The French Admiral (37 page)

“But, when you can sell your stored crops, there will be a flood of money again, and your house shall once more ring with laughter.” Alan beamed at her. “And Miss Nancy shall charm all the county with her beauty and her grace, as I am sure she did before these hard times.”

“Why, Alan Lewrie, how ya
do
go on!” She flushed happily.

“The fiddlers shall come to play at your balls, and everyone shall want to dance with you,” he went on. “As a matter of fact, I wouldn't mind doing so myself.” He could see that he was coaxing her into a better mood. She really was a pretty little thing, much nicer looking than her older sister. And there was no one around at the moment to see him take liberties with her, and a whole forest to explore her in.

“Were all the gentlemen as gallant as Alan Lewrie, I'd admire ta dance the night away, so I would!” she cooed, swaying her hips in wider arcs and spinning her parasol once more.

“Did we have a fiddler, I would admire to dance with you this very minute,” Alan said, stepping closer to her, close enough to feel the heat of her body. “Would you join me in a country dance?”

“What would the darkies think, us capering about out here in the woods?” she complained, but made no move away from him.

He slipped a hand to her waist and brought her idle stroll to a halt. She turned to him, raising her face up to look at him directly. She leaned back a bit from his embrace, but she was smiling still.

“Ya seem a lot older than ya look, I swan,” she said softly as he drew her closer. “One'd take ya for a boy at first reckoning.”

“One ages a lot faster in a war,” Alan told her as their loins touched. The scent of her was maddeningly fresh and feminine, and he had not held a woman since Charleston, nearly two months in the past.

“You're becoming more familiar with me than decency admits of, good sir,” she protested, still wearing that enigmatic smile and looking him directly in the face. “And a moment ago, I called you gallant.”

He drew her to him even closer, put a hand on her back and brought her face close to his, brushing his lips on hers. She turned her head back and forth to avoid his kisses, but her lashes lowered invitingly, more teasing than in a genuine attempt to break away or deny him her pleasures. He kissed her cheeks in lieu of her mouth, her chin, her neck below her ears, and proceeded on to her bare and inviting shoulders when she made no greater objections.

“Mister Lewrie, how dare you use me so ill!” she whispered as she finally raised one hand to push his shoulder away from her. “This is not done! Slaves are always spying on their masters, and a lady and a gentleman do not give them grist for their amusement. I am not some goose girl ta tumble by the creek such as you did at home.”

Just like home, anyway, Alan decided with a leer. Take your pleasures in private and keep the servants in the dark about 'em like you have the reputation of your class to uphold.

“There's no one about,” he told her, resuming his exploration of her upper body with his lips.

“You don't know about living with slaves. There's always someone about,” she objected. But she did not object when Alan broke away and took her by the hand to lead her into the low trees of the coastal scrub forest. Deep in the underbrush and low limbs and out of sight from the tilled fields and outbuildings, he drew her to him once more. She made futile squirmings to get away from him, but in her turnings and twistings their lips met, and he bore down on her. The hands that were weakly holding him away slowly slid up over his shoulders and caressed his hair, then her arms went about his neck as she returned his kisses. Given enough privacy in which to do so, Miss Nancy was as passionate as any goose girl allowing liberties to a squire's son. When she squirmed this time, it was with desire to draw her length against his.

They knelt down on the forest floor, on the hard sandy soil, and she made all the maddening noises of an aroused woman as he played with her breasts, slid a hand under her voluminous skirts to caress the silky feather softness of her thighs, raising her skirts out of the way so he could press the crotch of his breeches against her bare belly.

“No, no, there is no privacy here, Alan, dear,” she protested, and broke away from him, getting to her feet and stepping back to lean on a tree, fanning her face with one hand. “La, what would you have of me?”

Goddamn the bitch! Alan raged silently as he knelt on the ground and wondered if his breeches buttons would burst with the painfully tumescent erection he had. “I would have you right now,” he said huskily.

“Not here, dear,” she cooed. He rose to grapple with her again, but there was no convincing her. “Can ya not wait until this evening?” she finally said. “Would I have any authority left with the Samboes after the event, I would pleasure ya here, Alan love, but please consider my reputation. It has been so long for me without the feel of a man that I shall not deny ya anything tonight. Only wait a few hours, I beg ya!”

“Tonight, then,” Alan grumped, his humors still aflame.

“Ya sleep in the front parlor?” she asked, scheming even as they embraced at the edge of mindless lust. “Do ya get up the stairs, the back stairs off the butler's pantry. Left at the top of the stairs, and my chambers are at the end of the wing in front, over the porch. But for my sake, don't attempt it before midnight, I pray you! Sarah's boy Rodney's a light sleeper, even if he is in the other wing of the house. He does not understand worldly matters so well, and . . .”

She bit her lip fetchingly to cease babbling things that were best left unsaid. Alan smiled with amusement at the thought of that spoiled and sullen little shit-sack having to watch his mother and aunt entertain the gentlemen that called. If Nancy wanted to play an innocent role, he would let her, as long as he got what he wanted from her, and information into the bargain.

“I must go back ta the house, love,” she told him, and began to dust her skirts down to remove the pine needles and sand from them. He helped her, not without taking some more liberties with her body, which she no longer opposed; they stopped to kiss now and then, teasing themselves into more heat, then shying back until midnight could arrive.

“By the way, Alan dear,” she said suddenly, “I must have a good excuse to explain why I was conversing with ya so long. May I say that I was negotiating with ya about payment for what ya've taken from the farm so far? If ya could, some gold would be convincing, and I know she would be much less hostile ta yer presence here if she had some in hand.”

