Dewey Lambdin - THE GUN KETCH

"I don't see why you had to move, really," Alan said as their mounts cropped grass after getting their wind back. "Surely the maid that cares for your father could have come there instead."

"Uncle insisted on it," Caroline replied with a wry grin, which flitted away quickly. "He insists on rather a lot of things, I fear."

"Caroline, is there something the matter here?" Alan asked. "Far be it from me to presume to intrude in your family's affairs, but…"

"Oh, Alan, you who've done so much for this family already," she warmed to him, leaning over to lay a gloved hand on his sleeve. "As if we don't consider you kin by now… of sorts! You do not intrude to ask me anything."

"Then what's going on?" he shrugged.

"When Father lost his leg and fell ill, he was months in bed," Caroline sighed, looking away down the toppling downs toward the sea to the south. "Governour was head of the family, then. But he was still estate manager to Uncle Phiqeas. And just married to Millicent Embleton. So, by rights, Uncle Phineas is the master of the land. And of our lives. What did the Romans call it… paterfamilias'!"

"And the booty that Burgess sent home from India did not help?"

"Only in improving our finances," Caroline said with a frown. "But not in our station, you see. We are still tenants. Relatives, yes, but mostly tenants when it comes to Uncle Phineas. We had hoped for a warmer reception from blood kin."

"I remember in London, when we were finding Burge his situation, your uncle did not sound wholly… solicitous and charitable to you."

"It was his obligation, nothing more," Caroline told him. "A chore of blood. He was eldest, responsible for his younger brother's folly. That's what our plantation was in the Carolinas… folly. Their father united the two estates after my granduncle died without issue. I've always felt Uncle Phineas feared that Father would split it again, even after getting a fair price for it when he sailed for the Colonies. He didn't have to pay him a shilling for it, after all. He was the eldest, due to inherit everything."

"Yet he gave back 120 acres, for a guinea a year," Alan pointed out.

"Oh, yes, he rented back 120 acres. But that ended last year!" Caroline almost hissed in anger. "Father too ill to work it, Gove up on the larger tract, or pining for the Embleton land… who else could do it? Mother? My mother is a dear woman, Alan, but she depended on my poor father for everything! It could have settled on Burgess, but you know what he thinks of farming."

"And Governour makes no objections?" Alan asked, unable to see the (used-to-be) fiery young hawk-face accede to losing land.

"Dearest Alan, Governour will inherit all when the time comes," Caroline barked in sour amusement "The last, eldest Chiswick male. Then Uncle Phineas will have what he's always wanted."

"And what is that?" Alan asked.

"An heir to hold the land. If he's said it the once, he's said it anhundred times." She frowned. "The land is forever. Men and women rise up and die, but the land is always. And he doesn't want to see it in a stranger's hands. The Embletons get what they want as well," she almost spat in conclusion. "And that is?"

"That the two biggest estates are united." Caroline shivered. "After all these years, with Governour and Millicent wed, they are linked."

"Now I see why Governour would not object," Alan laughed in understanding. "There's always the off-chance he'd outlive Harry and end up with it all?"

"Oh, yes!" Caroline nodded. "And to ensure his complaisance, Sir Romney's putting Governour up for Commons next by-election, as his pet member from a rotten borough he controls up north. Harry already sits for Anglesgreen. There're not twenty men with the hundred pounds in rents or income to vote here, and even less in Teverly New Town." Caroline shrugged, then smiled ruefully. "Forgive me, Alan, a woman is not to know such, or involve herself in men's doings, but that's the way things stand here."

"As if that ever stopped you!" Alan hooted, trying to cosset her out of her bleak mood. "I've seen you before, remember, so eager to talk about any subject, then fade back into the woodwork when you think you've overstepped yourself. What a bloody waste!"

"Thank you, Alan, I do appreciate your understanding." Caroline truly smiled for the first time that morning. "Yes, I find it hard to be so… subservient! In North Carolina, so much more was expected of a woman, so much more was she allowed, as a helpmeet to her man and her family! Here, one sews neatly," she complained. "One plays an instrument. One reads, and distills, and orders servants, and cannot dirty one's own dresses at gardening, but must tell others what to do. Here in England, I feel so like an ill-bred… lout !"

"Out of place?" he muttered, laying a hand on hers this time, and she seized his hand like a drowning victim and linked their fingers. "Not a pink-cheeked, rude Colonial, surely."

"Out of place, yes," she sighed, almost on the point of tears. "Truly, I wonder if I have a place! Or a life I may call mine own."

"And what sort of a life do you desire, Caroline?"

"I wish to be happy, Alan. I wish to… to wed someone I love so deeply, and do I if indeed have the… the economy to present that man with a well-run home, then that is what I want. I want children, and perhaps one maid-of-all-work to help a little. But I want to be useful, not only around the house, but on the land. And to myself and those I love. I know I may not aspire to a man's role in this life. I have no wish to enter Parliament, or night wars. But I do wish to be able to use those talents God gave me as a woman, and the mind I believe He gave me for something more useful than… bakingl"

"To be able to talk about any subject without restrictions," Alan suggested.

