"Oh, yes, he rented back 120 acres. But that ended last year!" Caroline almost hissed in anger. "Father too ill to work it, Gove up on the larger tract, or pining for the Embleton land… who else could do it? Mother? My mother is a dear woman, Alan, but she depended on my poor father for everything! It could have settled on Burgess, but you know what he thinks of farming."

"And Governour makes no objections?" Alan asked, unable to see the (used-to-be) fiery young hawk-face accede to losing land.

"Dearest Alan, Governour will inherit all when the time comes," Caroline barked in sour amusement "The last, eldest Chiswick male. Then Uncle Phineas will have what he's always wanted."

"And what is that?" Alan asked.

"An heir to hold the land. If he's said it the once, he's said it anhundred times." She frowned. "The land is forever. Men and women rise up and die, but the land is always. And he doesn't want to see it in a stranger's hands. The Embletons get what they want as well," she almost spat in conclusion. "And that is?"

"That the two biggest estates are united." Caroline shivered. "After all these years, with Governour and Millicent wed, they are linked."

"Now I see why Governour would not object," Alan laughed in understanding. "There's always the off-chance he'd outlive Harry and end up with it all?"

"Oh, yes!" Caroline nodded. "And to ensure his complaisance, Sir Romney's putting Governour up for Commons next by-election, as his pet member from a rotten borough he controls up north. Harry already sits for Anglesgreen. There're not twenty men with the hundred pounds in rents or income to vote here, and even less in Teverly New Town." Caroline shrugged, then smiled ruefully. "Forgive me, Alan, a woman is not to know such, or involve herself in men's doings, but that's the way things stand here."

"As if that ever stopped you!" Alan hooted, trying to cosset her out of her bleak mood. "I've seen you before, remember, so eager to talk about any subject, then fade back into the woodwork when you think you've overstepped yourself. What a bloody waste!"

"Thank you, Alan, I do appreciate your understanding." Caroline truly smiled for the first time that morning. "Yes, I find it hard to be so… subservient! In North Carolina, so much more was expected of a woman, so much more was she allowed, as a helpmeet to her man and her family! Here, one sews neatly," she complained. "One plays an instrument. One reads, and distills, and orders servants, and cannot dirty one's own dresses at gardening, but must tell others what to do. Here in England, I feel so like an ill-bred… lout!"

"Out of place?" he muttered, laying a hand on hers this time, and she seized his hand like a drowning victim and linked their fingers. "Not a pink-cheeked, rude Colonial, surely."

"Out of place, yes," she sighed, almost on the point of tears. "Truly, I wonder if I have a place! Or a life I may call mine own."

"And what sort of a life do you desire, Caroline?"

"I wish to be happy, Alan. I wish to… to wed someone I love so deeply, and do I if indeed have the… the economy to present that man with a well-run home, then that is what I want. I want children, and perhaps one maid-of-all-work to help a little. But I want to be useful, not only around the house, but on the land. And to myself and those I love. I know I may not aspire to a man's role in this life. I have no wish to enter Parliament, or night wars. But I do wish to be able to use those talents God gave me as a woman, and the mind I believe He gave me for something more useful than… bakingl"

"To be able to talk about any subject without restrictions," Alan suggested.

"Oh, God, yes!" Caroline beamed, laughing at her immodesty, or what most in Society would have called an unnatural, desexing immodesty. "To be included when men talk about important matters and not be run off to the parlor to drink tea and get the card table ready. To be listened to, if I feel I have an idea they haven't. Not patted on the head and told 'tut-tut, there, there, little girl'! Even if it's but the one man who would listen to me, that would be enough, I think."

"And no one is listening to you now?" Alan said, letting go her hand and dismounting. He held her mare's head while she got down, revealing a dizzying vision of a slim white leg above the tops of her riding boots for an instant as her gown and petticoats raked down the saddle.

"Burgess used to," she said, taking his hand once more as they strolled to the south edge of the rolling, wooded hill to look at the splendid morning view. It was a little cloudy and gloomy yet, before the sun broke through, and the tiny dells among the downs were clotted with wisps of mist. "And when I was with you, I felt that you did, or at least attempted to, Alan. But very few people now. Now, I listen, and I am told what I feel, what I should think."

"Whom you should wed, perhaps?" Alan said, stopping them so she would turn to face him. "Is that why you are so sad? I came down, expecting to see the pert lass I remembered, and I find you troubled and melancholy. Who is the right young man of whom your uncle speaks?"

"I have two wonderful choices in life." Caroline gloomed again. "Three, really. The last may be the most acceptable; it does not demand me living a lie. I may take service as governess to a widower's children. Mr. Byford, who rents the land and house we once had."

"And the other two?"

