It was a brutal coupling. Looking for something to hold on to, Peter’s hands found the neckcloth, twisted it until Josh could hardly breathe. The burn and hot piercing pain of penetration made him want to scream with pleasure and gasp and writhe and demand more, and the thought that Peter was choking him, the punishment so infinitely deserved, so lovingly bestowed, made tears leak from the edges of his eyes. Josh wrenched at Peter’s hair and bit his mouth and wriggled backwards, impaling himself on Peter’s strength. He came like dying, in a rush of surrender that, just for one moment, overwhelmed the self-disgust and let him feel clean.
“You’re a sick little bastard,” said Peter, afterwards, as they lay together in the sunshine, lazily kissing. His tone of voice said “I love you”, but Josh was more inclined to believe his words.
“I know.”
“Oh, now.” Peter raised himself on an elbow and looked down, his eyes full of concern, his hair ink dark, spilling over his shoulder. “I meant it affectionately.”
Josh had to laugh at that. How could the man possibly remain so terrifyingly innocent, so pure, after what they had just done? Josh shifted on the mattress, fished out from beneath him a pulled off button and felt the moment of peace begin to unravel. “So,” he whispered, “you have the money to buy a house now. Will we not be sharing any more?”
“Is that what this was about?” Peter looked enlightened. He smoothed the tangled curls from Josh’s forehead with a tender hand, leaned down and kissed where he had bitten. “I think that would be a little precipitate, don’t you? No, it’s true I was thinking of moving away from Mrs. Hodges’ curiosity and her nonexistent catering, but I am hoping that, wherever I go, you will come with me.”
Chapter Fourteen
Next week saw Adam and Emily meet in the marketplace in King’s Square. She had a jaunty little hat of lace on top of her carefully dressed blond hair, and it threw a pattern of shadowed flowers onto her face. There was one right in the center of her full lower lip in particular that seemed to taunt him. His eyes refused to settle elsewhere, and if he managed to wrench them away, they would stray to the gauzy fichu that protected her milk-white breasts from the sun. And that led to thoughts more appropriate for private darkness than for conversation with a delicate young lady. He could not help feeling that he must shock and unsettle her.
She concealed it well, however, if it was so, set her parasol on her shoulder and strolled down the stalls of produce with a radiant smile, Bess following behind with a basket and a disapproving look.
“May I talk to you alone, Miss Jones?” he asked, fingering the rabbit’s foot in his pocket which had so far brought him such singular bad luck, but which was all he had to cling to in this moment of decision.
Her smile edged with curiosity, she said, “Bess, go and buy me a shilling’s worth of those beautiful oranges, will you? Oh, and tell One-Eyed Sam I’ll be down in a moment to pay for the lobsters.”
Such a capable young woman. He had admired her bravery on board ship, after the battle, but he admired too how easily she had adapted to this strange country, and her calm and businesslike dealings with creditors, suitors and her foster mother—still prostrated by the heat and unable to rise from her bed. Emily was not a romantic girl, who might be swept away by emotion, and though he had the highest opinion of her because of that, this was a moment when he felt he might prefer it were so.
Walking past the pillory, without paying any attention to the poor wretch who stood there, covered in refuse and bruises, he paused in front of the town hall and looked up as if to admire the architecture. When she came to his side, still with shadow roses on her lips, his nerve almost failed. What he meant to suggest was foolish in the extreme, and might well be interpreted as immoral, but at present he could see no other way forward.
“Miss Jones,” he said solemnly, looking from the dazzling white walls to her more dazzling face. “Will you marry me?”
A glow began in her blue eyes that made them rival the tropical sky for intensity, and she leaned forward, placing her hand on his wrist. Not on the cuff, but on the skin. There was a little shock of connection and he felt enlarged, powerful, exhilarated—ready to be swept away by joy. But what she said was, “Something has changed? That’s wonderful! What has happened to make you ready to dare this step?”
Her faith was like a slap in the face, and he thought resentfully that he had not said that. He had asked a simple question to which he might have preferred a simple answer. But that was unfair. Despair was driving him to be unfair, these days; his temper was short and his manners snappish.
“Nothing has changed, alas.” But that you invited Kenyon into your house, and today he will attempt to storm your heart as he stormed through that privateer at sea, with your father holding all the doors open for him. “But that I can’t stand the waiting any more. The truth is that I don’t ever see things changing for the better and…” And I want to make sure of you before someone else does.
“And you are ready to use my dowry to open a shop?” Her look of delight had clouded but was still uncomfortably hopeful.
He was insulted by the suggestion. “I am not a fortune hunter, Miss Jones. I would not accept a penny of your money were I starving in the street.”
It was hard to believe that a face as beautiful as hers—round and merry, soft as swan’s down—could become suddenly so shrewish and harsh. “What then shall we live on?” she said. “Air? I wonder you expect my father to fall in with such a suggestion. It would take much working upon him to persuade him to see me settled with a tradesman, though I assured him day and night it was what I knew and would prefer. But what? To marry and expect him to support us both? I do not see how that would be any more admirable.”
