Page 54 of Rears & Vices

Ah. Head-turning, surely, pretty, definitely; but there was something… missing in that assessment, at least for a man Everard had assumed had a specific kind of history with Vitaliy. A certain recognition, unmistakable understanding; both were completely absent in the face of stone.

For while Vitaliy could also go as still and blank and impersonal as a statue, he resonated with awareness and recognition. This man was a statue—at least where other men were concerned.

“Glad to see you exist as more than rumor, matelot.” Alarie patted Everard’s shoulder. “A Navy man gone pirate… but it is peacetimes, yes? And piracy is what comes of the scraps the English give their career men. I cannot blame you at all.”

As though Everard’s move to piracy had been financially motivated, not personal, hadn’t been done to save a man’s life?

This, from a commissioner of a tiny thread of an island? A man not more than five-and-twenty?

“Surely,” Everard agreed. It cost him nothing, really. At least Alarie hadn’t said anything about the hand or called him Blackhand.

Alarie smiled, and turned to Vitaliy.

“Mon ami Vee, no assemblage for me?”

To Everard’s surprise, Vitaliy was blushing, two ruddy spreads over the tan of his cheeks. “The storm was a hard one, Governor,” he said crisply, and made a short bow. “The Sévère crew are still at leisure, and I saw no need to disturb them.”

Flushed, maybe, dressed and brushed to the nines, also; but Vitaliy wasn’t backing down.

Alarie looked surprised for a moment. “At leisure still, and it has been a whole half-day?” Then clicked his tongue, self-recriminating, as René inhaled behind him. A hell of a thing to imply laziness in the Sévère crew, in Vitaliy, and the man knew it; he backstepped quickly. “No, no, of course, mon frère, I am sorry. The Birch was beneath the squall. A surprisingly competent crew in a storm, and all of them les femmes!” he murmured conspiratorially. “But I must congratulate you in this, Vee. The best transport a man has had on a ship in time’s memory, I daresay.”

Vitaliy looked conflicted. Behind him, René rolled kohl-dark eyes. She swished over to the gangway to negotiate the belay of some kind of cargo.

Alarie pulled Vitaliy aside, pointedly away from Everard. “But have you received my letter latest? It is maybe not enough compensation now, given circumstances of your liaison récente. I confess not knowing the upkeep of a husband as compared to a wife, but…”

Vitaliy let himself be dragged down to the weather deck. He didn’t look back.

Everard was left alone, feeling contemplative and oddly resentful, until:

“Ladies’ man,” D’Arcy sing-songed softly into Everard’s ear.

He jumped. “Preston. Where the devil⁠—?”

D’Arcy steadied him with a hand on his back. He was hatless, dressed in his de-epauletted captain’s coat and tapered pantaloons; three pistols hung on his belt, no surprise. “Every bit of him. Don’t even try.”

“I rather gathered⁠—”

“I know, I know. Emerald satin. Even so.” D’Arcy smiled sidelong. He had excellent instincts towards sniffing out men like them; a skill sharpened by years of navigating public schools and tonnish ballrooms—whilst being very attractive.

“I don’t know what that has to do with… Neither you nor I wear emerald.”

“And yet.” D’Arcy grinned. He nodded to Vitaliy on the gundeck beneath them, who was totally leaned in to the dandy revolutionary’s words, like he spoke gospel instead of straight insult. “But he doesn’t know.”

“I can see that,” Everard said stiffly. “Thank you.”

“Or perhaps doesn’t care?” D’Arcy said. “Small wonder; with that face, it’s a weapon. You think the war would’ve gone the same, if Ol’ Boney looked like that?”

Everard didn’t bother to answer seriously, only took D’Arcy’s arm in his. “You are a menace.”

They paced the quarterdeck like taking a promenade.

“Have you forgiven me, then?” Everard asked.

“Might have begun to do so, for the majority part.” D’Arcy patted his arm. “Menace is that pretty-face Frenchman, make no mistake.” He hummed. “Although I certainly wouldn’t mind enthralling a pirate captain to my own gain, even were Varfolomey a woman. Five sloops, a galley frigate, and a meregildo for my navy? Absolutely.”

Alarie wanted Vitaliy for his navy?

Of course he did. Who wouldn’t?