After so many months at sea, the lurch forward of the carriage really isn't so bad that it would stop him. But he lets himself be steadied, all elbows and knees between the three of them as room is made to accommodate the width of his hips and shoulders. He huffs out a laugh, lifting his himself and twisting to pull the waves of Miranda's skirts out from under him--
This is all so ridiculous. Them pressed together on the same side of the carriage, how he can't stop smiling, Thomas's kiss lingering on his mouth like the sweetest wine... (He wants to kiss him again. To press him against the wall of the carriage as it staggers across London. To--)
He's been away too long and has had far too much time to think about what he means to do. Satisfying himself with taking Miranda's hand again and pressing his mouth to her knuckles might be asking too much, but he gives it his best attempt.
"Tell me everything." About them. About what's been done with the state. About the evenings and salons he's missed. About what they intend to do with him.
The material is gathered out of their way, her fingers having to loose their hold on Thomas to accommodate the shift, mourning that loss almost immediately as it goes - but just so, it is in efforts of a good cause, settling him between them.
Something so childlike in this eagerness, so simple for all the complications it might otherwise present. He takes her hand and kisses it, and she lets that warmth express itself so openly, plain on her face as she tilts his hand by the wrist as if it had always been so easy and returns it upon his own knuckle, taste of salt upon them.
Though her eyes slide, so briefly across to Thomas beside him. Nothing, she wants to say, nothing that is half so much as your return to us, as the look in his eyes and the smile on your face. But ventures, mildly, warming that says - rather instead, that they mean to keep him for hours in the retelling of everything he's missed. "Where to begin?"
"Mm, the beginning?" Thomas shifts sideways to face the both of them, long legs angled to be less forcibly folded; he rests one hand on James's shoulder in a comfortable lean, nothing at all like innocence in the way his fingers splay against his neck, tangle in the fall of his auburn hair beneath the ribbon holding it. His other hand settles across James's lap, coaxing Miranda's free one. "I've had three meetings minimum a week since you've been away about lower court budgets, and have spent every single one of them rejecting amendments that would allow two districts to execute loan defaulters on sums under five hundred pounds, which Lord Milner keeps introducing because he is a jackass who hates poor people--" all delivered in his very aloof professional voice, contrasting with the frankness he saves for personal time, rambling on with the full confidence one of them will shut him up before he gets into even more terminally boring detail.
Even with Thomas's hand warm on the back of his neck - every small hair there prickling with interest -, the line of his wrist across his lap and Miranda all coy satisfaction beside him, there's an urge to call Thomas's bluff. 'Really,' he could say. 'But how is Lord Milner finding anyone to still support the damn thing if it keeps getting thrown out?'
But he can't quite manage more than giving Miranda a long suffering look. "Does he torture you like this while I'm away or is it just for the occasion?"
Surely he can trust her to be his partner in this.
"Only when I let him." Is the easy reply back as she leans forward towards James, hooking her fingers across the cravat - enough of that, now Thomas, she did not pry him from duty and deeds just to hear more about them. "Shall we halt him?"
Sure that James will hold her steady, that even if she does not tell him all, he will follow even what she does not indicate - feels his solid warmth from days at sea, all sureness beside her - against the bumps and rolls of the carriage that with the movement make her sway. Leans with him, takes the hold of his jacket to pull James into her. Not so much, all at once, setting her teeth into his lip, then more, that curve of her smile she brushes against his mouth, once and light, then again and former with her eyes lowered as she watches. Demand as she slants her mouth firmly and solidly over his.
Hopelessly, incandescently in love, Thomas finds a whole host of things equally marvelous - the strength of his wife's knee under his hand through layers of fine fabric, the confidence in the corner of her smile and the tangle of her fingers, the things James's eyebrows do when he's fielding whatever nonsense Thomas has thrown him-- verbal sparring and debates volleyed back and forth just as good as wicked smiles and undoing belt clasps, love in every dimension, every texture and temperature.
As soon as that look graces James's face Thomas is laughing, a bright peal of it that continues as Miranda smoothly cuts the corner of his baiting. He leaves his hands where they are as wife and lover connect, fingers stroking along the other man's nape, encouraging.
It does indeed halt him. They are an absolute vision.
He's more than happy to assist her, his hand at her waist the moment she shifts toward him. Does it matter that he's been months at sea? Is that why the edge of her teeth seems so sharp and her kiss so sweet? Or why Thomas's thumb stroking down the back of his neck seems so warm? Or do the circumstances not matter at all? It would be this way regardless of how long it's been since he last found himself between them.
