Chapter 2

"Bloody squires," Cony grumbled as they were fetched their horses. "A spring-gun. A mantrap! Jesus, sir."

"And transportation to where, I wonder, with America lost," Lewrie speculated in a soft voice, "the Fever Islands? That new Van Diemen's Land? They'll rot in the hulks for months. Years."

"And the fam'lies turned out, sir, just 'cause they ain't free-holdin'. Damn th' bloody Enclosure Acts, too."

"Easy now, Cony," Lewrie warned.

"Oh, I knows, sir," Cony huffed, swiping his hair back from his forehead and putting on his hat. "Might o' been practiced sin-ners'n layabouts. But they might o' been poor folk what needed the meat t'keep their young'uns fed, too, sir, an' not able t'grazebut one cow on th' commons. Rabbits eatin' up what little garden they got, an' them not able t'lift a finger, 'cause they's th' squire's rabbits. Life c'n be hard fer poor crofters, sir."

"And a damn sight harder now they broke the law poaching," Alan declaimed with a nod of understanding. "But, they knew the risks. And they lost."

"Aye, sir. Makes a man sad, even so, sir."

"That it does, Cony. Let's get mounted, then, and go see nicer people than Sir Romney bloody Embleton."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"That's Embleton land yonder," Governour pointed out as they rode west out of the village and crested one of those rolling hills. "Our land starts at that creek mat feeds the stream. Up and over two hills west, about a mile. Then down south to the Chiddingfold Road, and another stream. There were two estates in the beginning, from our grandfathers on down. Two manors, two famines. Father was due his parcel in '46, but he wanted to stay in North Carolina, so he sold it freehold to Uncle Phineas to work as one farm. Paid a good price to us, he did, and brought it up to snuff. Altogether, we've about 900 acres in freehold or copyhold. And when we came back to England, Uncle Phineas rented 120 acres back for a token guinea a year."

"The copyhold recorded at which manor?" Alan asked, seeing that only the thin silver line of the small creek and its brushy bottoms separated Embleton land from Chiswick land. "Glandon Park?"

"With the Embletons," Governour said. "Once it was all part of the Goodyers... Norman Guidiers, I think... but the last of 'em died out, Lord, four hundred years ago? 'Twas then the Embletons were made baronets and awarded the land."

"And the old castle and bailey?" Alan pressed. "Theirs? I've a mind to look it over whilst I'm here. Think you I could?"

"The Embletons should allow it," Governour smiled. "It was the Eadmers, vassals to King Harold, built it. I'll ask for you. 'Twas where I did most of my courting with Millicent. Have to have a care, though. There may be mantraps. That's where the rabbit warren is, below the rise there."

"I haven't offered you my congratulations on your marriage!" Alan exclaimed, hitting him on the shoulder once more. "Slipped my mind completely! A lovely bride, hey?"

"The most felicitous of women, Alan, I cannot find words to say how charming, how utterly ..." Governour enthused, reddening with embarrassment. Love, which had him half-seas-over, was not an easy topic for English gentlemen. "Wait until you meet her!"

"I look forward to it eagerly," Alan assured him.

They reached a fork in the road and another bridge, this one of stout oak timbers. The fork led off to the right, across the bridge, over which they clattered onto Chiswick lands at last.

"Damn fine lands, Mister Chiswick, sir," Cony volunteered as he beheld the lushness of the growing grain fields to either side, the thickness of the wood lots, and the pastures snowy with young sheep. "Makes old Gloucestershire look like a stone quarry, so it does."

"Two hundred acres in corn and wheat, an hundred in barley and hops. And the rest rotated with sheep for manuring, or hay for fodder," Governour boasted. "Second-best in the county, next to my father-in-law's. Uncle Phineas has made it a paradise. Sheep are the coming thing in the South Counties. Now we've orchards that make the best cider around. And we rent out about eighty or so in sheep."

"Cattle, sir?" Cony asked with relish.

"Not so many as we may sell, Cony, but enough for the use of the home farms. We've pigs and chickens, and ducks, and all. And a small herd of fine horses. You take your pick, Alan, you'll see we have the beginnings of a good stud here."

The road forked again about a quarter-mile on. The right fork went to the thatch-roofed two-story cottage that Alan had visited the last time, and he began to turn his horse's head in that direction.

