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Chapter Text

Justinian was weighing anchor for Plymouth soon. Rather than stay with her, the Indefatigable's new midshipmen had been given six weeks leave while their new ship finished its transformation from 64-gun third rate into a frigate. Time enough to return home, perhaps for the last time, if the tides of war did not favor them.

Archie was throwing books into the sea chest next to his. Horatio tried not to wince at the noise, and wondered if Kennedy was making a racket on purpose to provoke him into saying something. The other mid had been picking at him for days, trying to force his notice. Horatio had struggled to stick to the firm formality that he had decided was the safest way to deal with the bewildering boy.

His own packing was going more quietly. He had less to pack, of course. He'd only been on Justinian a couple months, and unlike Kennedy, had kept his few possessions neatly stowed whenever possible. He had still managed to lose some of what he'd started with: a shirt gone missing, a handkerchief, one stocking.

While rearranging the contents to lie more neatly, he found tucked in a corner a handful of little flags, and the codes with their inadequate cipher, that Kennedy had given him a lifetime ago. He picked up the packet and turned toward Archie, trying to decide how to give them back.

Archie interrupted him by speaking first. "Hor- Hornblower, I have been meaning to ask, would you like a ride to London? It's easier to go on from there to Kent than to get a coach from Portsmouth..."

The offer surprised him. Things had not been well between them since the duel. It wasn't the awkward kiss, oddly enough, at least not on his part. Nor the vile things Kennedy had said, words meant to drive him away forever, or so he'd been told. That hadn't made him love Archie any less, only hate himself more. There was some truth in every accusation, after all. But in the wake of Clayton's death, Horatio had come to peace with his inclinations, however resolved he was never again to act on them. There were worse sins than unnatural lust-like wrath and murder-that weighed heavier on his heart.

No, what Horatio couldn't quite forgive Archie for was that his former friend had not stopped Clayton. He suspected the reverse, that Kennedy had forced Clayton into it somehow, manipulated the situation to save him from his own suicidal folly. Archie had been so cold at the man's death, caring more about getting away from Simpson and off Justinian than the life just then sacrificed for their freedom, with more to come here and across the Channel, in the coming war.

It was a selfishness that seemed incompatible with the warm, fierce, loyal boy he loved and admired. And that made Horatio doubt himself, doubt his judgment, doubt his feelings, doubt everything except his attraction to Archie and his loneliness.

"Oh, Anne's flags! You keep them, Hornblower, you still need practice." Those strong hands were folding over his, squeezing tightly.

He had lost none of his awareness of Kennedy. He hadn't stopped missing Kennedy, wanting to talk to his friend, to laugh, to hold hands, or sit close together just stealing a few moments of warmth. The ship had been cold, and almost silent, these last days.

He felt the danger now, was all. Knew how this boy could drive him mad, drive him toward death, to other desperate acts. Better to keep his distance, to sit with other men, sling hammock just out of reach, keep to the aft hatch, keep busy, away from temptation. It wasn't Kennedy's fault, but he just didn't trust his sobriety around the boy.

He pushed the flags into the mid's hands and extricated himself, turning away back to his sea chest, so that he wouldn't have to look at the boy's face. "Thank you, Mr. Kennedy. And thank you for your other offer, but I couldn't impose."

Horatio began to refold a blanket that was not quite perfectly square.

"It's not an imposition... you see, my family is sending a carriage for me. There would be plenty of room. And... and why pay the fare? Spend it on a new book instead."

The truth was that Horatio hadn't expected to return home so soon, and with barely a month's wages saved the trip would strain his slender purse immensely. As it was, he would have to beg money from his father to get back to Portsmouth at the end of his leave. He felt his resolve weakening.

"I might even be able to get you on to Kent, if father is feeling generous. He might take a fancy to you. I'll tell him what a good influence you've been."

"There's no need to lie to your father on my account." That came out more bitter than he intended. Honesty would be that Kennedy had been a very bad influence on him. Though perhaps that was unfair. It was Justinian, and her whole miserable crew, that had dimmed his enthusiasm for the Navy.

"It wouldn't be a lie. But you will come with me? I mean, let me take you, I mean, you will ride in the coach, to London at least?"

It was a mistake. Horatio could tell by the way his stomach fluttered at the thought of the long trip to London, alone in a carriage, with Kennedy. But he nodded anyway. "It's very kind of you, Mr. Kennedy. I should be grateful to be spared the expense."

"Truly?" There was that blinding grin. The smile Archie had no right to, not from what Horatio knew of the boy's suffering. Yet here it was, brighter than the sun, for him.

"I'll have them hold your chest with mine, the servant will come here to fetch them. Don't dawdle, Hornblower, and we might be off this accursed boat before dinner!" Kennedy clapped him on the shoulder enthusiastically, then ran off to arrange matters.

Horatio gulped, and had to hide his face, then find some errand himself, far from the midshipman's berth, until he was quite recovered. This was most certainly a mistake.

Chapter Text

The wind crossing the harbor had been bitter, and Horatio too busy paying attention to his stomach to make much conversation. Kennedy hadn't seemed inclined to talk either, just stared back at the retreating hulk of Justinian until they reached the pier and stepped on shore.

When Kennedy quickly turned up a street leading away from the docks and the only part of Portsmouth Horatio knew, he felt obliged to question. "Where will we meet the coach?"

"King's Inn." Kennedy pointed upward, though the building was not yet in view. "I'll take a room for us tonight, and we'll start first thing in the morning if all has gone well."

Horatio wondered why they hadn't just stayed aboard Justinian another night, and saved the cost of bed and board. After just a minute of watching his shipmate push through the crowd, though, energetic, almost bouncing with lightness, he understood. The chattering scamp who led him about was almost an alien creature. First crowding the windows of the bookseller to see the latest editions, then darting across the street to buy hot pasties, and spending the change on bruised flowers from a beggar girl for their buttonholes. Everything was new, and needed to be seen, touched, commented on, and preferably enjoyed.

It was startling, and Horatio could only trail along quietly in Archie's sun-kissed rattling wake, questioning for the dozenth time if he really knew the other mid at all. When he saw where they would be staying, he was even less sanguine. King's Inn was tall and bustling, all fresh paint and mullioned windows, surrounding a large courtyard full of horses and carriages, and men dressed well. There were few Naval uniforms among the crowd, all of them shining with gilt. Horatio felt distinctly out of place.

The innkeeper seemed to think so too, until Kennedy produced a worn letter, after which it was all smiles and m'lords. Horatio couldn't help staring at his friend, who looked annoyed and uncomfortable until the door shut behind the last servant and they were alone in a fine room at the top of the inn, with a porcelain washbasin and a single wide bed that looked like Heaven.

The fact that there was only one bed was a problem that would trouble Horatio later. First he fixed Kennedy with a very firm stare. "M'lord?"

"Blast the man. I'm not a lord, you know. An 'honorable' at best, and I wasn't even that a year ago." Kennedy threw his satchel down and dropped onto the bed with an air of resignation. After a few moments, the mid confessed: "My father is the Earl of Cassillis."

Horatio blinked. A more unlikely nobleman than Archie was hard to imagine. The boy didn't even sound like a noble. Actually, Kennedy had a strange accent that seemed to shift with the boy's moods. "I thought your father was a Captain."

"He was, Captain Archibald Kennedy, North American Station... look, do we have to do this now? It doesn't matter, does it?"

That was the sort of thing only a rich person could say. "Well, of course it matters! I knew you had money, Kennedy, but... but... won't your father be upset that you're inviting a- a doctor's son to share your coach?"

"You'll be the most respectable boy I ever brought home."

Something in the way Archie said that, with those cool appraising blue eyes, made Horatio blush and get angry all at once. "You and your secrets, Mr. Kennedy! You might have told me I'd have to meet an Earl before I accepted the ride."

"Well you don't have to, if you're going to be snobbish about it. I can just open the carriage door and kick you out as we're passing St. Peters." Kennedy said acidly. "I was worried you'd be ridiculous about this."

"Well it sounds ridiculous. If it weren't for the innkeep, I'd think you were lying."

"I wish I was! God, what do you want me to say, Horatio? That I apologize? Fine. Pray pardon me for not mentioning that a year ago a second cousin once removed had the gall to die without sons and name my Da his heir. The title is in some little dispute, if that is any comfort."

Kennedy stood up again, pacing around the room with increasing agitation. "But you know, being an earl's son never seemed to stop Simpson from grinding my face into a table and..." Kennedy stopped in front of the washstand and poured water into the bowl not bothering to finish the thought before washing hands with unnecessary vigor.

"And besides, waking up from fits covered in spit and piss didn't exactly make me feel like a credit to the Kennedy name. I'm hardly my father's favorite son. So aye, I tried to keep it a secret." The boy dried his hands and threw the towel on the floor, dropping back onto the bed. "Forgive me."

Horatio felt horribly awkward at the outburst he had provoked. He stooped to pick up the discarded towel, and set it into place before coming over to kneel down near the bed and take Kennedy's freshly scrubbed hands. The boy had a knack for making him feel dirty and cruel.

"Archie," he said as softly as he could, "I'm sorry. Of course you had your reasons. And it doesn't matter who your father is. I am sorry."

Kennedy didn't look up at him, but didn't pull away from his touch either. "I'll forgive you if you say my name again."

This confused him. "Archie?"

Sunshine came again. "Yes. That's better. Are you sure you wouldn't like to go down and get dinner. Dinner that isn't salt beef and biscuit? And we have to decide what to do with the rest of our day."

Food sounded immeasurably safer than staying here, so close to Archie in a quicksilver mood. Horatio hastily agreed, and after a quick washing up, they went down to enjoy the inn's fare.

Chapter Text

The rest of the day went on more pleasantly, as Horatio found, without surprise, that his reservations about Archie's character and the advisability of their friendship were utterly unable to withstand extended contact.

No matter how many times he tried to remind himself of Clayton, or of dying Captain Keane, or the way that Archie was constitutionally incapable of being fully truthful with him, Horatio still found himself smiling. More full of chatter and life than he had seen since their first innocent week together, his friend's happiness was contagious. Half-way through their lamb and potatoes Horatio surrendered to his desire to bask in Kennedy's company.

After, joyfully stuffed, Archie proposed a long walk to the shipyards, where his friend talked them onto the half-finished hulk of Indefatigable. Coin might have been involved. It was strange and sad and thrilling to see the ship all but torn to pieces, missing poopdeck and forecastle, only jagged planks where a new waist had been cut.

Kennedy rattled on about guns and deck configurations until Horatio was quite dizzy. The boy had served on a frigate before apparently, though Archie didn't seem to hear when Horatio asked the name of the ship and where it had sailed. But the mid was eager to point out the differences between a true frigate and what the razéed Indefatigable would be like. A strong ship, able to withstand a broadside like the ship of the line she had been. But much faster, and better handling in bad weather, with her weight reduced and profile trimmed.

They both clambered about the decks and holds until Horatio was quite turned about. He couldn't help but notice that Archie's attention was often caught by the small spaces, noting odd nooks of deck and cabin that might make a hiding spot. Even on their new ship, it seemed, Kennedy was determined to have secrets.

Mostly they talked about what it would be like to be out at sea, where they might be stationed. Kennedy was eager for battle, and had plenty of news about their new captain, Edward Pellew. Sitting on the gundeck, listening to Archie spin tales of valor and seamanship, storms, and captured privateers, Horatio remembered again the thrill of honor and service that had called him into the Navy to begin with.

Even Archie's cynicism seemed lessened by the stories. In a fit of happy vandalism that left Horatio horrified, his friend pulled out a clasp knife and scratched initials into the wood above the hammock berth the boy fancied, then scratched Horatio's on the wood above the next.

He made them leave then, before they were caught, Archie laughing the whole while at his squeamishness. It was a long walk back to the inn, but to Horatio, it didn't seem so.

It was full dark and bitter cold by the time they made it back to their room. Archie wasted no time in ordering up a real bath. His friend was so quick about it, though, that when Horatio was called in for his turn the water was still quite warm. Hunger wasn't enough to make him hurry. Two months of grime and salt had accumulated despite his best efforts with sponge and basin, and Horatio was anxious to be truly clean.

Finding Kennedy in the common room after, he quickly realized his friend had passed the long wait in drinking. Archie's cheeks were a fetching pink, and the smile that greeted him when he sat down was wider and merrier than it ought to be. Horatio knew Archie liked to drink, had even saved out his share of grog more than once to cheer his friend during one of Justinian's dark nights. It never seemed to affect Kennedy, just made the boy louder and happier.

But King's Inn ale was more potent than the small beer they were used to, as he tasted for himself. Besides, drinking on shore reminded him disturbingly of Archie's disappearance, and later punishment, for drunkenness. Though he was certain that Simpson had done something to Archie, hurt the boy, Kennedy would never say. So Horatio had never been able to stop wondering what had happened, and whether spirits had played a part.

They got through the food safely enough, though Archie was outpacing his glass by a considerable margin. Kennedy regaled him with details of sails and rigging for a frigate, illustrated in tableware and napkins with considerable vigor. It was a subject his friend could expound on in considerable depth, and where his own knowledge was still quite lacking. Justinian had hardly more than sailed from one side of the harbor to the other in the whole time he'd been aboard.

By the time they reached the last few bites of pudding, though, Horatio had begun to suspect some of the names for sails, and the conditions under which they were used had been pulled out of the ale barrel. At least he was fairly certain there was no such thing as a royal spanker. He was just about to admonish Archie for trying to have him on, when his friend switched topics to women, and completely set him aback.

Kennedy scooped up a last generous spoonful of sweet, a raisin resting atop the quivering pile. "Looks just like a lady's breast, doesn't it?"

It took Horatio several blinking seconds to adjust to the question, in which he tried very hard not to think about what a lady's breast looked like, and most particularly, his only recent experience with the same. "I really couldn't say."

"Oh come on, Hornblower, surely you've done this much at least with a girl." Kennedy's tongue was doing something extremely obscene with the pudding, and Horatio refused to look.

"I prefer not to discuss my past liaisons, Mr. Kennedy." Horatio hurriedly began gathering up their dishes. "Are you done with that? We should let the servers clear our plates." Pouting, Archie swallowed the rest of the sweet, observing him narrowly.

"You've never had any 'liaisons', have you? Not even got your hand down a girl's shift!" For some reason this announcement needed to be shared with the room. Horatio was irritated enough to kick his friend, who rubbed the afflicted shin, still grinning.

"Not everyone, Mr. Kennedy, ruts around with prostitutes." He felt bad, right after he said it. Another dark memory from their brief days on Justinian.

Archie didn't take offense though, instead leering at him over an emptying glass. "Oh, it's not that bad. You should try it. Better than getting a nice girl with child."

"I've no intention of getting anyone with child, Mr. Kennedy." Horatio was trying to find some way out of this humiliating, ludicrous conversation.

"That's the problem!" Kennedy punctuated this with a boisterous fist on the table. "You should have a woman, Hornblower! You should! Then you would never want to kiss a-"

"Kennedy!" Horatio hissed desperately, kicking his friend again, harder. "Remember where you are!"

Archie blinked at him owlishly, apologetic, and leaned in close with the seriousness of the very drunk, stage whispering now. "I would give you the money, Hornblower. You don't know any better yet. But after, you would never want to kiss a boy again, you know."

"I'm quite certain I never want to kiss one again, now," he said, resentfully, looking around to see if anyone was paying them attention.

Some of his annoyance finally seemed to penetrate the fog of drink. "Are... are you mad at me, H'ratio? I just want you to be happy." Those huge ocean eyes were close enough to drown him, Archie's stub nose practically brushing his own. "I know a house near here, where there are very pretty girls, very pretty. They'd like you, you're pretty too."

This was not a conversation that could go anywhere safe. "Thank you, Mr. Kennedy, but I'd much rather go to bed. We both should go to bed." Horatio's sensible pronouncement was greeted with exaggerated alarm by his friend. "Don't we have to be up early?"

This reminder seemed to calm Archie, "We can sleep in the carriage. I want a woman, even if you don't."

Horatio ignored what he took to be a jab. "Show some temperance, Kennedy. I'm sure there are prostitutes in London. You can wait." He tugged at his friend's arm, only to have Archie try to pull away.

"Won't need a whore in London," Archie muttered truculently, "I have friends. Friends who kiss me."

"That doesn't surprise me." But the hot flash of anger did surprise Horatio, and he dragged them both to their feet with determination. "Why would you want a prostitute, when you could have a friend? You'd much better wait. Come on now."

Archie was fairly steady, despite the vast quantities of beer, but it did require some steering to get the boy going the correct way on the stairs. Cheerful enough, as Horatio secured the door behind them, and lit candles around the room, Kennedy turned obstinate when he tried to help his friend undress.

"I can do it. Don't touch me!" Archie lurched away, so suddenly Horatio almost choked the boy on his own stock. "And don't look, either." An unsteady finger punctuated this warning.

Horatio was about to snap that he'd seen it all already, when he realized it wasn't true. Kennedy had always been careful when dressing, claiming a hatred of the cold for the boy's habit of changing under the blankets. He had always supposed it to be the truth; Archie was secretive, but hardly shy or modest in any other fashion. Their room was deliciously warm now though, no stinting on the fire for a m'lord, and he wondered.

"Fine, Kennedy, as you wish. If you fall on your arse or lose all your buttons, it will be your own fault." Horatio turned about and began to rid himself of his own uniform, far more efficiently and with better success than his friend. He soon heard the tell-tale clatter of a metal button bouncing on the floorboards. Archie was being foolish. They were both boys, and had seen enough of men in all stages of undress on Justinian, if not before. He'd seen the mid's bare arse, scars and welts together, in the worst of circumstances; there seemed no point in hiding anything now.

Except, if this was about him, his eyes on Kennedy's body, his inclinations. That damned kiss, and all the unnatural wants that Archie inspired in him. That must be it. Kennedy didn't want to tempt him. As if the boy's smile, laugh, arm tucked in his as they walked the streets of Portsmouth hadn't been temptation enough.

Or perhaps Archie thought he might lose control of himself and threaten the boy's virtue, such as it was. Though if so, why a room with only one bed, or why not ask him to sleep on the floor? Perhaps that was the plan. In fact, surely there were pillows and blankets enough to make a comfortable pallet. Horatio began to strip down the bed, tossing spare bedding to the floor.

"What're you doing?" Kennedy was in night dress now, though the gown was on wrong way about and looked uncomfortable.

"I'm making up a bed for myself."

"But there is a bed right there."

"Yes, but that is your bed, Kennedy."

"It's a big bed, H'ratio. Everyone shares on shore. And my father would have asked questions about your purse if I'd paid for two rooms."

So his relative poverty was an embarrassment to his friend. Hardly shocking, no need for it to sting. "I wasn't expecting you to." He fended off Archie, who was clumsily trying to get the pillow back on the bed. "It's fine, Kennedy."

"It's a big bed," Archie repeated, in a strangely earnest way. "We won't even be touching."

"I don't want to trouble you. I know you are a light sleeper." That was true enough. Perhaps the boy had drunk enough to relax for once. Otherwise Horatio risked injury, lying too close together.

"You should come to bed with me, H'ratio. I won't mind, because it will be you."

Horatio felt himself blushing, and knew he would be damned to Hell for the perverse interpretation his mind put on Archie's innocent offer. "Better that I don't, Mr. Kennedy."

"Sleep here with me. It's a big bed. I don't mind." Archie was trying to scoop up the blankets now, hindered by having stepped into the middle of them. The tipsy incompetence should have been aggravating. Maybe he had drunk too much himself, because what he actually felt was a mad urge to take his confused friend in his arms and kiss the boy. So much for temperance.

Instead he grabbed Kennedy around the shoulders, holding the boy firmly at a distance. There was no fear in his friend's deep sea eyes, no revulsion, nothing cold, no rejection, not even laughter or any other shield between them. Just a little lost child, almost as lonely as he.

As he had done so many times already that day, Horatio surrendered to his foolish, rebellious, heart. "I'll get it Kennedy, stop. Thank you. The mattress looks very comfortable. I'm sure I'll sleep very well." With such enticement in arm's reach, Horatio was certain he wouldn't sleep at all. "Now let's get you to bed."

He made Archie push arms back inside the sleeves, and turned the night gown around, so it was settled properly. It took a couple tries to get Archie's arms back into their sleeves, and he had to put his hands in eventually and pull the other's back out.

Archie was hot to the touch, and watching him silently, with an unnerving intensity, as he performed this simple service. Kennedy continued the singular focus as the boy climbed obediently under the covers. Horatio felt that sapphire stare, even after he put the bed back together, blew the candles out, and crawled in beside Archie.

It was large, wide as three berths. There was room, if Horatio did not sprawl, not to touch. Though there was a heat like banked coals only inches away, and it was hard not to shift closer. He turned his back firmly on those watching eyes, and tried to school himself to sleep. The bed seemed suffocatingly soft and oddly still after weeks in a hammock.

Horatio had only just managed to fall into a doze when Archie's voice roused him again. "Will you stay in London with me, a few days at least?"

The request was startling enough to bring him fully awake, and make him turn back over. Archie seemed serious, but if that was the ale talking or not was impossible to say. "I can't do that, Mr. Kennedy. I must go on to Kent, to see my father." Truthfully, he expected a long, lonely month once he got there. His father preferred books to conversation, and was often gone about his work besides.

Kennedy seemed to read his thoughts. "He will not miss you. You should stay with me, H'ratio. It will be my birthday, and there will be a party." Rough fingertips grazed his neck, then latched onto the collar of his nightshift before patting clumsy strokes of warmth down his chest. Horatio tried to edge away, but those insistent fingers held him in place. "You should stay for my party," Archie urged. "It's for my birthday, you know. There will be a lovely pudding."

His friend sounded so anxious about it, Horatio felt his resistance melting already, as absurd as it was to think of being the house guest of an earl. "We'll see, Kennedy. Your family might not want me to stay."

"No one will care. They will all like you better. The Old Man because you are so smart, and mother because you look so fine in your uniform, and Anne, and... and they will put me in the carriage to Kent, and keep you instead."

Horatio had no idea what to make of this nonsense, and finally dislodged the boy's grip and turned his back again. "You are very drunk, Mr. Kennedy, and I am very tired. You should try to rest, as I am." For a few seconds, he thought his friend would obey him.

Then a hand shook him, trying to be gentle. "You must call me Archie, when it is my birthday."

"Yes, Kennedy, I will." He let himself put his own hand over those lingering fingers. Surely there was no harm in that. "Now go to sleep."

Wondrously, Archie quieted under his touch, and they both fell into a strange, uneasy slumber.

Chapter Text

Horatio woke at regular intervals, anticipating watch bells that never came. Kennedy seemed to rest more securely, drugged by the barrel of ale the boy had consumed. More than once Horatio felt the twitch of limbs brushing against him, and startled, waited for a fit that never came, only incoherent muttering. Archie had not been plagued by that illness since the duel, Horatio thought, though he couldn't be certain, no longer sleeping near.

It was early in the morning watch when habit roused him again. It took some moments for Horatio to remember where he was; why there was the deep cushion of feathers under his left hip, and an almost silence, rather than the breathing and snoring of close-packed men. The reason for the delicious warmth blanketing him from neck to tail came to him suddenly, once he recalled his leave, and the inn.

Archie had crept closer in the night, and was now curled tight against him, arse pressed firmly into the small of Horatio's back. The sensation was unfamiliar, but incredibly soothing, relieving an ache he hadn't even been aware of. Horatio had to fight with himself not to push back into that accommodating flesh.

Sleep chased away, he tried to remain still at least, not wanting to disturb his friend. Not since early childhood, and the departure of his nurse, had Horatio shared a bed with someone. It should seem strange. Another's body, so close to his he could feel the pattern of exhalation through his skin. The boneless trust of it, to sleep shoulder to shoulder, made his eyes sting and burn until he had to raise a hand and rub them hard to keep from spilling over.

The movement must have translated itself to Archie, who stretched then, callused feet scratching gently against Horatio's calves. Not quite waking, his friend rolled prone, then turned over again, before finally settling, sprawling across most of the bed. In self-defense, not wanting to end up on the floor, Horatio flipped about, nudging closer to take back his share of the mattress.

There was not much light yet through the window shutters, the darkness lifting only enough for him to make out the barest outline of Archie's form. Instead his memory supplied the image of his friend's face, in the rare relaxation of sleep. It was a Kennedy he never saw otherwise. The pain showed through, when Archie couldn't hide behind jests and mobile energy. Asleep, Archie seemed young, seemed like someone who might actually need him. Someone he must be strong for.

Horatio could guard his friend's slumber at least. He kept watch, while Archie breathed and shifted, holding still as the boy pressed closer again by degrees, drawn to his warmth perhaps. With the fire burned out, the air had a chill. Some time later, the room had grown gray, Horatio propped on a hand turned numb, while Kennedy had tangled a leg between his, padded hip thrust into the hollow of his stomach. Horatio was wondering whether he dare move to relieve the tingling in his arm, when he realized not all of his friend was as soft and compliant as the rest.

He felt his cheeks start to burn, even as he could not keep the corner of his gaze from fixing on the slight tenting of the covers. Horatio had gathered, over the course of his school years, and then the short, but brutally instructive weeks on Justinian, that this morning problem was not uniquely his own. But it was disconcerting to be confronted with the evidence so near at hand. He found himself wondering what Archie might be dreaming of.

Thankfully, his thoughts had not quite taunted his own prick into awakening when he heard a knock at the door, sparing him that embarrassment as he extricated himself from Kennedy's grasp, and slipped quickly out of bed to go answer it. It was the coachman, who he'd met briefly the previous night. John, he thought the name was, looked at him with open curiosity, before telling Horatio that they should be on their way within the hour, if they were to make it all the way to London before full dark made the roads treacherous.

Thanking the servant awkwardly, Horatio told the man he would wake Kennedy soon, and closed the door. Glancing at the bed, he could see his friend had not roused from his leaving. He couldn't quite bear to disturb the boy, limbs akimbo and looking sinfully comfortable. Instead he lit a candle, and moving as quietly as he could, washed and dressed himself. His friend still not stirring, he retrieved Archie's clothes, even the missing button, before feeling he could delay no longer. Kneeling down with a second candle, he called his friend gently, not wanting to startle. "Kennedy, Kennedy..."

The boy didn't move, except to throw an arm over still-closed eyes. "Archie, it's time to be up." Even that didn't work. The small mouth twitched, but no further response.

Horatio finally reached out to shake his friend by the shoulder. He was wise enough to immediately step back out of the way, as Kennedy came awake kicking, with a swing of fists. It clearly took Archie a few moments to remember where they were, staring about and touching the bed before finally looking over at Horatio with a rueful grin.

"Sorry about that." His friend sat up, shaking a sleep-tousled head about with a fierce grimace, then slid out of the covers and began looking about for his scattered belongings. Kennedy had far more energy than Horatio thought the boy would manage after being so deep asleep, and with all that beer the night before.

"Did you sleep well, Horatio? I haven't been that warm in months, and I don't remember you kicking or snoring at all. You can share my bed anytime."

Horatio felt himself flushing, and kept his gaze on the ground as much to hide the blush as to avoid looking at his friend's still prominent erection. Archie seemed completely unconcerned with the condition, which only made Horatio feel more awkward. "I slept quite well, Mr. Kennedy," he lied, shoving the clothes he'd gathered and folded into Kennedy's hands. "Your coachman's been already, I'll go down and see about breakfast while you dress."

"Oh of course! I'll be down directly, we've a long way to go before home." Reminded of the time, Archie seemed eager to be on their way. Though Horatio noticed that his friend didn't move to cast off the nightshift while he was still in the room.

The Kennedy carriage was far more comfortable than the mail coach he'd ridden to Portsmouth. Even still, after a few miles the bumping and swaying began to work their misery on his innards. Archie had made the journey several times and knew the countryside well. Horatio soon lay back against the cushions, content to listen while Kennedy rattled on about the little hamlets they were passing through.

With him such a poor conversationalist, his friend often lapsed into silence too as the miles stretched on. He even caught an unusually pensive expression on Archie's face, now and then, though the air of melancholy was generally quickly punctured by a new commentary on the comeliness of a farm girl they were passing, or the quality of the ale in a village's tavern.

They stopped some little while before noon, to rest the horses. Though it was a cold, gray day, Kennedy proposed a walk around the town, rather than staying in the inn, and Horatio gratefully accepted. He began to feel himself again as they strolled down the one main street and into the surrounding countryside. The sight of a couple cows, nosing about for uneaten weeds, and the jumbled earth of fallow fields made him suddenly homesick for Kent. Archie just seemed happy to be stretching out, even trying to coax Horatio into a race along the lane that he didn't have the energy to agree to, no matter how pleasant it was not to be confined to the bare yardage of a ship's deck.

