"I stand warned, cher Alain." Charite throatily chuckled back, not daunted in the least. "Let us get a private table in the back, a deck of cards, and a bottle of champagne. And I assure you, cher, I shall have no reason to fear for my life."
Her false mustachio had sagged completely off one side of her mouth, and her eyes and voice were so sweetly, soberly candid that he could not help but assent and whistle up the publican for glasses and a bottle. She leaned close enough to gently touch her rather cutely formed nose on his near shoulder for a flirtatious second, as if sealing a bargain, before breaking away to waft towards a dark rear corner of the cabaret to claim a table for two.
Damme, this is daft! he chid himself as he flung coins on the counter; Is she a sham, I'll never live it down! If not, well… it might be the sort of tale ye dine out on for bloody years!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Law, Jim Hawk, ye won't b'lieve h'it!" Georgie insistently whispered, reeking of "time-killing" whisky, fried chicken from a street vendor, and "chaw-baccy." "H'it's th' oddest thang ever I did see, an' had I not, I'da never thunk hit real," Georgie said as he and Ellison "lurked" beneath the stranger's wrought-iron balcony.
"Simmer down an' tell it, Georgie," Jim Hawk Ellison coaxed as he leaned away from the aromatic scents, "an' kindly keep your skunk-skin cap downwind, how 'bout. It's still pert ripe."
"We kep' an eye on 'at Willoughby feller, like ya asked us to," Georgie began to explain, though all but wringing his hands confusedly. Confusion with Georgie was a given, though, Ellison had found. Bright help was hard to find lately. "He left 'at tavern place, I follered him, like ye tol' me. But he come back hyar with another fella, Jim Hawk," Georgie nigh moaned, waving a hand at the balcony, and the dim single candle still aglow in one of the windows. Ellison was sure he was blushing as red as ripe vine peppers. "Come nigh t'chokin' on ma chaw… way they wuz a'pawin' an' a'gropin' at each other, an'…"
"With another man?" Jim Hawk gawped. "Well, he is English, but… that's a surprise. A big'un." Ellison scrubbed his chin thoughtfully, speculating on how Willoughby 's secret proclivity could be used, if he turned out to be a British spy; he hadn't bought the man's "new-come American" pose for a second! He'd come off that Panton, Leslie ship, hadn't he? And that company and the British government might as well be tight as ticks together.
"Sure it wasn't a way t'sneak a fellow spy up there, so's they could have 'em a parley, on the sly? Just with their heads close…"
"Nossiree, Jim Hawk!" Georgie adamantly objected, wringing his skunk cap in his hands. " 'Twuz a lantern burnin' o'er th' door when they got hyar, an' I seed wot they wuz a'doin', plain! They wuz all arm in arm, had their clothes un-sheveled an' their hands a'roamin' round inside. Kissin', a time'r two, too, right out in front o' God an' ever'body, hotter'n foxes in heat! An' 'at little feller with 'im a'cooin' an' a'titt'rin' like one o' them rum-hot whores we had on th' Natchez Trace!"
"Hmmph!" Ellison commented. "What'd this other fella look like, then? Ye git a good look, so we can find out what he's up to?"
"Real short an' slimmish, Jim Hawk," Georgie related, screwing up his face, "an' deed all dandy-like, in rich clothes. Struttin' as proud as a banty-rooster! Had a right mystifyin' mustachio, too. One minute, h'it wuz thar, next h'it warn't, an' he'd git all giggly-shrieky. They git to th' door, thar, wot with all th' kissin', his hat come off an' he had s'much hair piled up on his haid, hit looked like a wasp's nest, an' I coulda swore I thought I saw a titty, but…"
Ellison lowered his chin to his chest and slowly counted to ten, as his mentor had told him to, back when he'd thought to read for the law in Salisbury, North Carolina, before blurting out foolishness when in court. He pinched the bridge of his nose and heaved a heavy sigh.
"Mightn't it o' come to ye, Georgie," Ellison asked in a slow drawl of seemingly infinite patience, "that your little fella might've been a girl dressed up in men's clothin'?"
"Wull…" Georgie began, then subsided, abashed. "Oh."
Comes th' dawn! Jim Hawk Ellison sourly thought; Oh, indeed!
"Wull… 'at's unnat'ral, too, ain't h'it, Jim Hawk?" Georgie spluttered, giving his hat another wringing, freshly aggrieved.
