Dawn on a Distant Shore
Page 51

"Time enough to worry about this Will Spencer tomorrow," said Hawkeye gruffly. "You've got a homecoming of your own to celebrate."
Elizabeth was glad of the dark, for she knew very well that she was flushing, both with anticipation and embarrassment. "But where will you sleep?"
"The hammocks," said Robbie.
"Under the stars." Runs-from-Bears was grinning; she could hear it in his voice.
"But if it rains--"
Hawkeye pushed her gently toward Nathaniel. "Then we'll bed down with Pickering and his crew. Go on now, he's waiting for you."
The first officer's cabin was all they had, just off the captain's quarters where Curiosity slept with the children. It smelled of raw sugar and coffee beans, and there was barely room for them to stand shoulder to shoulder without Nathaniel striking his head on the hanging lamp. But there was a small porthole left open for the breeze, a tiny washstand, and a cot. And a door with a lock on it.
Elizabeth turned her face up to him. He might have taken her expression for displeasure, if it weren't for the trembling of her hand in his.
"You're as nervous as a cat, Boots."
"Or a bride," she said, finally managing a smile, and blushing to the roots of her hair. It made his heart clench to see it.
"We were apart on our first wedding anniversary."
"Aye, so we were," he said gently. "We're together now."
There was a creaking overhead; the trill of the bosun's whistle, men moving. In the other room Hannah was talking in her sleep.
"It ain't exactly Paradise." Nathaniel pulled her down to sit beside him on the cot. "But it will have to do."
"Oh, it will do," she said, not quite able to meet his eye. And then, in a rush: "It has been a very long time, Nathaniel."
"So it has." He slipped an arm around her shoulders. "You'll have to remind me how to start."
She laughed then, a low throaty laugh, the very laugh that he thought of as his alone. Under his fingers the skin of her neck was cool to the touch, and as soft as he remembered. He traced the outline of her ear and then her jaw, and then he lifted her face to his and kissed her. A quiet kiss, a coming home very different from those first frantic kisses of a few hours ago. She tasted sweet and tart all at once, and his head filled with the smell of her. But she wasn't quite with him; he could feel the hum of her thoughts just below the surface, moving her in a different direction.
In one motion Nathaniel lifted her and settled her on his lap. The round weight of her, the touch of her breasts against his chest, was enough to make him forget everything, but he made an effort: put his forehead against hers so that she could not look away.
"Are you shy of the close quarters?"
Elizabeth turned to study the door as if she could look through wood to where the children slept. Then she spread her hand out on Nathaniel's cheek. "No," she said. "I expect we can ... manage quietly. We've been in close quarters before, after all." He could see her struggling for her composure, and he might have laughed out loud at the pleasure of seeing her flustered. But there was the worry line between her brows that he knew well.
"Then tell me what's on your mind, Boots. What's wrong?"
She narrowed her eyes at him. "You can't be serious."
Nathaniel kissed her, a hard stamp of his mouth. "I know you, Elizabeth. I know you as well as I know anybody pulling breath. There's something else up, and it ain't just getting out of Canada with our hides intact."
Her fingers began to pull at the ties on his shirt. Elizabeth wiggled slightly on his lap, her color rising. "Is it really talking that you want to do right now, Nathaniel Bonner?" And she tilted her head and kissed him, a soft deep kiss that made the blood rush in his ears.
What he wanted was to lay her down on the narrow cot and to cover her, bury himself in her and stay there forever. Above all of that, what he wanted most in the world was to take away the worried look in her eyes.
But she would have her way; she hushed him, twisting out of her clothing piece by piece until she stood before him in her shift and stockings. Her hair had come undone, a tangle of curls around her face. He took the hem of her shift to lift it over her head, untied one garter and then the other to drag the stockings down over the white skin of her calves. She lifted her feet for him in turn and then stood in the vee of his legs covered in nothing but gooseflesh. Childbearing had changed her shape, marked her for a mother; her hands fluttered up as if to hide the tracings on her belly and he caught them, held them away.
"You know me better," he murmured.
Her breasts were heavier now, her nipples darker, berries not quite ripe. She put her face in his hair, her breath harsh at his ear as he leaned forward. The touch of his tongue drew a single drop of milk and a sigh. He might have pulled away but her hand guided him back, offering freely what he hesitated to take. Nathaniel cupped her hips, pressed his fingers into rounded flesh while he suckled, wide mouthed, both of them convulsing with the sweetness of it. She trembled so that he thought she might fall, her knees buckling until she was on his lap again.
"There is a grave inequity here," she muttered, plucking at his shirt. "Will you not undress?"
"There's no hurry." Nathaniel laughed against her mouth, because it was a lie; he had never been in such a hurry in his life, but still he would not be rushed.
"It is very strange to see you in breeches." Cool fingers at his crotch, tracing him. "Leggings and a breechclout suit you better."