By the time they returned to the carriage, the coachman was ready again, a cold lunch stored in a napkin for them. Even the simple fare of fresh bread, butter, and cheese, with a bit of ham, tasted like heaven after weeks of hard tack and burgoo. They ate the whole loaf between them with hardly a pause, and searched the fabric for crumbs before retiring to their opposite seats to attempt the luxury of an afternoon nap.

When his belly began to rebel again, however, Kennedy noticed immediately, and offered to read aloud. Horatio gratefully accepted the distraction. The book Kennedy had chosen for the journey was a rather lurid tale of murder and illicit romance. After a few pages, he recognized it as that Scottish melodrama Archie had begun weeks ago, while propped against his stomach in Justinian's light room. It had been their last good day, though it had seemed uncomfortable enough at the time. Horatio remembered the weight of that bright-haired head, and wished for a moment that he was laying across the other bench instead.

While Horatio had known already that Kennedy read well, his friend turned this recitation into a performance. Archie slipped without effort between several Scottish and English dialects, each character unique and the narration delivered with appropriate pomposity. Despite the risk to his insides, Horatio couldn't help opening his eyes to watch Archie.

His reader's attention was thoroughly captured by the material, so Horatio was free to let his gaze linger on curving and curling lips, on the hand waving and fisting then draping across a wide forehead with a despairing sigh. The story was ludicrous, and the writing overwrought, but Horatio was sad all the same when Archie finally pleaded a sore throat and had to stop.

Chapter Text

The skies had darkened the farther they got from the coast, accelerating as the day went on. It was raining steadily by the time the coach had entered into London proper. Despite the chill gloom Horatio cracked open the shutters and stared out at what he could, catching glimpses of towering masonry and hurrying crowds.

"I'll take you on a tour tomorrow and you can gawp about with your mouth open all you like, but only if I don't catch my death from that infernal draft."

This acid pronouncement seemed more than a little ridiculous coming from a boy who had stood watch three nights together in the heart of winter, without coming down with so much as a dripping nose. Archie was impossibly robust. But Horatio's traveling companion had also been growing steadily more taciturn and spiteful the closer the coach drew to London. As Kennedy's tone could now effectively slice a roast, Horatio elected not to argue. Better to save both their energies for whatever scene his friend seemed to be anticipating on their arrival.

Horatio slumped back on the bench, closing the window securely. "Thank you for the offer, but I have been to London before, Mr. Kennedy," he smiled, without any answer, "And I should be on my way to Kent in the morning in any case." He tried to say it gently, not wanting to rile the suddenly prickly boy.

"No, you shouldn't." Horatio didn't know what to make of this curt, petulant statement.

"I... well I have to go, Kennedy, you know I do. As soon as I can get a seat on a coach. It's too kind of your family already, putting me up for the night. Are you sure it will be all right?" Horatio could not help nervously straightening his rumpled uniform. Try as he might, he couldn't quite keep from thinking about Captain Kennedy-to his mind rather like a taller, healthier, more sarcastic Captain Keene-sneering down at him resentfully like a rat flushed out of the sewers and sprawling on the Earl's doorstep.

"Stop fizzing, Hornblower. It will be fine, they are welcoming home the prodigal son for the last time before going off to war. Probably to get myself killed. My parents will hardly complain about anything I do. And I distinctly recall inviting you to stay the week at least."

"You were drunk. You said a great many things you didn't mean." Despite the scolding, he found himself polishing a button that had managed to acquire a tarnish in the last day.

"If I was all that drunk, I'm sure I meant everything. I certainly meant to ask you on a visit. And you agreed."

Horatio looked up, confused. "I didn't actually, Mr. Kennedy."

"You did. You said you would stay for my birthday party."

Horatio had spent the better part of the day's silences, which though infrequent at first, had grown as the journey lengthened, on reviewing and dissecting every detail of the previous night. He could recall each word he and Kennedy had exchanged, as perfectly as he remembered the texture of the boy's fingertips on his throat, or the heat of Kennedy's back pressed tight against his own in the pre-dawn hour.

Horatio had said only that he might, depending on what the Earl allowed, he was as sure of that as the smell of Kennedy, all lavender and young animal. But he still didn't want to argue, so he said nothing, lost besides in trying to forget the sensation of muscled limbs stretching against his own.

"Are we ever to be friends again, Horatio? Just when I think things are better, you go stiff and cold on me. We're to serve together, and we were truly friends, once. Say that I have not ruined it forever."

The change of mood and topic roused him from his reverie immediately. He couldn't quite make out Kennedy's expression in the gloom of the carriage. The other boy was mercifully staring down, rather than at Horatio.

I thought you were my friend. I hate you. The accusation echoed in his head. No matter that Clayton claimed Kennedy hadn't meant it. No matter how Kennedy tried to pretend the words hadn't been spoken, that the incident in the hold hadn't happened. Horatio couldn't join in the pretense.

His feelings, his... affection for Archie had been violently rejected, spat on and made vile. Horatio forgave Archie. Whether it had been meant or not, said out of fear, surprise, wanting to protect him from Simpson, for any reason or none at all, he forgave Archie equally. The flaw was in him, after all.

But Horatio could not forget. Not the words, or how it felt, that moment when the sun seemed to fall out of the sky forever, or his desperation after. Better to keep his distance, if only Kennedy would let him.

He could not say that, though, not with the boy looking so small, curled into a corner. "Of course we are friends, Mr. Kennedy. You are a very good friend to me, as you always have been."

His perfunctory tone had not gone unnoticed. Horatio was fixed with a pale, level stare. "Not always at all, not even mostly."

How did one weigh a handful of nuts tucked in his pocket, against a few crude jibes at his expense? Fingers spelling out jokes and dreams versus a fist in the face that revealed a nightmare? Which meant more, the gaze turned away while he was beaten, the callousness that urged another man to die in his place, or the limbs wrapping his so he would not fall, and a scarf, tucked about his neck with tender care?

It was a calculus too complex for Horatio to unravel. "We have both made mistakes, perhaps."

"Perhaps. But can't we leave those behind us now? Justinian was a foul place. It made everything twisted and confused. Can we not start over?"

Horatio could not help but feel this was another veiled reference to his intemperate kiss, and made a stiff reply. "I am very glad to serve with you, of course, and I know I shall rely on you in our first weeks, as I already have. But surely you can think of more reasons than I to confine our association to our duties. We were thrown together, Mr. Kennedy, on Justinian. It will be different in our new posting. We will both, I hope, find company that is more congenial to our spirits."

Kennedy made no answer at first, just stared at him, before laughing harshly. "More congenial company. I wonder if you have any notion of how you sound, Hornblower. I thought you were still mad at me about Clayton. But this is about that business in the hold! Do you still think I honestly care about you kissing me? Good God, I'm not that much a hypocrite."

Horatio took some time to untangle this mess of reasoning, for he did care --very much-- about Clayton, and he didn't know how to reconcile that with his feelings for Archie, pure or impure. Precisely because it was so alluring, so easy, to fall back into their old closeness, they had to part. It was best for both of them. He was just drawing breath to say so, more bluntly, when Kennedy kissed him.

It was firm, and sudden. Horatio was more aware of the strong hand wrapping the back of his neck, holding him still, than the pressure of lips. He felt the puff of warm air against his skin, and then it was over, Archie pushing him back to arm's length.

"There. Now you may hit me, and we shall be even, and we can put this all behind us."

Horatio had just enough grasp of his senses to protest that. "But you said... I don't care about your fists, you said you hated me."

"Then hit me twice, for being a damned liar, Horatio. I'll pay whatever penance you ask," Archie had the nerve to grin at him. "Even kiss you again if you like. Only say that we can be true friends again, and you forgive me."

Horatio was tempted enough that his hands clenched. Not because Archie had convinced him with this nonsense, but because he was so angry. There was mockery in Kennedy's expression, as if these last weeks were just a joke gone wrong, and not the most important and devastating events that had ever happened to him.

The maddening boy just sat there, waiting, apparently unconcerned as to what he might do. And in the end he could only cram back into the corner of the bench, as far from Archie as he could get, and snarl, impotently. "I don't understand you at all, Mr. Kennedy."

"Really? I think I'm being uncommonly clear." The boy slowed down, enunciating carefully. "I am very sorry for almost everything that happened on Justinian, Mr. Hornblower. But we are free of her now. And while you might very well find someone among our new comrades that is more sober and mathematical and kind and far less trouble than I have been, I cannot as easily replace you. So, I will do anything to keep you, and if you can't comprehend why, it's only because you understand yourself even less than you do me."

Horatio didn't know what to make of this little speech at all. Archie hardly seemed sincere. However pretty the words, the boy's whole manner was still flippant, as if his compliance was already taken for granted. It was all enough to make his head ache. His lips had begun to tingle, besides, and he found himself rubbing them with the back of his hand. The motion of the coach, now starting and stopping frequently because of the city traffic, was making him queasy, too, and when his mind began to catalog his growing miseries, his eyes began to sting as well.

"We are almost home, Hornblower. You'll see I have some worth as a friend then. But you'd better let me re-tie your queue. It's gotten disarranged somehow, and you want to make a good impression on the Earl."

Horatio hardly cared, now, but he obediently turned anyway, and let deft fingers pull out the ribbon and smooth his hair.

Chapter Text

There was no time to fret over Archie's words, or even gather the normal unease he should have felt at meeting the boy's family, noble or not. The carriage lurched for only a few streets more before rumbling to an abrupt stop. Kennedy did not wait for the coachman, but threw the door open, and jumped down, heedless of the puddles.

Horatio was more cautious as he stepped out, blinking against the rain as he stared up at the stone steps of the Kennedy residence. Even by lantern-light it was extremely grand. A couple boys were spilling up from the kitchen entrance, while above, a very solemn looking man opened wide the double doors just ahead of Archie's bounding pace.

He hardly had the chance to glance about at the cobbled street, lined with identical homes, each reaching several stories about the pavement and looking together like one single building with a hundred lit windows.

"Come Hornblower, the lads will get our chests and bags, and we're letting in the air." Archie was waiting impatiently at the top, disappearing inside as he followed. The man at the door, older than his own father, shut out the night behind him, and then Archie was stripping off hat and greatcoat, and urging him to do the same, before they passed through the entry and into the main hall.

The two story room was humbling, brightly lit and dominated by a great staircase leading up to a gallery around the upper floor, where he could see a series of doorways. Everywhere was polished wood or stone, the walls hung with drapes where there were not paintings. He'd never been anywhere half so luxurious in his life, and could only stand and stare, self-conscious of his crumpled jacket and afraid to look down and see what mess his wet shoes were making of the carpet. Archie was chattering at the servant who had let them in, and Horatio was vaguely aware of his name being mentioned, when his attention was more thoroughly captured by a girl's head poking out of an upstairs doorway.

The head, piled with curls in a familiar hue, was quickly followed by the rest of her, charging down the stairs without a care for her expensive looking white frock. "Archie! You're home safe!" The girl flung herself into her brother's arms. Horatio had several moments to discern the relationship, as they hugged and kissed with an affection he found alarming. They could be twins, though he knew from Kennedy they were not. She was plump, and small, and had the same tiny nose and high cheekbones, and a smile he had seen many times, which was bestowed on him in turn, along with a pair of very curious gray eyes.

"Archie, you have brought us your Mr. Hornblower. Has he come to stay?"

"I believe he has." Archie's broad grin dared him to deny it. "Horatio, may I introduce you to my second sister, Miss Kennedy. Anne, as you have guessed, this is Horatio Hornblower." She made a very pretty curtsy, and Horatio remembered just in time to bow.

"Robert is still at his club, but John is above with mother and father. They'll be waiting, you should come up."

"No avoiding it until after a cup of tea?"

"You are too late for tea, you must do without." Anne wrapped her arm through Archie's, and urged him back up the stairs. Horatio trailed behind, as they went through the doors at the top into a large sitting room. There was an instrument in one corner, and several couches, chairs, and tables scattered about, but his gaze went first to the occupants of the room. Standing was an older gentleman, in an expensive suit that did not entirely conceal that this was a powerful man, gone slightly soft with age. Graying hair was pulled back in a sailor's queue, and the earl's posture, hands clasped behind, gaze distant, recalled the quarterdeck.

Seated together nearby was a small woman, no doubt Archie's mother, and one of her sons. Some years older than Horatio, John had dark hair and the father's sharp nose, though wide-set light brown eyes gave a much gentler aspect to the young man's features. The Countess was a very sweet looking lady, with those same brown eyes, but her daughter's face, only blurred with age.

Horatio was aware of Archie pulling up stiff and straight beside him. "Father, mother, may I present my good friend, Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, lately of the Justinian, but who will sail with me on the Indefatigable as well. Mr. Hornblower, The Earl and Countess of Cassillis, and my brother, Mr. John Kennedy."

He bowed low, feeling horridly awkward. The earl only gave him a perfunctory nod, but the countess smiled at him, and seemed pleased enough to meet him, while John Kennedy got up to shake his hand, and then clapped Archie on the back.

The earl cut into the greetings. "We expected you an hour ago, Alexander. Left Portsmouth late, did you?" Horatio looked about, expecting some other brother come into the room, but Archie answered.

"Not at all, sir. We left quite early, but hit the rain early as well. I think we made good time for all of that. Do we have time to wash up before dinner?" Archie addressed the last to the countess.

"More than an hour. Will you be joining us for dinner, Mr. Hornblower, or do you have your own family here in Town expecting you? If you do not, you are quite welcome."

Archie quickly answered for him. "I've invited Horatio to stay until Monday, mother. I've promised to show him a bit of London before he is consigned to the wilds of Kent for the rest of his leave."

Horatio cursed Archie silently, but didn't quite have the nerve to contradict the boy in front of others. "Only if it will not be an inconvenience, ma'am, sir." He winced at the tardy realization that he should have used lord and lady, instead.

The earl overlooked the offense, being busy glaring at his friend. The countess just smiled at him wider, and patted the cushion beside her. "No inconvenience at all. I wouldn't dare send a young man away to the country without giving him a chance to see the City. Why don't you come sit with me, you must be tired from the trip. Anne, ring the bell."

He did as he was asked, of course, and sat beside the countess for some minutes, while she arranged their rooms with the maid, and then asked him very kind questions about his father, and Kent. She had a much stronger American accent than the earl or her children, and a very friendly, chatty manner, not at all how he thought a noblewoman, or even a rich one, ought to be. He liked her very much, and when Kennedy came to stand near, and her hand reached up without thinking to take her son's, Horatio couldn't help feeling a sudden envy of his friend.

Some time later, Horatio was shown into the room where he would be staying. It took considerable effort not to gape until the servant closed the door behind him. Though not matching the elegance he'd seen so far in the rest of the house, it was still the finest bedchamber he'd ever been in. There was a large bed, as big as the one he and Archie had shared the previous night, with wide carved posts, and a curtained canopy falling into thick soft drapes. He clasped his hands firmly behind his back to avoid touching them, but he thought the fabric might be velvet.

At the foot of this bed his own sea chest had been placed, looking dingy and cheap against the fine wool rug that warmed the floor. There was a small coal fireplace set in one wall putting out a lovely heat. Near it waited a washstand with brushes and bowls laid out. Opposite the bed was a wardrobe large enough to hide in, and under the room's one window, a little desk with a few books. Horatio couldn't help but look at the titles, mostly schoolbooks, with a few volumes of Shakespeare and other playwrights.

The walls were painted a deep peacock blue above the mahogany wainscoting. There were several small watercolors hung about in frames, some rather crude, others more skillfully executed, mostly scenes of the sea, and ships. The best showed a view of a crowded port, seen from the water, the bay choked with little boats full of brown people selling women and other wares. A few larger ships, from England mostly judging from the flags, seemed the focus of the activity.

Horatio's growing suspicions were confirmed when he came to a small oil painting, from the brush of a more skilled artist. It was clearly Kennedy, but done some years before. The trim little figure was in the unmarked blue coat and white britches of a volunteer. His friend's hair was lighter then, and curled around narrow shoulders like a girl's. The boy was standing next to a familiar brass-fitted sea chest. The round cherub face was all pink cheeks and white teeth, and the wide grin --young Kennedy looked very puffed up and proud-- made Horatio smile.

He had only a few minutes to explore before a door between this chamber and the next, that he had barely noticed, opened. The portrait's subject poked a head in. "How do you like my room, Hornblower?"

"It is very nice." Horatio felt very conscious that they had not been alone since the coach. "But should you not have it?"

"They gave you the one that had actually been made up, I am relegated to cold and dust for surprising my mother with a houseguest. Not that I mind." Archie came in and closed the door behind him. "I spent time enough in here."

He did not know what sort of mood the boy was in now, and looked for a distraction. "Who painted these?" Horatio gestured about.

"I did some of them, my father's men did others. Not this one, of course." Kennedy had come to stand next to him. "My mother made me sit for this, before I left on the Guardian."

"Your first posting?"

"Aye. We had quite an adventure too." But Archie did not elaborate. Horatio thought to press the matter, the name of the ship sounded familiar to him, but then another question, that had been  bothering him since they arrived, presented itself.

He turned his back on the portrait to face his friend more fully. "Why does your father call you Alexander?"

"To annoy me."

Horatio had little enough patience left for Kennedy's secrets, little patience left in general after a very long and nerve-wracking day. He just fixed Archie with a glare, until his friend threw up his hands and confessed.

"Because it is my name, if you must know. Alexander Archibald Kennedy, says so right on my papers. But when we were forced here to England, there was a friend of my mother's with a little boy, just my age, called Alex. I don't mind him at all now, but back then I apparently hated him, and refused to answer to Alexander anymore because it was his name." Archie grinned a bit at this, clearly proud of being a child just as stupidly stubborn as the man was proving to be.

"Anyway, I looked just like my oldest brother then, and followed him about everywhere, so they started calling me little Archie, and that is what stuck. You'll meet Arch, he's coming down from Scotland, with his wife and bairn. I don't look a thing like him now, but he's jolly and you'll get on well with him."

"Your father doesn't like nicknames?"

"Oh, he used to call me Archie too, well, when he bothered to use my name. He has a habit of just barking out orders, to all of us, really. But I cocked up my chance to follow in his footsteps and make a brilliant naval career. It's been Alexander ever since."

Kennedy tossed this off very casually, but Horatio knew Archie enough at least to spot that as a mask. He tried to laugh it off as well. "It seems a bit early to give up on our careers, we're only midshipmen after all."

"Oh aye, but I should have been testing for lieutenant, you see. Who knows if I'll ever get put to the test even, with the fits and all. Still, we've a war now, and the Indefatigable. Under Pellew, I ought to be able to get myself blown up dramatically and in an honorable fashion, which would please the old man." Archie grinned at him, but there wasn't any real light in it.

"I wish you wouldn't talk like that. Weren't you going on just yesterday about us swooping about the Mediterranean, picking up prize ships? And if anyone is going to die in battle, it's sure to be me. I'll probably end up crushed under my own gun crew's cannon in the first action."

Kennedy plucked up a pillow from the bed then, and threw it hard. Horatio, not able to dodge in time, caught it instead. "None of that, Hornblower. Guns are all paying attention and mathematics, you know. You'll be cracking at it once you've had a few drills."

"Are they really?" The few times the guns had been exercised on Justinian, all he could make of the exercise was noise that rattled his skull, men moving frantically in arcane pursuits, and the blinding smoke.

"Yeah. If you've time to aim, it's a matter of trajectories. How much powder, which kind of shot, what angle to fire at. In the heat of it, it's all about seconds, how fast everything can be done, and still done correctly. Fire one and a half times to each broadside from the enemy, and you win. That's what I remember them saying at least, I've never commanded a gun crew in battle."

Horatio lay down on Kennedy's bed, tucking the pillow under his head. He hadn't thought about it that way before, but he could picture the curves on a slate now, pulling out of memory equations that might apply. Force, distance, the weight of the shot, how to correct for the pitch of the ocean, aiming for the hull versus the rigging, so many variables to consider. "You've truly seen action, then?" He looked up at Archie, then away again at the boy's distant expression. "I always thought you were exaggerating," he couldn't help muttering.

He felt the bed sink under Archie's weight too, then fingers, stroking through his hair. "Just once. I expect we'll get our fill soon enough." They both fell silent then. Horatio's mind spun with calculations and the remembered smell of powder, and the awareness that in a few weeks, there might be men living and dying by numbers. By percentages and chance and his own commands.

It ought to panic him, he could feel the weakness fluttering in his belly. But the hand in his curls held him steady.

Chapter Text

At dinner Horatio met the rest of the Kennedys that were currently in residence. Missing were Archie's eldest brother and sister. Both were married, but expected to be back in Town with their families by the end of the week to help celebrate Archie's birthday and new posting.

Archie's youngest brother, David, was not quite eight and only allowed to greet them before being sent back upstairs to the nursery. The little boy, dark haired and energetic, managed to extract a promise of a sword fighting lesson the next day, as a bribe for retiring without further protest.

Margaret, only a few years older, was a prim, quiet little girl, and allowed to sit at the table, across from their guest. Horatio found her silent gaze a bit unnerving, for she seemed far more self-possessed than he, and even knew exactly what to do with all the extra plates and utensils. He caught himself watching her for hints when he was uncertain which to use for what.

Robert, Archie's next eldest brother, was loud enough for two or three people. The sharp-featured young man seemed to have an interest in business. At least, most of what Robert talked about concerned money made or lost and the prices of stocks and shares. Fortunately, Robert ignored him after an initial lazy introduction, for it was all fairly incomprehensible to Horatio. The third Kennedy son spent most of the meal arguing across the table with John, or exhorting the earl to support some new scheme with mixed success. Horatio didn't mind being forgotten for pounds and pence, since he much preferred the conversation of Anne, who was seated at his other side.

She talked across the table with Archie about books and novels. Horatio knew nothing about most of these either, but his friend lit up at the subject with an enthusiasm that had been lacking most of the day. Archie's sister was interrogated at length about what she had been reading, and not reading. The answers would soon be put to use restocking the sea chest library, if Horatio was not mistaken, so he followed the conversation as best he could, to know what to look forward to.

Anne gave her opinions boldly, and surprised him with the breadth of her interests. She seemed familiar with military accounts and histories as much as the poetry and gothic romance he had thought most women kept to. Of course Horatio did not have much experience with women, only those he had met in passing through his father's practice, or at church when he had attended, and their few servants over the years. It was probably good that he was not expected to keep up his share of the talk, for he would no doubt have said something stupid. But none of the Kennedys troubled him too much.

The countess in particular required nothing more than that he fill his plate, then directed his neighbors to refill it periodically from those dishes he could not reach himself. Clearing the china again kept his mouth sufficiently occupied throughout the meal. The variety and presentation rivaled his and his father's finest Christmas dinners, with fish, fowl, and meat, puddings, and more vegetables than you would think could be found at the end of winter cluttering the long table. Watching Archie's face was almost more enjoyable than the food itself, for his friend broke off wrangling with Anne periodically to abandon senses to some new forkful, with eyes closed and a beatific smile.

"Have a little more of the sweet, Mr. Hornblower," the countess urged, just as Horatio was deciding that he was in danger of losing some waistcoat buttons. "It isn't healthy for a sailor to be so thin. You'll blow away in the first storm." Horatio flushed and Miss Kennedy quickly jumped in to defend him.

"Don't tease, mother. Mr. Hornblower fills out the uniform quite nicely," she gave him a little wink that worsened the heat he knew was burning his cheeks. "Whereas Archie is danger of turning into a barrel. By the time we send you back they'll probably have to roll you up the gangway onto the ship."

This seemed unfair. Even when they first met, Archie had been sturdy, not stout. His friend had lost weight in the weeks they'd know each other, and no wonder. But Archie didn't take offense at the raillery. "Don't be ridiculous, Anne." Kennedy reached across the table to steal a generous spoonful off Horatio's renewed plate. "Indefatigable is far too large to take into dock. They'll use the hoist."

"Manners, Archie," the countess scolded, rapping her son's knuckles with her own spoon. "This is not the gun deck mess."

"I'm just keeping Mr. Hornblower in practice, ma'am," Archie grinned. "He must be quick and determined if he wants to defend his plate from the predations of hungry fellow midshipmen." Kennedy briskly launched into a series of little vignettes on the theme of bullies stealing their food and drink. Some bore a passing resemblance to incidents Horatio recalled from Justinian. Each revealed a sly trick that might be used to avoid the theft, from spitting copiously in one's cup to using sleight of hand to hide the best of the meal in one's lap.

It was not, perhaps, the most polite of dinner conversations. But Archie carried it out with such comically exaggerated gestures that even somber little Margaret was giggling, and the ladies had to try hard to maintain their scandalized looks. Horatio found himself smiling too, despite how very serious the problem had lately been. Of course, he had never seen Archie use any of the ploys being so vividly play-acted to fend off Simpson's indignities.

But Simpson was gone from their lives now, and the King's Navy so large that he and Archie likely never to so much as see the bastard again. Sitting here, finishing the best meal of his life, surrounded by servants, eating off china and crystal, with light from dozens of candles making the dining room bright as day, it was as if all the events on Justinian were only an unpleasant and unlikely nightmare.

After the meal was somewhat less congenial. The ladies rose together to make for the drawing room. When the door closed behind them, Horatio found himself the object of the men's attention, with the exception of Archie who was intently studying the crystal and table linens in a manner lately quite familiar. The jump when his friend's father addressed the boy was familiar as well.

"Alexander, you must better introduce your friend, that we may start to know your new shipmate." The captain began things abruptly, signaling to the butler to begin pouring more wine.

"Of course, my lord." The mid straightened in the chair, adopting the garrulous neutrality Horatio recalled from change-of-watch reports. "Mr. Hornblower is a country doctor's son, and as you heard me mention to mother, he must go home to Kent when his time here with us is over. Though he is a few months shy of his own eighteenth birthday, and had never set foot on a ship until the new year, Mr. Hornblower is also my senior, due to his being carried on the Justinian's books these past five years."

Horatio hadn't even realized Kennedy knew this shameful fact about him, much less what possessed his friend to rattle it about to the earl of all people. It was worse than if the boy had taunted him about his sea sickness. He was certain that his face was purpling.

Seemingly unaware of his anguish, Kennedy dashed off the rest of the 'report' with a blithe aplomb that seemed practiced. "Yet despite his lack of active experience, I can commend Midshipman Hornblower to you highly, my lord, for he was already the best navigator among us, though his skills did not receive much practice at anchor. More importantly, my lord... Mr. Hornblower shares your view on novels." Horatio was rather surprised that the mid did not end the little speech with a salute. Perhaps Kennedy did not dare further impudence when the lord's face was glowering so fiercely.

It was several moments before the earl's attention returned to him, but when it did, the captain's gaze descended on Horatio like an anvil. "So you are not of a naval background, Mister Hornblower?"

"Yes, sir, m'lord, er, no, that is..." he could feel the heat growing in his cheeks as he stumbled. "Not exactly a naval background, your Lordship, but my father did serve in the Royal Navy for a time, under Captain Keene, as ship's doctor. During the Rebellion," he added, trying to interpret the earl's tightening expression, but unable to decide which of the facts of his father's abortive career was adding to the displeasure of the older man.

"Ah. That would be the connection then," the earl snorted and picked up his glass, tasting it and then examining the liquid disapprovingly. "Saved Keene's life, I imagine."

"Yes sir, m'lord, I believe so." Horatio took a small sip of his own wine to fortify himself and found nothing to complain about, the concoction being surprisingly rich and sweet. Perhaps it was the lordship's manner to be critical, rather than Horatio's background and precedence being particularly objectionable.

The lord's irritated harrumph drew Horatio's attention back to his inquisitor. "Keene owes almost as many favours as he owns. Your father is not the first to place a problem with him." Horatio would have been stung by the slight if he had not seen how the man's eyes shifted to Kennedy, now sitting far back in the chair, a bland and completely insincere smile in place. The barb wasn't wholly aimed at him. "But Keene must have been very motivated, to manage to shift you onto the Indefatigable instead. Younger son, then?" The earl barked, and Horatio couldn't help starting to bristle at the man's manner.

"No, my lord, I am my father's only child," he said, meeting the earl's eyes directly for the first time. They were murky, colder than the lord's countenance.

John spoke up then, "It is unusual, Mr. Hornblower, for only sons not to follow their father's profession. What led you to the navy instead?"

Horatio hesitated. It was something he had been asked, though less gently, by many of his father's acquaintances. He rather thought most were motivated by fear of losing their parish doctor when his father finally retired. Few had been impressed by his expressions of patriotism, or admiration for duty. Under the unfriendly notice of a man who had lived the heroism-and sacrifice-he aspired to, Horatio found his usual reasons even more dissatisfying. He could think of no way to speak of his ambitions that did not sound naive, or vainglorious, or both.