He wants to be back in their home again - to spend as much time in Thomas's study as in their bed. What conversations has he missed at their salon? What is Miranda reading? What news from Nassau is Thomas privy to (as he's heard nothing at all for the duration of his time on at sea)? He wants to teach them the game of cards the Panther's three midshipman had played for the duration of their cruise. He wants--
Somehow despite the length of that list in his head, her kiss and Thomas's gently goading hand are perfectly satisfactory. She's carefully unlaced the last pretense of this with her mouth on his, and it strikes a low heat in his belly so that when he kisses her back he's unrepentant about meeting her demand. Touching her long lovely neck to deepen the kiss, breathing thick and eyes dark when they do finally part.
"What what it were you saying?," he murmurs, turning just that half degree into the warmth of Thomas's hand. "About Lord Milner?"
He turns, and she follows the line he presents as easy to follow. He can do the talking, she has done plenty of it in his absence and she was here, with them both, for too particular a reason as her fingers slide to lock tightly with Thomas' and her head turns to work down against James' neck, that smile still there - but opened slowly, nosing softly at the edge of his collar to find more skin. Her free hand sliding against the inside of his jacket to smooth over the flat of his chest. An imperfect angle, caught together, a twisted rope that tugs and pulls - but held fast, all the same.
"I find it difficult to believe you care what I was saying about lord anyone," Thomas tells him, close enough to nearly brush his face against James's, seeing if he can call his bluff before he gets out one of his own. (They're trying to reform the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland into one monster, most everyone over the age of thirty-five still doesn't respect that any Parliament exists at all in favor of the monarchy and this lurching creature of political nightmares has no idea what it's doing collectively at any given time, do you think anyone is following procedure or isn't trying to weasel counts this way or that--)
Watching Miranda begin to get his jacket undone is momentarily distracting.
"At least right now."
Thomas rubs the back of his neck, wondering distantly at aches and pains from the labor of running around a ship for so long, and then presses a kiss to the side of his mouth. His hand clasped with Miranda's moves both against James's belly, as if threatening the buttons of his uniform.
How long does it take a carriage to force its way from London harbor to the Hamilton house? He's been on largely aimless patrol for five months. Long enough, is maybe not strictly a flattering thought but James suspects it's an honest one. The way his stomach pitches low for the weight of their hands seems to think so. And maybe Miranda can taste his pulse under her lips, feel the hum when he makes a low noise instead of arguing--
"Later," he says across Thomas's mouth and means it as much as he does the kiss that follows. He wants to know. He wants every detail as much as he wants to be reminded of what Thomas tastes like - what's it like to kiss him open mouthed and deceptively languid as his hand shifts from Miranda's waist to gather her skirts by inches (ridiculous; there's so much under them there's almost no point - but the sentiment is there under his fingertips).
This isn't what he's supposed to be doing anymore than this is where they should to be. Thomas ought to be trapped in a state house. Miranda should have sent a carriage for him. They're supposed to have had a dinner to reacquaint themselves over - to talk like adults with more on the mind than how much he's thought about touching them. But putting up a fight is, for once, beyond his capabilities.
She is smiling into his neck as she feels the shudder of Thomas being pulled into James. Her fingers hooking against buttons holes that hook to keep her steady, keep Thomas' hand there on him. Like they need to trap him there, like she isn't absolutely sure that they all don't know how right this feels, having him between them, where they can both pour out their longing into him.
( No point at all but she stretches into him to give him what little help can be afforded, a movement of assisting his hold on those skirts, keep them gathered out of the way she that she can press her knee to the side of his, that she can hook her leg against his. A tap of her toes against the buckle of his, sliding so carefully against the stockings underneath, a warmth of so many layers. )
Thomas kisses him with all the tender adoration he's harbored in his absence, underscored with inevitable, barely-restrained passion. Pretense would be criminal. James is back with them and he deserves to feel and taste and breathe how much they love him, how much they've missed him-- and don't they deserve to have him, too?
(Maybe they were even well-behaved while James was away. Anything is possible.)
The carriage hits a particularly rough patch and Thomas pulls back gently, practiced at not letting jostles result in bitten lips and tongues, and presses an open-mouthed kiss against his jaw. His smile against his skin is tangible, and fingers help Miranda's - undoing buttons plainly. All the way up, pushing aside fabric to get at the softer shirt beneath. He exchanges a glance with his wife, perfectly pleased.
The hook of her leg across his affords what feels like a fraction of space inviting itself to be filled. He takes it, line of his leg jostling pleasantly at her calf as the carriage rattles his teeth and buttons are made irrelevant. Not that he's the only one to take advantage of any trace of room on the crowded side of the carriage; Thomas's hand is shockingly warm as it finds its way between his open waistcoat and shirt.