"How long they been at it?" Ellison asked, glancing upwards.
" 'Bout near a hour, I reckon," Georgie muttered. "I thought to shinny up thar an' see wot-all they wuz a'doin'…"
"You didn't, did you, Georgie?" Ellison asked, alarmed.
"Naw." Georgie chuckled. " 'Em iron poles is slick, an' 'at balcony ain't as stout as you'd a'reckon, so…"
"Good!" Ellison nigh barked with relief, much louder than he'd meant to on the dark, silent street. "I'll take over, Georgie. Here. Go git yerself somethin' t'drink, maybe have yerself a Creole gal. A real 'un," he said, digging into a pocket for some silver Spanish dollars. "Don't go blabbin', mind, do ya git a snoot-full. This business is nobody's but ours, right?"
"Damn' right, Jim Hawk, an' thankee right kindly," Georgie said with a wide grin of delight. "But… yew figger this out, ye'll tell me wot h'it means, won't ye, Jim Hawk?"
"Be th' first t'know, Georgie," Ellison promised.
Ellison slunk into a dark shop doorway and wrapped his coat snug against the past-midnight river and swamp mists, thinking that if the sky started raining whisky, Georgie Prater would be the sort to hold a fork… and he'd most-like drop that!
The game was getting even more complicated than he'd imagined when he'd been appointed to scout New Orleans by Congress-and without General Wilkinson finding out about it! Ellison had been limited in his choice of skilled and smart backwoodsmen and volunteer soldiers to go along with him, men unknown to the Tennessee or Kentucky garrisons, who were likely already enmeshed in Wilkinson's schemes. So, beyond a few men of past acquaintance and a surveyor or two borrowed from civilian pursuits, he was pretty much stuck with dregs-well-muscled, well-armed dregs who'd be good in a fight, but…
Jim Hawk Ellison now strongly suspected that this Englishman, this "Captain" Willoughby, was on a mission very much like his own to New Orleans, and Louisiana. A new American citizen as he claimed, or not- Willoughby couldn't disguise his educated accent for very long, no matter how "aw shuckin's" he tried. He was a man used to command, his sobriquet of "Captain" either naval or military, with a volunteer pack of muscle accompanying him who toed the line when he spoke. But who was he working for?
General Wilkinson was out of the question; he'd never trust the British, even someone formerly British, to be his eyes and ears before he put his own invasion scheme in play. There were secret, but widely known whispers of a British move against the hapless Spanish. Though Ellison doubted an expedition could make it all the way down the Mississippi quietly, past American settlements on the eastern bank.
It made more sense to launch it from Jamaica, overwhelm the few defenders in a few brisk, brutal days' combat, and take New Orleans as the main prize. Without the city, Louisiana was useless anyway, Jim Hawk had long before realised.
Or Willoughby could've been hired by Virginia, South Carolina, or Georgia, and was here as part of a sectional land-grab. There were already secret agents aplenty in the town from those governments, he had been warned. Yet he'd come on a Spanish-flagged, British-owned ship, in the guise of a bootless adventurer?
Ellison had spent half the night dashing from one oddity to the next, from watcher to watcher to hear their reports, and was, in the backcountry vernacular, " 'bout plumb tuckered out." Even more outre was what happened in the alley behind the Maurepas bank, as sack after sack of money had been spirited out the door into a couple of farm waggons, surrounded by a gang of heavily armed men, as piratical a crew of cut-throats as ever he did see! And what was that about, Ellison wondered, a bold midnight robbery?
He'd been tempted to whistle up his own lads and try to rob the robbers! A sudden flood of money could, when delivered to Congress, be the funds to pay for America 's fore-ordained growth. The United States Government was mighty "skint," still paying for
the Revolution years after their independence had been won. With enough money, they would not have to wait for a more assertive President in office, but…
At least Ellison had sicced one of his better men on the trail of those waggons, to see where they'd gone. That had been the best he could do, since most of his others had been let go for the rest of the night and were mostly "drunk as Cootie Brown" by then.
And there went a shot at a little personal profit, too; profit beyond the promised reward for his covert service, which he doubted if Congress could actually pay. There was land he craved, in the Powell's Valley of East Tennessee, among good people he'd come to know, like the McLeans and Bow-mans… good neighbours, with a few pretty daughters to choose from, did he ever have a chance to put down roots and marry.
