Page 16 of Rears & Vices

“Why does anyone put off anything?” D’Arcy said. “Why not wait, in their eyes? Where would you go?”

“Where, indeed.” Everard didn’t know the answer himself. But anywhere was preferable to being held uselessly captive while Vitaliy repeated the experience of court-martial, with no one to defend him.

If it were just him and his fate, Everard would not run and hide. He would withstand the ignominy of a trial like any other unfairly accused, innocent man, and that would be the end of it.

But it wasn’t just him. Vitaliy sat dehydrated in Brigitte’s prison hold. D’Arcy had killed a man, cold and calculated.

And now there was the boy, too, currently flitting around, packing Everard’s trunk as though they were merely going back to Bess’s Boarding-House on extended shore leave.

“Ja—Thom. Stop,” Everard said. “You’re a good, steady lad. But I cannot in good conscience⁠—”

Thom pulled himself out of the linens, indignant. “Sir!”

“—a year and you’ll make midshipman, three more you’ll be nineteen and sit your exams⁠—”

“Sir—”

“—run and deny everything they ask you, make yourself scarce, you’ve heard nothing tonight, seen nothing⁠—”

“Sir, I’m Boy, third-class,” Thom said, bravely. He met Everard’s eyes, spine straight, feet together. “Sure as they’ll make me sit witness and gi’ me back my articles, no matter what’s said. You can’t leave me!”

Everard looked to D’Arcy for support. The man only shrugged. “He’s right. A thousand others wait to replace him, too.”

“You gave him your ring,” Everard retorted.

“Ah-ah, don’t you blame me. The moment you gave your name and word towards a pirate, Ev, you put him at risk.”

This was painfully true.

“But as it stands, he won’t be hanged!” Everard hissed. He turned again to Thom. “Beyond tonight, I can’t be sure that won’t change. You must understand that.”

Everard was only beginning to understand it himself.

Thom opened his mouth, closed it again.

“And furthermore,” Everard went on, “His Majesty has paid your wages up to now. I can’t afford to keep you in my employ on my own.”

But at this, Thom scowled, turned away, and renewed the rolling of shirts. “If I cared about coin, I’d’a stole the ring.”

“There you are,” D’Arcy agreed. “He’s worth more to you than you are to him, by far. Especially if we are heading into what I think we are… a loyal servant could be indispensable,” he said practically. “And we are speaking of capital crimes against the Crown, yes? Those which we do not normally commit?” He grinned.

Everard put a hand to his head and paced more. “God. God. Yes, we must be. We are.”

“What… sirs…” Thom seemed to be struggling with the new, untested boundaries of their relationship, and no wonder; it had vaulted from master-servant to co-conspirators in remarkably short order. “I want to go, don’t mistake me. But… can I ask what we’re doing?” He blinked solemnly. “In the interest of being fully informed.”

“That accent!” D’Arcy laughed. “A boy chameleon.” He held up a fist. “Near as I can tell, Jack, we’re going to flee the rightful pursuit of the law…” He ticked one finger. “… break a pirate out of the hold of a very large ship…” Another finger. “… because said pirate is the former lover to your dear captain, who has a heart the size of the Atlantic…”

Everard made a strangled noise.

D’Arcy’s eyes were warm and laughing as he ticked another finger. “… your dear captain,” he repeated, “whom I’ve always loved, madly and unequivocally.”

Everard stared. Was he serious? Surely not. How hard had his head been bashed?

D’Arcy held out his hand, palm up. “… for whom, it seems, I would do absolutely anything.”

There in D’Arcy’s spread palm was a small iron key. Everard’s gaze was torn between D’Arcy’s handsome face and the ordinary-extraordinary object he’d presented.

“That— You…”