Page 24 of Rears & Vices

“Wmph.”

“Did you pay that marine to keep him safe?”

One hazel eye opened, blinked. “No.”

“No?”

“Nuh-uh. That’s Bellingham St. Clare for you.”

“So, you did put him on as guard!” Everard said triumphantly. “And you said they weren’t your mar— Eemph.”

D’Arcy had put a hand over his mouth. And he did indeed smell like seaweed—seaweed and sugar.

“Lower your voice, for fuck’s sake,” he whispered. “Yes, I put him on your pirate’s guard. Last night, before supper.” The hand slid free. D’Arcy sighed. “Look, it’s not for me to say. Not my place. But you think there’s anything that happened on my ship that I wasn’t aware of?”

Saint Cunt.

“You mean…”

“Mm. He was a deserving prick.”

Everard was silent for a long moment. “Jesus.”

“Mm-hmm.” D’Arcy snaked his arm over Everard’s waist. He left it there, heavy and warm. “Nobody raids Maud’s. We’re safe here. Go t’sleep.”

Sometime later, Everard woke. He pulled on the creased-but-now-dry knee breeches, took two bites of leftover bollo, and opened the door to a domestic scene. There was D’Arcy in the corner armchair, an unfolded Niagara Independent in his hands. Bellingham St. Clare lay upon the neatly made four-poster, reading a pocket-sized King James Authorised Version. Vitaliy sat on the little spindle-chair in the corner: knees wide, chin back. He was being shaved by—Everard blinked—the steady Thom.

“Morning, sir,” Thom murmured. “Met your pirate.” The razor—Everard’s razor—made a soft shushing scrape-scrape-scrape over the hollow of Vitaliy’s cheek.

“My…? Er... morning, Thom.” Everard cleared his throat. “It is still morning?”

Thom nodded. Scrape-scrape-scrape. “Yessir. A hot one, though, surely.” He swished the razor in steaming water; the noise made Everard’s skin erupt in goose-pimple chills.

From behind his paper, D’Arcy snorted. Vitaliy, however, didn’t even blink—his blue eyes continued staring straight up to the ceiling. He barely seemed to breathe.

Did the man never twitch? Was he never nervous? He was positively Newtonian.

“You got out of Bess’s all right, then?” Everard asked. “No trouble?”

“No, sir. No trouble.” Thom indicated the table with a nod: there was Everard’s little dome-top trunk, atop it one of his own clean linen shirts, a summer-weight waistcoat.

“Thank God.” Everard shoved the remaining bollo into his mouth—hours old and with sugar gone sticky, it was nonetheless delicious—and threw on the shirt.

“Wasted as a ship’s boy, that one,” D’Arcy remarked. “Shaves like a valet.”

Everard grunted agreement. He knew that, although his own face barely required biweekly attention. Had Vitaliy asked to be shaved? Had Thom offered? D’Arcy still had last night’s sable stubble, so clearly he hadn’t intervened on his own behalf.

Thom drew the razor away from Vitaliy—who was still perfectly unmoving—and smiled. “Thank you, sir. My ma ’n pa are both in service in Montreal, so I know my way about shaving. Though… the French are not so hairy, I think. Like you, cap’n.” He bent, focus renewed.

Now Vitaliy looked at Everard, sidelong. There was a slight crease denting the end of one blond eyebrow, a tiny furrow of query above the other.

Was he remembering? Impossible to say.

“Unless they’re Breton,” D’Arcy added, oblivious; he turned a page. “Look out then. They’ve pelts.”

Vitaliy’s glance slid back to the ceiling. Thom scraped carefully round the soft, curly sideburns, scritch-scritch-scritch.

Watching the man be shaved felt intimate. Commonplace, and astounding. Vitaliy hadn’t been hanged; he lived. Surely, he couldn’t be a true criminal, a pirate after all, sitting there so handsome and quotidian and ordinary.