The justice of this rebuke struck Adam to the heart, and it was too hard to bear, receiving disappointment at her hands as well as from the rest of the world. Rather than apologize, he stood up straighter, locked his hands behind his back. “I am not proposing to ask your father for either upkeep or permission. I am suggesting that we present him with a fait accompli. Come away with me into the hills. There is a little chapel there at which the priest will marry us without banns or witnesses. It could be done tomorrow, and no one the wiser.”
Emily took a step backwards and her mouth fell open into an “O” of disbelief, then she shut it with a snap and tossed her highly coiffed head. “Am I to understand you are suggesting we elope, Mr. Robinson? Am I to understand that you are suggesting I deceive my father not merely now, but for an untold number of years afterwards?”
Looking at her then, he began to understand why Victory was always depicted as a woman. She was not large, and there were times, previously, when she had put him in mind of a kitten, soft and playful, affectionate. But now there was a light of martial glory about her. Perhaps it was merely her eloquence that made him feel small, tongue-tied and guilty as a boy standing before his mother, convicted of stealing cake from the larder. She was clad in light white muslin, but it might as well have been armor, and her tongue was all the sword she needed.
“No,” she said, scornfully, “I know what it is. You do not trust me.”
Struck to the heart by this, Adam opened his mouth to protest that of course he trusted her, but the words eluded him as she went on.
“You do not trust me to wait for you until your fortunes are repaired. What advantage otherwise is there in a marriage we conceal from all, but to take away from me my power of choice? I thought better of you, Mr. Robinson. I thought you understood that my regard for you is freely and willingly given but cannot be compelled.”
It was hard to listen to this when she should know that he loved her. Had he not just proposed? What more proof of his regard did she need? What more did she expect from him? And yet as she broke off and turned partly away to conceal the gulping down of tears, another part of him was furious at himself for hurting her, for making her look like this. He stepped forward and reached out to take her hand, but she wrenched it a
way and turned fully, leaving him to converse with the nape of her neck, and even that seemed to radiate affront, as if to tell him that he was not wanted here any more.
“You are just as bad as all the rest of them,” she hissed. “If I am to be treated as a possession no matter what I do, I do not know why I should not sell myself to the highest bidder. If you will not let me earn my own bread and have my own choice, how are you different from my father and Kenyon?”
With her back turned, she missed the flush of anger that Adam could feel scald into his face, driving out thoughts of how hurt she must be to say these things, replacing them only with thoughts of how little she must care for him to want to wound him so.
“If I must be a prize, why should I not marry Kenyon? He would at least give me a carriage and servants and a comfortable life and be gone to sea three months out of every four, so I might have my freedom in his absence.”
“Oh, is that your answer indeed?” Adam resisted the urge to throw his hat onto the ground and trample on it by instead pulling on his cuff until the lace separated beneath his fingers. He had to tear something, and the strip of linen made a gratifying struggle before ripping.
“As you wish. Then I offer you joy of my own absence, since that is the freedom you seem to crave. By all means marry where you see fit. I am only sorry that you are so repulsed by my own offer as to hurl yourself into the arms of a man you professed to dislike. But perhaps—as with your affection for me—your dislike for him will prove strictly temporary. I hope your future life is to your satisfaction, Miss Jones. Good day.”
She did not turn back to watch him walk away, and he, striding out with the ferocious energy of anger, had reached the entrance to Water Street before he realized that she was not going to follow. Pausing there, his better nature urged him to go back, to speak gently to her and have her smile at him again. But pride forbade him. He had nothing left but his pride, neither ship nor stores nor—now—hope, and he refused to allow any of it to make him crawl.
Chapter Fifteen
The light of the hot tropic sun flooded through the windows of the orangery and glinted from the rope of pearls which Emily had wound into her corn-gold hair. Peter uncrossed his ankles and looked for inspiration at the tawny surface of his tea, trying to think of something to say. Miss Jones was in wonderful looks today, with a very attractive blush glowing on her cheeks, but she seemed less outspoken than he had known her to be before. He could not conclude in his mind whether this was a good sign or a bad.
“So tell me again about your latest acquisitions,” said Summersgill, rising to help himself from the plate of sugared fruit which sat on the table between them. Summersgill had a more rounded look to him now. It seemed that the punishing climate suited him. “I understand it was the thirty-two which was smuggling arms?”
Peter blessed him for his tact. As he had already been through the exact cargo manifest and the potential contacts at either end of the trade route with Summersgill in his professional capacity, this could only be a rescue from the way his mind went blank when expected to be witty and entertaining.
“The Macedonian, yes,” Peter said. “I had a tip-off from one of the men at the docks—I took his brother on recently as cook, and in gratitude, he suggested the ship should be watched. We intercepted it a little over fifty miles off shore from Boston, and when we made our signal, rather than prepare for inspection, they bolted for shore.
“But the Seahorse, as you know, is a fine ship for sailing close-hauled, and had fully two points on her. We came up into the wind, caught her within three miles and gave her a raking broadside, stern to stem. She surrendered instantly, and once we got on board it was clear why—powder barrels five deep on every deck. The wonder of it was that she hadn’t gone sky high with our first shots.”
