by Lee Rowan
Luck was with them. The tavern was nearly empty—a lull between dinner and supper—and none of the few faces in the Anchor’s taproom belonged to anyone they knew. They ordered a simple meal of sausage and mash with the house ale, and Davy proceeded to consume his sausage in a manner that had Will blushing scarlet and kicking him under the table. He wouldn’t have been so unkind if he hadn’t been ready to burst his breeches at the sensations his lover’s performance evoked.
“For God’s sake, Davy, hurry up and finish the damned thing!” he finally growled.
“But, Will, it’s our first meal ashore!” Davy said, running his tongue over his lips with a look of unbelievable innocence. “You wouldn’t want me to ruin my digestion, would you?”
They were sitting in a corner, out of sight of most of the other patrons, and the bored-looking codger behind the bar was paying no attention. David’s back was to the room; Marshall sat across from him. Astonished at his own boldness, Will slipped one foot out of its shoe and planted his toes squarely in David’s crotch—not enough pressure to hurt, but enough that he could feel his lover’s excitement at the game he was playing.
“You can eat on the ship,” he said, as Davy choked on his mouthful. Will left his foot where it was for just a moment, enjoying the effect, then went back to behaving himself.
“You’re absolutely right!” Davy said when he was able to compose himself. He finished the food and drained his cup. “It’s amazing, Will. I never realized the barnacles in Portsmouth were so fierce—I could swear one of them was just trying to get a foothold on my bowsprit.”
“It’s the shipworm you must watch out for,” Marshall said. “They’ll bore right into your bottom if you aren’t careful.”
“Only if my luck’s in,” Davy said under his breath.
Marshall just shook his head. At least he had worn his cloak for protection against the sharp autumn wind; he could fold it over his arm and prevent embarrassment when he stood.
After what seemed like forever, they were upstairs with the door bolted and the keyhole blocked. Since the idyllic week they’d spent traveling together after they’d first become lovers, this was only the second time they’d had such privacy.
Davy came into his arms like Calypso sailing into port. The feel of his body pressed full-length against Will’s own, the warmth, the scent of him, was simply overwhelming. What a wonderful thing it was to be able to hold him close like this!
“I don’t know what I’d have done if they’d separated us,” Davy said, sliding his hands up under Will’s jacket. “It isn’t just this….”
“This is good, though, you must admit.” Will pulled back far enough to start unbuttoning Davy’s waistcoat. “Never expected we’d have three whole days.”
“And nights.” Davy pulled his face down for a kiss.
“Even better.”
Their conversation trailed off as holding, kissing, and undressing occupied their attention. Before long, Will was sitting on the edge of the bed with Davy in his lap. For some reason Davy was greedy for kisses, and Will had no objection to obliging him. But eventually he slid back onto the pillow and Davy followed along, widening the scope of his attention down Will’s throat, down his chest….
“Barnacles on the hull,” Davy said, and his mouth fastened onto one nipple as he pinched the other.
“If you keep on with that,” Will warned raggedly, “the shipworm will get you.”
“Mmm?”
“As soon as I—oh!” Will knew that he’d intended to say something, but the barnacle had fastened onto his bowsprit and he simply couldn’t think. He tried to reach down and pull Davy up so they could be face to face, but his lover wasn’t cooperating, and he just had to lie there and revel in the delightful attentions. It was sinfully voluptuous to watch as Davy licked slowly up the underside of his cock, then met his eyes and slid his mouth down around it. Will meant to hold back, but Davy, always more adventuresome in bed, simply wasn’t having that.
“You could—if you’re that hungry, you could’ve had a second sausage!” Will gasped.
“Mmmm.”
Now that—that humming—was utterly unfair, and what little control Will had left went out the window. He climaxed much too soon and much too fast, but Davy seemed to be having a great deal of fun pushing him over the edge, so he quit trying to hold back.
When he finally stopped quivering, Davy grinned up at him and said, “Feeling better?”
