Chapter Thirteen
Magnus called an end to the evening when he noticed Selina had hidden two yawns behind her napkin. The men all stumbled to their feet after a substantial amount of food and rich wine that he was sure wouldn’t normally have been their diet, and each man wished the royal couple a good night.
Selina kept glancing at him expectantly, but he waited until the men had left before speaking. ‘Liv will prepare you for bed, and then I will join you…to sleep.’ He emphasised the last part when her eyes widened.
After a nod she hurried from the room. A surprisingly short time later, Liv came from the captain’s chamber and gave him a curtsy before leaving.
As he entered, he noticed that Selina was in the captain’s rather grand—for a ship—suspended bed. She was clutching the sides with her hands as it swayed gently with the movement of the waves. ‘This is all very odd. I’ve never slept in a hammock before.’
‘You haven’t? But you are an admiral’s daughter.’
She lifted her body up slightly to peer at him incredulously over the little curtains surrounding the hammock. ‘Strangely, being related to an admiral doesn’t mean that I am an admiral.’
That confusing bubble of laughter threatened to overwhelm him again, and he stamped it down, while he removed his jacket and waistcoat. He must have had too much wine. He went to the night stand, washed his face and drained a cup of water. ‘Forgive me. I thought you might have sailed before.’
‘No. In fact, I have never been on a ship until today.’
That surprised him, and he turned to face her. ‘Never?’
‘No, I always stayed at home.’ There was a sadness to her voice that made him wonder if she had hated being left behind. Her hair was unbound, and it drifted around her head like a fluffy dark cloud of curls.
‘I suppose you could hardly go with him during wartime.’
Selina nodded in agreement, but there was a bitter twist to her mouth that suggested she thought otherwise. ‘My father doesn’t approve of women on ships. I wasn’t even allowed to wave goodbye to him from the port until—’ She stopped speaking her eyes widening in horror.
‘Until?’ he prodded.
She blushed and then admitted in a rush, ‘I used to cry when he left—when I was a little girl—not now, of course, and when I was old enough to control myself, he allowed it.’
‘But that’s understandable,’ he said, not impressed by her father’s callous treatment of her.
Her cheeks became even brighter, and she gave a nervous laugh. ‘I cried…a lot. Sometimes I would pull on his clothes, kick his shins or steal his hat… I was quite disruptive.’ She brushed the curls away from her face. ‘So he didn’t trust me to wave him off until much later.’
Magnus desperately wanted to move closer, to smooth a hand over her hair and comfort her in some way.
To give her the affection and reassurance she had so desperately needed as a child but had never received from her father.
But he couldn’t—his own emotions were so locked away and heavily guarded that he wasn’t sure how to use them anymore without appearing a fool.
Besides, how could he comfort her when he was the reason she was being separated from her family and friends?
Magnus climbed into the coffinlike cot beside the curved wall of windows, the inky blackness of the sea and sky reassuring him as he settled down to hear the soothing roll of the waves.
‘I have spent most of my life at sea… I preferred it to being on land,’ he said, for some reason wanting to speak with her a little longer and explain his own struggles, but as always, he failed to find the right words.
The lamp hanging from the ceiling would extinguish soon— the oil was low, and the light dimming more with each breath. He should just go to sleep and leave it at that.
‘With your father?’ The question was hesitant, as if she already suspected the truth.
‘No, with men like Captain Jensen.’
‘He’s lovely.’
Magnus didn’t answer, but he smiled. Not only because of the compliment to the captain, but because he’d managed to explain a little about himself, albeit without actually telling her.
‘Perhaps we should swap,’ Selina said after a moment, her voice high with a tinge of panic. ‘I am worried all of this swaying will make me feel sick.’
Magnus sat up. ‘A hammock is more comfortable than a cot. It moves with the sway of the ship, so you actually feel more stable in it after you’ve adjusted.’
‘Please, Magnus,’ she asked quietly, followed by a pitiful, ‘I can run to the latrine easier if I don’t have to try and climb out of this thing.’
‘As you wish,’ said Magnus, rising from the cot. But he had to quickly avert his gaze when she dangled her lower body out of the hammock and awkwardly swung out, baring most of her legs in the process.
