Rating: R-ish plus

Summary: Bush and Hornblower talk in Plymouth during the peace, but Bush doesn’t tell all.

Author’s Notes: Not a happy story. Not an erotic story, despite the sex. Sexual psychology. Bad plotbunny, bad! Thanks to Juliet and Melinda for comments and assistance.

***

There wasn’t much to see in Hornblower’s tiny room except Hornblower himself. Greetings aside, his face had lost its welcoming smile and re-formed into the polite, shuttered countenance Bush recognized well. It was the face Hornblower wore when he was uncomfortable, perhaps, or lost in thought. Thought of cards, of money? Hornblower was a whist-whore, paid to make up to redcoats and green-jacketed civilians. Bush thought it a great pity but wondered how his friend had fared at his current profession last night. Hornblower forestalled him before he could ask.

"Convenient, yes, but I do not doubt that your room at home is more welcoming than this!" Hornblower said from his seat on the bed opposite Bush. Another wry grin appeared on the man’s face, wrinkling his forehead as he looked down to brush at a speck of lint on his blue trousers. "Is your cottage a comfortable one?"

"Cramped," Bush admitted with a chuckle. He was glad to see his friend. "Full of fawning women. Why is it that females seem to take up so much more space than men?"

Hornblower’s lips twisted into something that looked almost wistful. "They must care for you very much."

"I suppose so." Bush thought it an odd thing for Hornblower to have said, but continued on this new tack. "They need me to weed the garden, because it seems that’s all I’m good for in Chichester."

Now Hornblower laughed, teeth white in the dark room. "And do you grow turnips, Mr. Bush?"

"Indeed. My mother loves ‘em." Turnips: vile, mushy watery things. But Bush didn’t want to think about turnips, or weak, watery things, so he did not. He glanced about the cramped yet Spartan attic room, wondering where he was to put his bed.

"Fewer for you."

"True," Bush said.

There was a brief silence, then Hornblower spoke again. "Are you missing your cottage? Or a sweetheart, perhaps?"

"Not really," Bush answered, thinking it also an odd question. He wondered if Hornblower had a girl somewhere, but decided it probably wasn’t so. The man seemed lonely. But Bush did not really want to think about sweethearts, either, so he talked instead of the cottage, the village, picturing them at their best. The green in spring and summer, the reds and yellows of his sisters’ flowers, the pale pastels of the girls’ fabrics, always being made and remade.

***

Chichester Town looked mostly the same as Bush remembered. He hefted his parcel from the butcher-- mutton, fetched for his mother-- and took a look around. He was not often up and about this early, preferring to sleep his boredom away.

There was the brown-and-yellow sign swinging at the front of the Golden Galleon, a humble inn with ideas above its station. Bush spared a quick glance at the two pink-cheeked barmaids cleaning outside the tavern door. They giggled saucily at the naval lieutenant playing errand-boy, unimposing without his hat or blue jacket.

Now that was one thing unfamiliar after so many unbroken years at sea: women. Since his return the village had seemed over-full of females and female gossip, nothing a secret, with less care for the trials of a half-pay lieutenant, even one with a letter published in the Naval Chronicle, than for its own intrigues.

Bush supposed it was only fair, really. Even the most well-run ship was a tiny community full of its own hearsay and superstition. Here life went on as it always had, and his mother and sisters had lived for years without his opinionated presence, thank you very much.

On he walked, past the stables now being laid with new-green thatch, the smithy with its black iron posts, where he had spent hours as a boy before his uncle’s death and his own employment at sea.

Something jostled his elbow and emitted a little gasp. Bush turned to bark a retort at the clumsy fool who’d bumped him but coughed instead as he saw who it was.

Pale, washed grey eyes in a paler face, wisps of lank yellow hair surrounding it, and an expression half startled-rabbit and half belligerent mule; thin, salmon-colored lips in a straight line.

"Pardon me, Sir," the female said with sly emphasis, then ducked around him to continue on her way.

"Ma’am--" Bush began, but did not have a chance to complete his reply before she was gone. He could only watch her shuffle off, drab brown gown swishing in the dust of the street.

Mrs. Gold, an inapt name for such a wispy little female. And, depending on who was talking, either a poor thing whose brute of a husband had cruelly left her, taking what little they had, or a shrew who had driven her man away with her sharp tongue and greed.

Bush cared not to know for sure. He would not call out to her rudely, but neither would he pity her too much or spare her too many of his thoughts, for the world was a cruel place and such was its way.

His sister Meg, however, had other things in mind.

"Will, the garden has never looked so lovely; we have so much!" she told him as he lugged his parcel into the kitchen. His sister Frances was there as well, short, plump and cheerful, directing their equally-squat maid Emmy in bread-making duties. Meg by contrast was as lean and angular as he. Her hair, brown as all the family’s, was daubed with flour. "Only look at all the peas and cabbages. I will make a basket of the extra, together with some of the roots in the cellar. Where is Abby?"

