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The first sunrise of the year had come and gone by the time Captains Crozier and Fitzjames finally sat down to a private dinner aboard Terror. This occasion marked the first time in several weeks that each had lain eyes on the other. Although Captain Crozier appeared far better than he had on the night he drank his final whiskey, it was clear the man was still regaining his bearings after a long battle with delirium tremens .
As a result, Fitzjames affably carried his fellow captain through conversation –– mostly headlines, gossip, and recent reports –– before turning to more delicate topics.
“Have you got through the worst of the horrors by now?”
Shifting in his chair, Crozier made an unconvinced noise. His eyes dropped to the table for a moment. “Doctor MacDonald tells me my condition is much improved.”
“Well, do you not feel improved?”
He anticipated this would provoke some sort of blustering retort, and was pleasantly surprised when Crozier answered this question without prevaricating.
“In truth, I do not know what I feel. This – it is the first time I have been without in many years. As a result, my senses are much altered.”
“Really? In what manner?”
“Certain aspects may be obvious in hindsight.” Crozier directed him a darkly amused look, now. “Jopson knows I am still a grumpy bugger, but I have become less prone to fits of temper, according to his thorough reports. And the good doctor says my usual melancholy is become lessened, although I am not convinced as to that idea’s veracity. On the whole, my intellect is sharper. My reactions much quicker. It’s – well. I suppose I finally ken Sir John’s love of abstinence, after all these years. I am clear-eyed. Vitalic. Perhaps for the first time since I joined up.”
“Goodness,” Fitzjames said dryly. This sort of impartial reflection was unprecedented. “If Sir John himself could see you now, he’d dance a Highland reel on deck in lieu of preaching the Divine Service.”
“Mm.” Crozier’s smile turned slightly wistful. Fitzjames could see precisely what he had indicated before: that the melancholic tendency had not fully disappeared. He was momentarily glad that this was so, although he could not pinpoint the exact reason. “Such a sea change would indeed beggar belief.”
“And your Miss Cracroft? Would she believe it?”
Sighing heavily, Crozier shifted in his chair a second time. He seemed eager to put this particular subject to rest. “I’ll not know her good opinion again, unless she lights eyes on me.”
Fitzjames refused to let his fellow captain pretend ignorance. “Francis, this is no jest. What might she say?”
“Let us not become delusional, James.” Crozier took a drink of water. The half-full cup listed several centimeters to the left once he set it down upon the crooked table. “She possesses nothing else to say to me, I am sure.”
“Ah, but here your choice of words betrays your true intentions. If you should have nothing to say the lovely Miss Cracroft in return , then we would talk no more of visiting her once you are returned to London. You would write a last letter, mayhaps, or speak plainly with both her and Lady Jane as to their profound loss –– not seek a private audience with an eligible woman who desires neither your conversation nor your company. I wager you are planning an infamous third attempt even as we speak.”
Crozier was silent a moment. Deep frown lines knitted themselves into his thoughtful brow and around his pursed mouth. “You are an inordinately vexing man.”
“And yet you cannot rid yourself of me.” Captain Fitzjames was positively buoyant at sleuthing out an answer at last. “Here is what I shall do for you, Francis. Since you are determined to see your Miss Cracroft again, and to gain a private audience with the lady – perhaps renew any lingering affections that have burned bright ere these icy winters – ”
“I certainly will not gain anything of the kind –”
“– then I shall play the role with gusto, so you may endeavor to practise this encounter prior to our journey home.”
A brief silence fell over the dining table. Captain Crozier’s countenance was nothing short of dumbfounded.
“I pray you repeat yourself, sir.”
“Well, Francis,” and here Fitzjames adopted a glib, rather knowing posture, “my directive in this matter is quite simple. You have oft informed me of previous troubles in speaking to our dear Miss Cracroft. How you were overtaken by nerves or drink or some wretched combination of both. What I offer you here is an opportunity to plot the course of your next conversation before it must be had. Using what little privacy remains to us both, here on Terror, we may stake out an elegant solution to your problem, the meat of which shall nourish your mind on the long walk, and shall prepare you for an eventual audience with Miss Cracroft, as well as her beloved aunt.”
“I fail to see how Lady Jane’s presence will necessitate such extreme measures.”
