A Broom at the Masthead (The Drowned Books Book 1) (13 page)

"I imagine
he has some outstanding tailor's bill that you could offer to meet,
Major," Fairmantle added cheerfully. "Master Pepys is customarily
financially embarrassed, I believe."

"Oh, as
ever, Sir Charles," Pepys said, with a polite bow. "Although
I
-" he inclined his head graciously - "do usually manage to meet my
obligations. Major Russell, sir. I will bid you a good day, as I see you are
engaged on -" his mouth curled upwards at the corners, and his
good-humoured, stubby-lashed eyes beamed at her, "much more pleasurable
business than mine. I take it you are still lodging near St Gabriel's, with
Jane Bartholomew? You lucky dog, sir. Two beautiful ladies under one
roof."

26

Fairmantle did not like Master Pepys, it
was clear, and it was also clear that Master Pepys was well aware of that fact
and immensely amused by it.

(It was also
abundantly clear that Master Pepys would not talk to Thomazine's face if he
could help it, and she wondered if her husband had noticed the pink clerk's
fascination with the shadowy place where her collar tucked into her bodice, and
if he was likely to simply drop him off the bridge into the Thames at a
convenient point when no one was looking.)

Having escaped
the society of both, though, they finally compromised on a bakehouse, which was
warm, and dark, and where she could badger him to her heart's content to
furnish her with breakfast. And where she could sit and watch some of the more
absurd teetering wigs and pattens that London had to offer, go wobbling through
the grey sleet past the open windows. And where Russell could sit with his chin
propped in his hands and watch
her
, with a rather silly grin on his
face.

"Perhaps,"
she said, "
perhaps,
when you are done feeling pleased with
yourself,
 
you might like to enlighten me, finally, as to what one
retired supply officer has to do with a war with the butterboxes? Dear?"

Her husband
laughed his almost-soundless laugh. "Been trying to do that all morning,
tibber, but you will keep getting sidetracked. General Monck, is what. My old
commander, who is now commander of the Navy -"

"Oh,
indeed? And what, pray, are his qualifications as a sailor? And more to the
point, what are yours, that you should be dragged into this - this -
enterprise?"

"Mine?
Well, I've been to the Low Countries more than a few times, lass. I flatter
myself I am more than conversant with the language. Very glad of it, too, for I
imagine that silk gown we had made up will be much admired, later."

"You are
engaged in
trade
with the enemy?" she squeaked.

"Me
personally? Oh God yes! It's been driving Gillespie stark mad for months. He
reckons I've filled the house with gauds and bawbees -" it wasn't a great
Scots accent, coming from a man with a faint Buckinghamshire burr to his voice
and an even fainter slur to it when he was weary, but it was recognisably
Gillespie's dog-bark - "and no' a decent chair to sit on in the
place."

"So because
General Monck has not the wit to run fast enough when they asked him, you must
needs pick up his dirty linen?"

"Not quite,
my tibber, no. Thomazine, we are at war." 

"We weren't
this morning," she said tartly, and he sighed.

"Indeed.
Well, we are by now, I imagine. According to Master Pepys, who has a nose for
such tattle. And no, the Navy does not want for perfectly adequate supply
officers of its own, who are doubtless competent in their way. It does,
however, want for competent supply officers who can discourse like reasoned
human beings in Dutch, and who have some reputation for, uh, a want of
compromise in their personal dealings. Try how they might, lass, they will be
hard put to it to attach any scurrilous gossip to my name, for there is none. I
told you I was a dull dog. No, regrettably, I am sufficiently boring in my
intimate relations that I have one wife, one household to maintain, moderate
personal beliefs, and absolutely no leverage for blackmail."

"Are you
telling me that you are an
intelligencer
?" she said faintly.

After only a few
months of marriage, it was becoming fatally clear to Thomazine that when her
man dipped his lashes in that particularly sweet, innocent, doe-eyed manner, he
was as guilty as sin. "You are, aren't you?"

