Mr Gordon took this for surrender; not, he realized, of the citadel, but of an outwork, a ravelin. He gathered her closer still, enchanted by the scent of her hair in his nostrils, her exotic perfume and the swell of her breasts against his chest.
Mistress Shaw endured his rough attentions and curtseyed formally as the music stopped. As he returned her to her seat, she quietly cursed her own weakness for suggesting this evening. Her widowhood had begun to irk her and she had felt the impromtu ball an occasion enabling her to cast aside more than a year of mourning, besides helping her father-in-law do what he could to stop the imminent rupture between the United States and Great Britain. He had enthusiastically adopted her suggestion of inviting the officers of both naval ships to a rout.
She had to admit her own motives were far less philanthropic. It had been curiosity which tipped her judgement in favour of making the suggestion; curiosity to see the English officers. She had been a girl at the time of Yorktown when the hated redcoats had surrendered sullenly against overwhelming odds. Defeat had not robbed them of their potent terror to a young mind and the childish impression had remained. She still thought of them as bogey-men inhabiting the dark, threatening spectres to be conjured up when children were disobedient. And once again they were at large, plundering American ships off their own coastline and carrying off innocent sailors like the Barbary pirates with whom her country had already been at war. Tonight she had thought, with a frisson of fearful delight, she would see these mythological beings for herself and she was half-disappointed, half-relieved that they were not the pop-eyed, dissolute, viciously indolent exquisites she had expected.
There had been, too, the added inducement to exhibit a new gown, a gay, uninhibited contrast with the black bombazine which for so long had hidden her figure. To this was added a patriotic justification, for the gown had been smuggled from Paris to replace her widow's weeds and she wore it in defiance of the British blockade. The wicked desire to try its effects on English sophisticates (as she imagined them to be) had honed her anticipation. She had had enough of the male society of Virginia. The rich, elderly and often dissolute men who had shown an interest in her had seemed either opportunist or calculating. Their expressions of regard had been too contrived for sincerity, or their desires too obvious for a permanent attachment. None had struck an answering longing in her own heart. For her all men had died with her husband, whose mutilated body they had found already putrefying beside his exhausted horse. They said the stump of an Indian arrow in his back had killed him when mounting, and not the dreadful, nightmare gallop of a terrified mount whose rider had fallen backwards with one foot caught in a stirrup.
They reached the table and Gordon's mangled hand gave her a sharp reminder of the mortality of men. She was suddenly sorry for him and ashamed of her soft breasts that jutted, a la Marie-Louise, to tantalize him. She sat and sipped from her glass while Gordon, handsome and eager, hovered uncertainly. She was about to ask him lo sit too, since his awkwardness was unsettling her, when he was superseded. A tall, gaunt young Scot in the scarlet and blue facings of her childhood fancy, a glittering gorget and white cravat reflecting on a pugnacious chin, elbowed Gordon aside. She sensed some tacit agreement, for Gordon withdrew unprotesting and bowing. She felt cheap, not wicked, as if the subtleties of wearing the gown were lost on these boors and had merely made of her a whore. The lobsterback officer was bending over her hand.
'Quentin Moncrieff, ma'am, Royal Marines, at your service. The band is about to strike up, I believe, and I would be obliged if you would do me the honour ...'
The leg he put forward was well muscled, the bow elegant enough, and, as if to emphasize his authority, the music began again, silencing the buzz of chatter. She submitted, Moncrieff led her out and almost at once she regretted Gordon's honest lust as Moncrieff's flattery assaulted her.
Both had the same end in view; she had clearly been pointed out as a widow, perhaps in a moment of weakness by the rather gauche-looking American officers grouped around one table muttering amongst themselves and regarding their visitors with suspicion. She supposed she had upset them by dancing exclusively with the British; it was a good thing her brother was not here, though Lieutenant Tucker would doubtless keep him informed.
Moncrieff's remarks blew into her ear. Oh yes, they knew her for a widow all right, a woman who in their opinion must, by definition, need a man and who, moreover, would be discreet in having one. She did not know a sizeable wager rested upon her virtue.
She was tiring of the evening as a self-satisfied Moncrieff led her back to her table. She tried to recall what she had said to him, but found the intimidating glares of Lieutenant Tucker and his cronies only made her reflect what a pity it was that events always had the contrary result to what had been intended. She was beginning to wish she had not suggested the evening in the first place as much as regretting the décolletage of the French gown. Inspiration saved her from surrender to yet another eager young officer who appeared to head a queue of blushing midshipmen.
'Mr Moncrieff,' she asked in her low drawl, 'would you be kind enough to introduce me to your captain?'
She had missed the arrival of the British officers. They had been prompt — some talk of a race between the boats of the two ships, she believed, though where she had learned the fact, unless it was from Moncrieff's panting eagerness to pour his heart's desire into her ear, she could not be sure — and her maid had not done her hair properly so she had been late. Her father-in-law had greeted them all and the ballroom was already filled with chatter and the glitter of uniforms by the time she had joined them.
'The Captain, ma'am? Why ... er, of course.'
She sensed the response to discipline, felt the effect of iron rule even here, in the privacy of Castle Point. Moncrieff ceased to be himself and became merely an officer, correct, precise and formal. She felt a momentary pity for him and his colleagues, a wildly promiscuous desire to touch them all with herself and release them from the thraldom of lust and duty.
Moncrieff surveyed the company as the music began again and Lieutenant Tucker, his arm about the waist of Kate Denbigh of Falmouth township, prepared to out-do the British and show them how a Yankee officer danced the polka.
'This way, ma'am.'
Moncrieff was eager to be rid of her now, eager to slide his own arm round the slender waist of a younger, less worldly woman than the Widow Shaw. He led her to an open French window where a solitary figure stood, half merging with the heavy folds of a long blue velvet curtain.
Moncrieff coughed formally. 'Sir? May I present Mistress Shaw…'
The captain did not turn, indeed he did not appear to have heard and she thought the authority of a British captain too elevated to acknowledge an American widow hell-bent on escape from his officers. His indifference riled her far more than their concupiscence and she felt humiliated in front of Moncrieff. She played a final desperate card and dismissed the marine officer.
'Thank you, Mr Moncrieff.'
Lamely Moncrieff carried out the final ritual of his duty: 'Captain Drinkwater ... Mrs Shaw...' He bowed, disappointed, and withdrew.
She hung there, flushing, resenting this necessity of suspension between the two men — two Englishmen!