Tonight it was to be Dolly Fenton, who had been his mistress at Antigua for a few delicious weeks after he'd gone into the Shrike brig. She'd gone back to England on the packet once his ship had been transferred to the Jamaica Squadron, but she was still half in love with him, even if she had gained herself a wealthy City magistrate as a patron and lover. The man had to spend time with his wife and family, which left Dolly bored and lonely. She was to come to his lodgings for a few hours of bliss, and he was going to be a trifle late if he didn't stir his young arse up and hurry home.

Dolly was a few years older than he, but that hadn't been a detriment so far. Alan had solved her financial difficulties after her husband left her a penniless widow on Antigua, by the simple expedient of pointing out to her that instead of whoring of even the most genteel sort, she could sell the late Captain Fenton's commission in the Army to a richer junior officer of his unit who wished to buy his way up in rank.

Tomorrow, though, he would have to devote all his time to Lady Delia Cantner. When Alan had been a midshipman aboard the small dispatch schooner Parrot in 1781, she and her husband had been their passengers. In the midst of an outbreak of Yellow Fever among the crew, Alan's insubordinate actions had burned a French privateer to the waterline, a ship that had appeared like the last act of a capricious God to torment them in their already dire peril.

Lady Delia was years younger than her husband, the ancient squint-a-pipes Lord Cantner, who was most conveniently crossing over to Holland to transact some business, and would be gone for some time.

Where Dolly Fenton was green-eyed and blessed with hair the color of polished mahoghany, with a slim young body, Lady Delia was dark, like a Spanish countess. Black hair, smoky brown eyes with a lazy, sensuous cast and a bountifully soft and round form with the biggest bouncers Alan had ever doted upon. He would be hard put to choose exactly which of the pair he'd prefer, if he had to give one of them up.