"No, we're all up at the main house now, Alan," Governour said. "That's leased out. Thought it would be better if Father was under a closer regimen of care under Uncle Phineas's roof."

"And the honeymooners have to share a house?" Alan teased.

"Well, no, I've a new place of my own down near the Chiddingfold Road. It was a rough tenantry, after all, that house. A man name of Byford has it now. He's the sheeper I mentioned."

Around another turn, across a pasture, stood the Chiswick manor house. It was of homey red brick, with a Palladian entrance hall added on in front, with two humbler wings of two stories each forking off at angles to enfold a lawn and flower beds around a curving drive.

"Race you to the door!" Governour shouted, putting spurs to his mount, and was off like a shot. Alan howled like a red Indian and got going in pursuit, and his gelding snorted with alarm, checkedand rose on its hind legs for a moment, then caught the spirit of the game and plunged into a mile-eating gallop, stretching its strong neck out even with the docked tail of Govemour's thoroughbred. They ran on, Alan's horse gaining until its nose was even with the other horse's shoulder, both riders hallooing and yelling to draw the attention of the house to their antics. Out came an older man in breeches and waistcoat, with a green eyeshade still over his brows, an older woman Alan recognized as Mother Charlotte Chiswick, a dark-haired beauty he took for the Amazing Millicent ... and there was Caroline!

"Beat you, ha ha!" Governour bragged as they drew rein so hard they set their mounts back on their haunches. "Look who's here!"

Alan's horse couldn't help but paddle on across a flower bed and back in a circle, shaking his head and snuffling rage at being bested, curvetting as Alan patted his neck and realizing that Caroline had never seen him ride before, which made him sit up straighter and extend his booted feet in the stirrups as he calmed the horse.

He sprang down from the saddle as a groom appeared to take the reins, and strode to her side, arms open in greetings.

"How good it is to see you!" he cried. "It's been a long two years and more!"

"Alan Lewrie, oh, welcome, welcome!" Caroline replied. They met, embraced for a second, then held hands at arm's length to gaze at each other and twirl around in a small circle. "At last!"

She had become more lovely! Still too tall at two inches below Alan's height to be thought fashionable, still willow-slim, and what London blades would call "gawky." But filled out rounder and fuller in the most interesting places! Her light brown hair shone like spun gold, her hazel eyes twinkled with joy, and the slight folds below her eyes crinkled in such a merry manner that he thought he could go on gazing at her slim, high-cheeked face for all time.

"We didn't expect you 'til Friday, or the weekend," she said.

"I had good roads," he replied. "I was inspired! I rode like John Gilpin!"

Caroline inclined her head to one side and winked with one eye, forcing Alan to notice that her mother was standing there. He let go of her hands and fell to one knee before the old woman.

"I was inspired by your ginger snaps, Mistress Chiswick," he cried, "I could not wait another instant to taste your ginger snaps!"

"Alan Lewrie, you are such a wag, sir!" Mother Charlotte said with a simpering laugh, tapping him on the head with her fan. "Come here and let me kiss you! Oh, 'tis grand to see you well, after all the adventures you've been up to among the heathens! We've gotten a letter from Burgess telling us all about it. Pirates and such, and a battle! He's well, when last you saw our little Burge?"

"Well, and full of ginger, Mother Chiswick," Alan told her with a droll roll of his head. "It's the Hindoo cooking, ya know, full of ginger and chilies. Well, and in command of his own light company in my father's regiment, so he'll continue in good hands."

If you may call that good hands, Alan qualified to himself. The last time he'd seen him, Burgess was up to his teats in tawny Hindoo maidens that he and a fellow officer shared in the quarters as their private bibikhana. And his father had been going "birr!" into a set of dugs himself! Well, he thought, pirate loot and satisfied creditors in London'd keep his father on the straight and narrow. And now that he was confirmed as Lieutenant Colonel of the 19th Native Infantry, he'd be happy enough. For awhile.

"Uncle Phineas, allow me to name you Lieutenant Alan Lewrie, one who has done so much to restore the fortunes of the Chiswick family, sir."

"Your servant, sir," Alan offered, extending a hand. "I'm delighted to meet you at last."

