Dewey Lambdin - Sea of Grey

"Well, Alan," Theoni all but cooed, "some Lewries are more welcome than others. I was quite surprised by your father's arrival. A very droll old gentleman."

"He behaved himself, then?" Lewrie just had to ask; he knew his father too well to trust him around any available, and handsome, lass.

"Quite well." Theoni chuckled again. "Though he does have the… jaunty? Is that the right word? The jaunty leer in his eye?"

"Aye, jaunty," Lewrie said with a wry smile. " 'Tis the tamest way for what he had in his eye to be said in polite company."

"Imagine my surprise when he did call," Theoni said, sitting up and reaching for her cup once more. "Mobley announced a General Lewrie, and I thought he had gotten it wrong… that it was you! He told me about that letter. He apologised for intruding, for… probing about at your wife's request. Barging in upon a total stranger." "What'd you tell him, then?"

"The truth," she said, bald-faced. "Though elderly, he is far too cynical to accept lies. He winced at that. Screwed up his face. But he nodded… as if he understood."

She heaved a wry little laugh, a hitching of her shoulders. "I expect that he left more than a few offspring in his path in his younger days," she commented.

"Me, included. I'm the only one he owned up to, and took as his own. Not as a Willoughby, though. Trust me, 'tis a long, sad story, and there was a pot of money involved."

"He is wealthy, now?" Theoni suddenly asked. "Aye, he is," Lewrie answered, suddenly on his guard, suddenly feeling a sinking in his innards. Of jealousy? he wondered. "Some."

"Then the world is no longer at risk," Theoni said, laughing at that news. "Well-fed sharks do not bite, usually. He might even turn mellow… into a safe supper guest who doesn't have to sing." Lewrie burst into a side-aching peal of laughter. "Oh, God! My father… safe!" He hooted. "He'd steal the coins from his own eyes on his deathbed… and pinch the chambermaid with the winding sheet!"

"Then I see where you got your spirit." Theoni tittered. "Aye… blood will tell, they say," Lewrie replied, sobering, recalling just where, and how, that adage had most recently been used. "So what will you do now?" Theoni enquired. "God knows," Lewrie said with a frown, slouching back into the settee. "Saw my solicitor, made some arrangements… safeguarded some funds and such… Most like, it's back down to Sheerness for me, to put Proteus back in the water and toddle off to sea. What I'm good at. Where I don't get in much trouble. Mostly."

"But that was where you got in trouble with me, Alan," Theoni pointed out with a becoming smirk. "At sea."

"Aye, it was," he agreed, enfired by the look in her eyes, as if she wouldn't mind a tad more "trouble," should he dare risk it. All of a sudden, the tension between them became as palpable, and as visible, as St. Elmo's Fire surging in the top-masts of a storm-cast ship!

"I… uh," he croaked, groping for lucidity. "I'd best…"

"How to say this?" she puzzled aloud, frowning. "Though I wish you no pain in your life, Alan… and I certainly do not wish to complicate things even worse than they are, I will never regret being your lover… even for such a short but blissful time. I will never regret having your son. I feel… blessed! He will be the part of you that I will have, always. All the part of you that I expected to have in this life, knowing that your wife… but now?"

"Theoni, I…" Lewrie croaked again, sure now that coming was a bad idea, that yawning before him was a gaping abyss that could sear his soul in Hellfire, should he abandon all his vows, his…

"I told your father the truth when he came, as I said," Theoni continued, sliding close once more and gazing at him with such an open and frank expression. "I told him that I loved you, Alan. That when I married my late husband, it was arranged… for the business. After a time, I came to love him, I was comfortable and content, and I had Michael, but… that's why I asked you to come call upon me today. To tell you that whatever happens, I am sorry for causing any rift. I did not pray that you and your wife would part, and that I do regret, now that I know it.

"But I want you to know that whatever happens, should you feel free, should you truly be free," she went on, stumbling a bit, waving a hand in haste, her words tumbling together, "that I will always be here for you. Not just as a 'dear friend,' Alan, but as someone who really loves you! Who would be yours completely, but for fortune!" "Theoni…" he said with a dry gulp. "Oh, I know!" she almost whimpered, getting to her feet to dash away and hide her face with her long chestnut hair, as if ashamed of his seeming rejection. "I only make it worse! But if I wait to tell you in a letter, and you a thousand miles away at sea, you'd never see me as…!

She turned to face him, though with eyes downcast at the floor, arms crossed tight below her bodice. Her eyes were wet with tears!

"If you ever come to me, no matter what your English Society has to say about it… about us," she vowed, chin up of a sudden, proudly and almost defiantly forlorn, "I will deny you nothing. Whatever we may make of stolen time together, open time together, it makes no difference. I know I'm not English, the sort one can take into the public, I know it's brazen and sinful of me, but I cannot help that, Alan. I love you so much, I have no shame!" she vowed, her face screwing up.

He'd risen, drawn by her retreat; he stood non-plussed, short of enfolding her in comfort, or lust, or whatever it was that he felt at that moment!

"Theoni, I had no idea, I…" he stammered. Now he knew that he really should go, instanter. But he couldn't, of course.