The warm, bright room became, in his mind, the cool brilliance of his quarterdeck. He could almost feel the life of the ship beneath him, hear the cheers, see again the berserker joy on Josh’s face as he returned from the boarding party with a bruise on his face—where the Macedonian’s captain had tried fighting back with a crowbar—and a blaze of fierce beauty in his dark eyes.
Thinking of Josh, Peter smiled to himself, proud that the young midshipman had proved not only an exemplary first lieutenant, but shown himself, on this trip, more than capable of captaining a ship of his own.
Though that thought had its own bitterness. If the Macedonian was bought into the service, he knew he should recommend Josh for her commander. But at the thought, Peter suddenly understood why his lover had been so needy recently. Time had reached the point where it would be natural for them to part: to purchase houses of their own, to captain ships of their own, to speak to one another only on those rare occasions when they were both on shore together.
He didn’t know why this came as a shock. Nor why it should suddenly strike him now, here of all places. It had always been meant as a strictly temporary arrangement, of course. But he had somehow also managed to avoid the thought of it ever ending, to avoid the thought that he might one day have to choose to give Josh up in order to take a wife and remain faithful to her.
For he couldn’t have both. Could he?
A tap on his knee, and he looked up, startled to find Summersgill’s eyes trained on him in some concern and Emily watching him with a newborn curiosity.
“Are you well?” Summersgill asked gently.
“I’m sorry.” Peter shook his head and tried out one of his more polite smiles. He looked at Summersgill’s kindly face, and then the subdued beauty of his daughter. Emily’s expression was quite composed, but her fingers were pulling the petals from one of the table dressings, scattering them on the tablecloth like huge drops of blood. No, he thought, looking at her and seeing for the first time some sort of discomfort, nobly borne, he could not have both. That would be unfair to both, and besides, damaging to his own honor.
Even so, he didn’t want to think about it yet. There were some weeks…months…perhaps even years yet before the decision would become impossible to put off any longer, and with that comforting thought, he roused himself to be civil and make an effort.
“Do forgive me. I must be excessively dull today, unable to talk about anything but battles. Tell me, Miss Jones, did you finish reading Julia de Roubigne? I hoped its abolitionist sentiments would appeal, even if Mackenzie’s language is a little…affected.”
Emily looked up with surprise and gave him a smile that, by its honesty, set into contrast the forced gestures she had used towards him previously. It almost made him wonder if, perhaps, she had not liked him before, which was a sobering sentiment. But if that was so, he consoled himself, she did seem to be coming around. The pleasure of putting delight on Summersgill’s face, and of raising Emily’s subdued spirits to something more like their usual pitch, made him forget Josh once more and exercise his mind upon literature for the rest of the visit.
He left with a promise to return and a feeling of satisfaction that everything was going very much to plan.
“Reverend Jenson.” Captain Walker welcomed his guest to dinner and fed him on turtle soup, beef and lamb, roast and stewed and flavored with spices, a brace of birds he had shot with his own gun, plum duff, figgy dowdy, jellies of lime and oranges, and a resplendent pineapple, accompanied by tea and coffee, Madeira, claret, Nantes and Aguardiente. They were alone for the meal—except, of course, for the phalanx of servants—and he did not scruple to talk business over the meat.
“I hope you will not mind if I address a delicate topic? It is a scandal, sir, how our reluctance to even think about this sin is our greatest hurdle to dealing with it, but I know you are a man of principle. I read eagerly in the Times of your prosecution of that villainous fellow Franklin.”
“Oh.” Reverend Jenson put down his knife and fork and nodded with an air of understanding. “Now I see why you did not extend your invitation to my wife. Yes, it is a topic from which the ladies should be protected with the greatest care. That the
y should not know it exists at all has always been my ideal, but I take your point. Our reticence should not become a shield behind which these disgusting practices can shelter.
“I remember,” he continued, his face glowing with pride, “that in my father’s day, the Society for the Reformation of Manners used to prosecute hundreds of the creatures by the month, but ever since the societies were disbanded—perhaps, as you say, through an excess of delicacy or, as I saw it, the sheer fatigue of wading through such dirt for so long—they have thought themselves safe.”
“Indeed.” At the slight tilt of Walker’s head, a servant rushed up to replenish the food on his plate. He kept them well trained or not at all. “Did you know,” he said, slicing his meat into small pieces and chewing one before dabbing his mouth with a fine linen napkin and continuing, “there is even a molly house on Silk Alley in St. George’s itself?”
“No. Not in our town, surely. So far from the depravity of London?”
“God’s truth.” Walker raised his hand as if swearing an oath, and found himself feeling unusually content—oh, certainly the docklands job was an insult, and there were many feuds on his hands which he had not yet prosecuted to their utmost, but it was pleasant to sit and eat a good dinner with a man who was not always criticizing, either by words or looks. One who was appropriately conscious of the condescension paid him by being enlisted in this enterprise at all. “I have seen the place myself and had one of my tars feign to be a bugger and infiltrate the place. I know of what I speak.”
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