AN: Hi and thanks so much for having a look at this, my first, very small step into writing fic set in the Taboo universe. The vision of Lorna on the ship - and James' hand on her shoulder wouldn't leave my mind, so I wrote it down and I hope you like it.
Taboo has absorbed me from the first episode and I absolutely cannot wait for season two. Such a brilliant show and a credit to all who helped make it. While we're waiting though, there are wonderful Taboo fics by some great writers and I am very happily reading as many as I can! Cheers and thanks again, Magpie
Into deeper seas...
Lorna lay on her bunk while the ship rose and fell with the swell of the sea, the agony in her left side where the bullet had grazed her almost, almost unbearable but for the memory of James' hand falling gentle on her shoulder. His fingers had felt strong through the gloves, warming her for a few precious moments, his eyes holding hers with a look that was strangely kind and perhaps, perhaps with a promise of something more. At least that was the hope that was growing in her heart.
The memory of that look, of his hand on her flesh kept her going, kept her breathing, kept her heart beating when the pain got so awful she almost wished she could die, almost, except that it would mean leaving him.
Lying on his own bunk somewhere close by, Cholmondeley was suffering far, far more than she, she could hear it in his voice, in the tight, shallow breaths and the way he apologised to Godfrey as though he were already standing in front of the gates and Saint Peter. His courage made her feel ashamed of her weakness, of her desire for James to come back, put his hands on her again, look at her again with those deep, deep eyes.
She tried to breathe slowly, evenly, but the pain was a living thing, a devil, sharp toothed worms eating into her flesh and the endless, swaying rise and fall of the ship an added torture.
She closed her eyes to take her mind off it, going back to the dock, to the blood soaked chaos and mad scramble before they had somehow ended up here on this ship. The ship James had bought for them in the tower, paying for it with his own torture and pain.
They were a much smaller company now than before. She counted them in her head. James, Atticus, Michael, Robert and Pearl. Then there were Cholmondeley and herself, both wounded, useless, for now anyway. Only seven left. Helga was dead, but maybe that was justice for what she did to James. Winter was dead, killed by the East India and thank God for mudlarks or Helga would've died believing James had done that awful thing. Brace was left behind in England, probably for the best, and Zilpha, beautiful, damaged Zilpha, dead by her own wish and hand, drowned and floating in the river and singing to him now, maybe…
Seeing James cry had broken her own heart. He was always so strong, stronger than any of them, so certain, a dark beacon striding through the storm of their lives. His tears had melted her already softened heart, cleaved her to him completely although she'd used all her skills as an actress to keep him from seeing it, had stayed calm, been the sensible one, and she had somehow, somehow convinced him to get up, to keep to the plan, to leave his sister's ghost behind.
Perhaps it was selfish and perhaps her suffering was punishment and she deserved to be one of the damned, because she was glad Zilpha was dead, glad the burden and temptation of her alive was gone from him.
She remembered relief and gladness like a wave rushing through her as they left that house, her smile unbidden, her gladness uncaring of his grief.
Perhaps he hadn't seen it.
Then they waited at the dock, in a dingy little room. And then the soldiers came and they fought for James Keziah Delaney, fought for their lives and for his dreams of a future after giving up everything else.
She knew why though, because she was one of them. There was a power in him that drew all of them like moths fluttering around his flame, a power that made them want to follow him into the unknown leaving everything behind and not caring so long as they were near him.
Her eyes opened, searching for him, the low rasp of his voice falling from the deck above like brushed leather over her skin. She breathed his voice in, felt it flow through her veins and light a fire in her belly, banishing all thought of discomfort.
They were going to the Azores, not America. For a moment she wondered why, then left the thought behind because it didn't matter where they went, as long as it was with him.
She turned her cheek into the rough pillow imagining it to be his hand, the pain flowing away like the green ocean swells beneath the boat and she drifted into a dream that was more than a dream of lying naked against shining sweat gold skin patterned in strange black lines and exotic, stranger shapes. Of warm flesh and hard, male muscle.
And of eyes that were deep as the sea.
James...