The Baltic Gambit

by Dewey Lambdin

  “Off to a new ship, are ye, sir?” the garrulous old tiler said as Lewrie stepped through the anteroom for the doors to the walled-off courtyard. “Well, I reckon ye’ll give them damned Rooskies a good bash on th’ noggin, hey, sir? Make way fer a fightin’ captain, ye younkers,” the old fellow barked at an incoming pack of Lieutenants and Midshipmen. “Part like the Red Sea fer Moses, there, an’ git ye in. There’s a mob o’ others waitin’, so don’t git yer hopes too high. Standin’ room only, an’ don’t tread on nobody’s boot tips, neither, mind, har har.”

  Equally galling were the smiles and appreciative looks from the many civilians ’round the environs of Whitehall. England might be all alone against France, without allies, and threatened by a fresh set of enemies, the war’s length and cost might be wearying, yet . . . the Navy would set things right, the Royal Navy; aye, the Navy and Nelson! The people who doffed their hats, the ladies who inclined their heads with grins, imagined Lewrie off to save them.

  Why else was that naval fellow so grim-faced, and walking quite so quickly? Surely eager to board his ship and fillet anyone who dared challenge Great Britain! Why, the angry stamping of his boots denoted dread determination, egad! See how his hands flex so on the hilt of his sword, and all? Damn my eyes, wasn’t he that Lewrie chap, by God? Then God help the Roosians! Maps, and books, just making ready . . .

  Capt. Alan Lewrie, RN (sure to unemployed ’til the dawn of the next century!) fumed his way back to his rooms, blackly contemplating how he might trail Nepean home some dark night and throttle him for his haughty and brusque dismissal; how he’d go about challenging the next sniggerer or smirker to a duel, and how much pleasure he’d find in the skewering or shooting of the fool!

  Damn my eyes, there’s going t’be a battle, Lewrie furiously imagined; two or three of ’em, if we can take ’em on separately . . . and I’ll not have a part in ’em? Become one o’ those . . . losers? No, I’ll not ever! Mine arse on a band-box if I’ll haunt the Admiralty, beggin’ for scraps like a . . . stray cur! Christ on a crutch, I’ve put in twenty-one years, most of ’em at sea, and miserable, too. They don’t want me any longer, well . . . just bugger ’em! Somethin’ t’be said for warm and dry, for a change.

  Thirty-eight wasn’t all that old, he could comfort himself to think; there were naval officers who had actually given up active commissions to sit in Parliament, go into business, enter government service . . . and make a pile of “tin” off the sops and graft that resulted!

  Lewrie imagined that taking Holy Orders was pretty much out for his sort, even a lowly rector’s position in a poor parish, with an absent vicar taking the lion’s share of the benefice and tithes. Besides, no one would ever believe it of him!

  Trade, and Business? Well, he was a skilled mariner, capable of being a merchant master—was “John Company” still grateful to him for saving that convoy in the South Atlantic last year? Captaining an East Indiaman would be pleasant, and hellish profitable, to boot.

  Or he could live on his invested prize-money, his savings with Coutts’ Bank, and his late grandmother’s £150 annual remittance, keep rooms (at a family discount) at the Madeira Club, and become an idle wastrel about London. Where one could have a drink whenever . . .

  “Drink, by God,” Lewrie muttered under his frost-steaming breath. “I definitely need strong drink . . . now! Drink, and distraction.”

  As soon as he attained his lodgings, Lewrie made haste to strip off his uniform and pack it away in his sea-chest, stow his cocked hat in a japanned wooden box, and change into a tail-coat that was all the “crack”; single-breasted and cut to the waist, with wide lapels and M-shaped collars in a newly fashionable black, over a snug pair of long grey trousers, with plain and unadorned black boots on his feet, minus the gold lace trim and tassels he’d wear with his uniform. To become even more a civilian, his black neck-stock he replaced with a cravat woven in blue, gilt, and cream paisley.

  Walking stick instead of sword; a thimble-shaped black beaver hat with a royal blue band and short, curled brims; a single-breasted overcoat with triple capes, and he was ready for a good, long, and very un-military dinner, a bottle or two of wine, with port and brandy to follow, and while away the rest of the day ’til it was time to toddle off to the theatre or Ranelagh Gardens.

