Archive of Our Own

April, 1850

Wreathed in medals, gold braid, and a heavy fur-trimmed coat that danced around the polished buckles of new boots, James Fitzjames still felt the chill of Admiralty House creeping in under the cuffs of his thin cotton gloves and the slight gap behind his collar.

This anteroom, sparsely furnished and hardly used, boasted only a small, poorly-tended woodstove rather than a genuine fireplace. Adding insult to injury, new logs had not been added to the fire in the entire hour he’d been sequestered here. James stared into the thin wisps of smoke curling off shimmering orange embers and wished he knew where the ship’s boys kept their firewood.

He was beginning to suspect the court-martial would not begin on time when the anteroom door flew open, revealing a red-cheeked Sir James Ross, appearing as choleric as if he’d run all the way over from Blackheath.

“Nearly ready, I hope?” James asked brightly, tugging down the fingers of one glove.

“No,” Ross came over to stand next to him. “Lords are still gathering. Minto’s carriage threw an axle, just before Whitehall. Blocked off half the road to boot.”

Which did not fully explain why Ross was here. Normally, the Lords gathered in the chamber a half-hour prior to any court-martial. To a man, each was under strict instructions to appear as a part of a disinterested, unified body. There was no visiting with those poor souls who were about to appear in front of them.

“It’s Frank,” Ross finally said, tapping the side of the woodstove with the toe of one boot, and looking mutinous when this did nothing to rouse the embers within. “Wants to string himself up on behalf of all your men and most of London.”

James’s gaze whipped right, a furious heat gathering in his face. This was not the careful agreement they’d crafted together, all those weeks ago on the Enterprise . Nor was it part of the tale he’d so pointedly committed to memory, repeating the finer details to himself whenever he had a moment alone in his sickbed. A poignant story of ill-timed bear attacks and poisoned supplies depleting already-precious resources, till they had no choice but to abandon ships. Practical enough to explain the various fractures in opinion as to their next steps among officers’ country, as well as explaining away Hickey’s mutiny while ultimately assigning blame for disharmony to no single living man. Showcasing the best of British invention and pure-minded grit against unforgiving elements.

All pablum for the Lords, of course, but functionally no different than the flattering write-ups Jane Franklin had organized while raising funds for their eventual rescue.

“He says he’ll tell them,” Ross murmured, voice lower than the muted crackle of small flames, “that he meant to desert Terror on the very day Franklin died. Take a small sledge party up past the ridge and walk sixteen hundred miles over King William Land, all the way to Great Slave Lake and back.”

Sour saliva flooded over James’s gums, and he pressed the back of his white glove to his mouth. For a moment he felt he might sick up on Ross’s shoes, but the heated flush of nausea passed after a few seconds, and eventually he lowered his hand to say, “Speculation. Not fact.”

Ross fixed him with a hard glare, as if urging blunt honesty; James licked dry lips to speak again. “Truly. All I have ever heard of this, and from the mouth of a hanged man, no less, was that an unsent letter was seen in Francis’s private quarters. One which could not be produced at the time of the accusation. Any man who could verify such a claim is dead.”

Hickey, Gibson, Tozer, Armitage…..long gone now. And as for their living men, Christ. Even Dundy or Little might quail at the idea of blithely sending their expedition captain into death by hanging. While the rest of the returned muster roll now worshiped Francis the way island natives offered prayers to minor gods.

When James met Ross’s eyes, he noticed the faint shadows ringing them, and the downturned set to his typically-cheerful mouth. “He is determined to reveal this?”

Ross was silent.

“Christ,” James spat. Freely admitting to such thoughts made a useless sacrifice of a talented Captain, and for what purpose? Even if the thought of mutiny had once occurred, the deed had not. He could not fathom why Francis wished to ruin himself so publicly.

“By my ear, there is a far more logical explanation for such behavior than Article Twenty-Two.” Ross cleared his throat. “Few in the Admiralty believed John Franklin would accomplish his goal. Haddington, Baring, Stewart, Barrow. My uncle. You know the reasons, surely.”

As James stared into the embers again, a headache built behind his eyes. All he could picture was Sir John’s indulgent smile, each time James had shamelessly listened to him lay out their assured future glories. And beyond that, an image of Francis at the wardroom table, clean-shaven face dark as a thunderhead, with an even-keeled Tom Blanky at his right hand. Yes. We should go for broke.

Ross was correct. They needed a truth, or some piece of a story very much like truth, which could be accepted instantly and without question. The vaunted Franklin expedition, very nearly ruined by its prideful, headstrong leader. Only salvaged by a skillful natural sailor who had done his duty beyond all possible reprobation. Returned forty-six men back to England when a hundred and twenty-nine had departed. Walked beside them from the moment the call forward was made, and when they could not walk, sledged them with a strong chin. Carried them. Washed their scurvy-ravaged bodies. Hid them in the landscape when they fell.

Cradled James to his chest, the very eve before their rescue, dropping water against his tongue the way a fretful child might nurse a motherless kitten. Not long now, James. Hold fast. Hold fast. 

James closed his eyes, unable to tear the image of Francis’s anguished face from his head. “Lady Jane will never forgive me.”

Francis will never forgive me, either.

He grasped for Ross’s cuff, surprised when the thin fabric of his cotton glove met a faint warmth rather than bitter ice-wreathed wool. That end of the stove must be hotter than he thought.

“Let them call me up first, as planned. I’ll submit the full record after.”

Mouth trembling, Ross thumped James’s shoulder with his free hand.

Six months later

James woke earlier than usual, when hard casts of frost still rimed the windowpanes and the trees were little more than spindly shadows against an inky sky. Although Francis typically lit the woodstove each morning, a gloom-cloud had already descended over James’s head by the time he opened his eyes. He did not need daylight to understand this would make him a taciturn wretch for the foreseeable future, annoyed by the smallest irritants.

Sweeping ashes from the back of the stove would cure him of it, he decided, as his bad hip cramped and his lower legs wobbled from being crouched in front of the iron door too long. Even as his muscles screamed for relief, each pass of the brush into the pan eased James’s frayed nerves. The grates would be clean and the fire could be built anew for several more days without incident. He’d simply—

“James?”

Jerking upright, James clanged the base of his skull against unforgiving iron. To make matters worse, as he reeled backwards out of the stove door and into the lamplight, his knee splayed too far right for his legs to support him. He ended up pitched on his backside on the chilled wood floor, with a sore neck, small bits of ash trickling down his collar, and what felt like a long smear of it down the side of one cheek. 

Turning to stare at the source of this disruption, he rubbed a gloved hand over his nape.