"Oh, God, yes!" Caroline beamed, laughing at her immodesty, or what most in Society would have called an unnatural, desexing immodesty. "To be included when men talk about important matters and not be run off to the parlor to drink tea and get the card table ready. To be listened to, if I feel I have an idea they haven't. Not patted on the head and told 'tut-tut, there, there, little girl'! Even if it's but the one man who would listen to me, that would be enough, I think."

"And no one is listening to you now?" Alan said, letting go her hand and dismounting. He held her mare's head while she got down, revealing a dizzying vision of a slim white leg above the tops of her riding boots for an instant as her gown and petticoats raked down the saddle.

"Burgess used to," she said, taking his hand once more as they strolled to the south edge of the rolling, wooded hill to look at the splendid morning view. It was a little cloudy and gloomy yet, before the sun broke through, and the tiny dells among the downs were clotted with wisps of mist. "And when I was with you, I felt that you did, or at least attempted to, Alan. But very few people now. Now, I listen, and I am told what I feel, what I should think."

"Whom you should wed, perhaps?" Alan said, stopping them so she would turn to face him. "Is that why you are so sad? I came down, expecting to see the pert lass I remembered, and I find you troubled and melancholy. Who is the right young man of whom your uncle speaks?"

"I have two wonderful choices in life." Caroline gloomed again. "Three, really. The last may be the most acceptable; it does not demand me living a lie. I may take service as governess to a widower's children. Mr. Byford, who rents the land and house we once had."

"And the other two?"

"Between Embleton and Glandon Park, there is a family with more than one thousand fine acres," she said with an impatient shake of her head. "George Tudsbury, another widower, is in need of a wife. He's in his forties, with three children to raise, mostfortunately all of them girls, who may not inherit the land if a younger wife is living. He's a very good friend of my Uncle Phineas. Of much the same tastes."

"Ugh!" Alan exclaimed. "And again, ugh!"

"He, at least, is a decent man, Alan, with no vices. And no hard edges, such as Uncle Phineas. In that, at least, they differ."

"May I assume that he is your uncle's preference?"

"No, you may not. There is also Harry Embleton." She tensed. "Mine arse on a bandbox!" Alan cried. "Why, I met the bastard!"

"And what did you think of him, Alan?" Caroline teased, enjoying Alan's use of what she had come to know as his favorite phrase.

"Caroline, were I a London pimp, I'd have him wash first, and still charge him double for the insult to me whores!" Alan shouted. "Oh, God, Alan, I do so enjoy talking with you!" Caroline laughed out loud, taking hold of his upper arms. "You're just the breath of air that I' ve been needing! You're right, he is a… a bastard!" She took a deep breath, astounded by her own boldness. "He's a cruel, cruel… a… God, if he were in the Carolinas, he'd be a Low Country slaver, no matter the quality of his birth. He's dull, he's… they have a library at Embleton Hall, hundreds of books, and I doubt he's read more than three in his entire life. It's all horses and hounds, politics and sport, who he insulted last, how he put someone in their place…"

"And you've expressed your lack of interest to your uncle, I take it?" Alan asked. "Yet he still allows these gentlemen to call?"

"Insists upon it." Caroline sobered once more. "It matters not which I end up choosing, as long as I choose. He gains more land on either side. Or I may remain a spinster, earning my own keep, should I spite him."

"Govemour won't back you?"

"Oh, Governour is all for Harry, they hunt and fish and ride together, God knows what all," Caroline said with a wave of her hand, as though to drive away a pesky wasp. "Thank God Millicent is for me. She has not pressured me in any way, much as she might care to have me as sister-in-law. I cherish her for deflecting some of Governour's insistences. He thinks that I am of an age to marry, and that beyond the two men, I have few other choices for a suitable match. Therefore, I must marry, and if I must, then Harry is the better, the richer, and the younger, and not as plodding as Mister Tudsbury, who merely wants a married governess for his living children. He points out that if I marry Harry, then either he or I end up with the two estates in time."

"What a marvelous bloody bargain," Alan glowered. "And you the prize mare to seal it. Christ!"

"Now you see why I have been so downcast," Caroline sighed. "And why I was so looking forward to your visit! When you wrote to say that you had first to visit in Devon, I was almost beside myself. But now you're here, and for a few weeks, at least, I shall feel more at ease. The dashing Alan Lewrie could cheer up the dead!"

"I'll do all in my power for you," Alan vowed. "I'll sing songs, I'll play the merry-andrew and be your court fool, if that's what it takes! Shall I do a handstand?" He laughed, trying to balance on his palms, and ended up rolling flat on his back. "I know," he suggested, getting to his feet quickly, "what if I climb this damned oak and fetch you an acorn or two?"

She was almost shrieking with laughter as he tried to scale the stout trunk to the lowest boughs. "Come down here, at once! Oh, Alan, not an acorn, I beg you!"

"Bloody squirrel, then!" he huffed, springing at the tree once more and clawing his way up about six feet off the ground.

"William Pitt fetches me quite enough squirrels, thank you! Do come down, Alan! I'll settle for a leaf! Just a leaf!" she cried, in stitches at his antics. "I'll take one that's fallen. My kingdom for a fallen oak leaf! God, but you do look foolish! Is that the way you scale the rigging on your ship?"