The Invasion Year (32 page)

“Keep your head, Percy,” Lydia cautioned her brother. “You’ve taken on nigh your daily half-dozen.”

“A gentleman who can’t manage half a dozen bottles of wine per day is no proper gentleman, Lydia,” Lord Percy scoffed. “She’s of a piece with you, Alan … do the stakes near an hundred pounds, Lydia’ll go all squeamish and quaking. There must’ve been a
miser
in the family tree long ago, and she inherited, ha ha!”

“Let us know whether you’re winning or losing large, Percy,” she told him with a wry tone. “Scream or groan, and we’ll come running to your rescue. Captain Lewrie will surely join me for more champagne?”

“By this time o’ night, I’m about ready for a pot o’ tea,” he had to admit to her, feeling well and truly “foxed.”

“Now I
know
you’re not English, Captain Lewrie!” Lydia teased again. “There must be a West Country Methodist, or a Scottish Calvinist, in
your
family tree.”

“Well, my mother’s family
is
from Devonshire,” Lewrie quipped.

“A pot of tea, then … with Devonshire cream,” Lydia decided, smiling most fetchingly, and with lowered lashes.

They found a comparatively quiet corner table in the outer public halls, and ordered tea with scones and jam, which didn’t even seem to faze the waiter; odder things had been called for at the Cocoa Tree.

Over several restoring cups, which cleared some of the fumes in Lewrie’s head, Lydia led him through his background; how his mother had died in childbirth, and Sir Hugo had come back to take him in.…

“
That
Willoughby?” Lydia almost gasped. “The ‘Hell-Fire Club’ Willoughby? Good God, Sir Alan, he’s almost as scandalous as I!” She laughed in delight, then lowered her head to peer hard at him, cocking her head over to one side. “Do you take after your mother, now, or do you take after
him
? Do you share
his
proclivities, even
my
less-than-good repute might be in jeopardy!”

“Just a simple sailor, me, Lydia,” Lewrie japed.

“You’re aware … my divorce and all that?” she asked intently.

“Father told me a bit, this afternoon,” he admitted, shrugging. “Sounds as if you got saddled with the Devil’s first-born son.”

“He was, and he is,” Lydia told him, looking a bit relieved by his answer, “and I’m well shot of him. You have children?”

And Lewrie had to explain how both his sons were in the Royal Navy, and how Sewallis had managed to forge and scrounge his way into a Midshipman’s berth, which much amused her. His daughter, Charlotte, well … “She’s with my brother-in-law and his wife in Anglesgreen. Never heard of it? Halfway ’twixt Guildford and Petersfield, a little place. Best, really. My father’s country place is there, but there’s no one to care for Charlotte … even if Governour thinks it was all my fault, our going to Paris, and Caroline’s murder, and … the last I saw of Charlotte, over a year ago, she blamed me, too.”

“You don’t have a seat, yourself?” Lydia asked, her voice going a touch cool for his lack.

“Caroline and I were her uncle Phineas’s tenants. We ran up a house, built new barns and stables, but, after her passing, I couldn’t stand the place … all hers, d’ye see … and
then
Uncle Phineas decided that my other brother-in-law, Burgess Chiswick, and his new wife needed a place of their own, and turfed me out, so he could
sell
it to Burgess’s new in-laws, the Trencher family,” Lewrie explained. “Now, my father’s place is home … do I ever get a chance t’go there, what with the war and all. Twice the acres, twice the house, even if Sir Hugo opted for a one-storey Hindoo-style
bungalow
. Rambles all over the place, and even has an ancient Celtic hill-fort tower, later a Roman watch tower, he’s partially rebuilt. Mine, when he passes, but—”

“Lydia, darling Lydia!” a man interrupted, coming to loom over their table. “Pardons, sir,” he added, very perfunctorily, as if the presence of another man was of no concern, and good manners were not necessary. “How delightful you look this evening, my dear!” the gallant continued. “The colour of your gown makes you simply ravishing!”

