Page 32 of Measure of the Stars

Wes lifted his hand to do the same, but Delauney kissed him before he could finish.They kissed slower now, but it was still messy and breathless, sucking each other’s fingers, gasping, bodies pressed together in the shadows.Anyone passing by could see them, but that only made Wes burn hotter, clutching Delauney as though he were a post in a storm.

“Do you still...”Delauney hesitated, drawing back.Wes wondered if they’d gone too far.This was probably inadvisable.Wes had already broken his first rule of never fucking the nobility, but Delauney barely counted as noble.And it wasn’t like theywereanything to each other.They could stop any time they liked, and Wes’ life would go on.

Possibly.

“What is it?”Wes asked.He reached up to brush Delauney’s hair out of his eyes.

“Do you still want to look at the stars?”Delauney asked.

Wes smiled.“Yes,” he said, leaning in to kiss Delauney chastely on the cheek.“I still want to look at the stars.”

***

NED SUMMONED DELAUNEYinto his room just as Madog’s Throne appeared over the horizon.Peter and the girls were on the deck, watching the orange groves drift closer, while Wes and Alain scrubbed the dining table.Wes shot Delauney a fleeting smile as he passed, and something jumped in Delauney’s stomach at the memory of Wes kissing him under the stars.They hadn’t managed to do more than steal a few touches here and there, but Delauney couldn’t help but feel strangely giddy at the prospect.

Ned’s room should have been Delauney’s office, but he was so used to managing the daily affairs of the ship that it made sense for him to use it.It still made Delauney feel like an unruly child being drawn before his father instead of a captain, and Delauney sat nervously on the chair before Ned’s desk.

“You’ve been distant, Laney.”Ned leaned back in his chair, regarding Delauney with his warm, dark eyes.

“Have I?”Delauney shrugged.“Sorry.I suppose I’ve been distracted.”

“Not with that new valet of yours, I hope,” Ned said.He raised his brow at Delauney’s answering blush.“Don’t think I haven’t noticed.I know that you’re a man of strong passions.Brief ones, perhaps, but still strong.Like that business you used to have with the stars, remember?”

Delauney felt a cold trickle of guilt at that.He’d been so wary that Ned still thought that he’d given up his fascination with the stars.“That’s what we’re doing, actually.I’m trying to isolate the elements that make up the sun, you see.If we can prove what it’s made of, we can have a better understanding of—”

“That’swhat you’ve been up to?”Ned asked, interrupting him as though the sun wasn’t of much importance at all.He grinned.“Spirits, Laney, here I thought I was going to have to lecture you!That would have been damned awkward, believe you me.”

“Lecture me on what?”Delauney asked.

“You know.”Ned waved a hand.“Fraternizing.Peter mentioned that you seemed a little too close to your valet, and I had to make sure.You’ve been fortunate to stick to your sphere, Laney, but I’ve seen it in others.They start bedding their sailors, then they start doing them favors, and the other sailors naturally resent them for it.As soon as it all sours, and you know it does, the poor sailor is transferred somewhere else with a ruined reputation and a halfway-ruined future.Not that I think you’d do that, of course.”

“Surely it doesn’talwayssour,” Delauney said.He hadn’t been favoring Wes, had he?They’d been eating together, he supposed, but Wes made a point of doing his duties in the open as often as possible, and he seemed to get along with the other sailors well enough.

“Most relations between nobles and commoners do,” Ned said.“It’s a shame, really.It makes you want to shake the whole business off your heels and try out that anarchist nonsense they have here.”

“I didn’t know you had such a bleak view of the nobility,” Delauney said.

“Well, we don’t really talk about these things, do we?”Ned asked.“And you’ve always seemed so content with your lot in life.Well, so long as you’re only roping the poor man into watching the stars with you, I suppose there’s no problem.Just remember to let him sleep, eh?”

Delauney tried to smile, but it came out rigid and tight.“Of course.”

He forced himself not to seek Wes out immediately.Delauney supposed that peoplewouldstart to talk if he dragged Wes out of a group of chatting sailors.Instead, he guided the ship toward Madog’s Throne, trapped at the wheel while Wes wandered about below him.

Madog’s Throne was one of the larger islands in Diabolos, with two harbors, a thriving orange grove, and a small reserve for rare wyverns.Pirates tended to retire there when they weren’t buying villas in Thalassa, which made it surprisingly safe for merchant vessels and naval ships.TheManateethrew anchor a safe distance from the reefs that bordered the Throne, and Delauney paused to watch a hammerhead swim lazily under the first rowboats to disembark.

Wes helped Delauney into his own boat, their hands lingering as they settled on the bench.Ned and his family tumbled into the boat with them, followed by a grinning Alain.

“A member of the colony is here,” Alain said to Wes.“Soon we will exist within the same space and commune with our master properly.”

“How does that work, exactly?”Wes asked.

“Do you really want to know?”Alain asked eagerly.Delauney watched Wes brace himself, forcing his expression into one of polite interest.Alain seemed desperate for anyone to treat them with more than mild apprehension, and Wes had confided in Delauney that letting them down felt like kicking a puppy.A puppy with a many-eyed demon that gave people nightmares, but a puppy all the same.

“Alain,” Peter said, with a stern look their way.“Mind what you say in front of the children.”

“Oh, we aren’t havingrelations,if that’s what you mean,” Alain said.“We’re simply merging our bodies as close as possible while we chant our sacred words into the vast nothingness below.”

“Ah,” Peter said, grabbing Duck by the collar of her dress before she could topple off the edge of the boat.“Naturally.”