A Certain Latitude (6 page)

Did he know she watched? Was he performing for her? She squeezed her thighs together, tingling and aroused.

He lifted the other leg, bent, repeated the untying, rolling down, and tossed both stockings onto his bed.

His breeches now; another button loosened, a further slide down his hips, and he paused.

He reached for the lantern as the fingers of his other hand worked the next button.  The cabin plunged into pitch darkness and his breeches slithered down—she heard the rasp of wool on skin. There was a warm gust of air from his body, scented with his musk and sweat as he hoisted himself onto the upper berth—and she took a much-needed breath.

She hadn’t been asleep, despite the evidence of closed eyes and carefully slowed breathing. She’d been quite convincing, but there was something in the chilly air, a watchfulness, a stirring, tight-wound like a strand of a spider’s web thrumming in a breeze. He could have challenged her, but decided not to after his initial surprise. He wanted her to watch him; he wanted to tease her. He liked the idea of a woman looking at him with admiration and desire, while he pretended oblivion. So he slowed down, taking his time, making each movement, each gesture—unbuttoning, rolling down or off—deliberate, significant.

And he’d denied her the final prize, which at the time had seemed like a good idea, although he wasn’t quite sure why now. He’d been half-erect by that time; she would probably have pretended to awake and he could have bent her over and … and instead, here he was with a horn like a ship’s mast, while she lay a couple of feet beneath him, far too close for comfort.

He turned and shoved his face into the pillow. That was a mistake. It smelled of her, sweet, earthy, female. His cock shoved against the sheets that also held her scent. He was surrounded by her essence, drowning in it. He reached beneath the sheet and grasped his cock. Maybe…maybe if he were very quiet, she wouldn’t know.

He squeezed. The berth creaked.

Another squeeze, another creak, and he groaned. He couldn’t help it.
Go to sleep, Miss Onslowe, for Christ’s sake.

She turned over, rustled, sighed.

He should stop. Doubtless, he’d have an erotic dream anyway and come all over her nice, lavender-scented sheets. And she’d see the stain and know what it was, know he had found pleasure while she was blissfully unaware.

Clarissa Onslowe, raising her eyebrows at the sight of her polluted sheets, wondering, and then realizing. Yes. Excited by the thought of a man frigging himself while she slept, inflamed by her nearness. She’d think of him with his hand on his cock, small efficient tugs; that’s all it would take now, thinking of him thinking of her—yes. Oh, God, yes. The devil with any sounds, too late now—
oh Christ—

“Oh, Christ!” He let out a yelp of pure fear, spunk shooting from his cock, as something with small tickly claws ran over his feet.

“What’s wrong?” There was a loud crack from below, her head probably, as she sat up. “Ouch!”

“A mouse, a damned mouse, something!” He leaped stark naked from the berth. “Right over my foot…oh, Christ.”

“You’re frightened of mice?” Damn her, she was laughing.

“No. Yes. I was surprised, that’s all.” He was out of breath for several reasons.

“It was probably much more frightened of you.”

“Of course, since I wasn’t frightened of it.” His breathing steadied. Even in the darkness there was probably light enough for her to see his cock, now at half mast, still oozing seed, and the thought embarrassed him. “I beg your pardon. I woke you up.”

“No matter. I’ll ask the sailors if they’ll lend us one of their cats tomorrow. That should take care of it.” She yawned and turned over. “Go to sleep, Allen.”

Allen
? She’d used his Christian name, without his permission, as though they were equals, and he was taken aback by her impertinence. On the other hand she hadn’t been surreptitiously frigging herself and then shrieking with fear at a mouse.

All too conscious that once again he’d made a fool of himself Allen slumped back into his berth. He landed straight onto the wet patch he’d made, covered himself up, and fell asleep.

Damn him. As though the ship wasn’t bad enough in keeping her awake, tipping her around in her berth and bumping her against the raised edge, while all the while timbers creaked and groaned, and waves slapped and crashed. Allen Pendale was not a restful presence. Mrs. Blight had been a noisy sleeper, grunting and snoring, but he was worse, thumping around—well, he was a large man, of course, and she didn’t realize how disturbing it was to lie in the lower berth beneath someone—then jumping out and shrieking, and now he was…surely not. She listened. Another wet snuffle, an intake of breath.

