The King`s Commission - Dewey Lambdin

"Oh bloody-" Alan sighed.

"Could you wait that long, Alan?"

"I'd hoped not to," he growled. "I mean, God knows what could happen in the meantime, half a world away, even if the war ends and I pay off at home."

"You might meet someone more pleasing to your nature in that time, Alan," Anne said. "Lucy could meet someone else, and I know how much the thought of that causes you pain. But, perhaps it is not meant to be. No matter how fond we desire something or someone, there is always a just reason that we do not attain our wishes. We must trust that things may turn out for the best, though the pangs of our heart blind us to admitting the truth of it."

"You know, Anne," Alan scoffed, "every time I've ever heard that line of reasoning, it's been from someone who already had what they wanted. Like telling the poor that eating regular's a bother, when you get right down to it."

He was surprised that Anne chuckled with amusement at his statement, and after a moment, he had to smile in spite of his feelings of doom and gloom.

"It was presumptuous of me to preach at you, I'll own," Anne said with a smile. "It was the way you said it that tickled me. You must know I meant no cruelty at your disappointment."

"Oh, I know," he said, patting the back of her hand without thinking, and was surprised for a second time when she did not draw back from his touch. "At least I can still laugh. I think. I'm sure we've both heard what other people think's best for us. Off in some future we'll find something or someone better than what we wish now. But Lord, it's a wrench! T'will make a better man of ya, me lad!"

She laughed once more at the pompous tone, which he had meant to mock his father's pronouncements.

"You sound like my own father," Anne confessed, still not trying to disengage his touch. "You not so much younger than I, and I can assure you it wasn't so long ago I suffered these self-same pangs, in the name of love, and heard the same platitudes."

"That is comfort, coming from you, anyway, Anne."

"Though I must admit that what I yearned for, and what I have now, are close to the same sort of pleasurable contentment," she finally said, and slowly drew her hand back to her lap.

"It's just that I don't believe I've ever been in love like this before, Anne," Alan went on, fiddling with his own glass and topping up their drinks from the sweaty pitcher of wine. "Come to think on it, I'm not sure I've ever been in love at all."

"So jaded, so young." She shook her head in mock sadness.

"I ran with a rather woolly crowd back in London. Love was just a game one played to learn how to do it at parties. We were more interested in the baser aspects, and if we fell in love, then it happened two or three times a week. And then, the Navy's terribly down on it."

"Dear me, perhaps I should warn the family after all. I wish it was women who could treat love so casually and prosper."

"I've become a much more responsible person since joining the Navy, mind," Alan pointed out, with a grin.

"Oh, sailors always do turn saintly, do they not. Then tell me, pray, if you are so reformed, why would you associate with Betty Hillwood?"

"Ah. Eh?"

"Those were her lodgings I saw you leaving. Or do you know another party in that building?" Anne asked, not quite sternly, but not exactly amused, either. "That would not endear you to the Beaumans, should they learn of it. Not from me, Alan, surely. But perhaps you should consider reform, if you wish Lucy's hand."

Good Christ, she's got me by the short and curlies! he thought wildly. Had she led him on with all the hand-holding, to see if he was going to rise to her bait? Had the Beaumans put her on him to smoke him out, and had he blown the gaff to the bloody horizon?

When in doubt, lie like blazes, he decided.

"I made her acquaintance a year ago," Alan replied, trying to toss it off lightly. "And she was at your father-in-law's party. She invited me to tea, with the hint that some shore lodgings could be obtained cheaply between voyages. But she really is the most vindictive person I ever did see. And damme, but I was the only guest at what I thought was to be a tea. Frankly, she more than hinted at some fondness she said she'd developed for me. Not my sort, really. I heard more scandal in half an hour than I'd heard in London in a month."

"It sounds innocent enough," Anne commented with a skeptical cast to her features.

"I have already admitted to you that I'm no calf's-head in relations with the ladies, but I doubt a bosun's mate'd be that desperate," he told her with what he hoped was a disarming grin of rough honesty. "If I would have consort to answer brute nature, I'd do better than Mrs. Hillwood, surely. Excuse me if I distress you with my choice of words, Anne, but I'd like you to understand me plain."

"I am not shocked, Alan," she said finally, shaking her head. "You would have to speak much plainer to rival anything I've heard in what passes for genteel conversation in the Indies. I must tell you, I was pained to recognize you leaving her gate. I would not like to think that your talk of true love and your eagerness to pay court to Lucy was a fraud, based on mercenary designs on the Beauman guineas."

This mort reads me like an open book! he thought.

"As you said yourself, one must always consider the family as well as the young lady," Alan said, scooting his chair up closer to the table for more intimacy for his confession. "I have no lands, no rents, and I'd be a fool to think Lucy and I could live on moonbeams. But with Lucy's portion, and my inheritance, the land could come, and I can't deny that the thought of what is necessary to keep her in her proper station hasn't crossed my mind. I don't want to sound harsh, but reality has a way of being harsh. I'd not even persist if I had no hopes of providing for her. And you mustn't doubt the depth of feeling I hold for Lucy!"

