Page 3 of Rears & Vices

“Apparently not.” D’Arcy sounded resigned, and no wonder. “This is the fourth I’ve heard of this year,” he muttered. “Halifax calls it an epidemic of moral failing.” He sniffed, twitching his fingers over his nose. “I call it a campaign.”

Everard put his right hand on D’Arcy’s knee and squeezed. “As you are not a rapist,” he murmured, very low, “it’s nothing doing with you and me. The charge is probably unfounded, extraneous. And it’s no surprise they want a pirate to hang, is it?”

“Nothing doing thus far. It lacks only their changing the definition to include the consensual.” D’Arcy sighed. “I suppose you’re right. As usual.” A pause. “But how d’you like your Netley?” he asked. “Whenever you like, Ever, I could put a word in, get you something a bit larger…”

Everard scowled. Could he, indeed. D’Arcy made it sound quite easy—whenever you like!—as though Everard hadn’t been petitioning endlessly for that precise thing since the end of the war.

But though he might’ve wanted it, he knew he didn’t deserve a larger posting. Not after the Wanderer and especially not after the disaster at York. His Netley had hardly seen any action while in the Lakes Service, and had in fact already been reaching too high. The admiralty plainly wanted him to retire. Every week, he waited for the post that would give him notice.

Rightly, he should’ve retired. Should’ve taken his injury and his twenty-four-year pension and gone back to printing, or illustration, or even, God forbid, his father’s textile mill in Catalonia; anything at all other than continue this grasp at meagre authority.

But in his bones he still felt it: the yearning maw of ambition. He was thirty-six, possessed of an eerie premonition that he had only a handful of years left in him. The barest chance left to yet do something worth being written about—something not flames and death and disgrace.

D’Arcy went on. “I know it’s peacetimes, but the Jamaica station⁠—”

The bo’sun’s pipes blew again: a new arrival to the ship.

There came a yell from beyond the rail: “Captains!”

A man pulled himself aboard and stomped over: about fifty years of age, grey-haired, with an uncommonly long, jowled face, wearing double epaulettes and the maximum amount of embroidery possible on his sleeves. Everard and D’Arcy both stood.

“Admiral,” Everard greeted.

“Blackhand!” The admiral turned to Everard. “Good morning, Captain. But is the sun not horrific?”

Christ.

“Sir,” Everard replied coolly.

“Blackhand” was the sobriquet that had caught on three years past, after the battle of York. It had nothing to do with Everard’s reputation, only to do with the black leather glove he wore over his left hand. In the rightful stead of his long career, it seemed the thing had encompassed his whole goddamned identity.

If he could be considered to have a legacy, that was it.

“Thank you for making five, Anderson,” the admiral went on.

Anderson de Anglada, Everard corrected mentally, as always. Most Englishmen pretended to forget the Català bit of his surname. Everard pretended to ignore why.

“It was no trouble,” he replied. “I was close at hand.” The Netley had been sailing up and down the Huron, a glorified patrol.

“At hand.” The admiral chuckled, glancing significantly down. “Quite.”

Everard clenched his teeth. Yes, they undoubtedly wanted him to retire.

The admiral turned to D’Arcy. “What a beautiful lady your Brigitte is, D’Arcy! For a lake-goer.”

D’Arcy had flushed red all the way to his hat. He cleared his throat, made a short bow.

“Thank you, sir,” he said. “We’re well aware of the pirate, but who else have they? Surely they’ve a stack.”

“Peacetimes, m’boy,” the admiral replied—though D’Arcy was thirty-five if he was a day. “We’ve a handful of mutineers. The usual deserters and thieves.” His eyes gleamed. “Even a murderer, I hear. Shall we get on?” He turned with a flare of blue coat and sat in the chair largest and centremost, just beside Everard. He pulled out a pocket watch and observed it haughtily.

A moment later, a harried-looking man came scrambling across the railing, hauling a rickety, brass-hinged lap desk.

The admiral sighed. “Good news, men. I have a new secretary.”

D’Arcy coughed. Everard felt his shoulders slump a little in mirth and relief. Anyone would have a quicker hand than the man’s predecessor.

Maybe they wouldn’t be there beyond supper after all.