Allen Pendale, weeping?

She slid from her berth and stood. He lay on his back, broad enough to be wedged into his berth, although it surely couldn’t be very comfortable. It was light enough now for her to see the tears that ran down his face. One hand lay loosely curled on the pillow next to his head.

“Allen. Mr. Pendale. Wake up.”

He gasped and mumbled something.

“Allen!” This time she shook his shoulder.

“What the devil?” He came awake then, staring at her dumbfounded, and wiped his hand over his face. “Sorry. Bad dream. Didn’t…” He wiped his face on the sheet, somewhat to her annoyance, and groped for her hand. “On a ship.”

“Yes, you’re on the
Daphne
. On a ship.”

“No, the dream.” He stared at her. “Why am I always such a fool with you, Clarissa?”

She’d wondered about that, too. She was pretty much a fool with him, too, but she hoped she hid it better. Or was that just another instance of her cowardice? Didn’t it take a certain courage to admit anything—interest, desire, love—to someone, not knowing whether your feelings were returned? Or was it merely stupidity, for God knew she had been stupid once. She snatched back her other hand which, like an independent being, had crept forward to smooth the tumble of hair from Allen’s brow.

His fingers loosened and slid from hers, his eyes closed, and he fell back asleep.

Clarissa glanced around the cabin, then pulled her stays on, grateful that they were side-lacing and she didn’t have to ask for anyone else’s help. She could only imagine Allen Pendale’s reaction—or could she? Was he was spying on her? No, his back was turned to her and he appeared to be asleep. Naturally, as soon as she abandoned the idea of sleep herself, he became as quiet as a lamb. There was a different movement to the ship now, a deeper swing and rock, and it was colder. Sleet rattled against the small window, followed by the splash of a wave against the glass.

She drew on her much-darned silk stockings, regretting now that she had thrown away her workaday wool ones, her back turned to Pendale in case some powerful male instinct alerted him to what she was doing. She would have liked to wash, but it was too rough. She imagined water slopping all over the cabin, even if she or Peter, the ship’s boy, managed to get it down the stairs. Finally dressed, shoes, gloves and cloak on, she tapped on the Blights’ door and was greeted with silence. Cautiously she opened the door and peered inside. They were both asleep, but the necessary bucket had overturned and spilled onto the floor. Wrinkling her nose, she decided to seek out Peter, closed the door and climbed up the stairs in darkness—the hatch was closed. With some difficulty she threw it open, and was met with a spray of freezing salt water.

She clambered out, slammed the hatch shut, and stepped into another world, gray and fierce. A wave broke onto the steep slope of the deck, the water draining off as the ship righted.

“Best to stay below, today, ma’am,” Mr. Johnson bawled at her above the wind, apparently recovered from his seasickness. “Peter will be below in a while, so tell him what you need.”

“Thank you,” she shouted back.

“Mind yourself, ma’am!” He grasped her hand and closed it around a rope. “Hold on tight, and keep out of the way, if you please.”

Water broke over her feet, soaking and chilling them, but she didn’t care, exhilarated by the danger, the wild elements. She skidded and stumbled to the galley where Lardy Jack, face red from heat and steam, controlled wildly swinging pots over the fire.

“Good morning, miss. A bit of weather, today, but we’re making good speed.”

“Indeed, yes. How are the chickens?”

“Two washed overboard, the rest probably not laying for the moment. I’ll send Peter down with breakfast, ma’am. You shouldn’t be out in this.”

“I’m most grateful. Make sure he brings the mop, if you please.”

“You’re not sick, are you miss? We have bets on you and Mr. Pendale.”

“Not yet.” She grinned back at him. “I trust you won’t lose any money on my account. Can you give me an ember for the lantern?”

“Surely, miss.” He deftly shoveled hot coals into a small pot and handed it to her. “Careful, now.”

She would have liked to stay on deck to watch the waves crest and break but, with the amount of activity going on, knew she would only be in the way. She timed her entry into the hatch when there was little water on deck, slamming it closed behind her. Below it felt relatively quiet and warm, away from the roar of wind and sails. She blew on the embers and watched the red heat and glow, warming her hands on the pot.