  With the aforementioned restful nap, of course.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The next week passed in slothful idyll; late risings and lazy days, followed by heady afternoons roaming central London for delightful diversions, followed by even headier evenings. There were public subscription balls, drums and routs, concerts, and even a rare trip to a ballet or opera—all followed, of course, by light midnight cold collations washed down with champagne, and pre-dawn tumbles into bed at the Madeira Club. Not to mention the requisite hangovers.

  And while such a rakehell (partially reformed) as Alan Lewrie might have so far tumbled into bed alone, it was a Devilish close-run thing, for London, the greatest city in the world no matter what Frogs boasted of their own Paris, possessed the most impressive collection of fetching young women of every stripe and grade.

  Actresses, ballet dancers, orange-seller wenches in the aisles, “grass-widows” abandoned by straying or absent husbands still looking for affection, the handsomest, fetchingest young un-married girls down to search for a suitable husband, some of them coyly eager for a “ride” or two, away from their unaware parents. . . . For a stray male, London was a paradise. And that didn’t even begin to count the shop girls and house servants out on a spree on their lone days off, or the ones of “the commercial persuasion,” who ranged from costly courtesans and mistresses to the over-made, bright-eyed morts available for a “knee-trembler” in a dark doorway.

  Sadly, though, sometimes being regarded as a “hero” played to one’s detriment. People simply would regard Lewrie as “high-minded” or even “Respectable”, after all the flattering coverage in newspapers and Abolitionist tracts, the past year. He’d be introduced to lovely un-married daughters by beaming Papas and Mamas, but was expected to be the courtly but gruff sea-dog that, it seemed, all England expected. Even though the trial was over, and he could be as beastly as he wished to be once more, still there was that damnably “honest” part to play, and God help him should he step outside it.

  Well, there was Theoni Kavares Connor, the rich widow and mother of his bastard son. She seemed to turn up wherever Lewrie sported, at least twice a week, and made it quite plain that since he had so much time on his hands, with his wife estranged from him and safely off in the countryside (and how the Devil she’d discovered that? Lewrie had to wonder) they should partake of a passionate rencontre, and Lewrie was not quite sure why he hadn’t leaped upon her slim, wee body, and those glorious tits of hers, yet . . . there it was. Shiverin’ guilt, most-like, he told himself; or lingerin’ fear o’ gettin’ caught out.

  Equally maddening and mysterious was Eudoxia Durschenko. With Daniel Wigmore’s so-called Peripatetic Extravaganza (read circus cum theatrical troupe) in winter quarters ’cross the river in Southwark, the girl was free to explore London, too, and, maddeningly, was simply everywhere Lewrie had gone! Did she have a spy network worthy of Zachariah Twigg’s, or the Secret Branch of the Foreign Office?

  Did he hire a prad to take an icy, but bracing, ride in a park, there Eudoxia Durschenko would be on her magnificent trained stallion, Moinya, from her circus act. Did Lewrie attend a subscription ball, she was there, too, dressed in the height of fashion. At Ranelagh Gardens, Covent Garden, theatres in Drury Lane, shopping in the Strand, gawking at rarees and street performers, and pursued by a clutch of rakehells and hopeful swains, especially at those midnight champagne suppers.

  With her exotically dark, curly hair and high-cheeked, almond-eyed features and full lips, and those intriguing hazel-amber eyes of hers, Eudoxia Durschenko would have been the belle of the season, no matter her class or origin, and even the latest fashionable colours of puce, lavender, purple, and all set well u
pon her graceful form; even those sofa-pillow “Pizarro” hats looked cunning atop her head.

  In point of fact, was he forced to choose between Eudoxia and Theoni Connor, Lewrie would have plumped for the exotic Russian girl, hands down . . . assuming he could wedge himself into her circle of admirers without looking like a total fool or moonstruck cully. Assuming Eudoxia’s constant chaperone would let him.

  Unfortunately, her father, Arslan Artimovich Durschenko, was at her elbow constantly. Fetching as she was, desirable as she was, her father had once intimated that Eudoxia was still a chaste young maid, and he was determined for her to remain virginal, even if he had to kill the first half-dozen young lechers who got within whiffing distance of her perfume!

  It did not improve Eudoxia’s romantic odds that her father was just possibly the scariest, and ugliest, patch-eyed old devil Lewrie had ever clapped his “top-lights” upon. The Durschenkos claimed Cossack origins, so both were expert riders, but Arslan Artimovich could swing a sabre with the best of them. His previous circus act, before the pan of a rifled musket blinded his right eye, had been that of a marksman with any sort of rifle, musket, or pistol, and the recurved Asian bow and arrows—from horseback, standing in the stirrups, standing on the horse’s bare back, hanging like a Red Indian under its belly or its neck . . . the act that Eudoxia now so ably performed. After the accident, he’d turned lion-tamer and kept four of the beasts, grown from cubs to huge, rangy adults. Arslan Artimovich was also able to substitute at the knife-throwing act.

