Page 18 of Rears & Vices

D’Arcy gave him a long look, then stood and sat to stern. He put crossed ankles on Everard’s trunk like it were a footrest and lounged with elbows back.

“Aye, cap’n,” he mouthed, and saluted as easily and insolently as he had three years before. It made Everard smile.

He gestured Thom to the starboard oar, and sat himself, removing his hat and unhooking his captain’s coat, laying it down folded. He removed his black glove with his teeth. As useful as the leather was aesthetically, he preferred the grip of flesh on wood when rowing. Other men got by perfectly well with assistive hooks; he had a whole thumb, two knucklebones, and a working wrist. It’d taken some time to get right—and he could only pull on the larboard side—but it worked.

D’Arcy inhaled sharp. His face was calm, and he was still lounged, but Everard knew precisely what had shocked him. He had forgotten: the man had not yet seen his hand as it was now.

D’Arcy, never a coward, met his eyes with wide, sympathetic ones. He said nothing, only bit his lip.

Everard looked down. In the foggy dark, the hand was stark and pale and odd-looking on the oar. Or so he imagined it was odd-looking to D’Arcy; to him it was just his hand. Sometimes, his missing fingers seemed to have complete sensation, the same as they had before York. Sometimes, it felt as though he’d never had fingers there at all. He wiggled the knuckles, and wondered what to say. Would D’Arcy think him incapable, insist on rowing himself?

D’Arcy smiled. “Not a thing,” he echoed his earlier self softly. He flopped back, one hand behind his head, the other holding Everard’s pistol across his lap. “Pull her, boys.”

D’Arcy murmured into Everard’s ear as he raised oars just within range of the Brigitte:

“Barring any mole watchmen… see you in a moment.”

He saluted, handed back Everard’s pistol, and, with Thom providing counterweight to starboard, slid himself agilely into the lake, feetfirst. Then he was no more than a wet sable head treading soundlessly forward, and they watched him climb up, up the quarter gallery. Like the Netley, Brigitte was a skeleton at harbour, with her men at liberty ashore; still, Everard’s heart squeezed, watching him push up and over the quarterdeck rail.

D’Arcy had taken an incredible risk tonight. Had said we and us and let’s. But he couldn’t truly mean to give up rule of the Brigitte—could he?

Everard hadn’t answered his letters, but he’d read them. He knew D’Arcy had been intended for bigger ships in the Caribbean—ships of the line, even—before he’d mysteriously requested the Lakes Service. God knew why he’d done that, except that despite his heroics in battle, his ruthless reputation, he’d never burned with ambition like Everard had.

Maybe that was reason enough.

In the starboardside quarter-gallery window, lamplight bloomed to a soft glow. Ready, go.

They rowed quickly to the docks, tied up the jolly. Everard entrusted his belted trunk and pistol to Thom.

“To Bess’s,” he said simply. “Await us there.”

Thom nodded and jogged down the dockyard, out of sight.

Bess’s Boarding-House was the winter establishment for officers and their manservants, tidily kept by an honest widow—to whom Everard paid a full year’s rent, regardless of his occupancy. The boy was well known there. Everard could only hope he wouldn’t be robbed on the way.

He stripped down to breeches, touched the key knotted safely round his neck. Took a deep breath, and dove.

It was time to rescue a pirate.

Seven

Everard almost wept to see the Jacob’s ladder hanging from the Brigitte’s elaborate gold-and-black quarter gallery. There was being patronising, and there was consideration—this was the latter. The deadrise on this lake-locked frigate was flatter than a sea-goer but still significant for a one-handed man to climb.

When he clambered over onto the quarterdeck and found it mostly deserted of the watch—the lone topman was faced deliberately away, bless D’Arcy—he let out a shaky, exhausted breath.

The frigate’s entrance to the captain’s quarters was, like the Netley, thankfully belowdecks; when Everard tried the latch, he found it unlocked.

Inside, D’Arcy wasn’t pacing, smoking, or even drinking. He lounged in a plush red armchair in full undress, half-turned away from the window, his own hat and pistol in his lap, staring pensively at the cabin door with a finger over his lips. His hair was re-greased, though still damp, and his expression looked far away and troubled.

And so despite the ladder, despite the man’s words, and despite his actions, Everard felt a shock of fear trickle down his neck. His skin went goose-pimple, all over, and not from the chill of being dripping wet.

It was a trap; D’Arcy hadn’t meant any of it; he would take Everard at gunpoint and arrest him, the Marines would walk in and take his half-naked, one-handed self down to the hold and⁠—

He must have made some noise, for D’Arcy turned and gave Everard a familiar, wry smile.

“Sorry, Ev.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “I ought to be on the knife’s edge of awareness.” His gaze darted quickly over Everard, up-down. His eyes widened, and went elsewhere, everywhere else. He stood, and cleared his throat. “No time to be woolgathering. Did Thom get off the dock aright?”

Everard’s face heated with shame. Of course D’Arcy hadn’t betrayed him. Hadn’t he only just given his pledge? “He did. Er—thank you for the ladder.”