Francis was already dressed in trousers, shirtsleeves, and a waistcoat, and was pink-faced up to his ears, either from the chill or sheer embarrassment. “My apologies. I’d not meant to disturb you.”

Stop bloody peering at me as if you’re taking readings with the Fox, James wanted to scream. Instead, he let out a breath, and forced cheer into his voice. “You did not. I merely woke too early. Wanted to have it cleaned before you came through.”

That familiar crease split Francis’s brow; he appeared as distressed as if James had backhanded him with a white glove rather than made a bloodless greeting. “Could have roused me, if the cold bothered you.”

It was another apology, although James had no idea why it was being delivered. Why Francis felt compelled to apologize for an issue he did not cause was beyond all reason. But voicing such a peevish remark would be uncharitable. And, given their current situation, James wished to keep their home, such as it was, as cordial as possible.

“No matter. It’s done.” James could not help prodding at the sore spot at the back of his neck. Next to one hip sat the bucket of ashes, nearly three-quarters full. “If you wish to build the fire up now, be my guest. We will remain both wide-eyed and full of vim this morning.”

One glance at Francis proved this dull witticism untrue, as Francis wore the sort of bared-teeth smile that suggested he wished to fling himself into a ditch and never return. 

“Although, if we had a housekeeper, there would be no need for either of us to tend fires at all.” Were James a less petty man, he would not have picked at this particular scab; it had already sent them into weeks of fraught silences punctuated by the same listless rows. “We could assign the duty to some charwoman. Or hire a cook. We’ve the money for either, even both.”

“Not necessary,” Francis said flatly. “I’ve told you I do not mind the duty.”

“Yes, and it saves money. And we are only two. I know , Francis.” James sighed, attempting to keep his tone as even as possible. “Christ. All I mean is that there remains a clear difference between completing duty owing and meting out excessive work.”

Francis’s brow furrowed and his face darkened in a way that suggested mild offense. “The work is fine. Though if it hurts you, I can take more of it.”

“That was not my intention.”

For god’s sake. Somewhere in the rest of the South Downs lived stubborn farm horses who better hated the yoke of their daily plows.

James did not say this aloud, merely excused himself to the coop to check for fresh eggs. With the basket in hand, he decided once again to pay Francis’s bullheaded stubbornness no mind.

##

Taking uneven yet confident strides up to the box, James loosened his grip on his ivory-handled walking stick as he sat down, resting the gleaming handle against the corner of the box, so that it touched the woodgrain as gently as the scabbard of a saber ought to kiss one’s belt.

The first three questions were standard for all proceedings:

Will you affirm that you have not, as yet, submitted your full remarks in support of your testimony to either the judge-advocate nor the Office of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland?

-Yes. The remainder of my written remarks will be submitted into the record after this sworn testimony, as their Lordships have requested.

Will you affirm that you have not been pressed into silence on these or any matters pertaining to your service?

-I assure you I have not, sir. T’would take far more than a mere press to silence me.

-This court asks only for your assent, Captain. On that note, I pray all persons in attendance here recall this to be a court-martial, not an entr'acte. Dispense with such vulgarities as loud laughter or whisperings or you shall be ejected from these chambers post-haste. Now then. Captain Fitzjames, would you care to lay before the court any remarks, before we proceed?”

“Yes,” James said simply.

He sat taller in his chair, letting his eyes rove over the full crowd for greatest anticipation. Although he knew just where Francis and Ross might sit, he could not force himself to meet their expectant gazes, and so he stared at the space between the little pearl handle and the top of the booth as he let out a breath.

“Although one could certainly begin recounting our voyage from a great many vantage points, I daresay one of the most memorable days, to my mind, was a command meeting that occurred on 13th September, 1846. Erebus had recently been lamed to half-power, and the officers convened in her Great Cabin to discuss possible next steps.” James’s heart pulsed violently against his ribs; he shifted in his chair. “I often find myself wondering how different our voyage might have been, had we but listened to Tom Blanky on that fateful morning.”

A whisper of paper from the back bench. No doubt they had plenty of strong commendations from the men as to Blanky’s expertise and general conduct. “This court seeks not to rebuke either Master Blanky’s or Master Reid’s behavior. Neither has it discovered just cause to discount command decisions of your ice masters.”

“Naturally, sir. We men of Erebus heartily esteemed Master Reid. And as for Terror, both Master Blanky’s knowledge of his trade and his conduct as an officer made him an exemplar among those commissioned in Her Majesty’s Service.” James averted his eyes to the box. “I only meant it is a shame his good counsel went ignored, in the end. That is all.”

“Pray do not speak in trivialities, Captain Fitzjames. Do you then submit before this court that a grave error in judgment regarding the ice occurred in the wardroom on 13th September?” 

“Well, yes. Although I—I ought not speak my private opinion so glibly to this assembly. Hindsight makes intellectuals of us all. I meant only to say we, that is, Sir John and I, failed to weigh our masters’ suggestions carefully at the time.”

“You claim your own judgment flawed in this matter, Captain Fitzjames?”

“Freely,” James said. “As the court knows, prior to my posting as Erebus’s Commander I had extensive tropical experience, concentrated first in the Med, then China. My understanding of the way old ice behaves was far lacking in ‘46. I knew not how small leads behaved during a summer thaw, nor the dangers that follow when a steamship becomes trapped in the pack. Master Blanky and Captain Crozier each took pains to speak extensively on that subject on 13th September, and foolishly, I did not heed those warnings.”

“Neither, you say, did your superior officer. Let us be clear now, Captain: do you charge that Sir John Franklin, KCH FRS FLS FRGS, Rear-Admiral of the Blue, who had command of your expedition entire, deliberately eschewed the advice of both Erebus and Terror’s ice masters on this particular occasion?”

The sigh James let out did not need to be forced. “With regret, I must answer yes.”

##

Letters were typically the work of James’s afternoons, and today there was one from William and Elizabeth, likely updating him on news from London.

He opened it. First was a quick scrawl from Will, pertaining mainly to Gallery business:

….and of course in July I did reiterate the grievous condition of several pictures in their collection, including the serious oil-varnish injuries done to both Velasquez and Cuyp—pray the picture-cleaners have had no further cause to harm additional masters since! Two months on, the assembled appear undecided as to how conservation shall proceed under the banner of the Gallery henceforth. Though I rather maintain Eastlake OUGHT TO BE SOUNDLY THRASHED for such callous guardianship! But perhaps I will soothe my fractious opinions by writing another little missive to the Times; I am certain there must be additional persons who care deeply for great works and might further aid our cause….

