by Barbara Dan
When Patience still looked puzzled, Lydia managed a weak laugh. "After all, you did get Izzy to eat her oatmeal."
Chapter Thirty-Two
New London, Connecticut ~ February 21, 1815
Since daybreak the British and American ships had exchanged gun salutes, honoring the peace treaty signed at Ghent on Christmas Eve. News had only just reached the States, and at long last the hostilities had come to an end.
Midmorning Admiral Hotham, who had replaced Admiral Hardy as commander of the blockading squadron, sailed into the Thames River on the Superb, Captain Garland at the helm. Captains Hotham and Garland, plus officers and crew, appeared in full military regalia on gleaming decks and were piped ashore. In a great show of courtesy, a New London band struck up the British royal anthem.
Everyone in New London turned out for the celebration, from the eldest citizen, Mrs. Merribelle Witherspoon, age ninety-one, on down to its latest arrival, two-day-old Daniel Orkin, who slept through the entire proceedings in his mother's arms.
After a lengthy welcome by Mayor Jeremiah G. Brainerd, Colonel Rathbun and General Jedidiah Huntington added a few cordial words. Admiral Hotham, never a man to bear a grudge, returned eloquent words of gratitude for the townspeople's hearty welcome.
Meanwhile five more British ships sailed up the Thames into port. Captains Aylmer of the Pactolus, Jayne of the Arab, Gordon of the Narcissus, plus the commanders of the brigs Tenedos and Despatch, landed amidst similar fanfare. Among those disembarking were the American heroes, Commodore Stephen Decatur and Lieutenant Shaw, both captured in Long Island Sound and well known to the good people of New London.
Mayor Brainerd welcomed one and all and, owing to the inclement weather, adjourned to the courthouse, where the town officials had arranged a festival and ball. Hundreds of citizens thronged the streets, rejoicing loudly, while the combined musical talents of the New London and Groton Heights bands performed a rousing medley of patriot American songs.
During the townfolk's confused exodus to the courthouse, ten Connecticut men, who had served aboard the USS President in Commodore Decatur's last battle of the war, came down the ramp of the Narcissus.
Robert Harris, his wife, and eleven children were among the first to spot a tall, lanky seaman leaving the British ship.
"Oh, look, Father, there's Uncle Bruce!" said little Mary Harris, jumping up and down.
"Aye, that's our Bruce." Harris blinked to dispel a sudden mist from his eyes, not wishing his family to mistake a cinder in his eye for sentiment; then he led the Harris clan forward.
Bruce grinned broadly, embracing each one. "'Tis grand seein' your family turn out in full force." He took Mrs. Harris by the shoulders and planted a hearty kiss on each cheek.
The good woman blushed and glanced at her husband as if worried that she might bestir his jealous nature. "Behave yourself, Bruce." She cuffed him gently on the arm. "Save some of your devil-may-care shenanigans for your wife."
"I've plenty and to spare," he laughed, dragging Robert Harris into a bear hug. He kissed his crusty old friend and laughed at Harris's grimace. "Aye, 'tis grand to be home again!"
"Come along, lad," Robbie urged, recovering from MacGregor's physical assault. "No need to be missin' out on the festivities."
Girded about by the Harris's admiring offspring, Bruce was swept along on a current of teasing questions about his exploits at sea.
"Did you send many ships to the bottom?" Christopher asked eagerly.
Bruce laughed. "Mostly I just tried to stay afloat." As they entered the courthouse, he scanned the room for a certain blond beauty. Alas, with all the ladies wore bonnets decorated with flowers, feathers and fancy ribbands, Bruce soon realized it would be easier to pick out a pelican in a flock of seagulls than to find his wife.
The band struck up a spritely dance number, and several couples flitted past. Where Bruce and the Harrises stood, they were packed in tight.
"Robbie! Do you see any sign of my wife?" he asked, revealing a one track mind.
"There she is!" little Susan chirped. "In the corner with Mrs. Trowbridge." She pointed. "And there's Izzy."
Bruce spied Mrs. Rafferty, standing at the refreshment table, pouring punch. A glimpse of a plump, dark-haired cherub being dandled on the knee of a woman wearing a lavender-blue bonnet was enough to make his heart do a handspring.
