Red Seas Under Red Skies: The Gentleman Bastard Sequence, Book Two (Gentleman Bastards 2)

He saw the slap coming but it never occurred to him for an instant to try to prevent the blow from landing. She put all of her muscle into it, which was saying something, and tears blurred Jean’s vision.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Tell you—’

She was sobbing now, but her next punch landed on his right arm with undiminished force.

‘Ow,’ he said. ‘What? What?’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

It was almost a shout; he spread his hands to catch her fists. A punch from her to the ribs or solar plexus and he’d feel it for hours.

‘Ezri, please. Tell you what?’ He knelt on the narrow floor of her compartment, kissing her fingertips while she tried to yank her hands back. At last he let her, and knelt before her, arms lowered.

‘Ezri, if you need to hit me, then by the gods hit me. If that’s what you need, I won’t fight you for a second. Not ever. Just ... tell me what you want.’

She balled her fists and Jean braced himself for another swing, but she sank to her knees and wrapped her arms around his neck. Her tears were hot on his cheeks.

‘How could you not tell me?’ she whispered.

‘Anything you want to know, I’ll tell you now, just—’

‘The poison, Jean.’

‘Oh,’ he moaned, slumping sideways against the rear wall of the cabin. She slid with him. ‘Oh, shit.’

‘You selfish bastard, how could you not—’

‘Drakasha told the council of captains our story,’ Jean said numbly. ‘You were there to hear it.’

‘From her, not you! How could you do that to me?’

‘Ezri, please, it’s—’

‘You are the only thing,’ she whispered through the iron grip of her embrace, ‘the only thing on this whole fucking ocean that’s mine, Jean Tannen. I don’t own this ship. Hell, I don’t own this cabin. I don’t have a buried fucking treasure. I have no family and no title, not any more. And then I finally got to take something in return—’

‘And it turns out I have ... one significant flaw.’

‘We can do something,’ she said. ‘We can find someone. Physikers, alchemists—’

‘Tried, Ezri. Alchemists and poisoners. We need the antidote from Stragos, or an actual sample of his poison from which to create one.’

‘And didn’t I deserve to know? What if you’d—’

‘Dropped dead in here one night? Ezri, what if a Redeemer had put his sword through my skull, or the crew had just murdered me on the day we met?’

‘That’s not you,’ she said, ‘that’s not how someone like you dies, I know, I just know—’

‘Ezri, you’ve seen every one of my scars, you know I’m not—’

‘This is different,’ she said. ‘This is something you can’t just fight.’

‘Ezri, I am fighting it. I’ve been fighting it every single day since the Archon put the fucking thing in me. Leocanto and I count the days, do you understand? I would lay awake at night the first few weeks, and I was sure I could feel it, doing something in me—’ He gulped, and felt his own tears pouring down his face. ‘Look, when I’m in here it doesn’t exist, understand? When I’m with you I can’t feel it. I don’t care about it. This is ... it’s like a different world. How could I tell you? How could I ruin that?’

‘I would kill him,’ she whispered. ‘Stragos. Gods, if he was here right now I’d cut his fucking throat—’

‘I’d help. Believe me—’

She released her arms from around his neck and they knelt there in the semi-darkness, staring at one another.

‘I love you, Jean,’ she whispered at last.

‘I love you, Ezri.’ Saying it was like allowing some sudden release of pressure behind his heart; it felt like breathing in at last after ages spent underwater. ‘You’re like no one else I’ve ever known.’

‘I can’t let you die,’ she said.

‘It’s not you ... you can’t—’

‘I can do what I damn well please,’ she said. ‘I can get you to Tal Verrar. I can buy you time to get what you need from Stragos. I can help you kick his arse.’

‘Ezri,’ said Jean, ‘Drakasha’s right. If I can’t get what I need from him ... taking Stragos down is more important—’

‘Don’t say it.’

‘I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘It only makes sense. Gods, I don’t want to, but if I have no choice I’ll trade myself for him.’

‘Damn you,’ she whispered, and faster than he could react she leapt to her feet, seized him by the front of his tunic and slammed him against the starboard bulkhead. ‘You will not! Not if we beat him, Jean Tannen. Not if we win.’

‘But if I have no choice—’

‘Make a new choice, you son of a bitch.’ She pinned him to the bulkhead with a kiss that was pure alchemy, and his hands found their way down her tunic, down to her breeches, where he unhitched her weapons belt with as much gratuitous fondling of the areas not covered by it as he could manage.

She took the belt from his hands and flung it against one of the stiffened canvas walls, where it struck with a clattering racket and slid to the floor. ‘If there is no way, make a way, Jean Tannen. Losers don’t fuck in this particular cabin.’

He picked her up, making a seat for her from his crossed arms, and whirled her around so that her back was against the bulkhead and her feet were dangling. He kissed her breasts through her tunic, grinning at her reaction. He stopped to put his head against her chest; felt the rapid flutter of her heart beneath his left cheek.

‘I would have told you,’ he whispered. ‘Somehow.’

‘Somehow, indeed. “Man,”’ she said, ‘“what a mouse he is made by conversation—”’

‘Oh, it’s not enough that I have to take this from you, now I have Lucarno chastising me—’

‘Jean,’ she interrupted, pressing his head more firmly against her with a hug. ‘Stay with me.’

‘What?’

‘This is a good life,’ she whispered. ‘You suit it. We suit it. After we deal with Stragos ... stay with me.’

‘I like it here,’ said Jean. ‘Sometimes I think I could stay for ever. But there are ... other places I could show you. Other things we could do.’

‘I’m not sure I’d adjust well to life on land—’

‘Land has its pirates, same as the sea,’ he murmured between kisses. ‘I’m one of them. You could—’

‘Belay this. We don’t have to decide anything now. Just ... think on what I said. I didn’t bring you in here for negotiations.’

‘What did you bring me here for?’

‘Noise,’ she whispered, starting to pull his tunic off. ‘Lots and lots of noise.’