"So, a good ride is she, this Tess creature, Alan?" Clotworthy goggled at him with a knowing leer.
Lewrie squinted with sudden anger for a second, before tamping it down firmly. "Well, you'd be the best judge of that," he said instead, slowly drawling his answer. Damme, am I jealous? he wondered.
"Does she play the shy virgin?" Peter queried. "Or is she game for any place, time, fashion, or orifice, hey? An acrobat, is she?"
Dammit! Lewrie silently fumed, taking time to answer by sipping on his drink; They're like schoolboys, still… civilian schoolboys! A gentleman doesn't tell such! Have I got so old I can't feel chummy with fellow rakehells any longer? Or, have I gotten wiser?
"That's for you to find out, Peter," Lewrie told him, faking a sly grin, after he had finished the last dollop of brandy in his glass. "Now, did I have your purse, I'd buy her out and set her up, for she's that pleasing to me."
"You'd play Pygmalion with her, Alan?" Rushton japed, not noticing his old friend's reticence; it didn't matter a whit to him.
"On her, most-like," Clotworthy interjected.
"Next time you call at 'Mother' Batson's, you'll put in a good word for me with the 'Abbess'?" Lord Peter asked. "With the girl, as well? Is her establishment as fine as you say, and sets such a fine table, I might become a regular caller. Panton Street's convenient to Whitehall, and my town-house. Let her know a wealthy patron's coming, hey?" he said with a wink and a leer at his double entendre.
"Well, of course, Peter… what are friends for?" Lewrie said, trying not to grit his teeth or slap the lecher silly; hypocritical as such an act might be, and ruefully chiding himself for being perhaps but a shadow compared to his old compatriots' lascivious natures.
"Then, a glass with you, sir," Peter insisted, snapping fingers for the waiter to come top them up. Lewrie would have risen and left, but for that offer, which could not be rejected, or be thought of as a "sneaker." Despite his distaste, he stayed on.
"Ah, but we're a merry band of rogues," Clotworthy said with a cheery smile. "Remember our old motto, Peter… Alan? What Wilkes said of life… 'a few good fucks, and then we die,' ha ha!"
"Damme, but I believe I started the day lookin' for stationery," Lewrie said, perking up as he changed the subject. "Yet here I sit, with not a single sheet, nor a ha'porth of ink yet. And there is that furrier in the Haymarket to discover… just in case Admiralty's run short of Post-Captains before the fleet sails for the Baltic."
"You'll not dine with us, Alan?" Clotworthy Chute exclaimed in seeming disappointment. Perhaps he'd fancied that Lewrie would foot the bill, as he had at Harrow with ale, porter, and "tatties."
"Some other time, Clotworthy," Lewrie demurred. "I think I'll finish this last glass, then toddle along. I believe we should all consider our drinks celebratory… that we survived an encounter with Mistress Durschenko's charmin' father, hmm?"
"Do you think we'll really have to go fight the Russians, Danes, and Swedes, Alan?" Clotworthy asked. "Mean t'say…"
"Aye, and the sooner the better," Lewrie assured him. "Time is not on our side, not with the weather warmin', and their navies' ports thawin' out. Do they put to sea, and combine, well…"
"Beat 'em like a drum, no matter," Peter scoffed with a sublime confidence that bordered on indifference; he even allowed himself one idle yawn. "We've Nelson, after all."
"And Alan… can he tear himself from betwixt his doxy's legs," Clotworthy chuckled over the rim of his glass.
"We'll see, won't we?" Lewrie asked, finally finishing off his brandy, and more than ready to depart. "One way or t'other."
"By yer leave, sir!" an impatient porter snarled at him, trying to make way on the crowded sidewalk with several wrapped packets.
"By yer own bloody leave, damn yer eyes!" Lewrie snapped back, more than ready to fight someone, raising his walking-stick in threat.
"Pardons… pardons." The weedy little brute shied away, more sauce than sinew, and scurried off.