“Why, hullo, Georgey,” Lydia rejoined, turning arch and bored-sounding once more, extending her hand to be slobbered over. “Alan, may I name to you George Hare. Georgey … allow me to name to you Captain Sir Alan Lewrie, Baronet,” Lydia said, pointedly using Lewrie’s Christian name, and Hare’s diminutive.

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Hare replied, tossing off a brief bow from the waist before turning his attention back to Lydia.

“Yer servant, sir,” Lewrie gruffly responded, striving for the blandest note, as if the fellow made no impression, though he felt an urge to slap the interloper silly, or demand what the Devil he was doing by intruding.
Damme, does she know
everyone
in London?
he fumed.

“Lydia, my dear, have you given consideration to my invitation to Lady Samples’ supper party on Saturday? It will be ever so gay an affair … music, dancing, and
écarte
?”

“Unfortunately, I cannot attend, Georgey,” Lydia said with the weariest drawl, drawing back her hand. “Percy and I thought of going to the country for the weekend. Some time
en famille, n’est-ce pas
?”

“Well, perhaps a brisk canter through the parks before then,” Hare suggested with a hopeful expression.

“We shall see, the weather permitting,” Lydia said, all but feigning a yawn. “I can promise nothing.”

“Ehm, well … does it not rain, I’ll send a note round,” the fellow pressed, knowing he was being snubbed but determined not to show it, and stubbornly determined to arrange a meeting with her. “Yer servant, sir … your undying, humble servant, Lydia,” he said, bowing himself away.

“Such an
unctuous,
beastly boor!” Lydia huffed once he was gone. “Can he not
see
how heartily I despise him? My apologies, Alan. Your grand night should
not
have been interrupted by such a toadying, money-hunting … oily
pimp
!” she all but spat, her face fierce with anger.

“I gather his sort turn up rather a lot?” Lewrie said, feigning an amused grimace, though he wasn’t much amused; it
had
been irksome!

“
Some
more subtle than others,” Lydia told him, making shivers of disgust, then smiling faintly. “My mis-fortune at marriage … that is the reason I dread re-entering
that
particular institution,” Lydia said with a head-cocked shrug before peering intently into his eyes. “Though try telling that to all the swaggering jackanapes who can’t
imagine
a woman who
won’t
swoon at the sight of them! To be single, I am thought un-natural … a condition only cured by throwing my self, and my dowry, into some new man’s dungeons! To be re-enslaved!”

“Then don’t,” Lewrie told her with a grin. “Enjoy your life.”

“Georgey Hare’s one of the worst,” Lydia went on, stunned for a second by Lewrie’s bald directive. “His family’s decently well-off, and he’s a thousand
per annum,
so he can
play
at the law.…”

“I don’t like attorneys, much,” Lewrie japed. “Except when in need o’ one.”

“Oh, let us speak no more of Georgey, or his slimy ilk,” Lydia said with a huff of exasperation, slumping into her chair and looking pouty-sad. “I know!” She perked up, instantly turning mischievous and leaning over the table towards him. “Do we wait upon Percy, it will be
dawn
before he leaves the Long Rooms. Winning or losing, he can’t be dragged away by a team of bullocks! Will you trust me, Sir Alan, to find some place more amenable to quiet conversation?”

Could we
really
be “aboard”?
Lewrie devoutly wished to himself, amazed by her daring. “God, yes!” he quickly agreed.

“Then let us go,” she said, determined.

*   *   *

“Are you … comfortable, Alan?” Lydia asked in a whisper as she lay beside him, her head propped up on the pillows and her forearm.

“
Most
comfortable,” he told her, stretching and sighing blissfully, half-turned towards her with his right arm under her pillows. “And damned grateful, thankee very much!”

Her long dark blond hair was down, and her grin was impish and infectious. By the light of a single candle on the night-stand, her green eyes sparkled like emeralds as she regarded him, as if inspecting him for warts. She grew sombre for a moment.

“I mean … are you comfortable with your … estate in life?” she amended, waving her free hand in the air. “Do you aspire to…?”

