Troubled Waters

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

"Another little matter," Lewrie dared say to the taciturn Twigg at breakfast, for he had learned through wretched previous experience that Zachariah Twigg was not a man to speak to before his fourth cup of coffee. "You recall our talk last year, at your country estate in Hampstead…"

"I know where I reside, sir!" Twigg snapped as if vexed beyond all temperance. "Must you?"

"About those anonymous letters to my wife?" Lewrie dared essay.

"Hmmph! What of them?" Twigg said with a stern warning glare.

"I have two of 'em with me, Mister Twigg," Lewrie said, pulling the two most recent letters from the breast pocket of his best uniform coat, left there and forgotten 'til he had dressed that morning; and, a tad trepidatious, slid them over towards Twigg's breakfast plate. "If ye haven't actually seen one, before, well… don't think my father had an example t'show ye, either. You said ye might be able t'smoak out who it was sendin' 'em, so…"

"Ah," Twigg said with a put-upon sniff. "Those. Which you once suspected that /sent, just to plague you? Those damning and anonymous letters, Lewrie?"

"Aye" was Lewrie's daunted reply.

"Well, damme…," Twigg said, issuing forth the sort of sigh that usually preceded a death-sentence from a judge. He laid aside his fork and knife, though, swivelled sideways, and crossed his legs, his coffee cup in one hand, and the first letter in the other. "An expensive bond paper… most-like sold in two dozen of the better stationers' shops in the larger cities, besides London. A rather fair, copper-plate hand as well… the letters smaller and finer than those done with a quill pen, so I might deduce that your anonymous tormentor owns a fine-point steel-nib pen. Flourishes and un-necessary serifs here and there, so I doubt the writer is a military man. Almost… prissy, hmm. At one time, I recall that you also suspected one Commander Fillebrowne? Yet, have you run into him since your service in the Adriatic? "

"Neither hide nor hair, sir," Lewrie answered, emboldened by the man's curiosity, which was now piqued.

"And, during your brief association with Fillebrowne, did you gather any impression of… fussiness?"

"Idle… languid, vain, and arrogant, aye, but not fussy," Lewrie told him before returning his attention to his toast, butter, and jam. After a bite, chew, and swallow, he added, "Came of a rich family, they all did their Grand Tours of the Continent. Art collectors, all that? Thinks damned well of himself. I can't recall we ever corresponded by letter, so I wouldn't know his writing style."

"I shall ask of him at Admiralty, and compare his hand to this," Twigg promised. "Though I very much doubt…" Twigg shuffled pages, scowling at what he read. "Did any of this bawdiness occur, Lewrie?"

"Absolutely not\" Lewrie could say, and with some heat, too. "I swear on my sacred word of honour! Not with Sophie, nor Eudoxia, either!"

"Odd," Twigg said with a smirk; evidently he was now fully awake and back to his usual top-lofty asperity. "No mention is here made of your bastard son, Desmond McGilliveray. Peel wrote me on that head," Twigg said with a sunnily sarcastic smile. "Indeed, a British frigate captain meeting his by-blow, a Midshipman in the United States Navy, in the West Indies… offspring of a temporary marriage to a Cherokee Indian wench, well! Your reputation, and sobriquet of the 'Ram-Cat,' is now widespread in the Fleet, so I do not understand why Fillebrowne… is he your tormentor… would not have heard of it. Has your wife at any time thrown this particular bastard in your face?"

"The only own she seemed aware of was Theoni Connor's," Lewrie told him. And, damme, that'un was bad enough! he grimly thought.

"Then it is patently obvious that your unknown scribbler has no knowledge of Desmond McGilliveray's existence, either," Twigg assumed. "Hence… not a Navy man, nor anyone of long acquaintance with you." "Doesn't narrow the field, much, though," Lewrie said. "Yayss, there's a myriad of people with a grudge against you," Twigg sniggered. "Damme, Lewrie, but I could spend the rest of my entire career, defending you from yourself."

Lewrie winced, and hid behind the rim of his own coffee cup.

"Intriguing, this, though," Twigg muttered, quickly re-reading both letters, and frowning in deep study. "I've a suspicion, but… I will say no more, for the nonce." He folded the letters and stuffed them into a side pocket of his sober black coat. A pull on his watch and a peer at its face, and he turned brisk at finishing his last cup of coffee and dabbing his lips before rising and throwing his napkin onto his plate. "Time we should be going. You're to meet MacDougall by eight. My coach is already brought round."

Half a chop, half his eggs, and a fresh-buttered slice of toast remaining; Lewrie had barely made a dent in his own meal, but "grumble you may, but go you must" was the day's motto. Besides, by noon, he could be remanded to gaol in the Old Bailey; which dread thought made what little he had consumed turn to a 12-pounder round-shot.