Chapter Eight
There was a rumor that the orange grove in Madog’s Throne had been blessed by a demon, because they produced the strangest fruit in Iperios.
For one, they weren’t really orange. They were usually green, except for the occasional harvest after a cold spell, when they turned pink and tasted so sweet that they were almost inedible.
Their blossoms were also pink, not white, and every time someone tried to plant an orange from the grove outside of the island, the saplings rotted in the earth.
The more superstitious sailors of the Starian navy avoided the grove altogether.
Wes loved it. The grove felt almost wild, with trees pressed close together instead of in tidy lines, but there were never any patches of rotting fruit or swarms of hornets.
Wes had entertained dreams of living there as a boy, hiding from navy officers under the swaying blossoms, but he’d been too wary of his commanding officers to try.
Now, he sat against a tree and read aloud while Delauney mended his stockings.
Delauney seemed to need something to do with his hands while he listened; otherwise, Wes caught his attention starting to drift.
He couldn’t imagine his old tutors letting that slide.
Any deviation from perfection had been enough to take away most of Wes’ privileges as a lad, and he’d quickly learned the art of regurgitating whatever pointless facts they fed him.
Delauney’s tutors had simply given up, from what Wes had learned.
He wasn’t certain which was worse—parents who hired exacting tutors with ridiculous standards, or parents who didn’t care at all.
Delauney wasn’t illiterate by any means.
He simply needed more time, something that most nobles always had in droves.
They just never bothered to give him any.
“We’ve caught another inaccuracy,” Wes said. “This says that the earth is perfectly round. Didn’t you say that it’s not exact?”
“Well, when was the book written?” Delauney asked.
Wes checked the front of the book. “Fifty-six years ago. Does that explain it, do you think?”
“Not at all. The Arkoudai figured it out centuries ago. I used to know someone from there,” Delauney added, when Wes made an inquisitive sound. “The desert inspires almost as many astronomers as the sea.”
“Do they accept mail there?” Wes asked. “We can write a letter and see if they’re open to sharing their findings.”
“With me?” Delauney asked, looking up from his mending.
“Yes, you.” Wes rolled his eyes. “I bet they’d be interested in your spectroscope. And don’t debate me. You’re clever. You’ve already isolated one of the elements of the sun.”
“You helped,” Delauney said. He set his mending down in his lap. “Do you like this work, Wes? It doesn’t bore you?”
Wes tapped the book against his knees. Normally, he’d brush off Delauney’s question as pointless worry, but Delauney seemed a little uncertain of late.
“I never thought much about the stars as a boy, but you make them sound interesting. I’ve even found myself thinking about them when I’m on my own.
Take demons, for instance. Why haven’t any of them left earth? ”
“I asked Alain once,” Delauney said. “Apparently it hurts them to try. I didn’t inquire any further, though. Alain started imagining their demon in pain and wouldn’t stop crying. I felt like a monster.”
“I can see that,” Wes said. He supposed that having multiple people in their head at once would make them more sensitive, not less.
“And don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.
You’re trying to apologize for inconveniencing me.
Don’t. I never apologize if there isn’t a reason for it.
Did I beg for forgiveness after thrashing Lennox?
Even with all those dominant bulldogs wagging their jowls at me? ”
A smile tugged at Delauney’s mouth. “I don’t recall you showing any remorse.”
“Exactly. So we’re writing a letter to whoever’s in charge of studying astronomy in Arktos. The worst they can do is ignore us.”
“That could take months,” Delauney said. “You know how slow the post is here, let alone with whatever they have to do to get into Arktos.”
Wes blinked at him. “So?”
“So...” Delauney waved a hand. “Your contract with the navy will be done sooner than you think. You might miss their response.”
Wes hadn’t thought about that. If he left the navy, that meant leaving Delauney, his collection of formerly incomprehensible calculations, and their study of the stars.
While he knew that it was safer to leave before the military council found a reason to penalize him for another crime, his mind stuttered to a halt when he tried to think of life after leaving the Manatee.
“You could always stay on,” Delauney said. “Not as a sailor or a valet. As a... a guest.” That felt too much like being a noble’s kept pet for Wes’ taste. It must have shown on his face, because Delauney blushed furiously. “It’s only a possibility.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Wes said.