She raised one hand to dab at her eyes, and that tore it! Lewrie stepped forward and embraced her as best he could, and her arms went about his neck, her tears and muffled sobs trickled on his neck, and their loins pressed together so fiercely; almost grinding.

"There, there… there, there," he whispered, stroking her back. "I never knew! Theoni, I knew it was special, it felt so righteous, if one can use that word, so… holy, but I never thought…!"

Leave, leave, leave, and never a backward glance! he thought in agony; he a man, for once!

"You did care for me, Alan?" Theoni asked, hot breath searing him. "Really cared, not just for a little while?"

"Well, o' course I did! But, we both knew the circumstances of our lives. We took solace…"

"And pleasure," Theoni added, with a hiccoughy chuckle, and an easing of her fierce grip to something more… fond.

"Aye, that too. Lashings of pleasure!" he admitted, recalling all too well those stolen hours in his great-cabins, in that lodging she'd taken in Lisbon before her packet ship had departed. "I don't know what's to happen, though, Theoni, and I can't just walk away from Caroline so easily… mean t'say, I can't cause you pain, hanging by your thumbs with false hopes, and… I won't make you go through that, I won't!" There, he thought, despite himself; that felt right-righteous! "I know that, Alan, I trust you!" she declared, "But, even if your wife and you reconcile, I would still long to be near you as we are now… as we were then," she added, suggestively. "I must go," he stated, far too late.

"I know," she acquiesced, easing her grip on him, yet loath to release him completely. "We must wait and see what happens. After all that has passed between us, though… I wanted you to know how I feel. Oh, that you were a bachelor when you fought the Serb pirates for me!"

"Saved a lot o' woe, all round," Alan sadly chuckled, forehead to forehead, and equally loath to let go of her flesh, enraptured by a heady aroma of clean hair, rosemary and thyme, commingled with a newer scent of light rosewater. They lifted their chins at the same time, their noses bumped-her artfully wee and sculptured nose!-then their lips. Searching, hungrily writhing, her breath already hot and musky with arousal!

"I must go," he repeated, after a long few moments of bliss.

"I know that, too, dearest Alan," she whispered back so fondly, toying with the back of his neck with her nails, sending chills down his spine, straight to his groin! "It is too soon, too shocking, atop the other shock you have taken. Too early. But before your ship puts back to sea, if you want me, I will come to you, I promise. And I will ask you for no promise in return, no matter how things stand. I truly do love you, so I could not do otherwise. Now, go! Be a hero!"

She turned playful, after a moment of shuddery truth, as if to shoo him away with a spank on the hindquarters.

"Theoni… no matter how things fall out, thankee," he said.

"I have your darling namesake son," she replied. "It is me who should be thankful."

She gave him one last parting kiss in gratitude.

"Now, go, before I become so tempted that…!" she pushed, now shoving him towards the hallway. "Be England 's hero, Alan. You are already mine. Write me, for I will surely write you, and… oh, please go, before…!"

"I'll write," he promised her, fetching his own hat and cloak.

"I'll come to… Sheerness?" she suddenly proposed.

"Sheer-Nasty? You'll hate it! Dreadful-boresome hole!" he japed.

"With you, it will be Paradise," she swore with a smile.

Egads, what'd I just promise? he asked himself once by the kerb; does Caroline despise me now, why make it worse? But… she can't loathe me more! In for the penny, in for the pound, oh God…!

Longa exilias et vastum maris acquor arandum.

Long exile is thy lot, a vast stretch of sea thou must plow.

Aeneid, Book II 780

Publius Vergilius Maro "Virgil"

C old, cold, cold! Faint skifts of snow littered the cobbles of the street before the tavern and posting house, lay between the stones to make a stark chequerboard, and skittered as dry as sand when a gust of icy wind stirred. It was false dawn, the "iffy" time that outlined roofs and chimneypots with faint light, whilst the bulk of the street still lay in darkness, here and there pinpricked by only a few faint lanthorns by the entrances to homes or commercial establishments, and upon the quays, where false dawn drew black-on-charcoal traceries of rigging and masts aboard the ships that lay alongside.

Tiny, glim-like lights glowed at taffrails and entry-ports on those docked vessels; a few more ghosted across the harbour waters as guard boats rowed about to prevent desertion or smuggling. Hired boats and ships' boats stroked or sailed to and fro, even at that ungodly hour, bearing officers ashore, or taking officers or mates from a night of shore comforts, perhaps even pleasure, in Sheerness.

Barely visible against the darkness, and a fine sea-haze off the North Sea, fishermen were setting out, no matter the cold or the risk, to dredge, rake, or net a meagre day's profit. Some sailed, a very good omen, with tiny masthead lanthorns aglow that created eerie tan blots of lit, shivering canvas-while the boats were invisibly dark-as if a plague of weary Jack O'Lanterns were on the prowl.

There was a decent slant of wind, out of the Nor'Nor'east for once; not enough to dissipate the cold sea mists, nor enough to toss the many ships anchored in the Little Nore or Great Nore, but it'd do, for Lewrie's purposes; and after the night before…