But John was looking at him with a comforting directness. It was the lack of judgment that stirred memories, of warm arms, whispered comforts, and then sheets gone still and cold. Horatio didn't realize what he was going to say until the words had rung out clearly, with more solidity than he knew he felt. "I saw my father lose too many battles, despite skill, knowledge, and determination. I wanted to duel with enemies I could see, sir."

The other man, nodded thoughtfully, and even the Captain grunted with something less like derision, peering down the table at Horatio for a few moments before pronouncing his judgment. "You might wish it otherwise, but you will find very quickly, Midshipman, that invisible foes will plague you aboardship as well. Hunger, disease, and discontent are far more frequent, and more dangerous, than engagements and storms." This seemed to prompt memories for the earl as well, for the man fell silent then, and took a drink of unsatisfactory port.

"No, you're a smart man, Mr. Hornblower," Robert broke in. "Doctoring is hard, unpleasant work, and there's no profit in it. Sailoring is no better, and probably worse, but if you don't have a head for business, you'd be hard pressed to find a faster way to be in the brass. At least with a war on. Just avoid getting shot, blown up by a cannon or dropped by yellow fever, and you've an even chance of seeing gold before you're twenty." The narrow-faced man rattled off these dangers with the same concern a farmer might have for field mice and crows. "No need to even put yourself in the gunsights, if you're lucky! Just get your ship in view of the enemy, and you'll get your share, the same as the boarding party."

This cheerfully delivered fact of naval warfare surprised Horatio enough that he instinctively looked to Archie, but it did him no good for his friend was carefully inspecting the rim of the wineglass for chips or somesuch.

Instead, the earl subdued Robert's enthusiasm for the subject with a clearing of the throat, then answered Horatio's unspoken question. "It is true that all ships visible to the enemy at the time of capture share in the prize. An extra ship or two on the horizon can make the difference between a ship that tries to run or fight, and one that surrenders. But the captain who is always on the edge of battle, and never in its heart, wins no friends for himself or his officers."

The older man stared about, as if any of them might succumb to cowardice without this timely reminder, but lingered longest on his fellow mid. "You needn't worry about it under Edward Pellew. He'll get you into the thick of it every chance he can scrape. And you'll earn your prize money, if it comes. Pellew makes men out of boys. He won't keep a conniver or a layabout under him. But he won't spend your life cheaply either. Solid man, Pellew, knows that loyalty goes both ways, if it is warranted. Fine seamanship too."

The butler returning to refill glasses also handed the earl a wooden box, which the older man then extended toward Horatio. "You have a great deal to learn, Mr. Hornblower, but however it came about, you've found yourself the right man to teach you. Cigar?"

Hornblower rather thought this was a test. Yet for all that the earl had enough friends in the admiralty to sink his career with a letter, Horatio was too angry and off balance to calculate the correct response. "Thank you, my lord, but no." At least in refusal, he didn't risk making a further fool of himself by coughing or getting sick. The port was already rebelling in his innards.

Horatio could not tell if he had been raised or lowered in the earl's estimation, but he was not pressed, and the box passed around to the other men, though not, he noticed, to Kennedy. Conversation shifted about as well. John asked the lord's opinion of the prospects for a motion before parliament that Hornblower had never heard of, and could barely follow. Something to do with Catholics voting in Ireland.

The topic was well chosen to engage the captain's passions. Loud proclamations were dispensed freely for some time about the likelihood of passage, potential effects on civil order, and the motivations of the politicians involved, with the earls' sons playing the roles apparently assigned to them of thoughtful interest, brash argument, or silence.

Horatio was indescribably relieved when John finally spotted him muffling a yawn, and sympathetically called a servant to take him to his room. Kennedy looked up when Horatio rose to his feet, but after a glance at the earl, the boy only flashed a meaningless smile, and resumed contemplation of the candlesticks. He could not shake the feeling that the boy required rescue, but Hornblower didn't know how it could be accomplished. Given the uncomfortable feeling that his friend had tossed him in front of the earl like fox bait, he wasn't even sure he wanted to. He could at least make his own escape, and did, with awkward bow, little acknowledged.

Chapter Text

Horatio had just settled into his bed, as luxurious and warm as it looked, when he heard a commotion in the adjoining room. Putting down the geography text he had selected to lull him into the arms of sleep, he slipped from the covers and cracked open the door.

Archie was manhandling a hammock mattress out of an opened sea chest.

"Didn't wake you I hope, Hornblower?" His friend tossed the bedding down, and began rummaging through the haphazardly packed possessions, tossing spare breeches and torn shirts about with a carelessness that made Horatio wince.

"Not at all, but... what are you doing Kennedy?"

Archie had reached the prized stash of books, and was quickly sorting through them with marginally more care than the clothes had been given. "The Old Man wants to see my log book."

"Now?" There was no timepiece in either of their rooms, but Horatio thought it must be no more than an hour to midwatch.

"Reports must be given promptly, Mr. Hornblower." Having found the item in question, Archie sat back, examining the rather battered volume with some resentment. "Fair warning, he'll probably ask to see yours tomorrow. To see what I've left out of my record."

Horatio's overfull stomach lurched at the thought, rather like it had when his teachers had announced a surprise exam. Archie didn't seem to notice, though, just gave a cheery, "Sleep well, Hornblower, I'll see you in the morning," before breezing out the hall door, leaving the mess behind.

Out of habit, Horatio gathered up the books at least, setting them on a table where they would not be accidentally trod upon. Then he shut the door to Archie's room, and headed back to his own bed, where sleep was slow to come even at that late hour.

Despite himself, despite his telling himself that the opinions of the Earl of Cassilis should mean nothing to him, Horatio eventually slipped from under the covers and rummaged in his own sea chest, returning to the sheets and candles with his log book in hand.

Being on the books was a venal but common custom, allowing future officers with connections to remain at school without penalty to their career. (And putting a few coins for their wages in their captain's pockets.) A certain number of years as volunteer and midshipman was required before a man could even test for lieutenant. But the younger a man gained his commission, the greater his prospects for future advancement under the strict seniority system of the British navy. Keene's bargain with his father had allowed Horatio to acquire an education that would serve him well when it came time for promotion to the higher ranks, without losing his place in line.

However, Horatio had already realized that the education his less fortunate peers received on ship was invaluable as well. Moreover, when they came before the board, they would have years of logs to show the committee, proving their experience. His own history would be obvious from the brief span of his entries, however he tried to expand their import with copious and exacting notes.

Reviewing them now, he found his lingering ruminations on the details of a decrepit, unwanted ship laying at anchor both pathetic and tedious. The events of his last few weeks, so momentous and life changing, were unreflected in the list of watch orders, soundings, and sexton readings. What remnants could be found there, the painfully objective recording of duties and punishments, his own and Archie's among them, would hardly improve either of their standing in the earl's estimation. Horatio hoped that at least the boy had also noted the disciplinary actions, so that his log book would hold no surprises for Captain Kennedy.

That night was one of the few times since deciding on the naval life that Horatio was glad not to have a sea captain for a father. Dr. Hornblower would ask him little about his weeks on Justinian, and care not at all about the contents of his log. Whatever might happen on the morrow, he had that benign incuriosity to look forward to when he was finally home, and the comfort of insignificance finally allowed him to sleep.

Horatio couldn't have said the time when he startled awake again. After the exhausting day of travel (and other trials), and freed from the constant sounds and movement of the ship, he had fallen quite deeply into slumber. It took some seconds before he realized what had disturbed him. Groans, and muffled thuds had him shooting out of bed and throwing open the adjoining door.

Light from candles not yet burned out illuminated the scene he'd feared. Archie was writhing on the ground, in the midst of a potent fit. His friend had at least been fortunate enough to fall partly onto the bedding left out from earlier. Horatio pulled Archie more fully on the mattress, and held the boy as tightly as he dared, trying to cover his friend's mouth. He didn't want Archie to wake the house. On Justinian the condition had ceased to do more than annoy those disturbed by the noise. It had not been the subject of open comment. But he thought his friend would hate for family or the servants to witness it. Besides, Horatio knew the seizures had something to do with the other mid's obvious tension with the earl, which needed no further provocation.

The attack was mercifully brief, though of course he didn't know how long Archie had suffered before he woke. But it was among the most violent Horatio had witnessed, and he collected several hurts from flailing limbs and head. When the spasms finally eased, then stopped, it wasn't soon enough.

"There, Archie... shh, it's over now." He had been babbling the whole time, he suddenly realized, soothing nonsense like Clayton had always done. If only it helped. A sound penetrated the sudden calm, making him look up. John Kennedy was standing in the doorway in a nightshirt, looking at them both with concern.

"Mr. Kennedy must have had too much port, he tripped and fell." Horatio lied automatically, surprised at how quickly it came to his tongue. He shifted to put more of himself between Archie and the door.

He wasn't sure Archie's brother believed him, or how long John had been watching. "Is he going to be all right?" the man asked.

"Oh yes, yes. I'll just get him to bed. He needs to sleep it off, is all." Horatio hoped this was the truth.

Those pale brown eyes moved from him to Archie behind him, and back. "You've seen him like this before?"

Horatio hesitated, then shrugged agreement. "A time or two." He saw the other man adjust to this admission, John's lips pressing together tightly for several moments before coming to a decision.

"Right. Thank you for your care of my brother, Mr. Hornblower. If you are sure you can manage, I will leave him to you." John started to close the door, pausing part way. "Best not to mention this tomorrow. The earl doesn't approve of... drunkenness. And mother would worry."

John waited for his nod of understanding before shutting the door. Horatio turned back to deal with his patient as the man's footsteps faded away.

Kennedy was in a sad state. His friend's lip was bloodied, and he was concerned at a cut just above the ear, doubtless from the edge of the sea chest. It was too close to that older wound, and would bruise at a minimum. There was blood on the boy's knuckles too, though that might be his own. Archie lay almost motionless, not even flinching as he checked with careful squeezes for worse injuries, but finding none. Horatio did note with a grimace that Archie's breeches were soaked at the front. How Kennedy would hate to be found like that, and so long as his friend remained unaware, he might be able to spare Archie further indignity.

It took some thinking. Horatio wasn't strong enough to lift Kennedy without some cooperation. He finally dragged the whole mattress in front of the fire, where his friend would be warm. He gathered more light, and the water and towels from both their rooms, before setting to work.

Shoes and stockings were easy enough. Horatio thought it was amusing how even his friend's feet looked small and broad and utterly unlike his own. Though nothing compared to the tanned and tar-spattered limbs of the ratings, the bottoms were somewhat callused, and there were even a few scars. He touched a fingertip to one long white mark along the pad, wondering where it came from, but quickly moved on when Archie twitched.

He did the jacket next, sweating from the fire and the effort by the time he'd manage to wrestle Kennedy out of the coat. Archie was rousing enough to resist him slightly. He set fingers to breech buttons, then, trying not to think of Simpson, and the last time he'd taken care of Archie after a fit. But as he undid the fastenings, it was as if the thought of Jack was enough to make Kennedy thrash, and protest.

When one kicking foot came near to oversetting the water basin, Horatio had to hold his friend down again, hissing at him sternly. "Kennedy, stop it! I must get you out of these wet clothes. You will wake your brother again, if you do not behave."

The boy ceased struggling at once, collapsing back to the mattress. Eyes clenched tight, the rest of the mid went boneless, though as Horatio worked the tight, damp cloth down limp limbs, Archie began to whine. It was a quiet, insistent sound, and as it took some doing for him to tug the breeches free, Horatio had time to recall what it reminded him of.

When he was a young lad, one of the neighbor's cats abandoned a litter of kittens under their kitchen step. Hungry as they had been by the time he found them, each one ceased their mewling and made that same cry as he pulled it from hiding.

The unnerving sound faded away and Kennedy seemed to slip deeper into the sleep that usually followed a fit once Horatio pulled off the wet garment and dropped it into a washbowl to soak. He was scandalized, but relieved to realize Archie wasn't wearing smalls; one less thing to have to wrest off the lad. Instead, trying not to look at what he was doing, Horatio tugged up the sticky tails of Kennedy's shirt, carefully rolling the boy first to one side, then the other and back as he tried to ease the the last of the other mid's clothing off without unduly jostling the boy.

By the time the shirt was resting with the breeches, Hornblower had a greater appreciation for his friend's unwieldy weight. While Kennedy had clearly not lacked for food, any impression of portliness was lost with the uniform. Archie was small only in height; the mid already had a man's body. Arms and chest especially were surprisingly thick with muscle and liberally dusted with fine hair, as golden by firelight as the head was in the sun.

Horatio became aware that he was staring and rose to find Kennedy a nightshirt. He finally located one, half-buried under several worn stockings with knotted toes, a packet of water-spotted letters, and one beloved scarf. He stopped to hold it to his face, breathing in the warm memory. It made little sense to dress the boy only to get everything wet again in washing, so the gown he laid to heat by the fire, before picking up soap and cloth, and setting about cleaning up his unconscious friend.

Chapter Text

Horatio started where it was safest. With a gentle daubing motion he mopped the trickle of blood tracing down Archie's cheek, chasing it back to its origin. His other hand stroked his friend's damp temple, trying to soothe. Though still apparently unaware, the older boy's eyes were squinched tight, brow wrinkled with pain or its anticipation. The cut had slowed to seeping, and Horatio was able to stop it with some pressure, and clean the dark smears from Archie's hair. He was pleased to see the other mid's face begin to ease. Next he wiped away the sweat, blood, and spittle from lips first pinched tightly, but gradually softening, falling open in a way that made Horatio's gut clench.

Kennedy, once a fit had passed, was always affecting. But Horatio had never seen the aftermath like this, flooded with the light of the fire and half a dozen candles. It gave no cover to the boy's vulnerability, and left Horatio feeling a voyeur. He wasn't meant to see eyelids swollen from shed tears --why had Archie been crying?-- or the lower lip jutting out, swollen from being bit. Red freckling suddenly marred otherwise marble pale and translucent skin. A word floated from the memories of his father's medical books: petechiae. He did not know if it was typical, and with less light he'd just not seen it before, or sign of a fit with greater than usual harm. Should he ask John to wake the servants and send for a doctor? Kennedy would hate that.

The boy looked to be in no distress, breathing at a slow and steady rhythm. Horatio would wait. As he removed the last traces from Archie's face and began on neck and shoulders, his fingers felt the prick of stubble where a few hairs along the jaw had escaped a pre-supper shave. Leaning down, and swabbing gently with the damp cloth, he caught the scent of Captain Kennedy's cigars, and under it soap and lavender. He couldn't help but contrast this to the stink of old sweat and dirt the last, horrible time Horatio had treated Kennedy. He had been stopped then, from the same service he was doing now.

A fancier of other boys. So Simpson had named him, banishing him from Archie's side, and Horatio no longer denied it. He was mad for this hapless, infuriating boy at least. Was there truth in all that vile man had said? Was he even now simply taking his opportunity to ogle and fondle? Was his friend the sort to invite those attentions? Had Kennedy bent over --even thinking the words sent a shudder through him--  for other men? Could his own inversion been drawn out through some taint in the older mid? Horatio tumbled over, as he had half a hundred times since it happened, the feeling of Archie's willing, mocking lips against his in the carriage, versus the memory of a fist in his face, and disgust in a dark hold.

His hand slowed, and his gaze dropped down to where it rested. He found it hard to look lower, as if the bright white of Archie's skin could blind him. It was not lust, though his stomach clutched and churned the longer he let his gaze linger on the dusky hair that lightly thatched the chest below him. He felt dizzy, and half ill, but not hot, not like the fever dreams he'd had, of a feminine and child-like Kennedy made of rounded softness, lush and wanton. The reality under him was hard, distant, cool, and very masculine.

Horatio let his washrag slide down over arms he never imagined were so roped with muscle, and recalled the pressure of them wrapped around him, securing him to the shrouds, assuring him he could never fall. This was no womanish catamite. Reaching the end, he found the blood on the boy's knuckles wasn't his. He cleaned the scrapes, brushing the small raised scars he now knew were the broken welts of a caning, meant to teach Kennedy not to climb. He had never asked if Archie had been punished for going aloft to save him anyway.

There were so many things he had never asked Kennedy. And the body laying before the fire answered nothing, just hinted at more secrets. He washed down the rest of Archie's torso, marveling that he had ever thought the boy plump, and wondering at the shyness that led the mid to hide behind oversized clothes and blankets. There was nothing to shame the lad, so compactly put together, symmetrical and strong and lovely. Horatio began to feel faint again, as he started to clean the rippled plane of Archie's stomach, and had to stop. Seeking distraction, his eyes, then fingertips found the thin seam of a scar between the last two ribs, left side, two fingers wide.

The boy under him twitched as he touched it. Even in the oblivion trailing a fit, some remembered pain caused the mid's face to pinch and tighten again. Horatio pulled back his hand at once, but peered closer. It looked like a knife wound. For a moment Horatio thought this must have been what Simpson did, on that shore leave --a lifetime and less than a month ago-- that left Archie so sick. But no, it was well-healed and old, he realized. Studying closer, Horatio found several more odd marks, less orderly, most pale with age.

The ratings and older officers of the Justinian had had scars enough, especially those who had fought in past wars. Even peacetime life on a naval ship lent itself to accidents. Archie did say he'd been to battle, but never mentioned any injury that would leave those irregular ridges at his waist. And this one, a partial ragged arc low on the chest, reminded him of a dog bite. Could be this was what Archie did not want others to see? Yet none were disfiguring. No, perhaps it was as the boy had always said, and Kennedy just did not like to be cold. Though it was warm enough close to the fire, Archie looked to be taking a chill, flesh goosepimpling and nipples-- Horatio re-wet his washcloth and tried to work more quickly.

Finishing up that disconcertingly firm stomach, he dared to swab lower, and had to look at what he was doing. Though he knew well enough that sleeping cocks lied, Archie's seemed appropriate, being rather thicker than his own, and somewhat shorter, and indefinably more manly. Perhaps it was that it nestled amid a damp mass of curls, darker than the hair on Kennedy's head. Horatio cleaned the his friend's prick with a determined briskness, as much focused on his own body, expecting betrayal, as the helpless one before him. He cursed his lack of gentleness when Archie reacted with a low whine and turned aside, curling slightly, but not quite pulling away.

Still awkward, he tried to part Archie's legs to do a thorough job, but this set off an awful whimpering, and he desisted at once, settling for pouring some of the soapy water over the boy instead. The mattress would dry, and it should serve the purpose. Putting aside cloth and bowl, Horatio was relieved to have the worst done, and to feel no awful stirring in his own groin. He was not so lost, at least, as to find anything alluring in this pitiful scene.

Thinking it was best to be thorough, Horatio girded himself and set hand to Archie's hip, meaning to encourage the boy fully onto one side, so that he could wash his friend's arse down as well. It was then that he saw the mark. Not drying blood or dirt he had missed, but a tattoo the size of his thumbnail, a tiny symbol and the letter J, like the pip for the Jack of Spades.

Horatio froze. Many sailors had tattoos, of course. Some just crude things, done with a hot needle and boredom, others more elaborate dedications to their mothers, wives, or ships, crafted in distant ports. Even a few of the older officers had them --Simpson, for example-- but none with prospects. True, Archie's tattoo was in a place unlikely to be seen, across the right hip bone, but it was still at odds with his expectations for an Earl's son. Of course, Kennedy's manners and behavior were frequently outside what Horatio found seemly for a mere doctor's son, let alone a member of the nobility.

Horatio tried to put it out of his mind, just another aggravating secret. His attention was needed instead for Kennedy's refusal to turn over for him. Though still senseless, as best Horatio could tell, the boy resisted his hand urging the mid to shift with an abrupt flailing of limbs. This set Horatio back on his heels, forcing him to consider new tactics. While he could overbear Archie, he feared both hurting and rousing the lad prematurely.

With some thought, he took up the nightgown he'd found, now warm from the flames, and began to coax it up Kennedy's arms. Hoping to stave off more protests, Horatio started to talk, just babble at first, little shushes and reassurances. "It's all right, Archie. let's just get you covered, and you'll feel more yourself again. Where is that hand now? Here it is, careful, there's the cuff, and up... isn't it nice?" He moved to the lad's head, and wedged himself under like a pillow. "No, no, don't fuss. It's only me, Horatio. Are you going to lift up for me? Of course you won't."

With a sigh, Horatio heaved up the limp shoulders, using his legs to prop Kennedy long enough for him to ease the shift over the boy's head. "We're just getting you dressed," he said in the same coaxing voice he used with other small animals. He tugged the linen down broad shoulders by feel, aware, under his fingertips, of a few faint ripples, breaking the smoothness of the other mid's skin. More scars, no doubt. These at least were expected; Archie had been flogged on a previous ship and Horatio knew that it was common enough for such punishment to linger on the skin.

He felt carefully as he drew the nightshirt down, checking again for injury. "Shh, Archie, just making sure you haven't hurt yourself," he murmured, at the slight squirming. It seemed only bruises at worst. "Oh, Kennedy, I think you'll do. And we're not on ship anymore, you can sleep in tomorrow, long as you like." Becoming too conscious of the warm body laying on him, and on the strong swells of muscle he was lately handling, Horatio extricated himself.

"You are the most maddening man I have ever met, you know, Archie" Horatio grunted, as he used his own weight to help him pull Kennedy, mattress and all, farther from the fire. He took blanket and sheets from the bed, making up a nest carefully far enough back from the hearth to avoid accidents. "Or might I call you Alex?" He knelt again, tugging more gently than he felt to ease the boy's upper body onto the new pallet. Alexander. It was a grand name, suited to this high-ceilinged room with silver candlesticks and velvet curtains. It did not fit with the irreverent, lazy, jocular, aggravating imp he thought he knew. In this rich house, helpless and vulnerable, with nothing --not expression or wit or even clothes-- to hide behind, his sometimes friend seemed just a frightening stranger, too elegant, too far above, to ever be anything to him.

Beyond his reach, yet able to pierce him fatally with one small whimper as Horatio's hands wrapped around the boy's ankles, to heave legs onto the sheets as well. "It's just me, Kennedy," he promised, "moving you somewhere dry, no need to kick." He held tight a moment longer, anticipating the boy waking enough to fight, but Archie lay still, looking at least less a man and more a child with his nightshift rucked around the waist, cock exposed and mouth thrown open, ridiculous and erotic and pitiful.

Horatio gingerly drew the gown down in soft jerks, covering the other's nakedness. "Have I even met you? How should I know?" For himself, he leaned down one last time to kiss hot eyelids, the cheek where a bruise was rising, and the center of the boy's forehead, whispering, "I should very much like to know you, Alexander Archibald Kennedy. I wish you would only let me." He stood then, gathering towels and bowls, returning all to their proper place, and dragging the sodden mattress out of the way.

Fearing for Archie to wake in the dark, Horatio took the time to set a few candles carefully about, where they had no chance of being overturned by a flailing limb or bump against a table. Kennedy had never in his knowing had a second fit in a night, but a nightmare was always possible, or simply a befuddled clumsiness on waking. Horatio considered laying down beside the boy, or even taking Archie's bed, to be close in case of further trouble. But should they be discovered, it would cause talk among the servants that he wanted to avoid.

As he closed the door between their rooms, and made his way back to his own broad, soft bed, Horatio heard nearby birds begin to twitter, though the window showed no sign of impending dawn. He thought he might not sleep, between fretting over his ill and secretive friend, nerves about Captain Kennedy and the blasted log books, and general worry over the expectations of being an earl's house guest. Moreover, his palms still tingled at the memory of Archie's back and his heart ached with the soft vulnerability of a bitten lip. The brevity of his rest in the last twenty four hours proved the master of both anxiety and tenderness, however, and exhaustion pulled him under even as his mind lingered on the puzzle of the tattoo resting so confoundingly upon Archie's iliac crest.

He did not even stir with the expectation of ship's bells, and only woke with the sun full up, and a maid tending to the fire.

Chapter Text

Horatio came awake slowly, uncertain of where he was but too comfortable to be unduly fussed over the mystery. It was only when his bleary eyes fixed on the small portrait among the gallery of landscapes opposite the bed that he remembered suddenly that he was in Kennedy's bedroom, in London, in the house of an earl. Archie! He started to bolt out of bed, but the squeak of the startled maid brought him up.

"Goodness, your pardon sir!" She was his age or a little younger, Horatio reckoned, and looked well in her neat uniform, with an upright posture and a friendly round face-flushed now with embarrassment. "I didn't realize you were stirring, I hope I didn't wake you sir." Her eyes were carefully cast down at her feet, but Horatio had the impression, nonetheless, that she had examined him thoroughly. Whether she found him as clownish as he did himself, her face didn't betray.

After a pause, she glanced up cautiously. "Lady Anne thought you might prefer breakfast on a tray this morning, sir. Would you like me to have the kitchen prepare that now?"

Horatio realized a few seconds too late that he should have made some sort of response to her apology, not stood there at the edge of the bed in his night gown, staring at the poor girl. He must say something now, in fact. "I… er… ah… that would be…. Fine. Thank you, miss?" His mind spun around, deciding if he was being offered a tray because of some gaffe the night before. Unable to settle on any glaring crimes, he tried to believe it was simple thoughtfulness after their long journey yesterday.

"Betsy sir." She bobbed a curtsey, still not actually looking at him. "I'll just go fetch some warm water and then tell Cook." Gathering up her basket of brushes and fuel, she backed out of the room, leaving Horatio alone once more. He moved to the adjoining door, and listened for a moment. Hearing nothing, he cautiously opened it up, and peeked into the other room.

Archie was still sleeping before the fire, which had almost burned out. Betsy had not yet been into this room, then. A few stubs of candles were still burning, and Horatio crept about to extinguish them, then came back to kneel next to Kennedy. In the dim light stealing through the curtains, the boy looked better, not so pale, with the red flecks on cheeks and chest beginning to fade.

Horatio warred between the desire to let his friend sleep it out, and saving the gossip of being found sleeping other than in bed. Propriety won this battle, and he reached out, his other hand held up to protect his own face from any violent reaction. He shook gently. "Mr. Kennedy, the maid will be in shortly.

Kennedy must still be unwell, for the boy did not react immediately, beyond opening eyes dark and muzzled, blinking and then closing again. Horatio tried again, gripping a shoulder, and tugging gently. "Mr. Kennedy, you will want to be in your bed, or the servants will talk." A frown then, or perhaps a wince, and then that blue gaze was fixed more directly on him, Archie sat up, Horatio helping until he realized Kennedy was staring down at his hand wrapped round the other's arm.

"Thank you, Mr. Hornblower, I have it."

Horatio let go at once, too relieved at hearing the familiar edge of irritation to be hurt by it. "Of course, Mr. Kennedy." Gratitude was obviously not to be expected from wounded pride, so Horatio just stood up again, awkward. He was moving to help return the bedclothes when he realized Archie was glaring at him in resentment of his continued presence. "I'll… just be there, if you need anything." Horatio gestured at the open doorway, then tripped over a discarded map case, on his way back through it. He closed the door on his own embarrassment.

Betsy came in a minute later, with a knock, but no pause to acknowledge his welcome. Carrying a lightly steaming pitcher in her hand, she crossed to set this on the washstand, not even giving Horatio a sideways glance. "You didn't set your boots out last night, sir, shall I take them down now?"

His boots? Horatio wasn't sure what she meant to do with them, but didn't want to look more foolish, and assented. "Thank you, Betsy." The few servants his father had employed had been less formal. He wasn't sure how to speak to the girl.

Betsy did not seem to notice his discomfort, and bobbed another curtsey. "I'll be back with your tray presently, sir." Gathering up his footwear --new when he boarded the Justinian, but already scuffed and scratched from the rigors of sea life-- the maid swept out of the room with an air of efficiency, leaving Horatio to puzzle out what to do next.

He didn't feel he could climb back into bed, and eat there, like some form of decadent. Instead he washed with French soap and hot water, luxury enough, then retrieved his uniform, neatly laid on a chair last night, and quickly dressed for the day. Horatio shaved as much as he needed, and began the task of confining his hair with a ribbon, after losing an argument with himself over whether to knock on the intermediary door to request the service.

It was the kind of soft, normal, courtesy that they had often shared, in those early weeks, before Simpson, Clayton, and the fight in the hold. Whatever else his inverted heart longed for, Horatio ached most for that tender friendship. The safety of warm strong hands setting him to rights in the berths or guiding him through a complicated knot or welcoming him under the table with a silent joke.