"Between Embleton and Glandon Park, there is a family with more than one thousand fine acres," she said with an impatient shake of her head. "George Tudsbury, another widower, is in need of a wife. He's in his forties, with three children to raise, mostfortunately all of them girls, who may not inherit the land if a younger wife is living. He's a very good friend of my Uncle Phineas. Of much the same tastes."

"Ugh!" Alan exclaimed. "And again, ugh!"

"He, at least, is a decent man, Alan, with no vices. And no hard edges, such as Uncle Phineas. In that, at least, they differ."

"May I assume that he is your uncle's preference?"

"No, you may not. There is also Harry Embleton." She tensed. "Mine arse on a bandbox!" Alan cried. "Why, I met the bastard!"

"And what did you think of him, Alan?" Caroline teased, enjoying Alan's use of what she had come to know as his favorite phrase.

"Caroline, were I a London pimp, I'd have him wash first, and still charge him double for the insult to me whores!" Alan shouted. "Oh, God, Alan, I do so enjoy talking with you!" Caroline laughed out loud, taking hold of his upper arms. "You're just the breath of air that I' ve been needing! You're right, he is a… a bastard!" She took a deep breath, astounded by her own boldness. "He's a cruel, cruel… a… God, if he were in the Carolinas, he'd be a Low Country slaver, no matter the quality of his birth. He's dull, he's… they have a library at Embleton Hall, hundreds of books, and I doubt he's read more than three in his entire life. It's all horses and hounds, politics and sport, who he insulted last, how he put someone in their place…"

"And you've expressed your lack of interest to your uncle, I take it?" Alan asked. "Yet he still allows these gentlemen to call?"

"Insists upon it." Caroline sobered once more. "It matters not which I end up choosing, as long as I choose. He gains more land on either side. Or I may remain a spinster, earning my own keep, should I spite him."

"Govemour won't back you?"

"Oh, Governour is all for Harry, they hunt and fish and ride together, God knows what all," Caroline said with a wave of her hand, as though to drive away a pesky wasp. "Thank God Millicent is for me. She has not pressured me in any way, much as she might care to have me as sister-in-law. I cherish her for deflecting some of Governour's insistences. He thinks that I am of an age to marry, and that beyond the two men, I have few other choices for a suitable match. Therefore, I must marry, and if I must, then Harry is the better, the richer, and the younger, and not as plodding as Mister Tudsbury, who merely wants a married governess for his living children. He points out that if I marry Harry, then either he or I end up with the two estates in time."

"What a marvelous bloody bargain," Alan glowered. "And you the prize mare to seal it. Christ!"

"Now you see why I have been so downcast," Caroline sighed. "And why I was so looking forward to your visit! When you wrote to say that you had first to visit in Devon, I was almost beside myself. But now you're here, and for a few weeks, at least, I shall feel more at ease. The dashing Alan Lewrie could cheer up the dead!"

"I'll do all in my power for you," Alan vowed. "I'll sing songs, I'll play the merry-andrew and be your court fool, if that's what it takes! Shall I do a handstand?" He laughed, trying to balance on his palms, and ended up rolling flat on his back. "I know," he suggested, getting to his feet quickly, "what if I climb this damned oak and fetch you an acorn or two?"

She was almost shrieking with laughter as he tried to scale the stout trunk to the lowest boughs. "Come down here, at once! Oh, Alan, not an acorn, I beg you!"

"Bloody squirrel, then!" he huffed, springing at the tree once more and clawing his way up about six feet off the ground.

"William Pitt fetches me quite enough squirrels, thank you! Do come down, Alan! I'll settle for a leaf! Just a leaf!" she cried, in stitches at his antics. "I'll take one that's fallen. My kingdom for a fallen oak leaf! God, but you do look foolish! Is that the way you scale the rigging on your ship?"

"I'm graceful as a bloody monkey!" Alan crowed, and began singing a suggestive chantey called "The Holy Ground." He finally dropped to the ground and scooped up an entire pile of oak leaves and brought them to her, dribbling a trail behind him. He knelt at her feet and heaped them round her boots. "For you, my lady, queen of the hill! Oak leaves for your kingdom!"

"Arise, Sir Knight! I dub thee knight of my realm!" She giggled, touching him on both shoulders. He stood, and there was not a handspan between them, and they stopped laughing. She looked up at his face, uttered a tiny, hitching litde sound that sounded like a sob, and threw her arms around his neck. Her cool lips pressed upon his, her breath warm and clean on his mouth, and he put his arms around her, lifting her off her feet to drape against him. She felt so light, so slim and completely encirclable in his arms, and Alan's head spun with the scent of clean hair and soap, of the light, citrony and balsamed tinge of the Hungary Water she had dabbed on.