“Because she’ll be grieving.” A pause; Fitzjames held Crozier’s surprised gaze with an unbearably serious countenance. “And likely unable to tolerate the smallest of unfortunate slips in conversation, which dog you even at the best of times. She’ll be unforgiving as Tunbaaq, should you falter.”
Crozier nodded, clearly receptive to this observation. A rueful smile tugged at his mouth. “I am beginning to take your meaning.”
“Do you then agree to my bargain? Will you allow a brother-in-arms to provide you good counsel in this matter?”
“Well.” That same rueful smile now stretched wide across Crozier’s rugged face. Seeing this cheered Fitzjames up most enormously. “I sense that if I do not agree to this ridiculous charade, you shall never let me hear the end of it.”
“Quite.” Fitzjames tapped the captain’s table with both hands before summoning his steward from the outer room. “Hoar, please inform our fellow Erebites to suit up for the walk back.” This done, he directed his attention back to Captain Crozier. “Sir, you and I shall meet day after next, at the end of the last dog watch. Ready yourself.”
**
When Fitzjames returned on the appointed day and hour, it was with Jopson and Hoar in tow; between them, the two stewards carried a small trunk that appeared to be of little weight, engraved with a sigil Crozier did not immediately recognize.
Fitzjames dismissed the two men with his usual humour, in visibly high spirits despite the fact he was windburned, shivering slightly, and still in his slops. “See Mr. Diggle for a hot biscuit and double your allotted rum apiece. That will be all for now.”
“What in the damned seven hells have you brought me?” Crozier asked once the door had closed behind them, and James shed his outer layers. “Was this below decks?”
“Consider it a good omen. I found the larger trunk in Sir John’s personal stores.”
“Do I wish to know what the larger trunk contained?”
“All in good time,” said Fitzjames, as he opened the lid and swept a bundled linen parcel into his arms. “Wait till the equinox.”
“You’re being far too secretive,” Crozier complained, as Fitzjames ducked into Crozier’s own private stores, parcel in tow, and began rooting around in the cellar as if he were right at home. “Nearly as irritating as when you start telling that damned Chinamen story in strange company.”
Fitzjames’s voice was annoyingly cheerful, even at this distance and from a far-off location. “Demean that excellent tale all you wish, Francis, but you and I both know it is by far your most-requested story, of all my adventurous accounts.”
“Because it is by far the longest, and if you are fully occupied in recounting each excruciating minute on the Woosung River, then you are able to tell no others for at least an hour.” Another thump, louder this time. Crozier turned a black look toward the source of the noise, although Fitzjames could not see it. “Blast it all. What in God’s name are you doing down there, sparring with the rats?”
“Preparing for my part,” Fitzjames answered calmly. The wretched thumping finally stopped. “Shame you lack a decent-sized mirror down here.”
“A full-length mirror ? In the bloody Arctic?”
“Well you may joke. Sir John’s is terrifyingly ornate.” A heavy sigh echoed out from beyond the dark stairs. “Now, Francis, it appears I have reached the limit of fine fancy. If my marvelous costume goes all crooked in a moment, you are not to laugh at me.”
As Fitzjames treaded the stairs back up to main quarters, Crozier registered the unfamiliar word lurking within that sentence.
“Costume?” he repeated, just as Fitzjames came into view.
His long, curled hair was freshly-washed and parted, and tied back with a dark bow. This much was familar to Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier. But the rest – Crozier knew he had never been so god-damn stunned in his life. He had become positively slack-jawed.
Without his usual collar, jacket, and outer layers, Fitzjames’s bare throat, collarbones and broad shoulders were bared to Crozier’s eyes, as were much of his lean yet well-defined forearms. A thatch of light chest hair dusted his pectorals – or at least, the visible muscles which were not concealed by his clothes. This masculine and virile image was incongruous with the second aspect of the picture he presented, standing before Crozier in a low-necked crimson gown threaded through with gold. Every article was in place, right down to the corset that cinched his waist and the crinolines bunched over his ass. The dress’s taut, lacy sleeves - shockingly feminine and delicate by contrast - ended just past the elbow.