It was ridiculous. After all they'd survived because of their care for one another, there was now no need to skulk and hide their friendship. How should there yet be so much of death and illness, lust and secrets between them, that Horatio could not even rap the door and ask the blasted boy to tie his hair for him? He was taking strides in that direction, determined not to let the awkwardness grow further, when both doors opened together. Betsy, surprised to see Horatio dressed before her, stopped tray in hand. Kennedy was wrapped in the coverlet, and similarly startled at having Hornblower almost nose to nose.

"Master Archie, sir!" Betsy smiled and bobbed, threatening Horatio's meal. "I'll just put this down and raddle your fire then? Or shall I go down for your breakfast first?" Recovering, she detoured around Horatio to set the crowded tray down on a small table near the window. She drew back the curtains to let in the morning light as she waited for instruction.

"I think you've brought enough for two already, Betsy. Midshipman Hornblower has not so robust an appetite." Archie sat himself at Horatio's table, looking over the contents proprietorially. "I've made a mess of things, bit of a drunk last night," Kennedy let the lie out without hesitation or embarrassment. "Leave everything save whatever clothes you find. Take those off to be burned and have a footman help you with the hammock mattress. Then worry about the fire. Ta, Betsy."

The maid took these orders with a saucy little eyeroll, very different from her humble correctness with Horatio. "Yes, Master Archie." She trundled off to the adjoining room, closing the door behind her. Unsure what else to do, Horatio took the second chair, examining his friend critically in the clear morning light. Shadows around the eyes gave the other mid a faintly hollow air, but Archie's expression showed nothing but avarice at the bounty before them.

A selection of tiny jam pots awaited of tower of thick-cut toast. There were scones as well, studded with currants, and a dish of stewed prunes and apples. A single coddled egg on a porcelain stand could be fought over later. Their hands had already met over the half rasher of bacon. Horatio could not but give way to the other mid, though his mild irritation forced him to at least protest. "It is my breakfast you know, Mr. Kennedy," even as Archie snagged a handful of perfectly cooked slices.

"I'm helping, Mr. Hornblower," the boy replied, stuffing two pieces in and mumbling over them, but returning the third back to Horatio. "I would not want you to be overset by Cook's barrage. Though you will want to eat hardily, you'll need your strength." This warning, and the temptation of the bacon, distracted Horatio long enough for the other mid to snag the lone cup. Sighing over the tall carafe of coffee, Kennedy poured a measure with an air of resignation, and quaffed it with a wince.

"You could have asked the maid to bring you tea, Kennedy," he snapped. Meat was one thing, but to stand between Horatio and his morning coffee was beyond the pale. "And what are we embarked on today?" He seized the sole egg in retribution, and began on it.

Archie took the time to slather a heap of jelly onto a piece of toast before replying. "I'm obliged to answer to the Captain for my innumerable flaws, and also to be measured for new uniforms." By expression, the latter prospect was unfathomably more daunting. "You shall squire Anne about for a bit of shopping. She has instruction to visit the booksellers and at least one coffee house, but it might otherwise be a bit deadly. Fortitude, Mr. Hornblower!" To Horatio's ear the jollity was a bit forced, but he was too unhappy at the idea himself to probe further into Archie's distress.

"I should be happy to accompany your sister, of course, Mr. Kennedy." Horatio hoped the quailing was not visible on his face, and attempted to further hide his dismay by fussing over the applying the correct proportion of lemon curd to blackberry on his scone. He had never attended a woman for anything more extended than a trip from dance floor the refreshments table, and that seldom, being unable to appreciate the music and clumsy on his feet besides. The thought floated across his mind that he had now an explanation for why he had never appreciated a lady enough to make the effort anyway.

"Excellent, Hornblower. I shall see about a trip to the theater tonight, to make up for it." This treat was clearly cheering, and Kennedy dug into more of Horatio's bacon as he expounded on the different acting companies and charms of their houses, beauty of their actresses, and talent of their playwrights. Archie required little more from Horatio than nods and grunts of agreement between mouthfuls of coddled egg. The voluble enthusiasm forced Horatio to forgive the boy even for the coffee, though as Kennedy finally rose, he did steal his cup back and poured himself what proved to be a simply excellent beverage. After so many long weeks of over-steeped and scalded dregs from inferior beans --when it was even true coffee at all, not blasted chicory-- Horatio lost time in inhaling the delectable scent and savoring the first few sips.

When he blinked up again, the fog from his senses already beginning to lift, he realized that Kennedy was rummaging the walnut armoire in the corner, plucking out fresh garments. Elegant wool breeches in a deep gray were already pulled up under the nightgown. Though they had yet to discuss how Archie came to be in the gown, and Horatio thought Kennedy must not even remember the night before, nevertheless the other mid seemed to have decided that the same degree of modesty was no longer needed. Kennedy shucked off the shift, only turning away from Horatio to pick up the next article.

Though he did not intend to, Horatio stared at that straight back. It was marked, as he'd felt, with a scattering of narrow raised red welts that would not have stood out so, except the paleness of Kennedy's skin. These crossed each other, meeting with a few more scars, thin and straighter, where back tapered to hips and disappeared into waistband. Horatio only had a few moments to take it in, as the boy slipped on two layers of fine shirts, then waistcoat. A jacket in deep evergreen waited, as buttoned, stuffed, and fastened, Kennedy moved to the mirror to work on tying a crisp white stock into a puzzle of folds.

Though no aficionado of fashion, Horatio did think that Kennedy's clothes were well made, in rich fabrics. Coming close to watch behind Archie's shoulder, he had a temptation to touch the waistcoat, which he thought was slubbed silk, in a merry blue-green color that gave a lovely ocean tint to Kennedy's eyes. However, the fit of the jacket was slightly off, short at the cuffs and loose at the waist as if made when the boy had carried a stone more flesh on an inch less height. Clothes from before Justinian then, but after India, by the uncertain timeline Horatio had assembled from odd half-sentences and asides of two months' conversations.

There were few words now, even as Horatio joined the other mid at the mirror on the pretense of refining his own appearance. Out of uniform, Kennedy seemed older. A wealthy --even foppish-- stranger, frittering over neck gear, then the perfect set of jacket, and tuck of breeches. This bore no relation to the frequently heedless way Kennedy treated the standards of naval dress. A handsome stranger, as Horatio's gut informed him with a churning warmth, without the bicorn that never sat well and bulky peacoat obscuring face and form. Yes, the Honorable Alexander Kennedy was quite striking, from gold touched waves and high cheekbones to rounded arse and strong thighs, ending in turned calves set off by bright white stockings and shoes with gold buckles, not pinchbeck. Horatio knew himself a dark country scarecrow in comparison, grateful for at least the distinction of his uniform.

Just when he meant to slip away again, Horatio felt a tug pinning him in place, and then the catch of a brush in his hair. Archie took time about it, first easing the tangles out, then running long strokes from crown to tip, long past what was needed to tame his locks. Even with the ribbon restored, Kennedy wasn't done with him. Horatio watched as with a closed look of concentration, the older boy carefully smoothed locks over scarred fingers, coaxing the froth into trailing ringlets. Archie examined the effect, reaching up to drop a curl from his forelock, and wrestling Horatio's coat into a minute adjustment; the familiarity with Horatio's person was unchanged at least.

"There we are, Midshipman Hornblower, you'll not disgrace my sister now. Let's go below."

Chapter Text

Much to Horatio's surprise, his morning passed quite pleasantly. After a pause to put on the shoes that were waiting outside his door --polished so expertly as to appear almost new again-- Archie took him down to the morning room. It was as elegantly appointed as the drawing room, just a little softer, all pale yellows and pink and cushioned armchairs, lit well by the large windows looking over an interior yard. While there he was quizzed by Lady Anne about the comfort of his room and the satisfaction of his breakfast, and by young Anne about his preference for Mayfair over St. James. He praised the hospitality, of course, and deferred the choice of shopping district to Miss Kennedy, not having spent time in either on his one voyage through London.

It was only the two ladies present, with the younger Kennedys with their tutors, and the men either out or still abed. So with his guest duties done, Horatio was free to partake of a second, more leisurely cup of coffee and watch his fellow midshipman among his family. These two, at least, clearly doted on the boy, who was drawn down to sit next to the lady and forced to let the maid bring scones and tea. If her mother's eye had noted her son's recent weight loss, it was less clear that Lady Kennedy discerned anything else amiss, making no comment even on the faint bruising shadowing one cheek.

To Horatio, Archie seemed uncommonly languid, sprawled upon the couch with none of the usual restlessness. Fits were often enervating, Horatio had noted, even if aboard ship there had been little accommodation. Perhaps, though, Mr. Kennedy was simply relaxed in the safe bosom of his female relatives. The mid did look happy, eyes crinkling at Anne's teasing, all cheerful interest as his mother talked of friends and family. When young Margaret came in to play the pianoforte for her brother and guest, Archie listened indulgently, and with applause,.

The conviviality came to an end when a manservant arrived to request Kennedy attend the earl in the study. Archie dragged up with a sigh and a quip. "Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! And lips, oh you the doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss a dateless bargain to engrossing death!"

Kennedy hugged the lady amid this declamation and tried to buss Anne who shrieked indignantly and bapped his nose with her teaspoon like a naughty puppy. "It's just father, why would he even be angry with you? You've a fine posting on Indefatigable, so whatever mess happened on Justinian, it will soon be forgot. He just wants to talk it over, and strategize."

"Never mind the why, I am certain he is angry with me, as he told me as much last night. But you're right, he's not likely to murder me, when the French might do it for him in a month. Saves the expense of a bullet, and the Captain is always economical." Archie's tone was light and satirical, but those blue eyes had lost any sparkle. "Have fun, and take good care of Mr. Hornblower for me."

With a wave Archie went out the doors, and Horatio was left with the three women.

The countess rolled her eyes, and then smiled and tried to smooth it over. "Pay no mind to Alexander, Mr. Hornblower. I fear too many hours in playhouses has left him rather dramatic. The earl can be a bit stern, especially when it comes to naval matters, but it is nothing more than the high expectations of a devoted parent. I expect your own father is much the same."

Horatio thought of Dr. Hornblower, distant and irritable, awaiting him in Kent. His own father would be unlikely to take him to task over any inadequacies in his naval record short of mutiny. His disappointment over Horatio's choice of career had been grave, but quiet, and long settled. It was up to Horatio to make the most of his opportunities, and not the doctor's concern. But he could not admit this, and instead simply nodded. Eager to dispel the remaining tension, Anne announced it the perfect time to begin her shopping. In just a few minutes Horatio found himself on the walk around Portman Square, arm in arm with Miss Kennedy.

He had been quietly dreading being alone in a carriage with a young woman, but as it happened, the shops of Mayfair were under a mile off, and Anne proposed they walk. Horatio found the stroll intimidating. Clearly an area of great wealth, it was staid and quiet, for London. Every few blocks interrupted by another fashionable named square, with gardens in the center and rich mansions and townhomes wrapping round in imposing grandeur. South and east the grid of streets became narrower and more tangled, peppered with shops and taverns, residences and offices. By this point, he had become almost comfortable with his walking companion, at least.

Miss Kennedy refused to allow there to be any undue formality. While not going so far as Christian names, she shared her brother's engaging volubility, happy to own more than her share of the conversation, but managing to pry out of Horatio a selection of his own thoughts and observations. Though her energy was less manic than her brother's had been in Portsmouth, still Anne became quite animated as they entered the warren of stores and alleys, tugging Horatio along with quick little steps and abrupt halts to peruse the contents of any shop window that caught her eye. Yet she was equally attentive to the increasingly crowded streets and passages, keeping Hornblower out of the way of carriages and errand runners, whose erratic movements disoriented him.

The primary object of their shopping was apparently a birthday present for Archie. But more generally Miss Kennedy seemed to have in mind a restocking of sea chests and wardroom supplies. Horatio found himself consulted on the most properly naval ribbon for tying hair, a complicated equation of color, width, sturdiness, and texture needed to stay in place through a winter squall. As well, his opinion on soap scents was solicited --Horatio was partial to lavender-- and he was used as an exemplar in the choosing of replacement uniform buttons. Clearly she knew her brother well, for Anne purchased an amount sufficient for three ordinarily careless midshipmen.

A trip to the apothecary resulted in a bewildering assortment of tiny bottles, patent pills, and special medicines folded into papers. Horatio's father had gifted him a suspicion of these general remedies, but he kept his thoughts to himself, resolving only to study the ingredients later. He should like to assure himself that they would cause no harm. And If there were anything in them which might help Kennedy after a fit, or prevent them entirely, it would be worth knowing as well. He was waiting as Anne paid for her purchases, working out how best to ask his father for advice, when a small package was pressed into his hand.

"That is for you, Mr. Hornblower, for taking such good care of my brother." He looked it over, but it was unlabeled. "For ailments of the stomach," Anne explained, with a familiar puckish smile. "A family recipe, one teaspoon brewed as tea, morning and night." Horatio flushed red with embarrassment, remembering of a sudden that Archie had written of his sea sickness. Being kinder than her brother, Miss Kennedy simply handed him the rest of her bundle to carry, tucked her arm into his, and let him master his blush on the way to the Twining's tea shop.

They did not add to their burdens there. A generous order was placed, but to be shipped to Portsmouth to be loaded with Indefatigable's provisions. Similarly, at Fortnam's at assortment of spices, jams, dried fruits, hard cheeses, and other delicacies were chosen, but delivery scheduled for the ship. Knowing that he would have a share of all these --wardroom meals were communal, and stinginess would only make enemies-- Horatio rather enjoyed the exercise of sorting through the bewildering array of options at the grocers. He might be able to face burgoo with more equanimity with a spoon of jelly stirred in.

Fortnum's was known for its carry away meals, including an oddity called a Scotch Egg, which Anne insisted that they try. It felt quite hedonist to take their parcels down to Green Park and eat side-by-side on a bench under the trees, watching the crowds along Piccadilly. The egg proved delicious, wrapped in cooked sausage and breadcrumbs. It washed well with the small bottles of cold cider, and thus fortified, Horatio and Anne made their last stop, Hatchard's bookseller.

The London bookshop was a wonderland. Interlocking rooms filled with more books than Horatio had seen outside his school's library, on every subject imaginable. Tomes from across Europe, and even the Americas could be found, along with British authors both high and low. Broadsheets and pamphlets lay in piles, alongside tooled leather works with gilt lettering.

Their most important task was deciding on the right gift for Kennedy. While Anne knew her brother's taste better than Horatio could on such short acquaintance, he presumed to know more about Archie's present mind. At least he hoped the bitterness, black gloom, and reckless hedonism were unknown to the Kennedys and this kind, merry sister in particular. The vicious cause of all Archie's turmoil might be gone now, but the effects lingered. Hornblower had had evidence of that just the night before.

In this capacity of guardian, Horatio made bold to veto a lovely hand-colored printing of Blake's newest work that Anne picked up soon after entering the store. Much as Kennedy was fond of the poet, an etching, however lovely, dwelling on the death of innocence and innocence of death would not do his friend good. By mutual agreement, Horatio and Anne parted ways soon after, he to delve into adventure and history, she to find every new novel of note.

Horatio did attempt to keep his mind on his mission, seeking out likely naval records and atlases that might appeal to Kennedy's love of adventure. But once deciding on his selections, Hornblower found himself inevitably at a shelf of mathematicians and philosophers, fingering a translation of Euclid's Elements. His own, stolen and dropped in the head was still an ache in his heart. It had been his grandfather's and he had tried to retrieve it, befouled as it was, but the book had been irrecoverable. A new copy would be a chance to put that awful memory behind him, and perhaps many others.

But he felt his thin purse, and knew he could not. He must replace the shirt lost to Simpson's predations, and purchase more stockings, and set aside a sum, somehow to add to the wardroom table. Though he sensed that Miss Kennedy's orders on her brother's behalf were more than usually generous --Justinian's gun room had certainly not eaten so well-- Horatio did not want to arrive on the Indefatigable looking stingy, or poor, or taking advantage of his wealthier friend. He must find funds enough for a few bags of coffee and sugar, at least, or bottles of wine. Euclid must wait.

Feeling the weight of temptation too hard upon him, Horatio sought out Miss Kennedy, but could not find her where he'd left her. He searched through the store, and became turned about in the maze of shelves and stacks. Passing a table devoted to the Bard, Horatio hesitated at a slim volume of sonnets. When he had been weeping over his Euclid in the cable tiers, Archie had found him, and commiserated over the loss of just such a book to Simpson's pettiness.

It had been an odd quarter watch, stolen together, Archie declaiming pretty verses, then inducing him to recite in turn mathematical theorems. They had ended laughing, reminded of what Jack could not take from them. And yet the man had, in the end, taken something more precious, their ease and comfort with one another. Their friendship. Or perhaps he had ruined that, with his ill-timed kisses and mad determination to die because of them.

Horatio opened the pages, thumbing through until he found one whose rhythm he could faintly remember, from lips mobile with emotion.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste

It might be an apology, after a fashion, even if he could not articulate why one was needed. He weighed the little book in his hand, even checked the cost penciled lightly on the first page, before, finally, reluctantly, placing it back. He could no more bear the expense than that to replace his Euclid. And his offenses could not be forgiven, because they were extant-- not past, but very much still present.

Moving on, he finally caught site of Miss Kennedy, again. She was intently perusing a French book with a most surprising title, Déclaration des droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne. It seemed rather Republican for the daughter of an earl and sister to men fighting France over its revolutionary fervor. Perhaps she was conscious of it, for she set the book down immediately, adopting a bright smile, once she realized his presence.

"Have you found anything for Arch, Mr. Hornblower? I think he would like either of these." Anne had found a few plays she thought her brother would approve of, The Follies of the Day and --just out-- The Road to Ruin both by Thomas Holcroft. Horatio was unfamiliar, but when he learned they were comedies, he nodded his approval.

"You have already chosen well, but I had some thoughts, if you wanted to reconsider, Miss Kennedy." He led the way back through the warren, to a small section devoted to American authors. He had found a description of the West Indies, by a Scottish gentlewoman born there, newly published, with the intimidating title of Voyage to the Madeira and Leeward and Caribbean Isles, with Sketches of the Natural History of these Islands. Horatio recalled the evening daydreaming of the tropics as Heather told his tales before their orders had come through, and thought it might please Archie. They were unlikely to venture there soon, tied to a fighting frigate with war on the Continent looming. He had certainly enjoyed the passages he'd read himself, and was eager to take in the whole journey.

Less selfishly, he pointed out a novel whose name had caught his eye, Modern Chivalry. It was a romantical name for a satirical book. The author, a Hugh Branckenridge, had chosen as setting the frontier of Pennsylvania, in some ways even more exotic than the Indies. Anne took a few minutes to peruse the books herself, then smiled, and thanked Horatio, and took them both and the plays besides. Horatio felt a little faint at this casual evidence of wealth, his own poverty more acute as he accompanied Miss Kennedy to the front where she paid the charges without a blink.

"Will you not take any new books home to Kent, Mr. Hornblower?" Anne inquired with surprise, as she waited to have her purchases wrapped in brown paper for security. "Surely there is something here of interest." Her hand indicated the bookshop, indeed drowning in books to intrigue him, beyond just the Euclid he longed for so sentimentally.

Horatio flushed, embarrassed to name the reason for his restraint, until he found an acceptable answer. "I have a long journey, and would not wish the weight of more books, when there are sufficient waiting for me at home." Mostly anatomy and medical texts, and discussions of the proper care of a garden, but the library was indeed plentifully laden, for a country doctor's home. "I shall enjoy Mr. Kennedy's collection when we are both aboard the Indefatigable."

"It will make his pleasure in these gifts the greater, then. I know a taste for literature wasn't common among his shipmates." She smiled up at him with a tenderness Horatio did not deserve, conscious of how often he had thought Archie frivolous to be reading dramas when the boy could be studying trigonometry instead. "Now," she plunked the books into his arms, smiling at the burden all her packages made on him. "I believe you were promised a coffee shop."

Chapter Text

Piccadilly had a selection of coffee houses, and Anne chose one with an air of refinement, not too many smoking men pounding on tables over politics. They were soon sitting in a window, a prime location, and she was pouring for him. A full carafe and the satisfaction of no other errands before them conspired to allow Hornblower to actually relax, stretching out his legs and even venturing to smile at his lovely companion.

Horatio realized that somewhere between tea and coffee he'd become comfortable with Miss Kennedy. She was utterly unlike any girl he had spoken to before, being both obviously and intensely feminine, from her fashionable dress and round bosom and mass of bronze hair in curls-- and yet so very like her masculine brother, forward in manner and philosophy. In truth, she was a great deal more comfortable to be near than Kennedy, her beauty less intimidating because she was not so sharp and full of edges. She was merry without being frivolous, teasing but not cruel, clever in her observations, and listened to his own with a flattering attention. He felt… safe…. with Anne. Her wealth and confidence and charm formed a bubble around them that left the world at just enough of a distance to be enjoyable. Everyone was pleasant to them. Everything tasted well. Even the din and clatter of street and coffeehouse held no threat, because she was not concerned by it.

Just looking at her made him feel warm. In fact he had not been cold all day, despite the February gloom. Though that might be because of the energy needed to keep up with her busy movements and peppering conversation. Those gray eyes held no storm, but they were challenging. And her momentary silence as she treated her coffee with cream and sugar --he took his own unadulterated-- began to have a slightly discomfiting air of evaluation. Knowing her brother, Horatio sought to forestall any impertinent questions by daring one of his own.

"Kennedy told me that he went to sea at thirteen. I suppose it was very hard to say goodbye to your brother at so tender an age?"

She cocked her head at him, narrowed eyes trying to discern his intent. She stirred another half-teaspoon of sugar into her coffee, and gave a small shrug before replying. "He went away to school at eight, that was more difficult. We were inseparable before, but after four years of education, I was used to the absences. And he was so excited to be leaving, to make his way in the world and have adventures!" Anne gave Horatio a brilliant smile, that made his heart thump oddly, though her eyes were fixed on a memory, not him. "I think I was more upset that I could not be off on a journey of my own, than worried that he would come to harm. After all, father had sailed for so many years, and always come back to us." She took a few sips of her sweetened drink.

"Kennedy did come back," Horatio ventured. "And suffered no harm?" The prying tone was perhaps unsubtle, and brought her full attention back.

"Nothing lasting, not from that first posting." Her brow furrowed slightly. "Though he used up all his luck there." Horatio hoped his inquiring look was not too plaintive. "You haven't heard about The Guardian?" She gave a little confused laugh. "I would think Archie full of the story. No? Not even in the papers?"

Horatio was abashed. Was his friend famous as well as rich and titled? "I was away at school myself at that age, and we were not allowed to read the broadsheets."

Anne had another long sip, and adopted a slightly bored tone. "There is a scrapbook somewhere, I suppose I could find it...." She was just like her brother. As soon as she realized she had a secret he wanted, the temptation was there to tease. "But now tell me which of the books you are most looking forward to reading...."

"Miss Kennedy." Horatio gave her the satisfaction of a pleading tone, and she relented, with another little laugh.

"The barest sketch then. It is a grim tale for a lovely day. Really you should ask my brother directly. Arch does it well, he has that knack for the little details," Horatio nodded, thinking on how often he supposed his fellow midshipman guilty of embellishment. She took a breath to organize her thoughts, then began. "The Guardian was a fifth-rater, finished up too late for the Rebellion. It didn't go into service until it was outfitted in 1789 as convict transport. Arch was supposed to sail to Botany Bay on her maiden voyage, with a load of prisoners and supplies for the colony."

"Australia?" Horatio was surprised, Kennedy had never mentioned being on that exotic continent, but waved Anne to continue.

"Yes. They left in early September and sailed south for almost three months. We received our last letter after Epiphany, dated a month earlier, when the ship was just about to sail from the Cape of Good Hope. Then there was nothing." For the first time, Horatio realized Miss Kennedy had something of her brother's capacity for aching melancholy as well as cherubic humor. He did not like that cast on her features. "On Christmas Eve, they'd struck an iceberg while trying to take on water, and holed her badly below the waterline."

Horatio winced. "How did they make it back?"

"Most didn't. They tried to make repairs, but were taking on so much water it seemed hopeless. Then a gale took most of their sails. As many as could of the prisoners and crew abandoned ship, hoping to make land back to Africa. With more than three hundred aboard, there weren't boats enough for all. The captain, Lieutenant Riou, elected to remain behind to try and sail her across 1300 miles of open ocean. Staying with him by choice were Archie and sixty other stalwarts-- officers, ratings, and convicts."

Horatio gaped, "And they succeeded?"

"Obviously." She gave a wry smile. "They used barrels under the deck to keep her afloat. The poor Guardian was little more than a raft at this point. Then manned pumps around the clock, and tacked as best they could with their remaining canvas. It took them nine weeks. A marvelous feat of sailing, I'm told. A wonder that they survived at all, much less made it back to Capetown. Yet not a single man-or woman --the daughter of one of the superintendents was with them=- died on the Guardian. She made it there intact, in fact she was only scuttled when they tried to push for home. Beached by a storm. in April. a hundred miles north of Capetown. That ship was cursed!" She shook her head and took a little refreshment before ending the story. Horatio remembered his coffee then, as well.

"They had to await rescue and transfer. We didn't see Archie until fall though we'd known he was alive by summer. So he did not totally shock us when he turned up, brown and skinny and haunted and proud."

Horatio played over thoughts of this dramatic tale, wondering how it might feel to be in a crippled ship, so far from home. How brave Archie had been, to stay aboard the dying vessel. Would he have stayed? "What of the men in the jolly boats?"

"Only one boat was rescued, fifteen souls. The rest were lost. And it was not just the men taken by the sea that made it a tragedy. New South Wales was in a terrible need of provisions, that never arrived. There was a famine."

Horatio nodded soberly, and drank his coffee. He heard the clink of china, then a warm touch shook him out of his thoughts. Anne seemed to be playing with the knuckles of his left hand under the table where it lay against his thigh. He flinched, startled and of a sudden prickling with tension, his gloom dispelled by confusion.

For her part, Miss Kennedy's expression was almost innocence, just a light play of humor on lips as mobile and full as her brother's. "Did I misremember the code? Or tap the wrong fingers? Let me try again." Horatio still so startled at the feel of unexpected feminine digits, gentle and stroking against his own, he didn't comprehend her question at first. Then the tentative movements resolved not into a caress, but the deliberate press of the finger code he and Archie had devised, one long ago afternoon. She was using the numbers, he thought, and translated it at last to the day-flag 9 for Distress? In need of immediate assistance?

Making bold, he took her hand in turn, and a little clumsily with nerves, tapped out the reply, day-flag 27: Not in want thereof. He was both disappointed and relieved when she drew back from him, with a little smile. "Mr. Kennedy has taught you Howe's Code?" he asked, in the normal fashion. It was a scandal to be honest, such things were to be restricted to the Navy, for the sake of their safety and military effectiveness.

She smiled and looked mysterious. "I know it. The how, never you mind. But the secret of Horatio's Code he did relay to me. I've been teaching it to Margaret, too, for it's just as useful, you know, in a dining room, as a gunroom. Only we have begun to devise our own orders. Perhaps if you are lucky, we might share our codebook."

Horatio couldn't help blushing at this evidence of the popularity of his little whim. His stomach knotted a bit, with the thought that it was not just his and Archie's. But it was precious too, that Kennedy's sisters would take so eagerly to it, for love and interest in their brother's affairs. "You must have a great deal of naval knowledge, growing up in it, so. I had the benefit of your experience, already. Mr. Kennedy lent me your signal flags while I was learning the code myself." He reddened a little further, to admit at seventeen to be playing with such toys.

Anne did not take opportunity to jibe at him though, only smiled sweetly."I made those for him for the Minerva! I did not know he still had them. So much went missing, between all of his adventures."

"The Minerva? Was that his ship after the Guardian? He has pictures of India in his room." He tried not to sound too eager, at this chance to fill in yet another gap in his friend's mysterious history.

"Yes. Arch is quite clever with pen and brush, you should see his portraits from the theater…." This time she only teased Horatio for a few moments before telling him what he wished to know. "The H.M.S. Minerva was his second posting. Mother threatened to go back to America, she was so angry with father, for we'd only just gotten Arch back from Africa." Horatio understood from her crispness that it was not just Lady Anne who had been furious, for all that Miss Kennedy was still speaking with offhand lightness. "But Archie was much valued after the Guardian-- all those who stayed with the ship were given commendations. So father was able to find him a slot on a ship bound for India. They were sailing right into a war, with all the chance for glory and advancement that entails." And there, the bitterness, just underneath.

Horatio was sorry to have dispelled his companion's good mood again, with his questions, and tried to make amends. "I suppose there are stories there, but for another time."