Abigail was Bush’s youngest sister. "I haven’t seen her."

"Abby! Basket, dear!" Meg yelled. She had a fine, strong voice for such a slender female.

"Where do you want this mutton?" he asked, but was ignored.

A few thumps sounded through the woodwork, then Abby stomped in, hair all askew about her round face.

"Basket, turnips, potatoes. Then bread. Coiffure later."

"Yes, Meggie," Abby said, and trotted out.

A language all its own, one Bush certainly did not understand but which the natives spoke fluently. "Where do you want this?" he asked again, being as plaintive as his dignity dared.

"Emmy, take that from Mr. Bush-- wait, Will, do not leave. Today is bread-day, and we are all so very busy." Meg wiped her floury hands on her stained white apron. "Take a basket to Mrs. Gold. I hear she was looking ill yesterday. Poor thing."

Village gossip: and yet his sisters were good souls, Bush thought with some pride. Too good, though, considering they all five of them lived on nothing. "Can we spare it?"

"We are none of us starving."

Yet, Bush thought. "I passed her on my way home. She looked well enough."

"Men," said Meg, while Frances nodded sagely.

***

"I have no sweetheart," Bush told Hornblower. "I find that women speak a different language."

"We all of us speak different languages, Mr. Bush."

"True," Bush said, watching the lantern flicker amber onto the grey attic walls, warming neither them nor the room at all. Different languages, some more silent: like Hornblower’s missing greatcoat, and the words he hadn’t spoken about its absence, and the language of whist, the sparsely-worded agreement of intellectuals.

"But you’re speaking English well enough for me," Hornblower said in a hearty tone. "Tell me more of this cottage. How many rooms have you, for all these women?"

"Seven," Bush said. "Or eight, if you count the cellar."

Seven rooms, as colorful and cheerful as all the women could make them in such straitened circumstances.

***

Mrs. Gold lived in two rooms above an abandoned bakery-- the unexpected peace had been hard on everyone. Odd, that peace should be a bad thing for people other than officers.

Bush hoped she was still not at home, so he could leave the basket carrying Meg’s note on the stair landing. But after a second knock an old woman in a patched maid’s dress opened the door.

"Sir," she creaked after her first surprise turned into a pleased smile. Her teeth were yellow and cracked. "The Missus will think you very kind. Where is your sister, pray? I hope she is not ill?"

"All of my sisters are well, thank you," Bush told the woman. So this old maidservant, whoever she was, knew him. Women’s gossip. And Mrs. Gold did not live alone. He held up the basket of vegetables. "Where shall I put this?"

"Oh, pardon me, sir. Come in." The grey-headed woman backed up a few steps. Resigned, William followed her in, only to see Mrs. Gold sitting on a shabby, wine-colored sofa in the room behind her, sewing in the light of the window.

Bush offered her a nod. "I am William Bush, ma’am. My sister Margaret thought perhaps you were ill, and wished to me to deliver this."

"I am Mrs. Gold. Miss Bush is too kind," Mrs. Gold said and rose with a quick curtsey and another sly smile. She came forward and took the note from the handle, giving it a cursory glance before lifting the basket-cover. Her thin, pale eyebrows lifted as she first looked and then reached inside. "Margaret Bush is indeed very kind."

It was a bottle of wine. An indifferent vintage, but all-too-dear nonetheless. For a moment Bush almost wanted to pull the basket away, then felt his face heat with shame at the thought. It didn’t take much looking around Mrs. Gold’s rooms to see that she lived in straitened circumstances indeed. Her furniture was plentiful in the small room but all of it patched, her fire-grate was cold and black, and her gown, shiny with wear.

And as for the lady herself, she was almost painfully thin. Her shoulderblades showed a little through the neckline of her gown, and the skin there was as pale as that on her face and arms. A gleam shone in her eye as she examined the bottle, yet she must have seen something in Bush’s face, for her gaze then flicked back at him.

"Maybe you should share a glass of this with Mary and myself?"

Mary must be the maid. "I thank you, but I do not wish to intrude," Bush said. He did not want to be here.

Her pale eyes narrowed in the shadowed room. "I am very lonely here. I would consider it a favor."

At such a response, Bush was forced to agree. He nodded nod in as gracious a manner as possible. "One glass, then, ma’am. Thank you."

Mary took the basket and the wine to a table on the far side of the room and went to the work of opening it. Mrs. Gold bent down to open a scratched, brown-lacquered cabinet, and pulled out three glasses. She held them up to the light of the thin-curtained window, perhaps checking them for dust or smudges, then set them on a low table. Bush noticed her wrists as they slid out of the cuffs of her gown, and her hands. They were very fine and delicate, elegant hands, and she moved them languidly, yet purposefully. He liked women’s hands, liked looking at them. He looked away.

"Please sit, Mr. Bush."

Bush sat in the blue chair Mrs. Gold indicated. Mary came back with the opened bottle but her hands wavered as she tried to pour.

