Fortune's Whelp (Fortune's Whelp Series Book 1)

by Benerson Little

  “I still think you’re proving my philosophy, not gutting it.”

  Mrs. Hardy smiled broadly but refused to engage. She changed the subject.

  “You haven’t finished telling me about the second time you were accused of piracy.”

  “There’s nothing more to say. I was acquitted again, but King William’s ministers yielded to the Spanish ambassador and placed me under an embargo for two years to the Americas. For my part, I was merely doing my duty, this time under an English commission. The fact is, there are some who consider my alleged unlicensed privateering an excellent credential, and others who do not. Some of the latter would have seen me hanged if they could, the Spanish especially; although they’d gladly forgive me if I offered to serve them as a privateer, especially a pirate hunting one.”

  “Well, darling mariner, I saw only one character flaw this morning. Otherwise, I think you are magnificent. Is there anything I can do to help? I have money—”

  “My dear Jane, I’m not here for your money and won’t accept it. As you said, one explanation of my philosophy is enough.”

  “Well, if you need anything, let me know. I maintain a regular business correspondence with Bristol, one quite secure, should you need to safely post anything.”

  Edward got out of bed and began dressing. “Again my thanks, but I’ll deliver my own correspondence, Lord Deigle prefers it that way.” He paused for a moment, suddenly lost in thought. When he finally spoke, his demeanor had changed. “Forgive me, but you said you know of Lydia Upcott?”

  “Yes?”

  “Then forgive me for assuming also that you must have heard of me also, not that I consider my fame or infamy great. Yet during the passage you didn’t know me at all.”

  “Darling Edward, of course I knew who you were. Everyone in Bristol knows the name of the buccaneer and fencing master Edward MacNaughton, even as aloof as you are. I had hoped to have seduced you by the end of the voyage, but that old bastard Neptune refused to cooperate. And even I won’t play the card of the innocent wide-eyed fool in awe of the great man just to get his attention. I’m neither an innocent nor a fool—you wouldn’t have believed the fiction. You’d have simply thought me a widow desperate for a man’s hard touch, like the widows on stage in the theater. Rather than be my friend, you’d have had me once or twice on my back and then away with you. So instead I gently lured you to me. I hope you haven’t minded.”

  Edward returned her smile. “Obviously not at all, although your seduction wasn’t as gentle as you claim.”

  “You haven’t complained until now, and you certainly enjoyed it last night. Must you go to the race meeting?”

  “I must, for I also promised Sir William.” He pulled his shirt over his head, but stopped suddenly halfway, leaving the garment to cover his head for a few seconds. He finished putting the shirt on, then cocked his head at Jane. “Wait a minute…the bell! It was part of your seduction, wasn’t it?”

  “Ahh!” she said, smiling broadly.

  “I’ve been unable to reconcile your shrewishness aboard ship with your charm ashore. I tried to rationalize the difference in character by blaming your behavior at sea on seasickness. Suddenly it’s clear.”

  “How clever of you, Edward!”

  “I think you should warn me to steer clear of you as well, Jane.”

  “But you won’t, no matter what I say.”

  “Women playing games is a sign Fortune will become involved.”

  “My games are innocent.”

  “So you say.”

  “Well, I won’t warn you to keep away from me, but I will warn you to watch carefully on the roads. There are eyes upon you; there’s much talk of you in town and country, by those who take too much interest in you, your visits to a countryside manor or two. Your visits to a local viscount and baronet have set tongues clacking, in spite of your pretense that you went there to tell stories of buccaneering and privateering, and to seek their money for a venture. They are each involved in local intrigues, and by your association with Lord Deigle—yes, word of that has reached here, too—you may be suspect in some eyes. They will see, not a messenger bearing business terms, but one bearing secret correspondence.”

  Edward shrugged.

  “And there will of course be talk of your visit here,” she continued. “The difference, though, is that everyone already knows why you came here. I really think you should avoid the races today.”

