Captain's Surrender (19 page)

"Was that our young friend from the
Macedonian
?" said Joslyn, echoing his own incredulity, as the stitches went in in a succession of piercing and tugging pains. "What an astonishing thing! And a delightful one. I wonder what it can mean."

Peter also wondered. Delivered to his house by a fatherly Joslyn and directed to regain some of his lost blood through sleep and food, instead he took a careful bath and waited on tenterhooks for the knock on the door that surely must come. It surely must come. Josh would know, wouldn't he, that the first thing he ought to do on returning home was come to Peter's side. He would know that, wouldn't he?

But Peter's bath came and went, and he shaved, sent the housemaid out to buy a wedding present and a bottle of Josh's favorite claret, dressed in his best dress uniform for the wedding and sat down to a solitary dinner. After which, feeling alternately certain that he had mistaken that glimpse, and that Josh was still dead after all, and miserably abandoned if he was alive, Peter slept for an hour. When he woke it was time for the wedding, and as he left, he found a card had been delivered into the hall:

Finding it hard to convince Commodore and Bank I am not dead. Have been invited to the dance, post wedding. Will speak to you then. I have something to ask you.

Andrews
PS, Condolences re Miss Jones.
Peter stood with his tricorn in one hand and this terse little

note in the other and laughed. He laughed until the tears rolled, and if it was a somewhat hysterical laugh, well, there was no one else in the room to hear it and disapprove.

