Page 59 of Rears & Vices

Vitaliy looked up, first all around the dining room in a quick sweep, and then directly to Everard, like he’d known he’d been watched all along. He murmured to René and stood.

The moment, two moments it took to reach Everard were long ones. Everard looked down to his nearly empty plate. What would he say? What did Vitaliy want? Was everyone else in the mess watching his approach?

D’Arcy was tense beside him. And how many years had Everard, that he himself felt as unsure as a boy?

He looked up just as Vitaliy got near, as he placed a hand on Everard’s shoulder. The tips of two long fingers nudged close to his nape and beating pulse respectively, a featherlight touch. Calculated, almost proprietary affection: he was aware of the audience, too.

Lucky, that in this heat, Everard wasn’t wearing a shirt with more collar—then there were goosepimple chills cascading down his neck, and Vitaliy’s half a smile had slowly become a full one. Everard couldn’t help himself. He smiled right back.

Vitaliy removed his hand and leaned to murmur, “Have you finished? I have something to show you. Will you come?”

D’Arcy coughed obnoxiously. “Oh, bravo, well done.”

Everard said quickly, “Yes, let’s,” and stood.

They exited to knowing mutters and chuckling. The first two-finger whistle that started off a true cacophony was unmistakably D’Arcy’s.

Everard felt somewhat forgiven. Not enough.

Vitaliy shook his head, but he kept his smile.

“I’m assuming that was intentional,” Everard said, when the noise had faded, and they had put some distance behind them, “but not intended for aught. Yes?”

For Vitaliy had led him not to the greatcabin for a sort-of assignation, as everyone undoubtedly had assumed, but down to the orlop to the carpenters’ workshop.

Vitaliy stilled before the door. “Does it bother you, what they think?”

“No,” he lied. But that he’d have preferred it not to have been farce was what bothered him at present. He wasn’t going to say that. “What need do we have of Perran?”

Perran was ship’s carpenter, a solid Cornishman of the best sort of seaman, with a salt-grey beard and arching black brows; he was gruffly friendly to Everard in spite of the deserter’s brand the Navy had burnt into the flesh of his left cheek.

Vitaliy hesitated, hand on the latch. “Nothing of him. It is still in many crates,” he said. “But it is a gift. For you.”

“A gift?” Everard said, stunned. “Whatever for?”

No one had ever gifted him anything, not even a bottle of spirits. Not that he would’ve wanted them to, or that he would’ve kept any said gift in his possession beyond a week; still.

A soft pink flush had returned to Vitaliy’s face. He rubbed the back of his neck, scratched his fingers into the nape of ribbon-bound hair. “I would have said yesterday, but there wasn’t time. I wanted to have it built…” He trailed off. “But as it happens, I am not a patient man.”

“Oh, no?” That wasn’t the impression Everard had got. Not at all.

Vitaliy nodded solemnly. “The sea takes what little I have.”

“That it will do,” Everard said politely. He was eager to get back to the gift. “Er, what is it that’s in many crates?”

Then something in his memory hitched, spun round to the proper place, and he realised—it comes in many crates⁠—

“Oh, you didn’t!” he exclaimed. “Not a bloody printing press?”

“I did,” Vitaliy said, smiling now. He pushed open the door.

Neither Perran nor his apprentices were anywhere to be found—Vitaliy had timed their intrusion well—but taking up most the floorspace was, in fact, a grouping of timber crates.

Vitaliy cleared his throat as Everard goggled at the floor. “You could build it faster than I, anyway.”

“Yes, probably,” Everard said at once. “Well, not by my lonesome. But—good lord, it is a press, isn’t it!”

What was wrong with him? He sounded eager. Delighted, even. Everard didn’t want to own a printing press. They were huge, expensive, required regular maintenance, and he had no place to put it⁠—