He huffs out a breath, tries not to think of how he must taste and smell of salt and sweat and brine, and manages to sort the layers of her petticoats only once he puts both hands to the task. Getting them anywhere useful is impossible in the cramped quarters, but he has the great ambition of baring her knee because there's something about just the thought of it that makes Thomas's fingers seem heavier, steadier, and his breath against his neck give rise to the small hairs there.
It both does and doesn't feel like being outnumbered.
A worthy goal that she takes feed of happily, can take it one better as he frustrated push at material that - in direct purpose she meets Thomas' eyes, breathlessly warm, heat in her cheek where otherwise she guides James' hand in the pace of a leisurely stroll not just to her knee, but that inch up, where the high brace of her stockings - neatly tied in military blue. A piece of longing that she kept away from eyes, or rather, away from anyone but the one person who would know
( Some days, she wonders just what they might be without James, now, and then resolves herself to never finding out. )
Her leg settles at the angle, slung in the way that it makes it easy to lean back when the carriage rolls back and she has to catch herself by it instead. Watching them both with a pitched laugh of the sheer ridiculousness that is them, right now. Three grown adults, pawing and playing about in a carriage that does not have space enough for their nonsense to contain it. Which quite probably, what makes it half so tempting.
Lazy warmed eyes as she looks over the figure they cut together and leans back in close. The clock-swing of the drops of earrings that time the rise and fall of the carriage as she goes. Like surf beaten back before it rushes into shore again, pushing James more eagerly into Thomas. An effort to get him where she can pull his vest buttons apart once and for all. At least so that Thomas' hands can find more interesting places to roam whilst she does the work of giving them space.
Thomas knows well the struggle with Miranda's layers (wouldn't she look lovely in James's uniform? perhaps later), but smiles knowing what questing hands will find beneath. He finds James's mouth again with his own, sitting forward enough so none of them are twisted uncomfortably - just pressed close, only fabric between them, and even that diminishing. Less teasing, Thomas undoes every button on his waistcoat, always finding those much easier than lace and ribbons that Miranda prefers he not just snap off. If only he had a sailor's deftness with knots.
The carriage sways and Thomas, sitting sideways as he is, has to loose his hand from pulling James's shirt free from his trousers to press it against the ceiling and keep himself from toppling to the other side-- and from pulling James with him, his other arm still wrapped around his shoulders. He's too tall to be doing this, but just laughs.
"Thomas," he says, and he's breathless and low and laughing. There's another lurch of the carriage that strains the abilities of its springs - bouncing the cabin so dramatically that it's like riding a running tide in a row boat. "For God's sake, you're going to split your head open."
Arriving at their destination half dressed (at best) or with a concussed Lord Hamilton might be perfectly easy to explain away compared to the combination of both.
But he makes no effort to stop him or to resist the way Miranda draws his hand higher toward where he's thought of touching for weeks. He doesn't stop himself from looking when the rock of the carriage affords the opportunity between undone buttons, spying that flash of deep blue and an inch of her pale thigh. Huffing out an incredulous little noise, he fights a grin that threatens an edge of hungry teeth - wets his lips instead and shifts a hand to finish what Thomas had started: pulling his own shirt tails free.
Her smile stays wicked and turned in as she lowers her head where he pulls his shirt tails out - and immediate rolling in, that sets her hands to his hips and slides them up. over the bare skin that she and Thomas work to expose. "Perhaps then he might gain some sense."
It's merciless, to the quiet way she gives when she lowers her head, the soft brush of that elegantly styled of pinned curl, in place - where Thomas in his infinite excitement for all such things, to James' steadily crafted dishevelment, they are stages of something. Caterpillar to butterfly, fawn to stag and in satisfaction of ouroboros biting its own tail, she lowers her lips to the bare skin of Jame's belly, know it will be sea aired stained, and sets her teeth on him. One quick bite, sucked soft. Before her head turns up once more, an easily parted breath - ( that trouble of corsetry, how it makes it so hard to breathe deep with all this jostling, and yet adds to the need, straining against it in a flush of skin, hard up against it, in a swell of her breasts, the shift of collar bones under her skin ) - she pushes up that little further.
"But I think the cart would over turn, and nothing would change that." And there is a satisfaction to her voice, says that she is so proud of her husband for it.
"And to think I never wish for anything but pleasure for the both of you," he chides, the most delicate teasing, as delicate as his touch at the back of her neck as she bends. Torn between watching her and watching James's face, he chooses the latter, entirely too deprived while he's been away. The carriage shakes but he's found his footing well enough by now, and when Miranda lifts his hand travels to her side, automatic. (Stays are wholly baffling and he wishes they would fall out of fashion; what, exactly, is attractive about a woman suffocating.) (Don't answer that, it's a bloody thesis of control.)
