Home From The Sea (30 page)

“Damn.” Jim swallowed hard. His throat was dry as dust. “And where was Ephraim Buckley of Liverpool while this was going on?
Dead?”

“Dying.”
Toby blinked several times, as if banishing the ghosts. “Nathaniel was already down on the deck when he put a pistol ball into Buckley’s gut, and Joe Pledge had the man in irons before he knew what was happening. Buckley lived the day out – long enough for us to cut into Nathaniel and almost kill him without even getting to the ball. Joe swore he’d hang, draw and quarter Buckley, if Nathaniel died … and you can be sure he meant to do it. Then Nathaniel woke, dragged himself to his feet. He came up on deck, looking closer to corpse than living man. He had Buckley bound to a hatch, naked, and the crew of the
Rose
took turns with a navy cat, cutting him to pieces, head to foot, back and front, till there wasn’t much left that you’d recognize as ever having been a man.”

He was shivering with the memory, and without thinking Jim turned to him, both arms going around him. “Ghosts,” he said. “They’re just ghosts. They’re out, now, in the light. Ghosts can’t stand the light – just let them go, and they’ll not be back.”

“Let them go,” Toby echoed, leaning heavily on him. “Let them go.” He seemed to catch himself, shake himself, and his voice firmed. “You can take me if you want. Fuck me. Nathaniel surely intended to – it was what he wanted of me, most often, back in the days when we were hunting for the treasure of Diego Monteras.” He blinked at Jim, eyes wide and sane in the firelight. “Take what you want from me. It’s yours to claim.”

The offer was raw. For the life of him, Jim did not know if it had been made out of love, desire, guilt or duty. Roughly tender, he pulled Toby closer and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Don’t be so daft. When and even
if
I do that to you, Master Trelane, it’ll be because
you’re wanting
me to do it so much, you can’t speak for trembling with need. And if I do it, it’ll be because I want it for
us
, for your pleasure as well as mine.” His arms tightened for a moment, enough to inspire a grunt from Toby. “As for Captain Burke … well, now, he’s hogtied and lying in the cold water, out of his head on Dutch laudanum. I’d say his pigeons are coming home to roost by the flock.”

“You don’t scorn me.” Toby seemed puzzled.

“Scorn you? For heaven’s sake, why should I?” Jim was surprised.

“I’m
dishonored
,” Toby said simply. “And the worst thing is
,
I did most of it to myself. I
was
a priest. I
did
shag my handsome young verger. Even on Sundays … it was far from the first time, when we were caught! I
did
run away, and sign aboard the
Rose
under false pretences, with credentials that would have been rescinded.” His voice dropped. “I stayed too long on the
Rose
, was caught between the scum of one crew and the bastards of another, and I
was
glad to drop my britches and ask Nathaniel to put his brand on me as if I were a heifer on the way to market.”

The rasp of his voice made Jim shiver. “You survived, and any debt you ever owed to Nathaniel Burke – and I don’t believe you did! – was repaid long ago, likely a dozen times over. You were a free man when the survivors of the
Rose
split up. You’re a free man today. And,” he added, “
if
we can just negotiate the morrow, you’ll be a rich man as well as a free one!” He took hold of Toby with two fists buried in his hair, making him look
up,
turn his face toward a kiss. “What is it you’re looking for, Toby?
Absolution?”
Toby’s eyes clouded. “I’m not a priest,” Jim said hoarsely. “I can’t give you absolution. All I can give you is love.”

“Love,” Toby echoed, as if it were a word of high magic. The blue eyes closed. “I’ve heard it said love is the only real absolution under heaven.”

“Is it?” Jim heard a chuckle in his own throat. “If it is, then consider yourself absolved.” He tugged Toby back and down, onto the bed. “Consider yourself loved.”

He put his head down, silencing Toby with his mouth, while his hands feathered over him from brow to knees and back again, dwelling across his chest, where his nipples rucked like pebbles, and between his legs, where the root of him rose, hard, proud, seeking. A groan issued from Toby’s throat and he spread those legs, lifted his knees into his belly, offering everything that he was.

