“I don’t care about that.” With his cheek pressed on the table and held in place by Priest’s hand, the candlelight flickered upon him and communicated to his hard, tense features and rumpled hair. It was the appearance of a man desperately trying to control that which could not be tamed.

I’d already gleaned his indifference about children. He never mentioned a desire to be a father. Never showed interest in the matter.

Reaching down, I cupped his crotch, where he stooped over the table, pinned beneath Priest’s immovable body. He wasn’t hard, but the intimate touch seemed to calm his thrashing. I needed his attention.

“Two.” I stroked him with my thumb, making him groan. “You love your career, and to be with us, you must give it up, along with your esteemed position in the beau monde. You will become a Royal Navy deserter, a lowly status so far removed from your stalwart character. I understand the quandary, and I’m not making light of it.”

“It’s a difficult decision,” Priest said, his voice a low growl. “But not an impossible one.”

Ashley slid his arm onto the table and sank his head upon it. “You’re wasting your time.”

Priest watched me steadily, his eyes burning with the same ire I felt. But there was something else there. Beneath the anger lay years of disappointment. A man could only be rejected so many times before parts of him started chipping away. He’d lost this fight with Ashley again and again, and he didn’t expect this time to be any different.

But it was two against one now. Priest wasn’t alone.

“The third concern,” I said to Ashley, “is the one that troubles you the most. Choosing us comes with grave danger. Priest and I are wanted for many crimes, sodomy being the least of our offenses.”

“Your concern about the gallows doesn’t go away if you leave us.” Priest shored up his hold on Ashley’s flexing arms, driving his point home with the intensity of his breaths. “Bennett and I will be hunted for the rest of our lives.”

Ashley stopped struggling and stared at nothing, his eyes unfocused as he absorbed our words.

“I told you my parents’ story.” I removed my hand from his groin and bent over the table beside him, mirroring his pose. “In my mother’s stubborn sense of duty, she forsook my father and left him desolate and forlorn. She thought she was protecting him, that if he stayed with her, she would make him weak and distracted. She believed their relationship would lead to his ultimate execution.” My voice broke on a pained whorl of breath. “In the end, my father hanged anyway, and she followed him.”