"Allow me." Bush took the bottle from the veined, withered fingers and poured. An indifferent vintage, perhaps, but it still coated the sides of the glasses with a sheer film of blood-red. Bush realized he wanted the wine, wanted its relaxing vapors swirling into his nose.

"Thank you for not standing on ceremony." Mrs. Gold raised a glass to him, again displaying her fine wrist. Her thin lips were quirked, and her eyes were wide as she looked at him. "Has Margaret been over-generous with your spirits, Mr. Bush? Drink. Perhaps that will make it all better." She tilted the glass to her lips.

Bush could only stare at her for a moment, at her rudeness, sure his face showed his shock. "That is not the case, madam," he said, finally. He wished he’d had some of Hornblower’s stoic facial expressions to hand. But Mrs. Gold wasn’t looking, anyway. She’d closed her eyes and was smiling, savoring the wine. "I resent the implication," he continued.

Her eyes opened but showed no resentment, only amusement. "You are a very bad liar, Mr. Bush," she told him, while Mary snorted beside him. "But I am enjoying it. Why should you not? Drink."

Bush was dumbfounded. That such a woman would sneer at his sister’s gifts, or sneer at him, was unthinkable. "Thank you, madam, but I am not thirsty." So saying, he set down his own glass and rose, preparing to leave.

Now Mrs. Gold looked a little alarmed. "I was only twitting you, Mr. Bush. Surely you’ve had worse? Please stay."

"Not a moment more, in this place." Bush was too angry. His sisters had given this woman the food, the wine, off their very table, and she and her maidservant could only laugh at him. There was no reason for him to stay, and since he hadn’t wanted to be there in the first place, every reason to leave. "A shrew after all. I will not send my sisters your regards, madam," he told her as he reached out to open the door.

Mrs. Gold was deceptively quick, and her little fingers were surprisingly strong as she gripped his arm. "I apologize, Lieutenant Bush. Now you may enjoy the wine your sister was so kind as to give me."

Bush pulled his arm from her grasp. "No," he said tersely, and left.

Yet later that night, as Bush lay tossing in his bed, some guilt assailed him. His anger had faded as he’d worked in the garden that day, and even the boredom of that activity had been unable to stop him from turning the encounter over and over in his churning thoughts.

It had been rude of her to suggest a lack of charity on his part, but perhaps he’d brought it upon himself. Perhaps it had been more rude of him to have gaped around her little apartment in such a way, maybe even sneered?-- he couldn’t remember for sure. He didn’t care for women of her kind, and perhaps she’d seen that in his manner. He’d been told he was terrible at hiding his thoughts. Either way, he’d not told his sisters of the woman’s behavior or of his, only passed on Mrs. Gold’s gratitude. They would not thank him for behaving thus to someone of their acquaintance.

Whoever’s fault the argument had been, he should certainly never have been so harsh to a woman in her circumstances. Perhaps he should apologize. Yes, certainly he would have to apologize to her.

The moon shone pale white here and there in his sparsely-furnished room. Though he slept too much, Bush often had trouble with falling asleep, for lack of activity, the boredom of land life, was as steady and still as his gleaming, polished wooden chairs and table. Bush listened to the nothing noises for a few moments, the chirps of insects. He snaked a hand down under the white sheets and under his cotton nightshirt: he knew one way to relax.

At first his hand was idle and slow along his cock and then more urgent. As his grip grew harder and his strokes shorter, he did not think of slim, white wrists and fingers. As he coughed his completion and reached for the handkerchief on his bedside table, he did not think of pale, moon eyes.

***

Hornblower shifted slightly on the bed and Bush paused, wondering if he’d gone on too long with his idle chatter. But Hornblower had only bent to scratch at his ankle. Without his meaning it to, Bush’s gaze followed the hand and he saw scuffed black shoes, painstakingly repaired, a perfect match for Hornblower’s jacket. Embarrassed, he glanced up to meet Hornblower’s dark eyes in his land-white face. He still wore that wistful look.

"Fresh vegetables," Hornblower said musingly. "I don’t think I’ve eaten anything green in a month."

"Huh," Bush said. "If my sister’d known, she’d have sent a jar of something along. Me, I’d prefer a little more beef in my diet."

"Miss your salted beef, do you?"

"Among other things."

"Dried peas?"

"Yes." Bush smiled down at his own clasped hands. They weren’t as pale as Hornblower’s, but nearly so. Neither of them were living the life they’d torn their fingers to bits learning.

"Fresh would have to be better," Hornblower said, leaning back a bit and crossing his arms. "What else do you grow?"

"Leeks, beans, American marrows. The same things everyone grows in their gardens, I suppose." He’d said that last without thinking. Perhaps Hornblower had never had a garden. But Hornblower said nothing, and so Bush continued.