But Jim shushed him, whispered to him to be calm. “Another day,” he said against Toby’s ear. “Now’s not the time, not when the pair of us need to be fighting fit tomorrow. I need you strong and quick, not hopping about, raw and aching, because you thought you owed me some bloody debt of duty!”

For the first time in so long, Toby smiled. “It’s yours to take, Jim, any day you think is the right day.”

“Only because we both want it,” Jim said gruffly. “And then you can roll me over in the clover, tickle me pink and till my field. I like it no less than you do … always supposing,” he added thoughtfully, “you
do
like it. Or did the bold Nathaniel teach you to hate it, and despise yourself for surrendering to it?”

Toby caught him, pulled him over and down, until Jim was pillowed on him. Under the weight, his voice was breathless. “He taught me to hate it when it’s not done with love. Taught me the difference between love, lust and the
shite
one endures to survive.” He looked up, bright eyed. “You want a lesson in this part of life? Talk to almost any woman, Jim, and certainly those who work in any whorehouse! You think the deed is any different, any
more dire
, because it’s a man on his hands and knees, just waiting for it to be over?”

“Shush,” Jim told him, and kissed him to silence. “You think too much.”

“Make me stop,” Toby whispered.

It was a challenge Jim was pleased to take up. He knew Toby’s body by now, its scars, its tender places, where to touch him to make him gasp, where to stroke to bring him up hard and urgent.

There was so much he wanted from Toby – so much he could have taken from him now, tonight, while Toby was so vulnerable, he would not have protested. But the last thing Jim wanted was to take advantage, and he made it as simple as their first time had been.

Did Toby know what he was doing? The balladsinger’s face was soft with some melange of affection, exhaustion, even relief. If he had been thrown down and hard ridden, he would have accepted it as his due, but to be caressed, kissed, cherished, touched his heart rather than his body; and Jim was sure it was love he felt rather than old fashioned lust, when at last he let Toby carry his weight and began to hump against the soft-hard pillow of his belly.

He could have been buried in Toby to the hips, and they both knew it. Instead, he lay between the long blond legs, looking down into Toby’s face, sharing kisses that searched and nipped and teased. Time for the rest later, he thought, when the shadow of Nathaniel Burke had gone and taken the ghosts with it. Years lay ahead of them, and they would be good years, filled with every sensual indulgence.

For tonight it was enough to rub and hump, moving together in a rhythm that was oddly like a dance. Close to the end, Toby’s hands burrowed between them, found them both and dealt them the same knowing caresses while Jim laid claim to his mouth, plundered him till Toby could have been in no doubt as to where he belonged now, and to whom.

Jim had never known the luxury of having a lover, a partner who would be there in the morning, and every morning. He had never realized he had a possessive, jealous streak inside him. But he put his own mark on Toby now – a sweet, stinging bite brand on his shoulder – and he did not like to think back on how satisfying it would have been for him to show Burke and Pledge the business end of the blunderbuss.

As always Toby was silent in his coming, but Jim permitted himself a cry. He smothered it in Toby’s hair while he hung onto every last instant of pleasure,
savoring
the release as a man will when pleasure has always been elusive. Beneath him Toby’s body calmed, his breathing stilled little by little until at last he was at rest.

He was soon
asleep,
too exhausted to fight his eyes open a moment longer. Jim was no less weary. He fumbled for a kerchief to clean them, reached over and snuffed all but the smallest of the lanterns. Then he closed eyes that were hot, sore, gritty, and permitted
himself
the luxury of sleep.

Chapter Sixteen

Roars of rage, distant yet obnoxious, roused Jim from a dream about white sands and green water, nodding palms and blue-eyed sirens who splashed in the warm shallows –

“He’s awake,” Toby’s voice said from the companionable darkness at his shoulder. “Christ, did we sleep too long?”

The fire had gone out hours before, but the dogs were still curled up by the hearth. Both were awake and staring at the bed. Full daylight streamed in through the cracks around the shutter, and Jim did not think it was much before dawn proper.

