...
Caprice
Chapter XII
Trafalgar brought back with him a bottle of liquid the colour of primroses. By this time he was surprised to see that Shachi had moved his fellow boggart out of the shadows and into the light of a few dozen candles he'd also lit. Also present in the room was Penguin.
The Caladrius refused to look in the direction of the boggart Trafalgar had sentenced to death.
"Let us hope Bepo does not awaken to this scene," Trafalgar muttered, remembering the last time he'd brought in a demon to his home without warning the shapeshifter first. Bepo had reacted like a honey-crazed bear trying to penetrate a beehive, and that was putting it rather mildly. He could recall that a drawing room had been obliterated.
Dr. Trafalgar shook off such thoughts of destruction and focussed on the unconscious body of the blonde boggart. He'd torn away the clothes that were covering the arm only to find that the skin was peeling and convulsions were rippling across the surface. He could only imagine what was going on underneath. He would have to make his work neat while being swift, something of a challenge when tackling this sort of wound.
While he worked, slathering on a salve of freezing crème which would halt the rapid decay of the skin cells, Shachi continued to mutter away to the demon. That was a strange thing with boggarts; they had their own language that they felt more comfortable conversing in. Any other language was picked up. When flustered they'd revert back to their mother tongue, and that was a petite problem for Trafalgar in the grand scheme of things. He knew not what this demon was saying to Shachi.
He did not doubt his boggart's loyalty, yet at the same time he did not doubt the mischievous intent of a boggart he did not know.
Uncertainty was maddening.
He worked diligently, getting out his needle and thread to sew the original wound shut. It had grown thrice its size in the short span of time between when the boggart was nicked and when Trafalgar applied the ointment. That growth was blamed on his nodachi and its unique demon vanquishing properties.
He loved his sword, and he hoped the spirit within its blade wouldn't be offended that he was now saving a life that should have been taken.
"Is he going to be alright?" Shachi asked, at last reverting back to a language that could be understood.
Trafalgar looked up from his work for a few seconds, not to look at Shachi but to guage Penguin's thoughts on the matter. The bird was still pointedly not looking. With a sigh he returned to the wound and the infected arm. To amputate or leave put; that was the question raging through his mind.
"Remove your helmet, demon," the doctor ordered. He expected some sort of physical response, but the boggart was paralyzed. It eventually happened, as the effects of the flesh-eating curse took out nerve endings first, but he had hoped that it wouldn't be too late. He received only a whimper of a growl, and Shachi went about removing the iron helmet that was upon the demon's head.
What a hideous face beneath. The features were a peculiar mixture between angelic and hedonistic. Trafalgar couldn't say he was particularly captured by it. Still, he'd seen worse on boggarts.
"Remove his shirt, Shachi. I have a feeling the curse has been spreading inside of him. If it has his spine, I won't be able to save him."
Shachi got to work, using his little clawed hands to unbutton and rip away the clothing on his fellow boggart. Trafalgar was interested in how close this boggart was in imitating a human, though he was much hairier and too lean to be considered a healthy human. He almost had an elfish appearance; only he was much too tall and seemed to possess certain characteristics of a wolf or another such fanged beast with powerful limbs. He was a bit too much of everything Trafalgar was fond of.
He examined the shoulder and then the chest, finding visible strain and swelling in the veins that would eventually either pop or stretch the skin to accommodate. Right now it was doing the more restrained of the two options and parting the skin cells. Nothing was bursting open. Nothing was damaged beyond all possible repair.
He risked another glance at Penguin after applying a wash of yellow cream. This was curious. The bird was beginning to turn his head, perhaps getting ready to look upon the patient? Trafalgar grunted and resumed working, halting the progression of the curse where it darkened and enflamed skin. After a while he had Shachi flip the boggart over and went to work on the creature's back. By now he was working with an unconscious patient, and he made no effort to be gentle. Besides, the boggart was beyond feeling pain.
"Before he went out, he told me the name bestowed upon him by Lord Eustass was Killer," Shachi suddenly piped up, retrieving bandages at his master's quiet request.
