The King's Privateer Read online

  “Couldn’t make a farthing on the China trade without it, Captain Chiswick,” Sir Hugo added. “The so-called Celestial Empire turns its nose up at most English wares. Oh, some Berlin goods, some English woolens go down well. Clocks, expensive gew-gaws and toys. But for bulk trade, as I’m sure Mister Twigg will agree, there’s little we may offer they would buy. Arrogant bastards.”

  “Gangetic opium, Bengali and Madrassi cotton from which they weave nankeen,” Twigg added lazily, with a wave of one lean hand. “I lay you any odds, sirs, that whatever Frenchmen are behind this nefarious business will be deep into the opium trade as well. So what better cargo for us, the profit besides? The stuff’s cheap as dirt, and goes for its weight in silver, damn near. From which profits, we shall outfit Sir Hugo’s battalion, and confound the plans of our foes. ’Tis only fitting, if one thinks about it for a moment.”

  “To opium!” Wythy proposed, raising his glass. “Opium, and lashes of silver!”

  Once they had drunk the health of the humble poppy, Twigg rose. “Well, that should do it for this evening, sirs. Sir Hugo, my thanks to you for a splendid repast. Whilst back in England, I despaired I’d ever eat as well as ever I did in India, and your khansamah is worthy of the Great Moghul’s. Should you tire of having to beat him when he goes ghazi on you, I’d admire to hire him as my personal cook.” Twigg didn’t even sound half disgruntled at being had.

  “So happy you enjoyed it, sir,” Sir Hugo replied courteously, knowing it was pretty much a gilt and be-shit compliment that Twigg was offering his hospitality, a covering for the bile he really felt.

  They filed down to the first floor entry hall to reclaim their hats, swords and canes prior to departure.

  “If you travel so well-armed, sir,” Sir Hugo seemed to come upon like an idle thought, “your ship Telesto stands a much better chance of making Macao than most. Your talk of opium … to enter better into the spirit of your venture, what would you say to allowing me to round up a few pounds of my own to purchase a few crates, to go with your cargo as well? Full charge on the carrying fee, of course.”

  “A few crates, aye, Sir Hugo,” Twigg smirked, and Alan suddenly realized why his father had seemed so pale and upset by the news about the Indiaman, the Macclesfield, disappearing. He’d probably had a ton or two of opium consigned into her!

  But just why should I expect the greedy old fart to not essay every avenue on the way to bloody showers of “blunt,” he wondered? Come to think of it, if it’s that bloody profitable, I wish I had a thousand pounds to purchase a share of the cargo for myself! It’s nothing that evil—it’s the backbone of the China trade. Twigg said so himself!

  “Bide awhile, Alan,” Sir Hugo bade just before he got out the door, “if you may excuse my son returning to the ship, Captain Ayscough. We have much to catch up on.”

  Oh, shit, Alan sighed inside. I should have known I’d not get away with a clean pair of heels.

  Chapter 4

  They repaired back to the upper level, to another room that was screened off from the dining area by a carved wood purdah screen that ran the whole width of the huge main salon. Sir Hugo shucked out of his regimentals, doffing red coat, waist-coat, rank gorget and neck-cloth. He kicked off his shoes and dropped his clothes willy-nilly, but there was a bearer there to catch them before they even hit the floor. The white powdered wig with the tight side-curls and short false queue went next as Sir Hugo unbuttoned his shirt and rolled up his sleeves.

  “Make yourself comfortable, lad,” he offered. There were no real chairs or couches in this room, so Alan wondered where he could indeed make himself comfortable. Sit on the floor, on the piles of richly brocaded pillows? On the intricate carpets?

  Yes, that was where Sir Hugo was seating himself, on a Bengali dhuree rug that held a dozen huge pillows, while one of the younger khitmatgars came trotting in with a folding table support about eight inches high made of ebony wood, and a second servitor fetched a huge brass table or tray (maybe it did duty as both, Alan thought) to sit atop it.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, take your ease!” Sir Hugo snapped. There, that tone in his voice was more like the scheming, petulant bastard that Lewrie had grown to know and despise. “You must be stifling in that neck-cloth.”