***

Bush tossed the last weed aside into a jumbled pile of discarded green and eyed the little row of leeks he’d just cleared. After a moment or so he scooped up some more of the brown soil and manure, piling it about the slender stalks. The whites had to be covered just so if they were to become tender at all.

He looked up at the sound of a halloo. Meg was walking across the lawn, old, pale-blue gown fluttering in the breeze. She carried a tray.

"I’ve brought you some tea," she said, unnecessarily. "My, it’s warm today."

That had been unnecessary as well. Bush stood and swiped the back of his dirty-white shirt cuff across his forehead, then took a cup. The tea was lukewarm but not unwelcome.

"Thank you," he said belatedly. He looked at Meg, at her odd, light-blue eyes, and lack of bonnet. Her eyes matched her dress. Meg should be married, he thought. She wasn’t very pretty, but she would certainly do for some good man.

Good man. "I believe I left a handkerchief at Mrs. Gold’s rooms," he said, feeling uncomfortable as he did so. "It wasn’t in my pocket last night."

"She is a very odd woman, is she not?"

"Yes," Bush said.

"I do not mind her. She is very poor." Meg was looking at his dirty hands on her mother’s sturdy, serviceable white-and-rose teacup.

"We are very poor," he told her.

"We are rich in sunshine," she said, then took his empty teacup. "You will like what we are having for dinner. Mama will join us."

"I will not miss it," he said to her retreating back.

He dithered a bit more in cleaning up, wasting time, yet by late afternoon he’d decided that he still needed to apologize. Mrs. Gold had been rude, but he could remember being out of sorts in ugly circumstances. For her it must be appalling-- husband gone three years, her own cottage lost with him, and all the village to scorn her.

Bush knew it wasn’t like him to worry about such things. Sea-life had its pitfalls, yet proper training could overcome them. He had no training for this life. So he went on instinct. If he was worrying, then surely there was a reason for it.

He had picked a bad time. Mrs. Gold herself opened the door and it was clear she’d been crying.

"Yes, Mr. Bush?" she said, sniffing, eyes red and puffy.

Bush wanted to run, to be gone from that place; there were few things he hated more than a crying woman. Added to his earlier discomfort this was sheer hell. But he didn’t run. He hardly knew his own motivations anymore.

"Again, I feel I am intruding," he said, in as civil a tone as he could muster.

"No, I am fine. Please come in," she said, holding open the door.

He couldn’t very well run now without making an even bigger ass of himself. He could only nod and take a step into the entryway. "Where is your maid?" he asked.

Mrs. Gold shut the door behind him and waved careless fingers toward a chair. "Mary only comes twice a week to help me. I live alone."

"I should leave, then."

"Nobody cares what I do," she said with another sniff.

Bush was pretty sure that wasn’t true, but he supposed women knew their own business best. Besides, he would not stay long. He would say what he needed to and then leave. He sat on the edge of an old blue chair.

"I--" he began, then swallowed. "I wish to apologize, Mrs. Gold. I often don’t know when people are joking with me." He was a little surprised that he’d made the admission, to her of all people. But there it was.

"No, it is I who should apologize again." She looked a bit surprised. Her few tears had stopped, and her slim fingers grasped at her knees through her faded rose gown. "Your family is quite kind to me."

"My sisters are very good," he agreed, watching his own fingers as they clasped and unclasped in his lap.

"Abigail is grown quite vain," Mrs. Gold said in a wry tone. "When she visits me, I have to cover all the mirrors."

Bush could feel the anger growing again, could see it, a reddening blur around the edges of his vision. Why did she rile him so? "I don’t think so, and don’t see why you should," he said, before he could help it.

"Oh, I have managed to anger you again," Mrs. Gold said, the choked quality coming back into her voice. Yes, she looked like she might cry once more. Bush stuck out his hands and tried to wave them consolingly.

"Please don’t cry. Please stop," he said, trying to hide the desperation in his voice. "Maybe my sister would agree. I should leave you alone."

Again, she was fast. Her fingers had clasped his before he’d realized it, and she looked down at him with a glad smile on her pink lips. Her short hair was a yellow blur in the light from the window. It seemed she’d mistaken his desperation for tenderness, for she said, "I won’t cry if you don’t wish it, Mr. Bush. There! All done. Now we can be happy." And her pale, silvery-grey eyes were already clearing; how did women do that?

"I must go," he said, trying to pull his hands from hers, yet gently.

"And here I thought you might stay a while, Mr. Bush," Mrs. Gold said, in a new voice. This one was not sly, or choked, but held a sensuous quality that Bush’s body found it hard to ignore. He was weak; weak from lack of non-sisterly female contact, and he was made even more weak by her warm, pale hands, which twined and squeezed his fingers, every move suggestive, soft and practiced as a whore’s. "I am lonely, as you are, and I am not completely without gifts."

But Bush had turned down a few whores in his day. And lonely? He could not be lonely, surrounded by his family as he was. The woman must be mad. "Impossible," he said.

