Page 64 of Rears & Vices

Vitya came with a groan Everard wished he’d been close enough to swallow. He leant forward to try and catch the last of it—and Vitya’s lips against his, the rush of spice and breathy heat on his tongue, the extravagant new slickness between them yanked him, tumbling, over the edge.

Eventually, he could breathe again.

“Jesus,” he said. “And that just frigging?”

“Mm.” Vitya smiled, looking half-stunned, half-asleep. He still had eyes closed, and his broad hands wrapped tight around Everard’s knees. God, but they were both a mess.

Feeling mellow, quieto, satisfied regardless, Everard said, “At this point, I think you may have to maroon me.”

“What?” Vitaliy murmured. “Who has threatened that?” He frowned. “No.”

“To get me to go, I mean.”

Vitya relaxed. “Oh.” He snorted. “No,” he repeated. “That is not an option.”

Sixteen

They built the Stanhope in the greatcabin parlour, in place of the little round dining table that Louis-Michel Alarie had been occupying for his meals.

The reasons were quite practical: the parlour sat in the centre of the ship, where the walls were straight and the ceilings highest. Neat, efficient little thing that the press was—its bell-shaped frame stood only as tall as Everard’s breastbone, its base slightly longer, so it could be operated by one person alone—one still needed room to maneuver round the thick, T-shaped base, to roll the ink, to pull the handle.

And it gave Everard a strange, petty pleasure to see the governor displaced from his supper table that night. Alarie had come in expecting a set table, and found them both hard at work. Though of course the man bore it with perfect, composed grace—especially when Vitaliy promised him a prominent place in the officers’ dining cabin thereafter.

That was a strange offer. But Everard, exhausted, presently in shirtsleeves and a heavy leather apron borrowed from Perran, was too elbow-deep in black grease and cast iron to pause for more than a moment to wonder why egalitarian Vitaliy was being so deferential to a mere governor. Deferential to anyone at all.

He did not, however, anymore think mere infatuation was driving it. For one, Vitaliy had stripped to buckskin breeches, and above those wore no more than the sheen of sweat he’d acquired from lifting and placing cast iron. Only a man as solidly a ladies’ man as Alarie could be so indifferent to such a presentation.

And Vitaliy was observant. He’d have noticed Alarie’s indifference. Surely he had.

Currently, Louis-Michel Alarie looked more covetous of the press than of Vitya.

“Everyone will be devoured with envy,” he crowed from his unhelpful lean against the window. “A floating press! No one will be able to seize it! They will not know from whence the sedition is coming! I wish I’d thought of it myself.”

“I as well,” Vitaliy murmured, and caught Everard’s eye meaningfully.

Everard hoped his flush looked like exertion. “Bolted to the deck now,” he said. “So I’m afraid you can’t have her for yourself, Governor.”

Bolted she was, thrice over for security; and her assembly was nearly, nearly done. Two-handed, Everard slotted the handle bar into the spindle, grunting slightly, and secured it behind with its nut. Then it was time. He push-pulled the handle once, slow and experimental, watching the spindle turn clockwise and the attached lever swing and pull at the main, longer lever. Metal moved on metal, smooth as silk. The massive screw in the heart of the Stanhope turned, and down came the wide, flat platen, onto the padded carriage beneath. And even with the ship making three knots, she came down straight.

Success.

“Oh, no, I know,” Alarie said easily. “I do not have a ship so enormous as to fit such a beast, in any case.” He patted a crate, apparently unaware that it held the lead type. (Baskerville; Vee had good taste.)

“We may negotiate terms if you like,” Vitaliy said shrewdly. “Nonexclusive, of course.”

Alarie blew out a breath. “Pirates,” he muttered. “Concerned for a profit always. Of course, nonexclusive.”

Concerned for profit? Alarie didn’t know Vitya very well at all.

“Mina may be tempted by it too,” Alarie went on. “You ought ask him.”

“Mina will have brought pamphlets of his own, yes?” Vitaliy asked. “Ahead of the matter.”

Martín Francisco Xavier Mina; a Spanish Army ex-officer who was attempting to gather American, British, and Haitian support for a campaign against the Spanish Crown in México. He was set to meet them in a few days in port Haïti.

Alarie brushed this off. “I do not know. Can indios even read a civilised tongue?” he mused.

Déu meu. Under cover of shirtsleeve, Everard rolled his eyes. As Alarie seemed to speak French and only French, he found this more than a bit rich. He swiped sweat from his forehead and peeked over to Vitaliy. He was stony-faced, lips pressed tight.