Jack Absolute Read online

  She mimed a yawn, turned back, smiled. ‘So kiss me, Jack Absolute. Kiss me for the very last time.’

  So he did. Pulled her tight and kissed her as if the kiss could last for ever. The scent of her, some French fragrance rising from her warm body. That lace, half-undone, at her uplifted breasts. Her hand caught between the velvet of her dress and his tight, black breeches.

  She pressed her fingers into him and, in a voice suddenly more Deptford than Drury Lane, said, ‘Ooh, Jack!’

  Planned exits and good intentions. Gone in a moment. He pushed her back, or she pulled him, the table behind swept clear of its potions and bottles, glass breaking, creams leaking, powder rising through the air. She was lifting her dress, parting her undergarments. He fumbled at the buttons of his breeches, heard two rip.

  ‘Jack!’ she sighed. ‘Here. Let me help. Here. Oh … oh! Yes. Yes! There!’

  Four months at sea. Seven years away from England. Apparently he was still a Cornish Romeo after all.

  She was as ready as he. The whalebone of her stays beneath the dress bent under his pressure, then snapped like bullet shot, a splinter thrusting into his hip. Jack scarcely noticed – for he was inside her.

  There was brief, delightful resistance and then he was moving slowly deeper. She shuddered, squeezed him tighter to her, making it hard to force his head down. But he persevered. His teeth fastened on the lace of her bodice and he jerked free the tormenting half-knot.

  ‘God,’ he cried, ‘I’ve been wanting to do that all week.’

  ‘And I’ve been wanting you to do it.’ She giggled and, as his head rose, bit his ear.

  Tongue and teeth, fingers rubbing, lifting, rolling. Her breasts were as beautiful as their promise. He bent to kiss them, to tease them with his tongue, then his mouth found hers and she bit him again, his lip, they tasted his blood together. Her head banged into the mirror, she groaned, but not in pain. A part of him was aware of the noise they were making, of the voices on stage grown suddenly louder. And he didn’t care. He saw his face in the mirror, his hair dishevelled again … something else he didn’t care about.

  The scent of their lovemaking mingled with spilled creams and French fragrance. She was moaning, a single note, and he joined her in counterpoint, somehow a fifth below. Their notes rose, as did the volume from the stage; but that was another world, beyond them now. Inseparable, their voices entwined, along with every other part of them, and when they could not be any closer, they reached their height as one.

  She turned her head aside then, with a diminishing sigh of ecstasy. Jack opened his eyes, looked again into the cracked mirror, saw again a contorted face … and realized, suddenly, that this time it was not his own.

  Banastre Tarleton clutched a long, hot-house rose in one hand, which was slowly drooping towards the floor. His expression was of greeting, tempered with shock, rapidly escalating to fury, mirroring Jack’s anger, surprised in such an intimate act. But the expression of the man who held the dressing-room curtain aside for Tarleton was quite different. Indeed, the face of the Count Von Schlaben displayed nothing but the purest joy.

  The tableau held for a moment. Then Jack was up, taking a step towards the intruders, his eyes locking with Tarleton’s, his hands busy at the fastenings of his breeches. Behind him, Lizzie hopped off the table, began smoothing and adjusting.

  The shock on the younger man’s face had now been entirely displaced by rage. Lifting the rose, he slashed it, like a cavalry sabre, across Jack’s face. Thorns raked him, the bloom snapped off and the thick stem was drawn back for a straight thrust toward his eye. To prevent this Jack stepped forward and grasped Tarleton by the lapels of his jacket. Their faces were almost touching.

  ‘Enough,’ Jack said. ‘Calm yourself, sir.’

  The words had the opposite effect. Tarleton went berserk.

  ‘Dog!’ he yelled, grabbing Jack’s hands, bending his knees, thrusting up. Jack’s feet lifted and he was rushed backwards. Bracing himself to collide with Lizzie, or the dressing-table, he encountered neither. A drape was brushed aside, there was a sudden, intense brightness, and a vast space opening behind his propelled body. A woman screamed, there were shouts, and Jack, sailing backwards, instinctively dropped into a move that he’d rarely practised since his youthful wrestling with the village lads in Zennor, let his weight drop down and backwards and, as Tarleton fell towards him, brought his legs up. When his back reached the floor, he planted his feet in his assailant’s chest and used the man’s rush to launch him over his head.

