The French Prize Read Online Free

observed, but no one pressed him for more because they knew the story well.
    Dinner progressed from soup to an excellent crown roast of lamb, with the conversation moving along its well-plotted course. “Tell us more about these pirates,” Isaac said. “You do look as if you have taken a beating.”
    Jack was thankfully in mid-chew, which gave him a moment to assess the situation. He heard the note this time, the subtle melody of disapproval. The pirate story was for Nathaniel’s benefit; his father would not buy it and was not meant to. After a lifetime at sea Isaac Biddlecomb would have a better idea of what the truth of the matter might be, and he certainly would be of the opinion that tavern brawls were not the sort of thing in which men of Jack’s station indulged.
    The bruising was apparently more visible in the well-lit dining room than the small mirror in his cabin had led him to believe.
    â€œVery well, you’ve found me out,” he said after swallowing. “No pirates, I fear, Nathaniel. We got into a bit of nasty weather off Hatteras and I took a flier across the cabin. Very lubberly, I’m embarrassed to say.”
    Isaac grunted. He was not buying that one either, and Jack understood that he could certainly recognize the difference between a collision with a hanging knee and a beating from a fight. But for the sake of family unity, perhaps, or to shield Nathaniel from the truth about his prodigal brother, he said, “Well, the most experienced of us will do something lubberly on occasion. I know that for a fact.” There was an awkward silence, and then Isaac added, “But see here, pray tell us more about your step to the quarterdeck. First smart thing Oxnard’s done, to my knowledge.”
    Were the table not populated exclusively by Biddlecombs who were generally of a like mind, such a statement would not have been allowed under Virginia’s strict embargo of political discourse at dinner. Oxnard was a well-known and vocal Republican of the most vicious stripe, close associate of Benjamin Franklin Bache, who published the Philadelphia Aurora , the paper that dubbed recently inaugurated President John Adams, “His Rotundity.”
    Isaac Biddlecomb was of the Federalist faction. Like Adams. In truth, he was like Adams in many ways; a New Englander, strong advocate of American commerce, proponent of a strong United States Navy and damn the cost, suspicious of the excesses of revolutionary France. That Isaac should be a great supporter of the nascent United States Navy was hardly a surprise—it was as a naval officer that he had won considerable fame, not to mention a fortune in prize money, during the War for Independency.
    But Isaac’s opinions, like Adams’s, were not reactionary or ill-considered. Men like Bache and Oxnard might well portray all Federalists as monarchists, men as eager to crawl into bed with the king of England as they were to go to war with revolutionary France, but there was more subtlety in the positions held by the thoughtful men of that faction. Just as not all Republicans were mad radicals screaming Libert é , É galit é , Fraternit é , ou la Mort in the streets, though many Federalists did not appreciate the nuance.
    â€œThank you, sir,” Jack said, “I’m not sure exactly what induced Mr. Oxnard to do something of which you approve.” Virginia’s eyebrows went up again, and Jack, trained from birth to react to that gesture, altered course. But it was too late.
    â€œFirst thing, indeed,” Isaac said. “And it makes me wonder…”
    Jack turned back to his dinner, cutting a piece of lamb as he grit his teeth and considered whether or not he could unclench his jaw enough to chew. Damn the old man , he thought.
    Of course the Great Man would imply that his son’s step to the quarterdeck must somehow be about himself. Jack felt like a rope stretched so hard it creaked