Dewey Lambdin - A King`s Trade

"You know of 'em?" Lewrie quailed, though he had to admit that Zachariah

Twigg had spent his entire life as a Foreign Office agent-he just had to know a bit about everything!

"Your father has, since the mutiny at the Nore, he said, so… knowing my old profession, he approached me to delve into things, and discover what I could. 'Smoak out' the culprit. So far without joy. Why do you suspect her?"

"When we met in Venice in '96, years later, Lucy, I felt, was… still after me," Lewrie told him as he at last accepted a heap of rice, a slice or two of roast kid, and a dribble of the spiced dahee. "Even if she was married not six months, still on 'honeymoon' with Sir Malcolm Shockley, she was…"

"What a burden it is," Twigg amusedly drawled, "to be the romantic masculine paragon of one's age… and in such demand!"

"All but throwing herself at me, aye!" Lewrie retorted in some heat, and grovelling bedamned. "Her foot damn' near in my lap, even with her husband at-table with us, and when I wouldn't play, she took up with Commander William Fillebrowne, another officer from our squadron. There's another I suspect, the smarmy bastard! Our last words, Lucy caught onto my… involvement with a lady I'd rescued from Serbian pirates, and said-"

"Mistress Theoni Kavares Connor, the mother of your bastard," Twigg offhandedly interjected 'twixt a bite of food and a sip. "She of the Zante currant-trade fortune from the Ionian Islands."

"Er… yes," Lewrie barely squeaked, having been rein-sawed from a full gallop to a pale-faced, hoof-sliding halt, for a moment. "Well… Lucy said something very like 'I should write your wife and tell her what a rogue she wed'… playfully, but not without a bite to it. I told her what Sir Malcolm should know 'bout her doin's with Commander Fillebrowne, and that's where we left it, but…"

"And was she, in fact, involved with Fillebrowne?" Twigg asked.

"Well, o' course she was!" Lewrie snapped, hitting his stride, "I saw 'em for myself, spoonin' and kissin' on the balcony of a rented set o' rooms, just before we sailed the last time, whoever could notice 'em bedamned… only Dago foreigners, I s'pose they thought. An old friend of mine from Harrow, Clotworthy Chute, was with me, too! Chute was doing the Grand Tour of the Continent with Lord Peter Rushton, at the time. And… she gambles. Gambles deep," Lewrie added, recalling what that Flag-Lieutenant at Portsmouth said of Lady Emma Hamilton, as if that would be proof enough to sign, seal, and deliver the truth of his account.

Twigg cocked an eye at him as if he thought that Lewrie had lost his mind, and was about halfway towards laughing out loud at such rank priggishness, especially coming from one so "low-minded" as Lewrie.

"Do assay the wine, sir," Twigg instructed after a long ponder. "A Dago wine, how further coincidental. A Tuscan chianti, in point of fact, of a very dry nature, that complements the richness of the goat quite nicely. I can understand, on the face of it, why you might susect Lady Lucy, Lewrie, but… you say you also suspect that Commander Fillebrowne?"

"Well…" Lewrie elaborated, after a tentative bite of kid and rice, and a sip of the chianti, which brought back memories of Naples. "When we first met, he was anchored at Elba. Tupping a local vintner's wife, as I recall. Thought I'd take to him, at first, but in the space of a single hour, I came away a bit disgusted. Comes from a very rich family, treats the Navy like a place to kill time 'til his inheritance is come… all yachting, cruising, and claret, and his orlop the storehouse for art treasures he was buying up from refugee Royalist French. Boasted of it! Fillebrowne's family'd all done their Grand Tours, the war was his, and all he cared about was… 'collecting'!" Lewrie sneered. "He chaffered me, that very morning, with hints he'd taken up with my former mistress…"

Lewrie paused, waiting for Twigg to say, "Phoebe Aretino, better known as 'La Contessa,' Corsican-born, former whore, shrewd businesswoman, and collector, trader, and treasures-dealer in her own right," but Twigg kept his mouth shut, or busy with his victuals; and, for the sort of man whose very gaze could turn cockchafers "toes-up dead," his expression was a very bland "do tell" and say on.

"Threw it in my face, rather," Lewrie growled, shoving rice on his plate with an angry, scraping noise of steel on priceless china. "Nose-high, top-lofty sort, the greedy, callous bastard. Well, Chute saw through him. Clotworthy's a 'Captain Sharp,' makes his livin' by gullin' naive new-comes to London… ones who've just inherited some 'tin,' and such. When I told him that Fillebrowne thought himself an astute collector of fine art, Chute cobbled up a brace o' bronze Roman statues o' some sort, /never saw 'em. Amazin' what a week's soaking in salt water'll do t'make 'em look authentic, and Fillebrowne bought 'em, straightaway. Pantin' for 'em!

"I suspect Fillebrowne figured out he'd been finessed, sooner or later, learned that Chute and I were old friends… acquaintances, really… perhaps he and… my former mistress," he said, avoiding Phoebe's name, as if to deprive Twigg of un-necessary information… just in case, "had an angry parting? Sharp an eye as she had, when it came t'treasures, if she tipped him that they were frauds, he'd've gone off like a bomb on her. On me! And, he'd have seen, or heard, just enough needful t'pen scurrilous letters to Caroline, in revenge."

"One could see his reason for pique, yayss," Twigg mused, those long fingers of his steepled thoughtfully under his chin, not exactly mocking, at that instant. "Though, you do have that effect on people. But, was Commander Fillebrowne still possessed of active commission, I do not see how he could stay… current anent your, ah… pastime."

"There's been nothing… current," Lewrie querulously replied. "Not since I sailed for the Caribbean. Well, the last bits… about Mistress Connor lodging with me at Sheerness for a week before we departed…" he admitted with a squirm. "And, afore that, about the two-dozen doxies my solicitor was t'pay, for services rendered…"

"Two- dozen prostitutes?" Twigg barked, as if in breathless awe, going so far as to lay one hand on his heart. "What stamina! Damme, Lewrie, but I am impressed!"

"For helpin' me kill belowdecks mutineers, so I had enough true men t'take back my ship and escape the Nore Mutiny!" Lewrie retorted. " 'Wos innit f'me? Wos innit f'me?' " he snipped, impersonating lower-class dialect main-well, after twenty years of exposure to it. "They wouldn't've tried it on, else! Christ, my report to Admiralty got 'em letters of appreciation, ev'ry last one of 'em! And, I didn't lay one single finger on any of 'em, but someone twisted it into a scandal!"

Idly, and illogically, the face and form of the then-tempting young Sally Blue did cross his mind. Black hair, blue eyes, promising poonts, and a waist 'bout as slim as a sapling pine…!

"And was Commander Fillebrowne's ship at the Nore at this time?" Twigg pressed, looking grimly intent. "And, do you believe Lady Lucy was aware of your doings, as well?"

"No, don't think so," Lewrie had to confess, going as slack as a sail in the Atlantic Doldrums. "So, damme if I know who."

"No other suspects, then?" Twigg asked, one dubious brow raised.

"Well, in my madder moments, I sometimes fancy it was you!"

Both of Twigg's brows leaped upwards at that statement. He sat back so quickly in his chair that Lewrie could hear the joinings squeak in protest. Then, to make Lewrie feel even worse (was such a thing possible at that instant), Twigg quite uncharacteristically threw back his head, opened his mouth, and began to guffaw right out loud!