Jim Hawk Ellison drew a quid of tobacco from a pocket and cut a chew off. He'd prefer his pipe, but that was impossible if he didn't wish to betray his vigil.
"Damn you, Willoughby," he whispered, eying the candle's glow enviously. "Whatever you're up to, you're costin' me sleep. Even if ye are a God-cursed Sodomite, you can lay down on th' job!"
"Mmm… mon amour formidable," Charite coo-muttered, draped delightfully light, incredibly smooth and baby-soft half atop him as Lewrie billowed the sheet high above them to float downwards, creating a cooling zephyr. "Alain, mon coeur," she added with a sleepily sated smile as she shifted her lazy embrace.
"Charite, ma petite biche," Lewrie answered in kind, chuckling deep in his throat, recalling endearments he hadn't used since Phoebe Aretino, his Mediterranean mistress. He was pretty sure he had just called her a "little doe." And Charite was certainly that.
Only four inches above five feet without her boots, with slim hips and the wee-est little bottom, the faintest wisps of pale blond fluff below her knees, above her quim, and beneath her arms, a narrow waist that gently tapered inward above the talc-smooth swell of her hips; narrow shoulders and slim arms, but with the most heavenly, perfect breasts ever he did see, or kiss, or suckle, or lick, with darker tan areolae and cunningly puckering square nipples to worship as well.
With her hair unpinned in the privacy of his rooms, a positive flood of chestnut hair spilled down her back to her waist and now lay like a light blanket over both of them.
They had shared two bottles of champagne whilst she'd taught him Boure, which had surprisingly resembled Ecarte, with antes tossed out first. Five cards each, dealer announcing trumps, but before any play, one could discard or fold completely, build one's hand with the replacement cards, then follow the leader's play in the proper suit or trump with a higher card, or over-trump with a higher card of another suit, thereby taking tricks. The second dealing and the discards, she told him, were similar to that rube-ish Yankee Doodle derivative that they called Poker or Poquet, not "Poke Her" as Lewrie had imagined he had heard it. Two other young Creole gentlemen had joined them, once Lewrie had picked up the game, introduced as the Darbone brothers, the older one as Claude, the younger as Baltasar.
"Pardon, messieurs," Lewrie had taken note, "but you and, ah… Armand bear a striking resemblance."
"Most Creoles do," the elder brother Claude had replied with a smirk. "Light-coloured eyes and chestnut hair… many from Normandy arrived first in Louisiana, before the Acadians or the Spanish. And we do marry back and forth, n'est-ce pas? Armand, your mustachio's slipping again. Fais attention!" he'd sing-songed, as if they and she were long familiar with each other's company in the Pigeon Coop; this had set Lewrie's sudden possessive "teeth" all ataunt-to, jealous even before having her.
He'd lost fourty Spanish silver dollars at Boure, and that was at small-to-middling stakes, the lion's share to Charite, or "Armand." At five British shillings to the dollar, that was only ten pounds, at least-nowhere near "gambling deep," and a cheap lesson at the price. And the Darbone brothers had bought two other bottles.
And once the last "bubbly" had been poured and drunk, Charite had bid them a firm, no-more-gambling goodnight and had requested a gentleman to see her safely home. And though the Darbones seemed to grumble over that more than a bit, they had stood aside as Lewrie had seen her out to the street and round the corner towards Bourbon Street and his pension. Once in the relative anonymity of the dark streets, she had flung herself into his arms.
Admittedly, Lewrie had taken a callous, common moment or two to grope her like a sack of grain, to discover if he'd been gulled again, intensely relieved to reach inside her open shirt and determine that she definitely was a girl, and not a lying set of laundry items, that there was no "wedding tackle" artfully tucked away somewhere. It was only then that he committed himself to a kiss, then they were off to the races, barely able to stay clad as they jog-trotted breathlessly to his appartement and dashed upstairs past the scandalised concierge.
"Vous comprendez, cher Alain," Charite had seriously insisted, even as she was slinging coat, waist-coat, and cravat to the wide, and hop-tugging to get a boot off, "this does not mean a commitment of any sort between us."
"Completely!" Lewrie had most happily barked back, shedding his garments in fervent flurry. "None offered on my part, and damn' thoughtful of ye t'mention it! I say, ma cherie… take a pew on the settee, and I'll have those boots off quick as a wink!"