Burgess, forgive me, but I think I want to tup your sister! he thought. And what your family thinks of me after that, bedamned!The sound of hooves interrupted them, two sets of hooves at the least, of horses being urged up the hill to them, and he set her down and stood a little back from her, full of regret that the moment had passed. His groin was on fire, and his heart was pounding such as he had never experienced with common lust, or the fine edge of expectation before consummation. Caroline Chiswick made him dizzier and woozier to hold and kiss than anyone he had ever known!

And I've had my share now, haven't I, so I ought to know, Alan told himself. Damme to hell, but I think I'm in love with her, not… not just afire to have her! Damme if I ain't been toyin' with the thought of her since '81!

Caroline brushed his cheek with her gloved hands, and stepped forward for one last, too-brief, open-mouthed kiss, then took a few steps away, composing herself to see who was coming.

"Have they sent someone after us?" he asked softly.

"I don't know… Heavens, it might be something wrong with Father! I can think of no other reason. Dear God, no! Alan, pray for him, a short prayer to spare him, now!" she commanded in a fret.

Two riders topped the rise, and Alan, turning to look at her, could see the tension still in her pose, for it yet might be bad news of Mr. Sewallis Chiswick. But the light in her eyes, and the joy on her face that he had put there a minute before fell away like an extinguished sunset when she beheld who led the pair of horsemen.

"My dearest Caroline!" the Hon. Harry Embleton exclaimed as he drew rein to lord over them from horseback. "Your uncle said he thought you might have come this way. Had you forgotten that he had given us permission to take a morning ride together this day?"

"Good morrow, Mister Embleton," Caroline nodded coolly. "And good morrow to you, Mister Lane. You have met Mister Lewrie, I think."

"Mister Embleton, sir," Alan grinned, touching the right side of his cocked hat in greeting like a casual salute to a deck-officer. "And I believe I met Mister Lane, Douglas Lane, is it, yesterday, at the Red Swan? Your gamekeeper, is he not, sir? Joy of the morning, sir."

"Mister Lewrie," Harry Embleton replied, sounding a bit arch as he squinted his close-set eyes at him, then just as quickly lost interest and turned his gaze to Caroline. "Well, shall we have our ride, my dear?" he asked, turning almost cloyingly mild.

"Mister Embleton, I do recall that my uncle did give us his permission, but I considered that was dependent upon whether I gave my consent to it," Caroline replied. "In fact, in the excitement of Mister Lewrie's arrival, I quite forgot it. Perhaps you should talk with Uncle Phineas, and me, for another time."

God, the girl has steel in her backbone, Alan exulted!

"Well, since we are all here, that is…" Harry suggested, looking extremely miffed and hunching down into his coat collar.

Since there was no way to turn him down without being rude, she heaved a small sigh to show the slightest bit of exasperation at his intrusion, and allowed as how they might ride for a piece together.

"If you would assist me, Alan?" she asked after he brought her mare to her. Embleton sprang down from his saddle to come to her side but Caroline was already taking Alan's offered hand to steady her as she put a booted foot in the stirrup and got aboard. "My thanks to you, Alan." Leaving Harry flicking reins on his boots foolishly.

"Any time, Caroline." Lewrie smiled, looking up at her. And it mattered to him to see how she would handle this; most women he'd known would have exulted in having two men snarling over them, and would have gotten a certain joy out of the heightening of a bad situation.

Alan crossed to his gelding and mounted, then walked up to her side. "Well, where to, now? Down towards that middle stream you told me of? After clawing up this hill, I'm sure the horses could use some water."

"Yes, that sounds pleasant," she replied, and led off without a backward glance. Harry and Alan caught her up and rode to either side of her.

"A lovely morning," Harry Embleton said. "D'ye know that we put up a fox on the way over. Be good sport. Wish we had the hounds with us. Do you hunt, Lewrie?"

"Not for a long time, in Kent. Cruel, it is," Alan replied.

"Blood sport not t'yer taste, then? My word, you've come to the wrong place, hey, Caroline?" Harry guffawed.

"I was speaking of the horses, sir," Alan smiled evenly. "Too much neck-or-nothing, like a steeplechase, these days. Now a proper hunt, you have to stop and let the dogs have their scent, take care of your animals. I've seen too many fine horses put down to some fool's carelessness to suit me."

"I do think it cruel as well to kill a blooded horse for the momentary joy of chasing a fox, whose pelt price would not buy a new saddle-pad, Mister Embleton," Caroline added. "Much as I love riding and going hard 'cross-country, I'd never lash little Sabina here to her death." She patted the neck of her mare lovingly. "And the hunt does result in a lot of damage to crops and such. Surely, snares are to be preferred to keep down the fox population."