  Edward smiled at her concern. “I’ll have what I came for soon enough, and then be away, out of the dangers of Irish women and rapparees—and of Dutch widows.”

  He finished dressing while Mrs. Hardy watched. She leaned over him as he reached for his cravat. She smelled of perfume and musk. “Enjoy the races, if you must go,” she said, as he tucked the lace ends of his cravat into a buttonhole. “I’ll send a groom to hold your horse at the door.” She wrapped her arms around his waist as she called for her maid.

  “You, my dear Jane, are mad,” Edward said, growing hard again. “But I have to leave, you know.” He stepped away, bowed low, kissed her hand. “Don’t think ill of me. I promise to improve my performance.”

  “You take your leave much too formally. Having taken me twice in one night—I don’t count your half-effort this morning—you should be more familiar,” she said, putting her arms around him and kissing him. “You owe me a third.”

  She stepped back, took a swallow of wine, and kissed him again. He kissed her back, tasting the wine on her tongue. She pressed her body hard against his, her breasts tight against his ribs. She put her glass of wine to his lips. He drank, then kissed her, knocking the glass and spilling the wine. She threw the glass across the room at the fireplace but missed it. The glass shattered against the wall. Edward kissed the spilled wine from her chin, from her neck, from between her breasts where the purple streams were dammed.

  He pulled her mantua off, she unbuttoned his breeches, he pressed her back into the wing chair and himself upon her and into her. The door opened, Maria looked in and saw nothing but a chair alive with blue stockinged legs bending and stretching until she looked into a mirror and saw the glazed eyes glancing at her, saw the heaving breasts, the boots and spurs, the small hands entwined in hair, then working up and down a strong back and buttocks, and heard a few spoken words amid the coos and grunts of passion:

  “Ma... ria... go.. .away... damn you... O! More... Go... away... now!”

  But Maria did not go away and Mrs. Hardy did not really seem to mind that she did not.

  “Hurry, Edward,” Jane said half an hour later as he buttoned his breeches, “you’ll be late. Can’t you stay here today?”

  He shook his head ‘no’. Already he was failing to keep to his principles—and although he had told her nothing important, she already knew too much about him, and she had asked too many questions. Still, he realized, she had also answered all of his.

  She sighed. “Then go. I did my best to keep you here. But remember my warnings: don’t let your manhood do your thinking for you. Better me or one of my maids than Mistress O’Meary. Trust not the roads! And avoid the races!”

  Jane watched from the window as he rode away. “Maria!” she called when he was out of sight, “Maria, I’ll have a word with you!”

  Chapter 10

  To avoid those Desperate Combats, my Advice is for all Gentlemen to take a hearty Cup, and to Drink Friends to avoid Trouble.

  —Donald McBane, The Expert Sword-Man’s Companion, 1728

  Edward rode at a canter to the stable at Ballydereen. Molly awaited, mounted on the chestnut mare Edward had ridden the day he arrived. She held the reins of a large dark bay gelding.

  “I thought you might like to ride Rocinante today,” she said, an odd look, almost of mistrust, in her eye.

  Edward dismounted his own mount and took the reins of the extraordinarily tall horse, two inches more than seventeen hands. He adjusted his stirrups, then noted their height above the ground; he thought it too high for him to reac
h in his stiff boots.

  “Shall I give you a leg up, sir?” asked a groom.

  “No, thank you,” Edward replied.

  He grasped reins and mane with his left hand, pommel with his right, and, hoping the horse was not skittish, with a small leap swung himself into the saddle. The gelding took several steps forward as Edward clumsily gathered his reins and found his stirrups.

  Molly turned her horse away and squeezed it into a trot. Edward followed, uncomfortable. A walk or canter would have suited him better, given his hangover—at least it wasn’t as bad as the first—but Molly’s mood seemed to say he could follow or be damned for all she cared.

  “I’ve been advised,” she said as they trotted away from the manor, “that I should make you apologize and pay for being a notorious rake.”

