Chapter One #2
“It appears this council has spoken in haste,” he said.
Venom dripped from every syllable. “But we can’t let a dangerous sailor remain on Captain Lennox’s crew.
Therefore, he will be sent to the Manatee under Captain de Mazet’s command to serve the remainder of his current contract with the navy.
His contract will not be renewed, and he will receive no pension.
” He turned his shuddering, chinless face to Delauney. “And he will be your problem to solve.”
A stunned silence fell over the room. Delauney looked from Lord Cecil to Wes, clearly alarmed by the direction his attempt at altruism had taken.
“Does this mean we take the manacles off?” one of the guards whispered over Wes’ shoulder.
“Yes, please,” Delauney said. Lord Cecil’s face went purple. His jowls trembled, and his glasses slid down his pencil-thin nose.
“That concludes this court’s session for the day,” he warbled, and slapped a hand on the desk. “Get out!”
“I’ll meet you outside,” Delauney said, flashing Wes a smile.
The guards ushered Wes out of the courtroom without removing his manacles, clearly as confused as he was. They stopped a few feet from the courthouse doors overlooking the busy street, and the guard on Wes’ left pulled out a cigarette and a matchbox while the other freed Wes’ hands.
“Been a while since I’ve seen Old Cici lose his shit,” the guard said, taking the manacles. “Who’s your brother again?”
“No one,” Wes said, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw ached.
“Wish I had a brother like that, ‘no one’ or not,” the first guard said. He lit his cigarette and tossed the match into a puddle. “What I want to know is how you did it.”
“I didn’t ask them to use my brother’s name,” Wes said.
The guard blew out a plume of smoke. He was an older man with a thick black beard, and he had a rusty medal on his breast that Wes hadn’t seen before. “Not that,” he said. “The rest of it. How’d you get away with tying a captain up and whipping him without one of the other officers stopping you?”
Wes eyed him sidelong. “Luck, I guess.”
It hadn’t been anything of the sort. The bo’sun had already refused to whip the boy when Captain Lennox had given the order.
The other officers had tensed when Captain Lennox took the whip himself, and when Wes had stepped forward to tug it out of his grip, no one had stopped him.
Captain Lennox had been beaten by a sailor with his crew looking on in stony silence.
If Wes hadn’t taken full responsibility for the incident while Lennox had been indisposed, the entire ship would have been up before the council for mutiny.
Thankfully, people like Lord Cecil didn’t care enough to ask important questions.
“Good thing Old Cici’s too much of a noble to consider it,” the guard said, offering Wes a drag of the cigarette. Wes shook his head, and the guard shrugged. “I’d be shitting myself if I were Captain Lennox right now.”
“Maybe he’s due for a retirement,” the other guard said, and made a gesture with his right hand. It was an old sailor’s sign for good luck, and Wes couldn’t help letting a small, pleased smile slip through.
“I should’ve whipped Horseface Jack before I left the service,” the first guard said. “Wouldn’t mind a cushy post with a submissive captain.”
“We all know he’s fucking his first mate,” the other one said.
“And everyone else aboard the Manatee.”
Wes didn’t give that much thought. People were always making assumptions about submissive officers. He had an officer on his first ship who’d been thoroughly uninterested in sex, but rumor had him sleeping with every dominant he met. Rumor didn’t mean anything where a submissive was concerned.
“There you are!”
Delauney pushed open the doors behind Wes. His face was slightly pink, and he smiled nervously at the guards before extending a hand.
“Glad to have you aboard,” he said. Wes hesitated.
In the Starian navy, sailors and captains didn’t shake hands.
He saluted instead. Delauney sighed and tucked his hands in his pockets.
“Nasty business in there, wasn’t it? I hate court duty.
Let’s collect your things before Lord Cecil changes his mind. ”
“Don’t you have a man to do that, sir?” Wes cast the guards a bewildered look as he followed Delauney across the street. The guards shrugged helplessly.
“I used to, but his contract ended and I never got around to assigning another.” Delauney was bright and boisterous, with no sign of the care he’d taken with Lord Cecil. He even walked loudly, swinging his arms with each bouncy step. “I suppose that’s your job, if you like.”
Wes tried not to talk back for a solid five seconds before folding like a cheap deck of cards. “Sir. What is my position?”
“Well, Cecil says that I need to reform you into someone who won’t whip a man who beats children,” Delauney’s voice was loud enough for a group of people at a bakery window to turn and stare.