  He was, in fine, so menacing and scary that Blackbeard and his pirates would have pissed their breeches in dread of him! It must be admitted that Arlsan Artimovich certainly gave Lewrie the “squirts”! He had to admit, though, that the risk of his life to her papa’s vengeance, or his lions, just might be worth it.

  “Kapitan Lewrie, zdrazvotyeh . . . how good to see you again!” Eudoxia had gushed the first night he’d “crossed hawses” with her in the lobby of a theatre. She had swept in from the cold, swathed in a sleek, long fur overcoat with hood. Soon as she had carefully removed the hood from her artfully styled hair, she had boldly crossed to him and offered her hand to be kissed, a regal yet eager smile plastered on her face, and her eyes alight with glee. “My bold Kapitan Lewrie! I was so relieved you are ac . . . acquitted. My English improves, yes?”

  Buzz-hum of talk as he took her hand in his: “That’s ‘Black’ Alan Lewrie, don’t ye know” . . . “Princess Eudoxia from Wigmore’s circus, begad! What a stunner!”

  “Indeed it does, Mistress Durschenko,” Lewrie had purred over her lace-gloved hand. “It is my pleasure to see you again, as well. You are enjoying London?” he had asked, lingering a trifle longer in his bow as she dropped him a fine curtsy; her gown was low-cut, and revealed a promising pair of poonts!

  “It amazes me, Kapitan,” Eudoxia had declared. “Pooh. You do not use my name?”

  “Eudoxia, aye,” Lewrie had said with a sly smile, one that she matched, until they both heard a bear’s deep warning growl, making him wonder if Jose was there with his dancing bears, Paolo and Fredo. But it was Arslan Artimovich.

  “You remember Papa, Kapitan?” Eudoxia had said with a roll of her eyes and a minx-ish grin.

  “Arslan Artimovich, sir,” Lewrie had responded, letting go her hand (rather precipitously, in point of fact) and turning to bow greetings to her father. “Delighted to see you well, sir. Your servant.”

  “Kapitan Lewrie,” the old cut-throat had rumbled, arms akimbo to spread the wings of his own fur coat, revealing a flashy blend of Eastern and Western garb; a fur cap on his grizzled locks, a double-breasted tail-coat made of royal blue wool over a cream-coloured Russian silk shirt that buttoned up the side of his neck; a scarlet waist sash (fortunately, no sign of daggers or pistols shoved into it, God be thanked!), buff-coloured snug trousers, and tall top-boots (minus spurs). “You still alive,” Arslan Artimovich had added, sounding as if he was rather surprised . . . or was pointing out a temporary state, dependent upon Lewrie’s behaviour. He smiled . . . evilly.

  Lewrie had tried to continue a conversation with Eudoxia after that, just long enough to not seem ungentlemanly, or cowardly, for he had felt a strong urge to toddle off to greet some others. That was hard to do, though, for there came from the glowering Papa Durschenko a constant raspy whisper consisting of fondly recalled Russian phrases such as “Peesa,” “Sikkim Siyn,” “Tarakan,” “Nasyakomayeh,” and that old favourite, “Gryazni sabaka”!

  What could one do when a lovely girl’s father called you Prick, Sonofabitch, Cockroach, Insect, and Dirty Dog? All in stone-heavy Cyrillic letters that sprayed the parquetry like blood from a cut throat!

  “You know, o’ course, that callin’ an Englishman such things is cause for a duel,” Lewrie drawled to Papa Durschenko.

  “Then choice of weapon is mine,” that worthy off-handedly replied with a menacing hiss and a broad grin of expectation.

  “Papa! Stoi! Stop insulting Kapitan Lewrie!” Eudoxia scolded. “Is boorish. Ne kulturny,” she said with her nose up. Evidently, she had come a long way from her childhood Cossack village, or her family’s nomadic yurt, for all Lewrie knew of her early years. Eudoxia mightn’t be a grand actress, but her “turns” with Dan Wigmore’s theatrical troupe had taught her how to play-act well-born hauteur. Her top-lofty air put her papa in his place; all he could do was utter an inarticulate “Grr!” and, for a moment, share with Lewrie a frustrated look over his willful daughter’s new ways.