  “I’m not a rake,” Edward replied almost indignantly.

  Molly laughed in that stinging way of some women when they wish to manipulate or have their revenge. “Come now, what gentleman would have your reputation?”

  “What gentleman wouldn’t, or at least wish for it?” Edward asked, quickly recovering his sense of humor. “And what reputation are we discussing? Anyway, I’m not sure I’ve ever been a gentleman, at least not in the sense of beating lackeys, refusing to pay my tailors, and cringing in front of noblemen great and small. Are you angry with me for some unknown indiscretion?”

  “Yes, and jealous, too,” she said daringly, “but I’ll pretend I’m not. Come, I’ll race you to the currach, we can make a double celebration there of your business success and Sir William’s victories, for I’m sure his horses will win, they always do.”

  “My business success?”

  “Sir William said you and he had reached agreement, and that your other business—your intrigues—were coming to a close too.” Her tone changed, combining the jealous doubt she had displayed moments before with an almost Puritanical, judgmental haughtiness he had never seen in her. “I thought it must be to celebrate that you spent the night with that Dutch harlot who pretends to defend her son’s estate. Isn’t that what men do to celebrate—get drunk and lay with a woman?”

  “You’ve no need to be jealous, Molly. Haven’t you enough suitors already?” he riposted cuttingly.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quickly.

  She’s quick to apologize, he thought. Too quick. Maybe Jane’s right and she’s a husband hunter, no matter that she’s betrothed. But you can’t blame her, not in her circumstances.

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “There’s been much on my mind lately, nothing that need worry you, though. I was being selfish—I thought you might have told me if you had something to celebrate.”

  “In fact, I’m not quite ready to celebrate anything. I still have some minor business to settle with my correspondents, but it’s nothing of consequence.”

  “Come,” she said, “ride off to the countryside with me and leave the races for another day. You can tell me all the details of the privateering adventure you plan, when you will go, where you will go, how you expect to bring profitable violence down upon your French enemy. It would certainly be more interesting than listening to the local wives and their dull husbands. Here one only hears of how much an officer paid for a horse, or whose cargo made a profit, or who is bedding whom.”

  “I can’t; I promised Sir William. Besides, you’re the one who told me that we must be on time.”

  “Sir William won’t mind much, and I, a woman, may change my mind as I please.”

  “You’re not the first woman to try to keep me from the races today.”

  “But I didn’t use the lure of my bed to do so!” she replied, and cantered ahead before he could see the expression on her face. He quickly caught up with her. “Please,” she said, “let’s skip the races anyway.”

  “It’s one thing for everyone to gossip that I visit a widow, quite another that I’d ride off with a woman betrothed to another, and at a time when everyone expects us to be somewhere else. Your reputation might well be ruined. I won’t be a part of that.”

  For an instant he thought he saw a hint of fury, then of acceptance. But between the two he thought he saw something else, some other emotion he could not quite identify.

  They rode on, cantering this time until they saw the currach —the racing ground—in the distance, then halted in order to get a sense of the course. Not once more had Molly suggested they avoid the sporting event. For some reason this put Edward doubly on his guard. He touched his waist, but his wallet was not there. It was at Ballydereen, empty, waiting for the replies from Lord Brennan and Sir James Allin.

  Edward and Molly walked their horses until they reached the crowded field. Much of the local population had already turned out for the races: the first between Irish hobbies, the following three heats of well-bred racing horses of English and Irish extraction, each carrying ten stone. They wove through a crowd that ranged from tenant farmers to noblemen, from fishermen and seamen to local tradesmen, from middle class merchants to soldiers and their officers. Amidst this mass of humanity, near a stone marker designated as the starting point for the several two-horse races, they found Sir William with his retinue of grooms, other servants, and friends. Given his gesticulations, he was doubtless describing the ancestry of his horses, as Edward had already heard him do a dozen times, repeating the genealogies as if he were reciting the sons of Adam.

  Molly cantered toward Sir William, but before Edward could follow, two army officers, afoot but leading their mounts, stepped in his way.