"How fitting," Trafalgar said dryly, taking the linens and beginning to tie them around the afflicted areas. He and Shachi struggled on in silence tying bandages, Trafalgar wondering why he was being so munificent to his attempted murderer and Shachi biting his lip in worry.
The doctor tied the last of his bandages. He was finished. This was the best he could offer as a man and demon of medicine. He looked up a final time at his Caladrius.
Killer would not be recovering from his wound, the snow-white bird told him with the back of his head.
"Penguin." The bird's thin, sallow legs twitched, showing he'd heard his master's voice. "Penguin, if you'd be so kind as to assist me in treatment. I don't believe it is outside of your powers, and I don't want to command you outright to take the burden of this stranger on your own wings and carry it with you until it disperses if you do not wish to help. So, I leave the decision to you."
Shachi made a pleading noise at the back of his throat and the bird shuddered as if annoyed. It was amusing in a way to see Shachi trying to garble and whimper his way into Penguin's heart, and Trafalgar knew Shachi had succeeded in convincing him to provide assistance when the bird lifted his large wings.
Penguin flew over, his head turned so he saw only what his nature allowed him to see. He landed next to the patient, his beak upturned towards Trafalgar.
Only once before had the doctor put forth this request, and that had been for an injury that Bepo received from an imprudent human. He'd been shot by a hunter on the outskirts of the Boin Forest, and had come home limping and bleeding profusely. It wasn't a sight Trafalgar wanted to see again.
Penguin chittered an audible song and picked his way up onto the chest of Killer, talons holding onto frayed cloth. The doctor watched as the bird circled, head remaining constant to the west, and finally settled around the area where Killer's failing heart lay. The bird hunkered down and closed his eyes.
Dr. Trafalgar waited for several minutes for any change to take place, pulling Shachi's claws from his mouth before he gnawed them completely off in worry. Gradually, Penguin's lustrous white coat began to dull, and then the feathers faded to a pallid grey. Trafalgar turned away with a shudder before he could watch the beak of his magnificent friend go taupe and anaemic.
Everything that Killer suffered was now inside of his dear Caladrius.
Penguin made a soft wuffing noise akin to Bepo's rough breathing, and Trafalgar got to his feet. He then stooped and warily gathered the bird into his hands, taking care not to disrupt Penguin too much. Feathers were swirling around his feet, falling away from Penguin's feeble and sickly skin. He was not moulting; his plumage was simply disintegrating.
Dr. Trafalgar hurried over to a window and heaved it open, then placed Penguin on the sill in the evening light of the moon.
"The sun will rise in a few hours," Trafalgar whispered. "Until then…"
Penguin wuffed resolutely, breathy blasts of air firing out of the slits on his beak. Trafalgar forced a smile, grim but proud of his friend for being so quick to save a life and sad because the suffering would continue until the sun was high in the sky.
Shachi went to check up on Killer, who was flitting between being aware and being asleep, only to report that his pain had ceased, as Trafalgar well knew from Penguin's condition. The doctor sat in a chair next to the window's ledge, not intending to leave Penguin's side. There they sat for two hours more, until the sun peeked through the trees and illuminated the worst of the damage Penguin had sustained on Killer's behalf.
The doctor's hands trembled and he looked away, only to look back again in anger.
"That beast had better have a damn good explanation when he comes around properly. That's my reason for saving him; curiosity's sake."
He heard Shachi's toenails clicking on the stone flooring, signifying that he'd taken his shoes off in order to stretch out his webbed feet. "Master…"
"Don't Master me, Shachi. How do you know him?"
Shachi had already pondered the question before sunrise. He knew what he wanted to tell and what he wanted to keep to himself. "Well, he was a drifter, like me, nameless and masterless. Only he haunted the shipyards of Loguetown whereas I hung about the fishery buildings in particular. I met him before I met you, before you were discharged from the navy and I followed you from your old ship to your first home. He sometimes got up to malicious tricks, but he wasn't a bad boggart. He was actually quite helpful. Smart, too. He can read."
"I bet he can," Trafalgar commented dryly. "There's only one thing worse than a malicious boggart, and that's a smart, malicious boggart."
"He's not malicious, though. He's just…interesting?"