Smiling as he imagined Will writing feverish letters to the Times on the subject of ruinous varnishings, James flipped to the end of the letter in favor of Elizabeth’s portion:

My dear brother

Here I summon all frankness in lieu of a sisterly greeting. Namely the children can be put off no longer and demand further news from the captains’ cottage. Among their most recent questions: When do you find the time to clean if your little home does not at present have a housekeeper? Who launders your bed linens when they get dirty? What dishes have you eaten most recently? And how goes your little clutch of chickens? Little William additionally wishes to know if Captain Crozier ever saw a polar bear at furthest south (?), and whether your household shall ever boast a proper tomcat to stalk snakes and all manner of other creatures. I cannot say how he decided snake-catching is the sole occupation of felinedom but rest assured it is foremost on his mind. Lizzie is chiefly occupied with reading and arithmetic with our Miss Morrow now that it is come September but nevertheless she extends all her love to her favourite uncle.

Pray drop us word of these most important developments whenever you have a little time, and implore dear Captain Crozier the same, if only to spare Will and me a few moments of frenzied inquiries each day. With neither of us being sea captains nor indeed having any adventures abroad of which to speak, we make poor readers for your most excellent tales.

I remain your most devoted sister &tc

Implore dear Captain Crozier the same. 

In truth, James was not certain if Francis would scratch out so much as a single word. Ever since they had ensconced themselves in this small cottage, both to retreat from the unbearable press of London society as much as the heat, he had hardly put pen to paper for anyone, including the Rosses. Ross himself wrote nearly every fortnight but James had not seen a single reply posted back in all these weeks.

“Francis.”

Across the room, Francis turned from the plate-glass window, where the sun streamed into the parlor like ribbons from a maypole. His color was a little high, but his brow pinched down in a way that suggested he had not been dozing, and was waiting attentively for James’s next words.

“Elizabeth requests that you write alongside me in my next reply to the children.” James glanced down at the letter again. “One or both of them may be under the strange impression that there are ice bears at furthest south.”

Francis’s forehead creased when he smiled. With the afternoon sun streaming in behind him full-force, he appeared light and at ease in a way James had not seen in many months, possibly since they berthed together on the Enterprise. “Surely you can conjure up a better story than I to satisfy young curiosities.”

“Well, I am told my personal thoughts on the matter are unwarranted, as I am but a poor substitute for the genuine article.” James bit the inside of his cheek. “And little William is apparently driving both Elizabeth and my brother to madness.”

“Ah.” Francis said.

On another day, James might have made his argument using all manner of flattery and logic; today he was too tired and thus he could only raise his face to Francis in hopeful, quiet beseechment. “Please, Francis?”

Francis squeezed his eyes closed, his once-fearsome brow contorting into all manner of annoyed expressions before he opened them again, exhaling a breath.

“All right.”

James swallowed hard as relief thrummed through his body. “Thank you.” He pressed his fingers into the back of the closed letter, setting it to one side of his desk. “It’ll be here whenever you are ready. I had hoped to add my bit today and send it early next week. That way the children will have something of interest to distract them as the weather turns cooler.”

Francis’s answering smile was softer than usual, which made James’s stomach squirm pleasantly. “I will make my portion entertaining, then.”

“And,” James added, tentative, “we’ve another from Ross, if you wished to…..that is, if you are not too occupied with your work to….”

The smile James so enjoyed disappeared from Francis’s face entirely, replaced by the worn, harried look James remembered mainly from all wardroom gatherings, prior to walking out. “That one can wait.”

##

James woke with his head spinning and a skitter of agitation overtaking every part of him; his body no more than a numb limb trying to prickle itself into action, his heart a thrumming snare. Even pillowed amid eiderdown and soft cotton quilting, each breath fogged loudly into the air, harsh and wet.

Bad dream, or the ghostly clutch of memory? 

Although he bit down on the howl that pushed to escape his lungs, he had already made too much noise in waking, for familiar footsteps were padding down the hall, and within moments a cold draft breezed against his side as Francis parted the coverlet.

Saying nothing, Francis crawled closer, fixed the rumpled quilts, and pressed his cheek to James’s chest, bringing one arm up to drape over James’s shoulder. 

A wellspring rushed to James’s eyes and flowed down his face to pillow in his ears; silent, humiliating streams occluding all but the great gust of Francis’s sigh against his nightshirt, and the solid warmth of his body now bleeding into James’s trembling form.

Choked breaths flew from James’s lips in a rush, like the pour of wine from an unstoppered bottle, and as they left him, the wretched skittering of his limbs began to quiet under the relentless pressure of Francis’s body covering his chest.

Francis, for his part, did nothing save breathe in and breathe out, one hand making a flat plane near James’s collarbone and the other stuffed somewhere beneath James’s pillow.

##

“....Captain Fitzjames has testified under sworn oath that t’was Sir John Franklin’s disregard for the word of his ice masters, among other provisional difficulties, which created the most trouble for your company. Would you agree with his assessment?”

“John Franklin was the very image of a decorated Arctic veteran. As is Captain Fitzjames, now.”

“This court seeks to interrogate the conduct of its officers rather than debate their public image. Captain Crozier, do you confirm or deny that your First refused the counsel of his ice masters in September 1846?”

“Sir John’s favored counsel came through his daily devotionals, and through the writing of Divine Services. This should not surprise anyone who has gone North. Whether commissioned officers or green boys swinging in hammocks, sailors frequently turn to prayer as polar night seizes minds in its grasp. We cannot condemn these men for seeking what little refuge was offered in it.”

“Indeed, the condemnation of an officer’s Christian faith is not the aim of this inquiry nor that of our esteemed Lords. I shall phrase my question another way. Captain Fitzjames attests that Sir John had several opportunities to redirect your ships from their initial course, prior to being frozen in at 70°5’N Long. 98°23’W. Is that correct?”

“You already have one answer. I fail to see why you need another from—”

“Yes or no, Captain?”

A sigh. “Yes.”

“Mark for the record. Let us continue. The final opportunity for Sir John Franklin to have altered your company’s circumstances fell on 11th June, 1847, as Captain Fitzjames has previously testified. Which was the very day Franklin was killed, was it not?”

“Yes. Captain Fitzjames has said plenty on this score. Though he has not told you all that occurred that day.”