  There was a huge crash. Jack felt the reverberations shudder through the wooden floor beneath him. There were further gasps, some shouts of ‘Shame!’ one of ‘Bravo!’ and then a face loomed above him. It was painted, eyes shadowed and highlighted, cheekbones sculpted in powder.

  ‘What do you do here, sir?’ hissed the actor.

  Jack turned his head and looked out at a host of upturned faces. And the audience of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, looked back.

  In an instant he was on his feet. His first thought was of his opponent but the fall had winded Tarleton, who was now struggling to rise, Stage Left. Meanwhile, making her entrance, was Lizzie. She rushed across to him with well-supported cries of, ‘Jack! Oh Jack!’ A pace behind her was the Count von Schlaben.

  There was a silent moment, time slowing. Lizzie came into his arms. The two other actors retired upstage to stare. His head turned again to the auditorium. The audience had settled back, to enjoy this fresh sub-plot and all these new actors. Jack felt his hand rise slowly to his face. There was blood there, from the rose’s thorns and Lizzie’s bites. An inner voice spoke. Sheridan, it said, somewhat bitterly, I know you will write this.

  Then noise returned along with time’s normal pace. Von Schlaben helped the winded Tarleton to his feet.

  The youth croaked, ‘You cur! You will give me satisfaction.’

  It was spoken in barely a whisper. From the footman’s gallery, someone yelled, ‘Speak up!’

  Jack whispered to Lizzie, who was now staring frozenly into the auditorium, ‘Come. Let us leave.’

  He managed to turn her. They even took a step. Then Tarleton’s hand closed on his arm.

  ‘Did you not hear me, sir? You have come between me and my love. And you will suffer for it.’

  This carried to the back of the pit. ‘Ooh,’ went the audience.

  Jack let Lizzie take a step before him. He turned, took Tarleton’s hand, bent it back at the wrist.

  ‘You have now touched me twice, sir. Do not make the mistake of doing it a third time.’

  ‘Aaah,’ sighed the house.

  He pushed the younger man away.

  ‘And your answer, sir? You have wronged my friend. He has demanded satisfaction.’

  This was softly spoken, yet still carried. Von Schlaben did not have to speak loudly to be heard.

  ‘Go on, fight him,’ someone yelled from a box.

  Another voice countered, ‘For shame, sir.’

  Jack’s gaze moved over the enthralled faces below before settling on the Count’s. ‘This gentleman had no prior claim to the lady’s affections. She is free to choose and chose me. That is all. I will not fight for a boy’s petulance.’

  ‘That’s good,’ someone cried, ‘awfully good.’ There was a patter of applause.

  ‘Perhaps you do not understand, Captain. My young friend will have redress for his injuries. As an officer of the King, are you not unable to refuse him?’

  Jack smiled. Duelling was illegal, yet soldiers found it hard to turn down a challenge, the disgrace to their uniform. Some had been cashiered for doing so.

  ‘But I am not an officer, sir. I resigned my commission eleven years ago.’

  He had half-turned away. The absurdity of the situation was becoming too clear to him. He needed to get away from this public arena.

  He wasn’t halfway there before Tarleton spoke again. ‘Then you put aside your courage when you put off your uniform. You, sir, are a coward.
’

  The word sailed up into the flies of the Theatre Royal, hung there like a backcloth waiting to drop for a change of scene. Two thousand pairs of eyes fixed upon him as Jack turned back.

  ‘Now that,’ he said, ‘is a very different matter.’

  ‘Aaah,’ was the sound released from two thousand mouths. Then there was loud and universal applause. Stage managers appeared in the wings and took this chance to rush on to the stage and sweep the non-professional actors off it.

  They gathered. Lizzie was swooning, comforted by a dresser who had appeared with a bottle of sal volatile for her to sniff. Von Schlaben had taken charge of the formalities.

  ‘My card, Captain Absolute. Do you have a friend with whom I can arrange the affair?’

  ‘I’d be happy to act for him.’

  Jack turned to the voice, hearing the Irish lilt in it. ‘Sheridan. Thought you wouldn’t miss this drama. Been taking notes?’