Trafalgar raised a fine eyebrow and strode over to where Shachi stood. He crouched with an ill frown and asked, "Are you arguing with me?"
"No, Master." Shachi pouted, little eyes under his cap widening. "I only wish to–"
Trafalgar hushed him, for the tiniest and most delicate of sounds had reached his ears. He straightened and crossed the room, coming around to resume his post by Penguin.
It had been ages since he'd heard Penguin utter the first notes of a song.
"You don't want me to be mad at him, do you?" he asked the bird. Penguin stared at his master and companion, then threw his head back and let out a whimsical chortle that struck cleanly at Trafalgar's heart, reminding him that he did indeed possess one. He half expected Penguin to curb his song and remain silent and brooding, as he had done for the past few months, but the notes continued to flow from his beak, smooth and soothing.
Trafalgar found his knees weak and sought a chair lest he topple over as Shachi had already done.
It took him many more chords to realize that his Caladrius was singing a rather buoyant melody to the sun. Just as his species was said to do every morning at sunrise. Only, Penguin had never expressed interest in what was the norm for his kind. While his species were habitually occupied with their beauty, captivating creatures within earshot or eyesight, Penguin had not a vain feather on his body. The singing was alluring, and Trafalgar had long thought that Penguin hated singing.
The ghastly form of Penguin shuddered as he raised himself up onto his spindly legs. Trafalgar resisted the urge to help him along, knowing that to do so would wound Penguin's pride. For while he was not vain in his appearance, he was a proud creature all the same and would not accept assistance.
Penguin turned to regard him, and then focused his cloudy eyes on the form of the boggarts on the ground, giving Trafalgar his answer. The man watched with pain evident in his expression as Penguin lifted his wings and took off from the stone sill, gradually climbing into the sky with laborious flaps of his great wings.
The sickness within him would burn up when he got closer to the sun, and from the decay of his body would hatch a magnificent beast once again. It was the closest thing to the rebirth of a phoenix that Trafalgar knew, though Caladrius' didn't die only to be reborn again. They shed maladies.
He heard the scritch-scratching of Shachi getting to his feet from where he had fallen prey to Penguin's beautiful song, and focused his sights upon the enemy boggart on the ground in a tiny pool of his own blood and damaged skin.
A renewed pang of anger coursed through him again and he allowed himself a minute to quell his murderous thoughts. Then he gave Shachi new instructions. "Get Killer cleaned up and wash my floors. And lock him up with the seastone. I'm going out to pay a visit to his sender."
Shachi cringed at the tone of his master's voice, a wind kicking up to ruffle his hair as Trafalgar departed quick enough to create a tailwind.
-oOo-
The sunrise woke Marco from his slumber. He lay still in bed, picking his mind for a review of the events that took place the night before. He vaguely remembered his lord's arm around his shoulders, and pressing against him to ward off the cold of the night. Then he recalled getting back to the manor and the chivalrous way Lord Portgas asked to kiss his lips.
He reddened at the memory of those smooth lips caressing him while soft fingers stroked his neck and the hollow just below his ear.
The connection had felt right, yet incredibly sinful. He had a hard time deciding which emotion was the more important of the two.
With a sigh Marco rolled over onto his side. It was time to leave his chamber and prepare breakfast for his lord, as well as take care of his other obligations. The horses had been bathed in sweat from the fright the previous night, and he'd blanketed them but felt a grooming was needed to repay them for their assiduousness in the face of danger.
While he ran through a list of items he needed to get done before rousing his lord, Marco became acutely aware of a heavy breathing that had gone unnoticed before now. He furrowed his brow, concentrating on the noise, then slowly turned his head to see a dark lump beside him.
He jolted up and backwards only to slam against a wall, jarring the bed and awakening his bedmate. Sleepy, coal eyes blinked at him and Marco opened his mouth, unable to form words to articulate his surprise. Several seconds passed before he found his tongue, during which time the invasive lump gained form, stretching and cracking idle joints.
"M-my Lord, what are you doing in here, or rather, why are you in here?"
