"D'ye mean t'say, you got caught?" Lewrie gawped.
' 'Fraid so," Peel told him in a soft voice. "Always had a knack for cards. I usually came out ahead with honest play, and sure to God you know how easy it is to pluck the sort of hen-heads you find in the better regiments. Snoot-full of drink by ten, lack-wit by eleven, and ready to wager their last stitch on anything you name. Lucky to even see their cards by then."
"Met a few," Lewrie commented, hiding his amusement, continually amazed by how arrogantly dense were the second sons of peers of the realm, the sort usually found in the "elegant" regiments. And the sort drawn to cavalry were the truly whinnying-stupid!
"Thought I could pull it off," Peel continued. "God, after I'd skinned 'em, I even lent them some of their losses back, at scandalous interest, and they wouldn't even blink!"
"Their sort, they're lucky they could breathe" Lewrie chuckled.
"Anyway, one night one of 'em wasn't drunk as a lord, and cried 'cheater' on me, the rest took it up, and caught me with an extra card or two where they shouldn't have been, so…" Peel supplied, snorting humorlessly at Lewrie's observation. "I was asked for my resignation-'Twas that, or a general court, and they'd have done anything to avoid a scandal, not on their hallowed reputation. They forced me to settle up with those I'd fleeced, and everyone but the foot-men had their hands out then. I was allowed to sell my commission, my string of mounts, saddlery, and all. By the time I'd cleared all my debts, though, I was barely left with the civilian togs I stood up in. Horrid stain on the old family escutcheon, too, don't ye know," Peel japed, trying to make light of it. "Everlasting shame… the black sheep? "
"Happens in the best of families," Lewrie cryptically commiserated, with the fingers of his right hand crossed.
"Exactly!" Peel drolly replied, looking Lewrie up and down with a tongue planted firmly in his own cheek, a cynical brow arched.
"You were sayin'…" Lewrie harumphed, coughing into a fist.
"I was near an American emigrant, myself, one of the Remittance Men exiled for his own good," Peel further informed him, "but for meeting Mister Twigg. Cater-cousin of my father's in the Foreign Office arranged an interview. Overseas employment, exciting doings, picking up foreign culture and new languages… robust, outdoorsy work…"
"Meet fascinatin' new people… betray 'em," Lewrie stuck in.
"Yes, good fun, all round," Peel said, laughing out loud for a bit. : 'Til Mister Twigg retired, it was. I suppose you could say I'm… compromised, now, in a way. See, Pelham does have something over me. That Major whose fiancee I diddled, well… his father's country place and Pelham's father's estate are nearly next door. Both fathers took their seats in Lords the same month, and both families attend the same parish church, their ancestral pew-boxes cross the aisle from each other. Knew all about me from the outset."
"Had it in for you, right off, hey? The bastard," Lewrie said. "The arrogant little pop-in-jay!"
"He is all that, and more," Mr. Peel mused. "Snobbish, impatient with his inferiors. Sure of his wits and talent, when he doesn't have a tenth of Twigg's trade-craft, nor an hundredth of his sagacity or patience, his cleverness."
"When not orderin' the murder of thousands," Lewrie sneered.
"Sublimely self-confident when he has no right to be," Mr. Peel Went on, "and not a young fellow open to suggestions. An uncle, a former ambassador to Austria, sponsored him with the Foreign Office. Naturally, he was shoved into our branch. Twigg was leery, soon as he'd briefed him. Warned me to mind my p's and q's, he did. Same as he cautioned me to keep a wary eye on you. Sorry."
"And who wouldn't, I ask you?" Lewrie posed, too engrossed with the hope of "useful dirt" on the pestiferous Pelham.
"Pelham put me on notice, right off," Peel told him, "that I'd best tread wary and sing small, or I'd be an un-employed ex-captain of cavalry, an «-employed agent, and I was no proper gentleman, to boot! Fetch and tote, run his chores? He'd do the thinking, thankee very much. Damn him, he enjoys having me on tenter-hooks."
"Surely he must know by now that he's been sold a complete bill of goods on this Saint Domingue business," Lewrie scoffed. "He can't expect to win, after better men than he broke their health and reputations trying."
"Sometimes he makes me wonder, Lewrie, he truly does," Mr. Peel said with a slow, befuddled shake of his head. "Pelham's one of those who think pot-holes fill before they step in them, as if the rules are different for the rich and titled. Pelham's smart enough to see this mission as a morass, but it's rare to see him suffer a single qualm. Then he comes over all energetic, as if, does he scheme and wheedle hard enough, he's going to win and prove his mettle, despite it being a bloody pot-mess!"
"Let him, then," Lewrie said with a dismissive shrug. "He sent you on a journeyman's errand to finish off Choundas, and ride 'whipper-in' on me… and thank your lucky stars for't. We're a side-show, to Pelham's lights, whilst he stays on Jamaica with his eyes on what he thinks is the main prize. He won't even know he chose wrong 'til it's much too late. Whereas the do-able part of his compound orders- our part-is well in hand, and damn'-near done."
"Well… when you put it that way," Peel said, perking up some.
"How did you get saddled with this chore, and Pelham, anyway?"
"Well, other than Mister Twigg, no one else knew as much about Choundas and his methods," Peel tossed off, as if it was of no matter. "Then, discovering you were out here, so aptly placed… someone else of whom I had personal knowledge… even Twigg said my presence was a necessity. I tried to stay in the Mediterranean, but…" he said, shrugging. "Pelham came as a surprise. By then, it was simply too late to demur without poisoning my credentials with the bureau. And I relish this job!"
"Hmmm," Lewrie mused, pulling at his nose. "So all Pelham knows is what you tell him in your reports?" Lewrie broadly hinted, tapping the side of his nose sagely.
"Lewrie, that sounds suspiciously… mutinous," Mr. Peel gaped (or pretended to) with a hand to his chest as if aghast at what he was hearing. "You don't actually mean that I should lie to him! Or… are you?" Peel added, sounding almost wishful.
"Not lie, Peel, no," Lewrie quibbled, "just couch things in the best light. Give him chapter and verse of your best justifications as to the Yankee Doodles. Just passing mention of the faint possibility of secret cooperation leadin' to better things," Lewrie sweetly coaxed. "And make sure that Twigg and your superiors back in London are kept appraised of what a spectacular opportunity just… fell into your lap. Your lap, Peel, not Pelham's."
"Well… Twigg would like to know what we're doing, I'd wager," Peel muttered, indeed looking a trifle ill-at-ease at the ploy. "He's still got good entree at the Foreign Office. And Choundas was the main target to him, all along. Twigg was never taken with the scheme about buying Saint Domingue by suborning L'Ouverture or Rigaud. In a private moment, he conjured me to not be too disappointed did the larger scheme fail."
"Twigg must have seen that Pelham would be in over his head, and so aspiring a twit he most-like plans t'be Prime Minister," Lewrie said with a sneer. "Yet you still go out of your way to uphold that, too."