Play On by Paige Turner

Author:Paige Turner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ellora's Cave Publishing
Published: 2015-01-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

The RMS Titanic

Sunday 14th April, 1912

After lunch

As soon as he could excuse himself from the trio, Roger went belowdecks and stashed his cello safely in the room he shared with Theo and Georges, then headed along the corridor to Ted’s cabin, where he found him sitting companionably on the settee with Harold, showing him a card trick. They looked cozy, leaning together, Harold’s eyes on everything Ted did.

Roger felt the blood starting up in his face. He wasn’t angry but he was…unsettled. There was Ted—his Ted—with the man they’d been with the night before.

Harold looked up with a ready smile and said, “Roger, you have to see this. I can’t work out how he does it. Show him, Ted.”

Roger perched himself awkwardly next to Ted, wondering if he needed to worry about the friendship that had sprung up between them. He liked the Marconi operator well enough, and his cock gave a pleasant little jolt as he remembered the tryst the three of them had shared in the lifeboat the night before. But despite himself, he felt a little hollow inside when he thought of sharing Ted’s love with another man. He knew that jealousy was unbecoming, but he simply couldn’t help it.

He relaxed fractionally when Ted turned to press a brief, soft kiss to his lips and Harold, pink-cheeked, glanced away.

Ted deftly shuffled the cards, pouring them from one hand to the other like a waterfall of clubs and hearts, diamonds and spades. He riffled them together, his fingers moving so quickly that Roger could scarcely follow. Then he fanned them between his fingers, the faces hidden and the logo of the White Star Line showing on their backs.

“Pick a card,” he said. “Any card.”

Every time, Ted was able to name the card that Roger had chosen, and though he watched his hands carefully as he manipulated them, he couldn’t begin to imagine how he did it. He made a card vanish with a flick of his fingers, then produced it from behind Harold’s ear. He invited them to bury the aces in the deck and to thoroughly shuffle the cards, then, with a tap of his fingers, made all four one-spot cards jump to the top of the deck.

Ted and Harold seemed comfortable together, but Roger had to fight that twinge of jealousy in his chest each time their fingers touched as Ted performed one of his sleights of hand or whenever Ted made a charming, droll remark that made Harold laugh and scrunch up his face.

He showed them something called a Biddle grip and a false shuffle, and though they both tried to recreate his movements, it invariably ended up with cards all over the floor and Harold laughing while Roger swore in fluid, lyrical French.

“That’s the last of the brandy,” Ted announced, and Harold started to rise.

“Perhaps we should call it a day, then,” he said. “I should see if Jack needs any help. We always have more messages than one man can really deal with.

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