"Bloody Hell!" Lewrie growled under his breath. "What a pack of cods-heads."
Are they what I'd've become, if I'd stayed ashore in London… anywhere in England? he fumed to himself as he strode along for his lodgings; Then, thank God for the Navy!
Alan Lewrie had always cynically, cheerfully admitted that he would never be buried a bishop, that the most he had aspired to would be to be considered a "Buck-of-the-First-Head," a merry denizen of the "cock and hen" clubs in the more sordid parts of London; sleep in late, roister and rantipole 'til dawn, and begin it all over, had he had his druthers.
Such as he seemed to be doing now.
Yet… not only had it become tiresome… boresome!… but it was beginning to pall, the ambrosia turned to ashes in his mouth. The morning's encounter with Peter and Clotworthy made him squint with revulsion.
Christ, am I havin' an Epiphany? he wondered.
He shook that notion off with a shiver and a barely audible Brr.
Idle hands, the Devil's workshop, he recalled; and I've been damned idle, since before Christmas. Or, t'other'un… 'lie down with dogs and ye rise with fleas.' Oh God, ye don't hear from me much, but… I really need t'get back t'sea! Doesn't have t'be a frigate… a cutter would do, a one-masted revenue sloop! Hell, even the Impress Service, just so long as I'm employed at something! I'm not a huge sinner after all… compared to some I could name. Right… I'm a fool for women, and I always get in trouble ashore. There may be women aboard warships, despite what the Admiralty wishes, but… none that tempt my eye, the plug-uglies. Most of 'em foul an' rough as bosuns…
He accepted the fact that Peter and Clotworthy were right in one regard; he never had been a callous, unscrupulous abuser of women's affections. He'd always gone soft on them. In point of fact, two of his duels, in his early days, had been in defence of a girl's good name or honour, so… didn't that count for something? Mean t'say…!
Write off the odd convenient quarter-hour romp here and there, and what have you? he thought, scanning back over his conquests as he dodged a brace of strolling ladies and a street urchin bullying a wee dog; A string of fond relationships, that's what, by… sorry. Long-time, mutually pleasin' love affairs! Don't make me a bad person, not like Peter, or Clotworthy, or…
He practically stormed up the steps to the doors of the Madeira Club, thrusting the doors back so forcefully that the day porter at the desk jumped in fright, scrambling to come round to gather up his cloak, hat, walking-stick, and mittens. "Still raw out, sir? A fine mist falling, still? I'll have your cloak and hat sponged, then send them up to your rooms, sir."
"Er, thankee," Lewrie mumbled, realising that he'd stomped back to the club so fiercely that he'd worked up a sweat under his clothes. "Any letters for me?"
"Uhm… nossir, none so far today."
"Very well, then. Do any come, I'll be in the Common Room."
"Very good, Captain Lewrie."
Lewrie dabbed at his temples and cheeks with a handkerchief to make himself presentable, once he'd found a nice, quiet corner, and a thickly padded leather wing-back chair near the fireplace. A servant took his request for hot coffee, and padded away, leaving him to stew on the morning's doings.
"What the Devil do I do?" he muttered as he stirred sugar and milk into his cup. "It can't go on like this. Not for long, or I'll be 'skint' by Easter." His accounts at Coutts's Bank, some prize-money that had dribbled in from Mediterranean captures way back in '96, was sufficient for keeping a gentleman of his station in moderate comfort, with enough to keep up his rented farm and home in Anglesgreen, both the boys at their school, his daughter Charlotte's first tutor, and his wife, with her typical thriftiness, in fine style. Dabbling with the whores, though, sweet as one of them was…
Lord Peter could afford such squandering, both of his purse and his repute, but he was the beau ideal of the Abolitionists, of the Respectable; of the dour Hannah More, Rev. Wilberforce, and all of their grim adherents, and he could not risk running into any more of them in "Mother" Batson's parlour. "Saint Alan, the Liberator!"