He made his way over to the hammock, bracing his arm against the post beside her head as he felt the familiar shift of the ship beneath his feet.
‘We’re adjusting course,’ he said, reaching out to steady her as she also grabbed the post, and the lamp swung dramatically from side to side above their heads.
She let out a deep breath as the ship righted. ‘Hells bells!’ she muttered, and Magnus had to stifle a chuckle.
‘You will get used to it. This is nothing compared to a proper storm.’
She stared up at him, her hair billowing around her shoulders, her feet bare on the wooden boards.
He wanted to kiss her, but he was afraid it would only move their understanding of each other back a step.
Instead, he asked curiously, ‘Why did you laugh? Earlier today, when I spoke of your father wanting to check everything was safe for you?’
Selina blinked as if she were also righting herself. ‘I… I know my father loves me. But he has a strange way of showing it. I have never understood him, and he has never understood me.’
‘But…why was it funny?’
‘Because,’ she said and shrugged, ‘you compared me to a ship! I fear I have exchanged one man who does not understand me for another.’ He must have looked offended by her statement, because she added helplessly, ‘We were forced to marry because of a scandal. A passionate encounter that never even happened! Do you realise how ridiculous that is? There is no practical reason—other than your honour—for us to marry, and no impractical reason either… I mean, at least if we’d married for love or passion, there would be something binding us. But we’ve never even kissed!’
Was that true? Did nothing bind them together?
That might be true for Selina, but not for him.
For him, there was a passionate connection, perhaps not love but certainly a strength of emotion he’d never felt for any other woman before.
He might not have kissed her in the folly, but he had been seconds away from compromising her, the intention had been there, and that’s what the ton had seen when they’d stumbled upon them.
He couldn’t help himself. Later, he would blame the wine at dinner and the romantic sound of the waves in the dim swaying light of the cabin, but it was the desire to finally touch that cloud of curls that ultimately sealed his fate.
Stroking a hand down her hair, he realised it was as soft and as silky as he’d imagined. He then cupped the back of her head firmly, tilting her face up, so that he could see the widening of her eyes as his hand sank into the cushion of her thick dark hair.
Her eyes were like midnight, the nut-brown irises lost in the sultry darkness of her pupils.
He pressed his mouth against hers. She gasped and then sighed, sinking towards him, her hands shifting from the post to steady herself against his chest. It was all the encouragement he needed to deepen the kiss.
To push her lips apart with his tongue and taste the warm sweetness within.
Her body pressed closer, the thin cloth of her nightgown hiding nothing of the press of her curves as she arched against him and sighed with pleasure.
The ship swayed dramatically, and they broke apart.
She clutched at the post trying to steady herself, and he did the same—although, it was only to stop him dragging her back into his embrace. Both their chests were heaving, and he couldn’t look away from her face, from the startled flush of her cheeks and the desire in her lush dark eyes.
It was as if he’d pulled himself back from a precipice, and it took several breaths for him to regain his self-control.
‘We have kissed,’ he said matter-of-factly, taking a step backwards, in case he couldn’t stop himself from kissing her again.
She was his wife, not a wanton strumpet; he needed to be gentle and considerate, not behave like a beast. ‘Understanding each other will take time.’ He could barely understand himself!
They went to their respective beds, but he didn’t sleep and left as soon as dawn began to paint the windows pink and orange, keen to work off his frustration with hard labour and remove himself from temptation.
But he made a point of putting The Brief History of Thrudheim in a prominent place where Selina might see it. He would behave as was expected, and she would need to do the same.
* * *
Selina was walking the deck of the Jewel for the tenth time that day.
The voyage would take approximately three days to reach Thrudheim, and she was terribly bored by the morning of the third day.
The sails had been constantly full, so she hoped they would made good time.
The idea of her spending another awkward night with her husband in that swaying cabin made her stomach tighten, not from seasickness but general nerves.
Since he’d kissed her on their wedding night, she’d been waiting for him to do…well, more. But he hadn’t. It seemed rather rude that he should get her excited with such a sweet and tender kiss only to flatly ignore her the following nights.
Had she done something wrong?
She waved cheerfully at Captain Jensen as she passed him and he waved back.
‘If you want…longer walk, go up and down decks!’ he called out to her as she passed.