His Heart's Obsession (3 page)

If he looked into the future, he saw only more of this. Or the gallows. And the gallows was beginning to look like the better choice.

Chapter Three

Aboard
HMS Swiftsure,
off the Virgin Isles

“You bastard son of a maggot and a weevil!”

Startled at Hal’s bellow by his ear, Robert jerked. The sextant slipped from his grip. With a wild lunge, he snatched the instrument out of the air before it fell over the ship’s rail into the green ocean, and turned to see what could possibly be wrong now.

They had been at sea two days since the last landfall—the worst of this West Indies station was the island-hopping involved. No blue-water sailing at all, no months at sea, where the soothing rhythm of day upon day of naval routine might quiet a crew’s restiveness and weld them into a unit. No, the West Indies station was all small journeys interrupted by anchorage, and even those journeys were as likely as not to be fretted by encounters with the French and the Spanish and the Dutch, and pirates of every nation. The tension took its toll. And Hal—Hal had been vibrating with it ever since they left Kingston.

Robert’s quick look disclosed no enemy ship on the horizon. The trouble was on board then.
Swiftsure
’s deck gleamed the silver-white of well-seasoned oak, ruled, like a child’s copy book, in perfectly straight black lines of pitch and oakum caulking. Under this infernal heat the pitch melted, bleeding tacky black liquid across the carefully scrubbed planks. As Robert moved, his shoe stuck to the nearest line. He yanked his foot free, scowling, and looked up at the dangerous tangle of the sails.

Below the main yard, the mainsail had escaped its gaskets and unfurled. With a sound like a bone breaking, it snapped in the wind, slamming into one of the ship’s boys, sending him flying. While sailors picked up and soothed the child, Hal—fists clenched and the veins in his neck bulging—bellowed at the mainmast crew. “If I was to get the doctor to saw open your heads, we’d be a fortnight looking for your brains. Now get back up there and reef it properly!”

A line of blood shone crimson on Hal’s lip where he’d bitten it, his blue coat pulled in parallel lines across the bunched muscles of his shoulders, and his knuckles vied with the whiteness of his cuffs. In this brisk wind he had taken off his wig, lest the expensive thing be blown overboard, and his uncovered hair shone gold around his bold face, his expression vivid with scorn.

Robert tried to suppress his own anger at the sight. This would not do—Hal was too fine to be this miserable—and it was as clear as day to him that it was misery that powered Hal’s anger, cutting as a lash across the back. He had not been so harsh when Robert joined the ship. Though he’d never quite taken to Robert, he’d laughed in other men’s company in those days, guided the boys with a firm but gentle hand, sometimes even stood up in the wardroom, when the ship was at peace, and sung.

It had been months now since his voice had done anything but scold, and since they had come back from leave in Kingston his ill humour had begun to affect the crew, spilling out of him like vitriol—burning whoever it touched. The other officers murmured about him in the off watches, and the men told themselves, with increasing sincerity, that he had been possessed by a devil—that going against him was as futile as going against Old Hob himself.

Passing the sextant to a nervous youngster, Robert took a careful step forward and stretched out his hand to touch Hal’s blue sleeve.
Look at me, Hal. Why can’t you look at me instead of him? I’d soothe that ache beneath your heart. I’d put a smile back on your face. Look at me.
“Lieutenant Morgan? May I—”

Rough wool grazed his fingers as Hal shrugged him off. Hal’s gaze swept across the deck and fastened helplessly on the captain. Gazing imploringly up, like a child pleading for sweetmeats, Hal waited for approval. Robert ground his heel into the caulking. It yielded reluctantly, like flesh. He knew that clumsiness with the sails deserved rebuke—putting lives in danger as it did—and he wouldn’t have questioned Hal’s actions if it wasn’t for this. If it wasn’t that beneath the surface Hal was dying of thirst, drinking the saltwater of Hamilton’s approval in gulps, even though it would burst his stomach, prolong his torment and make him every day a little crueller.
Stop it!

Captain Hamilton gave the tiniest of nods, his hat barely moving a minute of arc, his face untroubled. Hal bowed his head in return and, when Hamilton looked away, he pressed his fingertips to his eyes. Straightening up as if his spine hurt, he turned back to his duties.