“D’ye mean t’ask if I aim for wealth?” he countered, sitting up a bit. “Never gave it much thought, really. No, really!” he insisted to her
moue
of dis-belief. “Look … I’ve my father’s house and land when he passes, and he came back from India a ‘chicken-nabob,’ so I’ll not have t’go beggin’. In the meantime, there’s my Navy pay, and I’ve been more fortunate than most when it comes to prize-money. There’s a goodly sum in the Three Percents, inherited plate, jewellery and such, and a tidy sum at Coutts’. I’m
not
after yer money, if that’s what you’re wonderin’. Aye, I’m ‘comfortable,’ as ye say, Lydia. ‘On my own bottom,’ as the Navy says. Do you fear I am?”

“It’s what I fear from every man,” she confessed, cuddling up onto his chest to drape herself atop him.

“Well, the proof’s in the pudding, as they say,” Lewrie said, a bit miffed that she would even ask, though he still stroked her bare back and shoulders with delight. “Of course, that’d require that you’d allow me t’know you better.”

“You do not think you know me a
trifle
better than you did this morning, Alan? Yesterday morning, by this time?” she lazily teased, shifting a slim thigh over him in response to his stroking.

“And I’d admire to know a lot more, Lydia,” Lewrie told her as she raised her head to look at him.

“I would admire that, too,” she whispered, earnestly, intently staring at him for a moment before sliding up to kiss him deep, with her breath still musky from the after-glow of their lovemaking.

He had
hoped,
but hadn’t been too sure where they were headed. They had tried a less-fashionable tavern, and though it was still open for business so late, it was too full of half-drunk young couples who were much too loud. Her coach had taken them to her family house in Grosvenor Street, after which she’d called for coffee, cream, and sugar from the sleepy few servants still awake, and dismissed them for the night. They had sat close upon a settee, turned towards each other, inclining their heads closer and closer as they’d whispered and laughed, and … then she’d drawn him to his feet and had led him on tip-toes in stockinged feet to a spare bed-chamber, giggling at their daring ’til locked in … and Lewrie’s fondest wish had been realised.

Lydia was very slim, as slim as Tess the Irish lass in “Mother Batson’s” brothel in Panton Street, as girlish-slim as his late wife had been when they’d first wed, her flesh firm but so silkily soft, as if he ran his fingertips through fine-milled talcum powder. Their un-dressing had been slow and tentative, despite Lewrie’s urgent and fierce wants after two years of celibacy since his return from Paris; he didn’t wish to frighten her off at the last moment. On Lydia’s part, she had shown a shyness that Lewrie wouldn’t have expected in a woman so out-spoken, or one with an allegedly scandalous past. There had been just the one small, dim candle to light them under the covers, with Lewrie’s back turned as she’d slipped beneath them, and her head partially averted as he did so; she hadn’t come to his side ’til the sheet was pulled up to their chins, and he had slid a light hand over her taut but tantalisingly soft belly.

Might be just the once, so make the most of it,
he’d cautioned himself, savouring every moment as if it was the very last they would share, that he would have with any woman, slowly sliding down her body to worship her graceful neck, her ears, her breasts, and her stomach, at last to the tops of her slim thighs, her belly, and her fine corn-silk blond fluff, then even further down.…

Hoping against hope, Lewrie had brought along four of his Half-Moon Street sheep-gut cundums; there was an awkward moment to don one and return, but by then Lydia had been more than eager, her bottom lip almost trembling as she drew him down to her with a kitteny mew. Again, despite the brute lust roaring in his head, he’d begun slow, pausing a time or two to contain himself … before Lydia had begun to urge him on to a canter, to a gallop, with breathless wee cries of, “Yes, oh yes!”

Too much wine, too late at night, Lewrie couldn’t fathom how, but the world had evaporated from his senses. The mattress and sheets might as well have been a cloud, and the only things that existed were their bodies and their joinings, and then Lydia had been grasping and raking his back, clinging with upraised thighs, crying out as guardedly as she could to avoid waking the house staff, and Lewrie could let go, groaning like the timbers of a storm-wracked ship, and wishing he could roar like a lion in triumph and mind-frying pleasure!