"Hardly the proper way to solve such problems in English Society, is it?" she said with a disapproving sniff, and a sip of her tea. "The hussy is Greek… most-like provincial, and ignorant of civilised ways no matter how wealthy her family was in the Greek isles, and the trade in currants. England, and London Society, does not look with particular favour on those who do not observe the niceties… the foreigners!"
That Lewrie also well knew; any day of the week, in any street in the city, there were odd-looking foreign types being showered with rotten vegetables or fruit, clods of mud, or dung, and hooted and cat-called to their lodgings in a hurry by the infamous idle Mob. Before his trial his accuser, Hugh Beauman, had been hounded from one hotel to another, him and his ultra-fashionable wife, both, for looking too grand and pretentious! The only reason that Eudoxia's father, Arslan Artimovich Durschenko, wasn't pelted and insulted in his fur shapka hat, boots, sash, and odd Roosian shirt was that he looked too dangerous to mess with!
And in his wastrel youth (between schools after being sent down) Lewrie had hooted, jeered, and flung dung with the best of the Bucks-of-the-First-Head he'd run with. That was why ambassadors and exotic, pagan emissaries, from Ottoman Turkey, say, were escorted upon official business by royal Horse Guard cavalry!
"Well, for a foreigner, she's hellish-handsome," Lewrie dared mention. Auburn hair, almond-shaped eyes, with a slim waist despite bearing two children (or damned good corsets!) and the most promising set of poonts… "Beauty seems to forgive a lot in Society."
"Medusa… Adam's fling with Lilith in the Garden of Eden… Dido…," Mrs. Denby replied, one hand waving in the air to conjure up infamous lovelies from the classics and the Bible, "all of them were fetching in the extreme… yet deadly and un-forgivable, like Salome, who lured King Herod to slay John the Baptist! No, Captain Lewrie… proper Society is quite brusque with those who violate the rules… unwritten, or no. Beautiful, or not!
"I see utter ruin ahead for Mistress Theoni Connor," Mrs. Denby prophesied, with a sly grin of anticipation to be involved in it. "She has not amassed a circle of supporters in London Society, even with all her wealth for entrйe" she said with another dismissive sniff. "Hence, no allies. I cannot recall anyone of importance remarking upon any attempt by her to insinuate herself with them. I assure you, sir, the amusement such an attempt would have provoked among the 'Quality' with whom I associate would have reached me ears already, hmph! Why, the bitch will be completely destroyed, ha ha!"
Lewrie dared let a smile gather at that news.
"You've attempted to 'front her, I wonder, Captain Lewrie?" she asked, bird-quick, peering at him.
"We had a run-in in Ranelagh Gardens a week back," he replied. "Not about this matter, no, for I still had no idea the letter-writer was her. She was pouty that I hadn't called on her since the trial. A Mister… well, someone very good at getting to the bottom of matters like this did nab her maid… the one with a good, copper-plate hand and an English education… who polished 'em up for her. After that, she's dropped out of sight… my sight, thank God."
"Oh, Captain Lewrie, you must!" Mrs. Denby enthusiastically told him; insisted on it, in truth. "A public scene without her very doors! Accusations shouted to the roof-tops does she refuse you entrance… in dread, or shame, no matter."
"Most-like, she'd let me in, to explain, or…," Lewrie mused.
Damme, now she's got me sing-songin'! he silently groused.
"Well, 'twould be best were she not in, and you may feign that she denied you entrance," Mrs. Denby slyly suggested. "A note tucked into the door jamb, saying that you must speak with her, and most-like her curiosity, and the chance that you might have come round to her at last, will be piqued… resulting in another very public denunciation… which I and as many of the better sort shall witness… will be common gossip the morning after… along with my article in The Post and such other papers as I may induce, will take the trick, ha ha!"
"A public scene… in Montagu Mews," Lewrie pretended to ponder, as if loath to do anything quite so sordid.
"Loud enough to startle both the pigeons and the horses, sir," she said with a giggle. "To the roof-tops… to the roof-tops! I say. Then, you must send me a note by runner, telling me where, and when, the actual confrontation will occur. Why, I warrant within the week, the baggage will remove her vile self from London, entire!"
"Hmm… her late husband's kin live in Dublin," Lewrie said.
"Dublin!" Mrs. Denby barked with a shiver. "For the shortest moment, one could almost pity her that!"
A Greek, a foreigner, with a bastard son by another man in tow along with the late Michael Connor's real son, their only grand-son… and control over his shares of the family business to irk them even further…! No, Lewrie couldn't quite imagine her reception in Dublin would be all that grand. Mind, he did have a slight desire to witness it!
"I'll see to… setting the scene, this very day, Ma'am," he told her.
"Georgina" Mrs. Denby chirpily insisted. "And I must be off, as well. You will, uhm…?" she added, pointing to the slip of paper which bore the reckoning for their pot of tea and her sticky buns.
"But of course… Georgina," Lewrie said with smile, reaching for his wash-leather coin purse. He rose, handed her to her feet from the pew-like seat of the booth, and bowed her departure for the door.
More notoriety, he mused as he sorted out coins for the waiter; That won't win me any less disapproval with Admiralty, he reckoned to himself. If I can't hope t'get another ship, well… I hope I enjoy this!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
He was best known about London as Captain "Black Alan" Lewrie, Royal Navy, so it was not a night for what his brother-in-law, Burgess Chiswick, called civilian dress in Hindoo; mufti. No, it was his full-dress uniform with all the gilt lace and twin epaulets, his hundred-guinea East India Company sword, and both the Cape St. Vincent and Camperdown medals, and Covent Garden was the site of the confrontation-to-be.
Lewrie had already called upon Theoni's house in Montagu Mews, after determining that she and her maid were away, shopping in the Strand, and had raised quite a ruckus… after seeming to have knocked at the door and being denied entrance (during which he had slipped a card into the jamb), then descending the steps to the street to begin his rant… "to the roof-tops," as Mrs. Denby insisted.
"Hide from me, will you, Madam?" he had cried for a start, and feeling like the greatest fool; at the several good public schools of his youth, Lewrie had taken part in more than a few stage shows, to the detriment of his studies, and had usually been jeered for clumsy readings and stiff performances. "You wrote those scurrilous, lying notes to torment my wife, and I'll not have it! Admit me, or come out, you jade! You have poisoned my marriage with your lies and hurt my wife sore with your filth!"
Hold on, he'd thought; Should it 've been 'sweet marriage,' or…? Should've written this down first. Gad, this is lame!
"How dare you! I'll have you in court for it!" he'd gone on, warming to his topic, as passersby, residents in the Mews, and street vendors had gathered. "Just 'cause I saved you and your son from those Serbian pirates in the Adriatic,… oh, your, letters to me were flatterin', but just 'cause I wrote you back didn't mean I favoured you… or felt anything for you! You're deluded! Jealous and spiteful! Get a man of your own, and leave me and my wife be!"
"Here, now, what's all this?" a dyspeptic neighbour asked him, coming out upon his own front steps from next door. "Hush up, you!"