"Yes, but for tales of the Minerva and the Perseverance, you must apply to Arch directly. He has never told me anything more than what we could read in the newspapers. But whatever happened must have been horrible. He was never the same since." She tried to pass it off with a pained little smile, but her cup rattled as she returned it to her saucer.

He found himself catching up from her lap that soft, broad-palmed little hand, so different to another, sea rough and scarred, yet so alike.

With just a single squeeze of acknowledgement, she went on. "We had him back almost a year, before father shipped him off to Justinian last August. That was the worst of our partings. Father insisted it was time, but he was so unhappy there until you came. I saw Archie, just before Christmas, before your arrival, and…" she stopped and made herself release him. His bones had begun to hurt from the tightness of her grip. Anne took a deep sip, both hands on her cup, then went on more calmly, but with deep feeling. "Thank you for your friendship, Mr. Hornblower."

"He has been more than a good friend to me, Miss Kennedy." Far more, and sometimes much less.

"I would beg a favor of you, Mr. Hornblower. When you pry those stories out of him, will you write me what you can of it? What will not breach the confidence of the Navy or of the brotherhood of arms? We have lost him now, three times. I want to know, if we lose him again, how to bring him home."

The weight of the request sat heavily between them. Horatio did not know if he himself wanted the answers to his questions, much less to relate them to a gentlewoman and relative, with more claim to sympathetic pain than he. Yet after a swallow, Horatio nodded acceptance, and swept a forefinger across those delicate knuckles, still pressed to the porcelain. Yes.

Chapter Text

They had regained their cheerfulness on the walk back to Portman Square through the simple expedient of Miss Kennedy's refusal to be glum, and Horatio's quiet submission to her rattling communications and determined charm. It was an agreement he was used to.

Alas, upon their return they found Archie in a foul mood, having been denied permission to go to the theater. Despite Horatio's entirely honest reassurance that he was not disappointed, Kennedy continued in a dark sulk, making no effort to add to their conversation. When the boy would not be jollied even by sister Anne into better humor, he was acerbically invited by Lady Anne to return to his room and rest until supper. Likely it was for the best. Kennedy looked tired, eyes bruised with insufficient rest and skin still freckled from the fit the night before.

With that quelling presence gone, the tenor of the room lightened considerably. Tea was ordered and served with an abundance of tiny sandwiches and little iced cakes and wee hot pastries stuffed with chicken and spices. Horatio had never had the like, and spared a thought for poor Archie missing out on the feast.

After, Anne brought over a folio scrapbook filled with clippings, and urged Horatio to take a seat at a comfortable chair near the window. She presented it to him with a small smile saying "I promised," then returned to keep her mother company.

Horatio paged through slowly, reading newspaper accounts to the backdrop of Miss Kennedy relaying their morning in considerable detail. Though Hornblower quickly found himself absorbed in the naval minutia, little sketches and even the occasional letter in a familiar cramped hand pasted into the ledger, he kept one ear to the ladies' conversation as well.

Anne described not just the number and quality of her purchases, but also comparisons of all the stores, people they apparently encountered during their day, and what they appeared to be buying. She even relayed the names of the more important of the passers by while they had sat in the park, whom he had no idea she had recognized, nor even that she had been taking notice. It eventually occurred to Horatio that this extensive commentary was not merely Anne's natural loquaciousness, but in the manner of a report to a senior officer. Though he had no sound basis for judging, Archie's sister seemed far more diligent than the middie had ever been. Kennedy's end of watch handovers had tended toward the terse on most occasions that Horatio had witnessed. 

Later, he was pulled from a re-reading of a skirmish during a blockade of Mangalore—in which both the Minerva and the Perseverance had participated— by a particularly vivid description of the sundries shop, to which Lady Anne was paying close and interested attention, prompting her daughter with detailed questions about the fashions displayed in the window and who admired them. He gathered that the countess had not been out shopping herself in some time.

Little as he knew of fashionable female society, Horatio thought there was an unusual avarice in how Lady Anne consumed her daughter's narrative. Taking the liberty of their distraction, he studied his hostess. The countess's stamp on both second daughter and fourth son was clear. They shared the same symmetry of feature and prominent cheekbones, shape of eyes, and straight, slightly upturned nose. But while Anne the younger had plump, pink flushed cheeks and antic energetic mannerisms, her mother's face was finely drawn. In fact, it more resembled her son's, which had not entirely recovered its flesh and color in the last scant weeks since the duel and Simpson's absence from the mess.

He hoped he was imagining the slight hollowness, the tension of suppressed pain, because he had seen it so often and so recently in Archie. Yet, the lady's movements were deliberate, and it occurred to Horatio that she had some of the stillness of the older tars, who bellyached about the weather, and left the climbing and hard jobs for the younger men, rarely roused to vigor.

Horatio blushed then, at himself, comparing his friend's elegant and gracious mother to arthritic old seadogs, and ducked back into his book. But he could not escape the thought that while the rich did not wear their years like the lower classes, still his hostess might already be afflicted by age or some other infirmity. It was an observation he did not think he could share with Kennedy, but Horatio wondered if he should.

He escaped the need to decide immediately when Kennedy made no appearance until the bell for supper was rung. The meal was more awkward than either tea or the night before. The table was smaller, with Robert apparently dining out, and young Margaret taking the meal upstairs in the nursery with her younger brother. Horatio was seated at Captain Kennedy's right—the rank fit the man better than the title, though both were equally intimidating to Hornblower—with Anne across from him and Archie beside her, then John at Horatio's right and the countess presiding over the foot of the table.

The food was as varied and rich as before, but Horatio had a hard time enjoying it. Though the order to turn over his log books had never come, despite Archie's threat, the Earl of Cassilis took pains to quiz Horatio, and shout commentary to the table, throughout the meal.

It began with the pouring of the wine and a perfunctory remark that 'Alexander' had recommended him for his maths. The earl abruptly asked Horatio to explain the extraction of a square root from a large number chosen seemingly at random. Over fish, Captain Kennedy requested a description of Euclid's thirty-second proposition, then while the butler was ladling a wine sauce Horatio had never tasted before, challenged him to explain how to find altitude and azimuth, and use them in celestial navigation.

Though somewhat unnerved by the lord's piercing blue eyes, similar in color to his friend, but no other way like, Horatio was on solid ground with these questions, and answered each with a surety and completeness that seemed to meet with some approval, judging from the earl's grunts and nods.

After that, however, the footing rapidly became less secure. The earl asked him to describe the best way to rig a third-rate for stormy weather. Horatio had to confess to complete ignorance, then listen to a barrage of sailing terms that between Scottish-American accent and naval abbreviations, he only half-recognized.

Hornblower did little better at describing the usual set up of sails for a frigate tacking against a strong aft wind. Justinian had scarcely weighed anchor in the scant two months Horatio had been aboard her, never mind carrying her full sail. So he stumbled over the names, let alone knowing which were right for the purpose. Even John—a man who studied law!—murmuring a correction, "royal, not t'gallant," wasn't enough to avoid bolloxing the listing entirely.

How Horatio wished he'd drunk less on the night in Portsmouth when Archie was describing their new ship's rigging. But any hope that Kennedy would come to his rescue was dashed when he looked over to observe his supposed best friend staring determinedly off in the distance. Not meeting his eyes, nor any ones. After several pleading looks went unanswered, Horatio realized that Kennedy's right hand and his sister's left might be joined in under-the-table conference, accounting for the boy's glazed expression, if not the lack of aid.

Either a silent prompting or Anne's native kindness eventually induced her to distract her father with an anecdote from their day, allowing Horatio to at least choke down some of his roast and potatoes in relative peace. They sat leaden in his gut once the captain veered back on course and began quizzing him on the process of dead reckoning. Though Horatio managed a passable explanation, the captain felt it needed to be supplemented by a few insightful tips.

If he were not so uncomfortable with the process and aware of Archie's abandonment, Hornblower might have been gratified to add to his store of naval knowledge, and to have been taken notice of by a man of eminence. Hungry, worn from a day full of new sights, sounds, thoughts, and more people than he'd even seen collected together in his life, and now bewilderingly subjected to a rigorous testing for which he was totally inadequate, Horatio was reduced to trying not to cry into his cooling soup.

Luckily, by the time the earl switched to conversing in a roughly accented French, to which Horatio was only able to haltingly reply, his lady wife felt obliged to intervene. In a more schooled version of the same language, she reproved her husband, "This is not a board examination, Archibald, and Monsieur Hornblower is not your midshipman up for commission." This gentle rebuke, much to Horatio's surprise, provoked a loud bray of laughter, and a pounding on the table.

"Quite right, my dear, quite right," said the earl in the King's English. "And good thing, for he is not yet ready. Needs his two years at sea, though, so he still has some time to learn what's missing. Spend some hours in my library, Mr. Midshipman Hornblower," he half-bellowed, still chortling, "I've a fine set of models there, so you can learn your spankers from your drivers, just ask my boy, he knows that much at least. You seem to have a good head for the classics already. Don't suppose you'll stay on and tutor Alexander in maths? Wouldn't want him to embarrass himself with the Indefatigable's navigation master. Never make lieutenant if he can't master planar trigonometry!" This was aimed quite acidly down the table, at a flushed Archie staring back with surprise. "I can offer a good stipend if you can do anything with him, Mr. Hornblower."

Horatio almost dropped his spoon, and stared as well, no doubt like a fool, at the earl for some seconds while he calculated an answer. Much as any added coin, and the approval of Captain Kennedy might be useful, Hornblower did not relish putting himself between his friend and the earl further, particularly in a way that invited comparison. Besides, Horatio was not at all certain Kennedy had so much as that to learn, out of the influence of Simpson and Justinian. And his sinful attraction to Kennedy, pressing on him as heavy as ever, made the necessity of his refusing absolute. The sooner parted, the better for them both.

And yet, when he glanced across at Archie, he surprised a pleading in two sets of eyes, blue and gray, and had to look away again to find his determination. "I am sorry, your lordship, for your most kind offer, but… my father is expecting me, and I must start my journey to Kent on Monday, latest." That was still too many days away for comfort.

"Och! Well, no matter. No point preparing for exams just yet, Alexander, when you can't even get your certificate from Captain Keene!" Every word of that sentence was bitten out a little sharper and louder than the one before. Horatio was confused by the meaning but everyone else at the table was clearly startled, and turned almost as one to Archie with varying expressions of dismay and concern.

In the face of familial disappointment, Archie rose abruptly. "As you say, father. No point in fretting over parabolas and tangents, now. Besides which, Mr. Hornblower and myself are expected tonight at my club. We can walk, no need to order the carriage…." Kennedy was halted in a half-bow toward the countess by the earl's vociferous denial.

"Your club? No! Rabble of useless fops with nothing in their head but actresses and wasting their father's money. I'll have you done with it. Sit!" The earl made a peremptory gesture that forced the son unwillingly back into the velvet padded chair.

The mulish set to Archie's jaw and reddening face frightened Horatio, not knowing whether his friend was about to start a row or burst into tears.

John Kennedy forestalled either form of outburst with the calm suggestion that both boys accompany John to Brook's, "Nothing objectionable there, father, and it would be good to introduce Midshipman Hornblower to London society. After all, he'll be a lieutenant someday, and likely much more. I'll keep them out of trouble," the man added gently, with a small smile. "If we can have the carriage?"

The earl looked to object until the countess fixed her husband with a glare from across the table, after which the captain gave way with an irritated wave. "Full of Whigs," was grunted as well. Not withstanding the scorn in this declaration, Lord Archibald's permission was assumed, apparently, for John stood up from the table then, beckoning at Horatio. He hesitated until Archie rose again as well, and making their bows to lord and lady and Miss Kennedy, all soon found themselves gathered below in the hall.

While they waited for the carriage to be retrieved from the mews and brought round, John pulled Archie away to have a furiously whispered conversation. Horatio turned his back to give the brothers further privacy, walking along the wall of paintings that graced the entry hall. They were hung close together, a mosaic of color high enough that many could only be appreciated from the stairs or second floor balcony.

By some trick of arch and stone, however, as he paused before a particularly fine oceanscape, Horatio realized that the conversation behind him was being carried to his ears.

"—mean to say you truly didn't get your paper from Captain Keene?"

Hornblower meant to step away before hearing more, but understanding John's question had him almost as aghast as the questioner. To be denied a certificate of good service meant Archie's time served on Justinian could not count toward the requirement of six years at sea, at least two as midshipman, needed to qualify for lieutenant. And worse the boy would have to explain the circumstances should Kennedy ever take the lieutenant's exam.

"I didn't, and I've heard enough of it from father, thank you, John."

Archie's brother ignored the quelling tone. "How could you not keep your head down for half a year? Under a captain as lax as Keene? No wonder father is beside himself. At least you were not disrated again…. Were you?"

Disrated? Kennedy had mentioned the demotion as a punishment, but Horatio hadn't realized the boy spoke from personal experience.

"No! And the Perseverance… was not my fault."

On Justinian, Archie was considered a troublemaker, Hornblower had been warned by Lt. Eccleston to keep his distance. But however much he wanted to lay that all at Simpson's feet, it seemed this was a pattern. Horatio couldn't help but fall back to concern about who his friend really was, and whether it was an association he should continue in their new post.

"It never is, Archie. I know… the fits."

Horatio couldn't help wincing at the resignation in John's voice. It is true that under some captains Kennedy's condition might be enough to be dismissed from service. But Archie had served months aboard Justinian, the malady surely known to the captain. It could not be the cause of Archie being denied a certificate. Had the incident he himself had witnessed, with Kennedy missing several watches through some combination of hurt and drink, provoked Captain Keene to deny Archie his papers? And if so, was the reason its recency, or because it was only the latest in a line of bad behavior too long to overlook?

"I don't want to talk about it. And I can't see that Justinian would be much to my service in any regard, John. It's six months I'm as happy to have forgotten." Kennedy's irritable snap was clear even in a whisper. "If it takes me longer to stand before the board, so be it. Indefatigable will be far more to my credit."

"But you must first be a credit to her, Archie." Horatio couldn't help a glance over at the brothers. John was laying a hand on Archie's shoulder, expression very serious. "Without your papers for a second time, this will be your last chance. I know that placing you under Pellew dearly cost father—"

"I never asked—" Archie forgot to whisper, and Horatio needed no help from the architecture to hear him.

"Anne did. She begged him to take you off Justinian." This stopped Archie. But any further explanation was cut by both brothers seeming to become aware of Hornblower's attention. Horatio, blushing, stepped farther down to the next fine painting, losing the chance at hearing anything else they said, until the footman came in to alert them to the arrival of the coach.

The trip to Brook's was at least too short to be awkward. Horatio sat beside Archie, looking out the cracks in the window, for the night was brisk enough to keep the flaps closed. With the obstructed view, it took him some minutes to realize that they were tracing much the same path as he and Anne had walked earlier. The club was on St. James' Street, half way between the bookstore and the park where they had lunched. Piccadilly was almost busier than it had been in the day, Though few respectable ladies were out, their number had been replaced by scores of gentleman of all ages, heading to coffee shops and bars and other gathering places. At the cross-streets, a species of women lingered that made Horatio uncomfortable to look at—Archie had no compunction, pushing the window coverings aside for a better view—as well as street vendors and disreputables in several flavors.

They did not stop until they reached the club, a fine three-story Georgian building in the Grecian style. A doorman in livery and a night watchman pacing back and forth kept the walk in front mostly clear of loiterers, but allowed them entrance without pause into the club. The boys were made to sign the guest entry book, before being shown into the tiled entry hall. Upon seeing its grand interior, Horatio felt even more out of place than in Portland Square.

The long, high-ceilinged, rectangular room was dominated by a carpeted stone staircase wrapping about to the first floor. Arched doorways led into more private rooms on either side, but the hall was clearly a gathering place. A fireplace at one end kept the room comfortable for the dozen or so men lounging elegantly on leather couches, or clustered at the foot of the stairs, talking. Many more were passing through on their way to the chambers above. Black-suited servants bustled, bringing drinks and carrying messages. Not a woman could be seen.

The members were a mixture of young men and those of middle years—few silver heads. They were alike in most other particulars from the richness of their dress to their school accents. Hornblower had gathered from the earl's comment that the membership of Brook's also tended to be more liberal, though he heard no political conversations at present. There were no other military men visible, and Horatio felt conspicuous in his midshipman's blue coat, Archie being still in civilian clothes. John Kennedy was comfortable enough, however, and made introductions to acquaintances without hesitation. Horatio's name, rank, and ship were offered up, together with Archie, whom John introduced as Alexander, despite the younger brother's glare.

After some minutes they repaired to the floor above, ascending the staircase along niches graced with marble copies of Greek and Roman statuary. Though not yet happy in these upper class environs, by the time they ventured into a grand barrel-vaulted great room, set up with card tables and much in use, Horatio admitted that this was a manner of society he might like to become accustomed to. Though John did not let them linger round the gaming tables, their destination was even more appealing, a series of rooms set with bookshelves and progressively fewer chairs in which to enjoy them. In the farthest room every seat was solitary and separate. John informed Horatio—for Archie had been to Brook's before and knew the rules—that there it was utterly forbidden to engage other patrons in conversation, short of fire or similar imminent danger.

Grecian art and architecture, whist, books, and solitude, with no danger of females or unwanted conversation? With the addition only of a few more naval denizens it would be Horatio's idea of heaven. Archie was less enamored, but John ordered them drinks—beer, not spirits—and settled in one of the library rooms that did allow for some society, inviting them both to explore the shelves. Once Kennedy found a copy of the Canterbury Tales, the boy was more resigned to their evening. Naturally the lad insisted that Horatio read his Cicero on the same couch—he trying to improve his Latin—while the imp next to him quietly chortled over the old English and read him the naughty bits whether he wanted to hear them or no. Given the proximity of Canterbury to his home, even Horatio was vaguely familiar with the stories though he had never troubled to decipher the originals. But when declaimed with enthusiasm and emotion, Kennedy's rich diction making the archaic language understandable, Horatio quickly was blushing and shocked.

His reactions encouraged Kennedy, of course, who only increased volume and gesticulated more vehemently. If he was treated to far more descriptions of men kissing bungholes, and lusty housewives fornicating in trees than he could ever have wanted, it was worth it to see Kennedy restored to irreverent glee. While out of favor and oppressed by Simpson's presence, and even at home still under Justinian's shadow in the form of fatherly disapproval, Horatio had forgot how charming and full of light his friend could be.

As he watched, Latin forgotten, Archie effortlessly gathered to their corner a set of gentleman looking to be entertained. With the lubrication of another round or two of drinks, and after their boisterous group had been discreetly exiled from the library to the ground floor's fireside couches, an impromptu dramatic reading was organized. Some of the other men took turns—even John consented to read some of the racier parts of the Reeve's tale, leering and exaggerating the odd vowels, and blustering through the tricky orthography with a vigor that suggested Archie wasn't the only Kennedy with a taste for theater. For all the man's measured and scholarly demeanor, and the peacekeeper role so often diplomatically adopted, John was really not much older than Archie and himself.

If he had ever thought on it before, Horatio would have imagined that the famed London social clubs were deadly sober. Full of serious, important men locked in earnest conversation, plumes of cigar smoke around their heads like thoughts made visible, while glasses of aged port providing fortification. Listening to Kennedy guffawing as another man speaking falsetto took on the role of the Wife of Bath, Horatio sipped his beer, and was not disappointed by the reality.

Chapter Text

This time, Horatio woke as soon as the maid opened the door, sitting upright, and only momentarily disoriented.

"Good morning Mr. Hornblower, sir," she greeted him quietly. "I'll just wake your fire up, and then bring your water. Breakfast will be available in the dining room whenever you are ready, sir. Or I can bring you a tray?"

"That won't be necessary, Miss— Betsy. Thank you," Horatio said, awkwardly, still uncomfortable with the degree of luxury that he enjoyed as the Kennedy's guest. The maid bobbed her head, and proceeded about her work with quick efficiency. Horatio felt terribly foolish in her presence, unable to leave the bed—being still in his night clothes—and not knowing if he should ignore or engage her. It was a relief when she left, the stove starting to crackle from the renewed heat. He got up immediately, and dressed quickly, that she not surprise him in his underclothes on her return. Washed and put into better order, Horatio heard his friend beginning to stir in the next room, and was ready when Archie poked a head in and said they should head down to eat.

Breakfast was a wonder. Three kinds of eggs tempted him, including tiny quail eggs that had been poached in water and wine. There was cured sausage, shaved beef, and bacon enough to have sustained the whole midshipmen's mess for a week. Two different breads had been sliced and toasted, accompanied by a kind of fluffy rich pastry Horatio had never had before. Hot chocolate, tea, and a perfectly brewed coffee were all available to wash it all down. Horatio's mouth watered just looking at the abundant sideboard.

Beside him, Archie gave a happy sigh. "I will miss this, Hornblower." Some impulse bade him lay a hand on the smaller boy's shoulder. Archie turned that beatific smile on him for just a moment, before it widened to a grin and they were racing to the stack of plates. Most of the Kennedys were not early risers, it appeared, for he and Archie had the feast to themselves for the first half hour. But as they were filling the china with seconds, Miss Kennedy and her lady mother came in.

"Good morning, dear Mr. Hornblower, survived the card tables of Brook's I hope?" was Anne's merry, if bewildering greeting.

"I… er…" he stammered, it being too early for him to fully deal with the fairer sex, much less with an example as vivacious as Archie's sister.

Luckily his friend was more awake. "Johnnie didn't let us gamble, more's the pity. Horatio is aces at whist. No, we spent the night engaged in literary pursuits. Truly we did!" The lad protested at his sister and mother's identical looks of skepticism. Horatio nodded solemnly, feeling it his duty to back his friend.

"We have an increase in our family party, Mr. Hornblower," the countess told him as she took her seat at the foot of the table. "My daughter Katherine, and her husband Edward arrived after you left for the evening. They made excellent time from Edinburgh, and decided to push on, as the night was clear and bright.

"Kitty is my eldest sister, she and John are twins. She married just last year. Edward is in the Army, like Arch," Kennedy reminded him. Horatio found the size of his friend's family difficult to keep straight.

"Yes, she took forever to find a husband. Not that I'm complaining, she did find a good one. But that is why I'm only coming out this Season," Anne said philosophically, pouring herself a cup of chocolate and adding a sugar cube.

Horatio had some notion that there was a complicated etiquette around women and being seen at parties and marriage eligibility, but never having sisters, or anything much to do with the young ladies of his town, he knew nothing about it. He was relieved, therefore, when the younger and elder Anne both began to chat avidly with each other on the subject of court dresses and ball invitations, and asked no input from the gentlemen. He did spy, however, an oddly mournful look on his friend's face, Kennedy only picking at the magnificent breakfast, as the boy listened to his mother and sister.

The new arrivals joined them shortly. Lady Katherine, for that was her title, having married a young army officer with a baronetcy to inherit, was a lovely woman of twenty-four. Not as beautiful as her younger sister—Katherine favored the earl more than the countess—she was rather taller, with a very elegant style. Though she paid him little notice beyond courtesies, Horatio thought her quite fine; intelligent, with a more subtle edge to the sarcasm and wit that seemed a Kennedy family trait. She teased Archie about the sea air suiting her brother, and took a seat beside the boy after claiming a hug, with an exclamation at Archie's stature having increased as well as his looks. But after that her attention was claimed by the talk of eligible men, French fashions, and the Queen's preference in necklines.

Her husband Edward, however, was happy to talk to him and Archie and be spared the ladies conversation. Digging into the food with the appreciation of a man who hadn't forgotten field rations, the baronet explained had been on leave from the regiment for some months since marrying but would be returning after this London visit. Archie took the lead in discussing the events in France with the older man, while Horatio observed him more quietly. A jolly man of thirty with a dashing scar along the jaw, the Major was as eager for action as the younger boys. Edward had never see actual warfare, being commissioned after the major battles in the Rebellion had ended. However, he had not the idle look of many rich men, being tall, broad-shouldered, and quite manly even in civilian clothes.

The major had trained most recently in coordination with the Royal Artillery, even taking command of field gun crews during exercises. Horatio could not help but be more animated here, asking a great many questions about sighting and trajectories (upon which he discovered with some embarrassment that his own command of maths was superior to the major's). However, Edward was able to describe quite a bit about the tactics used by cannon crews against ships to the fascinated midshipmen. While on some level the description of when and why they might face hot shot or bar and chain were frightening, the prospect of being under fire, of having to race the cannons of a fort or other enemy, was undeniably thrilling. Horatio filed away every detail the major could provide for later rumination.

At the countess' insistence, the men's discussion of war was eventually curtailed and diverted into the general topic of eligible gentleman. The major was solicited for a listing of fine captains and colonels of his acquaintance regardless that Miss Kennedy was insisting she had no interest in any officer save a naval one. Quite unfairly, Archie kicked Horatio, just then, though Anne immediately clarified, to familial laughter and disapproval, "For then if I do not like my husband, I might scarcely need see him above once in two years!"

Horatio, who had already been uncomfortable with the conversation, had just decided that he might regret eating a last, jam-laden slice of toast, but it would at least give him an excuse to get up from the table. Therefore he was able to recover when directly after assaulting his shin, Archie suddenly quaffed the remaining half-cup of tea in one gulp, stood up, and motioned him upward as well. Joining his friend on his feet, he smiled tightly as Archie made a quick excuse that the boy had promised Horatio a look at the Kennedy library that morning. The reason for the hasty retreat was revealed as they went out, not through the main doorway, but through the servant's door, just as the booming voice of the earl greeted the rest of the room.

Thinking it a bit cowardly, still, Horatio made no comment when their need to avoid Archie's father evidently required them to venture down a steep flight of stairs and into the kitchen. As they wove across the room, a chorus of "Good morning, Master Archie" and accompanying smiles and straightening of caps began. His friend was evidently well known to the staff, despite the absences over the years.

Kennedy even stopped to introduce him to the cook, a short, sturdy older woman with a stern Edinburgh accent who after greeting him with a nod, looked Horatio up and down and then Archie, who straightened as if for inspection. She finally shook her head. "I don't know what they do in that Navy, that they can't keep a young man fed, even anchored at port. It's a scandal," she opined sourly, rich vowels rattling with scorn. Given that his own lankiness was due as much to nature and seasickness as the unappealing, but filling enough meals aboard, Horatio was caught between wanting to apologize and to defend the Admiralty.

Archie just laughed, though, and to Horatio's surprise, stooped to kiss the gray-haired woman on the cheek. "Mr. Hornblower might be a lost cause, he tends to the sylphic, and is rather abstemious in his habits." The boy dropped to a stage whisper, merry eyes meeting Horatio's. "But butter and jellies are his weakness." Straightening up, Archie saluted her. "You'll have your chance to fatten me up, though, Mrs. Mac. A nice plump lamb for the King's slaughter."

She snapped her towel at him. "Enough of that talk, and out of my kitchen. Dodging your da, or trying to catch a look at your cake? No matter, you know where the stairs are, we're going to be run off our feet all day, so don't distract my maids any more, and stay where you belong." Finished with her scold, she turned a marginally softer face toward Horatio, "A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hornblower, sir. Don't let this one lead you into trouble, he has a bit of the devil in him." Archie dodged another snap of the towel, grabbed a couple apples from a bowl on the table, and led Horatio through the room, accompanied by the stares and giggles of the scullery staff.

They exited past the butler's pantry where a second tiny stepwell led up to the porter's nook in the townhome's entry. "A longtime family servant, I take it?" Horatio asked as they climbed, rather startled by the woman's acerbic familiarity, but seeing that Archie had found it charming.

"Not so long, she came when I was twelve. But I don't know a growing boy who doesn't make friends with the family cook. She acts all sharpish, but I never went hungry, even when I was meant to." Archie winked, and Horatio gathered that being sent to bed without supper had been a common enough punishment in the Kennedy home. Gentler than some of the others his friend had been given, but apparently no more effective at curing bad behavior.

Horatio himself had seldom required correction more stern than his father's accusatory silence or disapproving look. Once, however, he had been caught three times in one day reading Robinson Crusoe, when he was meant to be studying his Latin. He would never forget the long lecture his father had given, with much sighing over his lack of discipline, even spilling frightening tears of guilt for allowing Horatio to read such distracting trash, for even having it in the library. Then his father had bid him consign the tempting novel to the flames by his own hand. It had been as solemn as a funeral, and left Horatio with an abiding reverence for books, but a fear of their power. To disappoint his father so gravely had made an indelible impression.