“I was given to understand your Miss Cracroft favored red.” Fitzjames cast a fleeting look down at his voluminous skirts. Impossibly, Crozier noticed the rascal was still wearing his captain’s boots beneath his drag costume, though they were newly blackened. Hoar must have shined them after the Erebites came off the ice. “Is that not so?”
Crozier was nearly beyond words. He had to close his mouth before opening it to speak. “It – is one colour she favors. The other being blue.”
“Ah ha! Unfortunately, Sir John did not see fit to leave us something blue for such an occasion. So I suppose we must make do with the lady’s second-favourite shade.”
“Yes,” Crozier offered weakly. He could think of no other response. “So we must.”
“Excellent.” Fitzjames glanced over. Some of his usual confidence seemed to be returning. “Well, Francis, shall we begin our practise? I have saved some of my best rejoinders especially for this occasion.”
An evening that had seemed ludicrous to the point of derision mere days ago now seemed oddly fraught and ill-advised.
“This is – very strange,” Crozier stated with a shake of his head.
Fitzjames cleared his throat, and drew himself to his full height, adopting a high, slightly-breathy alto instead of his usual tenor. “Captain Crozier, I confess I do not take your meaning.”
“James.” Crozier threw him a long-suffering look. The voice was most unnecessary. “Come now.”
Fitzjames returned this glare full-force, and rustled his skirts with one hand, sweeping imperiously toward his usual chair. Crozier found himself impossibly drawn to the motion of those swishing skirts, odd as it seemed coming from a fellow captain.
“Why, I do not know any gentlemen called James , sir. My aunt and I live here all by our lonesome, as well you have seen.”
Crozier let out a deep, resigned sigh. Clearly, this charade would not end until he joined in the game. “My apologies….Miss Cracroft.”
“Thank you.”
Fitzjames gave him a beatific smile; although it was most unlike Miss Cracroft’s in nearly every way, it was still rather stunning. Crozier could not remember the last time he had witnessed the man smile so broadly. The expression suited him well. However, the sentence Fitzjames spoke next broke whatever spell his pleasant countenance had cast.
“How ruggedly handsome you have become whilst in the Arctic.”
“God above.” The mood of the room returned to normal as Crozier rolled his eyes. Sophia Cracroft would never make her flirtations that obvious. “The lady is nowhere near so insolent.”
“I see.” Fitzjames pursed his lips in thought, then promptly re-adopted his effeminate mannerisms. He began to walk leisurely in front of the sideboard, to and fro, like a madam inspecting her young charges at muster before nightfall. “My goodness, Captain Crozier. Your complexion has got so pale since last we met.”
“That’s – improved, I suppose,” Crozier allowed.
“My aunt and I shall ply you with tea at once, so as to restore your natural humours.” Fitzjames gestured to the dining table, as if to indicate this conversation might take place over some manner of light refreshment. "Shall we?"
Crozier held up his hands in objection. Niceties did not need to be observed, even in jest. “She would feel no need to include Lady Jane in our party if it could be helped.”
Fitzjames was positively twinkling, now, and continued to walk, although he slowed his steps. “By all means, Francis, enlighten me as to how the lovely Miss Cracroft might behave when alone in a gentleman’s presence.”
Crozier growled out an annoyed noise. “Well, she – wouldn’t be standing so damn far away, if you must know. We do not keep to strict formalities at all times.”
“Why, you absolute rogue.” Fitzjames lifted his skirts above the toes of his boots, and began to tiptoe over, as girlishly as if he were appearing in his first Season. “Will this do, sir?”
“Still closer,” Crozier huffed, glowering. This absurd coquettish act threatened to spark his Irish temper. “You are playing far too coy.”
“My, my.” Fitzjames continued his ridiculous promenade across the floor, until the two captains stood less than half a meter apart. “The cheek of you, Captain.”
“And she calls me – ” Crozier swallowed, looked askance, ” – my dear Francis. Sometimes.”
“My dear Francis.” Fitzjames rolled the words around his tongue, slow and purposeful, as if testing them in halting Inuktitut. “Devoted Francis. Darling Francis.”
Facetiousness in this matter could not be borne.
“No.”
“My apologies, Captain Crozier.” Fitzjames glanced sidelong at him through dark lashes before smoothing two hands over the bodice of his dress. Crozier could not help but notice how elegant the man’s fingers appeared when contrasted against the rich, if fading fabric of the dress. His nails were impeccable. “How lovely to see you again. You wished to speak with me?”