She’d moved closer, her rose gown rustling against the dark blue of his knees. Her scent this close was dusky, making him think of pale yellow flowers. "Not impossible at all. Did you know, Mr. Bush, that I have a back stair? No one would see you enter or leave. If you tapped at my doorway I would let you in."

Bush could think of no retort, nothing to say to that. She didn’t know him and he didn’t know her. For all he preferred straightforwardness, this game was beyond him, and he didn’t want a woman to tell him what to do. "I’m leaving," he said and stood, jerking his hands away. Within moments he had the door open and was out, and she could not stop him.

Still, though, she could taunt him. "Some of the rumors about me are true, Mr. Bush," she called after him.

***

Dinner was beef stew. It was good. There were a few too many green and orange vegetables for Bush’s taste, but they were well-coated with the thick, brown stew-stock. He wondered where the beef had come from, for he hadn’t fetched it.

His mother sat at the other end of the table. She was quiet but smiled to see him, and there was some pink in her cheeks. Meg had said she was better. The late-spring cold had not been serious but it had made Mrs. Bush tired.

The stew and his mother’s recovery should have made him happy, yet Bush found himself feeling strained and cheerless. The feminine chatter for once was not soothing. Rather, Bush found himself loathing the way his sisters and even Emmy hovered over him, solicitous for his comfort. He’d enjoyed months of it without a thought but now, suddenly, it grated. Did they think him weak, or ill, like his mother?

Bush couldn’t help but remember beef ragout in wardroom after wardroom, drunken officers wearing blue jackets and red faces, singing loudly and lewdly. A total absence of women, and duty to see to afterwards. Purpose. He wondered what he would give to return to that life.

Here on this table there should be port wine but there wasn’t, only the remnants of the unremarkable red. Bush drank more than he should. The women didn’t even need him to help his mother upstairs after dinner. Meg and Emmy only waved him back to his seat to finish his wine. They couldn’t realize how much he’d already drunk.

Bush said he needed air, and they all fussed over him, the flurry of pastel pink and blue and yellow nearly driving him mad. They "needed to take care of the man of the house," they often joked, but he was no man. Dinners had happened without him, and the garden had grown without him as well.

Mrs. Gold opened the door at Bush’s quick raps on the old, faded wood. Her expression was odd but she didn’t smirk at him knowingly or say anything sly, and Bush was glad. He couldn’t have borne it.

He shuffled his feet for a few moments on the thin carpet, feeling drunk and self-conscious, as Mrs. Gold checked the curtains to be sure they were all closed. "Do I get a glass of wine, madam?" he said, hating the slurring nervousness in his voice.

"The wine is long gone, unless you brought some with you," Mrs. Gold said. He could hardly see her in the dark of her bedroom.

He hadn’t, but suddenly wondered if he should have. What did other men pay other females with, females who were not whores? Pretty words and jewelry? Bush had none of those for her, either.

"I am a fool," he said, changing his mind.

"Yes," said Mrs. Gold, but her slim fingers had already insinuated themselves under his jacket, hot through the thin cloth of his shirt. She leaned her face close, colorless lips partially open, showing the gleam of her small teeth. "You’ve had plenty already."

"Be quiet," Bush said.

"You cannot tell me to be quiet," she said, tartly.

Bush thought perhaps he could, but instead reeled forward a bit to kiss her, to taste those thin lips and to see if he liked them. Mrs. Gold kissed him back, tongue darting in his mouth, quick and slick. Bush’s hand found her waist, tiny and fragile under her old, soft gown.

But she was not fragile, he knew this already. Her slim little fingers grasping the back of his head had power. Bush’s thoughts swam as her strong lips sucked at his, at his tongue, as if she were starving, and as she thrust her hand down into his trousers to clasp at his already-twitching cock. Her grip was capable, determined, not shy at all. Dully he felt the ties to his breeches torn open, and then Mrs. Gold had kneeled before him, both hands working at his cock and his balls, touches sure and arousing, sharp through his wine-haze.

The heat of her wet little mouth was a shock and a gift; Bush opened his eyes but couldn’t see her in the dark. It was good, too good. Bush wanted this, but also he did not. Forever women were ministering to him, controlling him. Would they ever let him do anything?

It took great effort of will but Bush ignored the demands of his cock long enough to grab Mrs. Gold’s arm and yank her upright.

"Wasn’t you liking it, Mr. Bush?"

The coarse accent excited him, as well as her breath, tasting of his flesh. "Yes, I was," he said, but didn’t explain further. Her soft, slender thigh, felt as he slid a hand under her gown, excited him as well.

"You won’t tell me what to do," she said, and pulled him to the bed, felt rather than seen. He fell atop her, legs hampered by his trousers at his knees.