Thomas slips his hand from behind James's neck to his chest, pushing open layers of fabric to get his palm on skin, rucking it up and away to one side, exposing the straight line of his clavicle and the warm curve of pectoral.
Don't do that, his brain provides too late to stop Miranda from setting her teeth on him. His face might have seen fresh water this morning, but the rest of him's chalky with salt-- Not that the heat of her mouth doesn't make him start for other reasons, sensation like the small hair at the back of his neck prickling passing down through his belly. Not that objection is why the square of his hand goes firm high at the inside of her thigh or has anything to do with the soft sound that escapes him, attention drawn low by the pull of her breath near his skin and the rise of her breast. Thomas's hand at the curve of her neck for what seems like just a provocative instant.
"You want to ruin me, you mean," he says, crooked grin and breathless and something dark in his face as he catches Thomas by the wrist and meets his eyes. Heat unfolds in his middle for the weight of that hand and the corresponding shape of the carriage seat behind his shoulder. If Thomas wanted to, he could pin him this way. Or lock his elbow and pretend to. James would let him.
(He's so handsome like this, a strange kind of grace to how Thomas weathers the sway of the carriage with his hands at both of them. It's mesmerising. How does anyone look at Thomas Hamilton and not love him entirely?)
( An answer she has yet to find in any book, speech or poem. Rather in all forms, they seem all ever to be as in love with her husband as any being could be. )
( But he'd chide them both, for that. )
For now, she stays grounded, if only because one of them must attempt it. If only slightly. His skin does taste of salt, like a reminder of the long months of his parting from them. But as she walks those kisses up his chest, lighter and lighter, until she can lean forward over him: her only true objection to it, is that it is a reminder of how long they have been in absence of this wholeness. Where she leans forward, that taste of salt on her mouth to give not to James, but is a brush of a kiss that is timed to the swag of the carriage to Thomas' mouth ( like children stealing and sharing sweets, bracing with the strength of the hand upon her leg, the feel of fingers at her throat ), before she is summarily rocked backwards to her seat - she only has one response.
"Just so, we're to scrub these months off of him, the first chance we get."
(They are both ridiculous, and he loves them both eternally.)
He says Mmm, a monosyllabic noise and the look in his eyes to communicate Yes that's correct and also Being ruined is the best state for you, my love, and I know how much you crave it. Thomas presses his hand to James's shoulder, presses him to the back of the carriage, captures that stolen kiss and holds James where he is (where he's very gallantly playing along) as though to have him sit and watch for a moment.
"I think I'd enjoy that very much," he says, of the idea of their lieutenant in a bathtub being attended to by the both of them. Thomas leans in, letting his weight rest where he's pretending to hold James down, and presses a kiss to his mouth. Passing the affection from Miranda, amplifying it with his own. Against his lips: "And we'll have you warm and clean for after. When I'd love to watch you take Miranda." Anchored so against James, he slips his other hand beneath his wife's skirts to join his lover's hand against her soft skin at the height of her thigh. "For a little while. Until I take you at the same time." Thomas's teeth find James's lower lip, indentation barely-there.
He could apologize for his brine skin and the salt stiff edges of his shirt, but it's the reality of the situation the two of them have clearly already opted to embrace almost nearly without comment. And it doesn't matter that he wants to say something anyway - he's learning that they won't accept him making apologies for what he is, salt stain and all. Instead he lets himself sink into this with the same barely restrained eagerness that has him giving under the press of Thomas's hand sturdy at his shoulder and had goaded him to reach the quay so quickly. He'd nearly jumped past the step into the carriage entirely and now he mets himself want to watch them as they kiss, attention razor sharp (fuck, they're lovely). He can feel the pulse of it low in his core, as warm and sure as Thomas's palm on his skin or the inside of Miranda's pale thigh under his fingers.
Thomas's wrist under his thumb feels more solid than it looks. James's touch jumps there, flexing briefly tighter as their hands come together under Miranda's skirt and Thomas starts to say things that narrow the world to the lurch of the carriage and the edge of Thomas's teeth, every fiber of him intimately aware of how long it's been since they left the harbor and how soon they can expect to reach the Hamilton house with its bath and bed and promises of Thomas's hands on him and Miranda slick with sweat and--
'You shouldn't say things like that,' he might have said, low and grinning but somehow still genuine. Quietly uneasy. Instead he breathes out heavy into Thomas's mouth and says, "Please," while he clings to the man's wrist with one hand and presses to the heat between Miranda's legs with the other.
