At Port Wade

Title: At Port Wade

Fandom: Antonia Forest

Pairing: implied Giles/Nicola (the dynamic, if not the deed itself).

Written for: Jon

Disclaimer: Neither the characters nor the setting belong to me. No disrespect is intended nor profit sought.

Giles strode away from the Port Wade train station feeling he’d had a narrow escape.

His standard reserve had become, early on, something of a legend among his fellow officers. It was the kind of thing they joked about among themselves, although notably never in front of Giles himself. Young Marlow, the whispers ran, shared none of the base desires standard among naval officers. No whore had ever been seen to tempt him, and none of his fellows were known to have been intimate with him, though more than a few had felt their hearts quicken queerly with excited hope as they watched him, time and again, respond politely but without passion to the women, young ladies and otherwise, who were thrown in his path.

Giles himself was fully aware of the private speculations regarding his inclinations, and accepted this coolly, with carefully concealed gratitude for the cloak it drew across his true desires. Come to that, he’d not be adverse to a discreet dalliance with a fellow officer as a convenient sop to expectation, and a way to safely let off some pent-up passion. Provided, natch, that he could be certain the fellow’s motives were comfortably similar to his own, for it would never do to engage affections he couldn’t return, and Giles’ heart was committed elsewhere.

By now it must be halfway back to Kingscote.

That young fool of a Nicola! He thought, unfairly. If anyone had seen him turn pale, and then flush, at her unexpected approach – if anyone who’d long wondered just where Giles’ own lusts lay – but he was sure no one had; he’d steeled himself against revealing any hint of forbidden emotion.

With the result, he reflected ruefully, that she’d probably thought him furious with her, out of all proportion to her crime. What, after all, had she done but to fly to his side? His heart pounded at the memory, but he knew she was still too young to be shown just how fully she belonged there. Instead he vowed he’d signal forgiveness by sending her a photo of his ship. Too early, yet, to let her know that night after night he lay aboard, stroking himself, thinking only of his Nicola.