The dark lump spoke, rubbing equally dark eyes to clear them of drowsiness. "Ah, my apologies, Marco. I must have fallen asleep without realizing it. You know, I sometimes have these terrible instances where I drop to the floor or a tabletop, dead asleep. Or, in this case, on the corner of your bed."
"But why were you in this room?" Marco wondered with a noticeable blush tinting his dark skin. "It…is part of the servants' quarter."
Lord Portgas pursed his lips, deep in thought. What to tell the man? He could easily admit his true intentions, or he could lie to conceal them. There was a third option his intellect conceived, which was a mixture of the two previously mentioned. He decided upon it as the best of the bunch. "I wished to tuck you in. It's a dreadful thing to be cold during the night. Especially when one doesn't share a bed with another."
"My Lord, that is a highly inappropriate statement."
"I thought we had agreed on the use of first names? Ace, you ought to say, that is a highly inappropriate statement."
"Ace, that is highly inappropriate," Marco corrected himself in a rush. He then took stock of the black nightgown, embroidered with red thread, which his lord wore. It hung loosely from his broad frame and looked to be made of thin silk. "Do you not think you should get some warmer clothes on? Have you not acquired a chill of your own?"
"There is a bit of a draft coming up my nightgown, yes, but I think that can be solved easily…"
Marco shook with sudden shock as Ace threw back the blankets on his body and climbed in beside him with a grin. "It is solved," he declared.
"I think not," Marco muttered. "I'll go…make tea."
"No, I don't want tea."
"Breakfast?" offered his valet, seemingly desperate to receive an assignment.
"…" Lord Portgas fought internally with himself. Food, or Marco's company in the privacy of his little enclave? His stomach reared its attack, a low grumble that he was sure Duchess Jewelry could hear all the way from her bejewelled estate. His demonic desires rebutted with a pang to his crotch that made him wince and want to crush his body up against Marco's.
The deciding factor was Marco's fingers on his shoulder, lightly trailing down his skin with all the tentativeness of an unsure man. He blinked back an animalistic grunt that threatened to spill from his throat.
"Ace, you really should get some clothing on you before you get sick. Look, you're already turning red from a chill!"
Lord Portgas had passed the point of listening to reason. His hands were slipping across the sheets and finding the folds of Marco's clothing, bunching the fabric around his abdomen. His heart raced, amplifying his flushed cheeks. Unbeknownst to him, Marco was running through a formal reprimand that would have offended even Lord Portgas had his selective ears picked up on the words being uttered.
Quite suddenly, the lord's mind, so preoccupied with visions of warm flesh and gentle kisses, went blank. The reason for such lay in Marco's frustrated flipping of the lord onto his back, so he was pressed into the sheets with his valet on top of him.
"–and you really are nothing like a proper lord, since all you d–"
"Marco, what is it we're conversing about?" Lord Portgas asked at length, watching Marco's mouth move, his tongue articulating artful sounds that were pleasing to his ears yet completely incomprehensible. The warmth radiating down from Marco's body was filling his groin with a tingling fire, and the result was rather stiff to say the least.
The blanket was between them but, thick as it was, Marco still felt a bulge push against his leg. He looked down, realized the distance between thigh and torso left one thing in between, and looked back up at the lord's face with alarm.
Lord Portgas said nothing, letting his confident smile speak for itself.
Marco began to back off, not getting very far before the lord reacted and seized him by the wrist. "A-Ace, I have duties–"
"To me. You have duties to me," the lord interrupted flatly. His mind was narrowing, his sight following soon after. All he could see right now was Marco's blushing cheeks and his able hands and mouth. It had been far too long since his last conquest, a matter of a few months. His incubi desires were protesting violently behind his eyelids. He could not keep at bay his longings for attention. "Will you…?"
Marco looked down at the bulge beneath the blanket, his throat too dry to speak.
"You are curious, no?" asked Lord Portgas with a devious smirk aimed at Marco's frozen stare. It was a matter of convincing, and persuasion was one of the arts Lord Portgas excelled at. "It is only harmless fun between men. Primal, physical needs, yes?"
Marco's eyes flicked up and down his body, and the irresistible golden radiance of the lord, his gilded torso and muscular neck and shining eyes tempted him. He recognized that. He was not, however, prepared to move further. Or so he believed.