Alan sighed and dug into his waistcoat. He took out his purse and let her appreciate the sight and sound of it as he dug down and drew out five guineas, bright shining “yellow-boys” that glittered in the sun about as brightly as her eyes at the sight of them. He pressed them into her soft palm and she flung herself on him with as much abandon as any six-penny whore who had just been handed a shilling and told to keep the change. She trailed her fingertips over the bulge in his crotch, making him hiss with desire. But before he could do anything more, she broke away once more.

“Until midnight, Alan my own,” she said softly as she gave him one more lingering, possessing embrace, and then she was gone, calling over her shoulder to mind her instructions and not be overfamiliar with her should they meet at supper. She tripped her way out of sight, still adjusting her gown and pushing at her hair, her parasol bobbing over her shoulder and twirling with satisfaction at their dealings.

“Damme if I ain't one hell of a rake!” Alan crowed softly once she was out of sight and hearing. “Five guineas back home could have paid for a whole bagnio full of mutton, but I swear I think she's going to be worth it. And just wait'll I tell Governour and Burgess about this.”

It was only after he was back with his seamen at the creek-side boat yard that he realized that, in terms of information, he had gotten practically nothing from her. He had confirmed that she was a whore and that gentlemen visited them with gifts, but he had already known that. But, he assured himself smugly, he was only beginning to hit his stride with her, and bed talk would be more revealing after a tumble or two.

By late afternoon, both barges had been sealed and repaired well enough to keep them from leaking once they were back in the water. The gunwales had been increased in height to improve their freeboard in any sort of sea, and the keel beams had been tried for fit against the bottoms, which would improve their stability and ballast. Fastening them on, though, would take another half-day's work to drill holes through beams and existing keel members to accept either wooden dowels or iron bolts. The masts were fitted into the pierced thwarts, stepped to the keelsons, rigged by scavenged rope for shrouds, and the wagon-tongue booms and rope parrels ready and in place, though the blocks, halyards, and sheets were not yet mounted, but that would not be a half-morning's labor.

Once he had been goaded into action, Feather had turned out a good amount of work, quite ingeniously, Lewrie thought, and he told him so to mollify the man's feelings from the night before.

“Got an ideer on them leeboards, Mister Lewrie,” Feather said with a twinkle as the elder sailor nodded at his side. “Took a pair o' them wagon wheels an' axles offen the fronts. 'Thout the tongues, they ain't goin' nowheres, any'ow. Make 'em inta windlasses, see?”

“So you may hoist or lower the leeboards by a line wound round the windlass or axle?” Alan tried to picture it. The project was going much faster than he had thought, and their moment of escape was drawing closer all the time.

“Uh, nussir, we nail them leeboards ta the wheels, sir,” the older sailor countered. “Lays 'em up close-aboard 'til ya needs 'em, then ya turns the wheel ta lower one inta the warter, sir. Keep tension 'til ya warnt one on a belayin' pin. Free the line an' down she goes, sir. Nail the axle ta the thwarts an' gunnels, wif the wheels outboard.”

“That should be alright,” Alan said. “But do they fit as they are, or do you need to cut longer axles?”

“New axles, sir,” Feather said. “But they's plenny o' them eight-inch beams 'bout. Tried ta make frames fer the wheels, but it was . . .”

“Too complicated and heavy?” Alan finished for him as he searched for a break-teeth word, and both men nodded their heads vigorously.

“T'only thin', sir, we needs summat 'eavy'n solid fer the leeboards, an' we can't make 'em outen pine bits,” Feather said. “'Bout four foot long'n mebbe two, three foot wide, ready planed. We kin taper 'em like a rudder piece, but I don't know what ta use.”

“Take a look around the place carefully before it's dark,” Alan ordered. “Is there any more we can accomplish tonight?”

“Nah, sir, be dark soon,” Feather said. “But we'll have them new keels on by noon tamorrer. Could leave tamorrer night iffen we kin find what we need fer the leeboards.”

“Very good, Feather!” Alan exclaimed, patting him on the shoulder in congratulations once more. “Give the hands an extra tot with supper for their good work.”

“Aye, sir!” The men near the discussion perked up at that. There was little a British sailor could not do, and there was little a British sailor
would
not do if it could get him some extra drink.

“If we are leaving tomorrow night, then, best put a few men with Coe to start gathering up food and water to stow in the boats, then.”

Alan made his way back up toward the house to pass on his good news to the Chiswick brothers, who had been out in the woods to the west all day since dinner, working on their own plans. He would have a wash, clean linen, a good supper, and then a few hours with Nancy in her bedroom, though there was little point in trying to gain more information from her now if they would be departing the next evening.

He was in the bricked back terrace, ready to enter the house by the back door when a runner came panting in from the fields, calling for Lieutenant Chiswick, and everything went for nought.

“Riders acomin'!” he heard the runner gasp out.

Goddamn, the Rebels have found us! he thought in sudden fear. He dashed into the house to fetch his pistols and his cutlass and found both Chiswick brothers priming their officers' model Ferguson rifles and a squad of soldiers running into the front hall.

“What is it?” Alan demanded as he checked his primings.

“Half a dozen riders coming, goddammit!” Burgess spat. “For your life, go and tell your men to keep out of sight. Do you have any arms with your men?”

“No, just a sentry or two along the creek.”

“Move, Lewrie!” Governour ordered harshly.

Alan ran into Coe and passed the order, then went back into the house. North Carolina Volunteers by then were hiding by the windows, and another party was sprinting into the hedges to the east of the front yard. Governour shoved a Ferguson into Alan's hands.

“Here, load up. It's their lives or ours now.”

Alan screwed the breech plug open, ripped a dry cartouche with his teeth, and fumbled the ball into the breech, pouring in the powder behind it. His hands were trembling slightly and his insides were by turns hot and cold at the thought of discovery and battle.