“Mmm. Come up here, you randy devil.”
“I’d rather stay down here and see what else comes up.”
“Insubordination, Mr. Archer?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Marshall.” But in his usual contrary way, Davy straightened from his folded-up position. He stretched out beside Will on the double bed, burrowing his face into the side of Will’s neck and caressing his chest and shoulder as though he could not touch him enough. “My God, I love you.”
The open admission touched Will’s heart, but it also embarrassed him most fiercely. “I cannot imagine why—and no, don’t tell me.” Flustered, he stopped Davy’s mouth by kissing him—always a pleasant task, but especially so when that mouth had just given him such pleasure. As he did, he felt his lover’s cock pressing insistently against his belly. “And what would you like me to do with this?” he asked, fondling it.
Davy arched against his hand, his blond head rolling back against the pillow. “If you have some slush to hand… when you feel up to the task….”
Will caught his meaning and shifted so he could reach down into his bag, which lay open beside the bed. “No slush… if the cook caught me stealing fat, you know he’d ask what I wanted it for, and I’m no good at lying.” He found the little jar of salve, so useful against windburn—and even more so for other purposes—and managed to get the stopper off one-handed.
“It’s been too long,” Davy said. “I want to feel you inside me.” Although they might stretch their rule of shipboard celibacy for the occasional quick release, they never risked actual joining, however much they might long for it. That left physical evidence; Will had known a man to be hanged by a doctor’s testimony.
“You may have to wait longer still. If you wanted this—” Will slid a well-oiled finger into his lover’s bottom. “—then why the devil did you persist in making me fire off, hmm?”
Davy went all inarticulate on him—understandably, as Will was applying both mouth and fingers to achieve that end. And his lover’s excitement, the little cries and the flush that reddened his cheeks and lips, was getting Will aroused all over again. In a very short while, he would be reloaded and ready once more.
He grinned at his own mental gymnastics, kissing his way up Davy’s flat stomach to lick and bite around the pink nipples, teasing the buds until Davy groaned and tangled his fingers in Will’s hair. It always amused him to consider the euphemisms they both used for sexual congress—running out the guns, sounding the bottom, this new joke about barnacles and shipworm. Even when they were engaging in utterly shameless behavior such as this, he never thought of his actions in their crude anatomical terms.
It wasn’t that he didn’t know the words—anyone who lived on a ship for even a few weeks was guaranteed a complete education in sexual epithets. The difference, he decided, lay in the feelings between them. When he knelt between his lover’s thighs and raised Davy’s legs, sliding into his body as Davy pulled him close and rose up to meet him, something wonderful happened, something that took this out of the realm of mere physical union and into a touching of souls.
But it was also something that overpowered thought, and for a little while, there was nothing but the heat between them, and the rhythm, and the sharp, musky scent that rose off Davy’s body when he was aroused. The first time had taken the edge off for Will, as his clever sweetheart had no doubt intended it should. This time, it seemed that he was climbing a long hill, pushing a little closer to the peak with every thrust, Davy pulling him along as that tight, hot channel squeezed around hi
m. And then he was flying, falling, with just enough control to muffle his cry against Davy’s shoulder.
He tried to roll away, but Davy held on to him. “Stay, please.”
He rolled a little to one side so part of his weight was on the mattress while most of his body stayed draped across his lover, appreciating the warmth of that embracing body as his naked back cooled in the air of the unheated room. He had worried about squashing Davy the first time they’d done this, but Davy convinced him that he really did enjoy it. Will had always loved it—he had never known anything so surpassingly glorious. The pleasure, the closeness, the astonishing reality that someone so fine and loving and desirable would love him… his mind could not encompass it. How fortunate they were to have found one another, and how incredibly lucky they were to have been transferred together. “I don’t know what I’d have done if they’d separated us.” Davy’s words echoed ominously in his mind. Will didn’t know either.
