Aboard the Polychrest, at anchor, near Dover:

[Dr. Stephen Maturin] "Pray, what was all the ceremony as I came into the ship?" 

[Lt. Thomas Pullings] "It was for the Captain. He was only a little way behind you - came aboard not five minutes ago."

"Ah? I was not aware he had been out of the ship."

Jack was obviously in high spirits. "I trust I do not disturb you," he said. "I said to Killick, 'Do not disturb him on any account, if he is busy.' But I thought that with such a damned unpleasant night outside, and the stove drawing so well in, that we might have some music ..."

Stephen had identified the smell that hung abut Jack's person and that wafted towards him as he passed the wine. It was the French scent he had bought in Deal ...

[Later]

Shut firmly in his cabin, Stephen wrote: "It is unspeakably childish to be upset by a whiff of scent; but I am upset ... Smell is of all senses by far the most evocative; perhaps because we have no vocabulary for it - nothing but a few poverty-stricken approximations to describe the whole fast complexity of odour - and therefore the scent, unnamed and unnamable, remains pure of association; it cannot be called upon again and again, and blunted, by the use of a word; and so it strikes afresh every time, bringing with it all the circumstances of its first perception ... The whiff, the gust, of which I speak brought me the Diana of the St. Vincent ball, vividly alive, exactly as I knew her then, with none of the vulgarity or loss of looks I see today ..."

Some days later the diary continued: "Since Wednesday, JA has been his own master; and I believe he is abusing his position. As I understand it, the convoy was complete yesterday, if not before; the masters came aboard for their instructions, the wind was fair and the tide served; but the sailing was put off. He takes insensate risks, going ashore, and any observation of mine has the appearance of bad faith ... To some extent JA is aware of my feelings, and when he brought her renewed invitation to dinner he spoke of 'happening to run into her again', and expatiated on the coincidence in a way that made me feel a surge of affection for him in spite of my animal jealousy. He is the most inept liar and the penetrable, with his deep, involved, long-winded policy, that I have ever met ... (H)ow I long for tomorrow and a fair wind. If it comes round into the south - if he is windbound for a week or ten days, he is lost: he must be taken."

[Weeks later, Jack brings the Polychrest back from an escort voyage; while the ship was gone, Stephen has been to Spain on a secret mission, though he tells anyone who asks that he has been in Ireland. He rejoins the ship when it is again at anchor in the same harbor near Dover...]

[Marine Major Smithers] "What do you say to a hand of cards?"

[Dr. Maturin] "Is the captain returned, do you know?"

"No. He won't be back for hours and hours. You have plenty of time. Come let us have a hand of piquet."

"I play very little."

"You need not be afraid of him. He'll be pulling down to Dover against the tide - he's got a luscious piece - won't be back for hours and hours. A luscious piece, by God: I could wear it. I'd have a mind to cut him out, if he weren't my captain: it's a wonder what a red coat will do, believe you me. I dare say I could, too; she invited all the officers last week, and she looked at me ..."

"You cannot be speaking of Mrs. Villiers, sir?"

"A pretty young widow - yes, that's right. Do you know her?"

"Yes, sir: and I should be sorry to hear her spoken of with disrespect."

"Oh, well, if she's a friend of yours," cried Smithers, with a knowing leer, "that's different. I have said nothing ..."

[A few hours later, after Stephen has taken almost a year's pay from Smithers in piquet ...]

"Captain's coming aboard, gentlemen," said a quartermaster. Then appearing a moment later, "Port side, gents." They relaxed; he was returning with no ceremony ...

"Jack," said Stephen, "may I come in?"

"Come in, come in, my dear fellow, come in," cried Jack, springing forward and guiding him to a chair. "I have scarcely seen you - how very pleasant this is! I cannot tell you how dreary the ship has been without you. How brown you are!"

In spite of animal revulsion at the catch of the scent that hung about Jack's coat - never was there a more unlucky present - Stephen felt a warmth in his heart ...

[Stephen makes note of Jack's looks and worries that a healing wound may be troubling him for he has lost weight and is pallid. Jack fills him in on the voyage before Stephen mentions what he has been up to while waiting for the ship to come into its port ...]