Lord Portgas flipped Marco onto his back, his hands on the man's strong shoulders that seemed to weaken under his touch. He furled the blanket and tossed it aside, his heavy weight bearing down on Marco's prone body.
He could see something had changed in Marco's stare. Gone was the hint of anger he was displaying previously, and in its place was fear. Yet it was not fear in the sense that Marco was terrified of his lord, no, it was an inquisitive fear, one of anxiety. It was an indecisive expression that he wore so plainly.
Lord Portgas had known it was only a matter of time before his more brash demon instincts took over, and to see this kind of fear on Marco's face and know he was the cause of it brought back his more human face.
He almost walloped himself on the head. What had he been thinking? No, he knew what he'd been thinking. The demon inside of him was dead set on playing the seducer, and Marco was but his unfortunate victim.
He had to change that before it was too late. "I don't want to force you," Lord Portgas said with a groan, removing himself from Marco's body before he could do something truly regrettable.
Marco reached out and grabbed the nightgown in his hands. The silk slipped through his fingers and he grabbed for it once more, unable to get a firm hold and grasping the sides of the lord's chest instead. "Wait."
Lord Portgas froze, expectant.
Marco wouldn't meet his eyes, but his hands were doing all the exploring for him, gliding over the lord's tense shoulder and down his arm. He spoke quietly, and to the bed beneath them. "I'm willing enough for a kiss…but that wouldn't abate your needs, would it?"
"Maybe, maybe not," Lord Portgas replied just as quietly. "Do you dare try?"
Marco's eyes suddenly snapped to the lord's face. "So this is the demon you've warned me about? The sex fiend."
Lord Portgas winced. Words were just dropping from his rouge lips without much thought encased in them. "'Tis my nature. Are you afraid?"
With a soft sigh, Marco shook his head. "How could I be?"
Lord Portgas opened his mouth to ask just what Marco meant by his vague words only to taste the man's lips on his own. So sweet and oddly pure, yet rugged and jaded that they aroused the lord's curiosity. His skin crawled as Marco pressed more firmly, reassured by his lord kissing him back just as fervently.
The lord began to paw at Marco, give him gentle squeezes and caresses, all down his sides until he eventually reached his valet's thighs. There he glided his hand in circles, gathering the warmth into his palm. Marco didn't pull away, but he angled his head to the side and broke their kiss, Lord Portgas' lips falling to his cheek, then his neck. He was met with protest when he began to dip lower.
"Not I, you," Marco whispered, his hands grasping the lord's arms in an effort to repel him. "Let me."
"The greatest pleasure for an incubus comes from pleasing another," Lord Portgas whispered back. He pushed Marco down by his chest, trying his hardest not to be too dominant.
When he found himself suddenly on his back, Lord Portgas realized it was not he who was being too forceful. Not that he minded. Having Marco on top of him, smouldering him with his gaze as he kissed his lips again, was too erotic to put a stop to.
"Did you not hear me, Ace? I will take care of your needs."
The lord grunted in compliant acknowledgement and focussed on Marco's hands, where they were and where they were going. Down his chest and to his thighs, the warmth from Marco's fingers collecting and gathering in one place where an inferno was starting up. He took a deep breath of Marco's musky scent, the air in his valet's room saturated with the smell, and let it out as cool air caressed his thighs. Marco was lifting his clothing off of him, exposing him, receiving his stiff desire in his hand.
A flash of white covered the lord's sight and he arched his back, the firm grip he was held in loosening with the motion. He felt the tiniest bit of friction in the slide, and it was more than enough to force him to surrender his control.
"Marco," he gasped. He blinked away the blinding light to see his valet's dark eyes staring down at his face, at his flushed cheeks and lidded eyes. Entirely submissive. Lord Portgas had not felt so content being beneath another before. Always he had been the one giving and rarely the recipient of affections. That had suited him fine with women; only it left his libido in the same state as before. No, it worsened it.
Marco coaxed from him an impulsive buck of his hips. He was tenderly petting that which he held so dearly in his grasp. The sincerity of his stroke and the overwhelming, contradictory feeling of being gently cradled by a rugged hand brought from Lord Portgas a heady chuckle.