This childhood folly was called to memory not by Archie's reference to misbehavior, but by the impressive Kennedy collection. His friend led him into not a large room, but tall, tucked at the back of the house with two stories of paned windows, the curtains partially drawn against the dull gray frosty morning. Before them, a table with a magnificent ship model, under glass, dominated one's first impression of the room. Several others could be found among the bookshelves, which had been built, in shipboard fashion, with not just shelves but an assortment of drawers and glass doors, some latching. Among the books there were displays of other art and artifacts, and in one corner near the fireplace a magnificent desk full of cubbies. Across its surface a large scroll was laid out, the edges held down by crystal paperweights, an old sextant, and two candelabra.

A tight spiral stair wound up to the balcony that wrapped the second floor. There were more books here, each shelf barred by a thin rail as if the house might rock with the waves at any moment and otherwise spill the contents to the floor. Doorways nestled between, and one wall was mostly dominated by a large painting of a frigate bearing down on a French trading vessel, which was on fire and in the midst of striking her colors. Miss Kennedy's profligate purchase of books on behalf of her brother was apparently not unusual for the family. The library must have well over a thousand volumes, between the two floors. Archie hovered just a small ways off as Horatio explored, finding the ground floor dominated by military treatises, histories, books of law and philosophy, and the physical sciences. A small case held books in Latin and Greek, more were in French and Spanish. As he started to mount the stairs, Archie stopped him.

"You won't care for the upper level, Mr. Hornblower. I'm afraid that for the most part that is our novels, plays, and other trivialities, as well as my father's collection of newspapers. It will be of no use to you unless you wish to read in privacy," the boy pointed upward to a niche near the window. "There is a comfortable chair up there, and if you draw the curtain, you'll be quite forgotten." An odd little smile twisted his friend's lips. A memory, perhaps, and one unlikely to be shared.

Horatio pretended not to notice the melancholy, forcing a jolly, wondering tone. "I have no wish of it at present! You have spent much time here, I take it? It puts my own father's library to shame." Horatio was embarrassed as soon as he said it, but there was no surprise in the limitations of a country doctor's bookshelves.

"Whenever the earl isn't about, yes. Though rarely down below." Archie took his arm to steer him toward the window, "But my object in bringing you this morning was actually not literary. Behold, the Blonde. She was my father's favorite ship, captured from the French in 1760 and the Old Man's for the next three years." His friend paused for thought, "Though he was still a young man, then. That's her up there, taking a French Indiaman, the Libertin." Archie waved vaguely at the painting above. "Made da's fortune, what didn't come to him from his wives." Kennedy pulled back the curtains to let more light in on the magnificent model, more than a yard long and half as tall. "Most importantly for you, however—though the rigging is just a little different—is that the Blonde was a fifth-rate frigate. Like the Indefatigable."

Hornblower spent a lovely hour going over the models, the Blonde in great depth, but also the Flamborough a smaller vessel that was the earl's first captaincy, as well as a few of the others. As the earl had so begrudgingly acknowledged, Archie was a fount of facts about rigging, sails, masts, and how boats were constructed, particularly these ships, which the boy had clearly studied often. The models were meticulous mimicries, even to the details of the size, shape, and angle of their sails and ropes.

Each made a marvelous learning aid, far superior to napkins and knives. As Horatio had suspected, there was no such object as a royal spanker, but there were both royals, generally the top-most sail on a mast, and a spanker, a fore-and-aft rigged sail at the stern of the ship used help the ship turn into the wind for tacking. His friend stepped him through each mast several times, quizzing him on their names until Horatio had no hesitation and had mastered all the confusing abbreviations as well. He might not be ready to yell at his crew to "furl the miz't'garns'l!" but at least after a moment or two, he would be able to remember which sail that was.

Amid the drilling, Kennedy also offered some answers to the questions the earl had asked the night before, about sail configurations in various weather. Letting go his irritation that his friend had not spoken up then, Horatio tried to pay attention to the explanations. It seemed there were dozens of factors, from the direction and speed of the wind, the amount and temperature of the rain, the exact construction of the keel, the freeboard of the ship, whether it likely that the gunports would need to be open, and more. Every ship sailed differently, and Kennedy could only talk in approximations from the ships and situations the boy had experienced. Before Justinian, each of Archie's ships had been fifth-rate frigates, apparently, though all with different configuration of guns, and different handling. How the razéed fifth-rate Indefatigable would sail was a mystery still to be discovered.

Watching his friend, Horatio found himself smiling broadly. The affection that Archie clearly had for sailing, for the wind and the movement of the ship, the heave and furl of cloth, made him almost stop dreading the sea sickness and the stench, the difficult men and his own blinding ignorance. Kennedy made him feel it would be fun, a challenge his mind could adapt to, even if his hands might be slow and soft at first.

When the earl came in they were standing before a vast plaque bedecked with every bewildering variation of sailor's knot. Archie had been animatedly gesturing, explaining the construction and intended use of each with a confidence that suggested he had been made to do so many a time in the past. Therefore Horatio noticed first that Kennedy stammered over the difference between the Spanish and Portuguese bowlines, and then some instinct caused him to glance over his shoulder to see his host approaching with a surprisingly soft tread. Archie did not quite cease talking until the stumbling, and slightly confusing explanation had been completed, at which point his friend turned to the earl and gave a perfunctory half-bow.

Horatio began to do the same, with a "Good morning, m'lor—" but was stopped by the old man's hand, gripping his shoulder casually.

"You might do better with a book, Mr. Hornblower and a bit of rope. I believe I have one here…" the man moved past, Archie almost skittering out of the way, to search the bookshelf nearby. "Always useful, for any man aboard, to know how to tie a good knot for the circumstance. But a midshipman should be a master of all the common ones, so that you can see at a glance if a rating has been hasty or slovenly." The earl put decided weight on those words, and Horatio could almost feel his friend draw tighter. "Ship's discipline in all the details is vital. The man who does not secure a rope properly when it does not matter will not remember how to do it when it does."

This seemed to require acknowledgment. "Aye, sir. M'lord!" Horatio felt himself flush.

The earl turned to hand him a book, a slim volume titled Knots of the World. "Study this. And if you care to improve yourself during your leave, you might explore this case, which has the majority of my volumes on practical seamanship. A country doctor, even one who has been to sea, might not have all of these in his library." The heavy weight of those cold, ocean eyes fell over him, flicking up and down in a manner that convinced Horatio he had managed to tie his stock incorrectly or lost a button, and he had to force himself to remain in the quarterdeck pose he had unconsciously adopted in the man's presence.

Apparently he passed the inspection, however, for the earl only grunted and turned back to observe the books. "Take what you like. I doubt they will get any exercise here, and you have the look of a young man who can care for a book." Most statements Captain Kennedy made in the presence of his fourth son had a sharp edge and this was no exception. "Bring them back when you return to London. You will return and head to Portsmouth from here? The coastal road is treacherous in the winter. You're very welcome to stay. Sure the wife would say the same."

"Thank you, your lordship. Likely I will come by London, yes. It's very kind of you to offer—"

The captain dismissed his gratitude with an impatient wave, "Fine, fine. Now, has Alexander shown you the Blonde? French-built, but a fine ship, excellent handling…"

Chapter Text

Horatio was rescued from a second awkward tour of Captain Kennedy's ships by the noisy arrival of Lord Kennedy with wife and infant child.

The eldest son of the earl and countess was not even ten years older than Hornblower, but seemed quite in command of everything. However Archie and Arch might have looked as children, the family resemblance was not strong now. They shared sunlight kissed hair, and the same nose, even to the tendency to scrunch up while deep in thought. But the elder had a broader face, with more height and weight all over, and a voice as large as his form, booming across the entry hall. And while the young lord had a rough appeal, Horatio thought his friend was better favored. In fact, seeing them all together, though the family was generally blessed with fine appearances, the fourth Kennedy son was undoubtedly more handsome than any of the others.

While they were waiting to greet the arrivals, Archie explained that the earl's heir was a captain in the 2nd Dragoons, usually stationed in the north on home duty near the family seat of the earl, Culzean Castle. Hornblower thought Lord Kennedy's physique must be quite the strain on the horses. Arch looked the part of a cavalry officer, certainly, dressed in a smart red uniform, sword at the side, and more brawny, brown and florid than the other brothers. The first news out of the arrival's mouth before even greeting Archie, was that Lord Kennedy's troop had just been put on alert to prepare for deployment. Even as the navy was gearing up for war, so too were the army. The 2nd Dragoons might be called up at any time for foreign action in the low countries.

This announcement caused sufficient dismay as to overset the entire crowd of Kennedys. In between cooing over the next Kennedy generation, whom the grandparents, and London aunts and uncles had not previously met, the ladies began discussing whether Lady Kennedy (another Margaret) should stay home with the child, or go to stay with family. The countess, naturally, was urging her daughter-in-law to come to the City for the duration. The men for their part, began to talk war, taxes, and whether Edward, Katherine's husband, would also soon be called up with his regiment.

In the tumult, Archie was barely remembered and Horatio quite forgotten. After some hurried introductions, he stood awkwardly in the hall for some minutes, before retreating to his room. If he had been asked, he would have complained of a desire to rest before the anticipated family supper that evening, but the relatives were busy enough with each other to make no notice of his retiring. Even Archie, seeing him slip up the stairs, only gave Horatio a sheepish shrug, before approaching the nursemaid to make a closer acquaintance with the newest member of the Kennedys, a fat little sausage named, unsurprisingly, Archibald.

Hornblower intended to spend his time becoming acquainted with one of the naval tomes the earl had pressed on him. But he found himself too distracted to read. Instead he roamed restlessly around the room, looking out the windows, and then finally at the fittings of the room itself. His father's home was comfortable, but simple. Plaster walls and English oak and no decorations save the few pictures his mother had hung in the years before her decline and death. The Hornblower parlor was not half so fine as this, the smallest of the Kennedys' bedrooms.

Today's tales of the earl's exploits indicated that much of the Kennedy wealth had been from the capture of prizes during the Seven Years War, but they had forfeited some of that when forced to flee New York. The fortune must have been vast, for if Archie had grown up in this room, the house must have been purchased long before the captain became Earl of Cassilis, while the family was still recovering from their American losses. The bed's draperies were, as Horatio had thought on that first night, a lush green velvet, and the canopy posts some species of wood more exotic than he had experience of. Examination of the carved paneling on the lower half of the wall led him eventually to the similarly marked mahogany wardrobe. Horatio opened the doors to peer inside at the contents, which Archie had plundered so confidently, very quick to leave the naval uniform behind.

It was fitted with shelves, where more clothes than Horatio had owned in his life were piled in neat stacks. A dozen linen shirts, some with lace sewn on, others awaiting cuffs, lay snowy and soft on one shelf. Horatio, who secretly admired fashionable dress though he had not the purse, occasion, or figure to indulge in it himself, couldn't keep from touching the finest, and wondering how it would look and feel to wear. Two more shelves were taken up just in breeches and trousers, all in good repair and made up in rich cloths. Most of the garments were in sober colors except for one gorgeous and startling set of breeches in deep purple silk shot with threads of orange to make it shimmer like a beach fire. It had a matching coat, glimmering with silver embroidery and buttons. Horatio could not imagine his friend in such an ostentatious outfit, and wondered at the reason for it.

Beyond that, Archie seemed to favor only the occasional fancy waistcoat in vivid shades or closely embroidered. A small flash of color hidden beneath brown, blue, and gray jackets, like the red breast of a robin peeking through. Even those were outnumbered by the white and beige and muddy yellow; truly Kennedy had a dizzying number of vests. There were shoes aplenty as well, and riding boots, and one pair of heels in the old French style, purple with silver buckles and what he thought were paste jewels. They would match that intriguing suit well. Of naval dress, though, Horatio could find nothing, save a forgotten black stock crumpled at the back behind rows of white and cream.

Having investigated the interior thoroughly, there remained only the two deep drawers at the bottom. One of these stored extra blankets, and a padded silk robe that looked luxuriantly comfortable. The other held some sentimental items. Guilt at the intrusion warred with a desire to know more of his bewildering friend—and honor lost. A tiny white gown. A stuffed animal, species indecipherable, made from a patchwork of fabrics with one remaining button eye. A diminutive pair of knee breeches. A bible, warped from water. A battered and much repaired blue coat, that Horatio was sure he recognized. And beneath that a few sketch books, and a loose collection of art bound in a paperboard folder.

Just as his hand was hovering over the contents of the drawer, there was a knock at the hall-side door. Before he could do more than stand and shove it mostly closed with a foot, Betsy was entering, a tray in her hands. "Lady Anne thought you might care for some refreshment, to tide you over until supper, sir, though you are also welcome to join the family at tea?" Looking at the array of sandwiches and scones on the tray, and catching the distinct scent of coffee, not tea from the steaming pot, gave Horatio no reason to dare the mass of Kennedys waiting below.

He managed some polite response about the countess's thoughtfulness, and happily took the tray to the desk. But once the maid had left, and hearing nothing from the other room, Horatio could not resist returning to the wardrobe, and gathering up the art to bring to the desk as well. As he sipped and ate, he paged through the sketchbooks, opening each in turn and examining them by the clear afternoon light. Horatio could track the age by the skill of the brush and pen as much as the sights shown and what he had constructed of Kennedy's journeys. The oldest pad was larger, and contained hesitant scrawls of a cat, a servant sitting in a chair, a face Horatio thought was meant to be Lady Anne. Mixed in with growing steadiness were bowls of fruit and park landscapes, and other subjects Hornblower thought must be assigned exercises from some past tutor.

The smaller books were all of the sea. By the time young Archie had started on the first modest tome, beginning with a proud and carefully worked depiction of a small frigate being loaded, there was enough legibility for Hornblower to make out, for example, that it was a frigate, not a sloop or a ship of the line. The Guardian, he supposed. Many of the pages had been stuck together, or otherwise ruined by water, and it looked as though others had been cut out. But a scattering were saved, awkward portraits of ratings and officers, cows in a hold, and ports with a Mediterranean look to their hillsides. The last of this set was only an echo left behind in blues and whites and greens, bleeding through stuck pages in the vague outline of a mountain. Some of the end pages, those not cut out, contained the only clear pictures. People somewhat better wrought, but in pen alone, no color, heavily hatched to convey black skin. A wide stretch of beach with a wreck on it, viewed from a hill above. A cliffside fort with cannons, seen from the ocean.

The next books had not been immersed in the sea. Damaged only from rough use, most of the pages were intact and heavily marked with notes as well as drawings, with only a few cut out. The vast majority of the leafs were taken up with depictions of beaches and ports, from oceanside and often paired with a birds' eye version, showing depth of water and lines of sea wall. But amid, sometimes even in the margins of these navigational aids, were quick little sketches of shipboard life, better executed than those from the Guardian, but with a similar instinct for little tableaus and details of face and expression.

One in particular showed some actual talent. A full page, eye-catching portrait of a man Horatio thought for a moment was meant to be the earl. But it was only that the subject had piercing blue eyes, and strong handsome features that showed the same naval weathering. The man had a commanding bearing, staring directly and rather impatiently out of the page. Though no insignia of rank was visible—the man was sitting in shirt sleeves with a loosened stock—Horatio thought this must be an officer, and someone Kennedy had known well, to paint so precisely and with such intimacy. As with most of the drawings, it was unlabeled and undated, so Horatio eventually turned the page. Since he had not asked permission to view these books, and Archie rarely volunteered information about the past, the man's identity was yet another mystery he would likely never solve.

Once the progression of dockside figures in the landscapes had shifted from deep brown to lighter, and the clothing from the styles of Africa to India, Horatio found a sketch of a port that seemed familiar. Looking up at the wall, Hornblower realized it was the model for that larger, more carefully executed Indian harbor painting that hung there. The art grew scarce and slapdash after that. In the later pages, after a diagram he thought was meant to explain the transit of ships during a battle, were several leafs exploding with hurried scrawls, barely more than impressions of movement forced out onto the page. A crew loading a cannon; men boarding a ship, swords raised; a body slumped on a barrel, missing an arm at the shoulder; a ship in the distance, a mast lost and lowering its flags.

The final pages were somewhat sparse, and more of these pages were missing, some torn, not cut. In one sketch, crammed beneath a hurried chart of a chain of islands (he used the geography book to identify it as the Maldives), Horatio was surprised by a familiar face in a familiar scene. Men, clustered around a mess table, their features made sharp with shadows. And in the center, cradling a violin, was Clayton. Horatio studied what he could see of the other figures, but could not be sure he recognized any. Certainly they did not seem to be the other midshipmen from the Justinian. So Archie had served with their lost comrade before. It made the boy's callous indifference to or even urging of Clayton's death the more inexplicable. Why should Kennedy have so much resentment of the musician—who had always treated the sickly mid with more caring than any of the others—enough to trick or force the older man to fight that duel, to save him who the boy had known scarce above a month? Yet another puzzle. Doubtless he would not have enjoyed knowing the answer anyway.

Horatio closed the last journal with a sigh, and set them all aside, clearing the dishes from the desk as well before investigating the folder of loose artwork. These were as a collection far superior to most of the sketches in the journals. The subjects were rarely naval, though there were a few other ports of call, likely painted from rougher originals or memory. Kennedy seemed to favor the cacophony of activity as inspiration. A family portrait, half finished, was the most ambitious in the folder. The earl glared out, seeming displeased with the lack of paint. Some domestic scenes, playing with light or color were fine enough to hang, if it would not be strange to frame a painting of one's kitchen staff hard at work on a fancy meal. A man with John's eyes and Kennedy's nose in the red coat of an army officer was clearly Lord Kennedy, though the man was not quite so dashing in the flesh. And unsurprisingly, there was a charming, posed depiction of Anne, in the garden, wearing a summer frock and looking all sunlight and laughter.

Most of the rest were evidently from the theater. The medium changed with the subject matter, not watercolor but charcoal and pastels. Some were barely more than sketches, but evocative, the pigment laid down with vigorous, sure broad strokes. Others Kennedy had labored over, thick with color and detail. The topics were mostly the actors, but never on the stage. Archie preferred to capture them working on lines, applying makeup and costume, or drinking together in a pile of scenery. Some vignettes were more intimate, a woman tying another's corset, a prostitute with rouged nipples and open legs sprawled drunk on a couch, two figures kissing in the shadows. Horatio lingered over this one because he could not decide which was the man and which the woman, and whether either was Kennedy.

Many of the best were posed. Lovely girls and boys, old men and crabbed women, some actors, others seeming more their hangers on, each sitting for a portrait in a dressing room or bit of set. Looking at several together, Horatio realized that most of the people seemed happy. Laughing or at least smiling, proud or shy, but looking with pleasure at the artist. Kennedy made him feel that way, too, damn the boy. Despite that he might want to thrash his friend at times or shake those broad shoulders until all the secrets tumbled out, Horatio suspected that just the same foolish grin or eager focus could be found on his own face whenever Archie chose to shine light his way, or favor him with attention.

The last in the stack was the finest. Another portrait of a handsome man, beautiful even. With a wide mouth, partially obscured by the fingers resting against the man's lips. It reminded him of something, and then Horatio remembered the little sketch of himself, drawn into a letter, looking nothing like him really, all classical features and large dark eyes. For all that it seemed Kennedy was an avid artist, Horatio realized all at once that it was the only time on Justinian he had caught Archie at drawing beyond necessary scrawls for navigation. Perhaps it had not been himself prompting Kennedy's pen, but his passing resemblance to this man.

The subject was staring at the artist with evaluation, but there was humor too, one cheek just starting to dimple with a smile, and a brooding heavy weight in the carefully inked eyes that seemed to know things Horatio could only guess at. An actor, no doubt, both from the context of the other sketches and the suggestion here of a costume, and lines about the eyes that seemed more than just black lashes, adding to the intensity of the stare. There was a femininity to the fineness of feature, but the expression was all confidence and command, no shyness.

He could see the shadow of initial sketching in pastel or charcoal, but the portrait must have been taken away to finish from memory. The careful lines and delicate wash of ink grading from light into shadow could not have been done quickly. It was, of course, undated and unlabeled. Horatio wondered who the man had been, and what he had been—or was—to Kennedy. A friend, surely.

With a surge of melancholy for the boy who once painted with such care and admiration, Horatio put the whole folder of art away again in the drawer, stacking the sketchbooks back atop as well. Perhaps he would meet the actor at the theater Kennedy was so determined to get back to. The idea left him cold for reasons he didn't want to explore.

Horatio had no sooner closed the drawer full of memories when he heard movement in the hall, and then his door opened without warning. He jumped up guiltily as Kennedy strode in wearing an odd, almost angry expression. Worse, the boy veered around him directly to the wardrobe. He was just about to begin a stammering apology, when Archie, kneeling down, pulled open the other drawer instead, extracting the robe and tossing it toward him.

"Put that on Hornblower, and get out of your clothes." His friend's motions were still abrupt and impatient, but there was a tight smile aimed vaguely in his direction, so Horatio decided that whatever Archie was feeling, he was not the cause.

"Why am I undressing, Kennedy?" Out of habit he was already obeying the boy, of course, fingers undoing his buttons and stock.

"Archie." Apparently he was not working fast enough, for the boy came at him, hands raised. Horatio immediately abandoned the top of himself to Kennedy, and began on the more dangerous lower buttons.

"Archie?" He felt very thick, but still did not understand what was happening, and found it hard to gather his thoughts with his friend so close, fingers brushing his neck as the stock was worked free. It reminded him of cold nights on the ship.

"Archie." The boy said decidedly. "You promised to use my Christian name on my birthday. And I am dressing you for the party."

"What, now? Today is your birthday?" Horatio realized Kennedy hadn't actually said the day. He'd been under the impression the family party would be the following night.

"So my mother has always said. I was born at just after four o'clock in the afternoon. So I am eighteen now, and your senior." This wasn't meant exactly to be serious, despite the flat tone. Horatio could tell by the quirk of those expressive lips, just a few inches away.

The boy peeled away his waistcoat, his jacket already gone, and was touching him rather intimately, spanning his chest, waist, and hips with quick hands. "Kennedy!" He protested as the other brushed his breech placket, pressing there with widespread hands.

"Archie," the boy reminded him, spinning him about to continue the groping around the circumference of his body. The quick measurement was punctuated by a stinging little slap on the buttocks. "You have a plump arse, Hornblower, for such a beanpole otherwise. Finish getting out of those things and I'll be back."

"You can't just— But what am I— Kennedy, wait!" The infuriating lad ignored his protests, however, and went out the door with his jacket in hand, leaving Horatio feeling flushed, humiliated, and very aware of the lingering tingle in his seat.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Considering the amount of wine and port his friend had already consumed, another drink seemed entirely unnecessary, but Horatio found himself trailing into Archie's larger, warmer room anyway. The fire was boiling briskly, and candles were lit everywhere as well, rendering the room fluid with light and shadows. Archie had also changed for bed, and his bronze hair caught the flames, draped loose about the shoulders of a padded silk dressing gown.

Between the impish nose and cheeks flush from wine, and the sleepy smile being aimed in his direction, Horatio wasn't sure he'd ever seen Archie looking more like a cherub. His stomach fluttered nervously as warm hands pushed him down to rest on the wide soft bed, already cluttered with boxes and bags. He had no time to ask about them though, for Archie clambered up beside him to sit tailor style, cupping a cut crystal glass full of amber liquid. "So what do you think of the Kennedys, now that you've met them all?"

"They're very kind." He thought that was the safest thing to say. Truthfully they were more than a little overwhelming as a group, with their clash of accents and energetic manners. Not at all what he expected of the nobility, but alien to him nonetheless.

"We're all noisy beasts, except— except John and mother. And Kitty. She likes you very much. Mother does. I don't know about Kat. Anne too. I knew they would." Kennedy rambled. "But you aren't to even think about Anne, father would never allow it, and I would be desperately jealous." This befuddling warning was punctuated with a poke in the chest.

"I wouldn't dare, and she is too old for me, besides." Making a joke of it seemed best. His feelings for Miss Kennedy were warm and confused, but the thought of more than friendship had not crossed his mind, for several reasons.

His friend scowled at him over the rim of the glass. "Scarce over a year, that's nothing. You do fancy her, of course? Every man who's ever met my sister falls half in love im-mediately! And you've been here three days already."

Why should Archie be offended that Horatio hadn't conceived a passion for a sister he wasn't allowed to pay court to anyway? It seemed to be taking familial pride a bit too far. "She's lovely, Archie, and if I had a sister I would wish her just the same, only a little less pretty."

Horatio tried to smile, but Kennedy was looking at him narrowly, still affronted. "But my affections are already engaged." The stare continued, until Horatio blurted out what he was truly thinking. "By her brother."

Horatio could not have said what he expected the reaction to be to such a proclamation, but however Archie did not provide it.

The boy only looked away, expression changing to something weary, or even bleak. "You don't mean that," was the flat response.

Horatio knew not what had possessed him to actually say it. Still, his honor would not let him pretend it a falsehood. "I do. But I don't intend to speak of it again, forgive me."

Kennedy only shrugged, and looked down. Seeming to rediscover the glass, his friend took a quick drink, grimacing a little, and then another longer one. Horatio had seen the same expression on Clayton, nursing from that silver flask like a beloved enemy.

"You should stop. You're going to have a miserable headache in the morning as it is." Horatio put his hand out to take the temptation away, but Archie lurched aside, hunching over it protectively.

"I have highland blood in me, Scotch is like mother's milk to us. All it does is make— make me melancholy."

"We can't have that either. It is your birthday after all, you should be happy." His logic did not seem to convince his friend, who took another defiant swallow.

Horatio felt desperate with Kennedy in such a mood. It was too close to the black skulk of Justinian. He wanted the happy Archie from dinner back, full of light and puckish laughter.

Fretful at the hard liquor, which he had not seen Captain Kennedy offer to the younger men, Horatio at last spotted the source of the spirits. A bottle rested on the bedside table, green plaid ribbon tied into a loose bow about its neck. He was relieved to see that no more than was in Kennedy's glass could be missing.

Kennedy noticed his gaze. "It's from Arch. Brought it down with him, and smuggled it past father. Medicinal. Have no fear, I shall only tap this one." Archie pointed at it a little unsteadily, then leaned closer to 'whisper' confidentially. "There are two more in my sea chest, I'll not even broach until we're on the Indefatigable." The boy sat back up, looking smug. Horatio did not like to think about Archie consuming the entirety of even one bottle alone, or what ills he might be medicating, but it was not an argument to attempt.

Hornblower remembered then the other items strewn across the coverlet. Some still had bits of ribbon attached, or like the books he had chosen with Anne, were gifts he knew had been bought for the occasion. Thinking that they might make a good distraction, he picked one up. "Your family is quite generous, it is like New Year's and St. Nicholas's Day together."

"They are all worried. Worried it'll be the last they s-see of me. My last birthday." Archie laughed louder than the hour required. "Even Robert told me, he paid for a cask to be sent on to Portsmouth. And mother has insisted on new- new boots to go with the uniforms. Says my feet have grown too."

The other mid concentrated bleary eyes on what Horatio had in his hand. "That is from Maggie, dear thing." Horatio assumed Archie meant the sister, not the sister-in-law. It was a little sewing case, embroidered painstakingly with a K over blue waves. The inside had flaps of different fabric, each with several needles securely fastened, threaded already with sturdy strands of white, blue, and black. "The lads on the Indefatig-gatible will tease me, I suppose." The prospect didn't seem to alarm Kennedy.

"It's quite thoughtful. Is this from her as well?" A soft cotton bag held more needles, and spools of thread, as well as a few buttons, and patches that looked cut from uniform coat and britches.

"Mm? No, that's from Mary, my mother's maid." If there was something odd about servants giving gifts to their masters, you would not know it from Archie's manner. The boy took both and tossed them toward the foot of the bed with a carelessness that Horatio found shocking. He had not had such homey presents since his nurse had been dismissed when he turned eight.

Worried that Kennedy might begin flinging all the gifts off the bed, Horatio rescued an expensive looking wooden box, flat and latched, that when opened, revealed a lovely paint set. "Oh Archie! You shall be able to make a fine record of our adventures with this!" Even knowing himself to have no talent for it, Horatio found the contents alluring.

But Archie merely shrugged, unimpressed. "Kitty always buys me paints, I think it's all she remembers about me. 'Alex fancies he's an artist.'"

This seemed unfair; in Horatio's estimation, all the female members of the family seemed quite devoted to Kennedy. And it seemed a very fine kit, with many brushes and pots, a sharp knife for trimming, and a case of compartments to keep it all tidy even in rolling waves.

"As it happens, Si— my last set was ruined. Suppose I can use them." Archie leaned over to close the box, then took another quick gulp of amber liquid. "The journals— there are journals, I think, are from John."