The one joy to her situation is that we'll picked maids aside, if she elected not to wear her draws, it would be her secret.
Or theirs now, a last minute choice like she knew that expendience was foremost in her mind when she dressed for the day. A choice she is glad for making, she means to watch them, surely she does, as she feels the guide of Thomas' grip to James'. Feels the broad set of seaman's hands to the softer letter worn callouses of her husbands as thry slide up and up. Sinking against heat and the roll of the carriage rocks them that little and her eyes fall shut, her head tilted up and back in a brief shudders enjoyment that times far too well. Yes, to have them both, to have James caught between them to know each rocking motion as both of them when she let's James sink over and into -
When her eyes open the heat and the flush is unmistakable and the turn of her hand is purposeful as she sets it to theirs. Guiding up against warmth. A unmistakable heat, slick and wanting, waiting. She has been waiting. A open warn eagerness. She wears it differently, perhaps, but for them she has it nonetheless. Her own Apollo and Poseidon that come like sea and sun, equally parts to each other.
"We will surely be home soon." That either comes as a promise or a warning and impatient in either case.
Please he says and Thomas kisses him claiming and needy, pushes his tongue into his mouth to curl against the other, every restrained inch of passion and God how I've missed you opened into a searing moment. His hand finds the sweet center between Miranda's thighs and the sound he makes against James's mouth is as much approval for her last minute choice as the warm ache tasting his lover so deeply again inspires. Thumb atop their sailor's against her, Thomas rubs over the so-soft skin there before pressing fingers inside her, wasting no time curling them in the way she likes best. Because she is correct.
"But not yet," is breathed out, breaking way from the kiss but not moving at all, his nose and mouth against James's, lips moving against the side of his as he speaks and presses messy kisses there until he has to, has to kiss him fully again, the hand at his shoulder gripping him as though he might vanish from beneath their four hands. He fantasizes sometimes about a world where James lives with them properly, where he is not pulled from them for these stretches of time-- and yet he'd never wish it, knowing how connected to the sea he is (the salt of him, on his skin, on his clothes, down to his marrow Thomas thinks) and finding the idea of asking someone to change or chain themselves so miserable. This is James, elemental and unbound, choosing to be here with them. Perfect-- perfect.
There are people on London given to gossiping over Lord and Lady Hamilton - that one is mad and the other is far more flexible than anyone would desire for a wife. They don't know the half of it, thinks James. And what a loss.
Because Thomas's mouth and tongue are as mesmerizing as the heat between Miranda's legs. His hand under James's there-- he can feel himself jerk as a string plucked when Thomas turns his hand there and presses fingers into her right there. He can feel the answering twitch of Miranda under the line of his thumb and hears himself make a low, thoughtless sound into Thomas's mouth. It's easy to imagine-- anything. Everything. Thomas with his beautiful hands, so astonishingly articulate as he pins him or strips Miranda down.
(That's a ridiculous fantasy; James is so much more adept at taking Miranda out of her clothes than her husband is. The ties fastening stays, the ribbons there, come open under his fingers as easily as any other knot might.)
Still. How easy it is to get swept up by the appeal of them when he's been so far awat. If he had been in London these last months instead of on a ship, he might not be so easily convinced to make a fool of himself in a carriage with a very immediate destination. As it is, he kisses Thomas so fiercely it's as if they're the only ones who know how to; he feels where Thomas's fingers press into Miranda and lingers over the possibility of doing the same. Of pressing a third finger into her. Having Thomas demonstrate exactly how he touches her. James thinks and thinks and thinks and none of it has amything to do with how near they might be to the Hamilton house until the sound of the road under the wheels alters and the horses slow.
"Fuck." Which: yes. That's probably the idea. He balks, hand drawing abruptly out from under Miranda's skirts so he can desperately begin putting himself back together. "The pair of you--"
He doesn't finish the thought, twisting under Thomas to do up rows of unfastened buttons.
"Have been waiting too long." Is the only end to that sentence that matters.
Her eyes open, brief, the sigh she refuses to help. The rock against the set of Thomas' fingers and the steadiness of James' hand. She enjoys it, to the purpose entirely, without shame. Enjoys them, watching - hers and her own, and completely lost in each other, all of a self-evident truth:
The rest is sheer practicality. Something she flicks in practice of the many years managing her husband's lack of it. Loathe as she is to lose their touch, that ease of his fingers inside of her, she shifts - her own cue of following along. She flicks her skirts, smoothes them to neatness again, and with the bulk of that material in hand, shifts herself between her men and the carriage door. Her hands moving up to check the set of brown curls, redraping herself with half the effort as she settles in the bench the other side of the small space to allow her to step out first - whatever it took to give James' the time to rearrange himself.