Chapter 23
Light sparkled from the chandeliers, shedding rainbows on the peach satin gown, coral-wound blond head and swanlike neck of Mrs. Emily Robinson. She was looking particularly well tonight, Peter thought, as he led with the left foot, brushed past her right shoulder and triumphantly realized he had executed the complex figures of the Duke of Rutland's Delight without faltering or failure. He was not unconscious that the exercise had lent a fine glow to Emily's cheek, a sparkle to her eyes, and a most becoming heave to her swell of white bosom, and the thought that these things now belonged to somebody else gave him a pang of unworthy regret.
The dance over, he tucked her small hand into the crook of his elbow as he escorted her back to her husband. Emily glanced at him, then away again; too well brought up, or too indifferent to speak first, and he cast around for something to say. Unfortunately he had used "M
y
congratulations, I hope you will be very happy" already. As the silence went on, he could feel a sort of ebbing away of her enjoyment, like a tide going out.
I am in your debt for my rescue?
Too
embarrassing?
I will of course pay your father back as soon as I may?
Too mercenary?
"Did you say there would be fireworks?" he asked, with a feeling of achievement.
"Oh yes," she removed her hand from his arm and smiled, "Mr. Summersgill felt that as I was the only child for whom he would have to provide a dowry, I should be sent off in style. He is a good man."
"He is." Peter smiled at her, glad that on this one point they saw eye to eye. It was a small start to what might become a friendship, but it eased some of his anxiety over whether he had treated her shamefully or not. One could not say, "I hope you do not resent me for my unsuccessful pursuit", but this was a welcome indication in that direction.
"Captain." Of the two of them, Adam looked the more glowing, as release from his own anxiety made him seem again the exuberant, amiable man who had embarrassed Peter with his praise so long ago on the
Nimrod
. "I was so glad to hear of the results of the inquiry and to have Captain Andrews unexpectedly return from the dead ... well, we feel very blessed. Perhaps unfairly blessed."
"Not at all." Peter shook the outstretched hand with real good will. "The best man won."
Turning to observe the dancing, Peter saw that Josh was joining the set with a scrawny, underfed creature with a coiffure whose glossy blackness seemed to be rubbing off on her collar. Her looks seemed to guarantee that this was the only time in the evening she would be asked to dance, and while he admired the gallantry of it, Peter was a little worried that Andrews was raising expectations he had no intention of fulfilling. It would be hard for her not to be in a fair way already to be in love with the tall young captain with the wicked smile and lively brown eyes. Josh, too, was looking particularly fine tonight.
It was so good to have him back!
The world was brighter for having him in it, spiky opinions, brilliant smile, and all. That had not changed, though the man himself had, in some way Peter had not been able to pinpoint. He found himself constantly watching, trying to work it out, alternately fascinated and guilty at being so obsessed. Jealous—in case this confidence was a sign that Josh had someone new to love—and ashamed at his jealousy. He wished Andrews every happiness—of course he did. Had even hoped he would find someone who suited him better, but still the suspicion made him itch beneath the skin, made him want to find this new lover and punch him in the teeth because Josh was...
Was not his. Not any more. Shaking his head, annoyed, Peter reminded himself that he was here to enjoy the evening, praise the music and perhaps to look for a wife.
Not
to lose himself in reverie over a relationship which had been over for months and had never been legal nor moral in the first place. Something he should remember with abhorrence, not fondness. Certainly not with yearning.
Admiring the grace with which Josh moved, the way his new dress uniform fit from good strong shoulders to wellshaped calves in smooth, strokeable white silk stockings, he made the mistake of looking up, straight into the man's eyes. There was the snap of a connection. Laughter, then sudden surrender and heat; a giving everything up, an invitation. Peter's mouth went dry and his heart pounded as the diffused sexual delight of the past hour focused itself upon a willing target. Then Josh looked away, smirking, his head high and his step triumphant, and Peter came back to himself, feeling delirious and weak willed and lost.
The floor had cleared for Governor Bruere and Lady Emelia Wooton, Dowager Duchess of Salisbury, to dance the latest minuet, in a stately, exquisite parade of control and grace, when Peter at last managed to hunt the elusive Andrews to ground. Deprived of his endless stream of partners, he was sitting at a small card table, lounging against the back of his chair. He raised his eyebrows at Peter and said, "Join me for a smoke, sir?"
"Glad to."
Outside it was blissfully cool. They lit their cigars at the sconces by the door and then took a turn into one of the garden's long shaded walks, where starlight slipped in bluish dapples through the white stars of jasmine. In the comparative privacy, Peter took off his hat and wig, ruffled his fingers through his hair, sighing as the night breeze blew through it.
Amber light gilded Josh's face for a moment as he breathed in, his eyes closed, luxuriating perhaps in the burn of smoke in his lungs, perhaps in the peace. "So," he exhaled a silver cloud into the moonlight, "she married someone else. How are you holding up?"
For a moment, Peter was overcome with the sensation that everything in the world had come right at once. An instant of perfection, sharp as the strike of the hammer against a bell, and even after it passed, the bustling gardens resonated with its harmonics, wringing fresh sweetness from the cool air, the scent of jasmine and the sea. "It would do no good to tell you I'm having a miserable time, would it?" Peter smiled.
Josh cocked his head to one side and gave Peter a considering look, before his mouth drew up into an infuriatingly smug smile. "Not pining away for love of her?"
There was no conscious decision behind it—it just felt natural to reach out and trace that smile with his fingers—it quirked up a little more beneath his touch. Feeling the realness of Josh's mouth, the warm skin and smile, Peter sighed. Josh was not dead. In a strange, confused way, that must mean that Peter, too, was free to be alive once more.
"I think on the whole I'm relieved," he said.
The look in Josh's onyx eyes was speculative, amused, as though he was weighing up an opponent at sea; guessing from small clues how his mind worked. Then he tilted his chin up a little and gently kissed Peter's fingertips.
"Captain Andrews!" Peter snatched his hand away, and watched Josh's smile die with something of the same feeling he had had when they lowered the
Seahorse
's colors. But this was not ... not the place, not the time, suppose someone saw?
"I was going to say how very relieved I was myself," said Josh, his eyes dark and soft and reproachful, "but am I to guess my interest wouldn't be welcome?"