Bush no longer wanted to argue with her, because he wanted her skinny body with a vigor he couldn’t fathom, and he was getting it with very little fuss or bother. It was a simple matter to pull up her skirts, and she spread her thighs without speaking. It was so dark he couldn’t see her face, but could only hear her breath catch in his ear as he shoved his cock inside her. She was tight and very womanly. Bush didn’t know if this made him a man, but it felt good.

In his blindness every other sense was sharpened to swordpoints. He smelled dust in her hair.

***

Bush paused, finding he had nothing more innocuous to say about the cottage, about Chichester.

"We must see about your bed for tonight," Hornblower said, rising, head bowed under the low ceiling.

Downstairs Bush met the daughter of the house, Maria Mason. Her cheeks were round and pink but she was far from pretty. In fact, she was plain as bread dough. What little animation she had was clearly caused by the presence of Hornblower. Bush was thankful when they left the women to return upstairs, to Hornblower’s little brown wood-paneled attic room.

There they discussed Emperor Napoleon, and the chance for war. For a space Bush’s thoughts were in turmoil over the possibility, yet focused all the same. To be at sea again! Hornblower warned Bush to remember what they’d seen in the last war, the carnage, blood washing over the decks. But these images to Bush were not as disturbing as they perhaps should have been. He’d been brought up to the life; the blue of the sea, the red of blood, and the white sails and holystoned decks.

They were interrupted by Maria with the bed. Besides being plain she was sturdy, too; to call her plump would have been kind. She dragged a bed into the room without help from either of the men, then patted it, sending up little puffs of dust, grey in the ill-lit room.

Her round face simpered without intelligence, begging Hornblower to let her wipe the dark stains from his blue coat. Bush hated simpering women. He liked happy women.

Hornblower’s eyes followed Maria out the door, but not the way they might follow a pretty, saucy girl. He watched her with the same apprehensive look he might give a strange ship, coming up with the weather-gage.

***

The fourth or fifth time Bush visited Mrs. Gold it was July, and unseasonably hot and humid. Everywhere he went the damp soaked through his clothes into his skin. He wondered whether he would ever rid himself of the scent of green that hung about him.

This time, Bush had brought wine. After their energetic and impatient coupling, Bush opened it and they lay on the bed, completely naked, sipping their wine from short glasses and praying for the next light breeze to find the crack in the window.

One thing Bush had liked about Mrs. Gold was the fact that she rarely spoke anymore, but this night she wanted to talk. "This hateful heat. It is maddening," she said, lifting her sweaty head to sip at her wine, opaque in the darkened room. "Nothing can soothe me. I want to never move again."

"The wind has not been kind to us, Laura," Bush agreed. He only used her first name now, preferring not to think of her as Mrs. Gold. It was a reminder that she was married, missing husband or no. He crooked his neck to sip the wine and was clumsy; some dribbled out the side of his mouth to splash onto her naked breastbone. He bent his head to lick at it. "No westerly breeze, no south wind. I can’t even smell the sea anymore," he said to her damp little breasts and nipples dark against her pale skin, all soft and tasting of salt.

But her fingers pushed his head away. "I cannot bear it. Even the wine is warm. You should have brought ice, Will. Why did you not bring ice?"

Bush was relaxed, ready to indulge her nonsense. "And where am I to find ice in July?" he asked, nibbling a little on the quick pulse beneath her sweaty chin.

"Even by the weather I am mocked," Laura said in a dull voice. "It is no use. I do not know why I linger when there is nothing for me here. Wet, warm, cold, dry, nothing matters, for I have an empty future. If I were dead, nothing would pester or mock me ever again."

Bush wasn’t sure how to respond to that. He knew she had odd moods, but then did not most women? He wondered why this mood made him feel so uncomfortable.

"There’s no call to talk like that, Laura," he finally told her, in what he thought might be a teasing voice. "Surely you don’t think that."

"You cannot tell me how to think, Will," she said. "I have felt it before you started coming ‘round, and you have not changed it."

Bush raised himself on one arm to look at her, her slender, gleaming limbs, his pale hairy ones looking almost dark next to them. She stared not at him but at the window, the splinter of moonlight silvering her cheeks and eyes, making her look almost pretty. "Am I supposed to change it?" he asked her.

"I don’t know, she answered in a feeble voice. He stared at her until she continued. "No, I suppose not."

Women were strange creatures. Perhaps she just needed a little attention. Bush didn’t love Laura but he liked her, and supposed by now they were lovers at least in the physical sense. He wouldn’t ask her; they never discussed such things.

And she excited him, there, thin and glistening and naked. Bush set his glass of wine on one of the tables pressed up against the bed. He rested his tanned hand on the jut of her hipbone, thumb sliding along the shadowed groove, the indent between hip and stomach. The silky feel of it aroused him.

Bending over, he swirled his tongue around her tiny navel, tasting the damp salt there. Laura shifted and his cock jumped against her smooth thigh. She sighed beneath him, twitching a bit, without words. Encouraged, Bush slid his lips across her slick belly to the edge of the rough, pale curls below.

It took him another moment to realize that she was crying. He looked up.