At the sight, the pressure of five years spent helplessly watching unrequited love destroy Hal’s life finally reached bursting point inside Robert, shattering his patience into wreckage and flying splinters. Robert had given Hal ample time to get over this, or even—if the miracle could be worked at all—to achieve his heart’s desire. And all Hal had done in that time was to sink slowly deeper beneath the lake of poison in which he swam.

Enough.
Fair play be damned, it was Robert’s turn to make an attempt on the prize, let Hal armour himself as he liked. It could not go on. He would not allow it.

Outrage mingled with Robert’s native irreverence, bursting out in a sound half snarl, half snort of laughter.
You need to get laid, my lad, and I believe I’m just the man for the job.
Steadying his sweat-damp hands on the ship’s rail, Robert scowled at the sea.
And if it sweetens your temper, I dare say the crew can award me a medal afterward.

Kingston, Jamaica

Though the thought of persuading the ship’s cat—by means of fish guts—to claw up Hamilton’s wig in the night had a certain appeal, Hughes felt it was too petty for the occasion. Instead, he executed Plan B. Plan A involved romantic walks and Robert struggling to express his feelings in a manner connected to sunsets and the works of Horace. He had even gone as far as bookmarking several appropriate quotes before it occurred to him that Hal had no understanding of ancient languages, and Robert’s translations had always a tendency to get him punched. He was beginning to suspect that his unusual level of education might be a sore point for Hal. Best not to draw attention to it, then. Besides, even in schematic form, a plan revolving around love poetry sounded alternately too soppy and too risky. He guessed he would end up saying “Come back for a drink” anyway. Surely it would be better to start with that, and see what developed.

Accordingly, once the
Swiftsure
returned to her berth in Kingston, Robert bought the best bottle of brandy he could find and a new coverlet for the bed in his boardinghouse. Like most of the officers, he considered Kingston—the squadron’s base of operations—his home, renting a room and paying a small retainer to have it kept for him when he was at sea. He therefore felt entitled to furnish it how he wished. Now he swept the spiders from its corners and shaved varying lengths off the legs of the single chair. Finally, he spent an hour before his glass, debating on neckcloths and powder.

Fashion dictated that a gentleman should have a smooth oval face, skin as white as paper, and dark, intelligent eyes. He scowled at his reflection. It measured up in not one aspect—the cheekbones and jaw pronounced, his eyes caramel-coloured, too light a brown against the deplorable deep tan of a life at sea. Perhaps a little powder over his face would soften all? Make him at least half-acceptable to Hal in the dark?

A flash of memory overcame him as he sat with his hand poised above the jar: Hal taking off his shirt in the dimness of his cabin, pale skin gleaming beneath the smoky lantern, nipples pink as his parted lips. Robert, crouched by the tear in the wall, had swayed forward until his nose hit the canvas, aching to get closer, thirsting to lick every inch like a cat with a bowl of milk.

Breathing in sharp, Robert pushed the powder away. He knew Hal admired Hamilton’s patrician pallor, but it was too late for Robert to pretend to be anything he was not. Besides, Hal would notice it, wonder at it—probably aloud—and Robert was not ready to have that conversation with him in whatever public place Robert could contrive to make them meet.

Finishing his toilet, he scoured his teeth clean with soot. Then he dabbed on scent, changed his mind and scrubbed most of it off again. Smelling half of civet, half of soap, he set out to hunt his prey to ground.

That part proved encouragingly easy. Drawing a blank at the ship, Robert arrived at the Officer’s Club to find Hal composedly playing cards with Captain Jones of the
Arial.
Buying a mug of porter, Robert nudged a chair close to Hal’s and, on the pretext of advising him on his play, slid forward until their knees touched.

Captain Jones played with imperturbable calm and gathered up farthings with a practised flourish. After the pile of coins in front of the captain reached toppling point, Robert checked his watch. Half past ten.

He drained his cup, sighed and stretched. The candle flames in the wall sconces blurred into tawny dandelions as his eyes unfocused. His back uncricked with a little click.

As he wondered if he should buy another round or create an excuse to leave, perhaps by “accidentally” spilling a drink or two, he discovered that if he moved his leg forward, his shin bumped against Hal’s calf. Touching the fine silk of Hal’s stocking provoked enticing visions. He might slip off his shoe, run his toes up that hard curve of flesh. If only he could duck beneath the table, slide both hands up Hal’s legs, feel the warmth and the slippery smoothness. Even the thought ignited little flashes of powder in his veins.