“A moment, Captain Crozier. We shall have Captain Fitzjames’s written testimony in this matter read before the court, so that their Lordships and this body might hear it in its entirety before you add your piece. To wit, beginning from the second paragraph on page six: 

Sir John and Captain Crozier quarrelled awfully that morning. It is one matter to suspect a First might harbor such bilious grievances against his Second and quite another to hear each of those festering grievances aired toward their subject at full quarterdeck volume—indeed, audible to the ear of any man standing from the wardroom aft. By my ear this was a peculiar and shameless mix of personal invective regarding Captain Crozier’s character, temperament and circumstances of birth—baseless language on which I shall not elaborate rather than a simple disagreement over our company’s course of action. Regardless, Sir John refused to allow a rescue party to be gathered, claiming it did not send a proper signal to the men. Claiming our company could not be viewed as in need of saving, and additionally, that he would not lose another man trekking over distant ground from whence he had lost other men in past. Those few of the wardroom who overheard their quarrel knew not what to make of it at the time. Indeed in the moment I was struck keenly by the alteration in temperament between the man who had once instructed me to cherish Captain Crozier, because if some foul accident were to befall Sir John, I should become Captain Crozier’s Second—and the man who castigated his flag-captain for raising concerns over necessary practicalities. Additionally I was also struck by Sir John’s disdain for foresight and proper planning in this most important matter. Arctic veterans are instructed explicitly to plan for rescue, as many brother-officers have testified before this body in prior court-martials, yet Sir John refused to do so. After the quarrel, Captain Crozier returned to Terror, bearing Sir John’s displeasure as stoutly as any officer may when his honour is impugned. But had Sir John not tragically been lost to us that day I must say it would have altered my perception of the man most grievously, going forward. Indeed, I had privately sworn that I might lend Captain Crozier my sword in this matter, and would have heartily approved any rescue party that he proposed to send or to lead in future…..whether we two were given permission to undertake this task, or not.

“Now, Captain Crozier. Were you aware that Captain Fitzjames stood ready to disobey a direct order from Sir John Franklin on this matter, or any other matters regarding your potential rescue?”

“No. I—it is impossible. It cannot be true!”

“Come now, sir; these words are his, submitted before this body by penalty of law. Do you then charge that Captain Fitzjames has perjured himself before the court and judge-advocate in submitting his written record?”

“Of course not. No. Captain Fitzjames is—his conduct throughout remains—above reproach. He bore the weight of all I would not carry on his own shoulders.”

“Abnegation is an admirable quality in a Second. And regarding Captain Fitzjames, a pattern of behavior which many in your company have attested to witnessing in kind.”

“James would never have gone against Sir John. I alone carried that burden. I intended to lead a rescue party to the Hudson Bay Company outpost on Great Slave Lake, the very day Sir John was killed.”

“Captain Crozier, in a sense it is admirable that you leap to your Second’s defense no matter the subject. But I pray you, do not mistake this court’s lenience regarding such vigorously-mounted cover for our willingness to hear these facts distorted! I direct the judge-advocate’s attention now to page thirteen:

….In speaking plainly with Captain Crozier, I was further shocked to discover the depths of his continued loyalties to his First, despite their many disagreements. Not only did Captain Crozier inform me that his sworn duty was to keep Sir John safe and to ensure his judgment, he regarded this charge as equally important as bringing our full company back alive. But the Admiralty would not have charged you with such a duty, I told him. And indeed the Lords had not; this beseechment came directly from a member of Sir John’s own family! Needless to say I was all astonishment. Nearly every day prior I had witnessed Captain Crozier attempt, time and again, to fulfill these orders as well as ensure our company’s safety, even when they came at the direct expense of friendly feeling between him and his then-First. And all the while Sir John rebuffed these noble efforts. How tragic when a man cannot recognize his true friends amid adversity.

“Now then. As Captain Fitzjames has so…. colorfully submitted: during the tenure of your role as Sir John Franklin’s Second, in addition to your usual duties, you believed it equally essential to keep Franklin safe and ensure his judgment, did you not?”

“I strove to achieve that, as best I knew how. And failed wholly.”

“Tell us, which person or persons bade you do this?”

“It was a plea from a trusted friend, no more.”

“A friend! Rather strange for a civilian—indeed, a direct member of an officer’s family—to extract a promise of protection from another subordinate.”

“She wanted him returned alive. As do any man’s close relations. It is not uncommon for civilians to rush an officer on the docks before sendoff, pleading he might keep a watchful eye on their boy. There is little else to do if you’ve no experience with the service, or no connections to it. You must wait and live in hope.”

“But you were not, shall we say, press-ganged by this relative on the docks at Greenhithe in order to make this promise.”

“No.”

“Let us dispense with such fictions, then. Did this plea for Franklin’s safety come from his wife, Lady Jane Franklin?”

“Lady Jane is a woman of great fortitude and reputation, who would never deign to ask a favour from the likes of me.”

“The court demands that you answer more forthrightly, sir.”

“No. Lady Jane had full confidence in her husband, I’ve no doubt.”

“Very well. From his daughter, Mrs. Rev. John Gell?”

“No.”

“His niece, Miss Cracroft?”

“What good will revealing this do? I ask you.”

“Confirm or deny, sir?”

“G—d, you’ll not listen. You prefer to make me seem a fool rather than hear the truth.”

“So ‘twas Franklin’s niece who extracted this promise from you, Captain? Is it fair to say she possessed no confidence in her uncle’s discernment, as leader of your expedition?”

“I’ll speak neither to her possessions nor her state of mind. For C—t’s sake. Yes, I swore to her that I would bring him home, and I did not. Along with eighty-two others. It is the profound failure of my life. Does that satisfy you?”

“One moment, Captain. As you are aware, our convening is not meant to satisfy a solicitor’s curiosity, but assembled for further clarification in unknown matters. In freely swearing such a solemn vow to Miss Cracroft—that you should protect her uncle from his own poor judgment—you then ask the Lords to believe you should break it so ignominiously? An oath you yourself regarded as equal to your commissioned duties, and upheld at the cost of all cordiality with your First?”

“Good C—t. What would you have me say here? What would you have me do?”

##

James woke in the night with an insistent pressure shoving at his bladder, and Francis curled in a little ball on the other side of the mattress tick, facing him. With a grunt of displeasure, James extricated himself from the downy warmth of his blankets and went to use the pisspot, shivering at the breezy chill as its fingers wound through the bottom of his nightshirt.

When he returned to bed, he tossed himself back below the surface of the blankets and shimmied his legs around for the most comfortable position, hoping to find the tugboat of sleep ready to tow him out to deeper waters.

Tragically, another part of his anatomy had decided wakefulness was not only preferable but pleasurable. Despite relieving himself, his prick still pulsed in his smallclothes, making its displeasure at remaining untouched well-known.