He sat up with an oath, dragged both hands across his face and swung his legs out of bed. His body was stiff, throbbing, but he knew movement was the best thing to limber him up. He caught his britches up from the hearthside, shoved his legs into them, and padded to the casement.

 
The sun was not yet up but the sky was clear. No clouds sullied it, as far as the horizon, and he said over his shoulder, “I was right. We’ve seen the last of the rain. The
beck’ll
fall back to normal by tonight.”

Again, the enraged, bull-like roaring from downstairs, and now Toby slithered out of the bed. “We’ve a lot to do today.”

“And it starts with
him
.” Jim felt his face set into grim lines as he picked up his shirt and waistcoat, and shrugged into both. “That’s Burke, not Pledge … and I’ve heard about all I care to.”

“I’ll give Edith a knock, get that laudanum of yours,” Toby said quietly.

She was already in the passage when Jim swung open the door. The dogs ran out, but only as far as the top of the stairs, and Mrs. Clitheroe held out the brown glass bottle without being asked for it. “I fell asleep,” she said, still slurring a little. “I should’ve been
dosin
’ ’em an hour ago.”

“Well, now,” Jim said, lifting a brow at Toby, “why don’t we give Nathaniel a dose of what’s good for him? Because if he doesn’t shut up, I’m going to wrap the skillet around his nasty neck, and that
can’t
be good for a man.”

Toby’s mouth twisted into a crooked grin. “Of the two, I’d prefer the skillet, but … perhaps not today.”

They took the stairs carefully, heading down into near pitch darkness in which Burke and Pledge were pinpointed by the noise Burke was making. The single lantern left burning on the bar had died long before and the shutters were still locked in place. For some moments Jim waited for his eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom, and when he could pick out vague outlines, he beckoned Toby.

They made their way around behind Burke, ignoring the roared threats and promises of tortures Jim was sure were not even physically possible. With both hands Toby captured the man’s head, pinched his nose shut and forced open his jaws. Jim opened the bottle, held it in place – how many drops of the precious laudanum went into Burke’s throat, he was not quite sure, and nor did he care. The man was big enough to sleep them off. In moments he lapsed back into porcine snores and they turned their attention to Joseph Pledge, who was still far from consciousness. He knew nothing as the bitter drops fell onto the back of his tongue.

Satisfied, Jim thrust the laudanum into his pocket and beckoned Toby to help with the bar locking the door. The hinges squealed with rust; they needed oil, a job for which Jim made yet another mental note, but the dawn sky was clear, cloudless. The first inch of sun was above the horizon now, and the world –

The whole world seemed to be water, calm,
gray
-green, sullen. The illusion would soon pass, Jim knew. Twice in six years the beck had spilled up over its banks, but a day, two, without rain and they would see the flagstones in the stableyard again. The tavern would clean up, as it always did.

The longboat sill lay a dozen yards from the door with its nose up on the pebbles, and Jim frowned at it. “It’s going to take two to row that thing.”

“Good thing there’s two of us,” Toby observed. One long arm rested over Jim’s shoulders but his eyes were on the sea, gauging the run of the tide, and he smiled thinly. “We’ve got the current with us, on the way east. Mind you, it’ll be a hard slog on the way back.”

“On the way back,” Jim argued, “there’ll be four or five of us. What, the likes of Hobbes and Bigelow don’t know how to row a boat?”

The remark inspired a quiet laugh. “Give them a good enough reason, they’ll row.”

“The treasure,” Jim said dryly, “of Diego Monteras.”

“Treasure,” Toby breathed, “would be the best reason any of our venal company could imagine.” He leaned over and dropped a kiss on the side of Jim’s neck. “I meant what I said last night. What I have to give is yours for the taking.”

“I could say the same,” Jim said easily.
“Breakfast?
I don’t know about you, but I want some food in the belly before I put one foot in any boat!”

“And a pistol in each pocket.”
All trace of
humor
fled from Toby’s face, leaving his eyes oddly pale in the morning light. “And plenty of spare powder and shot.”