When James returned home from his first day of work under the great and mighty Lord Cutler Beckett, he appeared angry. The second, exasperated. On the third, however, he just looked exhausted. Having anticipated his working days no longer being the source of satisfaction they had once been for him, Theo met him at the door with a glass of whiskey in hand, and a sympathetic face that, she hoped, hid her worry.
"I should like to think," he said, sitting on the sofa and ridding himself of his hat and wig both, "that even without your input, I would have seen him for what he was."
Theo considered his words, lips twisting at one side.
"It's been a while since I was able to brush up on the source material, but from what I do remember, you were never particularly chummy. I think, at absolute most, you considered him a necessary evil…until Governor Swann…"
She regretted the words immediately, for they only seemed to add to the heaviness cast upon her husband. There was a weariness about his eyes that she knew he would not allow to be seen were anybody else in the room with them – and while it warmed her that he allowed her to see it, it still made her sad to witness, all the same. His jaw was set, his lips pursed, and he even gave it away from the neck down, too. His shoulders held tightly squared even as he sat, the hand not holding the crystal tumbler of whiskey clenched tightly into a fist, even his thighs tensed visibly, twitching every now and then beneath the tight confines of his breeches as though ready to spring up into action.
This wouldn't stand.
"How do you feel about the prospect of dinner in our nightclothes?" she asked.
He blinked at her. "When people talk of changing for dinner, that's not quite what they mean, my love."
Theo snorted.
"Yes, thank you for the English lessons, I'm quite aware. But I have a plan for before dinner, but we'd have to shed a few layers and putting them back on might be uncomfortable after."
"That's where your mind strays to after talk of Beckett?" he raised one dark eyebrow at her.
"That is not what I was talking about, you absolute lecher," she laughed. "Come. I'll show you."
His suspicions were hardly assuaged when she led him upstairs to the bedroom and ordered that he should strip down to naught but his breeches. As he did, she took up a jar from her vanity. Coconut oil – the only thing she would willingly use on her skin here, because she knew it wouldn't contain arsenic, nor lead, nor bird shit, or whatever else it was the fine ladies of Port Royal were rubbing into their faces each night.
When he was done undressing, he helped her strip down to her shift – mostly so that she could move freely, and wasn't at risk of crushing him beneath the weight of all of her damned skirts.
"Lie on your stomach – on the bed," she said, gesturing towards it like he didn't know where it was.
It was then that he caught on, and he smiled softly.
"Theodora, you needn't-"
"I want to," she interrupted, rising on the balls of her feet so she could peck him on the lips.
He offered no more argument then, settling down onto the bed with his arms tucked beneath a pillow, his head turned sideways atop it.
However tense she'd thought him earlier, she realised now that tense was an understatement. The man was like a steel beam. Settling the jar down beside him, she climbed up onto the bed and straddled him – swatting his backside as she did so. He breathed a low, surprised laugh.
"Now who's the lecher?" he asked.
Theo smirked. "You're right, this is just an excuse for me to get my hands on you."
As she spoke, she dug out a chunk of the oil with her fingertips and began to warm it between her hands so it would melt.
"Mm. You need never look for an excuse to put your hands on me," he said.
If that wasn't a glowing privilege, she didn't know what was.
She began by smoothing her hands up and down his back, taking note of a few scars here and there that she'd previously known by touch alone. Up and down her hands worked, over and over, increasing the pressure on each pass until she was using her body weight to press the heels of her palms into his back, ever on the look out for signs that it was too much. There were none, but still she worried – she was hardly a professional masseuse.
"If it hurts, tell me and I'll stop," she said quietly.
James made a noise akin to a purr and murmured.
"If you stop, I'll never forgive you."
Theo laughed quietly, curling her hands into fists and using her knuckles next, thumbs pressing down at either side of his spine as she moved up, straightening her fingers to press beneath his shoulder blades when she reached them, working out the knots where the muscles had bunched up, then upwards still, around to the front of his strong, broad shoulders while her thumbs smoothed across the base of his neck.
She worked up quite a sweat as she progressed – thrilled she'd thought to strip down, her brow and chest developing a sheen despite the fact she was only in a shift. But she delighted in each new reaction she drew out of him, noting what worked best and going forward accordingly. Only when there was no portion of skin on display that she hadn't thoroughly attended to, and then some, did she stop. By that point, it had grown entirely dark outside, his eyes had fluttered shut, and he was all but melted into the bed. It was difficult to say whether he was awake.
Erring on the side of caution, she leaned back and placed her hands onto the footboard of the bed behind her, doing her best to ease herself backwards without upsetting the mattress too much. Her toes scarcely brushed the floor before she was reminded that she was, indeed, married to a warrior – for in one moment he was lying as if boneless on the bed, and the next he was upright, a hand at her arm, pulling her towards him until her back was against his chest.
"Where do you think you're going?" he murmured into her ear.
Theo laughed, allowing him to drag her back. "Someone's feeling better."
"Someone, evidently, is married to a witch," he teased, lips brushing the side of her jaw. "But she uses her powers for good."
Dinner ended up being a tray of fruit and cheese, on a tray in their bed – many hours later.