Christ. James closed his eyes, and pushed his head further back against the pillow. He’d spent months being unable to coax forth so much as an errant twitch and now this—here, when he could do nothing to stave off the ache sweeping through his body.

Next to him, Francis rumbled out another snore; James bit down on his bottom lip as he moved one hand under the hem of his own nightshirt. Searching fingers brushed under the waistband of his smalls until he finally grazed the head of his prick with one fingertip. 

Pawing at himself in earnest was not an option when it might disturb Francis, but—James’s prick leapt in hopeful delight as the pad of that same finger passed down to the root, and then back up again, steady as a pendulum—perhaps he could simply ease the ache, in order to sleep.

He stroked down. The lingering chill that once flooded over his senses had vanished like fog in warm sunshine, and in its place buzzed a fizzy tingling sensation, like champagne being poured into cut crystal.

Christ, it was good. Shamefully, even the brush of the sheet against his neck caused him to shift against the mattress, heels gliding up and down against soft linen at the same rate as his finger played along the ridge of his prick.

Conscious of the way each breath rang through the room, loud as a rusty bell, James bit at the side of his cheek as he forced himself to relax and close his eyes. With them closed, it was easy to imagine Francis’s snores were merely the rush of wind through an unoccupied room, like many James had encountered during warm summers in the Med.

He allowed a collection of familiar memories to flit through his mind—one midshipman’s thin cock, seashell-pink and weeping at the head as James stroked it with a loose fist; a third-lieutenant’s blunt head notched against some stranger’s hole in an unnamed club; the sweet pressure of callused hands cradling each of his stones in turn as lazy afternoon sun warmed lithe salt-crusted bodies. But after several minutes, these imaginings shifted and coalesced into a single image. Instead of a vague collection of fumbles driving him toward his end, it was now Francis pinned beneath James’s pistoning hips; Francis who dug callused heels into James’s back as James speared him open. Francis who gasped out shrill, heated gull-calls as James pushed them toward the brink; Francis whose innermost muscles milked James’s prick in great grasping pulls, till James could hardly hold his body upright for the joy of it. He splintered himself upon the mass of Francis’s bulk as Francis sung his name in broken glissandoes. James. James.

“James!”

Two hands shook his shoulders, then braced against his heaving chest; James bolted upright, grasping at Francis’s knee as his prick blurted stripes of white into his linens. For a moment, he was able to do nothing save move through his crisis as he pawed fruitlessly at Francis’s leg.

Francis, who now averted his eyes from the bed entirely. Francis, who held one palm nearly at the level of his eyes, and reddened up to the tips of both ears. 

“James—forgive me. I did not—I would not— forgive me .”

Before James could speak, Francis rushed away from his side and out of the bed, lurching down the hall toward his cold, dark room without so much as a lamp to light the way.

##

When James awoke the next morning, the fire had already been built to a blaze, and Francis was puttering around the small kitchen. One part of him, still smarting, wished it were possible to lay abed, uninterrupted, for the next fortnight. But the physical parts of him were less understanding. His stomach growled at the smell of sausage and eggs in the pan, and his hip was stiff again. And ultimately, given that this house had only four rooms, he could hardly avoid Francis’s eyes forever.

Sighing, he roused himself, went through his ablutions, and made his way to the kitchen in shirtsleeves. At his usual place, tea was steaming on the table, and a basket of warm bread was covered in cloth.

Francis faced him with a strong chin, even as he would hardly meet James’s suspicious gaze, speaking mainly to the buttons of James’s waistcoat. “Kept a plate ready for you, if you do not mind your eggs going cold.”

James accepted his helping with as much grace as he could muster.  “If ice-laden eggs were fine enough for the wardroom, they shall be fine enough again now.”

Francis did not laugh.

They took their seats at the small table, and over the course of several minutes, shoveled food into their mouths in a pointed, agitated silence.

As he chewed, hardly tasting the flavor or temperature of any mouthful, James wondered how he might begin such an intimate conversation. An apology seemed important, but also idiotic. One could not apologize for the vagaries of their body without sounding like a bloody fool. And moreover, James did not want to apologize for his appetites. He regretted his behavior, yes, and for alarming Francis so bodily. But never the instinct, nor the drive.

Three-quarters of the way through his plate, he glanced left toward the front door, and saw Francis’s battered canvas rucksack sitting next to the frame. At first, he thought perhaps Francis had lost his senses, and was tossing it out wholecloth because he could not bear to look at it, but then he noted how roundly it bulged around the frayed seams.

“What have you got in there?” he asked Francis, gesturing toward the door with his fork.

Francis gulped down his mouthful of tea, looking first at the pack and then at James with a beaten hound’s hesitance. When he finally spoke, his voice trembled like a wild sapling.

“I’ve bade you suffer my company far too long now, James. These past few months, you have put up with my silences and my brown studies, and all this time, I told myself this did us both a service. But I was—that was very wrong.”

Horror gripped James by the throat. He could not speak.

“If I cannot get a train today,” Francis continued, still speaking to James’s waistcoat, “then I will catch a cart-ride from one of the postboys. It will be no trouble.”

James scoffed to hear such a bold-faced lie aloud. “No, no trouble at all. You meant only to leave without so much as a morning report.”

“I meant,” Francis said carefully, “only to spare you the effort of seeing me off.”

A fresh spike of fury lanced James’s chest. “If I had not come through to breakfast, would you then have crept out this door, hat in hand and that ridiculous pack slung over one shoulder? Without dropping me even a single line on paper to mention where you'd gone?”

“Please, James.” Francis met his gaze at last; there was water standing in his eyes. “You must let me go now. I would not keep you from achieving all you deserve. Particularly after…..well.” His ears reddened. “Last night made that expressly clear.”

Mortification burned through James like a congreve and left his ears ringing in its wake. He stared at Francis, whose pleading, wet-lashed eyes would not seem out of place on a wounded deer, struck through the heart by an arrow in some wooded glen. “I beg your pardon?”

“Why should I believe my own company is enough to keep you from all a man of your age desires? Companionship. Children.” Francis gave a ragged little laugh. “You yearn for them. Bodily. Ought to have realized it sooner.”

James recoiled from the insinuation. “This is about children?”

“No. It’s—I have simply overstayed my welcome.”

“Good Christ, Francis!” James lurched to his feet. He could no longer watch Francis’s expression shatter by degrees when such deep sorrow was of his own making. “You have done nothing of the sort! Lest you forget, I am the one who secured this house for us, when you would not so much as speak to Ross in close quarters! I arranged for our travel—our trunks!”