  ‘Indeed, Jack. It is lodged in here.’ The playwright tapped the side of his head. ‘Wonderful line, by the way – “Now that is a very different matter.” Beautifully delivered. You missed your vocation.’ He turned back to the Count. ‘Sheridan is my name. I do not have a card. But I will be acting for the Captain.’

  ‘Will you all stop referring to me as “the Captain”? I’m no longer a damned captain!’

  Von Schlaben smiled at him. It was the second time Jack had seen him do so and it remained a thoroughly unpleasant sight. ‘So, Mr Sheridan,’ he said, ‘where and when?’

  The two men moved away to discuss terms. Jack looked to Lizzie where she seemed to be recovering under the attentions of her dresser. She raised a ‘brave’ face to him; then, looking across to his rival, seemed to swoon again.

  Jack also looked to Tarleton. He was rubbing the wrist Jack had twisted. It was his left wrist, which was disappointing, for he was obviously right-handed – his sword straps hung on the left side. Just as well he’d left his sword in the cloakroom, as audience members were encouraged to do; though Jack knew he’d be seeing a sword in the man’s hand soon enough.

  Jack began to curse himself – for not sending a note to Lizzie with his farewells, for not already being on the road to Portsmouth, for being tricked into this cursed fight. He suspected trickery from the triumph he’d noted in the Count’s grey eyes. He hoped to discover the reason and soon. He did not want to die in ignorance.

  Sighing, he headed for the world. He needed more cognac and some paper. He had a will to make. And it would take no time at all.

  – THREE –

  The Duel

  My young friend will have redress for his injuries. As an officer of the King, are you not unable to refuse him?

  Jack stared across the duelling ground at the Count von Schlaben, the man’s words, spoken so softly the previous night, echoing in his head. That the German wanted him to fight and, presumably, die was clear. But why? Why? Because he was an officer of the King? He wasn’t. And yet … hadn’t Burgoyne made it known that Jack had already agreed to rejoin his regiment as the General’s Intelligence?

  Jack shook his head. The remains of the cognac he’d drunk the night before still muffled his reasoning while the cold was beginning to numb other parts. And he suddenly realized that such musing would clarify nothing. The reason might not matter anyway, as he could be dead very shortly. The best – the only – way to avoid that was to get this fight over with as soon as possible. There would be time enough for ‘why’ later.

  Or not.

  Jack had been content to hang back with his thoughts and leave the formalities to others. But it was clear, by the increasing volume of the voices, that a resolution was far from being reached. Blowing his nose again, he went over.

  ‘Gentlemen, if we do not commence soon, I’ll freeze before I fight. What is the problem?’

  A babble arose. Sheridan’s voice, used to the demands of the theatre, won through. ‘Jack, they wish to make it to the death. And to ensure such a result they wish to fight with these.’ He gestured to a servant standing behind the squabblers. The man held two ‘hangers’, the cavalryman’s main weapon. The wounds this heavy, curved sword could deliver, in capable hands, were hideous. His opponent’s hands looked more than capable.

  ‘As a tribute to our branch of the army, sir. Do you not think it fitting?’

  Tarleton’s almost pretty face twisted with emotions he could barely suppress.

  He is a man for whom control is difficult, Jack thought. Something to remember in the fight ahead.

  ‘Fitting?’ he said. ‘I have no desire to kill or be killed as a tribute to anything.’ Before anyone could speak again, he added, ‘Furthermore, gentlemen, as the challenged party, I believe my Seconds have the right to decide. They act for me.’

  Sheridan stepped forward. ‘My friend is correct. And, as I have said, we choose small swords, since the light is poor for pistols. And the matter to be honourably settled at the sight of First Blood.’

  Muttering began at that through the gallery of spectators. People had come to see a death, not a wounding.

  ‘Never mind.’ Tarleton stepped forward, his eyes holding Jack’s, his voice quavering, though there was no fear in it. ‘First Blood can be last blood too.’

  The promise hung in the air until Tarleton’s First-Second, the Ensign from the Coldstreams, spoke, his voice unpleasantly thin and nasal. ‘Your Seconds? An Irishman and … what is this fellow exactly? We know that the Absolute name has fallen low. Your father bays at the moon, does he not? But could you not get better than an Irish playwright and a savage who does not even comprehend our language?’