Giggling, guffawing, tugging first from the front, then turned away from her with her boot 'twixt his legs, her other foot shoving in the middle of his back, or the cleft of his buttocks; and then Lewrie attended to her trousers, her ankles on his shoulders, and she laughing and squirming as delighted as an infant tickled mid-bath, a bold, hearty laugh not usually heard from genteel young ladies.
All but one candle snuffed, the amber shadows and flickers of light gilding them, Charite stood and slowly lifted the long hem of her lace-ruffled shirt, performing for him as he sat to wrestle out of his boots, and he was struck dumb, completely entranced, for the girl looked him right in the eyes as she did so, her coltish young thighs almost chastely crossed at the same time, and her laughter turned much softer and huskier, as if it was a dare.
"Oh… that," Charite said with a sheepish expression when she unstrapped the sheath of her poignard from her left forearm and tossed it into a far dark corner of the sitting area.
"And, oh… this 'un," Lewrie echoed, unbuttoning his cuffs and pushing up his left sleeve to expose his own sheathed krees, removing it and tossing it to join hers in the corner.
Completely nude, as perfect as a young Venus on the half-shell, she knelt to help him take off his boots, only pretending to struggle with the right one so she could turn about and present her delightful wee derriere, then chuckle deep in her chest as Lewrie "helped out," bracing a bare left foot on her mounds and enticing Venus Dimples and wriggling his toes.
Finally barefooted, he stood to peel his shirt upwards and off, but she knelt again and unpinned her hair to let it fall like a glossy silk avalanche, spilling down her back and over her breasts. She shook her mane to free it all, then swept it forward like a stage curtain as she scooted forward on her knees to press her face into his groin, and Lewrie gave out a groan of instant pleasure as soft, sweet lips were put to his straining member, as dainty little fingers gently took his measure and tickled feathery-soft down the shaft.
He tossed his shirt away and lowered his hands to her shoulders as Charite made yummy-good appreciative moaning sounds and whispered, "Oh, la grosse verge, cher Alain! Si grande et dure. Si ardente pour moi?"
Big… hard… eager for her? "Bloody right!" he exclaimed as he flung back his head and shut his eyes, lost to her tantalising ministrations. He felt like he sported a marlingspike, a belaying pin, and if he didn't top her that very instant, his heads would explode-both of them! And where did a girl that fine learn that? Lewrie wondered in a brief moment of concern, one that quickly passed. Was she so experienced, so widely ploughed, that he'd need to dig into his valise for a sheepskin cundum?
Before he did burst like a 12-pounder, he drew her up and away from his groin, got her to her
feet, swept that concealing hair behind her shoulders and embraced her, savouring how smooth, soft, and wee she was as she eagerly pressed against him, lifting her arms about his neck and silently urging him to lift her off her straining toes.
She was not quite as light as the elfin Phoebe Aretino that he remembered, but he had no trouble hefting her up, her face level with his, to support her bottom with his hands, and slowly walk towards the bedstead as she rained kisses on him, now making faint, kitteny whimpering sounds. He sat her on the high edge of the bedstead, her legs scissored about his waist, and began to reward her, kiss for hot, wet kiss, slowly roaming to her eyes, her ears, down each side of her neck, then to her breasts.
Charite leaned back on the palms of her hands, luring him to a matching lean forward, her head thrown back and her mane beginning to whip and toss with each pleasured roll of her head, her hips starting a slow, metronomic sweep from left to right and back again, supporting herself on her hands and the strength of her legs, beginning to thrust and recede, even squirming impatiently to snare his prick and lure it in, and Lewrie squirmed as well to lower his member, now stoutly upjutting as a jib boom, to meet her. Quim and cock met at last, darker wrinkly nether lips gently parted as the head slid so easily into her, one heavenly inch, as if dipped into a brazier-warmed pot of honey…
"Oooh… Alain!" she whimpered, freezing in place. "Mon Dieu, le preservatif, 'l'anglais,' please? The… protection?"
"Arrr!" he good-naturedly groaned, a single second of madness away from spearing her to the root. But he turned away and went to his valise. Spare shirt and hunting shirt went flying, as did rolled stockings, a clean, pressed neck-stock, and spare underdrawers, flung upwards without a care to where they landed, as if he was a highwayman rifling a coach passenger's bags for hidden jewels.
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