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INSUBORDINATION

ALEX BEECROFT

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INSUBORDINATION

Cover art by BEVERLY MAXWELL

Linden Bay Romance, LLC

Palm Harbor, Florida 34684

www.lindenbayromance.com

This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to

persons, living or dead, or business establishments, events

or locales is coincidental.

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this may be used

or reproduced in any manner whatsoever with out written

permission, except in the case of brief quotations

embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Alex Beecroft

Supper at Kenyon’s house, and they talk of the supply

problems, the difficulty of getting fresh drinking water

aboard, while sipping crab and scallop soup, each trying

his hardest not to slurp, trying to look perfectly at ease.

Josh sneaks sideways glances at his captain, gaze

caught and held by the sheen of sweat on that stiff upper

lip.

The soup removed, they discuss smugglers—their

habits and lairs, their distinguishing marks, avid and

precise as any stone age hunters reciting the spoor of their

prey. The line of gold on Kenyon’s lip continues to obsess

Josh. He can’t stop looking, wanting to forget all this food

and instead lean forward and lick that line of sweat away.

Kenyon looks up, catches his eye and there is a

moment’s silence, ringing like a struck brandy glass. Like

brandy, it goes to Josh’s head, smooth, hot, delicious. He

licks his lips. They are both breathing harder when he

looks down again.

Insubordination

It started this morning—this tension that he does not

dare call foreplay. He had seen enough of Peter’s

miserable sighs. His patience, sanded thinner and thinner

over weeks of forbearance had finally snapped. Entering

Peter’s office, he had laid down a bundle of paper on the

polished desk and said;

“Despatches from London. Butcher’s bill from the

Seahorse . Sightings of the Avenger and the Cruel Bones .

Papers containing news of the war, and incidentally, Sir, I

still love you. Why not take an evening off from being

respectable? I’m owed a chance to bugger you for a

change, don’t you think?”

Kenyon had frozen rigid, while the quill snapped in

his fingers and his eyes became the cloudy green of thick

glass. Then he shook himself and replied, “I’ll see the

applicants for ship’s Doctor at the hospital at noon—have

the sick men transferred at once. Let me see your

predicted courses for the Avenger and the Bones first.

Digest of the papers to follow please.”

Then as Josh bowed, put on his hat and turned to

make a scorchingly embarrassed exit, he had finished,

“and about that other matter. I’ll give you my thoughts at

dinner. 8pm. Be prompt.”

So here they sit, watching one another, with nervous

caution and sweaty hands, and Josh still has no idea

Alex Beecroft

whether this is a ‘Mr. Andrews, if you cannot let go of

our undesirable connection, I will have to transfer you

elsewhere’ dinner, or a prelude to the world’s most inept

seduction. He hopes for the latter, of course.

The doings of his extended clan form an inexhaustible

topic of conversation over the roast duck. Four living

generations of Andrews’s in East Anglia. O’Neills,

O’Hallorans and FitzGeralds in Ireland. Cousins who run

vast estates and cousins who haunt the attics of the same,

exercising squatter’s rights to keep three pigs and a hen.

Illegal brewers, champion poets, friends of friends in the

Spanish and French navies, and smugglers closer to

home, until he’s painted himself as a little wild by blood;

a little inclined to do the unthinkable and get away with it.

Kenyon’s family, for whom the receipt of a new batch

of letters is excitement enough to occupy them a month,

cannot compare. And if Peter suspects him of making half

of this up, well, he doesn’t know which half. Meanwhile,

Josh punctuates his tales by sucking the sauce from his

fingers and watching the tide of red rise from beneath

Peter’s cravat to suffuse his whole face.

Flustered is a good look on him.

Between courses, while the silent servants remove

plates, fill up glasses, Josh takes off his coat, loosens his

cravat and stretches luxuriantly. He can’t keep the little

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