A King's Trade Read Online Free Page B

canoes and such, so…”
    â€œPerhaps a French, or Spanish, privateer, that …” Lewrie tried to say, with a puzzled shrug.
    â€œThen, there was all that folderol ‘twixt your friend, Colonel Cashman of that West Indies regiment the Beaumans raised to put down the slave rebellion on Saint-Domingue, and the family,” Capt. Nicely had gravelled reluctantly on, “the duel that followed the accusations slung about after that pot-mess of a battle outside Port-au-Prince, just before the withdrawal of all British forces… cowardice charges by Cashman, ‘gainst the younger Beauman… Ledyard Beauman, was it?”
    Lewrie could only vaguely nod; he did not trust himself to speak.
    â€œIncompetence charges in reply, then that
duel!”
Nicely sniffed in gentlemanly outrage at what a shambles
that
had turned out to be…Ledyard Beauman too scared or drunk to obey the niceties, firing at Cashman’s back before “Kit” could turn, stand, and receive; Cashman drilling the foppish bastard in the belly; Ledyard’s second, a cousin, Captain Sellers from the disbanded regiment, tossing Ledyard a second pistol and drawing his own; and Lewrie, as
Cashman’s
second, shooting
him
dead, too, and…
    â€œYour friend sold up and sailed for America, right after?”
    â€œUhm, aye, he did, sir,” Lewrie answered, sensing a reprieve if Kit Cashman was suspected. “Good Lord, Captain Nicely, ye don’t think that
Christopher
had a… ! Well, I’m damned if…!”
    â€œThe Beaumans did, at first,” Nicely had intoned, so solemnly that Lewrie felt that faint hope shrink like a deflating pig bladder.
    â€œSpite, sir, pure and simple!” Lewrie managed to declaim.
    â€œSpite, perhaps, on Colonel Cashman’s part,” Nicely countered. “A parting jape on the whole detestable Beauman clan,
and
an expensive one. For, wherever your friend Cashman lit in the United States, the dozen fit and young slaves would prove useful in a new farming venture, or a source or ready funds, if not, but…”
    Nicely had drawn out that “but,” turning it into a descending
glissando
worthy of a dying diva’s final
aria,
nailing the first spike into the coffin lid by adding, “Of late, though, Hugh Beauman, head of their clan, has heard-tell that your crew has
quite
a few more Cuffffy sailors in it than the usual frigate so long on station in the Caribbean.”
    â€œWhy, those bastards!” Lewrie spluttered, summoning up every shred he could muster that even
resembled
righteous indignation, and whey-faced innocence. “Cashman slew Ledyard,
I
killed one of Hugh’s cousins, so…! Before your time, sir, in my midshipman days during the American Revolution,
Lucy
Beauman and I were, ah…friendly. We even considered a union, should I earn a commission, but the Beaumans would have none of it. Almost had t’duel one of ‘em
then!
Barred the house, Lucy and I cut off …!”
    He pointedly
didn’t
supply that he’d been rogering a scandalous older “grass-widow” on the side whilst trying to squire
Lucy,
that he had escorted Hugh’s married sister, Anne, about town unchaperoned one day, and not
his
fault, that
faux pas
in gentlemanly behaviour.
    â€œSo I have learned, Lewrie,” Nicely had sternly muttered. “Just as I’m aware of the Beaumans’ threats on your life following the duel, which Mister James Peel of the Foreign Office took seriously enough to discover to me, and get you and
Proteus
safely out to sea, and out of their reach. We are all aware of that.”
    â€œAh…
we,
sir?” a stalwart Capt. Lewrie had quailed.
    â€œWell, of course,
we,
sir!” Nicely had barked, obviously grown weary with tip-toeing and shilly-shally. “Me…Peel, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, the island governor, Lord Balcarres …” he ticked off on his blunt