  “Good day, sir. Are you Captain Edward MacNaughton, the pirate?” asked one with a brusque sneer.

  Edward regarded him curiously.

  “I am Captain MacNaughton, a son of Neptune and Mars,” he replied after a moment. “However, I’m no pirate, but if you want to quarrel with me, you may make the accusation again.”

  “We will speak with you privately, but first you must dismount.”

  Edward smiled. “Thank you, but I enjoy my station and prefer to keep it.”

  The two officers looked at each other, then mounted their horses. Edward laughed softly.

  “Sir,” said the officer on the left, “I’m Lieutenant Woodcock, this is Ensign Tillbury. We are here on behalf of Ensign Ingoldsby, to whom you have done a grave disservice by casting doubts upon his courage in the face of an enemy.”

  “I’ve done no such thing, and any man who says I have is either grossly misinformed or an arrant liar,” Edward said calmly.

  Woodcock flushed with anger, swallowed, and resumed his rehearsed speech. “It’s bruited around the town and villages that you said repeatedly that Ensign Ingoldsby was not only drunk, but hiding in the ladies’ quarters of the ship during the fight with the Frenchman. That, in fact, he is a coward.”

  “I’ve said nothing of the sort,” Edward replied, still calm.

  “Sir, we are well-informed by an unimpeachable source that you told these lies. Ensign Ingoldsby believes an apology is not sufficient for the injury he has received, but will accept one—if it is made with an abject admission that you have lied, for he feels he should in fairness show you mercy. Thus, sir, to avert bloodshed you must apologize and admit that you lied.”

  Edward laughed softly, then spoke loudly and clearly. “Gentlemen, I’ve never said any such thing regarding the ensign. In fact, I’ve hardly thought of him since I debarked the Peregrinator. But in case you’re unaware of the facts, you should know that he was unconscious during most the fight, having had the misfortune to drink too much and knock his head, as I’m sure Lieutenant Fielding has told you. Even so, he wasn’t hiding from the enemy. His timing was just poor. Rumors often have strange sources, and people will gossip and exaggerate in any case. Whatever the misunderstanding here, I won’t apologize for something I haven’t done and I’ll never declare myself a liar except truthfully. But I’m sure you knew this before you came to me.” He paused, then looked each officer fiercely in the eye. “And if either of you suggest again that
I’m a liar, I’ll fight you here and now.”

  Woodcock flushed again. “It doesn’t matter what words you use now, sir, for the offense is in the words you used previously.”

  Edward’s smile in reply was one of bemused contempt.

  “So be it,” the officer said, clearly annoyed. “We are therefore instructed to deliver this message: ‘Having abused the honor and integrity of Ensign Ingoldsby, you are requested to meet him at your soonest convenience to satisfy this question of honor.’ We’ll serve as his seconds. Lieutenant Fielding has said he’ll serve as one of yours if it pleases you.”

  “The lieutenant honors me. I’ll inform him that I’d like to have done with this butcher’s business as soon as possible. Is tomorrow too soon? Or should I let the lieutenant tend to this?”

  “Tomorrow is quite satisfactory. The choice of weapons, of course, is yours. A gentleman’s sword, or broad or back, is appropriate.”

  “No, by God!” interjected Sir William who had cantered up unnoticed, Lieutenant Fielding at his side. “Not tomorrow! Not tomorrow at all, by God!”

  “You know about this?” asked Edward, somehow not surprised that Sir William had appeared.

  “Everyone, lad, everyone knows about this—except you, apparently, until now, for you’ve been busy with women, business, and intrigues,” said Sir William in a low but excited voice. “The rumors have been flying for three days. Damn, lad, I know you need to get back to England, but there is no avoiding this, and when you kill Ingoldsby it will secure your reputation around here. Damn, lad, the Irish money’s on you, both that you will accept and then kill the young officer. I’ll be your other second, if you don’t mind. Here, then, let me speak for you.”