*Coda*
“You want to be careful,” Kennedy says, with that familiar mocking glint. “you might find yourself hitched yet, Mr Bush”
“I can look after myself,” Bush retorts, although he wouldn’t have at all minded having a carronade to hand to defend himself from Mrs Mason.
It’s as though Kennedy had read his mind. “Are you sure? I don’t doubt your ability against Frogs or Spaniards, but a determined woman can be quite another matter.”
“Are you offering to defend me?” Bush asks wryly.
“Divert her attention you mean?” Kennedy cocked his head, then shook it decidedly. “I suspect she has written me down as a flippertigibbet. Whereas you are plainly a man of sense and reliability, and altogether good husband material.”
Bush refrained with some difficulty from shuddering. “And I suspect you went out of your way to avoid impressing her.”
“There are times when discretion is the better part of valour, and this is clearly one of them.” Kennedy responded. “It’s the daughter I feel sorry for.”
Bush is not sure quite how much lies behind the words. By silent consent the subject of Horatio Hornblower remains largely undiscussed between them. Bush’s own feelings are clear cut enough: he admires Hornblower unreservedly as an officer, has not the least desire to bed with him, and feels decidedly sorry for the young woman he has married. But he wants no confessions from Kennedy.
“With a dragon like that for a parent?” he says. “So do I.”
Their steps are taking them back towards the harbour. “Do you have to be back on board yet,” Bush says in a rush. It’s their first meeting since Renown was paid off, and he does not want to think that what they had may be gone for good.
“Not yet,” Kennedy says, “Do you?”
Perhaps Kennedy would rather go back to the Hotspur. Bush is still not sure why Hornblower delegated the task of introducing his old friend to his new wife, although perhaps he wanted to avoid a lecture on being an idiot. On the subject of his own appointment to Hotspur Kennedy had merely shrugged and said, “It would never do for me to be Horatio’s first. We were too close as friends.”
Bush still has very little idea of what goes on in Kennedy’s head, and probably never will have. He doesn’t mind. The enigma may be part of the enduring fascination.
“Have you somewhere you would choose to go?” he asks.
Kennedy stops and faces him squarely, running his eyes over Bush’s frame. “That depends on what you want to do.”
“You know what I want,” Bush says hoarsely, heat rising merely from the feel of those blue eyes, and the faint curve of Kennedy’s lips.
“Then we should find somewhere private to repair,” Kennedy says. “Assuming you have no desire to attempt it in the fighting top and provide the men with gossip enough to last three voyages.” The faint curve is now a full blown smirk, and the cool drawl has Bush sizzling already.
“I’d like to make you pay for that,” he whispers
Kennedy cocks a mocking eyebrow. “Do you think you could, William?”
Bush knows he is no match for Kennedy in quick thinking or ruthlessness, and he is quite happy for things to be that way. But if they don’t find a discreet inn soon he may not be capable of walking straight.
“There’s only one way to find out,” he says. “Isn’t there?”