Free The French Admiral by Dewey Lambdin

Gibraltar in the last war, where he won his knighthood, but he left her with nothing,” Alan said. “He always told me she was whoring before he came back and had died on the parish’s expense. He found me in the poor house at St. Martin’s in the Fields and took me in, and signed the rolls to claim me. I don’t even know what she looked like.”
    â€œBut you bear her maiden name.”
    â€œAye, sir.”
    â€œSo perhaps he did not marry her, but felt some remorse to learn that she had died in his absence and left him a boy child.”
    â€œSir Hugo St. George Willoughby never had any remorse about anything, sir.” Alan laughed without humor. “I remember a big man coming to claim me and taking me in a coach. First time I ever saw the inside of one. Next thing I knew I had the best of everything. Except for affection, that is.”
    Damme, I’m getting maudlin as hell just thinking about this, he thought, feeling a wave of sadness sweep over him such as he had not felt for two years.
    â€œPerhaps you are worth something to somebody, else why keep you?”
    â€œThat might explain why I was set up with Belinda, and caught red-handed in bed with her by so many people, especially our solicitor and the parish vicar as well, sir!”
    Alan thought a while. “You mean my mother’s people may have had money?”
    â€œNo way to tell, not out here,” Cheatham said. “But my brother works in the City, at Coutts’ Bank. I could write him and let him make some inquiries on your behalf. If you were set up, as you put it, it would clear your repute with the captain and put your own mind to rest as well. If your father has recently come into money or land through your maternal side, that would be proof positive.”
    â€œIt must be!” Alan was thrilled. “Why else would he send me off with a hundred guineas a year and force me to sign away inheritance on both sides? Sir Hugo never did anything that didn’t show a profit. God, Mister Cheatham, if only you could do that! You don’t know how miserable I have been, not knowing why I was banished. I admit I was a strutting little rake-hell. And given half a chance, I probably would be again, to be honest. But nothing as bad as they were, at any rate!”
    â€œThen we shall attend to it directly.” Cheatham smiled at him, and the smile automatically raised Alan’s suspicions as to his motives. Damme, what’s in it for him, I wonder? The life I’ve lived, there’s no way to know when someone really means friendship, except for David.
    â€œUm, I was wondering, sir, why would you . . .” he began.
    â€œBecause whether you can realize it or not, you have friends in this ship and in this world, Lewrie.” Cheatham anticipated him: “Railsford thought you’d be squint-a-pipes about it. Do you really think yourself so base as not to be able to garner trust and friendship from others?”
    â€œYes, sir,” he said without pausing to think, and felt his eyes begin to water with the truth of it. Until he had gotten into the Navy, he had never had a real friend, never had a word of approval from his father, his half-relations, or tutors. Now here were people ready to make supreme efforts on his behalf to uphold his honor and good name—what there was of them—and go out of their way to settle all the nagging questions in his mind about his heritage. Too much was happening to keep his feelings in check.
    â€œGod, Mister Lewrie,” Cheatham said, almost in tears himself, “I had no idea, my boy! Forgive me. You do have friends who care about you—not just people with influence who will be good for place or jobbery.”
    â€œI am beginning to realize that, sir.” Alan shuddered. “Back home, there was no one I could turn to. Jesus!”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIn a way this is so disgusting, sir.” Alan smiled in