"I love her dearly as well," Anne relented. "So you must see my concern that she isn't fooled and her heart broken by someone who cares more for her dowry than her feelings. No, I don't doubt your affection for her, and I'm sure she has high regard for you as well, though it will be years before she may realize… I just don't want to see her hurt, that's all, Alan. Nor would I wish to see you hurt."

"So you are saying I should not aspire to too much too soon?" Alan asked, frankly puzzled by her statement, and her sad look. "Or is there something else I should know? A serious rival?"

"Just that you should learn to be patient," Anne said with an expression that was close to misery, and their hands found each other again in unspoken sympathy, and this time her fingers wrapped around his firmly. "And don't close yourself off from all the other young ladies you may encounter in the time you have to wait. I don't say you should behave without license, but you have time to be sure of your feelings and your desires before committing yourself. Once wed, it's not a thing one may change. If one makes a mistake, one has to make the best of it, even if it's sometimes unpleasant."

He gave her fingers a squeeze in commiseration, and she responded with a firm grip on his. "I'm sorry you didn't get what you wanted, or what you thought you'd have, Anne."

"What?" she snapped, almost jerking free of him. "Certainly not!"

"You sounded so bitter before. I thought you spoke from experience," he told her softly. She was trying to tell him something, and he didn't know quite what she meant; a warning that he was wasting his time with Lucy for some unknown reason, and telling him to spare himself some future pain? That he would never be truly considered for Lucy's hand? Whatever it was, he was grateful to her for trying to express herself. And he felt a flash of sympathy for her, married to Hugh Beauman, who had not been her true choice, it seemed, if he read her hints correctly. And then she had found comfort with that Captain Mclntyre, or so Mrs. Hillwood said. Had she been ready to run off and leave Hugh Beauman for him before he died? She was a proper lady, not given to aimless amours for the sake of amusement or quick gratification, a woman with two children to think about, and a place in society she would lose. She must have been deeply in love, he decided.

"Not bitter, Alan," she finally said after a long silence. "I am content. I'm sorry if I gave you a wrong impression. I thank you for your kind intentions, but they aren't necessary, though I think more of you now for saying what you did. There's more to you than I first thought. The girl who gets you shall be lucky, if she knows how to keep you interested."

"The right girl wouldn't have much trouble, if I let my heart rule, instead of my brain. Too much pondering is bad for you."

"And too little, dear sir, is just as bad." She grinned quickly. "Now, I'm sure your captain has need of your talents, and I must be on my way home. And when next I see Lucy, I shall praise you to the skies, if you are certain in your affections."

"Praise away!" Alan laughed and rose to dig into his coin purse for the reckoning. "With such an ally, how could I worry? If you will keep me current with what the Beaumans think of me."

"I shall," she promised. "And should you wish to discuss the progress of your suit with someone who truly likes you, you have but to drop me a note, and I shall make time for you. Feel free to call on me at any time should you have need."

He walked her out to her carriage and handed her in.

It was only after he was ensconced in "The Grapes" near the cold fireplace with a pint mug of beer at his lips that he thought again about what implications Anne Beauman had left unsaid. Surely, Lucy was daft about him. But what had she meant by describing Lucy's feelings as only "high regard"? Anne had warned him off Betty Hillwood, but had left the barn door wide open should he find someone else to dally with, as long as his intentions were sure, had practically shoved him into sampling what the wide world had to offer before he made his final choice and gave up his freedom.

Oh, surely not, Alan thought. She couldn't be suggesting that she and I… Lewrie, you're cunt-struck! If they smile at you, you want to put the leg over right then-it don't signify they want you. Best put that thought out of your lust-maddened little mind. Let's not try to bull every bit of mutton in the entire Christian world! Besides being related to Lucy, Anne's a real lady, no matter how unhappy her marriage is.

If ladies were willing, Alan Lewrie would be the first in line to alleviate their unhappiness. He had almost cut his milk-teeth on the ones who cast about for comfort and pleasure, but to work at seducing a properly respectable woman who had no mutual wish to initiate an affair had always struck him as a caddish deceit. Damnit all, he thought, I've some scruples, don't I? (Hell, maybe I really do, after all.) Why ruin a lady's reputation, and get an angry husband chasing me with pistol or sword, when there's battalions of 'em trailing their colors, just waiting for a rake like me to give 'em the eye? Not Anne-she's not one to give anyone a tumble or two and then walk away. Nor is Lucy, bless her. Right, I've had my fun for now. Let's do up our breeches and keep 'em done up, Lewrie lad. No more Betty Hillwood, no thoughts of Anne. Concentrate on Lucy.

The decision made him feel more grown up, more in control of his urges and his choices in life, though he doubted he would remain a celibate, but that was a different matter. And as he finished his beer, he could congratulate himself that he was finally becoming an adult with a clearer idea of what he wanted in life.