Chapter 7
"I think I can brush the stains from the inside of my coat. But the shirt is ruined." Kenyon twisted the linen as though he was wringing a neck. The pressure squeezed out a trickle of blood that dripped onto the clean floor of their cabin. "My best shirt only fit for handkerchiefs, God damn him!"
Josh drew his gaze back to the dark mirror of his wine with a sense of pressing danger. The
Nimrod
had never been a happy ship, but it seemed to him that some special malevolence lay on this voyage. He could feel himself surrendering to it, growing listless, reckless, and this last blow had left him reeling. He had not thought it was possible to hate Walker more, but this ... it was unspeakable.
He risked glancing up, meaning to say so, and caught Kenyon's eyes. They were full of fire and fury, hotter by far than his words, and the look of implacable anger made Josh's heart stall in delight. Such beautiful eyes! So fluid, so expressive, so very green in the gold of the lantern.
Control yourself!
He should certainly not be leaning forward, gape-mouthed and entranced. Kenyon might notice. He might notice and understand. Then ... then it could be Josh, hanging by his neck from the yard arm, slowly choking to death.
"The shirt is not the only thing in ruins." Josh's voice sounded unnaturally loud to himself. Walker had stepped over the line, and now he was just a little too angry to keep his mouth shut. "By God, sir, you might be his latest victim, but you are not his first—you've seen how he treats the men."
"They cannot appease him," Kenyon agreed and tried to lean down to mop the bloodstain away. His hiss of pain was soft and lay unacknowledged between them, for it was a mark of how far their friendship had come that he let himself flinch at all—a human weakness he would not have shown to another soul on board. "They run about furiously to look active but achieve nothing. I believe he's afraid of them. But the more he tries to grind them down, the more just cause he has to be afraid."
He's afraid
? Josh had never thought of it like that. He had imagined Walker merely loved the power. But if he was only a small, terrified man trying to protect himself from those he believed were stronger than him, did he then deserve pity?
No, I think not.
Kenyon shuffled gingerly forward to the edge of his cot and braced himself to slip off, so that he could kneel and clean the floor without bending. The movement took him from deep shadow into lamplight, baring his shirtless skin to Josh's rapt gaze. Mother of God! Such arms he had, pale and strong, the yellow light pooling in their curves. His long neck and flanks and chest were sleek as cream and scarcely scarred. And his back, the elegant curve of spine brutally cut from waist to shoulders, swollen, bruised, and oozing blood.
Josh made a noise, clapped his hands over his mouth to stifle it, and cursed his vivid imagination. It had chosen that moment to replay to him the scene of punishment on deck; the beautiful young man tied to the grating, the lash, Kenyon's frown of pained concentration, the grunts of impact and the small, involuntary gasps of his breathing.
I was appalled, I was! Oh Mary and Joseph! Why must I be such a monster?
"Are you quite well?" Kenyon looked up with terrible innocence. Oblivious.
"Just feel ... a little sick." Josh drained his wineglass, filled it up again and drank half down before he felt collected enough to go on. "It looks painful. For all love, sir, lie down. I'll swab the floor."
The lieutenant retreated, easing himself down to lie on his stomach with his head propped on one arm. That was better, for now only his amused expression met the light, and even that was half-hidden behind the veil of his long, dark hair. "I made the mess; I should clean it," he said. Josh's mother had had a similar saying, and the familiarity of it was a balm after that rush of paralyzing lust. Affection was safer.
"I know my place," he said, smiling and had begun to relax over scouring the stain away, when the treacherous voice in his head added,
On my knees for you.
He choked again and scrambled back to his bottle. It was a difficult game he played with the wine—he needed it to knock himself out so that he neither lay awake listening to Kenyon breathing nor ran the risk of speaking out of his extraordinarily vivid dreams. But he paid in evenings of lowered inhibitions, the mortal dread of exposure, and lately a growing suicidal wish to confess all, to let the older man know what he really felt. Only the knowledge that it would be playing into Walker's hands held him back, barely.
"I wonder if you do."
"Beg pardon?"
"Is it the drink?" Kenyon watched him with a measuring, alert gaze that—to Josh's muzzy thoughts at least—seemed gentler than any he had used before. "You seem seaman-like and efficient to me, bright enough, able to charm or daunt the men at will, and well able to command. What keeps you from passing for lieutenant? You cannot
want
to be a midshipman all your life."
"On this ship? You, if anyone, should know what it's like by now. I only wish I'd never been made acting lieutenant at all. It was that that made him notice me, and God knows how it'll end." He found the words pouring from him in a kind of ecstasy of relief. Years, it seemed, he had yearned for someone to say these things to, and to find that confidant in Kenyon was almost too good to be true. "I'm not totally without ambition. Were I out of his reach I'd qualify tomorrow, but that isn't going to happen now, is it? So I wish I had damn well kept my head down and stayed unobserved and unimportant 'til I died."
