Free His One Woman by Paula Marshall

looks.’
    He offered Clanton his wolfish grin, having grasped that he had dispelled the man’s original antagonism after he had revealed how remarkable a performer he had once been.
    â€˜Ruthless devil, aren’t you?’ said Clanton, who had known his man the moment he had seen him in action and, being a hard man himself, recognised another when he saw one.
    â€˜Yes,’ said Alan. ‘It runs in the family.’ He jerked his thumb at the watching Jack who sat, a picture of easy amiability, beside the silent Charles.
    â€˜Does he want a go, a real go?’ asked Clanton eagerly.
    â€˜Not I,’ said Jack. ‘I stick at riding and the foils. Soaking up that sort of punishment isn’t my idea of fun.’
    â€˜And poking about with long-bladed table-knives isn’t mine,’ said Alan. He used one of his repertoire of comic faces after rising and saying, ‘I shall be stiff for the rest of the day.’
    â€˜Come again,’ invited Clanton before Alan strode off to dress. ‘You were good once. Pity to go to seed too much.’
    Alan shook his head. ‘Thank you, but no. I’m too old and too busy—but you’ve a nice set-up here.’
    Improbably that afternoon, since Jack had never expected to end up in such grand company, Alan took them both to the Hill. They walked through theCapitol for the first time, admiring the murals, even if they did represent the surrender of British troops under Burgoyne during the American Revolution.
    Later Alan presented them to Gideon Welles, President Lincoln’s Secretary to the Navy, whom Alan had already met, and a group of his associates who gazed suspiciously at the three Britishers—as they supposed them all to be.
    Watching his brother, cold and inscrutable beneath his false veneer of an idle English gentleman who was drawling his incomprehension of the strange new world in which he found himself, Jack found it difficult to associate him with the grinning bruiser of the morning. He had not known Alan very well before he had settled in England, and now he found himself wondering which of the many masks his brother wore was that of the true man.
    Senator Hope arrived in the middle of the discussion, his handsome old face alight with pleasure at the sight of the brothers and Charles. Like the others, though, he was putting pressure on Alan, trying to influence him in favour of the North. There was no doubt that Lincoln’s government was suspicious of the British whom they thought, with some justification, favoured the South. They were trying to impress on Alan during these semi-formal conversations that they were worried that English ship-builders might give an advantage to the Southern rebels. The names of Lairds and Liverpool popped in and out of the conversation.
    Alan’s deceitful manner enabled him to give littleaway. He had introduced Jack as his brother who was knowledgeable about shipping and was by way of being a marine engineer and architect, too. He had been involved in the building of Sydney’s first dry-dock at Balmain while still young, Alan said, and like Charles he was interested in the development of iron-clad ships, both for civilian use and for war.
    â€˜Thank you, Mr Dilhorne,’ Welles said. ‘We would now like to question your associate, Mr Charles Stanton—more properly Viscount Stanton, we understand—and your brother also.’
    Someone had been doing their homework, thought Jack, preparing to be quizzed.
    â€˜Mr Stanton, please,’ said Charles in reply to a question about his experience. ‘I have been working with Cowper Coles, the British naval officer and designer, and one of my recent tasks was to assist him to design and build the first semi-iron-clad warship for the British Navy. Fortunately, or unfortunately,’ he added, ‘we have not had the opportunity to use it in action.’
    This brought a few laughs, but one fierce-looking