Unaware of his lover’s active cogitation, Davy flipped the blanket over Will’s back and snuggled down beneath him. “When you have a command,” he murmured in Will’s ear, “I must be your lieutenant. Even if we can never leave the ship at the same time. We must stay together.”
“Oh, yes.” Warm and wholly satiated, sliding into a doze, Will was ready to abandon his gloomy thoughts. “Always.”
“It isn’t that I’m a good subordinate,” Davy said, with the tone of voice that warned of a joke on the way. “It’s simply that I adore serving under you.”
Will bit him.
Chapter 3
FIVE DAYS later, the bed, the room, and Portsmouth itself were far behind them. Sails trimmed and filling in the Channel breeze, the Valiant sailed out of Spithead Harbor, on her way to Land’s End to rendezvous with the merchant convoy she was to escort. She moved easily in the water for such a big ship, though clumsy compared to Calypso’s lively dancing. Valiant’s bottom had been scraped when she’d returned from the Indies, though, and she answered well to the helm. She had been cleaned internally as well when she reached Plymouth, and thoroughly inspected, which accounted for her delay in reaching Portsmouth. Her crew also seemed in order, though with only a few hours’ acquaintance, Will could hardly say he knew any of them besides the handful of rated seamen they’d brought from Calypso. But all of the Valiant’s officers had been transferred away to other ships, and that, they were to learn, was not by accident or coincidence.
And they’d also learned that their new ship’s current mission was more than mere escort duty. Will and David had reported back to Calypso when their leave ended, only to be told that Captain Smith expected them for dinner at the Spice Island Inn, near the Sally Port. That was well and good—they had dined there before, often in company with the Captain or other officers.
But when they arrived at the inn, the Captain’s expression, usually composed and often enough good-humored, was more threatening than a tropical squall line. “Gentlemen. I’ve reserved a private room. If you’ll come with me?”
Conversation during dinner was inconsequential and pleasant. It was not until they’d finished the pudding and begun a bottle of port that the Captain changed the tone from social to professional. The briefing he delivered explained the cause of his displeasure—and it had very little to do with being deprived of his beloved frigate.
The Valiant was a trouble ship. Not a mutinous vessel, which any captain would dread, but a ship so beset by problems large and small that some of the men were beginning to whisper that she was cursed.
“It’s cursed carelessness, at the very least,” Smith said. “Powder spilled in a passageway where no cartridge had any reason to be, splicing come undone, loose bolts in gun-carriages on the lower decks. But some of the incidents could not be dismissed so easily. Half a barrel of flour spilled into the small-arms locker and soaked with water until it turned to paste, then left to foul the weapons—that was clearly deliberate.”
“But to what purpose, sir?” Archer asked. “Was Captain Venner the sort of man likely to inspire mutiny? I’ve heard nothing but good of him.”
“I think not. The only possible fault is with his health—he has been poorly since a bout of malaria in the Indies, and his physical debility is the reason he has chosen to go ashore. His illness may have prevented strict oversight—you gentlemen know that command requires a strong constitution—but his first lieutenant was capable enough to handle that, under ordinary circumstances. No, what the Admiralty fears—and I fear they are correct—is that these occurrences were acts of genuine sabotage.”
Will frowned. “Captain, was the ship endangered by these acts?”
“Not to any great extent—and that is what makes them so puzzling at first glance. For the most part, the timing of the incidents presented very little danger to the ship as a whole. One member of the gun crew suffered a broken leg when the bolts fetched loose during gunnery practice, but the spilled powder was swept up by a carpenter’s mate, the flour-paste was found by the ship’s Marines when they went to get arms for target practice—these are only a few examples. There were nearly twenty incidents in all.”
“Undetected, sir?”
“Yes. Though when the facts were examined in toto, it seemed that many of them should have been discovered sooner, and that certain officers seemed to be less aware than they might have been.”
“Sir—is that why the commissioned officers have all been transferred?”