  The khitmatgars were back with another load of goodies to set upon the tray table. Wine and spirits, clay pipes and tobacco humidor, a bowl of fruit and some candied dates. Even some Persian muck they called halvah. Gauzy, diaphanous insect curtains were lowered over the wide windows to the balcony, whilst from outside …

  “For God’s sake, a band?” Alan grimaced as a set of native musicians hit their stride with something plaintively twanging, ululating, throbbing and thumping on sitars, flutes and madals. “You do live well, I’ll allow you that … Sir Hugo.”

  “Say ‘father,’ do, Alan,” Sir Hugo grunted.

  “Mine arse on a bandbox!” Alan snapped back.

  “Have it your own way, but sit the hell down and have some wine, at least,” Sir Hugo pressed in a reasonable tone.

  Alan heaved a heavy sigh and untied his neck-cloth, sank down to sit cross-legged on the cushions and took a glass of claret.

  There were a couple of tall candelabras made of brass between them, elaborate things fashioned from the arms and bodies of Hindoo gods and goddesses—thank the Lord most of ’em had eight or ten arms to hold that many candles. Off to either side, there were shallow charcoal braziers, now fuming with sandalwood incense amid some other aromas.

  “Keeps the mosquitos away,” Sir Hugo yawned. “Sandalwood, citron and patchouli. Christ knows what else. Better not to ask.”

  “If I’m delaying your retiring …” Alan offered, impatient to go.

  “Not at all. I can still keep up with the young bucks of the first head.” Sir Hugo smiled lazily, puffing on his pipe once more.

  “You always could, I grant you,” Alan agreed. “But then, you were damn near a charter-member of the Hell-Fire Club back in your early days, weren’t you?” he concluded with a suitably arch sneer.

  “And when did you become a regular churchgoer, my boy?” Sir Hugo replied. “God, if I only had penny to the pound of all the blunt I spent bailing you out of trouble, I’d still be a rich man!”

  “Wasn’t my caterwauling got you in debtor’s prison,” Alan sulked. “Wasn’t me damn near press-ganged me into the Navy so you could lay your hooks on the Lewrie fortune.”

  “And how is Grandmother Lewrie these days? Mistress Nuttbush now?”

  “Alive and kicking, spry as a pup.”

  “Her kind always was harder to kill than breadroom rats.”

  “Sounds like you considered it.”

  “Now you do me too much injustice, Alan m’dear.”

  “Oh, please!” Alan said, starting to rise, but Sir Hugo reached out and put a restraining hand on his arm.

  “Bide awhile, son,” he said, and for once, he sounded as if he was begging. Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby never begged. Alan made up his mind to stay for a while longer, if only to see him beg again.

  “How can you call me son?” Alan shot out, sure of his superior position over the older man for the first time in his life. “Aye, you sired me, that’s true, but when it came to being a father to me, you had your chance, and all I ever got from you was a cold shoulder, a snarl now and then. I wasn’t a son, I was an investment! Your hole-card to take the Lewrie trick once I was of an age to inherit and granny passed over. And soon as it looked like happening, you packed me off with that crimp Captain Bevan and had me off at sea, so I’d never even know there was a Lewrie family to inherit from! You told me my mother Elisabeth was a whore, dead at my birthing, that I had no family other than you, God pity me! You and Pilchard forging documents left, right and center to get what you wanted …”

  “Needed’s more like it,” Sir Hugo confessed with a deprecating shrug and a sip of his brandy.

  “Yes, you always needed money,” Alan pressed on harder, trying to get a rise out
of him, to puncture that slightly sad, but maddeningly calm demeanor. Damme, he thought, does the old bastard truly not have a sense of honor to shame? “And there was Belinda and Gerald, their inheritance you squandered before they came of age, too. How was your marriage to the Cockspur widow, your second wife?”

  “Bloody depressing most of the time. She was a termagant twit.” Sir Hugo chuckled slightly, and gave Alan a rueful grimace and a shake of his head in less than fond remembrance. “And how are Belinda and Gerald faring?”

  “What the …” Alan was rendered incapable of cogent speech by the man’s sang-froid. “As if you care!”

  “You’re right, I don’t, but I thought it would satisfy my curiosity about them,” Sir Hugo replied, tippling another sip of brandy. “Bloody awful children, right from the start.”