Francis seemed determined to continue in his bullheadedness. “You did, and these rooms are—all I could ever wish for in a home. You saved me at Whitehall, for what reasons I cannot possibly fathom, and have continued to save me from my worst self time and again. But I can be the stone around your neck no longer, James.”

James gawped at him in furious astonishment. “I have never said nor implied you were a such a burden!”

“You didn’t have to! Good god, James—we’re no longer bound together by a muster roll alone. I am in need of heedless generosity no longer. You are young, and lively, and—and deserve to make a true home for yourself, without the likes of a sick old man keeping you from it.”

James brought his palm down onto the table. Utensils and ceramicware clattered at the impact, but James paid this no notice. Instead, he nabbed his walking stick from its place by the tea cupboard in order to keep his limp controlled. 

“Stop speaking so cruelly of yourself, Francis. I would not hear your character slandered during the court-martial and I will not hear it here, now, in our house!” He set his jaw. "If you are so viscerally repulsed by my body—my basest desires—"

"Never," blurted Francis, then flinched, biting back the rest of his sentence.

James stopped. There was a distinct difference between something as pusillanimous as a milquetoast of course not, you're only a man! or not at all! and never.

Pale and sitting rigid in his seat, Francis seemed ready to dart for the door; glancing between James and his pitiful rucksack, still puddled next to the frame. 

This could not happen. No: more than that. This could not be borne.

“Francis,” James said levelly, now raising his walking stick until the length of it lay poised across Francis’s chest, “if you take a single step toward that door, I shall tie you to this chair like a piece of loosed sailcloth.”

Francis’s mouth opened and closed. He did not rise from his chair.

James kept his voice low so that it did not shake. “Let me make something abundantly clear to you. I did not save you, as you so crudely phrased it, out of obligation and duty and pitiful deference. I did not parade myself in front of that goddamned judge-advocate, all the Lords, and half of London society merely for my own amusement. Just as I do not keep company with you now simply for—for lack of a better alternative! Good Christ!” James considered the position of his walking stick, still pressed against the planes of Francis’s chest. “If you refuse to hear my true opinion after all I have said publicly on the matter, then I must impress my point another way.”

Francis looked like he wished to ask several questions in quick succession; James gave him the sort of look that said he had best not open his mouth just yet.

Never, thudded the treacherously hopeful echo in his ears. Never.

“With me.” James removed his walking stick to the ground before jabbing it toward the far door, indicating Francis was to walk towards James’s bedroom. “Now.”

They made their way into the bedroom, where James’s housecoat still lay in a pile on the end of the rumpled bed. Francis glanced sideways for want of a chair, as if he felt he might be asked to sit down on the coverlet.

James was in no mood for prevarication. “Off with your clothes.”

The hectic flush in Francis’s cheeks only blazed brighter, mottling a riot of red down his neck and up toward his ears. “My—?”

James affected a very insouciant lean with the help of his walking stick, made simpler by the fact that his hip had been complaining of stiffness, and needed a moment to adjust from so long sitting down. “Well, it is clear my words have made no impression on you thus far. Will you not now give me the courtesy of a more tactile argument? Particularly after last night? ”

Although Francis’s mouth hung open like a market fish, he made no quarter. Dutifully, he unbuttoned his waistcoat, slinging it off to one side.

James tutted in disapproval. “Fold all personals once you have removed them. I shan’t have you treating such good belongings so carelessly.”

Francis ducked his head on a smile, although he did as James asked, dutifully squaring the waistcoat into fourths before setting it next to his right thigh. “Never heard you speak about my clothes so kindly, hm?”

“They are good to you,” James answered, deciding he could unbutton his waistcoat if he were making Francis strip to the skin. “Even when they are not finely made. Is that not what you have told me all along?”

Francis was in the middle of pulling his shirtsleeves over his head, and could not answer, but once he was free of the garment it was clear he did not intend to speak much at all. He put both hands to his trouser front, then stopped, glancing at James for confirmation.

James inclined his head; Francis resumed his movements till he was able to shimmy out of his trousers, fold them, and lay them in the growing pile of clothes at his hip.

“Stand up for a moment,” James said.

Francis did, shivering in the morning air as he assumed parade rest, tucking his hands behind him, just above the small of his back. James knew by the gleam in those blue eyes that he wondered why he had been left in his smalls, and whether it was meant as a humiliation. He made a conscious effort to soften his voice, without letting any atom of authority slip from it.

“Straighten those shoulders, Captain. We are here for inspection, after all.” He let the end of his walking stick drift up from the floor once he was within a suitable distance, passing the edge of it ever so slightly up Francis’s thigh, till it slid past the hinge of one leg and up to the growing bulge at the apex of his legs.

“Oh yes,” James let himself smile as he regarded this pleasurable sight: Francis’s cock stiffening up under gentle prodding; his pupils wide and dark as roundshot in his flushed face. “Every part of you at attention. I am very pleased to see it.”

The shiver that had passed through Francis’s limbs when he removed his shirtsleeves had now turned into a fine tremor; James hooked his walking stick over an elbow and walked forward, placing both hands on either side of Francis’s cheeks, so that Francis was no longer staring at his hairline.

“As this is an inspection, allow me to elaborate on my findings.”

Francis’s lips parted; James took the opportunity to rub the pads of his thumbs across the shape of his upper lip, then across the lower one and further beyond, gently caressing the cleft of his chin and the rasp of delicate skin before trailing back up to Francis’s blood-hot mouth and breaching its scorching heat with a single digit.

Francis made a low wounded sound, like the cry of a field mouse being seized by an owl, and his eyes fluttered shut. James’s cock twitched and filled at coaxing forth such a vivid reaction.

“A proud mouth,” James murmured as he pressed down on Francis’s tongue, inserting himself up to the first knuckle. “And a lovely tongue. Making such delicious sounds.”

He threaded his other hand into Francis’s hair, let his fingernails trace errand shapes over the back of Francis’s scalp. Francis buzzed out encouragement around James’s thumb; James’s skin turning warm and slippery as he slid further within.

“So skilled at making room for me,” James told him, now using his free hand to stroke over Francis’s brows and temples. He touched the lines around his eyes and the craggy furrows in his proud forehead, stark as leads in the ice. “I wager I could make myself welcome in any part of you, with enough effort.”

Francis’s cheeks flattened, and his lips sealed tighter around the web of James’s thumb, as if he were attempting to draw out this action simply by the virtues of his eager mouth.

“Yes,” James said, petting Francis’s cheek. The space between his thin lips and strong chin shone as brightly as plate-glass. “That is what I shall do, hm?”