"Foxes be too clever t'snare, Miss Chiswick," Lane said from behind." 'E takes too many rabbits'n hens. An' it's good sport!" "Caroline has ridden on our hunt, haven't you, my dear? I had no idea you disliked it so," Harry pouted.

"I did not say I disliked it, Mister Embleton. I merely said that some are too heedless of their horses." She replied without turning to look at him. "Now, last fall, you lost that fine gray taking a fence, when the gate was open not a furlong farther down to let the dogs through. And think of the colts you could have had from that black that fell going down the steep bank. A thousand guineas lost!"

"Don't trouble your head about profit or loss, Caroline," the Honourable Harry stated with a little titter of amusement. "They gave good sport in their lives, and that's what horses are for. And we own enough of them. Mister Lewrie, I say, you ride well, I see. Perhaps you might be interested in taking a look at Douglas's mount there. I think you could appreciate his formation. Douglas, here, you ride with Mister Lewrie for a span, whilst I and Caroline go ahead."

"I see he's a good'un," Alan said, turning in the saddle to eye the horse in question, then turning back. "I'm more taken with Sabina here. Is she from Governour's stud, Caroline?"

"Indeed she is, Alan. Isn't she beautiful?" Caroline waxed almost rhapsodic about her mare, who perked her ears up and arched her neck as she was praised. "She's such a bighearted old baby, I cannot tell you how often she's gone the limit, when she knows she should quit. Good-gaited, too! And on a canter, you'd think you were in an armchair!"

They discussed the finer points of the mare to exhaustion, and to the total disregard for the earnest Harry Embleton, who sulked on the far side, his ears burning and his breakfast congealing into some stony lump in his stomach.

"And what are the horses like in India, Alan? Did you get to ride while you were there?" Caroline demanded to know. "Heavens, more to the point, what is India like! Your letters told me some, but not in such detail as I would have liked."

"Well, picture…" Alan began, happy to monopolize another topic which might be good for the rest of the morning.

"You exchanged letters?" Harry sniffed. That did not sound very promising, and he felt another spasm of jealousy and hatred for this interloper. He hadn't known that they wrote each other! Such was for people already plighted or betrothed, or those who would be when circumstances allowed, dammit all!

"Oh, yes. Father gave his permission in Charleston, long ago, Mister Embleton," Caroline told him, looking in his direction for the first time in half an hour.

"But he's… I mean, your uncle… he is aware…" Embleton flustered, almost drawing rein to pull away.

"That my father is no longer able to direct the affairs of his children, Mister Embleton?" Caroline huffed, not liking to be reminded of that fact. "And, at twenty-two, I am hardly a minor to have to ask with whom I am able to correspond."

"As a friend of the family," Embleton sighed, finding a cause for relief. "I see."

"As a friend of our family, certainly," Caroline said, turning to smile at Lewrie. "As one of my dearest acquaintances, as well."

"A lovely spot, this," Alan said, pointing to the grove of willows by the little freshet toward which they'd been riding. "God, wish we'd thought to pack a lunch. Have what the Frogs call a pique-nique."

"We could do that tomorrow!" Caroline exclaimed. "Oh, let's do!"

"Or we could ride back to the house and put one together now!" Alan suggested. "It's what, mile and a half out and back?" He took his watch from his pocket and studied it. "Just in time for dinner."

"Will you ride with us back to the house, Mister Embleton?" Caroline asked him. "Perhaps you could dine with Uncle Phineas and Governour. And I know Millicent hasn't seen you since last Sunday church. You owe your good sister a visit, you know," she concluded with mock severity, then turned back to Lewrie. "Should I bring my flute, do you think? If you do not find my playing tedious."

"I insist on the flute," Alan laughed. "I was quite taken with your playing last night. It was only then I learned you were so musical. And talented. A French-style pique-nique, a bottle of wine, and music! What could be grander!"

"Give my regards t'my sister," Harry Embleton glowered, turning turkey-wattle red at not being invited to join them. "I've things to see to at home, then. For today, at any rate. My dearest Caroline, allow me to call upon you for another ride, soon? I shall speak to yer uncle, then, for his permission?"You may speak with my uncle, Mister Embleton,"

Caroline said with a touch of ice, sidling her mare round in a small circle to end up with Alan almost between them. "We shall see."

"G… good day to you, Caroline," Harry grumped, sweeping off his hat and mating a bow. "And to you, Lewrie."

"Good day, Mister Embleton," Caroline nodded.

"Joy o' the mornin', Mister Embleton," Alan said with a grin, raising his own hat in parting.

Harry sawed the reins about and put spurs to his stallion, off in a cloud of dust and high dudgeon, lashing with the reins to goad the poor beast into a furious gallop. Lane touched the brim of his hat and took off in pursuit, hoping young Harry didn't kill another animal in his rage.