Only Kennedy could find a sad tale to pair with a magnificent present. Horatio suppressed the urge to sigh and carefully set aside the supplies on a nearby table, though not before admiring the binding on the books and the quality of the paper. Returning to the bed, he plucked up something small, hoping it would be less provoking.

It was a little pasteboard box, decorated with a rose that had been cut from an advertisement. It was filled with small white objects the size of peas, with a sweet, floral scent. Unsure, he looked up at Kennedy, who put the Scotch down long enough to lean over and pluck up a couple. Archie popped one in, rolling it about the mouth, then came at Horatio with the other.

"Open, H'ratio." A touch unnerved at the sudden proximity, Horatio parted his lips obediently. He felt the pressure of fingers against them and then a taste of sugar and rosewater on his tongue.

"Confits," Archie explained, crunching down, and smiling, hardly pulled back at all, and watching Horatio intently to no obvious purpose. "To sweeten the breath."

The smell of anise, Scotch, and roses wafted to him. Horatio found he was blushing and could not say why. He did not ask who had given Archie the candy, and Kennedy did not offer.

To break the tension of that sapphire stare, Horatio plucked up the last gift he could see. It was a fat little canvas bag, with a faint chemical stink. It mixed oddly with the licorice flavor still in his mouth. Opening the top at Kennedy's nod of permission, he found it mysteriously full of blackened fabric, which had already smudged the interior of the sack.

"That is from Joey, one of the junior footmen." Archie smiled with a drunken fondness that made Horatio's heart squeeze in foolish jealousy. "When he was just the bootboy he taught me to shine my shoes. So I'd still look my best, you see. When there was no one to do it for me."

Horatio had never noticed Kennedy taking that much care with shoes or any other part of the uniform. Though to be fair, few had, on Justinian.

"He has the new boy save the rags that are too full of bootblack. Saves me time. Just grab and a quick rub." Kennedy mimed this clumsily. "It does for ordinary service. Can't be bothered with more." Archie took the bag from Horatio, and with a touch of pique, threw it over the shoulder in the direction of the brass-plated sea chest, missing, of course. "Suppose I will want to make a good impression on the Indy-fatigigable."

It was rather clever, Horatio had to admit, if a bit slapdash. "Your staff seems very attentive." He was quite aware that Kennedy had not shifted back, still close enough to feel perfumed breath on his neck.

"Oh, aye. We've had many of them since we first came to England. Mother hates disruption, and treats them all well, so they stay. As much family as any of us."

It was odd to think his friend and all the older siblings were actually colonials, as were both the earl and countess. Only Lady Anne had the American twang. Captain Kennedy had a touch of a Scottish burr and a great deal of what Horatio thought of as a navy dialect in the way the lord shaped words and bit them out, dropping unneeded letters. The children sounded as British as anyone, save that young Lord Kennedy had apparently embraced the brogue more completely, as would befit a future laird of Scotland. And Archie, of course, had a slippery accent that shifted up and down the social classes more than back and forth across the ocean.

Hornblower thought about that phrase, 'hates disruption' and all it must entail. To have been forced to flee your homeland because of war, and defeat. "Do you miss America?"

"Phht." Archie waved a hand dismissively. "Was scarcely five, don't 'member much." Kennedy seemed indifferent to the question, stooping over to grab the crystal glass again, but then forgetting it to paw around the bed and Horatio's person as if searching for something.

"Where is your token of af-fection, H'ratio? Have I misplaced a gift?"

The unexpected question, even said in a tipsy, whimsical fashion, shamed Hornblower instantly. He didn't want to say that he had been too poor to get Archie anything, especially when the boy had spared him the expense of the coach. But he had been so worried about his finances. It seemed mean and stingy now, with his whist winnings in his pocket, and even the servants managing to bring Kennedy a present. "I... I'm sorry, Archie. I... didn't know what to get you." Better to seem thoughtless than poor.

"Hmm." The sound trilled near his ear. "You are damned rotten at understanding just what I might want. Odd you know. Usually quite observant." The hoarse near whisper deepened, "Given your earlier dec-laration, an ap-propriate offering just occurrrrred to me. I shall provide a hint, H'ratio." The drunken boy closed eyes and pursed lips, inches away.

Horatio truly did not understand at first. By the time he was analyzing and discarding the idea that Archie wanted to be kissed, he had exhausted Archie's patience.

With a little growl his friend snatched his nightshirt to pull him close. Then that pink, wet, alcoholic mouth was on his, insistent, opening him. Horatio felt the breath draw out of him in a fit of vertigo. He thought he would fall over before he was released, every nerve in his body tingling, and completely confused about what had just happened.

"Kennedy!" His friend had sat back with the most cat-like expression, all slit-eyed and sly, with him the mouse. Horatio could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears.

"Archie. You promised to call me Archie on my birthday." Kennedy was leaning in again, dangerous, flushed.

"Archie, I don't think..."

"Don't think." Archie tipped the cut crystal against his lips. Relieved it was only the glass, and fixed by that intense blue gaze, Horatio took an obedient mouthful.

No sooner had the liquid started to burn, though, than Kennedy was on him again. Archie's tongue, hot and probing, forced its way in to taste the Scotch. Stricken, Horatio swallowed the liquor down, felt the fumes hit the back of his throat even as a conflagration started in his belly. He began to cough, his eyes watering, and Archie ceased the assault on his mouth, trailing lips down to run moist along his jaw, sucking gently.

Horatio felt as if he'd been lit on fire. Burning lungs combined with the scorching path Archie was carving on his skin. He could make no sense of this amorous attack, only that he was inadequately prepared to be sieged. He meant to pull away, intended to push Archie away, but his muscles would not obey him, and the whiskey was still stealing his breath. That was why Horatio did not say 'stop'.

"Did you know you are as pretty as a girl, H'ratio?" Kennedy whispered against his ear, "With these sweet... brown... curls…." Fingers twisted into his loosened tail, and tightened, pulling his neck taut and making him gasp and close his eyes at the rush of conflicting feelings—heat and dread, embarrassment, and a thrill that shot down to his cock to hear his friend's murmured admiration.

"Big brown eyes…." Lips fluttered against his lashes, followed by Kennedy's tongue, laving along his closed lids in a way that should have been ticklish at best, but instead felt indescribably intimate.

"Soft, plump, little mouth." Kennedy set teeth into his lower lip, pricking and suckling and plunging until Horatio was but a single violin string of longing, quivering and singing with the unimagined sensations drawing up and down the length of him.

He could not feel his hands—nor much of anything besides his balls and his tongue—yet somehow they were tangled and grasping in Archie's robe. Under his palm was warm, sweaty flesh, the rapid beat of Kennedy's heart, and the hard little nub of the boy's nipple attracting his fingertips.

Archie growled, low and menacing, and broke away to catch Horatio's wrist, twisting it round and behind his back with a fierceness that made Horatio cry out from the shock of pain. In moments his other wrist was caught too, both torqued behind him to be held together in just one of Kennedy's hands. The other returned to his hair to take Horatio hostage to further exploration.

Perhaps Horatio could have broken free from this drunken confinement, but he did not try. He let himself be dragged into Kennedy's lap, head held against soft silk and hard shoulder to be ravaged by a clever, hungry maw. The other boy fed at his mouth with deep quiet groans, stopping only to gasp a few breaths into his hair then resume again.

Horatio had no idea what he was meant to do, but his body understood at least how to arch and writhe and pant under the predations of his erstwhile friend. His tongue fenced and his lips tingled, seeking sensation. He was almost mindless of the occasional clash of teeth or clumsy misalignment of noses.

Some eternity later, the other's grip left his hair and hands and found the glass. While he wheezed like a hooked carp, Kennedy gulped and sloshed them both with spirits, then returned to give Horatio his share of whiskey warmed and cut with spit and tongue and blood—though whose was an unimportant mystery.

Hornblower coughed, breathing alcohol and Archie. They were equally treacherous, but it was the noises from his partner that were intoxicating.

Horatio closed lips around that probing tongue, sucking on that devilish damp flesh and felt a thrill like a cannon going off when Kennedy melted and moaned, rolling atop him to press them both deep into the bed. Horatio thought he would be unmanned without even touching the part of him thrusting against his night clothes like an iron rod. Or else he might die, drowned in Scotch and Kennedy, regretting nothing.

A clock in the hall struck one, and like a spell in a storybook, broke the magic into pieces.

Archie yanked tongue back and clutched Horatio's shoulders, pushing him into the bed to keep him from pursuing. "Christ, Christ's blood."

Their breath combined for another beat before Kennedy knelt back, shaking golden brown hair like a wet dog. "Bugger. I shouldn't have done this. Christ!"

There were pregnant eons in which Horatio felt warm breath tangling with his, stinking of drink and anise. The heavy weight of the other boy had slipped down between his legs. Below, in the hot center of his world, an answering hardness ground against his groin, separated only by the thin linen of his nightshirt.

"Sod it!" The other boy dove down to kiss Horatio again, angrily, growling against his mouth. "Damn you, Hornblower." It was as much teeth as lips, then gone again, "You shouldn't have let me do it. Pervert."

Words clipped out like blows, as those strong hands clenched tight enough to bruise even through Horatio's clothes. "Fuck!" Another violent clash of teeth and tongue, and then Kennedy was sitting up, shoving a bewildered Horatio to the edge of the bed.

"Off with you now, Hornblower. I've one more present tonight, even if I did have to buy—buy it myself. And you won't be wanted for it."

The words made no immediate sense, and Horatio just sat there, aching and overwhelmed with a crazy quilt of impressions: the thudding of his heart—one bedside candle burning too hot and flooding wax down the stick—congestion stuffing his head and threatening to make his nose drip—the tip of Archie's cock purpled and jutting from patterned silk—

"Out!" Kennedy ordered, fracturing him further with a furious whisper, pointing at the room adjacent. "She won't like an audience."

She who? Horatio was standing now, without registering how. He looked down as the other boy, so lately soft and wanton and drunk on him, glared up with disgust.

"Sod it all, Hornblower, do you want to be caught?"

He did not, whatever that might mean, because Archie did not want it. Did not want him, never mind the nonsense of curls and lips and his own wanting, all suddenly meaningless. Pervert. Perversion.

Somehow he spanned the few steps to his adjoining room. Kennedy's words echoing in his head even as his back slid down the closed door and Horatio felt the rattle as he was locked out.

Chapter Text

When Horatio was ten, avid for the approval of the village boys—strange bewitching creatures too rough and cruel for comfort—he had taken a dare and used a fence and a carrot to climb atop the stallion of a local gentleman. For a wondrous minute he had clung to the wide back, before being shed as a petty inconvenience, to lay gasping and foolish in the mud. The horse had been chestnut too, and lovely, but kinder at least, tossing him from indifference not spite. 

Horatio did not know how long he lay against the door, limbs useless, touching lips that felt puffed and swollen, not comprehending what had happened. He sniffled. His nose was running. He was crying, and that seemed only sensible. What else was he to do? He could not go back in there and hit the boy, did he even want to. Could not go in and demand an explanation for the kisses, and then the loss of them, either. Not now. If there even was any reason, and not just Kennedy being a drunken goat, tired of waiting for his "present" to arrive.

He could hear the girl talking with Archie now. Not the full shape of their words, just murmurs in high and low tones, giggling and hushed. I have friends, Kennedy had said. Friends who kiss me. 

It was worse when they went quiet, leaving only the impression of movement shivering up from the floor Horatio was sitting on. The silence left Horatio only his imagination to decide what was happening. How the woman was keeping his friend’s mouth too occupied for laughter and chatter. 

There was a soft thump, bedding, pillows, clothes? And then a crash that almost made him leap up, accompanied by the spill of tiny objects falling and rolling across the floor. The confits his mind decided, thinking of sturdy, scar-knuckled fingers pressing them against red, bowed lips, to sweeten their ardor. Of those hands, usually so sure, fumbling and dropping the box in his eagerness for another's kisses. Archie had not trembled so for him.

The accident spurred cursing, and more giggles, the faint clatter of candies being collected and dropped back into their box. “Open,” he heard distinctly after a few moments, from just the other side of the door, with no reply. The girl’s response must have been as acceptable as his own to the same command, because Kennedy said nothing more. No, their lips and tongues were elsewise occupied. 

Surely Horatio should not be able to hear so clearly their moaning and gasping. Those must be phantasms conjured by sick envy. Just remembrance of sounds he knew too recently, and too well. But then there was a great thud against his back, and the noise of passion was abruptly more immediate and unmistakable. As the door began to shudder in rhythmic time, Horatio realized what was happening on the other side. Archie had put his liaison up against the barrier, and was thrusting into her now in a way the girl apparently found quite pleasing, judging from the growl that resonated through the wood

Disgusted, Horatio gathered himself to stand, but realized he was trapped. He could not even move away from the door. Without his counterbalancing weight against it, the surface between them might rattle more forcefully under the girl, pressed there through Kennedy’s exertions. That would betray that he had been on the other side, listening to their fornication. No, he must stay, and feel every thrust, pounding against his back, quivering with their lust. Had to listen for endless minutes, reliving the whore in the hold. Wondering when Kennedy would find relief, and whether his friend even could.

God, why could the man not ever use a blasted bed for his rutting?  

An eternity later his ears were assaulted with something he knew from the ratings and their wives—the sound of female pleasure, though to him it had all the melody of a strangled cat. How it was done Horatio still did not understand, it was not common to all such encounters, and he had almost always averted his eyes from modesty and decorum. He knew only that the peaks of women and the spends of men were different. But Kennedy was managing it, or his partner intended him to think so. 

The thudding against the door intensified—no louder, but harder, more violent—vibrating through his body until Horatio couldn't help picturing himself as its object. Exactly where and how body parts might collide was an even greater mystery between two men, than with normal relations. His mind threw up a hazy idea of bodies pressed close together, arms and legs entwined, Archie's alcoholic breath gusting past his ear, and that strong chest pressed against his own narrow back, as thick, warm cock slid against his arse, perhaps seeking the damned "rosebud" of Sade's description. The idea was strange and nauseating and enticing all at once. Would he groan and beg and open for his shipmate? 

Or would Horatio be taken as a woman would, suspended in Kennedy's effortless grasp? He conceived an image of himself, curled up like a spider, helpless and pinned by the shorter man. All dangling limbs, uncertain, awkward, ridiculous compared to the compact beauty of his lover. His member pressed between them, unnecessary and forgotten in the thrust of the other's desires, the invading phallus giving him sensations he could not yet imagine. 

Horatio tried then to fist himself, hand deep in his smalls, even seeking with nervous fingers that nether opening. But he was soft and wanting together. It did nothing but chafe and make him feel filthy, clutching his own balls and imagining what his friend must be doing to the girl and what might be done to him instead. Perverted jealousy consumed him at her having what he should never have desired, yet did, desperately, even now, in confounded odinism.

With the savage groans of selfish lust taunting his aching prick, Horatio tormented himself with impossible questions. Did that special friend—Betsy or some other of the many sweet-faced servants—relish Archie's passion or find it as frightening as he did? Were they practiced and eager, or only relenting to their young lord? And was it always better, to do it as God intended? Surely it must be. Was that why Kennedy had only kissed him, then set him aside?  

“Oh Christ, oh sod it… Fuck, God yes… I'm so bloody close….” The same blasphemous imprecations that had been muttered against his mouth, not half an hour past, were what finally roused Horatio from painful ruminations. Whatever they might have desperately shared in a hold or a carriage or a dark bed, he was nothing truly special to his would-be friend. He was not more than that slattern being rammed against the door. They were both there only for Archie's amusement, distraction, or desires. To be kissed or kicked as the moment demanded. And Horatio was done. Finished with trying to understand—himself or Archie. Molly he might be, but there was no reason to torture himself with it, or let that blasted imp taunt him either. 

"Oh God. Christ. Almost there… Fuck! Bloody hell. Give me that cunt… fuck yes. Yes!" Grunts of satisfaction and the squeak of both woman and door hinges announced Kennedy's climax. Should he feel envy? Loss? Was his neglected cock limp from despair or disgust? It didn't matter. 

The only question Horatio needed an answer to was how to extricate himself, quickly, from this house, and from Kennedy's influence, Kennedy's presence. He had fallen in with bad company. Just as his father had always warned him against, when Horatio had mourned his inability to make friends in the village, or at school. Better an honest solitude than to join a crowd in damnation. 

He'd been to hell. Now Horatio must claw his way out again. Without angering the earl, who could end his career as easily as the lord had kept his son's alive. It would take planning.

Long after the pressure of bodies had ceased, Horatio sat there on the floor. He was only vaguely aware of low chuckles and giggles in the aftermath, the clink of metal that could be coin or buckles. He couldn't say how long until the room beyond was silent and his body reminded him that it was winter and he was far from the grate or the covers of his bed. Rising slowly, attempting to be quiet as a cat and hopefully managing it, Horatio found a fresh taper, and lighting it, took a blanket and his misery to sit in front of the dying fire.

As presentable as he could make himself, Hornblower ventured down to the dining room. He had calculated the timing by listening to the faint pattering of footsteps and doors that echoed even in this large, solidly built house. As he entered, Horatio found, as he’d hoped, the countess just being poured some tea, her eldest daughter, and daughter-in-law her only company besides young David, up and allowed to dine below, perhaps because of the fat baby being held contentedly in a grandmother’s arms. It was a cozy, domestic scene, which gave him an odd pain, but made the next few minutes easier. He did not belong here.

Lady Anne, of course, was very kind. “You are up early, Mr. Hornblower. Keeping sailor’s hours still? Help yourself to a plate and join us.” He did as she bid, though this morning even the anticipated sausages and mounds of fluffy yellow egg, fried mushrooms, and black pudding could not lift his spirits. However, he was not quite lost enough in misery that he could not enjoy the addition of stewed tomatoes, or investigate a curious hot sweet jam, made of figs he thought, and he piled his plate with toast as well. It would be a long day’s journey, after all, and inn food was dear.

The countess eyed the bounty he brought to the table—with pleasure he thought—and let Horatio make a beginning before troubling him with conversation. Only when a servant came to his elbow with a cup of coffee did she indulge in the general courtesies of asking after sleep and comfort. “And do you and my son have plans for the day? He had mentioned the British Museum.”

Horatio felt only a brief pang. He would dearly love to see that grand institution, but even the mention of Archie made the eggs churn in his stomach, and he must not waver in his plan. “No, my lady, in fact I am determined to begin my journey home as soon as I can find the location of the nearest coach stop.”

He concentrated on his breakfast to avoid any reaction to his statement. She must have been surprised for it took her a few seconds to reply. “I am sorry to hear that, Mr. Hornblower. I hope nothing is the matter? My husband has not cornered you for any further inquisitions? You mustn’t mind him, he thinks it good for young officers to be always on guard and ready for action, and he’s been quite impressed by you.”

This unlikely declaration startled him for a moment into looking up. At her clear concern, he remembered to reassure her, and found an honest smile. Some parts of his brief stay, after all, had been worth treasuring. “Not at all, my lady. I have been very comfortable here.” Horatio had practiced what he would say the length of the sleepless night, and after a few mouthfuls to gather his thoughts, found he was able to deliver the speech to the countess without a stutter, though he could not meet those kind brown eyes. 

“It is only that, surrounded by all of you, last night, I realized, your Ladyship, how much I miss my own family, and how little I wish to steal Mr. Kennedy from any precious time he can spend with his. If I leave promptly this morning, I might make it to Kent by coach tomorrow. I would not be delayed by the Sabbath, but instead be able to spend it with my father.” The distance from London to their village in Kent was not much above that to Portsmouth. But by stage it would take nearly twice as long, and require overnighting in Chatham or Gillingham.

The two younger ladies made much of his sentiment, exclaiming at his considerate and tender feelings in a way that made Horatio feel quite the fraud. The countess examined him more thoughtfully, but did not press him further. “The George Inn will have coaches leaving almost hourly for the southeast. I’ll have the carriage take you and your sea chest over the river by London Bridge, when you are ready to leave.”

Horatio was hugely relieved to have the matter settled without argument, replying eagerly, “I have prepared my things already—” At the lady’s raised eyebrow he added hastily, “Sailor’s hours, as you mentioned.”

“You don’t wish to wait until Archie is up? He will be sad to find you gone, I’m sure.” Those amber eyes were a bit too keen, and the brown-eyed child in her lap also stared at him, adding to Horatio’s discomfort.

“I- I mentioned I might leave earlier than expected,” Horatio lied. “He knows that I did not intend to stay more than the night originally, save your Ladyship’s kindness.” There, that sounded better. “And I believe he had a late night, from which he will be slow to awaken.”

“That does not surprise me, he and Robert were still shouting at one another over cards when I retired.” She laughed and shook her head. “Well, as you wish, Mr. Hornblower, I do understand the desire for home, and I am sure your father misses you terribly. But you must not rush over your breakfast, it will give you indigestion.” With this motherly admonition dispensed, the countess called over the butler standing nearby, and gave an assortment of quiet instructions, looking over at Horatio with a continued attention that made him nervous.

The other madam Kennedy’s were quite kind, however, and asked him only easy questions of his village and countryside, and talked among themselves of trips to Canterbury and other gentle topics until he was able to finish his meal just as their husbands were coming down to eat. Making his excuses, Horatio quickly went back up to the bedroom to retrieve his coat and double-check that nothing had been left behind. 

There was no sound from Kennedy’s room but an oddly infuriating snore. Horatio thought for some moments that he would leave a letter, and tried to compose one. But he was as unable to decide how to say all the things he felt in the morning light as he had been in the pre-dawn gloom. In the end, he put the cap back on the ink bottle, and just touched the velvet drapes, the row of books, the peacock wallpaper, and the little portrait of a sweet, innocent, boy he wished he could have known, before he took himself out and closed the door.

From there the countess made it very easy for him to take his leave, meeting him in the hall to assure him that his chest was being secured at the moment, and thanking him for his visit. The other breakfasting Kennedys came out to give polite farewells, but did not linger. Horatio was pathetically grateful that the earl was not yet about, though he was careful to give his compliments for the countess to convey.

"We both hope your father can return you to London in enough time to see more of the city. It is such a comfort to us all to see that Alexander has such a good, steady, friend, to join him in his next adventure. Someone who understands him. He's a very sensitive boy. He gives his heart easily, and it breaks easily too. That, as much as his… illness, makes Navy life a challenge. I don't think he's been appreciated. I hope it will be different on the Indefatigable. I hope you'll help him."

Horatio was sure there were double and triple meanings to all the countess said, but he was unable to decipher them. "I am sure I shall be the one in need of help, but it's very kind of your ladyship to have such faith in me."

Anne was marginally more direct. She must have come down and heard the news while he was above, for she came running up just then to press a small basket on him, and exclaim how sorry she was to be losing her walking companion, and that he must come back in plenty of time to go shopping again. There was chattering about park walks and chocolate houses, but then leaning in at the last she whispered fiercely, "Whatever he has done, I shall make him apologize, Mr. Hornblower."

Not even certain which man Anne had in mind, he could only mumble his thanks, burning with shame for he had no intention of returning. Yet finally the outer door was opening and he was able to make it outside without guilt-inducing sentiments from any other Kennedy. As he looked up one last time at the grand house, he thought there was someone at a window on the second floor. Not stopping to decide who it was, Horatio stepped up quickly, and soon the carriage was on its way.

The trip through the City was long enough to begin to fret, but with the weather much improved, Hornblower attempted to distract himself with looking out the window, at the crowded streets and many monuments. Crossing Black Friar's Bridge he finally remembered the basket Anne had pressed on him. Investigating its contents almost brought him to tears, for tucked inside was a lovely nuncheon of breads, sausage, cheese, and hard boiled eggs. A little jar of the blackberry jam he had particularly enjoyed was there as well. It was this that overset him, even more than the book, wrapped in a clean cloth for safety with a hastily scrawled note that read "We must discuss this when you return."

The thin tome, Spensonia, A Marine Republic, was one Anne had mentioned the first night. An interesting speculative work of governance and utopianism that Horatio had not read, but made promises to peruse at his next opportunity. The jam, if it were not an accident, was a detail she could have only known by watching him. Horatio was not used to being paid such close attention. He realized he already missed the unusual experience of being seen.

The marked generosity, which he could not explain, continued when they reached the coaching inn. He alighted, only to discover that his fare to Canterbury had already been paid by the driver, and he had nothing to answer for but his board that night, and the dog cart to get his sea chest home to Seasalter.

He felt a fraud all over again, to be treated so well by Kennedy's family, when he had been such a poor friend. And moreover one who lusted in depravity for the lad. What would the Lady and Miss Anne think, if they knew how he contributed to Archie's troubles on Justinian? Or how he had kissed the boy like a lover and wished to lay with Archie besides?

If only he had listened to his first impulse, and refused the offer from Kennedy to begin with, he would have spared himself the knowledge that the boy was liable to lead him into ruin. Even with the barrier of his affection’s immorality, even after the disaster of their brief embrace in the hold and the duel he'd provoked in its aftermath, even with the strange thoughts and desires the boy induced in him, still, Horatio might have convinced himself that their earliest friendship could be re-found. Now, that slim hope was extinguished. If nothing would untwist him, Horatio must resolve to put Kennedy forever aside. Before he arrived on Indefatigable, he must find a way to cool his blood and harden his heart. Horatio could not survive another night like the one before.

Just thinking on it made the jostle of the carriage into an endless sea, making him dizzy and sweated, managing to keep his breakfast only through extreme concentration. He spent the whole of that long miserable journey home in agony, too sick and ill to read or eat, or make conversation with the other passengers. Horatio was only able to hide his face in his arms and pretend to sleep.

Chapter Text

Horatio was greeted with mild concern and benign indifference by his father. Once reassured that his son had not returned so soon after leaving because of any fault, Doctor Hornblower gave the order to his housekeeper to increase her weekly budget for meat, clapped his son briefly on the shoulder, and retired to his study.

Of Horatio's life on the Justinian, his father was steadfastly incurious. At those dinners which the doctor was home to attend, a question might be asked and the answer considered, but rarely did these exchanges lead to any true conversation. His father might query into their accustomed silence (too much talking had always been deemed bad for the digestion at the Hornblower table) about his former captain's health, or how the midshipman had found the officers instructing him in naval matters, or where his ship had gone during his absence. Horatio would endeavor to share as concisely as possible anything of interest he could safely tell his father. Then Dr. Hornblower generally let the matter drop again with a nod, and a change of topic.

Even that last question, which had the inglorious answer of "back and forth across the harbor only a handful of times, and to nowhere else", elicited no additional comment. If the doctor found the Justinian's lack of sailing unusual or surprising for a military vessel as Horatio had, the doctor didn't say so, merely switched to discussing what weather was expected in Seasalter over the next few days.

The repetition of the subject was Horatio's only hint that his father had thought of him while he was gone, or would think—and worry—about him after he returned to the sea. But it was just as well that Doctor Hornblower did not probe too deeply. There was too much Horatio did not want to admit to: the horrors of the lash, the degeneracy of the officers, and even worse, the corruption he'd discovered in his own heart.

Despite himself, Horatio found Kennedy's name appearing too easily even in his brief answers. The mad imp had wrapped himself too tightly into all his time aboard the Justinian. There was scarcely a topic from mathematics to shipboard food that did not bring his former friend to mind. But when one evening over pudding Doctor Hornblower's accustomed singular question was regarding "the background of Midshipman Kennedy, whom you so frequently mention", Horatio realized how thoroughly he had been unable to keep his preoccupation from his lips.

"Mr. Kennedy? Ah… his family is American and Scottish." Horatio thought rapidly of what he must and must not say. "His father was active during the rebellion, a naval captain, and has lately inherited an earldom in Scotland."

"An earldom?" His father looked up and even set down his fork at that. "Your shipmate is a younger son, I take it?"

"Yes, sir." Horatio admitted. "The fourth son. He has been at sea some years."

Doctor Hornblower snorted and resumed his meal. "With a captain for a father, I don't doubt it. Sent off as a volunteer by the time he was ten, no doubt, and no schooling."

"I'm not certain," Horatio knew how his father prized education. His own refusal to apply to Oxford or Cambridge was a constant source of disappointment for the doctor, and a subject Horatio tried to avoid when he was home. "He knows a great deal of seamanship, but I have his advantage in mathematics," he said carefully.

"The best officers I served with all had a good head for figures, or kept a man close who did," said the doctor with a touch of pride, and then his mouth was full again, and the naval conversation ended for the evening.

A letter came, from Kennedy, a week after his arrival. And a few days later, a second, and a week past that, a third. Horatio could not discipline himself enough to burn them. But he did not allow himself to read the short missives, the first two merely one sheet written on both sides and folded, and the third thick enough to allow for a second page hidden within. As soon as they arrived, well almost, he dropped them unopened into the tiny gap between the walls of his sea chest and its contents. He would have to unearth all his bedding, books and uniforms to reach them; an effective way to avoid the temptation to open them.