Their shared anger and the honesty felt more intoxicating than the wine.
"It is a far worse pain than the stripes to me," said Kenyon softly into the private, swaying gloom, "to see so many excellent things go to waste. This is a beautiful ship, yet he makes her feel like a prison transport. In the right hands, this crew could be the equal of any in the fleet—and he treats them like dumb brutes, officers and men alike. And you ... There are times I see a fine spirit in you, a fighting spirit. Then, of a sudden, it fails. Has he broken you, too? Is there nothing left that can be salvaged?"
"Are you calling me excellent?" Anger Josh understood and could navigate, but praise made him stop short, disbelieving and a little anguished. In drink, the thought of being called "excellent" made him want to weep, though sober he might have appreciated its irony.
You would not think so, sir, if you knew what I wanted to do to you; what I wanted you to do to me.
"I am." Kenyon looked at him with an open expression, almost nervously. There was a silence, and Josh's heart beat against his throat like the wings of a bird. No one—starting with his mother—had ever thought him worth such praise. Even to God, whose loving kindness was supposedly infinite, Josh was nothing but an abomination to be wiped from the face of the earth with brimstone and fire. He was used to disdain, but he didn't know what to do when faced with kindness. Taking in a harsh breath, he turned his face to the screen to conceal the threat of tears.
Conscious that he had strayed too far on delicate territory, Kenyon hitched himself up to take another long drink of the several pints of rum which had been pressed on him in sympathy by the men and changed the subject. "I have been hoping to uphold the present regime at least long enough for us to reach our destination, but now I wonder. Could I call him out?" His face hardened again. "Summersgill practically suggested it. He'd back me if I chose to, I think."
"Challenge Captain Walker to a duel on his own quarterdeck?" Josh repeated, his spirit thrilling at this audacity.
"On land it would wear well enough. The world
understands that a gentleman cannot be expected to bear such an insult."
Did Josh really need to point out the hopelessness of this plan? The absolute authority of a naval captain that superseded any moral law? "But we're not on land."
"No ... No." Kenyon tried to turn over onto his side, but clearly his injuries had begun to stiffen, the bruises to bloom and the cuts to tighten, because he gave a startled hiss and lay back down, frowning wearily at the floor. "Some other reason would have to be concocted, and then I should need to be convinced that every man on board would be prepared to swear to the lie."
This time the silence was one of enormity. Josh's glass rang twice as he put it down, betraying the tremble in his hand. Swinging his legs over the edge of his cot, he let himself be seen, partly dressed and frightened as he was. "Isn't that ...
mutiny
?"
Kenyon smiled. It was, perhaps, the sweetest expression Josh had ever seen on a man's face, with its perfect mixture of vulnerability and amusement, resignation and entreaty. "If I place my life in your hands," he said softly, "it is because I know it's safe there."
If Josh had been fragile before, these words shattered him. For a moment he forgot how to breathe, how to think, as the storm overtook him, and he ran helpless before the swell of agony and denial. The words were out of his mouth before he had time to consider or regret. "You would not be so quick to trust me if you knew what I was."
"What you are?" The gaze became quizzical, still lighthearted on the surface, but colored with shades of compassion and concern beneath. "I don't ... I don't know what you mean."
"If I place my life in
your
hands, will it be safe there?"
"To the utmost of my strength."
Josh took a breath and tried to say it; "I ... I.." His heart stuttered as wildly as his words, choking him. He looked at the wall, the floor, the lantern—they glared back, implacable, refusing to help.
I will hang for mutiny or die at the hands of the crew.
It made it easier to force himself out of the cot to crawl on hands and knees across the tiny space, the gulf which was all that separated him from that smile.
If I'm going to be killed anyway...
Reaching out, he pushed his fingers into the thick darkness of Kenyon's hair, the sensation pounding over him, drowning him. Stroking the errant locks out of the lieutenant's face, he leaned down and touched his lips to the corner of a mouth that had opened a little in surprise. Flushed skin and sweat, and Kenyon licked his lips—perhaps nervously—but at the tiny flickering touch Josh couldn't help himself. Both hands twisted wrist deep into that glorious hair—
soft, so soft
—and he lifted the older man's face to his own, claimed the mouth full on, plunging deep, luxuriating in the taste and the firmness and
Peter, oh, Peter. Oh, God, Peter!
Something breaking in his chest—his heart, probably— forced him away, forced him to huddle miserably in the middle of the deck with tears spilling onto his cheeks, waiting for the recoil, waiting to be punched and shunned. He didn't fear death, for the lieutenant was a man of his word, but Josh was basely, burningly ashamed.
And if he hates me ...
He wiped his eyes on his sleeves, looked up—best to know the worst at once—and was met by a look of plain astonishment, almost wonder.
