Where Fear Ends and Worry Begins #2
He took a sip of the wine Elizabeth had given him, then she took the glass back and drank some of it herself. There was no formality in it. Simply two hands who had shared everything for so long, they gave no thought to it. She passed the glass back to him, and he finished it.
“Elizabeth, tell me honestly. Can you endure the road north? It means perhaps another week of riding, and you have barely got your colour back.”
“I am in better condition to tolerate the road than you are, I warrant.”
He let his eyes travel across her face, the rose in her cheeks, the sparkle of life returning to her eyes, the newly restored fullness in her lips. “You are looking well. I thought when we first came here, I was going to lose you.”
“You are looking somewhat warmer than death,” she replied. “And I had every reason to expect a different outcome.”
He huffed softly. “I am glad to hear you sounding somewhat sorry about that. There was a time, I think you would have smothered me with my own pillow.”
She nodded, casting her eyes up a little. “Not so very long ago, either. Now, I find you rather tolerable.”
“Tolerable. Is that all?”
She lifted one shoulder. “Tolerable can mean a great many things.”
“You are the one with the golden tongue. Tell me what it means.”
Elizabeth studied him, warmth blooming softly on her face and in her eyes. “For tonight, it means this.” She leaned forward and brought her lips to rest against his.
He drank her in slowly, like a draught of smooth wine from a cask left to mellow. Her jaw moved gently, one stroke, another, a third, and he thought she might draw back. Her head lifted as if she might, so he grazed her cheek with the backs of his fingers before she could pull away.
She looked up at him as she moved back, and her teeth caught softly on his lower lip, pulling it gently before releasing it.
Something streaked down his spine and shot straight through his ribs and into his groin. His heart gave one great flip, then began behaving erratically. Surely, she was only teasing. Only being herself. She could not truly be tempting him with —
Her hands fell to his lap and pulled at the hem of his shirt.
“Elizabeth?” He let her push him backwards a little, let her coax his arms up and tear the shirt off his body as she had done a hundred times when he was fevered. The only fever overtaking him now was of a rather different sort.
“What are you doing?” he whispered as she pushed him down.
She came to lean over him, her hair framing her face and the bodice of her gown drooping before his eyes until he had a clear view of the inner curves of her breasts. He swallowed and stared at her face.
“I thought you said —”
“I did. I mean to hold to that,” she said as she fell upon his ear and his throat with the heat of her mouth. “But just now, I mean to be permitted to be thankful. I made you a promise, if you would stop frightening me through the nights, and you have kept your end of the bargain.”
He pushed her shoulders back. “Bargain? I thought you were teasing.”
She answered by opening his mouth with hers, by rocking his head back until she had him fully at her mercy, and pressing her body along the length of his. His hands fell to her hips, then swept up the small of her back and caressed her there.
“Elizabeth,” he panted, pushing her away to draw breath. To think. To be sure. “The last time, you regretted this. You said it changed nothing, that you had no intentions of keeping my name no matter what happened. I would not…”
She arched up somewhat, bracing her hands on either side of him. “I did say that.”
“Do you still mean it?”
Her eyes flicked to the side. “Part of it.”
He sat up, taking her with him so that she had to shift her hip to the mattress beside him, her legs still tangled with his. “Which part?”
Her fingers had found his chest, and she kept her eyes on them as she made little trails and circles in the dark hair over his heart. “I never meant to keep you from the destiny waiting for you at home.”
“That is foolish talk, and you know it. There is no such thing as ‘destiny,’ and no plan of mine was carved in stone so immovable that it could not be overturned. Which, I daresay, we have done rather thoroughly.”
Her eyes lifted to his. “And you said, and I agreed, that remaining married to me would ruin you.”
He started to shake his head. “Elizabeth, I —”
“You are quite right. But there is…” She chewed her lower lip for a few seconds, looking down at his chest once more. “There is something I have… have been thinking about. Realising, actually. For perhaps a fortnight. And it is not to do with you trying to die with every breath.”
He straightened a little more and took her hand from his chest to hold it in his. “What?”
She sighed. “I am late.”
His eyes narrowed, then widened. “Late… as in…”
“I am never late. It used to make me so angry that my body was so regular, I could not squeeze out even a spare few days before I —” She stopped and swallowed. “I am better than a fortnight late now. And I thought… well, you should at least know, even if we decide to part when —”
“Elizabeth!” He caught her face, brought it close, and kissed her. “Do you think any force on earth could induce me to give you up now? Especially if… well, if this is true!”
She smiled woodenly. “I do not say that it is. I have been ill, tired, and hungry since Tudela. I have every reason to think it might be otherwise.”
“It does not matter to me, Elizabeth. Whether you are pregnant with twins at this very moment, or you come home with me and we spend forty childless years arguing with each other over what to have for supper or where to go on summer holiday, you are my wife, and I would not change that.”
A warmer smile broke through, and she glanced up. “Well. One thing, I daresay, that will not change anything is what we do tonight.”
“How do you mean?”
“I am either with child, or I am not. It is too late to change that, either way. And just this once, I want…” Something crossed her brow, and she rested her fingertips on his chest once more.
“I want to feel you strong again. I want to feel you in my arms and know you are the same man, come back to me, come back to life. To know I am myself, and to feel as alive as I felt when you first… Good heavens, does any of this make sense?”
He lifted his hand to rest it at her waist, then bowed his head to kiss the nape of her neck. “It makes perfect sense,” he whispered. “And I would oblige you if I can.”
“That remains to be seen, I suppose. Padre Ignacio says that a man just recovered from a fever is nearly always ‘impotente’ for some weeks, until he has recovered his strength.”
He raised a brow. “Does that mean the same as it does in English?”
“Well, I am sure I do not know, but he cannot be wrong. You were half dead only a few days ago, and you can still barely walk. I do not know how I imagined you might —”
He took her hand and pressed it between his legs, letting her feel him through his trousers.
Her eyes widened. “Oh.”
“Perhaps it was the excellent nursing I received,” he murmured, leaning close enough to nibble her ear.
“Or perhaps by ‘impotente,’ he means a man’s ability to father children, not… well. Clearly, it does not apply to your… to this.”
“We could put it to the test,” he suggested.
She turned her face into him, and her hand softened, exploring him through the fabric. “I suppose it would be irresponsible of me to let you prepare for a trek through the mountains before you proved you could carry on the most basic of a husband’s duties.”
“Irresponsible, indeed.”