"The devil you say!" Governour burst out. "Of their fire, ey?"

'Took a Foreign Office party up the Ochlockonee and the Chatahootchee to get the Indians to side with us against Spain if we landed troops, but nothing came of it," Alan said, frowning between sips of wine. "Got ambushed by the coastal Apa-lachee. Had an exciting hour or so, 'til the Seminolee showed up and rescued us. Then we got stuck in at Turk's Island in the Bahamas to retake it from the French. That didn't work, either. My captain was wounded pretty sore, and Hood gave me command temporarily, really. The war ended two weeks later, and we brought her home to pay off with the first batch of ships."

"You actually commanded a ship!" Caroline exclaimed. "Alan, I cannot imagine! You remember, mother, how masterful he was, how nautical, the morning we sailed down the Cape Fear? 'Quartermaster, half a point to'-to what-you-may-call-it-'helm up and hands to the braces'? Lord, Alan, I knew you were a competent sailor even then, as a master's mate. But to run a ship of your own, well!"

"For the shortest commission in naval history, I expect," he replied, almost glowing inside on the warmth of their regard. "But I also expect Governour and Burgess have more interesting adventures, and I'm dying to hear them. Allow me to sport us all to another brace of this rather good wine, and tell it all to me."

He stayed long past his intended departure time, partly because the Chiswick brothers indeed had exciting tales to relate. Of how they had used the remnants of their North Carolina Loyalist Rifle battalion alongside depot troops and recovered sick from Simcoe's Queen's Rangers around New York for a few months as scouts and raiders to keep the Rebels on the hop, then had been trans-shipped to Charleston to defend the approaches to the city from Rebel probes. Partly because he was with Caroline Chiswick, who had been beautiful before, but was now so incredibly, deliriously handsome.