She lit the lantern while Allen slept on. Oh, yes, she and Mr. Pendale were going to be on very intimate terms, one way or the other, if this weather held.

Allen awoke to the vision of Clarissa Onslowe undressing. She sat on his box, one ankle resting on a knee as she peeled off a wet stocking. She wrinkled her nose, smiled, and wriggled her reddened toes to warm them. She smelled of salt, clean and wild, and her face was flushed.

“Here.” He spoke before he realized the implications of what he was doing, spying on her while she undressed. “Borrow some stockings—there’s a clean pair inside my box.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

It was strange to see a woman he didn’t know poking around among his clothes, books, and papers.

She gave a small cry of triumph and waved a book at him. “A novel!”

“You may borrow it, ma’am.”

He would have liked to watch her put on the dry stockings, but he was having trouble enough with yet another erection, cramming it inside his breeches, rearranging his shirt so hopefully it wouldn’t show, while flat on his back. Time to take a piss—he wondered how she’d managed, but of course a cloaked woman could do a lot under skirts and petticoats with no one the wiser.

He really should stop thinking about what lay beneath her skirts.

“I expect you…I believe Peter is with the Blights. I should…” With great tact she left the cabin as he swung himself down from the berth, as usual bashing his head on a beam.

“If we were gypsies we’d be married now,” he said as she returned. Presumably she had fastened the stockings outside the door.

“I beg your pardon?” She gave him a frosty glare.

He swung himself onto his bed—her bed—and propped one hand under his head. “It’s how gypsies marry. They both piss into the same pot, or so I was told once.” The erotic charge of it had not escaped him and he wondered if he was turning into some sort of pervert. At the same time, the intimacy of marriage, as something other than a series of legal arrangements, for the first time seemed strangely attractive.

“How delightful,” she muttered, digging into her own box of possessions. She drew out a long length of pale fabric and sat, searching for, and finding, a needle and thread in its folds. She looked up. “Do you have nothing better to do than lie there and stare at me?”

Miss Onslowe was not in a mood to charm anyone today.

“Apparently not. I should go and see about some breakfast, if Lardy Jack can cook anything at all in this.”

“I already have.” She stabbed her needle into the fabric. “Peter will bring us something. Mr. Johnson said we should stay below.”

“The devil with that.” He swung himself down, annoyed by her bad temper. Maybe she was getting seasick. He hoped not. He didn’t want to see her wretched and undignified, like the sufferers in the next cabin.

He squeezed by her to put on his boots, noticing that she sat with one hand on her stomach, her face creased. “Clarissa, are you sick?” he barked, looking around for a receptacle for her to puke into.

“No, I am not, thank you, Mr. Pendale. The crew, by the way, have bets on us, so you’d best go show your face.”

When he returned, soaked and chilled, and awed by the force of wind and water, he found the reason for her bad temper. She straightened up, her face flushing red with embarrassment, cloths dangling from her hand—rags that held an unmistakable pale brown stain despite their bleached-out state.

“It’s my woman’s condition,” she said, and he realized she was close to tears. “And I can’t find the rest of my pins, and…”

“Let me look.” He knelt at her side and poked through her possessions, as she had done his. He found her pins, fastened to a scrap of paper, by pricking himself on them, buried among petticoats or some such. She certainly owned very little—a few pairs of stockings, silk but much darned, neatly folded garments of linen and cotton, a small box that might contain jewelry, a hairbrush and toothbrush, a pair of half-boots, a straw bonnet. That was all; no letters or papers, nothing that hinted of family or friends.

He handed the pins to her and left the cabin, bracing himself in the narrow space at the bottom of the stairs.

Poor girl. Far from home, stuck with a boor of a fellow whom she’d let get under her skirts and would far sooner ignore, and now having to deal with female matters with no privacy at all.

Wait, he chided himself, this was not some pathetic waif of a woman. This was Clarissa Onslowe, the woman who had used him and would almost certainly sell herself to the highest bidder.

He tapped on the Blights’ door, and asked cheerily about their health.

He was answered by heartfelt groans.

A spray of cold water and light from above, accompanied by the scent of bacon, revealed Peter coming down the stairs, agile as a monkey, a large bundle tucked under one arm. “Bacon and cheese, sir, and bread, and a cask of cider and a flask of his lordship’s wine.”