The Gun Ketch (9 page)

"My dear sir," Alan replied coldly, "for one of your farthings, I'd call you out for those slanderous allegations."

"Alan!" Caroline wailed, sure he'd blown the gaff. "Don't..."

"I've my Navy pay, sir," Alan said, getting to his feet. "Aye, I've no lands of my own. My father and his elder brother squandered the last blade of Kentish grass I'll ever
hope
to see. But there's two hundred pounds
per annum
from my grandmother Lewrie in Devon, and roughly six thousand pounds with Coutts & Co. I stand to inherit from her. No land, though; that's spoken for by her late husband's kin, the Nuttbushes of Wheddon Cross. But there's another five thousand pounds of my own ... prize money from the war, and from my last service in the East Indies. D'you think I need one whit of yours?"

The idea of posting banns, of publicly stating his love for Caroline, of being wed—much less betrothed—gave him the squirting fits so bad he'd not trust his own arse with a fart. But he had had just about enough abuse poured upon him, and upon Caroline as a foolish chit of a girl too stupid to know her own mind, or recognize a scoundrel when she met one.

"My stars!" Governour exclaimed, and gave a whistle at those sums. "Like to purchase freehold land, Alan? With that much, you could have your pick around here, hey?"

"Oh, do shut up, Governour!" Uncle Phineas snarled. "No, as head of this family ..."

"My
father
is the head of
my
family, Uncle Phineas," Caroline pointed out.

"Bah! And a precious lot of good his wits'll do for ye, girl!"

"Phineas!" Charlotte gasped. "How dare you!" She put a handkerchief to her eyes, not for the first time during this battle, at that latest cruelty. "How dare you impugn my dear husband. Your own brother!"

"Any court in the land'd recognize my rights as elder in matters such as this, Charlotte. Forgive me me outburst, but this fella's driven me beyond all temperance." Phineas calmed. "In Sewallis's stead, it falls t'me t' decide what's best fer our dear Caroline, and I don't judge this best."

"Uncle, I will not be sold to Harry Embleton," Caroline told him. "I am old enough to know my own mind. Old enough to wed whom I will."

"Who said anythin' 'bout
sellin'
anybody to anybody?" Phineas Chiswick snapped, irritated beyond measure by her calm demeanor.

"Uncle, Alan has substance," Governour commented. "Not merely wherewithal to establish a household, or obtain lands. I've found him to be a most talented and capable young man. He's a fine future in the Navy. End up an admiral, like as not."

God spare me, Alan thought of
that
idea!

"Governour ... !" Phineas harrumphed, as though Brutus had just slipped the dagger into his Julius Caesar.

"Yes, he does," Mother Charlotte echoed.

"And she loves him, Uncle Phineas." Govemour reddened.

"Good God, what's fleetin' heat got t'do with anythin'?" the old man groused. "Marriages'r fer-bloody-ever in our class. Let the young'uns run off with just
any
sparkin' rogue'r round-heeled lass, and where's sense, logic, and bottom t'be, I ask ye? Then where's a parent's wishes come inta play, a parent's better sense? And cream-pot, stableboy love don't last beyond the first swaddlin' clothes, and then, where's the girl? Miserable, I tell ye, bound to a bully-buck scoundrel and halfway t'the poor's house!"

"I suppose that is why you never married, Phineas," Charlotte Chiswick muttered loud enough for all to hear.

"Charlotte, ye ...!" the old man gaped, strangling on curses and turning red as roses in near-apoplexy.

"I approve," Charlotte stated, mouse-timorous of stating any opinion. "And, I am certain Sewallis would as well, were he..."

"Oh, Mother, thank you!" Caroline squealed, going to her.

"I don't!" Phineas barked.

"I do," Governour said, once the echoes had died away. "After all, I wed for love. Mother's told me long ago, before the war, she did. Were Alan Lewrie truly a black-hearted schemer, were he truly worthless, I would not approve. I had hoped, of course, that she and Harry might..."

"Gove, believe me," Caroline assured him, sharing his sadness, if only because her brother was sad for what was not to be, "I could never feel the slightest affection for Harry. For anyone but Alan."

"Ye throw away a future baronet, a Member of Commons, and the finest estate in Surrey," Uncle Phineas griped.

"And if not Harry, a man of worth and bottom, like... like..."

"A man old enough to be my father, Uncle Phineas," Caroline said. "There could be no pleasant converse with Mr. Tudsbury for me. I cannot find contentment in contemplating acres, with nothing more in common with him."

