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PART III
CELIA ENTERED HER cabin just after noon to see Elliott doing exactly what she longed to do—sleep. She was still exhausted, although she had spent the week abed in a luxurious inn whilst Solomon and Orlando went visiting Amsterdam’s various apothecaries, midwives, and rumored witches to stock the ship’s apothecary and replace their instruments.
Indeed, their longboat was filled with their purchases.
But the deed was done and she was alive and walking, if not well or without a great deal of pain. With any luck, Elliott would soon be aboard the Silver Shilling and unable to tup her even if she wanted him to (which she most certainly did not at the moment), and she could present him with his child without having raised his hopes only to dash them.
After she had given Solomon a good drubbing for not explaining himself, he had described the mechanisms and drawn what he planned to do.
“Why, it will look like a purse!”
“If I do it correctly, it will, yes.”
“And it will hold the babe in?”
He glared at her. “Not if you tup anyone—including yourself. Orgasm stimulates the cervix.”
“Solomon,” she whined, “you know how I am when I am enceinte.”
“Jack! For once in your life, exercise some measure of control over your appetites!”
And so she would.
“I am in no condition to love you, Madam, if your intent is to discourage my amorousness with that sack,” Elliott muttered hoarsely from the bed, and she turned whilst in the process of pulling a shift over her head. “Leave it off and let me feel your body.”
She smiled for the first time in over a fortnight and discarded the garment before climbing over him gingerly, disrupting Dindi’s nap in the process.
He said nothing as she grunted and groaned her way to her side of the bed and then settled herself. He was on his side away from her and she pressed herself against his strong back. Between her unfeeling breasts and his bandages, there was little skin-to-skin contact but for his arse against her mound and their legs twining together.
“Explain your absence, Madam,” he said low, his voice rough, and it was then Celia realized he was angry.
Well, if he was going to be like that—
“No,” she said, turning over so that her back was to him and they did not touch.
“Why were you not here when I awoke from my surgery?”
“Elliott, I do not owe you an explanation for anything I do aboard this ship. I am the captain and you are an idler.”
“And I intend to rectify that in the morn, now that the Silver Shilling’s in port.”
Celia gasped and she struggled to sit up. “What manner of demon has possessed you that you sulk like a child who has been refused a toy? You knew before we left that I had to make for Solomon as soon as possible— Indeed, it was why we had to plan in such a rush. And never mind that the plan went off, although not without injuring many of us, and I hear from Nonny that you are indeed dead and buried in the family crypt. You just demand to know why I was not here to lick your wounds.”
He remained still a moment and then painstakingly turned onto his back. In the reflection of the noonday sun off the glass, she could see his haggard face. “I was … disappointed.”
“And I was disappointed you could not be at my side whilst Solomon cared for me,” she snapped back. No, he did not know her purpose, but she could not afford to tell him and anyroad, he should trust her!
His face hardened. “What is this mysterious malady that requires a university and ten days to live through?”
“I refuse to explain that to you,” she sniffed and looked away, knowing she was treading deep waters.
“Aye, well, your need to spill coin like rain might be considered a female malady.”
Enraged, she slapped him.
His big hand shot out to grip her chin and bring her down to him to kiss her.
God’s teeth, she was angry, but she knew neither of them were entirely rational. They were both of them in pain and each up to their gills in herb-riddled rum.
So she opened her mouth and pressed against him, gently smoothed the hair back from his temples where the sweat had dried and made it stick. His hand released her chin and swept around the back of her head to press her even closer, if that were possible.
She had not tasted this man in a fortnight. In between she had nearly killed him and then nearly killed herself and their child. Now she wouldn’t be able to welcome him back inside her body until the babe was born no matter how much she wanted to—
—which desire was, inexplicably, growing in spite of her pain, in spite of her goal.
“Can you mount me?” he rasped against her mouth.
“Nay,” she breathed, her kissing growing more fervent. “I cannot— We cannot— At all.”
“Why?!” he demanded in a harsh whisper.
“Elliott!” she cried. “I beg you trust me! I will not tell you, but if you cannot trust me regarding my own body, I … ”
Still they kissed. “You what?”
“Then … I see no reason for you to trust me with anything else. We might as well … part.”
He stiffened and pushed her away by her shoulders, staring at her with some horror. “You would leave me over this?”
She stared at him, confused, caught in her own impetuosity. Would she? What was worse, breaking his heart if his babe went the way of its siblings? Or not having him at all? “I … Nay,” she said finally, looking down and away. Her chest tight, remembering the moment Smitty had pronounced him dead in the water, she murmured, “Never. I gave you my word and I love you and I do not like being parted from you. But I wish you would not press me so. Grant me that much, at least. Please.”