“Most urgently, Miss Cracroft.” Now that they were practicing in earnest, Crozier was not certain how to proceed. Were the real Sophia Cracroft standing in front of him, there would be specific liberties he could take, in drawing out conversation. Ways to encourage her lively sangfroid and affections. These could not be similarly employed with a fellow captain. “I trust you have been well, of late?”
Fitzjames broke character to scowl at him, but within moments, collected himself and schooled the severe expression into a more placid, curious appearance. “Sir, it has been nearly four years, seven months since last we met. Have you nothing to inquire of beyond my current state of health?”
Clearly, Crozier’s first answer was not the desired response to a lady’s greeting. He searched for another, more palatable attempt at conversation.
“I – wished to see you, if that is what you are asking.”
“And now you have.” Fitzjames sniffed in a dismissive manner. Clearly, this version of repartée would not do, either. “Will that be all, sir?”
“Sophia.” Her Christian name slipped from his lips before Francis could stop it; Fitzjames arched an imperious eyebrow in response. “We – did not part on the best of terms when last we spoke, as well you know.”
“I recall the day.” Fitzjames tilted his head in a curious fashion, his eyes tracking Crozier’s every movement. “You...asked for my hand.”
Crozier nodded his assent. The game continued: Fitzjames steepled his hands in front of his body, turning towards the windows in profile.
“And I cruelly refused you. How cold of me.”
“No.” Crozier walked around the table; Fitzjames mirrored his steps, so that they stood nearest the far corner of the room, beside the pillar closest to the starboard side. “Your honest words were painful, to be sure, but – I understand now why you did not wish to blindly hope for my return.”
“Good god, man,” Fitzjames broke character again to scoff aloud. “You are actually attempting to woo the woman, not draw out floods of tears.”
“God-damn it,” Crozier exclaimed, but mustered at once, and continued his leisurely stride around Fitzjames’s ridiculous crinolines as if this unfortunate interlude had not occurred. “Miss Cracroft, you once informed me that you wished not to marry a mere Commander, or a mere Captain. On that same occasion, you also informed me that my entreaty for your hand would only mark serious consideration once I retired from my naval duties.”
“Yet here you are again, Captain.”
“Indeed. And are your feelings unchanged, Miss Cracroft?”
“I – ” Fitzjames paused, placed one hand to his chest as if overcome. “Oh, Francis, I have always been so fond of you.”
Was he testing Crozier? Perhaps to ensure he did not lose his temper, or stutter when greeted with an answer other than the one he wished?
“Do not misunderstand me, dear Miss Cracroft. I do not inquire as to lingering fondness or mere fancies. I speak now of much deeper feelings - and passions - such as you once showed me in Van Diemen’s Land.”
“Passions,” repeated Fitzjames, slowly. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
It was clear that Crozier would need to elaborate on this particular subject, given Fitzjames’s bewildered response. “I am sure you recall our time together.”
“How could I forget?” A pause. “We – shared a kiss. In my uncle’s garden.”
A cautious, if uncharitable, guess.
“False. I speak not of stolen kisses at garden parties.”
Now standing behind his fellow captain, Crozier moved forward, closing the distance between them until he could nearly touch Fitzjames’s elbows with both his hands. His eyes fluttered closed, and when he inhaled, it was a familiar mix of Navy-issue lye soap, worn canvas, and the iron scent of ice melt.
“You know of what I speak, Miss Cracroft.”
“Make your meaning plain, sir.” James’s breathy voice stuttered as Crozier reached out, and brushed two careful fingertips across the half-open palm of his hand. He would touch Sophia in this manner, and no more. “That is – what I often tell you, is it not?”
Indeed it was. Crozier did not stop to wonder how Fitzjames knew this.
“I confess I cannot articulate it any clearer.” Leaning in, Crozier used his left hand to cup the gowned waist, caressing five fingers over the tapered end of the corset like a starfish clinging to a ship’s hull. “Would you prefer I show you?”