"Pray show me your honorary sword and the merchants' piece of plate. I called upon Sophie, and she told me about them."

"Sophie?" cried Jack, as though he had been kicked. "Oh. Oh, yes - yes, yes of course. You called upon her." As an attempt at diverting his mind to happier thoughts, this was not a success. After a moment, he said, "I am sorry, they are not here. I ran short again. For the time being, they are in Dover."

"Dover," said Stephen, and thought for a while ... "Dover. Listen, Jack, you take insane risks, going ashore so often, particularly in Dover."

"Why particularly in Dover?"

"Because your often presence there is notorious. If it notorious to your friends, how much more to your enemies? It is known in Whitehall; it must be known to your creditors in Mincing Lane. Do not look angrily now, Jack, but let me tell you three things: I must do so, as a friend. First, you will certainly be arrested for debt if you continue to go ashore. Second, it is said in the service that you cling to this station; and what harm that may do you professionally, you know better than I. No, let me finish. Third, have you considered how you expose Diana Villiers by your very open attentions, in circumstances of such known danger?"

"Has Diana Villiers put herself under your protection? Has she commissioned you to say this to me?"

"No, sir."

"Then I do not see what right you have to speak to me in this way."

"Sure, Jack, my dear, I have the right of a friend, have I not? I will not say duty, for that smells of cant."

"A friend who wants a clear field, maybe. I may not be very clever, no God-damned Macchiavelli, but I believe I know a ruse de guerre when I see one. For a long time I did not know what to think about you and Diana Villiers - first one thing and then another - for you are a devilish sly fox, and break back upon your line. But now I see the reason for this standing off and on, this 'not at home', and all this damned unkind treatment, and all this cracking-up of clever, amusing Stephen Maturin, who understands people and never preaches, whereas I am a heavy handed fool that understands nothing. It is time we had a clear explanation about Diana Villiers, so that we may know where we stand."

"I desire no explanations. They are never of any use, particularly in matters of this kind, where what one might term 'sexuality' is concerned - reason flies out of the window; all candour with it. In any case, even where this passion is not concerned, language is so imperfect that ..."

"Any bastard can cowardly evade the issue by a flood of words."

"You have said enough, sir," said Stephen, standing up. "Too much by far: you must withdraw."

"I shall not withdraw," cried Jack, very pale. "And I will add, that when a man comes back from leave as brown as a Gibraltar Jew, and says he had delicate weather in Ireland, he lies. I will stand by that, and I am perfectly willing to give you any satisfaction you may choose to ask for."

"It is odd enough," said Stephen in a low voice, "that our acquaintance should have begun with a challenge, and that it should end with one."

Her dark eyes glittered in candle light. Some nights with her, he had thought she could have been a whore. He would have known how to handle her if she'd been a whore. But she was been born of a higher class. He'd known none like her. Well-bred, an unvarnished pleasure to look at, and yet capable of the most treacherous manner toward him. She was no fool, no inexperienced girl. She knew why he lingered, missing the tide for the first time in his career ... and not once did she give him any satisfactory indication of what she truly sought from him.

And here he was, unable to not be there, despite the tension that coursed through him. He could not stay away from her.

This night, he forced himself to watch her move. She did not have Sophie's grace; was it so unfair of him to compare them? It was, he knew it. Even now, even knowing Sophie was out of the reach of a man of his meager expectations, he was still confused by how often she occupied his romantic notions.

But Diana ... ah, Diana. His feelings for her needed no analysis. His heart beat to quarters to see her ... to be near her ... to catch her scent. Just to be here in her boudoir, even if he knew it was against her wishes that he was, but to be here was to leave behind the disaster he'd made of his friendship with Maturin. To be here was to be with her.

She wore a dark blue dressing gown; her thin, elegant column of a throat called for his attention. He should be kissing her there, while she swallowed in exquisite anticipation of his further attentions ... and he would be able to feel the pulse in her neck jump when he skimmed his lips over that vein that seemed almost too blue against the pale pearl of her skin. His eyes roamed down to her fine white bosom, peeking out at him, swaying almost hypnotically under his gaze.