  “Yet … yet, you treated them as the rightful heirs, and me as the barely tolerated … bastard!” Alan barked. “Well, Goddamn you!”

  “Of course I did. Agnes’ bloody sisters were still alive to plague me, and to all intents and purposes, you were the little bastard, the by-blow of a youthful indiscretion. You wanted for nothing. What else did you desire? A damned pony and cart?”

  “Yes, yes I bloody well did!” Alan howled with rage. “I wanted”—Alan was so full of rage, of tears, that he had to get out of the place before he killed the man!—“I wanted a father! I wanted a mother!” He shot to his feet to flee.

  “You had a mother!” Sir Hugo roared, getting to his feet and seizing Alan, who struggled to get away. “She died. And, God help you, you had me for a father, such as I was.”

  “You told me she was a whore!” Alan screamed.

  “She was!” Sir Hugo screamed back. “Know why I ran off with her jewelry in Holland? Because I caught her in bed with another officer of my regiment who’d made the crossing with us after we eloped!”

  “You lying hound!”

  “You’ve only heard your granny’s side, boy!” Sir Hugo ranted. “How sweet and innocent she was. How I seduced her for her money and left her without a penny. Well, let me tell you, if she’d lived, I’d have lost count of how many times she’d have put cuckold’s horns on me. God help me, I’d be here in India after all, ’cause it’d be cheaper’n trying to get a bill of divorce through Parliament! I might have ended up on the gallows for killing her and her latest! Do … you … under … stand … me … you little … jingle-brains?”

  The last was punctuated with some massive shaking that almost loosened Alan’s teeth in his head each time his jaw snapped shut.

  “Elisabeth could be the sweetest, liveliest, most alluring damn woman ever I did see, Alan,” Sir Hugo relented at last, easing his tone and his grip. “But I found out I couldn’t trust her out of my sight! Oh, we went to Holland, yes. Her daddy Dudley Lewrie cut her off without a farthing. So we lived on my Army pay and what little was left of my family estate after my elder brother got through with it. Mortgaged to the bloody hilt! And do you really think I wanted to enter the Army when I was sixteen? Like bloody Hell, I did! I didn’t get much of a choice, either.”

  “But that doesn’t excuse …” Alan almost sobbed.

  “I know, son, nothing excuses it,” Sir Hugo shuddered. “I’ve treated you like dirt your whole life. Thought I was doing well by you, by my own lights. And nothing’s going to make up for it. But I’d like you to at least understand me. If you’re going to despise me to the end of time, then at least do it for the right reasons, if nothing else.”

  “You miserable bastard!” Alan hissed, on the verge of weeping, of falling on his father’s shoulder and crying his eyes out. Either that or fetching a curved tulwar, a Persian sword, off the wall and hacking his head off. Sir Hugo put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a soft pat—perhaps as close as he would ever get to empathy or comforting.

  “Thomas de Crecy,” Sir Hugo muttered heavily, turning away. “Good, honest, cheerful, unfailing Tommy. My fellow officer in the 4th. ’Twas him arranged the minister and all for us to wed.”

  “Aye, I remember,” Alan said with a snort and a hiccup. “But it was a false justice married you. I guess he didn’t know you needed real clergy. Just a sham to get her into your bed!”

  “No need of that, Alan,” Sir Hugo replied, grinning. “Elisabeth had the shortest pair of heels of any girl I’d ever seen. We’d already been bedded. And I want you to know this, laddy. I loved her so dearly I was totally besotted. Money be damned, I really did want her to be my wife! Ah, but Tommy de Crecy knew what he was doing. Came over to Holland with us, brought my last installment of Army pay. Stayed with us in the same town, to see us through until Elisabeth’s family came ’round and accepted the marriage. Do you see what he had in mind?”

  “No, frankly,” Alan replied, blowing his nose.

  “Well, there we were, rapidly running out of money, ’cause your grandfather Dudley Lewrie was tighter with a shilling than a Maltese pimp, and he’d never admit the match. But there was always good old Tommy. Tommy, with his little loans. Tommy with his lord’s purse. Tommy with his kindhearted generosity!” Sir Hugo turned somber, and just a trifle angry, even after all these years as he related this. Or, as Alan suspected, he was a consummate actor and was putting on a sublime theatric.

