Ransom by Lee Rowan

Author:Lee Rowan [Rowan, Lee]
Language: nld
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: erotic MM, Romance MM
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

* * * *

"Hey! You! Where's the other one?"

Archer's eyes flew open at the question. A guard, peering through the barred door, was frowning at him.

"Who—Oh." William was sitting against the wall, slumped over and sleeping like the dead. Archer pointed. "Over there."

The guard scowled through at an angle. "Sick?"

"No, I don't think so. Will?"

By this time Marshall was shaking his head muzzily. He saw the guard, recognized the problem, and moved over to where he was visible. "I must have dozed off," he said.

"Sorry."

"Stay where I can see you," the guard said shortly, and slid a tray under the door: Oatmeal again, biscuit, and apples.

Marshall nodded. "Yes. Thank you."

They shared out the food, and ate silently for a while.

Archer glanced over occasionally, and once caught Marshall watching him with an odd, quizzical half-smile that vanished immediately. Something about the daylight turned William into a different person from the ardent lover of a few hours 241

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past—cooler, more remote. "It is strange, isn't it?" Archer voiced his thought. "Like a dream—or the memory of a dream."

"Yes," Marshall said soberly, spooning up the last of his porridge. "That's probably the best way to think of it."

Archer didn't really want to ask. "Are you sorry?"

"No. Never that." Their eyes met, and Archer caught a brief glimpse of something gentler. "But ... it needs some distance, Davy. Not the best thing to have in the front of our minds."

"No, I suppose not." He cleaned his own bowl and put the dishes outside, and they were taken away.

"What we need to do is consider the next step," Marshall said under his breath, then started speaking in a normal voice about the best way to rig the Calypso for getting through a narrow strait during a thunderstorm with variable winds.

Under that discussion they sketched out a plan of action for the night's attack; by the time they were finished, Archer was beginning to believe they might actually have a chance to get out of this.

"What a gift you have for cheering a body up, Will. You'd have been a marvelous physician."

William shook his head with a smile, but said nothing; he was clearly giving the matter some thought. "No, I don't believe I would. Our local doctor was a good man, and I respected him, but I could never have studied with him. It would be too hard to be around sick people all the time—don't laugh! I hate to see children ill, and then there was the matter of money—you seldom see a doctor who has any, no 242

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more than a minister. Not that I expect to become wealthy, but it would be pleasant to walk into an inn, as we did with the Captain, and be able to order what you like without counting pennies. And now I've made lieutenant, I'll draw half-pay even if I'm not on active duty—though I hope it never comes to that."

Archer had never needed to think about such things. His own childhood had been

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