Untold numbers of erotic notions thrilled his mind as the fabric of her gown brushed his knuckles as he settled in on the settee next to her. Left behind for this one exquisite moment was how very low he was over the challenge between he and Stephen, caused by their opposing longings for this one woman. Was she a woman worthy of this?

She could be, he thought with a start. But she was capable of being so unkind to his feelings ... yet when he was there with her, only the two of them, she ever joined him in a congress that fulfilled them both, if he was any judge of women's satisfied desires. She made him wish for nothing more than to pleasure her in any way she wished ... no matter the long hours of searching it sometimes entailed.

Did she mind that his heart was not involved with her? Was it? Try as he might, he could not tear himself from the dear love he felt for her fair and virginal and dimly sweet cousin.

"Why do you keep coming to see me, Aubrey?" she said, her voice petulant, as if she could read him so plainly. Was he so transparent? Stephen thought him so. Perhaps he was right ... perhaps this was why her spirit was on fire. "Go to her. You never know ... perhaps she would actually have the spirit to defy her mother. Perhaps she has the gumption. But do not dare say you were not just thinking of her, sir!"

Diana went to rise from the settee. She had been out of sorts for days; tonight, it was worse. She had known he would come to see her this night; he had been persistent as what had begun as a modest if entertaining interlude had grown to involve more than she would wish. Even though she'd put him off, feigned her absence from this house where she stayed with an elderly cousin, she knew men. A man such as Jack Aubrey would pursue her if it was indeed her company he most desired.

Desire.

She had once thought to manipulate his desire for her ... to play with it ... to enjoy his talents as lover and then when he had gone back to sea, she would get on with the inevitable business of making her way in this life. And making her way meant finding a suitably wealthy benefactor who might care for her with enough affection ... perhaps even marriage would be her reward. She had little time, by her way of reasoning, in which to find this suitable man of wealth ... her only currency to use in the exchange were her looks and every day, she knew the battle was a losing one.

But for days now, she had begun to realize she had not reckoned on Jack Aubrey seeming to grow from little more than a huge boy into what she now fought to not recognize: he might have had a sexual appetite and enthusiasm of a young, eager man-child, but he had a maturity and intensity that was fully-grown man.

When she first met Jack Aubrey, years ago, how she had enjoyed his fun and laughter. When had it all changed? When had he begun to consider his future with that sober eye a man does when he decides he is ready to take a wife?

Perhaps it was that ... that she knew the wife he preferred. She had begun to take it as personal insult ... not that she ever had the notion that Jack might make a husband she would consider ... with his debts and his provincial ideas of locking his proper wife up in some country estate ... However that may be, she did not appreciate that he made her feel not just second best but that she was a convenient diversion.

Convenient?

Why then, if she was disturbed by his treatment of her, why did her heart thrill to have heard his hard voice this evening, demanding entrance? Why then did she covet his ill-humor as perverted evidence that he was no longer playing games with her? Yet ... why was she so contrary as to know she should never consider Jack Aubrey for anything more? He was wholly inappropriate as a husband for her. A man like him ... he would allow his sexual yen for Diana to shape her into wife material ... he was the sort of man who would do that: offer her marriage based on nothing more than the natural affection he felt for a woman he was bedding.

Ever pragmatic, Diana told herself she would simply not allow herself to entertain thoughts of marrying this man who'd filled her nights with his presence and her days in anticipation of being in his strong arms and resting next to his lusty heart. He was a lover of strong appetites, nothing off limits with her, unable to stop himself from any height she wished him to take her to.

Yes, she abhorred being second best on any man's list to her cousin, the decorous, spineless Sophie Williams, Diana thought to herself. She saw Jack's reaction to her words, her taunt, about Sophie. It was as if cold water had been dashed upon him. His eyes flickered, his bearing became more rigid. She went to rise from him, seeking distance if emotions flared further.

But his hand stilled her. It clamped down over her thigh. She was unfamiliar with this side of Jack Aubrey. It instantly fascinated her.

"Tonight we shall clear the air, Diana. I shall know your interests in Stephen Maturin," he said.

