A King`s Commander

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"Dearest!" Lewrie whispered into her sweet-smelling hair.

"Oh, dearest God, Alan…!" Caroline responded in a like whisper. Though they could have shouted, for all the clamor of a sloop of war readying to set sail. "My only love."

A few more minutes, Lewrie squirmed in rising impatience; just a few minutes more, and I'm safe-I think. Mostly, anyway!

There were limits on how even the fondest captain and his wife could behave in public; quite unlike the open bawling of "wives"-the real helpmates, or the feigned for profit-had made when HMS Jester had at last lowered the "easy" pendant and put herself back into Discipline, and the men of the lower deck had bade farewell to their loved ones, perhaps forever. Squealing, mewling brats, snuffly seamen, and howling harridans, appearing far older and weathered than their years, cursed by Fate they'd wed with sailors. Saying their own good-byes-also perhaps forever; left with a new babe-to-be, a dubious pay certificate that would go for a quarter of its value with some agate-eyed jobber, a portion of their man's pay signed over with the Councillor of the Cheque, and always, and purposely, six months in arrears. A handful of solid coin, perhaps, since Jester had been formally commissioned in a home port. Paid just before sailing, so they'd not desert.

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