"Ah," said Kenyon uncertainly.
Was he blushing? He was! Actually blushing, shy as a maiden. "I ... didn't know."
"Are you not going to run to the captain and tell him you've discovered a threat to the ship?" Though his voice was thin and bitter as Tuesday's soup, Josh was proud of himself for being able to speak at all. He had kissed the first lieutenant; no one could ever again say he lacked nerve.
Kenyon shrugged, and the movement must have jostled his back because he went suddenly white and silent, his muscles standing out beneath the skin as he tensed against the pain. Without thinking, Josh reached out to stroke his hair again for comfort. Amazingly, rather than curse and knock the hand away, Kenyon closed his eyes at the touch and slowly relaxed The smile returned, tentative, unsure and all the more charming for it. "Should I?"
Of course you should.
"I'd rather you didn't."
"Well, then."
Such mercy was inconceivable. Josh prodded at it, waiting for it to turn into something more familiar. The demand that he get out of the lieutenant's sight before his skinny neck was wrung, for example. "You still think I'm not ... I'm not utterly worthless?"
"I still think you are excellent and admirable," said Kenyon. By now he had surrendered so completely to the repeated caress—and the rum and his injuries—that he was sprawled like sand over the thin mattress, his voice slipping towards sleep, heavy and soft. "And as I'd rather neither of us were hanged, whether for mutiny or anything else, I'll try to hold the crew together until we reach Bermuda."
With evident effort, he opened one eye. "Should that not be possible, I entrust the women and the boys to your care. Get them out of here before the men can lay hands on them. But if the worst does not happen, and we reach Bermuda, I'm to be made commander of a sloop there. If it doesn't distress you to accept the patronage of a mere lieutenant, I will take you with me."
"Distress me?" The foolish laughter came crawling up Josh's throat, throttling him, breaking his ribs. He smothered it behind his hand and snorted, unwilling to shake Peter out of his desperately needed rest.
Did you not notice that I offered you my life? Did I not make it plain that you
owned
me? You may cause me as much distress as you like, and I will still be yours.
"I would be inexpressibly obliged."
"May we talk later? I'm a bit ... tired."
"Whatever you like, sir," said Josh, still finding it hard to believe he was not now in irons. He hitched himself a little closer, so he could lean his shoulder against the cot's wooden side and sit there like a guard dog, watching while his friend fell asleep. "If you want to pretend in the morning that it never happened at all, I'll understand."
Kenyon, he thought, as his breathing calmed in sympathy with the lieutenant's, and he admired the way sleep restored a boyish softness to that stern face, must have known men of Josh's sort before. Nothing else could explain this reaction. He must have had cause to learn they were not all vile, time to come to terms with the thought. Had he not, he would not have been able to slumber at ease in the same room with one, afraid the taint might spread or his virtue be assaulted, or that God's wrath might strike him down for mere proximity.
As the shame fell away, taking the mad hilarity with it, Josh wondered who it had been, the person for whose sake Peter had won this composure. Not a lover—for there had been no recognition and little response to his kiss—but clearly someone he trusted. Someone he thought well of, who had perhaps soothed him to sleep in his youth, making Josh's touch seem expected and familiar. A beloved elder brother? A tutor? If allowed to reopen the subject, Josh would ask.
Leaning across, he snagged his drink and sipped it, becoming aware of the
Nimrod
around him, the tremble of her decks, the comfortable small creaks of her timbers. His mouth was full of the taste of Peter, and he resented the wine for displacing it, even as he edged slightly closer to feel the warmth of the sleeping man on his cheek.
His hands still shook, and small tremblings raced through his body, the aftermath of terror. He wished he could thank God, thank someone, whatever kindly force had taken the moment he had dreaded for a month and turned it into something luminous and beautiful. But he doubted that God would appreciate his thanks on this subject.
Instead he thought carefully, trying not to let the bittersweet hope rise to his head, that while there may have been no response to his kiss, neither had there been any disgust. And if Kenyon was a man made for women—as it seemed—he was also just a man. After months at sea, even he might be prepared to put up with a willing, nay an
ardent
second best.
I would sell my soul if he would only kiss me in return,
Josh smirked at his own drama.
Though that might be because it's worth so very little as it stands.
But that was the future. More likely when Kenyon woke he would come to his senses, put Josh aside with dismay and move on. Even if he did not, it was likelier that they would both die in an uprising of the crew than that they would survive together long enough for starvation to make him seem an acceptable prospect to Peter.
No, he should stop tormenting himself with faint hopes and just bask in this moment of honest peace. This one night, when he was permitted to stop pretending, allowed to sit in lamp-lit vigil over Peter's troubled sleep and prove the "authorities" wrong. For if he
was
a monster—if he was—he was now certain he was a monster who could love.