"Stephen?" she asked, surprised ... but then again, not surprised ... for hadn't she tried in Jack's last two visits to imply that her feelings of affection for Jack were very akin to her feelings for Stephen? Was Aubrey jealous? Did she intend for him to be so? Perhaps. "He is a dear friend. Beyond that, any interest I have in him, sir, is not a matter for your concern."

"Diana ..." he croaked her name out as his chin dropped and he looked down at his hand. The sudden shift in his voice ... the sudden weight upon his shoulders ... an unspoken sadness too plain to miss in a man like Jack. "Diana, let us not be cruel to each other in this night."

Her eyes dropped to gaze at his hand. When he had first placed it over her thigh, it had clamped her down to the divan. But now, its hold was softer, a caress, a wish, a hope, a desire. She had an instant memory vision ... of his big, warm hand upon the bare skin of inner thigh ... of how possessive it always felt ... of how it could make her tremble when his thumb moved over that delicate tissue with erotic intent.

"Cruel, Aubrey? Have I truly been so unkind to you? Have I not welcomed you to my bed? Opened my arms? Gave you joy?" she said, her teasing voice sounding wholly false to her own ears.

"I am so very low this night, Diana. Have a care, girl."

Her eyes flicked quickly over him ... noting for the first time, as if she hadn't seen it before ... his loss of weight, the lingering haze of his pallid complexion. The sight could not help but move her. She reached a hand over, unbidden, unplanned ... and caressed his cheek. "What has happened to my rambunctious boy?"

His eyes slid shut; he leaned his face into the cool palm of her hand. He inhaled her scent. "It is the man you find before you in this night, my dear, and he has need of you."

A long moment passed. Diana's heart raced at him demeanor, his voice, his forthrightness. Jack's chest labored, his heart lumbering, his animal needs reaching for her comfort.

He slid his hand atop hers, keeping it in place upon his cheek. His eyes opened. In them, she saw a depth and complexity he'd never let her see before. She saw his passion when it flared to life in response to the way her tiny, pink tongue peeked out after she swallowed long and deep.

In a moment, his body was advancing on hers, pressing her back as his hands gripped her waist and hips in toward him. His mouth sought hers.

She had always enjoyed Jack's honest and hearty approach to making love to her. But she recognized something else was happening with Jack. Something for which she was unprepared in that moment of his maneuver going straight at her defenses. She fought against her instinctive response to his action, just for a flickering few seconds ... long enough for Jack to exert real physicality as he pushed her under him atop the cushions of the divan ... as his mouth conquered any objections she might have tried to will herself to utter ... as he came atop her until her own body cavorted in the feel of his substance, his insistence, his desire for her.

How she adored his passion above all things. He was not a subtle lover; he was a thorough lover. After a string of disappointing bedmates, she had responded to his sure, determined nature with enthusiasm and devotion to fulfilling both their needs.

As he felt her capitulate, to move beneath him, to adjust her body to align with his ... he rubbed himself against her ... his mind going beyond any troubles of spirit as he simply and easily descended into the need to make love with this willing, beautiful woman. His hands fumbled between them, loosing the tie of her dressing gown, spreading the gown open, fingers hot and probing on her undergarments ...

He leaned his weight on one elbow and smiled as his other hand became more nimble, those fingers quickly handling the laces of her bodice until her soft, white bosom was revealed to his mouth, his tongue, his teeth ... she moaned softly ... her fingers in his hair, holding his head there to her breast. He teased and suckled her nipples to their peek; his thumb's rough pad against their now-sensitized state made her gasp and mewl his name.

As if it was the signal of command, he rose from her, pulling her loosened body up to straddle his lap. He gazed intently, somberly, studiously at her bosom ... the rounded softness heaving with her heavy breathing. How thoughts of her would torment him when he left on his next voyage. He pushed that thought aside ... pushed aside the reasons for his low spirit ... and thought only of the pleasure she brought him ... the pleasure he could not deny himself.

He pulled the dressing gown from her shoulders, kissing the supple flesh under her arms as he pushed the fabric down still further until it was no longer upon her body.

"Thank you, my dear," he said softly, husky voiced.

