Page 9 of Rears & Vices

D’Arcy wouldn’t really leave him with a—hatless whomever he was, an unknown—would he? An unknown that apparently wanted⁠—

Wanted him?

“Considerate fellow,” the blond man remarked. He came to stand beside Everard, hands still in breeches pockets. “Observant, if loud.”

Everard turned.

“I’m… not what he says I am,” he attempted.

The man leaned back on heels to regard him. Tawny eyebrows rose.

“Disappointing?” Another look, up and down. “Or uptight? I have doubt of both.”

Everard flushed. “A—a man who— Oh, never mind.” It seemed useless to deny it; he didn’t want to say it out loud. And so Everard, for the first time in a great long while, let himself take a good look of a man.

He was very attractive. His accented speech seemed to perfectly suit him, as sharply defined as the rest of him: from the cheekbones shadowed with curly blond sideburns, to the narrow, chiseled nose, the profile that belonged in a bright, light-soaked rendition of Lucifer—beautiful lips, full and firm and heart-shaped⁠—

Everard was not really an artist. He’d never felt an affinity towards anything more glamorous than pencils, and block prints were, in his opinion, mere technical skill; cartoon, not artistry. But suddenly he felt pencil wouldn’t be enough, and even if he could chisel out that face into relief and reproduce it onto a thousand broadsheets…

“A man who…?” the man prompted, and gave a slow, amused blink. There were faint remnants of pitch-black kohl around his heavy-lidded, blue, blue eyes. “No need exchange names, Captain. If you do not want.”

The devil knew it, too. Knew that he had only to crook a finger, and a person would nod and follow, consequences be damned. With that beauty turned towards him, Everard wasn’t even resentful of it; it was just fact, expected as the sun.

This hadn’t happened to Everard before, not ever. No one had picked him out of a crowd like a prize and said, Yes, I think him, I want him—unless one counted twenty years past, when he’d been plucked from Barcelona’s docks and shoved into a Navy ship’s hold.

It was a queer sensation, being so openly pursued. But he liked it. And singing or no singing, the man had taken an extraordinary risk in being so frank. He liked that, too.

“You have no hat,” Everard protested at last.

“No,” his new companion agreed. “One less thing to remove.”

There was absolutely no denying it now.

And it had been a very long time.

Don’t disappoint.

“Indeed,” Everard said.

The man’s answering smile was small, but victorious nonetheless. “Good,” he said. He pulled free a pocket watch, flicked it open. It gleamed, golden with a glass face, filigreed all over; much too expensive for a shipman’s pay, even an officer’s.

Knowing hit Everard like a cold thrill. Not just a sailor: pirate. That’s what those kohled eyes and lack of uniform said. Pirate. He sucked in a breath. Perhaps if he turned away and⁠—

The man looked up, and Everard wasn’t walking away, oh, no.

“Nine of clock,” the man murmured. “Tell me, Captain… how many hours of shore liberty remain?”

Four

Present Day

HMS Brigitte

Kingston Harbour, Upper Canada

Everard walked across the Brigitte’s scrubbed deck and put his right hand carefully on Vitaliy Gray’s bare, restrained shoulder. The man didn’t flinch, but watched him, unconcerned; Everard leaned in close, as though to offer comfort to the wrongfully accused.

Vitaliy smelled surprisingly clean, like warm sun, golden hair, sweat Everard recognised quite acutely, low in his gut—with a definite base note of fear that made his heart falter and jerk. Up close, he appeared physically unharmed, with few bruises; a relief, considering Halifax’s notorious prison hulks. Everard had no idea how long his stay might have been: his prisoner’s beard was short and untrimmed, still longer than anything Everard could’ve grown given five years; no solid indication there.