“But he isn’t in charge of my ship, so you’ll be...
” He stopped in the middle of the road and turned on one heel, making Wes stumble so as not to knock him over. “I suppose you can be my valet.”
Wes wondered if he could catch up with Lord Cecil in time to beg for a last-minute trip to Mount Hazel.
The only good thing about his time at sea was avoiding all the ridiculous rituals noble officers had to put up with.
He didn’t serve officers. He got out of serving duty as a cabin boy early on, when his commanding officer tired of Wes ‘accidentally’ spilling wine all over his lap.
Being a valet to a noble, let alone one as cheerfully posh as Delauney, was a nightmare.
“Then it’s settled,” Delauney said, when Wes didn’t speak.
“You’ll have half a year until you can leave the navy and collect your pension, so long as Lord Cecil doesn’t find anything to charge you for in the meantime.
And I have someone to handle...” He gestured vaguely. “Things that need handling.”
“I’ve never been a gentleman’s valet before, sir,” Wes said.
“Well,” Delauney said, smiling at Wes with the exuberance of a puppy about to prance into a pool of bull sharks. “We all deserve a chance to learn something new.”
***
DELAUNEY DE MAZET WAS once again in over his head.
It was a familiar feeling by now. Delauney had been treading water in the metaphorical ocean of life since he’d been eight years old and had to read the Twelve Virtues of Noble Children aloud in the schoolroom.
Faced with the burden of responsibility for the first time, Delauney had looked down at the letters swimming on the page, up at his earnest governess, and had burst into tears.
It was a shame that captains couldn’t have a good cry now and then.
The thought of letting a man into his quarters on the ship was enough to make Delauney shudder, but trusting him with his clothes?
His papers? The dangerous pile of things he shoved in the bottom of his bolted-down chest and tried not to think about? Mortifying.
Still, it was the best way to keep an eye on the man. Delauney was the first to admit that old Lennox deserved more than just a thrashing, but he couldn’t leave Wesley Leonhart with the rest of the ship and hope that he’d worked any mutinous thoughts out of his system.
He knew it was an ill-advised decision. He knew it was reckless.
The dirty looks he received from the rest of the court was proof enough that Delauney was making a terrible mistake.
But something had possessed him in that small courtroom, and now Delauney was stuck with a sailor known for lashing his own captain with a whip.
“They don’t let you keep many possessions, do they?” Delauney said, standing by the dockside cells as Wesley emerged with his sea bag. Wesley gave him a long-suffering look.
“No, sir.”
It was always strange being called sir on a ship.
As a captain, it was expected. As a submissive who spent most of his life ducking out of engagements, it made Delauney want to turn into a husk and drift away on the breeze.
He wasn’t some hard-headed dominant with a title and a dozen fawning suitors.
Delauney was much more comfortable being the one doing the fawning.
“I have a spare bunk in my quarters,” Delauney said. The problem was, it was covered in cast-off clothes he hadn’t sent to be laundered yet. “You can follow me around in my day-to-day and figure out what needs to be done.”
Wesley fell silent. He was a handsome fellow with a fine figure, brown skin weathered by the sea, and a hawkish nose.
His eyes looked just like his brother, Ferrin’s.
Delauney had met Ferrin a few times in the palace, and he’d always seemed like a capable, even-keeled man.
He had to be, with King Adrien upending his own court every other day.
Wesley didn’t seem to have the stony patience of his older brother. His mouth worked for a few seconds, then he turned to Delauney. “Are those your orders? Follow you around?”
Delauney shrugged. “To be quite honest, Wesley—”
“Wes.”
Delauney continued walking down the docks, hands in his jacket pockets. “Between you and me, I expect you’ve been through enough. Consider this a reprieve.”
Wes stopped mid-stride, took a long, frankly melodramatic breath, and closed the distance between them. He was a little taller than Delauney, and when he spoke, he had the slightest accent of a man from Duciel. “Sir. I don’t require special treatment. If I’m on a vessel, I’ll work.”
Delauney had never considered that someone would actually want to work. “I thought I would do you a favor.”
Wes looked as confused as Delauney. “Why would that be a favor? If I’m working, I’m making a wage. Wages matter, Captain de Mazet. They’re the difference between a helpless pet and a man.”
Delauney, who would have been quite happy as a dominant’s helpless pet, found himself unable to respond.
“No one is denying you a wage,” he said at last.