"For what, darling Jack?" she asked, breathless and soft.

"For these," he said, a sudden smile crinkling his eyes even as he leaned in and shoved one of her pert breasts in his mouth.

Diana felt her head drop back as she gave herself over to the experience ... as always, enraptured of a man who could guess her needs of the moment.

His hand on the back of her neck made her look back down at him. He was now soberly regarding her. His hands crept into her hair. He pulled each pin from where it bound a tress in neat order. And then he played within her rich dark hair, loosening its length, scattering its previous orderliness ... and there he had it: the wanton, sexual Diana who caused him fevered dreams and kept him bound to his own physical need of her.

Her hair was wild. Unfettered. Spirited. Her face was flushed, her lips darkened from the attentions he'd shown them. She looked every last inch the woman who took pleasure in the pleasure he could bring her. "You are the comeliest wench I have ever had," he said, his voice now a low growl.

"Is that all I am to you, Aubrey?" she asked. Her eyes flared at him. "A wench? This is how you have me fixed in that male brain you use to function in this world?"

His answer, though, was swift and took them both by surprise. "You mean far more to me than you may ever know. But I shall never deny that you are capable of any number of ways of making my blood feverish. Though I would wish you to regard me with more kindness, more loving."

The words in return were on her tongue ... but she could not say them ... all she could do was act them. Her cool fingers traced his mouth. Down his throat. Opened his collar. Exposed his neck. She kissed him there, her body huddling over his, her arms gathering him to her.

Jack's head lolled back upon the divan's edge. He let her slither down his body, her fingers undressing him as he aided her by shifting his arms, legs, hips. Until she softly called his name and he swallowed deeply, knowing what she would look like ... kneeling between his wide spread knees. She was probably licking her lips.

She touched him. He was so hard. Rigid. Hot. Weeping ever so slightly. He gazed down at the wild profusion of her hair and felt his breath leave him as she peered up at him through the now-tangled mess. She ran the back side of her fingernails slowly up his length and then down again. She wrapped her small fist around his girth and pumped, slowly, deliberately; he felt proud at how large and capable his member looked in her hold.

He grabbed in at her hair. With that leverage, her hair wrapped in his big maw, he needed to give but the barest downward pressure upon her head; he held his prick out, swept it invitingly along her slightly parted lips until she took him inside the warmth of her swirling tongue and the suction that grew and grew until ...

His deep, dark groan filled the room. She released him with a slight pop. Her little hand wiped at her delicate lips. How she fired him with such contrasts ... her wholly feminine, sophisticated moves following the wanton display of her abilities to drive a man mad.

He swept her up in his arms, carried her to her bed. Laid her there as he worked on the remaining bindings of her undergarments ... bringing the lushness of her body into his full view. He took barely the time he perhaps would have under normal circumstances. He was too impatient, too willful. His hands moved down her body, claiming its expanse, marking it as his property. He thrust her thighs apart and she laughed, that gay expectant sound that never failed but to bring a lusty smile to his lips just before he dove in ... tongue probing, mouth tasting, teeth teasing ... fingers spreading, invading with first one digit and then two ... until she writhed, moaned, pleaded ... and finally a third joined its two cousins.

Her voice pitched high, she moaned, almost wailed. Her fingers clutched into his hair, one moment shoving him in harder and the next pulling him away. Still he kept to his purpose. He felt her hips buck. He heard her protestations. He felt the tension in her thighs as they clamped about his ears. And she came into his mouth.

There was to be no mercy for her in this night. Not at Jack Aubrey's hands ... or his prick's, either. He did not wait for her orgasm to lessen ... he was ready to give her another on its cusp. And in the midst of her coming, he rose over her, positioned himself and thrust up into the wet, grasping, convulsing core of her womanhood.

He thrust.

Again

And again.

Her cries of passion filled his ears. Her fingernails raked his back over and over. Until the moment came ... when her body, spent and satisfied, grew compliant. And this was the moment when her mind and words were soft ... full of sweet endearments and entreaties ... to not leave her, to stay another night, to love her more ... to laugh with her when the sun rose on another day to be filled with what only they could be together.