Thomas is less abrupt removing his hand, so gentle and sensually thoughtful at every opportunity, and he sits back to watch James scramble to button himself back up. Unhelpful in his lack of offered aid, but then-- he smiles, a mischievous self-indulgent one that no one outside this carriage sees for long enough to know the truth of it, and brings the hand that has been against James's fingers under their lady's skirts to the sailor's lips, pressing fingers in, sharing the warm and wet evidence of too long.
His other hand slips from James's shoulder to help tuck the ends of his shirt back into place, but it's far from hurried. He should probably fish his jacket and wig out from wherever he's left them in here, too - his staff are so used to his dislike of those items in particular he can't imagine anyone would so much as blink at the state of him, but it's a kindness to James's nerves.
('Could' be. Thomas still has fingertips mocking the existence of propriety when the handle of the carriage door squeaks, but in in the next heartbeat is innocently arranged.)
London is as dreary outside the Hamilton home as it is directly beside the Thames, but it's warm and comfortable inside, rich colors and dense decor set as if to hold all who enter in an intimate embrace. Thomas's wig is off again as soon as the doors are shut behind them, setting one of the girls in the house to run a bath for the guest room.
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This is all so ridiculous. Them pressed together on the same side of the carriage, how he can't stop smiling, Thomas's kiss lingering on his mouth like the sweetest wine... (He wants to kiss him again. To press him against the wall of the carriage as it staggers across London. To--)
He's been away too long and has had far too much time to think about what he means to do. Satisfying himself with taking Miranda's hand again and pressing his mouth to her knuckles might be asking too much, but he gives it his best attempt.
"Tell me everything." About them. About what's been done with the state. About the evenings and salons he's missed. About what they intend to do with him.
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Something so childlike in this eagerness, so simple for all the complications it might otherwise present. He takes her hand and kisses it, and she lets that warmth express itself so openly, plain on her face as she tilts his hand by the wrist as if it had always been so easy and returns it upon his own knuckle, taste of salt upon them.
Though her eyes slide, so briefly across to Thomas beside him. Nothing, she wants to say, nothing that is half so much as your return to us, as the look in his eyes and the smile on your face. But ventures, mildly, warming that says - rather instead, that they mean to keep him for hours in the retelling of everything he's missed. "Where to begin?"
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"Mm, the beginning?" Thomas shifts sideways to face the both of them, long legs angled to be less forcibly folded; he rests one hand on James's shoulder in a comfortable lean, nothing at all like innocence in the way his fingers splay against his neck, tangle in the fall of his auburn hair beneath the ribbon holding it. His other hand settles across James's lap, coaxing Miranda's free one. "I've had three meetings minimum a week since you've been away about lower court budgets, and have spent every single one of them rejecting amendments that would allow two districts to execute loan defaulters on sums under five hundred pounds, which Lord Milner keeps introducing because he is a jackass who hates poor people--" all delivered in his very aloof professional voice, contrasting with the frankness he saves for personal time, rambling on with the full confidence one of them will shut him up before he gets into even more terminally boring detail.
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But he can't quite manage more than giving Miranda a long suffering look. "Does he torture you like this while I'm away or is it just for the occasion?"
Surely he can trust her to be his partner in this.
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Sure that James will hold her steady, that even if she does not tell him all, he will follow even what she does not indicate - feels his solid warmth from days at sea, all sureness beside her - against the bumps and rolls of the carriage that with the movement make her sway. Leans with him, takes the hold of his jacket to pull James into her. Not so much, all at once, setting her teeth into his lip, then more, that curve of her smile she brushes against his mouth, once and light, then again and former with her eyes lowered as she watches. Demand as she slants her mouth firmly and solidly over his.
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As soon as that look graces James's face Thomas is laughing, a bright peal of it that continues as Miranda smoothly cuts the corner of his baiting. He leaves his hands where they are as wife and lover connect, fingers stroking along the other man's nape, encouraging.
It does indeed halt him. They are an absolute vision.
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He wants to be back in their home again - to spend as much time in Thomas's study as in their bed. What conversations has he missed at their salon? What is Miranda reading? What news from Nassau is Thomas privy to (as he's heard nothing at all for the duration of his time on at sea)? He wants to teach them the game of cards the Panther's three midshipman had played for the duration of their cruise. He wants--
Somehow despite the length of that list in his head, her kiss and Thomas's gently goading hand are perfectly satisfactory. She's carefully unlaced the last pretense of this with her mouth on his, and it strikes a low heat in his belly so that when he kisses her back he's unrepentant about meeting her demand. Touching her long lovely neck to deepen the kiss, breathing thick and eyes dark when they do finally part.