"Lydia!" Shouldering his way across the dance floor, doing a quick two-step, Bruce rushed forward and swept Lydia and the baby into his arms. After an off-handed greeting for his former landlady, he swept Lydia into a passionate kiss.
She laughed, struggling in his fierce embrace to keep from getting crushed. "Bruce, control yourself," she gasped, coming up for air. She handed Izzy to the woman who'd been a friend to her through thick and thin. "Mrs. Trowbridge, could you watch Isobella for a minute?"
Bruce's face registered delight and surprise. "Trowbridge? You mean—?"
"Yes, darling! She and Doctor Trowbridge got married on Christmas eve."
Bea Trowbridge's eyes twinkled. "We eloped."
"Congratulations," Bruce beamed, but his eyes were still riveted on his wife's sweet face. "Ah, Lydia, how I've missed you!"
"I missed you, too." And she gave herself wholeheartedly to Bruce's demanding embrace.
Her memory going a good way back, Bea Trowbridge shielded her two friends from public scrutiny the best she could. "Have a care, Bruce," she warned. Hugging Isobella to her ample bosom, she jiggled her till the baby's black ringlets bounced. Finally she glanced around and discovered that she and Isobella had been deserted. "I guess I'm your honorary grandmother," she told the grinning cherub, "for now."
She was still sitting in the corner, entertaining the charmer in her lap when Dr. Henry Trowbridge joined her a short while later.
Bea looked into her husband's rascally gaze. "Have you seen the MacGregors, dear?"
The old doctor gave her a wink. "Indeed, I have! Out behind the Courthouse. I gave them our house key and suggested their reunion might be more comfortable in our parlor."
Beatrice ducked her head and blushed, as giddy as any new bride. Henry and she hit it off well, and he always had the correct prescription, whether for the young or very old.
"I love you, old man," she whispered happily.
Henry reached out and gently squeezed Bea's plump little hand.
Isobella looked up at the two grey heads lightly touching above her own, her young head already full of curious thoughts. An intuitive child, she was also practical and self-centered. Her tummy was full, she'd been burped, and since the world seemed an altogether pleasant place to be, Izzy bubbled a sigh of contentment, closed her eyes and promptly went to sleep.
* * *
Lydia tiptoed into the Trowbridges' front parlor ahead of her husband. Removing her bonnet, she darted a furtive glance around the cozy room. "Are you sure about this?"
Whistling a highland ditty, Bruce closed the parlor doors and, going to the front windows, drew shut the rose patterned drapes. Still warming up musically, Bruce set a couple of logs on the grate and stirred up the dwindling fire.
"Chilly in here." He rubbed his hands together, creating friction, until they grew toasty warm. "Ah!" Spotting a glass crystal decanter and glasses set on the small round table in the middle of the room, he crossed to pour them each a small jigger. "Just what the doctor ordered."
Lydia accepted the brandy and sipped slowly. "I feel strange, coming here for such a purpose," she said hesitantly, though thrilled to see him. "I envisioned your homecoming somewhat differently."
"It's one-thirty in the afternoon, Lydia. We can celebrate my homecoming again tonight," he offered, peeling off her pelisse. Out of habit, his fingers began working the buttons on the back of her dress.
Lydia closed her eyes and began a similar feverish search for buttons, aided by memory and a well-warmed libido. What started out as a leisurely seduction soon turned frantic. By the time Bruce reached the twenty-second button, he had ha
d it with women's fashions! He was ready to toss everything out the window, including her whalebone corset, four petticoats, a pair of ruffled drawers, and her silk chemise. But in deference to the woman he loved, he restrained himself.
"Oh, Lydia." Bruce fell to one knee before her, as she reclined against the horsehair chaise lounge, panting. His warm hands ran up and down shapely calves in silk stockings. He snapped a lace garter lightly against her lower thigh and buried his face beneath yards of rustling material.
"Dammit, woman, where the hell are you?" he sputtered, finally coming up for air.
Lydia laughed and, freeing the tapes at her waist, wriggled out of her petticoats. She presented her backside, revealing a fetching glimpse of slender thighs and a sweetly rounded derrière.
"Unlace me, Bruce," she whispered, feeling enormously wicked for letting him undress her in a strange parlor. "Careful! Remember, I have to get back into these later."