"Not one shillin' o' Chiswick worth ye'll have," Phineas vowed, deflated and confounded at last, but willing to go game though he was blocked at both ends. "No dowry, no 'dot,' no annuity."

"I would find that acceptable," Caroline stated, going from her mother's side to take Alan's hand as she sensed he would relent.

"We have more than enough, sir," Alan added.

"She will not!" Governour insisted, slamming a fist onto the arm of his chair. "My sister'll
not
slink away like a midnight eloper. She will
not
go unblessed nor unencumbered with proper due!"

"Amen, my boy," Mother Charlotte agreed, though softly.

"And just what, beyond her paraphernalia and household goods, d'ye think there is t'spare, lad?" Phineas rejoined nastily. "Summat from
yer
revenues? Recollect, the girl herself swears I've no rights over her. That Sewallis is head o' her family. Well, let him dower her, then! Hunnert pound'r so pe rannum, hey? That sum about right? Oh, let's make it hunnert'n eighty pound t'keep her while her husband is gallivantin' about the Bahamas fer three years."

"I know how constrained our finances are, Governour," Caroline told her brother. "I will not demand anything that would deprive you or Millicent of a single morsel."

"Burgess sent home nigh on three thousand pounds, Caroline," Governour stated. "I could ..."

"No," she insisted, hitching a deep breath. "And a simple wedding. So no one will be begrudging, or beholden, later."

"Just as long as we have even a semblance of a blessing," Alan said, left out of the conversation, and the long-running dispute among the Chiswicks, gladly up until that moment. And even more impressed with Caroline's level-headed sensibility. "We'll not coach to Gretna Green. We'll not elope to Portsmouth, and some sailor's chapel in a warehouse stew. I have enough to rent or purchase a decent cottage for us, and enough to provide for her proper comfort and station in life while I'm away. Should you demand a long engagement..."

"Alan!" Caroline protested, thinking still of a quick match.

"Should you demand we wait until I've returned from my active commission, I would provide for her, gladly," he concluded. Damme, but they're hitching the cart to this horse a tad
rapid
for my likes, he thought! It was one thing to win approval and blessing, but he'd thought the altar could wait awhile longer, surely!

"Alan!" Caroline frowned, trying to sound fond, though vexed.

"Forgive me, Caroline, but I'll not abduct you without your family's blessings," he said. "Much as I adore you, I'll not have you starting life with me under any sort of cloud. I'll not have anyone in this world ever suggest we did not begin on the right footing."

"Oh, Alan, you're such a dear." Caroline relented, a little.

Then why do I feel like I'm declaiming like a posturing clown, like one of the actors in
The Beggar's Opera,
he wondered (not for the first time) whenever he'd assayed sounding noble, decent, and upright?
Most
sensible people throw fruit at such players!

Damme, I could damn near give
me
hives!

"She is not due to inherit anything, unless absolute disaster strikes this family, Uncle." Govemour sighed, rapping his knuckles on the side table for caution, "Pray God it don't." He added for extra measure, "You disclaim responsibility for her, then?"

"I do," Phineas smouldered.

"Then as eldest, in our father's stead, I'll pledge that when our finances are sufficient to spare an annuity, Caroline'll have an hundred and twenty pounds. Alan, dear little sister Caroline, devil if I know just when that'll
be,
God bless me, but I'll swear you that on paper!"

"Governour, you don't have to." Caroline teared up, rushing to embrace her elder brother. "But thank you, and God bless you for it."

"Thankee, Governour," Alan added, going to take his hand and give it a vigorous pumping.

"Ah, I should have read the signs, you know, Alan," Governour chuckled, shaking his head at his blindness. " 'Twas all we ever heard from her ... Alan this, Alan that. And nary a swain no matter how he tried could sway her. You
will
be a good husband to her. You'll be good and true to her, and make her happy."

Lewrie didn't think that sounded much like a question. And for a fleeting moment, he conjured up the scarifying image of Governour's ruddy phiz framed over the yawning barrel of a dragoon pistol, big as a twenty-four-pounder, pointed right between his eyes.

"I swear I will, Governour," he smiled.

"He will be," Caroline agreed happily, an arm linked with his.

"Swear you will,
indeed,
you will!" Governour barked with wry amusement. "We'll have a coach brought 'round. Mother, I do believe you'd do well to accompany them to the vicar's, hey?"

"Just let me go and change, son."

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, but could 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.