Chapter Two #2
Wes gave her a sidelong look. If people were already talking about it, he wondered if anyone knew Wes had been the one at fault. “Would’ve been obligated to stop it if I did, yeah?”
“Maybe. Doesn’t seem like anyone else did, though.
You won’t catch that happening here. Delauney’s a soft touch.
A bit eccentric, maybe, but he’s nice enough.
Ned’s the one who really runs things, though.
Officer de Burre,” she added, when Wes gave her an odd look.
“But he would run things anyway, wouldn’t he? Being a dom and all.”
Wes wondered if that ever bothered Delauney, or if he appreciated having less on his plate. It was hard to tell if anything truly bothered him. The most he seemed to get was mildly flustered. “He’s better than Lennox, at least.”
The woman snorted. “So’s a rabid dog. The name’s Vee, by the way. Don’t ask what it’s short for and we’ll get along just fine.”
More sailors came by to introduce themselves as Wes hung up clothes to dry and scrubbed through the rest. There were more idle hands aboard the Manatee than Wes expected, and a group of people were already gathering on one of the lower decks to play a game of cards.
Vee came by with dinner, which they ate in the shadows of the clotheslines, and Wes couldn’t help but feel like he was getting away with something.
It wasn’t as though work wasn’t getting done.
The crew of the Manatee simply didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to do it.
The sun was sinking into the horizon when a young girl ran up to Wes.
She had the typical de Burre nose and wasn’t wearing a uniform, so Wes supposed she was the sister of the girl who had strong opinions about sirens.
Unlike her sister, she wore a full dress with ruffles on the sleeves and an enormous bow.
“Hey, Duck,” Vee said.
The girl twisted her hands together anxiously. Wes sincerely hoped Duck was only a nickname.
“Dad said...” She cleared her throat, and a nearby sailor grinned. “Dad said, Dad said, tell him it’s his job to make sure Laney remembers to eat.”
Wes propped his hands on his hips. “Does he forget often?”
Duck looked slightly panicked. “Dad didn’t tell me what to say if you asked me that.”
“Fair enough.” Duck seemed to be waiting for something. Wes glanced at the other sailors watching and crouched to reach her eye level. “Tell me about the ship on the way back?”
“Can I?” Duck took Wes’ hand and started towing him toward the captain’s quarters. Wes heard someone chuckle as he left. Duck started a long, rambling account of the ship as they walked.
“And you’re not allowed to climb the rigging until you’re ten if you’re common and twenty if you’re noble,” she continued, swinging open the door to the dining room.
“Which I don’t think is fair but Orla says it’s because I fell off a table when I was five and Papa never forgot. Dad! I brought him!”
“Good girl, Doreen,” De Burre said. He was sitting at the table with the daughter Wes had already met, a little girl hardly out of infant gowns, and a man with a pinched face and glossy red curls.
He also looked vaguely familiar, but Wes couldn’t remember which noble family he belonged to.
They must not have been particularly wealthy or powerful, or Wes’ parents would have lodged their faces in his mind by the age of ten.
The man glanced up at Wes before quickly looking away again.
“It’s Duck,” the girl said, as Wes slipped into Delauney’s bedroom. “Doreen is a name for babies.”
“You’re late for dinner,” Wes said, opening Delauney’s door. Delauney was at his desk, writing something on wrinkled paper as the light faded in his window. The pile of papers behind him was barely any smaller, and Delauney had an ink stain on his sleeve.
“Oh, yes. Thank you,” Delauney said. He made no sign of intending to move. After a minute of silence, Wes grabbed his chair and scooted it back. Delauney made a strangled sound as Wes pushed it around to face him. “My, you’re strong.”
“Did you eat anything while I was gone?” Wes asked. Delauney’s blank expression was all the answer he needed. “Then change your shirt and go out there.”
“Thank goodness you’re not a dominant,” Delauney said. “That would almost be effective.”
“De Burre is one. I can send him in if you like.”
Delauney blushed again and jumped out of his seat. Wes glanced at the paper while Delauney fumbled with his shirt. There were more spheres and numbers, and widening rings that stopped just short of intersecting each other. Wes turned away before Delauney could catch him looking.
“Should I have something sent to you from the cook?” Delauney asked, buttoning the wrong part of his cuff. “I don’t recall how it worked last time.”
“I ate with the crew.” Wes sighed and took Delauney’s sleeve. “Let me do that.”
“Oh.” Delauney’s voice was soft. “Thank you.”
Wes brushed off the slight tickle of pleasure he felt at that. He didn’t have much time to truly submit to anyone, save for the courtesans at the docks. If a small thank you from a man who didn’t know how to button a sleeve affected him, Wes truly was hard up.
He found a relatively clean dress jacket for Delauney and ushered him out of the room as de Burre started calling Delauney’s name.
He doubted that he needed to stand by the table like a footman, and even if he had to, he wasn’t about to start.
Managing Delauney didn’t feel like work so much as it felt like tidying up after a small, apologetic waterspout.
As Wes collapsed on his bed, he wondered how Delauney had made it so long on his own.
***
“AN INTERESTING VALET you have.”
Delauney stood by the helm, leaning out of the way of the smoke drifting across the deck as Ned savored his after-dinner pipe.
The lights of Redmason dimmed the stars, and Delauney itched to be out on the open water again, where he could set up his telescope by the tiller and feel, for a brief moment, like he was alone in the world.
“I said,” Ned repeated, and Delauney jolted. “Where’d you find him again?”
“Stole him from Lennox,” Delauney said. He still felt a little guilty hiding the truth from his old friend, but not by much. Ned was easygoing for a member of the nobility, but even he had his limits.
“I heard what his crew did to him,” Ned said shortly.
“Well, it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving fellow,” Delauney said, blushing at the heat in his words.
Ned frowned. “Perhaps. But I don’t really like talking about him, Laney. You know that.”
Delauney grimaced. No one really liked the man, but Ned seemed to view him as an embarrassment, refusing to speak about him when Delauney brought him up in passing.
Lennox had been polite enough to Delauney, but only because Delauney’s family was sitting on a fourth of the gold in Staria.
Anyone without a title was scum in Lennox’s book, and it had taken only a week in his company for Delauney to quietly ask to be transferred.
“Are you all right?” Ned asked. Delauney felt his cheeks go hot and turned away.
“Oh, I’m just not used to sharing my space with another fellow. At least, not for longer than a night.”
Ned grinned. “That’s my Laney. For a moment, I thought you’d gone serious on me.”
Delauney placed a hand on his chest. “You wound me. I don’t have a serious bone in my body.”
Ned raised his pipe to Delauney in a mocking toast. “That’s what I like about you, Laney. You don’t have to bother yourself with the nonsense a firstborn has to deal with. You can be free.”
“Don’t let Peter hear you say that.” Delauney leaned on the railing. He could hardly make out any constellations, but the bright dot of light shining through the haze of the docks might have been a planet.
“Oh, I’d marry him if I were a pauper,” Ned said. “There’s nothing constricting about marrying someone. That is one thing I’d like for you, you know. Someone to share this with. But I suppose you aren’t the sort to settle down.”
“You know me,” Delauney said. He stared at the speck of light as though he could draw it toward him on a line, shifting its path through the stars. “I’ve hardly spared a thought for the future at all.”
“Never change, Laney,” Ned said, clapping a hand on Delauney’s shoulder. “We need men like you around so the rest of us have something to envy.”
Delauney just smiled.