In record time, Bruce learned the art of unlacing a woman whose libido was so hot her corset strings nearly scorched in his fevered hands. He set her free, skimmed the chemise over her head, and sent her drawers flying across the room, just missing the stuffed owl on the bookcase.
Lydia bounced, shimmied and vamped her way into his arms, so intent was she on giving him a proper welcome that he was still taking off his trousers when she straddled his sprawled body atop the chaise.
He caught her generous firm breasts as she landed at a crazy angle on top of him.
"Slow down, Lydia, we just got here!" he laughed.
"You just got here, Bruce," she corrected. "I've been here for months, just waiting to get you alone." Her breasts puckered as they rubbed against the dark fur on his chest, and she began to bathe his face and neck with hungry impatient kisses. "Three long months," she said breathlessly.
Bruce had seen that look in her eyes before. Familiar, too, was the fine sheen of perspiration on her pouting upper lip. What little restraint he possessed completely shattered. As Venus's hot hypnotic spell descended on them, his lips met hers, insatiable with desire, each being nourished by the other's love. Possessively, hungrily, they embraced, instinctively knowing they were destined to spend a lifetime together, making love. Hot impatient hands played over her writhing curves, and Lydia pressed against him provocatively, both driven wild with waiting.
"If you don't do something quick, I'm going to scream, Bruce," she warned, her tongue fiercely plundering his mouth. She knocked him over, and the couch sagged with a creaking groan. She had a one-track mind, and Bruce was it.
"Take me now . . . Now, Bruce . . . now!” she panted, crazy with longing.
"Lydia darling, at least let me . . . get my clothes off," he begged. He lifted her from the couch, let his breeches fall, and shook them loose. Meanwhile Lydia hung around his neck like a great sucker fish, one leg hooked around his hairy leg, while she rubbed and shimmied up and down against him.
Like a great sunami he came down on top and laid her gently beneath him. She arched, seeking and offering paradise, and he entered in. The room whirled. Caught in a maelstrom of wild passion, Lydia and Bruce moved in unison, racing toward the outer limits, where the currents were strongest. He moved above her, his face transfixed by unspeakable pleasure. Swept along with a powerful undertow, she met the force of his love with sighs of joy. A thrilling surge, delicious and drenching, captured her, as rapturous waves rising from the depths of the sea sent them spiraling out of control in a series of silent explosions. They climbed the crest together, and it was life-giving, exquisite and wild.
Bruce's release came with a shout and a lunge. The shuddering force made his teeth grind and rattle like windowpanes in a hurricane gale. For an instant, he thought his heart would stop, his very life and breath snuffed. Every time they came together, their passion became more powerful, and in that moment, he never loved her more.
If die he must to have her, then death be damned!
Waves of ecstasy crashed, sweeping her far out to sea. Gasping at the splendor of it, she felt herself riding back to shore on the white spume of a warm tide. She laughed aloud for joy. Oh, that such a love should be hers! It rendered her speechless. What Bruce had given her was the gift of perfect love. Total, absolute and unconditional.
An abiding sense of fulfillment washed over her, flooding her with the most incredible happiness. She likened their love to a mighty island fortress, rising up out of the sky and towering above a vast ocean. Their love, the bedrock of their marriage, would withstand the buffeting tempest of a thousand—nay, ten thousand—storms.
In blissful rapture, Lydia clung to the love of her life, the only constant in a world spun dizzily out of control. As they floated through a majestic meteor shower, tears of delight gave way to sensuous laughter.
"Welcome home, darling!" she congratulated him, stroking his perspiring brow.
"Aye, wife," he grinned down at her, "the war's finally over, and not a minute too soon."
"That may be, but the celebration's just begun."
So while the rest of New London fired off cannons, danced in the streets, and consumed many tankards of ale, Lydia and Bruce pursued their own kind of flag-waving that afternoon.
At last Bruce waved the white flag. He simply couldn't go another round, despite his wife's exaggerated claims about his sexual prowess. Heart pounding, he gathered Lydia's limp curves against his body, and like a giant predator carrying its mate, he crawled to the thick woolen carpet before the hearth and dropped down. Purring like a kitten, Lydia pillowed her head against his shoulder. Drowsily they nuzzled and stroked and talked while the logs burned low.