Horatio could not prevent the papers from occasionally plaguing his thoughts.

There was a ball, one night. Twenty families of consequence from the few miles around, invited to dance and drink mulled cider. The doctor’s Navy son was included of course, and to his father's surprise (and mild alarm) Horatio made up his mind to attend. Before he left for Portsmouth, he hadn't felt the need to participate much in society. His career had been ahead of him, more worthy of his time and attention. Back on land, though, the distraction was suddenly appealing. Beyond the continued puzzle of his inclinations, which might be relieved in female company, Horatio was lonely.

As little as he’d enjoyed the crowded confines of the ship, even aside from Simpson’s poisonous presence, still, he had begun to find comfort in the constant sensation of life. The conversations he overheard, the arguments observed, and sea wisdom imparted by the hundreds of sailors and marines, had been interesting at least, however they jangled his nerves.

Alone in the country, where he had no friends, and his father almost no need of society, it had been more than dull. The silence was oppressive, and gave room to every dark thought about his vocation, his competency, his body, morals, and prospects. He had read every naval book in his possession thrice, and made the hike to Whitsable library for more. In an effort to focus his mind he worked countless navigational calculations, and committed to memory Howe’s Code as well. He'd even spent some time each morning engaged in a course of calisthenics he'd discovered in the library.

Yet with every day spent consumed by the sea, he felt its distance more. Even the threat of having to dance a figure with strange ladies was not enough to keep him home for one more silent night before the fire, being ignored by his father.

It wasn't his first ball. He had attended two others during breaks from school, both at Christmastime. They had been loud, crowded affairs full of drinking and games, and it had not been hard to blend into the crowd of young people and avoid attention. Both times he had managed to avoid being cornered into dancing more than the one obligatory turn with whichever of the host's daughters was appropriate to his age and standing (very little, so he was generally relegated to the second or third daughter at best). His refuge had been the card room.

This time, between the curse of his lanky height and the sober presence of his naval uniform, Horatio was the subject of considerable evaluation by the mothers and daughters of local society. After catching him at the punch bowl, the eldest daughter of their host, Miss Whitaker, had been possessed with the need to become his friend. A merry and boisterous girl of twenty-two, her attention wasn't displeasing, and she'd kept him from disappearing to the whist table with a flood of questions. She was eager to hear about his time at sea, the marvels of Portsmouth and London, and any other topic Horatio was willing to discuss.

If they had been able to stick to conversation, the evening might have gone quite well. There was a forthrightness to her manner that Horatio found comforting. She did not require him to guess at her expectations or wonder at her feelings. Between that and the appealing curl to her light chestnut hair, there was some resemblance to Miss Kennedy, though that kind and happy soul had more refinement to her vivaciousness. Alas, the situation stumbled when Miss Whitaker fixated on his dancing with her, and would not take a gentle demurral.

"You have forgotten to ask me to dance Mr. Hornblower. Do you not hear the music starting?" she rebuked with a wide smile, after Horatio had managed to turn queries about naval life into several minutes of discussion on the subject of popular books instead. Horatio had found himself able to contribute, despite his more academic tastes, because of the frequency of the topic in the Kennedy household in the few days he'd spent with them. And his long visit to the booksellers, of course.

This question caught him off guard, because Horatio had done his obligatory awkward turn around the room with her next youngest sister, Miss Harriet Whitaker, when he first arrived, and he had thought himself safe. If for no other reason than that he had done a bad job of it, out of time and avoiding stepping on his partner's toes only through her quick-footedness.

"Your forgiveness, Miss Whitaker, but I am not much of a dancer. But do not let me keep you from a partner…" He now noticed the strains of a lively cotillion starting, or was it a Scottish reel? Both were more vigorous than the country line dance he'd endured earlier, and Horatio had no intentions of embarrassing himself further. He could never keep the complicated figures in his head, however easily he recalled the mathematical ones.

"A naval officer who doesn't dance?" The young lady gently swatted at his arm with her fan. "I call that dereliction of duty at a ball."

"That is rather harsh, Maggie. Perhaps he has an injury," said a round-faced girl nearby whose name Horatio could not recall. At some point a cluster of young ladies had crept close, and Horatio suddenly realized he was surrounded. A few he recalled from the receiving line were other daughters of the house. The rest must be friends, but there were altogether too many of them. More girls than he had spoken to together in his life.

"The war has not yet begun, Miss Fenton. Pray tell, how would Mr. Hornblower have acquired an injury?" This was a sharp-eyed girl whose dress had too many ruffles at the bosom and her nose too many spots. "He looks quite well to me."

"I am uninjured," Horatio said defensively. "It is just that I have not much facility with the exercise. I would not want to cause any of you an injury." He tried to smile, but feared he looked smug. He had been told he often did even before Simpson had christened him 'Snotty'.

"Well, then you must dance with one of us, sir. For practice. We can teach you the steps…" entreated Miss Whitaker again.

"Yes, any of us would be delighted to let you trod on our toes!" said Spot-Nose. "It's the least we can do for a hero making the ultimate sacrifice for our country."

Horatio couldn't tell if the young ladies were serious or mocking him now. He hoped it was the latter, because he did not want to think the eagerness to dance with him was only because he was soon to die. "That's very kind of you, but—"

"Dance! Dance! Dance!" chimed in the youngest daughter of the house, who could not be fourteen and had no business at the ball, except that the neighborhood was rather short of men, and she had no fear of making a partner with her sisters.

The demanding tone provoked Horatio beyond reason. "I will not," he said flatly, drawing himself up to his full stiff height. "And I must beg your pardon…" Even as he talked, Horatio was in motion, not fearing to jostle a plump girl standing between him and the closest door, which happened to open out onto the patio looking over the garden at winter rest. The brisk March evening had chased away other lingerers, and the solitude soothed his temper as much as the cool air. Unfortunately, the quiet also let the voices of the chattering girls carry to him.

"Now he really won't dance with anyone!"

"You ruined everything Mariah!"

"He's too tall and gangly anyway."

"I like his curls."

"He's going to hear you!"

"It doesn't matter. We'll probably never see him again."

"Why not? His father is Doctor Hornblower—"

"I know, Harriet, but I heard he's been posted to a frigate. He's not likely to survive the war."

"That's so sad..."

"Well, he'll die or he'll get rich. An even chance." That girl sounded coldly philosophical about his prospects.

"I'll take those odds. I'd let him ruin every pair of shoes I own if he'd marry me before he goes."

"You're a scandal, Betsy. And desperate. But if he won't even dance, he probably doesn't want a wife either."

"I would have lots of time to read all those books he was talking about, while he was away at sea—"

"You won't even read your bible. Come on, I'll dance with you…."

Unable to face re-entering the room, even to bid good night to his hosts, Horatio set off across the grounds. He had plenty of time to regret accepting the ball invitation on his long cold walk home.

Chapter Text

Horatio was alone in the house, late one afternoon, some weeks after his arrival, when he heard a firm and rapid knocking on the door. It irritated him, because while it might seem otherwise, the solitude of an entirely empty house was more restful than when his father or the servants were home, but he was alone in his room. Moreover, Horatio was not looking forward to telling some anxious visitor that his father was away, and dealing with the upset emotions of whoever had been sent to fetch the doctor.

Still duty forced him to quickly stand and set aside his book, and descend the stairs to fling open the front door. But what he found on his doorstep was not a harried manservant or a distressed daughter, but Mr. Midshipman Alexander Archibald Kennedy, in the flesh.

The month at home had been good to Kennedy, face restored to moon round fullness, and the clothes—a civilian suit of deep brown, with an embroidered cream waistcoat—fit snugly enough that Horatio almost forgot all the reasons to be furious and wary of the elegant imp. It was only the arrogance of the bright, cheerful smile Kennedy aimed at him, all teeth, that kept Horatio's head level.

Well, almost level. “Wh-why are you— how are you here?” he spluttered.

“By coach, of course, Hornblower,” his former friend replied, as if the Kennedy home was just up the lane, and his presence therefore entirely unremarkable.

Horatio couldn’t help looking over Kennedy’s shoulder at the empty lane.

“I left the carriage at the inn,” the boy added.

Horatio felt quite foolishly slow. “Inn?”

“Aye, Up that hill there," Kennedy explained patiently, gesturing vaguely over one shoulder.

"Oh, Clapham,” Horatio said stupidly. He should have thought of it, but his father did not approve of taverns and rarely had guests. So though it was just above a mile off, on the main road to Whitsable, Horatio had seldom visited it.

The other boy waited for him to say more, but when Horatio just stared, Kennedy gestured again, more broadly, in the direction of town and dashed on blithely. "Jolly little village you live in, Mr. Hornblower, very pretty views of the sea. Just a bit ripe, though.” Kennedy gave a broad grin at this slight.

It was true that the salt marsh which began just the other side of the lane did have a distinct scent. He had groaned about it every summer of his youth. But it was only the first days of spring now, so the smell was little worse than any other stretch of seaside. And Kennedy had no business turning up looking so jovial. It was more than the pretense that nothing had happened between them. However they might behave in London, in Kent it was unforgivably rude to show up unannounced, just before supper. At least the infuriating boy did not expect to be put up as well.

“What brings you to Seasalter, Mr. Kennedy?” Horatio took refuge in exactingly correct formality. “Surely there are physicians enough in London, and as it happens, my father has been called away to the town.”

Seeing that Horatio wasn’t going to immediately invite him in had at least some quelling effect. Kennedy's smile lost its brightness, and he hesitated, deciding perhaps, on tactics. “You brought me, of course, Hornblower. I came to fetch you back to London, since… well, since you did not reply to say when you would be back, and I did not want to wait and miss you. Father and mother are expecting you.

That the Earl and Countess of Cassilis might actually be anticipating a visit from Midshipman Hornblower, son of a country doctor from an obscure village in Kent was too ludicrous. Horatio found himself one moment away from a nervous giggle and sternly adopted a scowl to stop it. "Even if you were serious, Mr. Kennedy, you cannot imagine I would accept another visit. With all respect to the Earl and your kind mother, I am sorry, but you have wasted your time and your father's horses." It had solved a dilemma for him though. "Perhaps you might wait, however, while I fetch a book that Miss Anne—"

"Hornblower, stop. Please don't…." Kennedy protested as Horatio started to turn away, half closing the door between them. Kennedy's confident grin was totally gone now, and in its place a look of desperate entreaty that Hornblower found new and slightly thrilling.

He had always been vulnerable to Kennedy in the boy's softer moments. The walls his former friend put up, both the forced cheer and the stoic sullenness, didn't otherwise offer much entry, or insight into his inner thoughts. This fresh need in Kennedy's face, for Horatio's forgiveness, or companionship, or as a buffer to an overbearing father, or whatever selfish reason had drawn the boy sixty miles from home to his doorstep—for it could not be a good one—had left a crack in that barrier. It was so alluring that that Horatio was tempted for a moment to embrace the maddening lad, and warm the cold loneliness of these last weeks on that fierce heat once more.

But only for a moment. Kennedy was the intruder here, and Horatio the person who had been wronged. He did not need to make this encounter, whatever its intent, comfortable for the other boy. And inviting the rake into his good graces again was the opposite of the common sense he'd been trying to rebuild since he returned home. Horatio folded his arms, so that the sudden trembling that had erupted in him would not be so noticeable, and simply continued to stare silently at Kennedy.

It was sinfully satisfying to see his former friend shift nervously from foot to foot, hat literally in hand. Kennedy tried to match his stare, but Horatio had always had more patience, and the other finally broke and spoke first again. “Must I do this on your front step? I will, I will if you force me. But it would be better inside.” The boy rubbed his arms as if chilled. “It is rather cold, here at the ocean.”

In truth it was, with the wind coming off the water, and Kennedy hated to be cold. Knowing it to be a mistake, Horatio relented, stepping back and opening the door wide enough to allow entry. The boy stepped inside at once, looking around with interest at the dark hall, staircase winding upwards, and peering at the archways to sitting room and study. Horatio sighed at his own lack of discipline, before waving Kennedy toward the parlor, and going to fetch a candle from the kitchen. Not expecting guests, candlesticks were unlit and no fire burned in the hearth.

Kennedy was standing in the center of a room already in shadows from the setting sun when Horatio returned with the lit taper. The boy turned to him as he entered. “You are alone?”

“We’re not grand here, Mr. Kennedy. Dr. Hornblower only has one boy to act as groom and keep the garden. He sleeps in the stable. The maid-of-all-work has gone home for the night, and our housekeeper is away until tomorrow.” Horatio knelt by the hearth and started the fire. It was at least good aged timber, and would warm the room quickly. He lit the candelabra on either side of the mantle as well, conscious that there were only three candles in each, and that once the sun had full set, most of the room would be in darkness.

"And how is your father, Hornblower? It must be jolly good to be home again."

Banal conversation would not put him off his guard. It helped that Archie had so blindly assumed that because the other boy was happy to be home, despite a difficult father, Horatio would be as well. As if there were no other reasons Horatio might be miserable, now that they were both away from Simpson and the Justinian. The selfish pretense of normality was irritating, but Horatio did return the courtesy, of course. "Dr. Hornblower is as I left him. And your parents, the Earl and Countess? They are well and all your family?"'

"Well enough. With my brother called up last week my father and mother finally have something other than myself to criticize and fret over respectively. Arch's unit is being sent to the wrong part of the Low Countries to see immediate action, and the Captain is so put out about it that my mother has forgotten to be upset that I will." Kennedy made a face. "Anne is trying to take over the worrying, but she's finishing her Season and most of her attention is caught up with her dresses looking too French and having to quickly lower the waistlines. But she did remember you to me and wished you to know you are in her thoughts."

"Your sister is very kind." The tension of these trivialities was driving Horatio mad. He had a terror of his father returning home, and Horatio having to explain Kennedy's presence. "Upon your return, give my thanks to the Countess and Miss Kennedy for their good wishes."

Kennedy hesitated before answering. He turned around, surveying the rest of the room, so Horatio could not see the boy's face as he casually announced, "You can thank them yourself when you come back with me."

"I have no intention of doing anything of the kind." Horatio said immediately, hoping he sounded certain, but fearing there was a betraying querulousness to his voice.

"Oh but you must," Kennedy said, now studying the miniature of Horatio's mother that rested on the mantle. "It would be foolish for you to pay for a coach and London lodgings just because we've fallen out. I'm not so terrible a travel companion as that."

Falling out was far too mild a term for Horatio's distress over the past six weeks. He couldn't formulate another denial, though, before Kennedy was speaking again.

"We don't have to leave tomorrow, if that is your worry, Hornblower. It's near two weeks before we're expected in Portsmouth again. Plenty of time to bid farewell to your home, and still see something of London too, before we're off to face our doom." The other boy was maintaining that irritating blitheness.

“If only misplaced charity had spurred you to offer me passage to Portsmouth, you could have sent the coach alone, and spared yourself the trip. So why are you actually here, Mr. Kennedy?” Horatio spat at that square, velvet-coated back, not bothering to keep it from sounding like an accusation. "And if you lie to me again I'm putting you out this instant."

He thought at first that his threat hadn't rattled Kennedy. The boy turned round again, insouciantly tossing his hat, a fashionable brown felt cap, onto the nearby armchair. But that round face was far from self-assured. While usually Horatio could not spy the illusions being formed, this time he watched Archie take a deep breath, and then restore the bright, confident smile the boy had used on the doorstep."

If he had not seen the mask dropping into place, Horatio would have sworn Kennedy was totally at his ease, because the words from the boy's lips were dissonantly flippant for the subject. “I'm here to apologize for kissing you of course, Horatio.”

Hornblower narrowed his eyes at the use of his Christian name, but let it pass. It was just one ache in the larger injury—that Kennedy could make it sound so inconsequential, as if he'd lost a book or they'd quarreled over a bill. At least the boy was finally being direct, so Horatio rallied himself to match. “Do you find yourself often needing to apologize to your friends for kissing them?” he managed to ask without wincing.

It wasn't the question Kennedy was expecting, judging from his puzzled frown. “I'm not in the habit of kissing my friends, Hornblower.”

“No? You distinctly said you were," said Horatio, feeling himself gather, like a lawyer about to pounce on a befuddled criminal. "You said that in London you had many friends who kissed you, so I'm not sure why you chose me.”

Hornblower thought Kennedy was turning paler. The boy protested, “I never did!”

“Indeed. In Portsmouth.” Horatio wished he could enjoy having Archie back on the heels for once.

“I was drunk!” It was too dim in the room for proof, but now Kennedy's face seemed to be flushing, with frustration or embarrassment.

“You also claim that when you are drunk, you mean every word," Horatio pressed his advantage.

“Christ, do you remember every blasted thing a man says, Hornblower?" Kennedy pouted. "It’s damned tedious.”

Horatio felt a little uncomfortable at the jab. While he did have a keen memory that had served him well in school, he had also spent far too many hours replaying all his conversations with Kennedy until he thought he might well remember every significant phrase.

“You must forgive me for being so precise," he said stiffly. Blast the boy. That plump lower lip was tugging at Horatio's heart strings... and somewhat lower as well. "But the occasion warrants it." Horatio was out of words, but those blue eyes were staring at him warily now, and he must go on. Kennedy had traveled for more than a day to seek his forgiveness. It wasn't only whimsy, however lightly he played it. But was the boy actually contrite, and what did it mean if he was? Would this be just another of those confusing, devastating turns, his agreeableness lasting only so long as Horatio was needed? "You claim to be here to apologize for kissing me, Mr. Kennedy," he finally said. "Before I can consider accepting your apology, I must know what you meant by it."

"What I—?" Kennedy seemed baffled by the question, and stuttered over an answer. "I didn't mean—it was—it was just kissing, Hornblower! It didn't mean anything!"

"Kisses generally mean something, Mr. Kennedy," he pointed out.

“And what would you know? Have you ever even kissed anyone, Hornblower?”

Horatio recognized that jab for the distraction it was and tried to sidestep it, "I’ve kissed you.”

“No, I meant, before. Before Justinian.” Kennedy snapped, exasperated with his deliberate obtuseness. “Someone you liked, and who liked you. A girl. Be honest.”

Kennedy was a fine one to speak of honesty. Horatio ignored the question with one of his own. “Do you not like me? Is that it? Are we not friends?” Horatio actually didn’t doubt that Kennedy liked him. The vexing boy had said as much, many times, had shown it in small ways like shelled walnuts and larger, as when he'd risked the shrouds to get Horatio safely down to the deck. But what liking meant to this perplexing boy, or friendship, Horatio had never worked out. It seemed to allow all manner of behavior, much of it bad.

“Of course, Horatio, but I didn’t kiss you because—”

“You didn’t kiss me because you liked me.” It wasn’t necessary to feign bewilderment. It was the part of all this mess that Horatio understood least of all. “Why did you kiss me, then?”

It took an agonisingly long time for Kennedy to respond, and when he did, his eyes were on the faded roses of the carpet, and his voice quietly contrite. “I never meant to kiss you, Horatio. I know how confused you are, and it was very wrong of me. I am sorry. You can’t know how sorry I am.”

Horatio thought he did. Kennedy had hardly stopped begging his forgiveness since the boy arrived. However, an apology was not an answer. “But why did you kiss me?” he insisted.

Well, perhaps the contrition was just another mask, quickly dropped in favor of an impatient grimace. “Because… because I was drunk, and you were there, and my girl was not, and my cock would like it! Is that what you want me to say?”

Horatio kept silent until he could manage it without showing how much the crude answer hurt. “That isn’t what I want you to say at all. Is it the truth?”

Kennedy stared at him, open mouthed, clearly not understanding his calm response. After a few moments the boy threw up hands, looking away, rubbing at an aching head. “God knows, Horatio. I’m a dirty puzzle, all right? I don’t think about it! I just like to kiss boys and fuck girls.”

If Kennedy was trying to shock him now with profanity, it had been left too late. To be a replacement for a girl was one thing, but did the boy actually mean it wasn't just drunkenness or whimsy, but a common practice of his? And where had Kennedy found other boys to practice on? Horatio stumbled as he tried to make sense of it in his mind. “You… you said on the carriage to London that you did not mind that I kissed you. And you kissed me then, and— and again on— on your birthday.”

“Yes.” Kennedy half turned towards the hearth again. “I am sorry, Horatio. I should not have done it.”

But the boy had. Had kissed him repeatedly. Horatio flipped this over in his mind. Simpson had claimed that Kennedy was a catamite, which Horatio had never wanted to believe. But what if it were true? What would that mean? “I only want other boys,” he finally ventured. It was unnerving to say aloud, but felt right. “I’ve never been interested in girls. I think… I’m a molly.” There was only one question that truly mattered. “Are you like me?”

“There is no one like you, Horatio Hornblower. Of that I’m certain.” Kennedy returned his gaze directly for just a moment, then turned his head, eyes going so distant as to seem untouchable, clear and colorless in the fading light. “I just like to kiss boys. And girls too. I do not know if that makes me inverted, or just corrupted.”

“Kiss boys and bed girls.” Horatio repeated. His logical inclinations were fully engaged, and he would work this puzzle out. “Do you never do it the other way ‘round?”

The other boy shuddered as if he’d struck at him. “I’m not a bloody sodomite!” Kennedy took a breath, and went on without shouting, but with a fierce intensity. “And you aren’t either. No. I don’t—fuck—with boys.”

If the deacon was correct, and a thought was as good as a deed, Kennedy might be wrong about him, but Horatio didn’t want to argue that point when he felt so close to understanding. Besides, a greater part of him was relieved to know that Simpson had been lying.

“So you don’t want to do that, but you like kissing me.” Horatio's mind spun in circles searching for some way to resolve what was happening between them.

He did not need Kennedy to want him. Horatio’s feelings were apparently immutable, he had tried to drive them away without result. The proof of that was how, even now, he wanted to forgive Kennedy. It was in the rapid beating of his heart in his chest, and how his every sense was heightened, not because of anger—though that was there too—but from a rush of hope. But his eros did not require expression or reciprocation. How could he have expected another boy to feel such things, or allow such sentiments? It was unmanly, and immoral. Criminal, by the laws of King and God. But that did not seem to be the reason for Kennedy's inconsistencies. Kissing boys was commonplace to him, so it must be something in Horatio that was the problem.

If only he knew that Kennedy did not want him, Horatio could bury his own desires. To be merely Kennedy’s friend had been enough. To exist beside him in amity could be enough. But while Kennedy clearly felt Horatio to be something more than a friend, it too often made the boy treat him as so much less.

The fear of never knowing whether he would be welcomed or rejected, made this unbearable. Not just his lips, but his companionship, and his protection, too. Horatio could be a friend, or a stranger, or a lover, but not each according to Kennedy's whims. Horatio needed certainty. “Would you like to kiss me again?” He put a hand out to touch Kennedy’s shoulder, but the other boy jerked away.

“My god, Horatio! Why would you even ask that?” Kennedy was flushed and white together, and looked awful, still not meeting his eyes.

But Horatio would not let the boy wriggle out this time. He had suffered too. “I enjoyed it,” he said flatly. “And then you stopped and made me feel worse than a fool for thinking you shared my affliction, my affection. Do you want to kiss me again?”

“You don’t want that." The look of horror on the other boy's face was disconcerting. "You’re all mixed up, Hornblower. And I’ve made everything worse. Just because I’m damned, doesn’t mean you should be too.”

Horatio couldn’t abide either the contradiction or the self-pity. “The state of my soul is my concern, Mr. Kennedy. And I have suspected for some weeks what I am and made my peace with it. My only conflict is with you.”

“I don’t understand, Horatio.” The boy did look desperately baffled at his line of attack. On any other night, over any other topic, it would have been amusing to see Archie, for once, being so thoroughly discomfited.

Instead, Horatio bludgeoned Kennedy with his best weapon, bluntness. “I am a molly. An invert. A fancier of other boys. And I fancy you. I keep telling you so, and you keep deciding that you know my own heart better than I do. You need to stop.” He mustered his most determined look, Archie must take him seriously. “I do not ask you to love me, but you must stop trying to make me hate you. You are going to succeed.”

Kennedy stammered in the face of his fierceness. “I— I never wanted you to hate me. I need you. But l— love? No, Horatio! You don’t know what you’re saying.” Kennedy could not stay still, striding back and forth in front of the hearth, arms flailing with emotion. “And you cannot know what you are, y-you haven’t even been with a woman!”

Blast the boy, did Kennedy have to look so appalled? But Horatio had begun this battle, and so he must press forward or retire the field. “I said, stop, Mr. Kennedy,” he repeated firmly, grabbing a hand and pulling the boy back toward him, then pushing the boy down to their rarely used couch. Kennedy struggled, but Horatio was finally able to convince the aggravating imp to sit down, and perching at the end himself, forced the boy to meet his eyes.

"Kennedy, what I have or haven’t done doesn’t matter, and is none of your concern, besides. What you have done, and might do, are all we are talking of. You like kissing boys, and… and I think I like being kissed. Very much. By you.” He felt his cheeks flush bright red, but forced himself to continue. “To be sure, I should like to try it again. When you are not drunk, or expecting other company.” He hesitated, struck by an unnerving thought. “You aren’t are you? Or is a woman waiting for you back at the inn?”

“No, Horatio! Bloody hell, I only just arrived, and I’m not…” Kennedy was burning red too, Horatio noted. “I wouldn’t… Not here... in your village. No!”

Understanding the complexities of Kennedy's sexual morality was something that would have to wait for another time. “Good. Then all I am asking is that you kiss me, if you still want to. If you think you will ever want to." Horatio hardened his tone, needing Kennedy to believe his determination. "But if you will not do it now, you must swear to never use me again for your lusts. Nor lay your hands on me in a familiar fashion, nor pet at me or tease in any unmanly way.”

He took a breath after this fierce listing, realizing again how angered he was, and how injured, by Kennedy’s mercurial treatment. How much it would hurt to never feel those clever fingers undoing his buttons or playing with his hair, but how much worse it was to be sometimes a lover and others an enemy, than to be neither. ”We must be only ordinary friends, Kennedy. Or I will cut you, so far as duty will allow, and never go near you again.”

Kennedy was staring at him with clear, lost, eyes. It took the boy some time to respond. “I must kiss you, now, or… or never attempt anything like it again, not even in jest, on penalty of losing your friendship forever?”

Horatio swallowed, and nodded. “Irrevocably.”

It felt like another eternity of uncomfortable silence before Kennedy spoke again. “And if I kiss you? What does that mean?” A quick flicker of tongue across dry lips betrayed the other boy’s nervousness, for all that they were matched in audible calm.

Horatio was shocked that Kennedy was considering it. He hadn’t thought that far. “I don’t know, Kennedy. I won’t know until we are being honest with each other. We can decide that together, if only you will be true with me.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking.”

Kennedy was weakening, and of a sudden there was a tightening, becoming familiar, deep in Horatio’s groin, pushing him to lean closer, to use the boy’s own trick and let his breath drift across the other’s skin, unable to be ignored. “Then teach me.”

“You don’t mean now? Here?” Kennedy’s chest was heaving more quickly, Horatio saw, matching his own racing heart.

“Yes. Best be quick if you are going to do it. Dr. Hornblower could return at any time, and would never understand.” It was madness, what he was proposing, to be kissed in his father’s parlor by his only friend. If Kennedy was a friend at all.

That quick pink tongue wet his lips again, Kennedy's eyes darting to the doorway. "Should we not go into your bedroom at least?"

"I don’t trust you near a bed, Kennedy." Horatio didn't think to hard about whether he trusted himself. "All I want is a kiss."

White teeth bit at his lower lip, nervous, hesitating. Then the other drew in a long breath. "Archie." The other boy murmured. He was turning towards Horatio now, leaning slightly in, eyes already dipping to stare at his mouth, hiding what the other boy was thinking. "If we are to do this you must at least call me Archie."

"I don't think so," Horatio said, holding still and upright, feeling again the thrill of power. "Perhaps after."

Yet Kennedy seemed to have made a decision, despite his refusal, was tilting toward him, bringing hands up to his shoulders, moving slowly. As if he might startle, when Horatio had rarely been more certain of what he wanted. He matched Kennedy’s gaze as the boy pulled him in, noses brushing. It was Kennedy’s eyes that closed as their lips met. Horatio watched, some part of him hovering outside the sensation of softness and warmth, the ache down below and gentle pressure above, and a tremble, was that Kennedy shaking, or himself? Which of them had made that animal noise?

The other boy swallowed, drawing back slightly, eyes still closed, to whisper against their mouths, "Do you like it?"

Horatio gave the only possible answer, and kissed Archie again.