The King's Marauder Read Online Free PDF

in Anglesgreen, could not think of a single house where people would be glad to greet him. He could have camped himself and his people at his father’s house in London, but that would not have lasted a week; the old bastard would’ve run them all off at gunpoint! It would have cost him some, but he could have forseen the consequences and rented a small country place just outside London, up the Hampstead Road, or even out to the East in Islington.
    “Best, I heal up and go away,” he muttered to himself, massaging his achy thigh. “Get started on whatever it takes, straightaway.”
    Will Cony had overcome his maiming. He’d offered to aid Lewrie to overcome his, too. Why not? He nodded his head, agreeing with himself, as he determined to ride if he could, coach if he must, down to the Old Ploughman and take Will Cony up on his offer, the very next morning!

CHAPTER FOUR
    “Ow,” Lewrie said with a wince, muffling himself to appear stoic and manly. “Bloody stupid damned beast!” he added, reining what had been his favourite riding mount to a halt, and steeling himself for a dismount. He coaxed Anson over to the mounting block, slipped his right boot from the off-side stirrup, took a deep breath, and swung over and down, with the reins and his stout walking stick in his left hand. “Uhh!” he grunted as his right leg took his weight.
    The Old Ploughman’s “daisy kicker” lad took the reins for him and led the horse away to the hitch-rails, leaving Lewrie atop the old wooden mounting block that was usually used only by ladies, trying to decide which leg he’d trust for the first step down. He chose the left one, switched the walking stick to his right hand to support him, set his left boot on the ground, and felt the thigh muscles of his right leg quiver in weakness.
    “Christ, this’ll never work,” he muttered, slowly turning round.
    “Tcha, Cap’m Lewrie, you’re doin’ better,” Will Cony said as he swung his substantial bulk from the saddle of his own horse and came to join him. “We haven’t been at it a fortnight, and ya made the better part of a mile, this mornin’, afore ya had t’saddle up. I’ll lay ya a shillin’ ya make th’ whole mile, t’morra.”
    Saddling up! Anson wasn’t as tall as a blooded hunter or thoroughbred, but getting astride each morning could almost look comical to any passersby. The well-gravelled lane down from Dun Roman was a slight slope, but even turning his horse athwart the lane with Lewrie on the up-hill side for an inch more advantage was a dread, trusting his right leg long enough to get his left boot in the stirrup, after hiking that better part of a mile, and feeling his wounded leg begin to quiver and ache. This daily exercise was as exhausting as several miles of march following General Sir David Baird’s army last January when the Dutch Cape Colony had been re-conquered; Blaauwberg Bay to the Salt River in one day, with a battle included!
    Maggie Cony felt it her duty to fatten him up. As soon as he sat down at a table near the fireplace, out came a plate of scrambled eggs, crispy strips of bacon, potato hash, thick slices of toast, with a bowl of butter and a pot of red currant jelly close by, and a cup of scalding hot coffee, which would be refilled several times. Some days it would be pork chops, a smoke-cured ham steak, or a chunk of roast beef instead of bacon. At least Lewrie’s aches and pains got rewarded!
    Will Cony did a tour of the large room to see that all of his other customers were being taken care of, then fetched himself a mug of hot tea from the kitchen in back, and came to join Lewrie.
    “How’s he doin’, Mister Cony?” Abigail, the brunette waitress, asked as she came to refill Lewrie’s cup.
    “Nigh a mile t’day, Abigail, nigh onta a mile,” Cony boasted.
    “That’s grand, it is!” Abigail cheerily said. “By Christmas, I wager you’ll be runnin’ fast as your horses, Captain Lewrie. Do you wish more