"Why did you arrange for me to get caught in bed with Belinda? Why did you exile me into the Navy?" Alan demanded, though in a soft voice as he sat down cross-legged on his pillows once more.
"The Lewrie money," Sir Hugo muttered, barely inaudible.
"And you were almost broke again, weren't you. And you needed the money, so devilish bad!"
After much hemming and hawwing, Sir Hugo could only nod his assent.
"Goddamn you." Alan slumped.
"Alan… I am truly sorry," Sir Hugo whispered. "Your father is a miserable bastard. I thought I was doing right by you, not letting you end up dead in that parish orphanage. Feeding you, clothing you, getting you a good education. You don't know how many times I was proud of you. Of how many times you reminded me of me, even when you were up to your ears in pranks that backfired to my cost."
"Fine way of showing it," Alan muttered back, staring down in his brandy and watching the candle flames dance in amber to the trembling of his fingers. "I thought you hated me."
"Alan, no! Never hated you!" Sir Hugo insisted, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe I didn't show you. Or tell you. But I took you in out of guilt about Elisabeth. And about Agnes. I loved you, Alan. I love you still."
"Ah, right," Alan tossed off.
"If I seem too selfish, then that's my curse. If I treated you standoff-ish, then that's my loss," Sir Hugo insisted. "And I'm still proud of you. You've made lieutenant in half the time most people could expect. Commanded a ship of your own for a while. Made a name for yourself by being brave and clever. I read every issue of the Marine Chronicle and the London papers, looking for news of you. 'Came into The Downs this Sunday last, the Shrike brig, Lieutenant Alan Lewrie, commanding, to pay off at Deptford Hard, with a sum in excess of thirty thousand pounds prize money owing officers and men, from service with the Leeward Islands Squadron, most recently off Cape Francois under Admiral Sir Samuel Hood and Commodore Affleck.' I memorized it. I cut it out and saved it. I can show you."
"Maybe you could; it don't signify," Alan replied bitterly. "Your idea of affection is hellish like indifference to me. Your idea of love I could trade for two dozen lashes and stand the better, sir."
"For better or worse, I am your father, Alan. I don't expect you to ever love me. Or respect me, either. I'd admire if you could at least not despise me. Take what's past like the fine young man you are and put it behind you. Behind us," Sir Hugo implored. "I imagine that you're the best of Elisabeth Lewrie, and the best of me, with all the rotten parts cut out, like an apple only half gone-over. Lot of pith left, even so. I'll not ever expect us to be reconciled."
"That would take a power of doing. And longer than either of us have on this earth, I expect," Alan answered.
"Well, that's the way of it, then," Sir Hugo harrumphed, and wiped a tear from the corner of one eye. "Just do one thing for me."
"What?"
"Don't end up like me, will you, lad?"
"I don't know; I have a fair start on it." Alan grimaced and found himself amused in spite of himself.
"You take after me when it comes to the ladies, hey?" Sir Hugo teased.
"In frequency, perhaps. Not… well, I haven't cheated anyone. Not yet, anyway," Alan allowed.
"That Captain Bevan dropped me a line now and then about you. I know about the ladies in Jamaica," Sir Hugo chuckled.
"That's not the half of it."
"1 thought I'd offer you a treat," Sir Hugo said, getting to his feet rather awkwardly. Part age and stiffness, Alan thought, and part being half-seas-over with drink. Sir Hugo clapped his hands and the narrow door in the purdah screen opened. Three girls entered the room, one dressed in a translucent saree, the other two in the bright gauzy skirts and tight satin jackets that left so little to the imagination, like the nautch-giils he'd seen in the bazaar earlier.
"My word!" he breathed. They were unutterably lovely, every one of 'em! Kohl outlined eyes, shy smiles and bright teeth, complexions clear and smooth, and as brown as pecan shells or as golden as wheat.
"This is Padmini," Sir Hugo said, indicating the one in the saree, who stood no higher than Alan's chin.
"Namaste, sahib," the girl whispered, though grinning with an impish expression.
"A Bengali, she is, Alan. Once you've had a Bengali woman, you're spoiled for anything else." Sir Hugo chuckled. "Draupadi. She's Rajput. And Apsara. Aptly named, too, for the playthings of Hindoo gods. Though I doubt she's Hindoo. From up north in the Oudh, I think. Maybe from the foothills. A little tigress. All can do a dance that'll set your blood to boiling. Like to see?"
"I don't know…" Alan sighed, feeling anything but lusty for once. All passion had been shouted or cried out of him. "Maybe some other time, sir."
Good Christ, is it me saying that?
"Too late to be wandering the streets, even in the English cantonments, Alan. If nothing else, accept my offer of bed and breakfast."
Draupadi was stirring slowly to the beat of the madals from the courtyard, smiling with heavy-lidded eyes full of promise, her extremely long, straight dark hair swishing maddeningly as far down as her fingertips, and Alan watched it sway. He transferred his gaze to Apsara, she of the dark, frizzy-curly hair and the golden wheat skin, who gazed at him with such a welcoming, open-mouthed smile.
"Er… hmmm," he pondered.
"Come, Alan," Sir Hugo demanded. "I know you of old, my dear son. What's worse, you know me. I'd never cut my nose off to spite my face. Nor would I turn down such exquisite quim just because I bore a grudge against my host. And I doubt if you would, either."
"Ah…" Alan tried to reply.
"I have a lot to make up to you for, Alan," his father said, coming close to his side to speak privately. "Maybe I never can, like you suspect. I'd buy you that bloody trap and pony, if I thought you still wanted it. But right now, this is the best I have to offer. And it may be your last chance before you sail off out of my life again. Safer than some bazaari-randi* too, and won't cost you tuppence."
*market-whores
"Hmmm," Alan speculated at last, "don't suppose your band knows 'When First I Gazed in Chloe's Eyes,' would they?"
"Hardly!" Sir Hugo barked out a short laugh.
"Ah, well," Alan finally allowed, sinking back to the carpet and reclining against one of those impossibly thick and round barrel-shaped pillows.
With a crook of his finger, Sir Hugo summoned Padmini to join him. Alan crooked his own finger at Apsara, who beamed even wider, and seemed to slink to his side with the lithe grace of a panther, her patchouli and sandalwood scent enveloping him like her gauze chudder as she drew the headcloth about their faces to share a brief nuzzle before pouring him another full bumper of wine.
"Apsara?" he said. "Alan."
"Ahk-lahn," she breathed, taking a sip of his wine.
"My God in Heaven." He laughed with an anticipatory shudder of raw lust. "Mind you, Father," he said over Apsara's smooth young shoulder, "you have one bloody Hell of a lot to make up for, y'know."
"The evening's young," Sir Hugo replied softly. "My son." And Draupadi began her dance, her ankle bangles jangling.