With a jolt and tension in the veins of his hands, Marco ceased all movement.
"Sorry," the lord whispered with a hesitant smile. "I just…I'm ecstatic whenever you're near, and this is just too much to endure in silence."
Marco nodded and his shoulders slumped, the only visible sign the lord could see of his valet's relaxation. He could feel a tension, however, that was present since the very start, and chose to ignore it. Perhaps that which he felt was Marco's anxiety and curious fear for doing something so immoral, the feeling so deeply rooted that only time would shake it free from its earth.
His troubled thoughts cleared when Marco renewed his rhythm, his hand gliding up and down, gathering little pinpricks of the lord's essence in his palm and in between his fingers. The act, even if simple and unrefined, was more than enough to pull a wolfish growl from Lord Portgas' lips, and in little time he came with a jerk of his hips when Marco's fingers trailed down to further titillate him. He really was too sensitive a creature, and to look up and see that it was the object of his ardent affections was really too much for him to handle.
His lower body spasmed and he turned his head to the side, inhaling the intoxicating odour that had its place on Marco's pillow. The pillow was not nearly as soft as he was accustomed to, nor were the threadbare sheets as comfortable, and in his euphoric bliss he deigned that he would try anew to ensure that Marco would, from now on, be sleeping in his bed alongside him. Rank was to be obsolete.
He lay in a stupor with his eyes closed, trying to regain a sense of self, until he felt a cool wetness wash over him. Then he looked down to see Marco intently cleaning his body with a wet cloth, the tiniest of smiles curving his mouth.
"You don't have to do that, Marco," the lord said softly. Now that his pent up energy had finally been released, Lord Portgas could feel very little sensation and was glad of it. It was the relief he had been craving for a long time.
Marco didn't pause in his work and finished within the minute. His face had become rather emotionless, and he left to put the cloth on top of a pile of things that needed washing some time. When he returned with clothing from upstairs, he helped to dress Lord Portgas, and then stood silently while the lord affectionately kissed his cheek.
"You are sullen."
"No, not sullen," Marco replied with a quirked smile that seemed slightly forced. "Just…weighted."
"How so?"
Marco turned and there was an indication that he did not hear, though the lord knew he must have heard his words. "There is food on the table in the drawing room nearest this chamber. I'll return with your letters." Before the lord could make a grab for his valet, Marco was off and turning a corner, gone to retrieve the morning mail. It would take him ten minutes if he were fast, and half an hour if his energy were waning. Lord Portgas knew this as he'd often counted the minutes it took for Marco to return to his side.
He relocated hastily, not wanting to stay in the room that smelled entirely of his valet, and sat down to a platter of the usual food items Marco laid out for breakfast in the sitting room. He feasted, drowning himself in bread slices and rich wine. He didn't really want to think about the speed with which Marco had fled. For he had fled, in Lord Portgas' opinion.
Perhaps, he thought, he was overthinking his circumstances. He had to remember that Marco was a man, and that affections were something traditionally given by women. He had many caring women in his short lifetime of some twenty-odd years, and every one of them that he could readily recall had been overly indulgent in their emotional needs. Kissing, cuddling, fawning over him though never allowing him the things he really craved… He had grown bored with their fondness, which was part of the reason why he had developed a history of fleeing a bed warm and the wet spot that told of fickle lovemaking.
He pondered all of this amid counting the seconds that noisily ticked by on the grandfather clock adjacent to the chair he sat in. When Marco finally returned in his quiet, non-interruptive way, twenty-five or twenty-six minutes had passed. Lord Portgas didn't rise to meet him, giving Marco a grace period from his lips that oft greeted him upon his returns, and instead received his letters with a broad smile that he hoped would convey all of the adoration that had built up afresh since their hurried encounter in Marco's chamber.
He had Marco sit down across from him. It would take two minutes to go through the small stack of letters, and after that he wished to have a conversation with the man in which he could praise his graceful hands subliminally.