"Christ! What is wrong with you?" he asked, annoyed.

Her hands covered her face and her answer was muffled. "Nothing."

"Clearly there is something wrong!" Bush said, a little more loudly. He sat upright, no longer relaxed, becoming angry.

Her body only shook harder. "Just leave me alone," she sobbed. "Go away! You should have brought ice, Will. Why did you not bring ice?"

"Ridiculous!" He’d had enough. He tried to jump from the bed but in the cramped room he knocked his shin against one of the tables. It only darkened his rage, his eyesight; the room dimmed, blurred, making it difficult to find his clothing.

And she just lay there, uncaring, sobbing stupidly and trying to talk between broken gasps. "I wish I was dead! I do, I-- I wish I was dead!"

Bush wanted to slap her out of her hysteria, or shake her. Instead he took a deep breath and said, "I’m leaving."

"Good!" Laura cried, sitting up and staring at him, eyes wide and accusing, her face darkened and gleaming with tears. "Next time, perhaps you may be more useful!"

"Stupid b--" he started, but didn’t finish because he banged his head when he bent to pull on his breeches. It hurt. Little pricks of silver swam across his already-blurred vision. "God-dammit!" he yelled.

"Oh, I don’t know what is wrong with me," she sobbed at him. "I want to die."

"Stupid bitch," Bush repeated as he stormed out the door, shirt unbuttoned in his haste to leave.

***

The next day Bush had a terrible headache. He’d not slept well after his irksome evening with Laura Gold.

He sat in the parlor, trying to read the Naval Gazette, trying to keep the black words from blurring into grey on the white pages. He should go outside and make himself useful, he knew, but he could not face the sunshine or the humidity in this mood.

Yet he couldn’t relax inside, either. There was some female commotion going on upstairs.

"I shall never be pretty!" his sister Abby howled from somewhere, her whining tones floating straight down the stairs into Bush’s pained ears. "No matter what I try! No man will ever want me!"

"Of course you are pretty, dear," came Meg’s gentle tones. "It is only this heat, making everyone droop. When we get a breeze you will feel pretty again."

"I shan’t, I shan’t!"

Bush hunched his shoulders up over his ears, trying to focus on the pages before him. There wasn’t much to read; more old letters from the war, news of fishing boats which had bumped each other in the night, useless information.

"Calm youself, dear, and have some tea." Meg’s soft step sounded and then she appeared around the landing, looking calm and cool in something pale yellow.

"I don’t want tea!"

Meg smiled at him affectionately. "Will, please tell Abby that she is pretty!"

"I’m not, I’m not!"

"Can’t you tell her to bloody well be quiet?" Bush found himself roaring.

Meg’s blue eyes went wide a moment, startled, then she turned and ran back up the stairs, yellow skirt billowing about her quick steps. He could hear her shushing Abby, and then some female whispering.

Bush felt like a monster. His sisters could be as irritating as any females, but they cosseted and loved him without question. He was undeserving. He forced himself to put down the Gazette and to go upstairs to apologize. The women merely told him "it was nothing," all the while giving each other significant looks.

"It’s just everything," he heard Meg say as he left.

"Yes, I know," Abby replied. More female talk. The words were English but Bush couldn’t fathom their meaning, and didn’t have the energy to decipher them.

Just as Bush hadn’t been able to decipher Laura Gold’s odd, weepy moanings the night before. He supposed it must have been the heat, and "everything," as his sisters might have said. And her behavior had been odd but she was an odd woman, as he of all people knew.

For a moment he decided that women were simply unfathomable. Once a month even his cheerful sisters became unreasonable beyond belief. Though they never screamed and wished they were dead, he thought.

What had he done wrong? He’d never promised her any pretty words, and she’d never requested them. He could give her another apology, however. The more Bush thought about his own behavior, the more he felt somewhat ashamed. If any man had spoken to his sisters so, called them stupid bitches or yelled God-dammit at them, especially when they were weeping, Bush would have killed that man without qualm. Yes, he should certainly apologize. He owed her that, at least, for their strange intimacy.

Bush came to the decision and stepped outside into the sunlight. Surprisingly, his headache eased as he did so.

This time he rapped on her front door. He didn’t bring an offering, only an apology.

"I am sorry, Laura," he said when she opened the door.

"I accept, and offer my own apology," Laura said, and her tremulous smile turned full. Today her hair was golden and shiny despite the humidity, and she wore a pretty pink gown. She looked almost like a doll. "I do not know what came over me. It must have been the terrible heat."

"The heat, and everything," he said, trying out this strange new language.

She laughed. "Exactly so. Will you come in?"

"But I am at the front door," Bush told her.

She laughed again. "I do not care."

Bush hesitated. He’d not planned to stay. But she seemed so normal and smiling now, her glance seductive in her best manner. Now and then even his cheerful sisters became unreasonable beyond belief...