Though the situation had arisen in jest, he was already stirring beneath his breeches at the thought of an erotic meeting with the woman he had loved. Crozier endeavoured to keep a cool head. Although the circumstance was unusual, it had been a very long time since he’d even experienced such a base urge. Too long. And even if his mind did not remember it, his body did. Rough hand catching over exquisite silk. Fine, sweet-smelling hair tickling his nose and cheek. A warm body trembling against his own.
“Do not toy with me, Francis.” Fitzjames was still speaking in that breathy voice. Crozier now found this fascinating, even pleasing, instead of ridiculous. He leaned in a second time, to whisper into Fitzjames’s ear.
“I would never presume, Miss Cracroft.”
Fitzjames inhaled a sharp breath before speaking again. “Show me as you – where we were, before.”
“Before.” Crozier hummed a pleased sound into Fitzjames’s neck; his fellow captain swallowed hard as Crozier's hand trailed a soft path forward, toward the gathered pleat of – well, Miss Cracroft’s skirts – imagining the last time he had been in her company. His hands caressing her arms and his chest pressed against her upper back. “Platypus Pond.”
“Oh, my.” Fitzjames stiffened, and then squeaked, when Crozier passed one hand between his legs, fleeting. Still concealed beneath those thick skirts was James’s rising ardor. Clearly the other man was no stranger to this sort of game. “Pray, tell me about – that.”
“My dear Miss Cracroft, you would have me speak such a wanton experience aloud? Have you forgotten it?”
He pulled Fitzjames closer, wrapping one forearm around the man’s gowned torso; James made a surprised noise, but obligingly rounded his back, bending slightly at the waist to better fit into Crozier’s embrace.
“I remember.”
“Do you?” He exhaled softly on the back of James’s neck, causing the other man to gasp, then pressed his lips to the fine tendrils of hair growing out behind James’s left ear. “Shall I remind you what transpired?”
Crozier bent his head to James’s fine neck, and then his bare shoulders, scraping his teeth against still-soft skin. James groaned aloud; the sound spurred Crozier on. “You rode your horse like a man, dressed only in trousers and silks. And once we got to the riverbank, you began to taunt me. Stripped off all your clothes for an afternoon swim.”
His hands roamed over the bodice of that voluminous blood-red gown, drawn tight against the hard planes of James’ chest and torso. Cinched as James was by the corset, Francis could almost imagine that the broad man in front of him was Sophia, and that the shabby garment concealed her small pert breasts from his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Shameless hussy,” he whispered, and slid one hand under James’s crinolines, methodically pushing ruffled layers aside in order to lay fingers on what turned out to be James’s bare leg. James let out a small, shocked yelp. “You would hardly speak to me in mixed company, yet in private, you wanted me to work you like some dirty harbour doxy.”
“Thought of it constantly,” he choked out, as Francis moved his hand higher. “And nothing since. All these – years.”
“And do you know what happened next?”
“I – teased you. And – and then –” A shudder rippled through James’s body as Francis maneuvered them both backwards, till he was leaning against the cabin wall, and rubbed one flat-palmed hand over the front of James’ breeches. James groaned and arched into the touch, cock twitching and voice deepening. “Oh, god.”
“Careful, Miss Cracroft.” Francis stilled his fingers, slid the other hand up and over James’s bodice, towards his panting mouth. “We must not be heard.”
“Shan’t,” whispered James, as Francis's fingers traversed the ridges of his collarbones, and dipped beneath his bodice. “Oh, show me.”
Francis thrust forward again, and summoned up his most vivid memories of that day. “I was so prick-forward it was shameful. And you summoned me into the pond in that condition, to bathe naked with you.”
“Never had a man before,” gasped James, as Francis gently stroked the head of his cock. “You were the first.”
“False.” Francis stilled his hand, hardened his voice. “You were expert and knowing.”
“Yes, I wa – wanted to see your – ” James faltered and groaned as Francis thrust his full weight against him. “ Oh .”
“What did you see?”
“Your prick.” James grunted; Francis rewarded this declaration by quickening his speed, rubbing up the full length of James’s cock. “Hard and throbbing. The moment you opened your breeches.”
“Excited you, hm?”
“So much – so – oh.”
“You stroked me beneath the water,” Francis murmured, fumbling against the voluminous skirts so that he could now thrust up against James’s linen-clad backside. Even this intimate sensation was nearly overpowering; he yearned for conclusion. “Like this.”