"What what it were you saying?," he murmurs, turning just that half degree into the warmth of Thomas's hand. "About Lord Milner?"
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Thomas will catch up, he always does.
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Watching Miranda begin to get his jacket undone is momentarily distracting.
"At least right now."
Thomas rubs the back of his neck, wondering distantly at aches and pains from the labor of running around a ship for so long, and then presses a kiss to the side of his mouth. His hand clasped with Miranda's moves both against James's belly, as if threatening the buttons of his uniform.
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"Later," he says across Thomas's mouth and means it as much as he does the kiss that follows. He wants to know. He wants every detail as much as he wants to be reminded of what Thomas tastes like - what's it like to kiss him open mouthed and deceptively languid as his hand shifts from Miranda's waist to gather her skirts by inches (ridiculous; there's so much under them there's almost no point - but the sentiment is there under his fingertips).
This isn't what he's supposed to be doing anymore than this is where they should to be. Thomas ought to be trapped in a state house. Miranda should have sent a carriage for him. They're supposed to have had a dinner to reacquaint themselves over - to talk like adults with more on the mind than how much he's thought about touching them. But putting up a fight is, for once, beyond his capabilities.
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( No point at all but she stretches into him to give him what little help can be afforded, a movement of assisting his hold on those skirts, keep them gathered out of the way she that she can press her knee to the side of his, that she can hook her leg against his. A tap of her toes against the buckle of his, sliding so carefully against the stockings underneath, a warmth of so many layers. )
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(Maybe they were even well-behaved while James was away. Anything is possible.)
The carriage hits a particularly rough patch and Thomas pulls back gently, practiced at not letting jostles result in bitten lips and tongues, and presses an open-mouthed kiss against his jaw. His smile against his skin is tangible, and fingers help Miranda's - undoing buttons plainly. All the way up, pushing aside fabric to get at the softer shirt beneath. He exchanges a glance with his wife, perfectly pleased.
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He huffs out a breath, tries not to think of how he must taste and smell of salt and sweat and brine, and manages to sort the layers of her petticoats only once he puts both hands to the task. Getting them anywhere useful is impossible in the cramped quarters, but he has the great ambition of baring her knee because there's something about just the thought of it that makes Thomas's fingers seem heavier, steadier, and his breath against his neck give rise to the small hairs there.
It both does and doesn't feel like being outnumbered.
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( Some days, she wonders just what they might be without James, now, and then resolves herself to never finding out. )
Her leg settles at the angle, slung in the way that it makes it easy to lean back when the carriage rolls back and she has to catch herself by it instead. Watching them both with a pitched laugh of the sheer ridiculousness that is them, right now. Three grown adults, pawing and playing about in a carriage that does not have space enough for their nonsense to contain it. Which quite probably, what makes it half so tempting.
Lazy warmed eyes as she looks over the figure they cut together and leans back in close. The clock-swing of the drops of earrings that time the rise and fall of the carriage as she goes. Like surf beaten back before it rushes into shore again, pushing James more eagerly into Thomas. An effort to get him where she can pull his vest buttons apart once and for all. At least so that Thomas' hands can find more interesting places to roam whilst she does the work of giving them space.
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The carriage sways and Thomas, sitting sideways as he is, has to loose his hand from pulling James's shirt free from his trousers to press it against the ceiling and keep himself from toppling to the other side-- and from pulling James with him, his other arm still wrapped around his shoulders. He's too tall to be doing this, but just laughs.
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Arriving at their destination half dressed (at best) or with a concussed Lord Hamilton might be perfectly easy to explain away compared to the combination of both.
But he makes no effort to stop him or to resist the way Miranda draws his hand higher toward where he's thought of touching for weeks. He doesn't stop himself from looking when the rock of the carriage affords the opportunity between undone buttons, spying that flash of deep blue and an inch of her pale thigh. Huffing out an incredulous little noise, he fights a grin that threatens an edge of hungry teeth - wets his lips instead and shifts a hand to finish what Thomas had started: pulling his own shirt tails free.
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It's merciless, to the quiet way she gives when she lowers her head, the soft brush of that elegantly styled of pinned curl, in place - where Thomas in his infinite excitement for all such things, to James' steadily crafted dishevelment, they are stages of something. Caterpillar to butterfly, fawn to stag and in satisfaction of ouroboros biting its own tail, she lowers her lips to the bare skin of Jame's belly, know it will be sea aired stained, and sets her teeth on him. One quick bite, sucked soft. Before her head turns up once more, an easily parted breath - ( that trouble of corsetry, how it makes it so hard to breathe deep with all this jostling, and yet adds to the need, straining against it in a flush of skin, hard up against it, in a swell of her breasts, the shift of collar bones under her skin ) - she pushes up that little further.