"Not in so
many words. I am not a spy." He cocked his head on one side assessingly,
looked at the last of her mutton pie where it cooled in front of her, and it
was gone before she had a chance to protest. "I am simply a further weapon
in the Navy Board's armoury. Well, truly, lass, you've met Master Pepys, you've
met Fairmantle, and they're a fair representation - Samuel negotiates most of
his contracts in taverns and puts more of his wages on his back than in his
purse, and Charles runs with a distinctly unsavoury set indeed, though there's
no harm in him, there's not the sense for that. Honestly, Thomazine, can you
imagine, were you a respectable, sober gentleman from the Low Countries,
expecting to treat with a like Englishman, and Charles Fairmantle turns up in
that preposterous wig, reeking of perfume and -" he stopped abruptly,
remembering to whom he was talking. 

"Girls,"
she finished for him, and he gave her a reproachful look.

“Indeed. Girls.
Some of the most notably pious and respectable gentlemen of my acquaintance
have been Dutch. They are a good Protestant people. I – well, I hardly dare
say, tibber, but – some of the people I know – in an official capacity – some
of the Court – dear God, lass, if some of that lot showed up to negotiate, it’d
be taken as an
affront
.”

“
So
–”

“So, I am not
likely to be summoned hence to my destruction, Thomazine,” he said primly. “So
that –
silliness
– in the Rainbow, was pure silliness.“ He gave her a
severe look. “
And
for nothing. Am I attached in a military capacity to
the Navy Board, yes. Hence my acquaintance with Master Pepys. God help me. I
have previously had to account for my receipting to Master Pepys in his
capacity as clerk to the Board – and having Sam Pepys accuse one of profligacy
is, as your esteemed father would say, the kettle calling the pot bruntarse. My
fighting days are done. Other than wrangling with the Navy Board in matters of
overdue expense claims.” 

“Do you
promise?”

“Very much I
promise.” He raised his eyes to her face, and for a minute he was her young
rebel angel again, armed with nothing but ideals and a fiery sword. “I love you
more than my hope of heaven, but not even for you would I perjure myself. I do
not make idle promises, Thomazine. I swear to you, I would swear to you with my
hand on a stack of Bibles as high as this house, I am no more than an
administrator. I am one of the few people at His Majesty’s court with a wholly
unblemished name, my tibber, and were I to lose that integrity I should be of
no further service to my country.”

Gillespie had
said almost the same thing to her. That her husband would do the thing that was
right, no matter what it cost him, no matter how unpopular or inconvenient,
because he could not do else and remain who he was. That uncompromising honesty
might set him out of favour in a court that they said favoured strategy and
polite pragmatism above all else, but if he said a thing, it could be depended
on. Always. 

Take away his
good name, Gillespie had said, and you stripped him of everything

26

"You scrub up very nicely,
husband," she said wickedly, and slid a surreptitious hand down his back.

That scarred and
inscrutable war hero jerked as if he'd been shot as she squeezed his backside
in a very familiar fashion, and then turned just before the great doors swung
slowly open, ducked his head, and kissed her with a brief, fierce enthusiasm.

And Thomazine -
thoroughly kissed - gasped, at her first sight of society.

Thankful had
warned her, of course. He'd said it was all shadow and glitter, the women with
tiny, perfect breasts like pomegranates all but spilling from their stiff
bodices, jewelled and scented and ringletted. And the men almost as primped, in
their extravagant curled wigs and ribbons.

"It is not
at all what a gently-reared young lady will be accustomed to," he had said
primly, and then the unscarred corner of his mouth had turned up in that slow,
sweet smile that only she ever saw. "Joyeux would scratch your eyes out,
tibber."

The thought of
her little sister's envy had seemed unlikely - Joyeux was beautiful, and
sociable, and she had been the reigning belle of Essex before she married, and
now she was the reigning belle of Hertfordshire. Whereas Thomazine - well,
Thomazine was tall, and unfashionably slight, and unfashionably cinnamon-coloured,
and before Thankful she’d never been so much as looked at by a boy. She glanced
sideways at her husband, who was worth a dozen of the boys of White Notley in
her eyes. It didn’t matter.