He slowed his motions, made his ministrations less rough, more nimble. Teased fingers around and over James’s still-clothed prick, which strained against his smallclothes. A patch of taut cotton was already wet from anticipation.
“Good Christ ,” hissed James, all games forgotten. His head arched back, long hair now brushing Francis’s shoulder. “Small wonder you keep asking.”
Francis could not stop himself from acting on this folly now that they had begun. “Ah, Jesus, I never stopped thinking of it. You, naked and wet, rutting down on my leg like an animal while you tugged me off.”
“Goddamn – oh!” James was panting, now; although he tried to keep his mouth closed, his breathing had got high-pitched and laboured. “Francis.”
Francis continued rocking his hips against the sweet cleft of James’ arse; the sensation deliciously erotic, now. “Soaking wet for me.”
“Slick and – h-hot.”
“Yes,” Francis rumbled in reply. In this position, it was easy to imagine that the unruly, straw-like curls under his nose were Sophia’s, and that the person they belonged to was the woman he had dreamt of for so long. But it was unmistakably James clasped in his embrace, hard at his hands, and this knowledge was powerfully thrilling. “So slick I could feel it.”
“Did you fuck me?” James hissed.
Francis’s hips stuttered against James’s underlinens, nearly overcome. He clutched the man even closer. “No.”
At one time, picturing such an act would have entranced Francis beyond all reason – fucking Sophia Cracroft ; taking her long-awaited maidenhead right there against the tree root – but today, and at this moment, the erotic vision of a knee-trembling Sophia was overtaken by a strapping, sinewy and very naked James beneath the tree in her place – masculine yet fey, and nearly otherworldly in his own seraphic beauty. Buggering him breathless without a second’s thought. Causing him to spurt into the water in long, languid arcs. How Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier came to imagine such a treasonous act as suddenly and impossibly beautiful, he was not certain. But in this moment, even the idea of such an illicit encounter intoxicated him –– all as James heaved out breath after breath in his arms.
“Francis, please. ”
Francis’s world spun on its axis upon hearing these words. He could not make himself stop, could find no lodestar to guide him save for the sound of James’s near-broken tenor, as his friend and fellow captain begged him in soft, shuddering whispers: oh god, Francis, I – I m-must, I need–– and his entire body trembled as violently as if he’d suffered frostbite.
And then Francis pressed his aching prick down between James’s bare buttocks in simulacrum of the forbidden act, and slid one hand into the front of James’s smallclothes, skin to skin at last. With a grunt, James’s knees buckled, and his clenching hands strained against Francis’s powerful arms.
“Going to –– ”
“Yes, James.” Francis could think of nothing he wanted more. The precipice was near. “ Now , by god, now. Let me hear you.”
With a whimper, James stiffened in Francis’s arms, spurting into his hand with a muffled sob. Francis cradled him through the climax, supporting their combined weight until the largest of James’s tremors subsided, and the tension had fully eased out of his body. They stood together for several moments, silent and contemplative, before Francis finally withdrew, and wiped his hand on a handkerchief.
“Well. Suppose we’ve practiced our conversational prowess enough for one day, hm?”
Visibly startled, James staggered sideways on coltish legs, and whirled to face him. When Francis met the man’s scoff of disbelief with a mischievous grin, James’s ire turned quickly to embarrassed relief.
“You madman.” He shoved Francis back towards the ornate desk with one hand, although his limbs were still so boneless it did practically naught. “I shall – have you flogged for impertinence.”
“Is that so, Madam?”
Francis could not quell his own amusement, although his laughter quieted once James wobbled forward with a rustle of fabric and sank to his knees in front of the other captain, right there on the hardwood. His voice had returned to its playful tenor as he stroked a finger up Francis’s half-hard length, now freed to the chilly air.
“My dear Captain, what have we here?”
“You are incorrigible,” Francis huffed, although his eyes fluttered closed at the contact. One thumb idly traced over the muscular contours where James’s neck met his shoulders. The other tangled in the back of his hair as James caressed his prick from root to stem. All pretense seemed unnecessary, now. “Ah! Fucking hell, James.”
“Much better,” James replied cheerfully, and squeezed Francis once, very firm.
They exchanged very little by way of conversation, after that.