His thrusting slowed. He kissed her swollen lips ... he whispered against that tiny, delicate ear ... his own endearments ... his own wishes ... his own obsession for her.

And on this note, she came, her hips thrusting back against him, driving him to pump harder, longer, deeper ... they spoke at the same time ... did they hear each other?

Later ... always later ... in the darkest hour of the night, he left her abed. As Captain, he was forbidden to ever spend a night away from his ship without express orders. As long as he made it back aboard with some element of night still lingering, he could not be formally considered to be in violation of this standard of conduct.

Diana clutched her robe to her bosom, gazing out the window at Jack's form, as he strode away from the house, the swaying cockiness of a man who has spent a good night with a woman he has satisfied and then some. Her fingers touched at the soreness between her legs. She felt his semen as it still dripped in tiny rivulets down the inside of her thighs.

What had possessed them? Was it true what he said? Was it true what she said?

She could make out the light of his men, waiting at his barge to row him back to the Polychrest. She pictured his face as he settled into place, now firmly back into the Captain persona she found ever attractive if unexpected on the man-child Jack Aubrey she had first come to know all those years ago. Was he glancing her way? She thought yes.

Turning from the high window, she gazed at the disaster they'd made of her bed linens. He was still there, his presence palpable. 

When she woke, hours later, she found a note from Aubrey had been delivered to the house. She opened it, fingers trembling in anticipation.

He would sail on the evening's tide. He sent her sweet words, full of the expectation of what he would find when he returned from the short voyage, another escort mission.

It made her smile ... until she caught a glimpse of that sated smile in her mirror. Her eyes hardened. Damn him, she thought, quickly ashamed at the pang in her heart at his impending absence. How could this jolly affair with Aubrey have turned her head? Well, it would not turn her heart, she thought.

"This will not happen," she said aloud. "I will not allow it. He will never again share my bed."

Sitting down at her writing desk, she penned a note to Canning, inviting him to come round once more for dinner with her. She knew it would take no more encouragement than that to have the rich, successful if physically unappetizing merchant Canning act upon her obvious willingness to be wooed.

By the time Jack Aubrey returned, even a man of his density in such matters must see the lay of the land, she determined. She would be cruel if she must. But she would not allow herself to be led into a penniless marriage only because of the weakness of her flesh.

"Dundas," (Stephen) said, in the small room of the Rose and Crown, "how good of you to come so soon. I am sorry to say I must ask you to be my second. I tried to follow your excellent suggestion, but I mishandled it - I did not succeed. I should have seen he was in a state of unhappy passion, but I persisted untimely, and he called me a coward and a liar."

Dundas's face changed to one of horror. "Oh that is very bad," he cried. "Oh, Lord." A long, unhappy pause. "No question of an apology, I suppose?"

"None whatsoever. One word he did withdraw - 'Captain Aubrey presents his compliments to Dr. Maturin and begs to say that an expression escaped him yesterday evening, a common expression to do with birth, that might have been taken to have a personal bearing. None was intended, and Captain Aubrey withdraws that word, at the same time regretting that, in the hurry of the moment, he made use of it. The other remarks he stands by-' but the gratuitous lie remains. It is not easy of digestion."

"Of course not. What a sad, sad business."

[It was many weeks later however, after the Polychrest returned from its escort voyage, before the affair of honor between Jack and Stephen could be scheduled. However, upon the ship's return, Jack was to learn most rudely and unhappily that Diana's favors were now given to another man. Sent away quickly before the scheduled duel could be conducted, on a voyage that he had known was a death-warrant for the ship, Jack was wounded in battle. As Jack, Stephen and the rest of his crew watched from the prize they captured in the battle, the treacherous sea claimed the doomed Polychrest ...]

She did not sink for a good ten minutes, and by then the blood - what little (Jack) had left - had made a pool at his feet. She went very gently, with a sigh of air rushing through the hatches, and settled on the bottom, the tips of her broken masts showing a foot above the surface.

"Come, brother," said Stephen in his ear, very like a dream. "Come below. You must come below - here is too much blood altogether. Below, below. Here, Bonden, carry him with me."