Before Peter could reply the ballroom began to empty, and for a while all either of them could decently do was to bow and smile at various acquaintances as they slowly meandered past. Taking Josh's elbow, he steered him out of the current of people. "Not here," he said. And then, when they were well out of the crowd. "You know Walker accused me ... us. He said in public that you were my catamite."
Josh's look of pathos became almost a parody of surprise.
"I killed him," Peter said, "but you know the power of rumor."
The surprise gradually settled into an expression of deep inward unease, as Josh looked to one side, his eyelids crescents over downcast eyes. "I do. I'm sorry—I'll be more careful in future. But you haven't answered my question."
They turned onto a path that lead uphill to the carefully groomed "wilderness" beyond the formal gardens. At the top there stood a small folly, its pillars white in the starlight and its curved back gleaming with mother of pearl, imitating the huge, moving glimmer of the ocean that lay behind it.
Catching sight of it, Peter felt a great yearning for the cleanness of life at sea—dangerous at times, but
simple
. Not like this tangle in which he found himself. Oh, his own hand might have woven it, but it had long since become too complex for him to unravel.
Sitting down heavily in the crystal-studded "cave" beneath the "temple" provoked a great burst of scent from the chamomile bench; too sweet for the bitterness that seemed to have lodged in his chest. "I don't understand," he admitted. "Why are you starting this between us again? Didn't you tell me yourself that you expected me to leave you, to find a wife? Was that not what you wanted? Why would you say that to me if it was not what you wanted?"
"Because you could escape." Josh's tone was
characteristically earnest. "You could leave the underworld completely behind and be free. The last thing I wanted was to drag you down into the mire with me."
"Damn it!" Peter was stung by the thought as if by a mosquito. He had
known
this from the moment, in the hold of the
Seahorse
, when he worked out that Josh's silence was an attempt to shield him from his own actions. When had he forgotten that? When it became convenient to do so? Was he such a cad? "Damn it! I want your honesty, not lies! I'm not a woman. Stop trying to protect me!"
"I'm not a woman either, sir. Which, I venture to suggest, is the problem."
The little dry remark stopped Peter's anger in its tracks, made him chuckle despite himself—despite the frustration and the terrible, nagging sensation that he had been an utter bastard and hadn't even noticed.
"So..." Peter said, carefully. "You didn't
want
me to leave at all. You only
said so
because you wanted to see me safe; none the worse for a youthful folly, now left behind?"
Sitting down beside him, Josh twisted his face into a grimace. The skirts of his coat fell over Peter's knee; the touch startling, making his blood jump, then race. "That's a little too Jesuitical for me, sir," Josh said softly. "I did want you to leave
because
I wanted to see you safe. I wanted you to leave because only a monster would want to be responsible for destroying and damning a good man like you, and I ... I didn't want to be a monster."
"My God!" Peter said, shocked at his own insensitivity, at not seeing and responding to the depths of his own lover's pain. He had said he wanted to give affection—insisted upon it, even—and then never even attempted it. "I failed you in every conceivable way, didn't I? I used you like a whore. I made promises you at least knew I never intended to keep, and I fulfilled your every low expectation, confirming you in the belief that you had the right to nothing at all."
What could he say? There simply weren't words enough to make this right. So he bent his head back to watch a flight of brilliant red and green fireworks and groped for Josh's hand, feeling its warm solidity with a jolt of desire and doubt. "All the time I believed I was doing what you wanted—what
everyone
wanted, and the truth was I was merely caving under pressure. Protecting myself at your expense. I wonder that you came back! What have I ever given you but grief?"
Josh smiled a lopsided smile. "When I told you what I was," he said slowly, "I thought you'd do as everyone else had done; you'd despise me. Will I tell you what my expectations really were? Hatred and the noose. It was a revelation that you'd still talk to me, let alone be my friend. Never would I have
dared
hope we'd be lovers. But you—you gave me every last dream but one—and that one I fought tooth and nail not to tell you, in case you destroyed yourself trying to give me that, too."
Peter fought for composure as he wriggled backwards to lean against the dry, knobbly wall of the cave. Josh's shoulder pressed against his as he too made himself comfortable, neither of them looking at one another, both quite well aware that they were now touching in several places.
"Tell me your last dream," he said, "and let me see if I can risk it."
Josh was silent. Only his breathing lifted the chest pressed against Peter's arm. They stayed that way a long time, and then Josh said slowly, "Let me tell you about the
Macedonian
's destruction and my rescuers first, or you won't understand how I came to change my mind. Why I'll speak now when I wouldn't then."
"Oh yes! The fire-ship. My God! I've never seen anything so splendid or so appalling. You deserve to be made post for that—or to be horsewhipped, I can't decide which. How did you come through it alive?"
"Well, sir, I'm not so sure." Josh rested his head against the wall and said "All I remember was fire and then something went 'boom', and the next thing I know, I'm being dragged out of the water by a red Indian brave and his wife. Giniw and Opichi. Better friends I never had. They looked after me, and when I was recovered they asked me to stay. And d'you know what?"
His gaze slid sideways to rest on Peter's face, and he raised his eyebrows slightly, challengingly. Amused, Peter obediently retorted, "What?"
"Giniw asked me to be his wife."
"No!" Peter made a face of astonishment and snorted indecorously into his hand, his shoulders shaking with laughter. "What a farce! But, I mean—he must have known?"
Josh's mouth pulled into a line of disapproval, almost a flinch. Peter was conscious of having made a dreadful mistake. What he had interpreted as an outrageous tale of foreign perversity must clearly have meant something quite different for Josh. Something important. "I'm sorry," he said at once. "I shouldn't laugh. Of course he must have known."
"Yes. He did." For a moment Josh's whole body expressed the same beaten, cowed misery he had carried as a midshipman when they first met, when he first told Peter what he was. "And I had the devil of a time explaining to them both why it shocked me so. You see..." Josh's mouth thinned further but his shoulders straightened. He raised his head, and Peter found himself on the end of a glare threatening as a cocked pistol. There was a glow in those dark eyes like the muzzle-flash of a cannon, and Peter was forcibly reminded that he was no longer facing an inferior—in rank or in anything else.