Without warning, he pulled his finger from Francis’s mouth, and with his free hand, planted a palm in the center of Francis’s chest to knock him down into the bedding. Francis’s shocked hitch of breath turned into a sort of laugh as his back thumped against eiderdown pillows.

Smirking, James scooped up Francis’s clothes and went to the sideboard, depositing the folded clothes atop it, then plucking a tin of lanolin salve from a half-open drawer. When he returned to the bed, he noticed Francis’s hopeful gaze was now pinned to the front of James’s trousers. 

“Oh, I see,” James said, affecting surprise at being thus observed as he tossed the tin into the middle of the bed. “Am I overdressed for the occasion?”

Francis did not answer, although the patchy flush had now spread from his face and neck down to the middle of his chest. His hands twitched restlessly against soft blankets.

“Perhaps I shall take you in full clothes another time, then.” 

James watched Francis’s tongue peep out from between his lips and his eyes widen further as he registered these words. Briskly, he began to unfasten his trousers; when he got them unbuttoned and shucked them down his hips, a creaky groan leapt from Francis’s throat.

“I daresay my mind is already flurried with possibilities.” James stepped out of the loosed trousers, leaving them in a puddle on the floor for no reason other than the aberrance might be irritating. Gooseflesh speckled his skin at the relief of letting his prick press against thin smalls. “Shall I cram myself back into your darling quiet mouth, or fill you elsewhere, first?”

“Oh, god!” 

Judging by this exultation, Francis seemed as if he were being asked to solve some improbable theorem rather than to take mere pleasure from a lover. He seemed not to know he had spoken aloud.

“Hm,” James said, pretending to mull over the merits of either effort. Purposefully, he rolled up both shirtsleeves to the elbow, watching Francis’s incredulous gaze crawl over each infinitesimal movement his dominant hand made in the air. “Let us begin with a steady hand. If your sweet mouth is any indication, I imagine you will take those lessons very well indeed.”

“James,” Francis said now, watching each of his movements with wary, hunted eyes as James knelt on the bed, shifting forward on hands and knees in order to pluck a spare pillow from the top corner of the headboard. “You cannot want—”

James’s friendly demeanor turned sharper in an instant. “Do not presume to tell me what I do or do not want, sir. Did I not demand leave to make my argument? And did you not give it?”

Francis lowered his eyes to the bed in response. James suppressed a sigh, deciding to make this lesson as illustrative as possible, if Francis demanded practical applications of learning in all subjects.

“If you must know, I wish for a great many things others have deemed unsuited to a man such as myself.” James arranged Francis’s legs, one and then the other, onto the pillow. “Lift your hips.”

Francis did. James pushed the pillow into place, till his lower half was tilted slightly toward the ceiling.

“And I am tired of those same men determining whether I may or may not have them,” James continued, grabbing the ties of Francis’s smalls in a tight fist. The linens were soaked through at the placket and would likely never be clean again. “Get these off before I tear them from you bodily.”

Francis untied them and shimmied out of the garment in a tangle of thick limbs, his breath coming faster.

“Therefore I am finished asking nicely for all I want.” James ripped open the lanolin tin, scooping up a generous gob of unguent and rubbing it against all five fingertips, satisfied when half-lidded eyes tracked the spread of grease across the pads of his fingers. “And instead, I shall take it by force if needed.”

He placed the thumb of his greased hand to Francis’s hole, exhaling in delight at the high, cracked noise Francis made in response, and how visibly his entire frame shook as James began to pet the rim, as sweetly as he had traced over Francis’s dear face.

His own prick pressed a banister into his trousers, but he could not bring himself to touch it yet, although his face was hot and his skin sung with the need for more.

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of Francis’s face as James tucked the end of his thumb inside; swearing at the newest sear of heat against his palm. Carefully, he pushed forward into the maw of Francis’s body, his own body pulsing like a sparked fuse.

Francis grasped at his wrist with one hand as James’s palm cupped his fundament, besocked feet twisting noisily against the sheets.

James laughed low in his throat, even as he gently removed Francis’s fingers from his poised arm. “I shall put another in. If you can take it.”

This was not a question, precisely, but much like an overdue letter, it demanded a reply regardless.

Francis exhaled, then inhaled. “Yes, James.”

James laughed again, delighted beyond words. He swept his thumb forward and aft, widening the berth he had made until Francis’s head lolled sideways against the pillow, and he let out a stifled moan.

“Look how greedily this hungry cunny takes me,” James whispered, fascinated at how well the ring of muscle grasped for the fill of his fingers. “Would that you might see every detail in its glory. I am tempted to put you atop my dressing table so you might be in view of in the mirror.”

Bits of Francis’s hair were plastered to his forehead, and the sweat that had beaded up along his hairline now covered his entire face and torso. He was breathing so roughly they might well have been hauling in harness again.

“Perhaps I shall work you open until you’re dripping with it,” he said lightly, watching as Francis’s nostrils flared and his chest heaved at the words. “Grasp your face in one hand as I have you ride the other. Never touching your cock.”

Francis’s body jerked as swiftly as if he’d been slapped; James plunged slick fingers in and out to better illustrate the point.

 “Or perhaps I shall give you three fingers rather than two.” He tucked his longest fingers together on the way out, and relished the squeeze of Francis’s body as the third notched against his rim. 

Upon the new intrusion, Francis shook like a thatch of river reeds in a storm. 

“You like that,” James noted, not bothering to phrase this as a question. “Oh, yes, Francis; look how much it pleases you. I imagine you could spend this way without much effort at all.”

Francis was painted scarlet from his chest upwards, and his thick blunt prick twitched up toward his sloping belly, leaking a clear trail of its delight all over pale freckled skin.

The next thrust up, James crooked his fingers toward the spot he knew meant an assured land victory. Francis wailed, trembled harder, and shifted back against the pillows, canting his hips up and up and up.

For a few moments, nothing else in the room existed save for the insistent, rhythmic push of James’s fingers into Francis’s loosened hole, each new thrust coaxing forth another tremor in Francis’s limbs, or tearing another full-throated cry from his lungs.

“But I am greedy with my lovers.” James was breathless now, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight of Francis’s head, tossing back and forth against the cushions like a willful colt’s. “I would have this cunny clutch my prick from the inside, hotter than any desert flower.”

Francis rocked against him, moaning fretfully.

With a hum of assent, James removed his fingers, admiring his handiwork as Francis’s hole winked closed at the loss.

“God.” A sharp gasp flew out from Francis’s mouth, the sound winging directly to James’s cock. “Please. I would take it.”