This time the sex was languorous, and good. Only the white curtains had been drawn and he could see everything, the sunlight warming yellow on her skin. It gilded the curls between her thighs and he could see the dusky blush of the soft folds of skin beneath them, spreading as he pushed his dark, throbbing cock inside, mingling his chestnut hair with hers. Laura giggled and moaned with pleasure, quietly so as not to let the sound escape through the cracked window to the street outside. And Bush felt easy again in his mind.

***

"It may be war," Hornblower said, a gleam of excitement in his brown eyes.

"War!" Bush said, loving the taste of the word on his tongue and feeling hardly any shame in it.

He and Hornblower watched the press gang as it continued down the street, the redcoats herding the men, the shuffling men trying desperately to keep their trousers from falling down. The soldiers’ jackets faded to deep crimson, then black, as they passed out of sight in the dark night. Though his breath blew out before him in a white cloud, Bush did not feel the cold, only the heat of excitement.

Employment. Purpose. Escape. War meant all of these things. Hornblower, with his quick and clever mind, could escape that little Maria, who had ensnared his guilt with her half-crown. And Bush, whose mind was sometimes dull, could escape the need for any more apologies.

"But--- war!" he said again.

***

The last time Bush went to visit Laura Gold, she seemed drunk. Her hair was brownish and dull. "Here is Will Bush, come to come to come again!" she said. Even her giggles were slow and slurred.

"What are you drinking?" he asked, looking around her cramped, dark bedroom for a telltale bottle.

"Nothing you brought," she said, coming close and running her little fingers up his arms and shoulders to play with the queue of hair at his nape. The tingles they brought excited him as always, on the basest level, but her words annoyed him, made him curious.

"Well, who brought it then?" he asked, trying to sniff her breath to see what she’d imbibed.

"That is none of your business," she said with a coy look, sliding a warm palm into his collar. "Perhaps another man brought it to me."

Again he was thrown off-balance, and again the truth came out of him before he could think about it. "I don’t understand your games," he admitted, hoping he didn’t sound as plaintive as he felt. But a sort of understanding came to him with the release of the words. He didn’t know why Laura was so changeable, so unpredictable. But she always had been. He’d realized it before, but had ignored it because of lust. Lust that even now threatened him.

"No games. Same as ever," she slurred, licking sloppily at his chin, his Adam’s apple.

Bush felt nauseous, unsettled, even as his cock twitched at the motions of her tongue. He locked his fingers into her shoulders and pushed her away a bit. "I can’t take this stupidity. Tell me if you have another man, because then it’s clear you don’t need me."

"Never needed you, William Bush," she said, pale eyes turning hard, colorless lips trying to form a pout. "I still don’t."

That was it; a release. "Then I’ll leave. I am sorry," he told her.

She flushed, face pinched in the dimness of her bedroom. "I never need your apologies, neither! You’re always apologizing! If you can’t be a man and just take it, then leave! Leave!"

"I will," he said, pushing her away.

"Yes you will, Will!" she shrieked then, and balled up a little fist and waved it at him. It caught the edge of his chin. She was strong, and it hurt.

"Bitch." Bush grasped her wrist before she could swing her fist at him again, and held it, perhaps harder than he should. He glared at her.

"Bastard!" she screamed at him. "You never could, could give me what I needed! Now you’re going to run away, like a coward!"

"Shut up!" he told her, tossing her hand aside to keep her away. "What in hell is wrong with you? I’m leaving, aren’t I? I don’t know why you talk to me like this."

"Because I don’t care," she said, beginning to weep, angry sobs shaking her thin chest through her old, dark gown. "I-- I do not care anymore. Run, coward! Cannot stand up to a woman, n-never could! Just says he’s sorry!"

Twice now she had called him a coward, and she was weeping again, driving him near madness. Almost without thought he balled his fingers into a fist, to hit her back, to shut her up at last. His mind was a whirl, churning in the dark: red rage, then blue calm seeping in as he clenched and unclenched his hand, digging his short nails into his palms.

"Hit me! Hit me!" she screamed, tears dripping into the dark hole of her open mouth.

But Bush could take no more, couldn’t handle it. He was too simple. And she was too mad. Whatever she needed, he could never give it to her. And she brought out the worst in him. He looked at his palm and was surprised to see the angry, dark crescents etched into his palm, was surprised to see how angry he had been.

He had almost hit a woman, for a moment had wanted to, with a need more powerful than lust. He could only leave. Behind him, she screamed for him to come back like a man, to come back and hit her, to put her out of her misery. He did not go back, and he did not apologize again.

***

"I was afraid you wouldn’t ask," Bush told Hornblower.

Hornblower laughed, teeth white in his happy face. They both turned and looked out at Hotspur in Plymouth harbor. She was a sweet little sloop with clean lines, and a trim black-and-yellow Nelson chequer. A fine, cold rain dripped about them, obscuring Bush’s vision for a moment like grey tears, then just as quickly cleared.