"And I you, Mister Lewrie," Uncle Phineas replied, not looking one whit delighted by anything in the last thirty years. He was a lean old stick, dressed in rough homespun breeches, wool stockings and old shoes that appeared to have been restitched, but well blackened. The waistcoat he wore was a very old style, as was the linsey-woolsey cut of his shirt and neck-stock. Rich the man might be, but he looked as dowdy as one of his poorer tenants. He must have been in his sixties, wrinkled as last winter's apples, with stray wisps of white hair peeking from under the green eyeshade.

"Can't thank ye enough, Mister Lewrie," Uncle Phineas said as he dropped Alan's hand after one quick, dry shake, and stuck thumbs into his waistcoat watch pockets. "Gettin' little Burgess employed with the East India Company. Wasn't sure he'd find a situation, not with times so hard. Wasn't cut out fer farmin', that's God's truth! And fer seein' Sewallis an' his family safe to Charleston so they'd be able to come home where they belong."

"And for saving Burge and Governour after Lord Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, Uncle," Caroline reminded him, and he looked as if he'd been reminded of that act of desperation perhapsonce too often, for he screwed his wrinkled lips together and merely nodded. "I welcome ye to me home, Mister Lewrie. Stayin' long, is it?"

"A few weeks, if I may be allowed, sir. Better that than kicking my heels in London, or down in Portsmouth waiting for my new ship to be turned over," Alan replied, wondering just what sort of welcome he'd come to. "Ah, Caroline, Mother Chiswick, look who's here, too? You remember my man, Will Cony?"

Cony had arrived with the pack horse, and slid off his own to come to mem, hat in hand.

"God bless you, young Will," Mother Charlotte exclaimed. "I remember you well from Wilmington, and all you did to get us aboard that ship! Ah, you're filling out like a yearling colt, you are! And does our Mister Lewrie treat you decent?"

"That 'e does, ma'am," Cony nodded, shy in front of company.

"Well, if he doesn't, I know a snug niche for a good farm lad like you, right here with us, my word on it!" the older lady cackled.

"Missus Chiswick, Miss Caroline," Cony nodded again, blushing.

"More important, have you been taking good care of Al... of our Mister Lewrie, Cony?" Caroline asked.

"Saved my life time and again," Alan supplied, for the ears of the comely housemaids who had gathered in the yard. "And did his King's enemies into fillets."

"Then 'tis more than welcome you are in this house, Will Cony," Caroline said, stepping forward to give him a sisterly peck on the cheek, which made Cony turn even darker red with embarrassment. "Home you are, for awhile with us."

"Thankee, Miss Caroline... ma'am," Cony bobbed.

"And this is Millicent, Alan," Governour said, turning boyish as he introduced his young wife. She was a lovely girl, smooth and milky of skin, with dark curling hair and startlingly gray eyes, and a merry expression of her own. It seemed as if Millicent had gotten all the Embleton elegance and neatness, leaving her brother Harry with none.

"My best wishes to you, ma'am, on your marriage. You've a fine man in Governour, as well I may attest. Your servant, ma'am."

"Oh, do call me Millicent, Mister Lewrie," she chided with the regal dignity of her father the baronet. "Such old friends of my dear Governour should not stand on ceremony."

"You do me great honor, Millicent, thankee," Alan replied with a short bow, prepared to like her if Governour did.

"Well, let's go into the house and have something to drink," Uncle Phineas suggested.

"Yes, I promised Alan one of our ales, even if he did lose the race," Governour laughed. "Sorry about that, but blood will tell, you know. I told you we had the start of a fine stud. 'Ribbons' was one of our first colts, and he's a treasure."

"Oh, I don't know," Alan japed. "I almost had you neck-or-nothing. Not bad for a fifty guinea New Market gelding."

"He's strong," Caroline said, brushing Alan's horse on flank and neck before he was led away by a waiting groom. "Short but a goer, he looks like. Good build, for the long stretch, not'the burst."

"Canter by the hour, he can," Alan agreed. "And worth an ale, no matter his pedigree, hey?"

"Caroline made our ale last autumn," Millicent boasted.

"Oh, just a few barrels," Caroline replied. "To try my hand at it."

"Then I must have some. I'm sure anything she turns her hand to comes out superbly," Alan fawned, and she blushed with pleasure at his words.

"Mmm, yes," Uncle Phineas frowned, wrinkling his nose as if at a peculiar odor. He surveyed the ruin of one of his flower beds, and contemplated, with very little joy of the doing, just how long this ignorant arse was going to plague him!