James’s next breath hissed out of him, impatient and haughty, but he could not bring himself to scold Francis for such eager pleas. He fumbled with the ties of his smalls until he had pulled himself out, relishing the visible drop of Francis’s jaw, and the ice-blue shock that now shimmered in wide eyes.

“Christ, James—you’ll not fit!”

Even said in a strained whisper, the sentiment was flattering if not wholly accurate. His prick was proportional, after all. Merely long rather than wide. James made a show of squeezing himself at the root, toying loose fingers up the length and playing with the head as if he had all the time in the world.

Francis’s expression had turned dazed at the corners, and he was already reaching out to James with both hands, a supplicant unable to kneel. “No, you will. You can. I need—please—”

James applied another generous swipe of lanolin, shuffling forward on both knees as he works thick, glistening grease all over the head and length.

When he held the tip of his prick against Francis’s slackened rim, and finally pushed forward into the hole with a sudden delicateness, Francis swore a blue streak, though his last few words clanged together into a high, sharp gasp.

Further in, and James’s hands were planted on either side of Francis’s hitching chest; his lower belly brushed against Francis’s taut stones, and all at once he was buried to the hilt. Francis lay under him, shuddering and gasping and crying out, pinned and kept open: a moth on a museum’s pinboard.

“Francis,” James breathed into the quiet, struck dumb by the plain fact of it. He lifted a careful hand from the bed to trace down Francis’s outer thigh, guiding that leg up to curl around his back. “Here now, Francis. Breathe. Draw me in further.”

“Christ,” Francis whimpered, as all four of his limbs suddenly twisted like errant sails. Without warning, he went rigid, hips thrashing, and could not speak for grunting. Clear thin streams spilled from his cock and further dampened the space between their stomachs, coating a large part of his chest and some part of the coverlet.

James could only stare, transfixed, and marvel at that blunt instrument’s visible enthusiasm. What a fine eager prick, to go off so soon. How sweet it looked.

It was not until Francis sagged back into the pillows, panting, that James realized he had been speaking some version of these compliments aloud.

“That’s it, darling. Oh, pet, oh, sweetheart. Look how beautifully you’ve come apart, hm? Think how beautifully you’ll go again once I take my fill of you.”

When he could finally reply, Francis’s voice was a cracked, ragged thing, barely audible over the gust of harsh breaths fogging between their faces. “Again?!”

James sniffed forcefully at the idea of Francis having enough wherewithal to joke; as appropriate punishment, he leveraged himself out, nearly to the tip, then pushed back in, all in one smooth motion. Francis’s teasing smile was swallowed up by a choked groan.

“Again,” James growled in answer, dropping biting kisses along the hinge of Francis’s jaw as he set a pace. He clasped Francis’s stubbled cheeks in both hands as he rocked back and forth, sucking in quick breaths as his heart hammered in his breast, a vicious needful engine. “I demand it, Francis.”

Francis’s prick had begun dripping anew; small clear drops speckled against James’s knuckles like dashed tears as he frigged him in time to deep, forceful thrusts. By the time they had set a rhythm in earnest, the bed pitched violently and some delicate object rattled on the sideboard and James’s bad hip ached like a rusted hinge, but he could not bring himself to care, merely set his shoulder to the wheel as they pushed together toward the crest of the hill.

“I would see you. Oh, god. Let me see you, Francis. Want your noises, your shakes— everything —”

Seizing, Francis clutched at his back, those wretched, wordless groans turning frantic. His mouth became open and rigid as a porthole, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

James could not silence himself either, babbling all manner of nonsense. “Let me fill you—let me kiss you—I want to, I want nothing else—”

An agonized scream pierced the room, and Francis spent up to his chin in several great, thick gouts; James felt the strong cinch of his finishing like a bellows from the inside and howled out an answer in return, spilling into Francis in a slick, heady rush before collapsing down against his trembling form.

Their mutual gasps had calmed to soft, sympathetic breaths before James finally raised his head, regarding Francis’s patchwork-flushed face, red-rimmed eyes, and tear-streaked cheeks with utmost seriousness.

“I want you to stay with me, Francis. In our home.” His voice cracked. He soldiered on. “Please. I want nothing more in the world.”

Francis’s mouth assumed the tense, trembling position James recognized from every graveside service held on the shale, but this time his tears splashed down his cheeks in big fat rivulets as James captured his mouth in a deep, searching kiss.

three months later

“The housekeeper you liked has indicated she is happy to accept our employment, starting directly after the New Year.” James fluffed the letter packet, moving it closer to his nose for easier reading, as he and Francis pored over the remainder of their letters from the comfort of their bed. “And mentions how much of a gentleman you were to her during the interview, besides.”

Francis, occupied in scratching out a line atop the back of a closed novel, gave a skeptical huff. “Highly doubt it.”

James read directly from the last paragraph. “I pray you send my regards to Sir Francis, as well. He’s a charming manner as do you both and I shall make a very comfortable home for you dear brave bachelors in no time at all.”

Lowering the letter, he noticed Francis was still writing. “By all means, if you do not wish to hear about your winning demeanor and the splendid home she will make for two old sailors, feel free to continue with your own work.”

“Shush,” Francis said amiably. “I’m just telling Ross about the roast chicken I baked last week. Ann’s sent a few more recipes.”

A warm flush of relief spread through James’s chest, knowing that Francis had resumed the usual correspondence with the Rosses, and how the little moments of happy cottage life now adorned all their exchanged pages. “Ah. And how fare Ross and Thot these days?”

“New baby,” Francis answered, waving the original letter in James’s direction. “Can hardly read half the blasted words on this one.”

James settled back against his pillows, smiling ear-to-ear as Francis continued to talk about little Lottie, how much like Sir James she appeared except around the mouth, how insistently she cried when her brother left her to attend to his studies, or sleep, or rush to the privy.

Outside, the wind howled, windowpanes rattled in their frames, and falling snow blew in great gusts against the sheltered eaves, but in this comfortable little room with its crackling fire, warm fur-trimmed quilts, and big pillows, James could not bring himself to mind the chattering cold.

“James?”

James looked over; caught a tender look being flung his way. “Hm?”

Francis butted the ridge of his forehead against James’s bare shoulder, then pressed chaste lips to the place where his collar met the skin. “You look as if you wish to be kissed.”

“Oh, I insist upon it, sir, if you are to satisfy me today.” James flung the letter to one side, opening up his arms so that Francis could crawl into them, pressing a scruff-wreathed face to James’s neck. “Post-haste.”

Inside, the fire roared, and night ticked on.