His Heart's Obsession Read Free Page A

the race-day crowd. At once, alone with the man he idolised, Hal felt dangerously, wantonly exposed.
    “You do look a trifle flushed.” Hamilton leaned down again to peer into his face. Their breath mingled—the captain had been chewing cloves and smelled sweet. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”
    The concern warmed him from the inside out, even while he was cursing the shame of it. I am not a maiden to swoon on the sidewalk and be picked up in your strong arms, sir. But oh Lord, if I was, I should do it at once. I should faint away so you could carry me, clutched to your chest, with my face tucked into your neck and your heaving heartbeat under my lips.
    He took a deep breath and shook himself, mentally. These were unworthy thoughts for a lieutenant in His Majesty’s Navy. “It’s nothing, sir. I’m finding the heat oppressive, that’s all.”
    Hamilton smiled. His smiles were rare and all the sweeter for it, and Hal was not the only one of his crew who would have walked through fire to receive one. That slight upturn of the lips was held in reserve for a perfect broadside, or a dashing cutting out expedition or an impeccable spread of sail, and all his ship had grown to see it as worth a thousand words of praise from a more effusive man. “Then let us go and walk by the sea.”
    Hal was instantly contrite. “Forgive me, sir. I thought you wished to see the races. I’ve been speaking to many of the owners—I can give you a deal of inside information if you wished to hazard a guinea or two on a bet.”
    Hamilton’s smile broadened until it crinkled his eyes. “I ask you to come to the races, and you have identified your enemy’s weaknesses and drawn up a battle plan for me already. I could not wish for a better officer. Thank you.”
    The praise knocked him off what little balance he retained. He had wished for words like these, without ever imagining he might hear them. Was it at all likely that Hamilton reflected some of his dedication, some of his adoration? Was it possible that a man so upright, so impeccable, might feel something of the yearning that turned every waking second of Hal’s life into torment?
    “But today, I don’t wish to speak to the First Lieutenant,” the captain continued, taking Hal’s arm again and leading him towards the coast and the ruined glory that was sunken Port Royal. “I wish to speak to my young friend Hal. Man to man, as it were.” He lowered his voice to a confiding softness, leaning in again, so that Hal could see the feathery arc of his sandy-brown eyelashes, the suggestion of faded freckles on his cheek.
    He would kiss them too, every one, if he was only given the chance. Just that—almost chaste kisses, nothing to frighten, nothing to condemn. He would not—of course not—trouble the captain with the kind of lewd and unseemly imaginings he suffered at night in his bunk. What he felt for William was pure. Pure! And damn his treacherous body for wishing otherwise.
    “You will understand that I desire this to be very private between us. There are few men I would trust as I do you.”
    Hal dared not hope, and yet the hope was there, clawing against its restraints in the pit of his heart. What if he has noticed I love him? What if he returns it? I would dare anything for him. If he were only to touch me…
    “You are a popular fellow with the ladies. And why should you not be, for you are a well-made young man and eloquent with it.”
    Hal was leaning forward now to hear the whispered confidences. He could feel the heat of the other man’s skin on his own, and his faintness had returned, breathless, exhilarated, terrified. Oh, please.
    “I am neither of these things. Yet I have had the temerity to fall in love—”
    Please!
    “—with a young lady. She is every grace together personified—”
    The words wrapped around Hal’s ribs and pulled tight, crueller for the hope. It was as though he had been snagged in a loop of anchor cable as it weighed, and his