  “You mean he was the one caught in bed with her?” Alan asked, dubious still.

  “He’d wanted her all along, aye,” Sir Hugo grumbled, and bent over the tray table to pour them another stiff refill of brandy. His face was older, heavier, lined; the skin mottled by years of too much drink, too much tropic sun in the last few. The fine shock of light brown hair was receded, and there were liver spots on the exposed scalp. And, Alan noticed as he poured the spirit, so were the backs of his hands. Sir Hugo St. George Willoughby was no longer the fashionable buck of St. James’ Place, White’s, Almack’s. He was a slack old man, or near enough to it not to matter, gone ropey and croupey.

  “He was waiting for the moment when Elisabeth was at her weakest, I suppose,” Sir Hugo maundered on. “When we both realized the enormity of what we’d done, and that things were most definitely not going to turn aright. Knighthood or not, she was married to a penniless captain of foot, currently unemployed. Trading down from good lodgings to the cheapest we could find, and still wondering where the next meal was coming from. I’m sure she wished she could repent and go back to her family. And she always was an impulsive girl. What I loved about her most, really. What better moment for good old Captain The Honourable Thomas de Crecy to inform her that the whole thing was a sham I’d dreamed up to get hold of her family’s money, and don’t ye know … he’d ‘just learned of it’ from another officer in our regiment, and he simply had to rescue her from me!”

  “But …” Alan started to say, then shut his trap. He’d never thought of his father as anything but inhuman. Never allowed that he could be hurt, or feel pain (especially since he’d been so good at handing pain out to others so liberally). This brutal bastard should be incapable of sorrow, shouldn’t he, he asked himself?

  “Elisabeth was carrying you by then, making the whole thing worse. And Tommy swore he’d always loved her more than life, couldn’t stand to see her in my brutal, callous clutches. All the Sturm und Drang so popular in women’s novels these days, all that Gothick fright and flummery! Well, don’t ye know, she spooned it up like cream. The brainless little baggage!” Sir Hugo related, sinking down onto his pile of pillows and stretching out on his side. “Probably told her he’d do right by her and the child. Maybe he really meant to; I’ll never know. But he came back from Holland without her, after a few more months. After she began to show, and he couldn’t trot her out to anything elegant.”

  “Hold on, though,” Alan objected. “You still ended up stealing her jewels and abandoning her, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did,” Sir Hugo nodded with not a twinge of shame. “’Twas the only way I knew how to get back at her after I caught them. Well, I didn’t exactly catch them bareback riding.”

&n
bsp; “Like I was with Belinda when you arranged to ‘catch’ me.”

  “Hmm, no, nothing that flagrant,” Sir Hugo snickered. “She was in her bedgown. Untied, mind, and nary a sight of stockings, stays or corset to be found. Tommy’d dressed so fast he’d buttoned his waist-coat to his breeches flap! Oh, ’twas a devil of a row we had. After I’d horse-whipped him down the stairs, she lit into me. Mind you also, this was the first I knew that we really weren’t married! So all I could do was rant and swear Tommy was lying, but she wasn’t having a bit of it. And d’you know, lad? But termagant as she was at that moment, I had a sudden premonition of just how ghastly life was going to be with her from that moment on. No trusting her with other men ’thout a leash on. Tears, sulks and screaming fits for the rest of our natural lives. Ah, but suddenly it struck me! If we’re not married … if Tommy diddled the both of us, then I was free as larks! All I could think of was ‘Thank bloody Christ this is over with,’ and hit the road that night. Singing with relief, as I remember.”

  “But you took her last money!”

  “She had Tommy’s money,” Sir Hugo sneered, then rose up on his elbow to look Alan square in the face. “God knows I loved her more than anything or anyone else since, Alan. But I really did need the money devilish bad! And with Tommy lusting after her, he’d replace what I’d taken, and be damned to both of them—they deserved each other when you come right down to it.”

  “Jesus, you really don’t have any shame!” Alan snapped, getting righteous again.

  “Too damn poor to have any shame. You want to see shameless, you should have been in my shoes with Agnes Cockspur.”