“…Isn’t that right, Mr. Hughes?” Jones’s voice broke Robert’s sensual reverie like a pistol going off.

“I’m sorry?” Frantically, he took stock. His foot was still in its shoe, his hands still where they belonged, on the beer mug. Any more incriminating evidence was concealed beneath his long waistcoat and coattails. So far, so good. But there was also the blank, shocked expression and the telltale ache about the cheeks that indicated he had been smiling vacantly into space for some time.

Hal offered a friendly smirk that brought out the dimple in one cheek, his eyes the comforting brown of a bottle of stout. It was a worn and thin smile with an edge of the cynical, but it had been such a long time since Hal offered even that much that it made Robert dizzy and drunk with delight.
I swear all I want is to make you smile more often, Hal. So don’t be angry with me for what I’m about to do. It’s for your own good, I promise.

Screwing his courage to the sticking point, he bowed slightly to Jones and decided on the direct approach. “I’m sorry, Captain. My mind is not on the game. I am a thousand miles away. Might I beg your indulgence and leave it there for tonight? Worse—might I steal Mr. Morgan from you? I hoped for his advice in a…a private matter. If it wouldn’t inconvenience you too much.”

Jones raised his grey eyebrows, wiggled them theatrically. “If I’m not much mistaken, there is a lady in the case.”

Robert didn’t have to be a master actor to dissemble the blush. He really had been very obvious then. Thank goodness for the natural assumptions of a married man. “You’re very perceptive, sir.” He watched coldness dampen Hal’s smile and his own grin faltered. “Can I ask your advice, Morgan? Will you come and take a glass or two with me and tell me what I am to do? How to proceed?”

“Of course.” Hal’s clipped tone matched his false smile. “I would be glad to help.”

* * *

The front door snicked shut behind them. Robert wiped his sweating palms on the sleeves of his new coat and cursed the indigo stain that came off on his hands.

Taking a few deep breaths to steady his voice, he lifted a candle from the branched stick on the hall table and said, casually, “I share the sitting room with a couple of other fellows. You won’t mind coming upstairs?”

“I can’t think why you would want my advice.” Hal mounted the steps, shoved open the scuffed door and paused uncertainly in the darkness within.

Pushing past, Robert placed the candle in the stick on his bedside table and offered the sabotaged chair. It was a low trick to play on a man he loved, but low tricks so often got him what he wanted that he’d never stopped to worry if they were justified. That being so, he couldn’t help but laugh inwardly at the look on Hal’s face when he sat—the disbelief and the attempts not to slide off.

“I’m hardly conspicuously successful in love myself.” Hal’s frown deepened and the corners of his mouth thinned as he hitched himself backward for the second time in as many seconds. But there was a bitterness there no mere furniture could have caused. “Nor has my advice to the captain prospered.”

The thought dashed Robert’s amusement as nothing else could. He hissed through his teeth, appalled. “You don’t mean Captain Hamilton asked you how to woo the Tillyard girl?”

God above!
Hal trailed after Hamilton like a puppy begging for scraps, and Hamilton blithely kicked him at every turn. He did not mean to, perhaps, but the captain could not have devised a crueller blend of friendship and rejection if he had made a study of it.

“He honours me with his confidence and trust. It means the world to me.” Hal flinched from his own vehemence, pressed his fingers to his eyes. “Yet I admit I am a little weary of sympathising with his love affairs.” He gave a smile sharper than broken glass. “And now you ask me to do the same for you?”

Robert opened the brandy and filled two blackjacks right to the top. A sudden desire to tell all seized him—the impulse to throw himself at Hal’s feet and quote poetry. He trembled on the brink of saying something beautiful about true love, preferably in Latin, but his courage gave out. “I’m sorry, Morgan, sorry to impose once more on your good nature, but I cannot say this to anyone else. You will understand why when I open the matter.”

Beyond the window, the moon sailed out from a fog bank of clouds. Hal drank his brandy and gazed up at the stained, bone-coloured crescent until Robert closed shutters and curtains over it. Lighting a further candle in every sconce—a week’s pay of candles—Robert chased away the lunatic light, replaced it with warm gold.

That done, he sat on the edge of the bed and toyed nervously with his wig. On or off? He believed he looked better with it—just recently his hair had begun to recede slightly—but if he took it off, it would echo the candles in encouraging an atmosphere of intimacy, and perhaps persuade Hal to do the same. He took it off.