Somehow, Delauney and the stars had thoroughly entrenched themselves into Wes’ life.
He wondered if that was what it had been like for his ancestor, so focused on history that he’d been willing to write dozens of books on the subject.
Did passion take over all at once for everyone, or was it a gradual thing, like the rising of the tide?
How many other interests had he missed by being dragged into the navy?
“I should still thank you,” Delauney said.
He looked down at his hands, his face troubled.
“No one has ever taken it seriously before now. But I never really told anyone that I was serious about it. Not since I was a boy, in any case. People are usually relieved to have me around, because I’m...
I’m easy. I don’t complicate matters, or bore people, or drone on about something no one truly cares for. ”
“You don’t have to be easy for someone to like you,” Wes said. “Try it with Ned sometime. Tell him what we’re doing.” Delauney gave Wes a scandalized look. “Oh, not everything. Just the bit with the stars.”
Delauney went quiet, picking at his mending. After a long silence, Wes took up the book where they’d left off, but Delauney still seemed lost in thought, brows furrowed. At last, he interrupted an account of an ancient astronomer’s attempt to hear the music of the spheres.
“Perhaps Ned can come to the throne tomorrow night,” he said.
Wes set the book down again. He had to admit that he felt a little protective of Delauney, even if telling Ned had been his idea.
If Ned rejected Delauney outright, it would probably send him into an apologetic gloom, but there was always a chance that Ned would be reasonable.
His husband seemed to be practical enough, at least, and that could have some effect on the natural self-involved ego of a future earl.
“All right,” he said. “Tomorrow, we’ll take him to the throne and show him what we’ve been working on. And he’ll be impressed,” he said, when momentary panic flashed in Delauney’s eyes.
“And if he isn’t?” Delauney asked.
“Fuck him.” Wes picked up the book again. “Or don’t, actually. Peter may not approve.”
“Partners generally don’t,” Delauney said, with a sly look at Wes. Wes sat up, finally abandoning the book.
“You haven’t been dallying with married couples, have you?” he asked.
“Not without their permission,” Delauney said, a hand on his heart. Then his innocent expression shifted. “Well. When I was young... the fellow did say that his wife gave him leave. I only learned that she hadn’t when she appeared on my doorstep.”
Wes covered his eyes with his palm. “That’s a nightmare I’ve had at least once before.”
“Did your nightmares end with the spurned wife seducing you?” Delauney asked. “They passed me between the two of them for nearly a year before they settled whatever argument they were refusing to have.”
“A year?” Wes cried, letting his hand fall. “Delauney, no.”
“I was young!” Delauney said, laughing. “I thought they would make me their third! And the wife had legs like...” He gestured broadly.
“No amount of shapely legs can make getting in the middle of that a good decision.”
“I figured that I wasn’t being false if they both knew,” Delauney said. “At least I was already in the navy at the time. So if you think about it, I was barely involved.”
Wes groaned.
“And you haven’t made questionable choices?” Delauney asked. “The man who let someone put their hand in him on the beach? Where the sand is?”
“Getting fisted by a group of strangers is hardly the same as being in the middle of a failing marriage,” Wes said. Delauney snorted. Wes put on the voice he used to take when he was mimicking his parents at their most snobbish. “I take umbrage with your judgmental manner, Delauney de Mazet.”
“Oh, did I strike a nerve?” Delauney asked. “How much sand is still inside you, Wesley Bradnell-FitzRoy Leonhart?”
“Brat,” Wes said. “It’s a marvel that your fancy whores don’t muzzle you.”
“They wouldn’t dare,” Delauney said. “They just serve me tea and tell me how lovely I am.”
Wes shuddered dramatically. He tipped Delauney’s chin up with a finger and kissed the side of his neck, biting the delicate skin there. “We need to broaden your horizons, Delauney.”
“I can see that you’re already trying,” Delauney said. He let out a little breathy sound as Wes nipped at his neck again. “Is this the reward you were talking about? Do enlisted sailors tend to make love in orchards here, or is that just you?”
“We aren’t doing that here,” Wes said, even though he very much wanted to. He lifted Delauney’s shirt, lazily moving his hands up Delauney’s padded middle.
“It certainly seems like we are.” Delauney closed his eyes as Wes brushed his fingers over his chest.