The Captain gave David’s question a nod of approval. “Exactly so. Now, her previous cruise was in the Indies. Her last major action, on her return trip, was the defense of a convoy of East Indiamen when it was set upon by a superior French force. In the course of the battle, Valiant lost two lieutenants and over a hundred crew—grape and chain across the deck.”
Both lieutenants nodded. French ships and privateers seeking to capture a prize were less likely to use the smashing force of ball shot, which could punch a hole through a foot-thick hull but inevitably destroyed valuable cargo in the process. When hunting for profit, they preferred to load their guns with the smaller grapeshot and fragments of chain, terribly destructive to a ship’s rigging and deadly to the human beings on the deck. Casualties could number in the hundreds when a whole ship’s complement was joined in battle.
“After the convoy returned,” Smith continued, “Valiant received a draft of men—about a quarter able seamen, the rest a mix of volunteers, pressed men, and convicts, one hundred fifty in all, to make up what they’d lost over the previous year. And it was after they came aboard that the incidents began. At first the problems could be written off as the inevitable inefficiency of a batch of untrained lubbers, but instead of diminishing over time as one would expect, the problems increased.”
Will thought he saw where the Captain was heading. “If I understand correctly, sir—the Admiralty has tasked you to identify the saboteur?”
“Tasked us, Mr. Marshall. The two of you, as well. Their concern is that this problem may be related to the efforts of Irish nationalists to collaborate with the French. They suspect that the sabotage aboard this ship may be a trial run to see how thoroughly a ship-of-the-line might be disabled by deliberate sabotage.”
Will bit his tongue. It was not his place to suggest that this seemed a great leap of imagination on the part of the Admiralty.
The Captain smiled at his obvious restraint. “They have sources of information we do not possess, Mr. Marshall. It seems there are other indicators of trouble aimed at His Majesty’s Navy. I was informed of only a few details; most of their reasoning is as mysterious to me as it is to you gentlemen. However, no matter who is doing the damage or what his motives may be, consider this: The incident with the flour-paste in the weapons locker meant hours wasted in cleaning the small arms, and in fact that provided the opportunity to educate the landsmen assigned that task. But imagine for a moment the chaos that would result if that discovery had been made as the ship was clearing the decks for battle.”
No answer w
as needed. They had excellent imaginations, and the picture was not a pretty one.
“As to why we were chosen, gentlemen—it seems the First Lord was most impressed with our ability to overcome obstacles in regard to last year’s adventure in Portsmouth, so we have only our own ingenuity to thank. Or to blame, as the case may be.”
“That is… very gratifying, sir,” Will said.
“Yes, so I told His Lordship,” Smith agreed. “And I am sure we are all equally pleased that our ability has brought us such a reward.”
Will noticed Davy’s raised eyebrow and quickly said, “Indeed, sir.”
Davy coughed, a sensible alternative to voicing the ironic remark he no doubt had in mind.
“I plan to make best use of our own crewmen in this matter. I am appointing Barrow Valiant’s bosun, and have informed him of the considerable laxness of his predecessor in the matter of keeping the ship in fighting trim. I left it to him to handpick the ratings to be transferred—men he can trust—so we will have at least a squad of old Calypsos we can count on. We will remain in port for only so long as it takes to load additional supplies. The ship had originally been expected to remain nearby, on blockade, but that would have been too convenient for our saboteur. In order to isolate him—or possibly, them—we have been ordered to the West Indies instead.”
“Valiant has just come in, sir, has she not?” Will asked. “I thought I spotted her among the new arrivals.”
“Indeed. She dropped anchor just as I arrived here. We sail in three days’ time, gentlemen, so if you will meet me aboard at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, I shall read myself in and we can commence our most interesting assignment. In the meantime, since we have made all the preparations possible, I suggest we enjoy the remainder of our time ashore. Would you care to join me in a game of whist? I believe I saw an old friend downstairs who would be willing to sit in as a fourth.”