One letter was a hurried scribble from Dr. Trafalgar, accounting for his servant's hasty departure from their carriage in the night. There wasn't much substance to it, and Lord Portgas flung it away without much of a care, as he did not want to read apologies about a night he deemed rather successful. The second letter was an inquiry about the state of his horses from the local farrier, who seemed entirely too concerned for his own good, and the third letter was from a shoe shop in the heart of Sabaody. Apparently they were a new business in town looking for patrons. Perhaps he would get a new pair of shoes for Marco, but that could come at another time.
He got to the bottom letter at last and flinched when his eyes graced a familiar wax seal that included cutlery. Before he could get up the nerve to toss the letter into the fireplace he broke the seal and withdrew the note from within.
My Dearest Lord Portgas, Holder of the Gol Estate:
I have acquired a painting I know you will find intriguing. It is of your favourite full-rigged vessel, the Moby Dick. Perhaps you will deign it appropriate to visit me at my estate for a private viewing? I shall expect you tomorrow, at noon. I also wish to introduce you to the finest Italian food, as I have acquired a new chef who has greatly impressed me.
My humblest regards,
Duchess Jewelry Bonney
Lord Portgas set the letter on the table, a deep and unhappy frown marring his features. He slid the note as far as he could towards his valet and asked, "Marco will you read this?"
Marco's eyebrows arched but he skimmed the handwriting on the paper, then looked back up at the lord with questioning eyes. "She wishes you to visit."
"No, she implores me to visit. I do not have a choice in the matter, or so it appears. However, I thought you might find it interesting that she has come across yet another piece by Silvers Rayleigh. The Moby Dick, too, of all ships! You once said you were on that ship…you never did explain yourself, and I have seen you often sit in the front lobby admiring the painting I managed to acquire since the day I introduced it to you."
Marco took a deep breath, and let it out in a loud whoosh. "Ace, I don't wish to speak of it. Not now, anyway. There are some things a man prefers to keep to himself."
Lord Portgas did not prod further. He understood such a boundary. Still, the letter was a dark cloud over his plans for the day and tomorrow. He had been planning to stick closely by his valet, preferably coax him out of the manor and into town. He had grown sick of seeing the same walls around his person and needed a bit of adventure. If Marco decided there were too many chores to be done at the estate, he would have chosen to stay in and perhaps coaxed the man to sit for him once more.
"Marco, will you come with me?" asked the lord rather offhandedly. "I know you wish to keep from the subject of that particular ship, but you seem to know the most about these paintings by Silvers Rayleigh. It would be pleasant if you were to accompany me on my visitation to the duchess' estate."
"I would rather not."
"Excuse me?"
"I said I would rather not accompany you to see the duchess."
Lord Portgas gaped slightly. Did those words really come out of Marco's mouth? "Are you refusing me?"
"Should you order me to accompany you, I will go dutifully. Should you ask me along just for the sake of kissing me passionately and scandalously in a dark corner of a room, I would rather not attend." The frank words coming out of Marco's mouth were certainly a much-needed reminder to the lord that Marco was not as soft and complaisant as he made himself out to be when wearing his tails.
"You are challenging my authority for the second time," Lord Portgas mused with a tiny frown. He was not mad, simply curious why Marco, so well-trained to perform any and all duties his masters wished of him, would choose now to blatantly refuse what was a simple request in the lord's mind.
"I am not challenging your authority; I am merely appealing to your sense of reason. What good would my coming along bring?"
"I would feel safer from the duchess' unwelcome affections knowing you were at my side."
"I don't wish to be ordered around like a slave for the duchess. As you well know by now – and I will speak plainly here – she's something of a tyrant. My servitude is what would happen should I follow in your footsteps. Please, allow me to stay here and attend to the affairs of your estate. There is much cleaning to be done."
"There seems to always be cleaning that needs doing," the lord muttered. "But no matter, it is unfair to ask you along just for my own contentment."
Marco bowed and scrambled to make a hasty, yet graceful, exit. He left the lord frowning over the obvious, though not entirely literal, distance Marco was trying to put between them.
Had Marco forced himself then, or had he meant what their amatory act entailed? Lord Portgas was left to ponder in silence.
A.N.: Thank you all for reviewing! I like hearing about the things that struck you guys in some way, whether negatively or in a positively; it's good feedback.
