Chapter Thirteen
Horatio turned to give Emma privacy but she silently took his head to turn him back to her.
"Stay." she mouthed. Her own nervousness and modesty be damned. She would not let Simpson be privy to the knowledge that she and her husband had yet to intimate with each other. She knew it would be another dig at Horatio's pride if Simpson knew. She fought off a shiver of unease and removed her dress with her husbands eyes on her, warming her with the heat of his gaze. They said nothing to each other, just silent and observing With shaking fingers, Horatio helped her out of her dress. Emma undid the strip holding Horatio's dark curls together at his neck then helped him off with his shirt, letting her fingers trail along the smooth warm skin as it was revealed to her. His body was lean but muscled from his life at sea. A life she now shared.
Emma watched the battle in his brown eyes and knew it mirrored her own. It felt as if they were the only two in the room but they knew they were not. His hands rested on her hips, thinly covered with the shift she wore. She could feel the tension in his fingers. The urge to draw her hips closer. It made her feel frightened yet wonderful at the same time, this awareness that he desired her. Made her feel strangely powerful somehow. Emma stared down into Horatio's eyes as he sat on the hammock. It would be so easy, his eyes said to her while his fingers rubbed the bones of her hips with slow lazy circles. The temptation was so strong. So very strong. But when she saw Horatio close his eyes she knew he was collecting himself. They couldn't, of course. Not here. Among the men. Not now. Emma gave him a soft sad smile and pressed her lips to his forehead.
"Soon." he mouthed silently before reaching up and capturing her mouth for a brief kiss, neither trusting themselves to prolong it.
Tomorrow she'd spend all damn day on her knees cleaning up the sick berth if it meant that she and her husband could finally spend the night alone, Emma vowed to herself.
Climbing next to Horatio, Emma gave a shiver and burrowed herself next to the heat of her husband's body while he pulled his blanket over them. Emma shifted feeling what she'd initially assumed was his forearm pressed against her back until it occurred to her he had one arm raised beneath his head and another securely around her waist. Oh. Emma thought with a physical start. Oh my. Emma bit back a smile and felt a warm sort of tightening between her thighs. She shifted again, afraid that by pressing against......him.....it, she'd hurt him somehow.
"Emma, I beg you. Lie still." Horatio whispered through clenched teeth.
"Sorry." she whispered back.
"Just go to sleep." he ordered.
She tried. It should have been easy considering how very late it was but half an hour later, Emma was still wide awake. The men, however, had no trouble at all drifting off. In fact, it was because of them that she was still awake. She lay staring up at the ceiling cursing all men and their nasal passages. The four of them worked together in a symphony of hellish noise. If Emma concentrated she could almost make out a certain rhythmic timing. Horatio, Clayton, Archie, Simpson....Horatio, Clayton, Archie, Simpson.....Archie, Simpson, Horatio, Clayton........Horatio, Clayton, Archie, Simpson. On and on they went. When she found herself making up words to go along with the rhythm Emma let out a groan of exasperation and buried her face in the pillow. She was sorely tempted to send them all to the devil and go sleep in her physicians quarters but the filth to be found there kept her still.
This must be what the society matron's had meant by the unpleasantness of the marital bed. Intimate relations be damned, they must have been talking about the snoring! She tried to take their advice to 'lie back and think of England'. But her England was wracked with big noisy canon balls.
A missing instrument in the cacophony of noise made Emma turn her head. Simpson had awakened and was sitting up, turned in her direction. She stopped, rigid next to Horatio and watched Simpson's shadow through the hanging blanket. She didn't dare to move as Jack Simpson slid off his hammock and quietly made his way to Archie's hammock. Emma could see Archie's legs through the open end of Horatio's suspended blanket. She held her breath as Simpson stood next to the younger man's hammock. What the devil? Emma wondered feeling a growing panic in her chest. Archie gave a low, pitiful moan of protest as he woke. She saw his legs draw up beneath his blanket and a flash of fair hair as he shook his head. Emma couldn't see enough to know what was happening but she suddenly felt sick inside. When she saw Archie's blanket being drawn down past his hips she shot her foot out and kicked at her shoe on the floor. The gesture worked. Simpson bolted upright and cautiously made his way back to his hammock. Only when she spotted Archie's blanket being pulled back over his body did Emma start to breathe again. As she suddenly felt herself begin to drift off, Emma fought off sleep. Not yet, she silently told herself. She waited about five minutes.....ten.....until she heard Simpson's snore join the rest of the men. Then slowly, she let herself succumb to the exhaustion of the day.
The knot of unease followed Emma into her dreams, filling her with disturbing frightening images that she could not recall when she was jolted awake again by a cry of terror.