  The emphasis was contemptuous in the extreme. Jack felt Até stir beside him. The Mohawk had little concern for the etiquette of a duel. He’d stove this man’s head in and not think twice about it. Quickly, Jack said, ‘Do you refer to Até here? He does indeed speak English.’

  The Ensign turned to the semi-circle of men who had gathered closer to listen. ‘My betrothed, Lady Augusta, keeps a parrot who can talk. Any animal can be taught tricks.’

  Guffaws rippled through the gathered gentlemen.

  ‘Shall I spill his brains on to the ground, Daganoweda?’ Até had stepped back to give himself room to swing, his hand resting on the tomahawk at his waist. He’d spoken in Iroquois and Jack answered in the same.

  ‘I doubt you’d find any to spill, Até. Could not you quote him some of your infernal Hamlet instead?’

  The Mohawk’s gaze flicked to Jack. ‘Could not Lady Augusta’s parrot do as much?’

  Jack sighed, looked heavenward for a moment. He really needed to get his friend back across the ocean. So-called civilization was sapping his reserves of irony. Then, in that moment, Jack recognized the Ensign. Savingdon was his name, a Viscount, and Jack had been at Westminster School with the man’s elder and equally bovine brother.

  ‘Até here can trace his family back for seven generations and every ancestor royalty of the tribe. Wasn’t your grandfather, Savingdon, the coal merchant who bought his title?’

  It was true and all there knew it. The laughter made the Viscount’s already florid face flush a deeper red. He stepped forward, hand reaching for his sword.

  ‘You dog, Absolute! If my friend here doesn’t kill you, I will.’

  Tarleton said, ‘You will not get that chance.’

  A hubbub arose from the gallery. The President, a colonel of the Foot Guards, tried to lift his voice above it and restore calm. He failed.

  ‘Enough.’

  The word was spoken quietly. Yet the speaker’s command was such that there was an almost instant hush.

  ‘Is this how such matters are conducted in this realm? Are we here to talk or to fight?’

  Once more Jack looked at Tarleton’s Second-Second; into the grey eyes, so mild in that long face framed with white-blond hair. Once more he was puzzled. Everything else concerning this affair reminded him of episodes from his youth, the English gentleman and his prickly honour. But this m
an, this German, was out of place in such a scene.

  Before Jack could consider any further, Savingdon was braying, ‘Enough, indeed. Let us begin,’ and Jack was being pulled away by his friends.

  ‘My lawyer, Phillpott’s of the Inner Temple, has all the details should anything befall me,’ Jack said in answer to Sheridan’s entreaty. ‘There’s precious little left in the Absolute coffers, we’re mortgaged to the last button, hence the importance of my journey to the Indies. Enough to keep Sir James supplied with wine in his cell at Bedlam for a time. But it’s a pauper’s grave for me and nothing for you, I’m afraid, Até.’

  ‘Then may I suggest you win this fight so we can complete your business and I can return to my people, as befits my status, with rich gifts for all.’

  ‘Is that what concerns you?’ Jack looked at his friend. ‘Your status? I might be dead in a moment. Have you nothing to say of that?’

  ‘I will say just two things, Daganoweda. Firstly, this man who talked of parrots will die moments after you do. Secondly, concerning your death, remember this.’

  He drew himself up to his full height, arms extended before him, as if he was about to speak in the meeting lodge of his tribe and, in sonorous Iroquoian, declaimed, ‘“If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.”’

  ‘Zounds,’ Jack muttered, ‘Hamlet again! I wish I’d never introduced you to that bloody play.’

  ‘He is the Wise One. Wiser than you, Daganoweda. For when he was to die, he knew why. He had accepted it, like a warrior. Yet you still think you are to die for a woman. And I think you are wrong.’

  Jack had little time to consider his friend’s words. Tarleton had taken his position at one end of the rectangle of snow, tamped down by those who’d come early to enjoy the fight. He stood there, swishing his sword, still clad only in his linen shirt.

  ‘Your coat, Jack?’ Sheridan already held his cloak.

  ‘No,’ Jack sniffed. ‘I don’t mind being killed – but I’ll be damned if I’m going to catch a cold.’