Suddenly the Trowbridges' clock chimed four o'clock, startling them back to reality.
Lydia lifted her head in the darkened room. "Where has the afternoon gone?" she yawned, listening to her husband's heart and the soft pendulum on the mantel timepiece. It was incredible, how little attention she paid to clocks since her marriage. A small domestic revolution had taken her by storm. She smiled in gentle confusion, crediting Bruce for giving her more important things to live her life for than always being busy.
Bruce roused himself and grinned, surveying the once tidy parlor. Lydia's clothes were strewn everywhere, pitched helter-skelter, while his were in a reasonably neat pile. Rising, he began to collect her apparel. A stocking on top of the chandelier? He eyed his wife.
"Tsk-tsk. Such slovenly habits, Lydia," he chided, retrieving a garter looped gracefully over a porcelain doll on the corner knick-knack stand.
Lydia stood up, her body bathed in amber firelight, her skin glowing. Her hair shimmered about her, pale gold. 'Twas a mental picture Bruce would carry with him always.
"Lydia, Lydia . . . How I love you." He knelt at her feet, laden with an armload of silks and lace and brocaded gown.
Lydia smiled down at her hero, returning the garments he had plucked from her in the heat of passion. No poet, she thought, could ever describe the way this man makes me feel.
She reached out, caressing his shoulder in a sweetly seductive benediction. And as Bruce lifted her foot and began rolling a silk stocking up her calf, her eyes glazed, and her head arched on her slender alabaster neck, her lips parting in dreamy remembrance.
Bruce looked up from his husbandly duties and saw the telltale symptoms of a woman whose voracious appetite would always require his constant devotion.
"Not now, Lydia," he groaned, his touch turning brusque on her leg. "We must hurry before someone comes looking for us."
Lydia gave him a disappointed pout and imperiously held out her arms. Bruce came to his feet, persuaded that she wouldn't take "no" for an answer. As he lowered his head to give her a dutiful kiss, he sighed in resignation.
Unexpectedly, she laughed—a real belly tickler. "Oh, Bruce!" She giggled like a school girl made tipsy on too much dandelion wine. "Just hand me my clothes, so I can get dressed."
By five o'clock the MacGregors were back at the Courthouse to collect their fussy baby before she p
itched a fit. Joining the Harrises for supper, they fed Isobella, then hurried back for the evening's festivities.
The evening sparkled with animated conversation, encouraged by the popping of champagne corks and numerous toasts led by Commodore Decatur and various New London dignitaries. Lieutenant Shaw and other returning naval heroes gallantly danced with all the ladies, sharing the honors with several British officers in attendance. Lydia and Bruce danced a couple of numbers together, while Bea Trowbridge entertained Isobella—or was it the other way around?
Finally the band retired after playing for hours to appease an insatiable crowd.
As Bruce led Lydia off the dance floor, one of the musicians spotted him.
"Bruce MacGregor!" the trumpeteer called in a loud voice.
Bruce looked around, spotted a friendly face, and smiled. "Roger Brewster, how are you? How's the wife and kids?" He shook hands and introduced Lydia to Brewster, who introduced them to the other musicians standing nearby.
"Bruce, we've been playing so long our arms are ready to drop off. Could you step in and give us a tune on the bagpipes?" Brewster asked.
Laughing good naturedly, Bruce shook his head. "Sorry, men, my pipes are at home. And what's the wail of the pipes without me kilts?" he added in his fine brogue.
Lydia leaned her breast against his brawny arm and raised up confidingly on tiptoe. "Actually, Bruce, your pipes and kilt are only two blocks away, at the Harrises."
Bruce's brows arched in surprise. "You gave my pipes away?" he asked, his dark scowl accusing her of vile treachery.
"No, of course not, darling! I only lent your pipes to Christopher, because he expressed a desire to learn. After all, you were gone," Lydia said. "And Mrs. Harris has your kilt, because I wanted to order more of your family plaid, so I can dress our children in it."
The band appealed to Bruce again, and he acquiesced. "All right, I'll spell you fellows. Just give us a few minutes."
Soon Christopher Harris came racing back inside the Courthouse with the MacGregor pipes and tartan, and Bruce, now properly attired, broke out the old pipes. He made a few practice runs up and down the scale, and proceeded to hold the townfolk of New London spellbound.