  There was a sudden commotion at the doors to the theatre lobby, with the crowd parting like the sea at a warship’s cutwater, with men in royal livery leading the way, the grand fellow in the very front waving a long staff in the bored manner of palace courtiers. “His Royal Highness, George, Prince of Wales,” the gaudily clad fellow in a powdered wig intoned in an equally bored manner, and the clench-jawed, nasally tone of the uppermost Oxonian. Men bowed and ladies curtsied deeply, all heads lowered as the Prince swept in, one hand languidly waving to one and all, with a faint smile on his phyz, and a nod to some he recognised. Well, there was also a flirtatious glint, perhaps even a wink, to some of the prettier ladies, though the heir to the throne acted as if his heart wasn’t really in it. ’Til he espied Eudoxia, that is.

  “My dear,” the Prince of Wales murmured, stopping before her.

  “Ah . . . em?” from the stunned Eudoxia as he took her hand in his and brought it to his lips.

  “Stunnin’,” from the Prince. “Seen you ride and shoot, what? We were most impressed.”

  “Spasiba, em . . . thank you, your . . . highness,” Eudoxia replied in a stutter, like to faint, yet reddening with pleasure.

  “Yob tvoyemant” from her papa, and Lewrie discreetly took hold of his arm before he reached out to strangle the fellow.

  “Fascinatin’, hey?” the Prince of Wales asked of one of his simpering courtiers, cocking a brow significantly. Lewrie realised that his courtier looked to be making a mental note to himself, nodding to the Heir as if he caught his meaning. He’d be up ’til dawn, discovering where she lodged, when she rode in the park, and what her favourite colour was.

  Royalty bestowed upon her a departing nod, a fond smile, then glided on to the stairs to his reserved box.

  “Doh!” Eudoxia said under her breath, employing her fan for its real purpose. “God Above!”

  “Who is pasty fellow?” Arslan Artimovich growled.

  “The Prince of Wales . . . heir to the throne?” Lewrie explained. “One day, he’ll be George the Fourth. A great’un for the ladies, it’s said,” Lewrie slyly added, hoping that Papa Durschenko would lose sleep worrying over a rakehell royal, instead of him.

  Sure t’God, there’s some nice jewelry headed her way, Lewrie thought with a well-repressed snicker; If the King lets him, that is.

  “God damn kings and princes,” Papa Durschenko darkly muttered.

  “I wouldn’t say that too loud, were I you,” Lewrie warned him. “Paneemahyu?” h
e added, using one of his very few words of Russian. “Englishmen take a very dim view of people insulting their rulers . . . even pasty-faced princes. Calls himself ‘Florizel,’ don’t ye know,” he imparted in a whisper. “Wants t’be everyone’s friend. Young women, especially.”

  Which information elicited another “Grr!” from Durschenko.

  “Well, I’ll take my leave of you, sir . . . Mistress Eudoxia,” Lewrie said with a grin, emulating the Heir and taking her hand to be kissed. “I’m off to my seat, and I hope you enjoy the show. Perhaps we may run into each other for a cold collation and some champagne?”

  “Grr!”

  Leaving it at that, Lewrie had toddled off, leaving Eudoxia to her moment of glory, and the greater adulation from her many admirers, despite what her papa wished!

  CHAPTER TEN

  The second week of Lewrie’s enforced idleness passed much in the same fashion as the first, but with a lot less relish on Lewrie’s part. His last rencontre with Theoni Kavares Connor had turned out to be rather embarrassing, in the vast rotunda of Ranelagh Gardens, of all places. She’d been importunate and a bit of a shrew, all but demanding that he pay court to her, and Lewrie, never one to appreciate being pressed in a corner, and with only the lamest of excuses as to why he had not yet dropped by, namely that his new stature as a Publick Hero would not let him act as he had in the past—“Respectability, and all that, Theoni,” he had claimed, which sounded stage-y even to his ear!—hadn’t set all that well with her.

  Hissed like a bloody goose guardin’ her eggs! Lewrie had told himself at the time; And like t’peck my shins an’ flog me!

  Theoni’s seething, barely controlled anger, then her tears, had made a nasty scene for the crowd in the rotunda, and sent Lewrie on a less-than-dignified trot to get away from her. Thankfully, for the last three days, he hadn’t run into her anywhere, after that.