“Dear bleeding Christ, what do we have here?”

It had not been a shout as much as it was a growl, brought up from the depths of a gravelly gut.

Julian turned toward the door with a frozen smile. “Good morning, Father,” he said, and he removed his tricorn and flourished it in a mock salute, which Matthew would have told him was not the thing to do at the moment.

“With you in my presence,” answered the older man, his face a square-chinned chunk of sea-weathered rock, “there can be nothing good.”

Rear Admiral Garrett Devane wore his long coat of stature over his nightclothes and carried a ship’s lantern in his right hand. Matthew figured he must’ve plucked the coat from a mannequin that stood beside his bed, because the item had not a single wrinkle or dimple in the fabric. It was dark blue, high-collared with a trim of gold and displayed detailed workings of gold across the breast area. The coat bore perhaps twenty large gold buttons down the front and four on each gold-striped cuff. On the left, over the heart that beat for England, were numerous gold and silver medals the size and shape of small starfish. Matthew thought that if all high-ranking officers commanded such coats there would be little left of gold in the treasury to build the ships and it would become a Pig’s Snout navy.

It was clear to see that young Julian was his father’s son—in appearance, at least—because their faces were similarly constructed, the color of the eyes was nearly the same, and the hairline and abundance of hair as well though Garrett—being what Matthew reasoned was in his later fifties—had gone all gray. The rear admiral’s face, though his features so resembled his son’s, showed the work of many years of wind and sea, both of which had conspired to whittle the flesh down to reveal the sharp juttings and angles of bone like the edges of dangerous shoals. The deep lines across his forehead and two between his fierce eyes bespoke a life of if not concern for his captains and crews then a continual worry over the condition and upkeep of ships, which Matthew figured was enough to make any man cling to his glossy coat and medals when his day was done. Matthew thought that in any event this man had seen such storms of nature as the paintings on the walls depicted, and likely had lived through the storms of sea battles as well.

The elder Devane’s eyes suddenly turned upon Matthew with the force of such a maelstrom. “Who is this? One of your sodomite friends? One of the male concubines you’re so fond of entertaining?”

“His name is Matthew Corbett,” Julian answered, calmly and evenly. “He is a business associate. And you must know, sir, that half the Royal Navy indulges at sea in the practice you so despise me for.”

“Oh, of course!” The gaze he set upon his son might have burned holes through salt-crusted leather. “You would remake the world in your image, wouldn’t you?”