Chapter 21 #2
Everard remained still. He didn’t know what to say. It was true. Vitya had done that. Had followed through with it. Put his own knife and gun to it.
“We flew the red, as Varfolomey is known to do,” Vitya pressed. “For those who seek a fight, no quarter. It is meant to make others resistant to meeting with the Sévère at all. It has made others careful with her. But…” He stopped.
“Then a man-o’-war with ulterior motives raised the black and wasn’t,” Everard reasoned. “They engaged us. Hunted us. What were you to do otherwise?”
“Listened to you. We might have fled.”
Everard had thought so, had obviously thought he’d been in the right at the time, but now, hours later, faced with circumstances and consequence, he knew better.
“And risk a mutiny? Wreck Varfolomey’s reputation?
Risk further challenge against him, future loss, because of it?
No, Vitya.” He pulled a bloodied-knuckle hand up and kissed it.
“You had it right, and I was wrong. I think too much like a Navy man with the reputation of the whole Crown behind him. I would’ve fled in your position—but you could not. ”
Vitaliy growled; it ended in a choking sob. “And then someone u-used me and my ship as weapons.”
Everard nodded, scraping his cheek against fuzzy, damp blond, nuzzling. If he lifted up, he’d have to peel himself free. “It would seem so.”
“S-someone who knew exactly how to manipulate my approach, our approaches, both of us. Vee and Varfolomey both.”
“Or perhaps,” Everard said, “someone shot off provocatory guns, put you into a corner, and faced you with an impossible choice, all for the possibility of meager gain.” He raised his head, met Vitaliy’s eyes. “What do you think of that?”
Vitaliy shook with laughter and tears; these ran streaming into the silvering hair at his temples, until he dashed them away with ringed fingers.
“I think sounds familiar.”
“Damn, but it does!” Everard said lightly. “It sounds quite like anything I’ve ever done. Or any sailor or soldier.” He put his forehead on Vitya’s beautiful high one, just for a moment, and then settled back. “You understand. You were pressed. As I was.”
Vitaliy nodded. “Fished out of the Delaware.”
He didn’t have to say more.
“A Barcelona dockyard, for me. How many years?”
“Fourteen.”
“You’re much more a Vitya than a Henry.”
Vitya snorted. “I am both. But firstly, Vitaliy Gray, American, born to unmarried Russian and Quaker in a brick-built house on Water Street, Philadelphia.”
“We’ve one of those in Kingston.” Everard blinked solemnly down. “It is still called King Street.”
Vitaliy’s shaking was a better percentage laughter then, so Everard went on.
“Everard Rubén Anderson de Anglada,” he introduced himself archly, “a su servicio. Fifth son of an English bastard of a textile-mill owner and a Catalan farmer’s daughter.”
“A textile mill,” Vitaliy whispered raspily. “Cotton?”
“Yes.”
“American cotton?”
“It is undoubtedly so now. My father—well, it would be Lucas, my eldest brother, who has charge of it, since the bastard’s dead—takes it from raw to printed lienzos and then trades it straight back to the states.
I know that much from letters; I haven’t been back since I was pressed.
If we ever…” Everard cleared his throat.
“… If you and I ever make it to Philadelphia, I could still point you out Anderson calico at ten yards.”
“You have not returned in twenty years? Some history there.”
“Twenty-four years,” Everard said. “The history is my madre had always the latest calicos: in layers sufficient to conceal that my father kept her half-starved.”
Vitaliy inhaled. “I’m sorry.”
“Mind you, it wasn’t a question of monies.”
“Mmm. And still you do not make a habit of eating dinner,” Vitaliy said, sad and revelatory.
“A habit long-standing. Either I was fed from the profits bled from slavery, or I took meat from her mouth.” He licked his lips. “Fairly literal, some days. Five boys, you understand.”
Vitaliy’s arms came back around him, squeezed him closer.
“A boy of—twelve, you said?—should not have to worry over such things,” he said, quietly into Everard’s hair. “Nor would most begin to think of them. But you forged yourself papers to be legally English… without a need?” he questioned.
“Well, I didn’t wish to claim his particular paternity, you see, and since I was pressed…
I’m not acquainted with a sole relation of his in London, anyway; probably they disavowed him, too, or he came from nothing.
Later on, D’Arcy got me into the necessary officers’ clubs and made my tradesman pedigree mysterious enough no one dared ask. ”
Vitaliy nodded.
“And d’you know how many Andersons there are in the Navy?” Everard said dryly. “Forgery was the easier option.”
This time, the laughter was unmistakable.