His hand dropped. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him press his fingers into the bridge of his nose. “Very well,” he sighed after a long moment. “I gather your mother does not even know.”
“Nay,” Celia whispered. She unbound herself enough to lie crosswise on the bunk, laying her head on his chest. He brought his hand to her forehead and, with a finger, traced patterns over it, then her nose and her cheeks, smearing the tears that had begun to fall. “I thought I had killed you,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to leave you, but time was of the essence for me. Please understand.”
“I don’t,” he rumbled, “but I will not harry you again. I trusted you with my life—and my death. I cannot but trust you in this small thing.”
If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.
Pirates!
Aye, a wee small thing indeed.
She really just doesn’t want to get his or her mother’s hopes up. That’s her sole reason for keeping it from them. Also, some things a woman has to grieve alone.
I was being a tad literal. But this will become known before the baby arrives.
“Also, some things a woman has to grieve alone.” <– *snap-snap* There's a dot in that galaxy I referred to below.
Her continued refusal to explain shit is mighty annoying. Chronic, long-term impetuousness. I doubt she’d get a second date from me, not that I was invited. She wouldn’t have a wake for me as I left her in mine.
*swish*
Dude, she can’t carry a baby to term. No woman wants to tell the man she loves that she’s pregnant if she knows she’s going to lose it.
She hasn’t told anyone, so we’re led to believe.
Per a couple of weeks ago:
And then Solomon proceeded to tell her she needed to have the surgery if she wanted to keep the child. Her officer corps knows.
I recall the need for her to find the specialized ‘doctor’ for her unspoken malady, which I deduced, but I also remember it being a secret to (pretty much) everyone, on purpose. I also admit that following serially muddles me.
Happily, thus far, I’ve also never been near being a father or anything resembling future-parenthood. I’m cheerfully ignorant of the personal and hormonal galaxy they reside in.
Me too. I actually can’t stand reading serially.
Seriously serial cereal stories certainly snarl at serious series’ seriously-silly scenes in sequence.
Shucks.
A brief OT wave from the castle. Can’t even read replies, sorry. Catch up later.
https://tenor.com/view/marla-hooch-league-of-their-gif-10570073
Wish I were built like her. “Use Marla’s bat: it’s heavier!”
Les cartes postales envoyées d’ici deviennent plus et plus pires.
Moj, I have a compliment for you for another time.
HA! My suspicion on first glance was correct!
That IS Bosse Field in Evansville, third oldest ballpark in the nation and home of the Racine Belles! Those signs are still up. Fond memories, there. Dad wrote a book about a ‘season’ he spent traveling with the Evansville Otters, a Frontier League team. That’s how he knew the third baseman and got him to pitch to my Little League team. And I broke his nose!
Be and rest well.
An OT LOL…
I’m watching one of the ST:DS9 “alternate universe” episodes and because it’s S07 the lovely girl from Cube makes an appearance and because it’s “alternate” all the females need to lez out on occasion.
“TV you can’t make today”
The third season of The Rings of Power has a new trailer! Aren’t you excited?!
It pains me how stupid Amazon was with all this still.
I still maintain that content of the Silmarillion would be perfect for a strange sort of anthology series. Big budget, different creatives in charge of each release. Streaming is a unique platform perfectly suited. It never needed to be some traditional TV series. You’d have content for years. You didn’t need to be tethered to the idea of a single main character as the driving force and conventional storytelling.
Some characters would appear once. Some would be reoccurring. It’d be a unique project Hollywood history. Some one-off stories and overarching plotline of Sauron’s machinations building to an epic conclusion.
Some could have been 2 hours. Some 1 hour. Whatever needed to tell the story.
You should fund it.
(I’ve never opened the Simlarillion.)
I can pay the talent in Firsts.
Have I ever told the lot of you about the Firsting couch? It’s a rite of passage for all young Firsters.
Casting couches firsted before you firsted a couch, Mr… Crochety Crouch.
Think about it.
I believe I’ll be seeing Young Washington with the ‘rents tomorrow. Quite interested, am I. I believe the last flick I saw was when I saw the Dylan one with Mom.
Doing the (easy) math with my week’s pay today and I’m, uh. Huh! Today went quite well, though there was only enough ‘normal’ work to practice three or four times, it seems fairly conquered. (I was doing it the stupid way, I semi-discovered.) I’m rather pleased with myself.
JFC. My wife, a long-term government employee, put up better arguments against anarchism over drinks on the deck tonight than some commenters here on a libertarian site could put together yesterday morning.
I mean she’s still wrong, but she’s thought about this a grand total of less than 2 hours in her entire life. And ran circles around commenters here.