She had asked
Deb to lay out her good yaffingale-green silk gown and her decent shift with
the ruffled sleeves, and Thankful had shaken his head. "The bronze,'"
he had said, firmly, and she had been minded to argue for he grew too fond of
his own will of late, that one, and the one piece of advice her mother had been
adamant on was to allow a husband his head in small things, but keep a firm
hand on the bridle. Besides, that bronze silk gown was a shocking vanity,
almost indecently cut. A pretty enough thing, to wear in the privacy of your
own rooms, to flirt decently with your husband, but not -

"And the
pearls," he said, and
then
she had protested because those pearls
had been her wedding gift and they were too precious to be worn at any casual
supper -"In your hair."

And in the end
she had acquiesced to his ordering her dress, too stunned to do else. He had
directed Deb, in a most peremptory fashion, and it had taken hours, including
the bathing and the curling and the brushing: the sun was set and he had called
for candles before they were through, and mousy little Jane Bartholomew had
come scampering up and down the stairs with tapers.

The little
widow's eyes had almost started from her head, the last time, and Thankful had
given her a conspiratorial smile and set his finger to his lips. And of course
Thomazine had been near sick with jealousy, until he put her hands on her
shoulders and turned her to face the mirror.

And for a second
she had not recognised the slender glowing flame reflected there, with her
russet hair wound about with a rope of moonlit pearls and curled down her
shoulder in a thick ringlet, and a pair of wide-set green-amber eyes looking
back at her with far more worldliness than Thomazine Babbitt knew she
possessed. Not beautiful, for the girl in the mirror had wide cheekbones and a
wide, full mouth to go with her wide-set eyes, and flyaway cinnamon brows that
hinted at a sense of the absurd. "That's not me," she said
cautiously, and Thankful put his hand on her shoulder, and squeezed it.

"It is,
too," he said, and met her eyes in the mirror. "You see why I should
have you wear that dress tonight, my tibber?"

She looked at
her white throat, at her shoulders, at her - yes. Well. "For a certain
ease in removing it, I imagine," she said shakily, "for if I laugh,
or sneeze, I am almost certain to outrage public decency."

"Not to
mention catching your death of cold," he added, and smiled at her.
"There is a reason for all this vanity, Thomazine. Trust me."

She'd thought it
was just his old puritanical streak, and she stood on the threshold of that
high-ceilinged, glittering room, where the women were plastered and painted as
thickly as the walls, and she gawked like the veriest country bumpkin. There
was a - a beast, of some nature, a small dog or some such, scampering free
about the floor, and she recognised Charles Fairmantle at least, sitting at his
ease at the head of the table in a great carved chair with his wig all askew
and his cheerful face glistening with sweat and good feeding.

"Major
Russell!" he bawled, "d'ye plan to stand there on the threshold all
night, sir, or will you not come in and sit down to supper like a
Christian?"

"Only if
you'll play Messiah, Chas, and make more loaves, for I swear Sedley's eaten the
bloody lot!" another voice yelled from the shifting candlelight.

Fairmantle
staggered to his feet. He was not, precisely, drunk, but it was close.
"Now, now, gentlemen. You arrive late, Major Russell. It's
unfashionable
to be late, d'you hear me?"

"For he who
comes on stroke of nine,

Must take his
chance, and forfeit wine,"
a sepulchral voice intoned.
"Strephon, damn your eyes, can I take you nowhere?"

"Oh indeed
- Once to go, and once to apologise!"

 
"Gentlemen!"
Fairmantle roared. "And Wilmot - leash that damnable ape and be
seated!"

It was an ape.
The lap-dog was a monkey, and it grinned amiably up at Thomazine from where it
was presently engaged in picking the paint from the sky-blue wall with fingers
that were all too human. A tall, dark-haired young man rose from his seat on
the far side of the room and lifted the monkey as if it were a naughty child,
talking sternly to it the while. "My apologies, madam," he said
gloomily, and she deduced he had been the impromptu poet. "We keep him - a
reminder of our own baser natures, my lady. I can only offer my humblest apologies
for the beast's animal rudeness. A brute - what can I say, except to beg that
he has not caused offence?"