The Gun Ketch (7 page)

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.

For perhaps a week longer, Lewrie and Caroline were inseparable. There were more daily rides,
pique-niques,
strolls through the village to shop together, with Alan allowed the signal honor of carrying her basket for her, of opening doors for her, of offering her his arm upon which she would from time to time rest her soft hand and forearm.

There was Divine Services at St. George's with Alan ensconced by Caroline's side in the Chiswick pew-boxes, holding the prayer book and hymnal for the two of them, which perforce required them to come together, demurely, at hip or shoulder. And in the yard afterwards, it was Alan who was by her side as introductions were made to other young people of her acquaintance, especially the other young ladies of Anglesgreen and its environs; introductions at which Alan Lewrie strove to shine, to be singularly pleasing and courteous, though never more than mildly interested in anyone else, as he appeared so attentive to Caroline and her mother. The other girls tittered behind their fans and prayer books, casting sly, meaningful glances at the pair. Or peeked from beneath their bonnets or over their shoulders at the Hon. Harry Embleton, who ground his teeth and cursed under his breath at being shut out so completely, left to stand in foolish neglect when he insinuated himself into their company.

Alan had always considered Caroline Chiswick the most delightful young woman of his acquaintance, the most skilled, the easiest to talk to, and one of the most intelligent. Beyond her fair, willowy beauty, which any young girl could for a time boast, there was an intellect, a depth beneath the frippery and japery which had always intrigued him. She was not a snickerer or titterer, much; and though it was the nature of young women to be enthusiastic and at times giddy (or so Lewrie thought from past experience of young women who could be styled "ladies") mere was beneath Caroline's merry nature a placidity, a centered calm not unlike the eye of an Indies' hurricane, where one might discover a safe lee, abounding common sense, and natural grace and warmth far more alluring than the most exciting young "chick-a-biddy," which would be there when all else failed or withered.

What had he really known of her before, he wondered? A brief encounter in Wilmington during the evacuation in '81, a day and night aboard the
Desperate
frigate on the way to Charleston, and one soul-shattering midnight kiss on that freezing quarter-deck. Letters on rare occasions when mail caught up with his ship. And then three weeks of closely chaperoned, and too-brief, meetings in London whilst he finagled an appointment for her brother Burgess through his patron Adm. Sir Onsley Matthews, a whole three years later!

All of which had led him to say that "now there's a sensible and lovely young lady who'd make me a fine wife ... someday." Assuming he lived long enough to wed, he qualified; assuming he ever had an urge to do something so completely stupid, and alien, to his rakehell, Corinthian nature!

Now, in a positive orgy of constantly keeping company with her, and, given the heady rush of randiness she aroused in him, her wholehearted approbation of him, and her merriest, most affectionate and warmest encouragements, Alan Lewrie gave up
thinking
and dove in to wallow in that affection, consideration and encouragement.

His heart, too, went out to her, when he contemplated which of her gloomy choices for her future she might have to accept once he was gone. He had met the Tudsbury fellow her Uncle Phineas liked, and the tenant Byford, and it made him ill to think of either of the elderly farts sharing table with her, much less bed. Worse than Harry Embleton, damme if they weren't, he gagged!

There was, too, at last, Lewrie's perverse streak to consider. He doubted he'd ever warm to the Hon. Harry Embleton, who struck him as the sort of complete fool who, were it raining claret, would have but a flour-sieve to catch it in—and he'd drop that! Lewrie knew his constant and seemingly affectionate attentions to Caroline made Harry's liver fry. He knew Harry detested him more than cold, boiled mutton, and made no bones about it. One could toast bread on his overt scorn, his hostility.

And, being Alan Lewrie, Lewrie cheerfully, and with much mirth, enjoyed every cutty-eyed glare, and schemed to see what new devilment he might invent to vex him.

"I haven't the lip for it, I fear, Caroline," Alan admitted to her after a paltry assay at playing her flute. He laid it aside on the blanket and lay back on an elbow to poke into the commodious food basket to see if there was anything left of their rustic repast.

"Perhaps a flageolet would serve better," Caroline told him, a wry smile still on her lips from the horrible sounds he had produced. "One blows into the end, not across, and how one's lips are pursed is of no matter."

"Pursed lips are unsuitable for other amusements, as well," he chuckled, trying not to sound (too much, anyway) as if he were leering.

"We were discussing music, sir." She reddened, eyes demurely downcast, but with a smile on her face.

