Dewey Lambdin - The French Admiral

Caroline looked up at him, as though daring Alan to even think a single bad thought about her family, and he was forced back into the rickety chair as though driven. The mother was busy shifting her chair, insisting that Mammy assist her. Alan rose instead and did it for her, and the chair was as light as a feather, something even a child would have no trouble shifting. As he resumed his chair, Mammy fetched out a silver service and poured tea for them, carefully rationing the sugar. The tea was not much better than hot water, so she must have been rationing the tea leaves as well. There were, however, some fresh ginger cookies, and Alan chewed on one while the daughter broke the seal on the letter to reveal large folio sheets of vellum. She smoothed them free of travel wrinkles (she cannily saved the wax wafer seal for later use) and began to read.

God, I wish I was anywhere but here, Alan thought as he let the first part of the letter wash over him without impression. If I hadn't promised the brothers, I'd have just dropped this off and been on my merry way.

He let his attention wander about the place to take some sort of inventory of their furnishings and possessions, to see if they were as rich as Burgess had stated, and it was hard to judge. There was good silver and china alongside cracked glasses. There were gilt-framed paintings of nature scenes and relations leaning against some of the most hideous, scratched furniture he had ever laid eyes on. Having found nothing of interest in the room, he let his eyes wander over to the people; the mother sitting rigid as a grenadier guard with a handkerchief screwed into her bony little fists, awaiting bad news; the old man, almost drowsing with a faint smile on his face as he listened to the family chatter from his sons; and the daughter.

She struck him as gawky, God help her. Taking her measure from how she had hugged him with so much abandon at the door, he thought her barely an inch or two less than his five feet nine, much too tall for beauty. Most men, Alan included, liked their girls a lot smaller, more petite, and more roundly feminine. This one was long and lanky, almost skinny. He tried to remember how old Burgess had said she was—eighteen? Maybe she would fill out, but she could also shoot up like a cornstalk and become even less desirable.

Probably going to be a spinster for life, poor girl, Alan thought. Be lucky if she can take service with some monied family, and that'll be a comedown, though you can't get much further down than this shabbiness now. Maybe a poor tradesman or curate would have her. Hell, even a peer's daughter would have problems getting a husband, being that tall. Don't know though, if she gave up heeled shoes, had any sort of decent portion, she might be worth troubling with. She is pretty, in a way.

The more he studied her, the prettier she looked, but Alan put that down to his lack of mutton for comparison lately, except for the Hayley sisters back in Virginia, and they had not been raving beauties fit enough to light up a London season.

Her forehead was high, her brows arched naturally. Her face was a long oval, but not horsey long; her chin firm but small; her mouth was wide and expressive, one minute pensive, the next curving up and dimpling her lower face, stretching lines from chin to near her nicely rounded cheeks. She wore no powder or artifice, but her skin was clear and smooth, with just the hint of the lightest down. At one moment her eyes would be wide with happiness—hazel eyes like her brothers—the next minute they squinted in concern or concentration. Her hair was long and straight and very dark blonde, fine and a little flyaway. Had she the same ash-blonde hair of Governour or Burgess, she would have been too severe, but she gave off more warmth by her very appearance than ever either of those worthies did.

She read well, with a pleasant voice, and Alan did not mind her provincial accent, for it was soft and lyrical. Of course, after listening to sailors for nearly two weeks, creaking iron doors could have seemed lyrical. More than that, she did not falter over words, nor did she read slowly in a monotone, but was expressive enough to give life to the letter, and Alan could imagine Governour reading it aloud. Someone had spent some time educating her along with her brothers, he decided, even if it ended up being wasted on novels and housewifely guides like most of the women back in England, who had so little to do.

Rather cute nose, he decided also, after thinking on it.

She was slim, though; tall and slim, almost skinny. Alan thought she would not gross between seven and eight stone even soaking wet. Her bosom was small and neat. Though she does have a nice neck, Alan thought.

He shifted in his precarious chair with an ominous squeaking of weak joins, and crossed his legs. She looked up at him, pausing at the end of one page, and gave him a smile that raised another squeak from the chair as he sat up straighter and smiled back.

"And so we arrived in safety in New York, and expect to sail to Charleston once the elements shall admit safe passage. Father, I enclose a list of those of our men from the Royal North Carolina Regiment of Volunteer Rifles we know for certain have fallen, or have suffered wounds for their rightful King." She read on, frowning sadly as she did so. "Some of the most grievous hurt we were forced to leave behind in the care of the enemy, praying to Providence that they shall have decent treatment. Alan Lewrie generously gave twenty guineas to our hostesses for the better victualing and physicking of our men. All others who escaped with us, I also detail, so their families may know they are well and whole."

"That was good of you, young man," the mother wept, plying at her eyes with a fresh handkerchief.

"It was the least I could do, ma'am," Alan said modestly, feeling truly modest for once in that emotion-tinged room. "There were several of my sailors left behind as well, too hurt to be moved without causing them more suffering."

"We must confess," Caroline began again, "that the fight to save our boats was a spirited engagement of the most desperate neck-or-nothing nature, and only by the utmost bravery and pluck did we prevail, though whatever joy we had in a final victory over the Levellers and their allies, the slaves of a Catholic King, could not assuage the grief of losing so many fine men and neighbors. The bearer of this particular copy of our letter, Alan Lewrie, we recommend to you, and trust that you shall show him what you can of Carolinian hospitality and gratitude."

Alan made much of his teacup and looked down at the carpet as his pride began to scratch at him; false modesty be damned, he thought he had been pretty good back there during their adventures.

"As a comrade in our distress, we have not, in a cause replete with leaders and fighters suitable for commendation and emulation, seen the like in our mutual experience," Caroline read. She looked up at him with such a smile and such a fetching rise of her bosom that Alan could look nowhere else but directly at her. "To him, we owe our very lives. Were it not for his sublime courage, even in the times when things looked blackest, his canny knowledge of the sea and its navigation, we would now be prisoners of war, or worse. He knew no exhaustion, no sense of gloom, no defeatism, and brought us out of bondage like Moses fetched his Israelites. He…"

She had to stop and take a deep breath or two, and lift a handkerchief to her own eyes before continuing. "He is the finest comrade in arms we have ever had the privilege to know, and can only conjure you to share your gratitude at our good fortune with him."

Damme, that's a pretty high praise for a toadying little shit like me, Alan marveled. Now when was I canny and optimistic? I can't remember anything like that. Still, have to remember, this letter was penned by one of the coldest murthering black-hearted rogues I've ever seen.