“You,” Vitaliy gasped. “I’m sorry. You are telling me awful things…”
“Oh, but I do understand,” Everard replied immediately. “I feel quite the same.” He paused, considering. “Though the reflection of it is likely less pleasing—far too many brackets, lines.”
“Mmm. No.” Vitaliy shifted. “It is a serious face, and no wonder,” he said. “Until you lift that judging eyebrow, and the light shines in…”
“Er.”
“You are doing it now.” Vitaliy pressed his fingers in hard where they rested on Everard’s back.
“Especially the judging. No, it’s the right brow,” he said, as Everard rubbed his left one self-consciously.
Vitaliy pulled his hand gently away, wove his fingers through Everard’s.
“And whomever told you it was an unpleasant face is a liar. Or jealous,” he added, uncharacteristically undiplomatic.
“Too much comparison to your pretty lieutenant, maybe.”
“Oh?”
Vitya thought D’Arcy was pretty?
“But the two of you are like sunset and night.”
“Inseparable?” Everard said, jesting—and was startled when Vitaliy nodded.
“Also… incomparable. Impossible to compare,” he clarified.
Flustered, Everard said, “Sounds like a man-o’-war.” He cleared his throat. “You’re speechifying. You must feel better?”
Vitaliy grunted, a deliberate show of quiet. He shifted once more—a roll of hips, with definite intent—
Everard laughed. He’d been aware of this… development, but that Vitya would bring attention to it now surprised him. “Madman. I couldn’t possibly. In another’s bed?”
“I could,” Vitaliy said frankly, and tightened his grip on Everard’s back, as though preparing to flip them.
“No, sir,” Everard said, pushing the big hands away and down. “No, you have consigned yourself to lying in the unknown of this mattress, whilst I have not—you are my island—see how I am not touching?”
Vitaliy’s gaze turned dark and intent, dusk-blue sea sparkle.
“Do not you dare,” Everard warned.
“Vermin jumps, anyway. You are already contaminated.”
“You shan’t—you won’t—no te creas—”
They grappled half-heartedly, laughing; Vitaliy unwilling to press the advantage of his weight, Everard unwilling to give up his own superior position of limbs-on-limbs—at the same time earnestly trying not to touch any part of the quilt beneath them.
Three loud bangs of a fist upon the door came, rattling the window glass. Everard swiveled round to see wavering stacks of brown curls, a feathered hat. Romilly René.
He was immediately sobered, alert, as he raised up on elbows; Vitaliy ceded the fight, suppressing giggles.
“Lovebird layabouts!” came, singsong. “I am sorry to interrupt your victory fuck, but I have been here waiting for the distribution going on one-half hour.”
“Milly,” Vitaliy huffed, exasperated but relaxed.
Everard levered off, handed Vitya his shirt, and went to remove the chair from the doorknob—
Vitya held him back by the wrist. “Thank you,” he said, low. “For your care.”
Everard could only smile over his shoulder as he unbolted the door.
Romilly René tsked in disapproval. In her hands she held a massive ledger, pen and ink.
“That cot, over that beautiful grand thing? Disgraceful.” She nodded to the desk—which was rather large, come to think—and looked them both over: their hastily undressed state, obviously having been intimate.
“Milly,” Vitaliy said again.
She said nothing, but her glance lingered briefly on Vitaliy, a flash of appraising concern so fast, Everard almost missed it.
He did not miss Vitaliy’s reassuring nod, the twitch of his smile.
René worried for Vitaliy? For the aftershock, which surely she must know about already? Or merely that he had disappeared alone with Everard into the depths of an enemy ship? Everard, who knew precisely what she was?
René said, “We had best hurry. Matelot, your Fitzwilliam is half the way to three sheets flying already.”
“My… who?” Everard said, bewildered and caught off-guard by the address.
Vitaliy cleared his throat. “The lieutenant.”
“Oh, Preston. Yes, that would be his usual.” Everard slept like the dead the night and the whole morning after conflict; Vitaliy apparently was sick, and shook; D’Arcy… drank. “Though I will say his name is not Fitzwilliam.” He paused, as Romilly René smirked.
“But it is… D’Arcy?” she said, in the English way, drawing the a long.
“Oh!” Everard laughed despite himself. “The fashionable novel, you are referring to. I… had been meaning to pick up the second edition, when next in London.”
Which, now he thought of it, might well be never.
“Is he so drunk as to be incapable?” Vitaliy asked René, ignoring all this.
“Half of the way, I said,” René responded. “The matelot reads the English novels? Hmm.”
“The thing sold its entire first printing,” Everard said. “Of course I’ve read it.”
René nodded to herself, darkened eyebrows pushed high. “Very black eyes and now this, et alors.”