"I enjoy music immensely, but I've never seemed to have had a talent for the playing of it," Alan shrugged. "I admire your gift as a musician. Almost envious, in truth."

"Ah, but have you ever really applied yourself, Alan?" she said, teasing, inclining her head to one side and making her long, glittery light brown hair swish most fetchingly. "I cannot imagine anyone so capable as you not mastering anything he attempted."

"God bless you for your high regard of me, Caroline!" He sighed in pleasure, taking her hand to bestow a brief kiss upon it. "I hate to disabuse you of the notion, but I ain't perfect, not good at everything. Thankee kindly for it, though."

He lay back on the blanket to stare up at the sky, his coat and waistcoat for a pillow. She reclined as well, on the other side, with two decorous feet of blanket a gulf between them, though she still held his hand across that space.

"Lord, what a perfectly lovely day it is!" He chuckled happily.

"It is indeed," she agreed, eyes shut and lips curved in a secret smile. "And a ruined castle of our very own, not that Norman pile!" she concluded with a little laugh.

Days before, they had ridden with Governour and Millicent to the Guidier castle and bailey to tour it, escorted most unctuously by Harry and his constant minion Douglas Lane, the gamekeeper, who was there to disarm the mantraps and spring-guns. What joy there may have been in the excursion had been ruined by Harry's black looks, alternated with his feeble attempts at gallantry and possessiveness.

"This may be just as old," Caroline boasted. "Older, perhaps. Not as grand, certainly. But ours."

On Chiswick land, far by the northwestern bounds, there stood a tiny ruin atop a bare hill. Norman keep, Angle or Saxon hill fort, ancient Roman camp, or Celtic
oppidum
reared before Caesar's times, no one could tell, for it had lain empty and barren time out of mind.

There was a spring and a wellshaft full of stones and trash on the western side, inside a fosse now filled with weeds and bushes, behind a raised earthen parapet and man-high wall of dry-laid stones, now mostly tumbled down to lower than one's knees in most places. A watchtower reared from the center on a higher platform of stone and earth like a broken tusk, the narrow doorway gouged into a shallow Vee-shaped opening one could now drive a cart through, and its circle of walls no more than waist height, the whole green with moss and the hardiest grasses.

The spring now trickled down a grassy slough through a rent in the wall and the moat, down a slight slope littered with remnants of the walls' stones, to the musically trickling creek which marked the boundary. Inside the parapet and fosse the horses grazed and sipped water while, within the circumference of the fallen tower, they lay at their ease. They had ridden to it that morning, partly for Caroline to show off what Chiswick land could boast against Embleton, and partly for the deliciously daring separation it afforded them from the great house and its doings. They could quite easily imagine that not a single human being stirred within two miles of their aerie.

Alan was blissfully content—and most pleasantly stuffed They had dined on cold sliced tongue and mustard, served gaming-house style,
a la
Lord Sandwich, between crusty new bread slices, on fried chicken, cheese and sweet pickles, and had washed it down with a cool bottle of Rhenish. Another sat waiting to open in the chill waters of the spring, an expertly tied "round turn and two half hitches" on its neck made from a length of small-stuff to draw it up with, which Caroline had thought most clever of him to bring along, and also most knacky of him to know how to tie.

She let go of his hand, and he put both of his palms beneath his head, as he gazed up at the fleecy clouds that sailed overhead, framed in the circle of the watchtower's ruin as if seen through a spyglass. Birds flitted and warbled through his squinted vision, a pair of rooks sailed along from one tree to another, and a falcon circled lazily above them.

He heard music, as Caroline sat up, legs tucked to one side, and began to play a very old country song he'd heard before but never knew the name to. He gave her an encouraging smile before turning his face back to the sky and closing his eyes, more than ready for a short nap of satiation and peace.

Almost at the verge of sleep, he did not notice when her music ceased. Almost adrift, he barely sensed her shadow over his sun-shut eyes, no more than he might have noticed a cloud occluding the light for a second or two. He grinned slightly as something soft tickled his cheeks, as a sweet, fruity perfume insinuated its way into his snoozing awareness of grass, wool and fried chicken. » What woke him was the soft, moist pressure of her lips. His eyes flew open, and there Caroline was, kneeling over him, bending down with one hand supporting her, the other holding her hair back, a most fond look on her face and in her eyes; grinning at waking him, grinning with delight at the way she had done so, and grinning with excitement of being, for a fleeting moment, just a bit wanton.