"But I think the cart would over turn, and nothing would change that." And there is a satisfaction to her voice, says that she is so proud of her husband for it.
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Thomas slips his hand from behind James's neck to his chest, pushing open layers of fabric to get his palm on skin, rucking it up and away to one side, exposing the straight line of his clavicle and the warm curve of pectoral.
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"You want to ruin me, you mean," he says, crooked grin and breathless and something dark in his face as he catches Thomas by the wrist and meets his eyes. Heat unfolds in his middle for the weight of that hand and the corresponding shape of the carriage seat behind his shoulder. If Thomas wanted to, he could pin him this way. Or lock his elbow and pretend to. James would let him.
(He's so handsome like this, a strange kind of grace to how Thomas weathers the sway of the carriage with his hands at both of them. It's mesmerising. How does anyone look at Thomas Hamilton and not love him entirely?)
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( But he'd chide them both, for that. )
For now, she stays grounded, if only because one of them must attempt it. If only slightly. His skin does taste of salt, like a reminder of the long months of his parting from them. But as she walks those kisses up his chest, lighter and lighter, until she can lean forward over him: her only true objection to it, is that it is a reminder of how long they have been in absence of this wholeness. Where she leans forward, that taste of salt on her mouth to give not to James, but is a brush of a kiss that is timed to the swag of the carriage to Thomas' mouth ( like children stealing and sharing sweets, bracing with the strength of the hand upon her leg, the feel of fingers at her throat ), before she is summarily rocked backwards to her seat - she only has one response.
"Just so, we're to scrub these months off of him, the first chance we get."
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He says Mmm, a monosyllabic noise and the look in his eyes to communicate Yes that's correct and also Being ruined is the best state for you, my love, and I know how much you crave it. Thomas presses his hand to James's shoulder, presses him to the back of the carriage, captures that stolen kiss and holds James where he is (where he's very gallantly playing along) as though to have him sit and watch for a moment.
"I think I'd enjoy that very much," he says, of the idea of their lieutenant in a bathtub being attended to by the both of them. Thomas leans in, letting his weight rest where he's pretending to hold James down, and presses a kiss to his mouth. Passing the affection from Miranda, amplifying it with his own. Against his lips: "And we'll have you warm and clean for after. When I'd love to watch you take Miranda." Anchored so against James, he slips his other hand beneath his wife's skirts to join his lover's hand against her soft skin at the height of her thigh. "For a little while. Until I take you at the same time." Thomas's teeth find James's lower lip, indentation barely-there.
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Thomas's wrist under his thumb feels more solid than it looks. James's touch jumps there, flexing briefly tighter as their hands come together under Miranda's skirt and Thomas starts to say things that narrow the world to the lurch of the carriage and the edge of Thomas's teeth, every fiber of him intimately aware of how long it's been since they left the harbor and how soon they can expect to reach the Hamilton house with its bath and bed and promises of Thomas's hands on him and Miranda slick with sweat and--
'You shouldn't say things like that,' he might have said, low and grinning but somehow still genuine. Quietly uneasy. Instead he breathes out heavy into Thomas's mouth and says, "Please," while he clings to the man's wrist with one hand and presses to the heat between Miranda's legs with the other.
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Or theirs now, a last minute choice like she knew that expendience was foremost in her mind when she dressed for the day. A choice she is glad for making, she means to watch them, surely she does, as she feels the guide of Thomas' grip to James'. Feels the broad set of seaman's hands to the softer letter worn callouses of her husbands as thry slide up and up. Sinking against heat and the roll of the carriage rocks them that little and her eyes fall shut, her head tilted up and back in a brief shudders enjoyment that times far too well. Yes, to have them both, to have James caught between them to know each rocking motion as both of them when she let's James sink over and into -
When her eyes open the heat and the flush is unmistakable and the turn of her hand is purposeful as she sets it to theirs. Guiding up against warmth. A unmistakable heat, slick and wanting, waiting. She has been waiting. A open warn eagerness. She wears it differently, perhaps, but for them she has it nonetheless. Her own Apollo and Poseidon that come like sea and sun, equally parts to each other.
"We will surely be home soon." That either comes as a promise or a warning and impatient in either case.
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"But not yet," is breathed out, breaking way from the kiss but not moving at all, his nose and mouth against James's, lips moving against the side of his as he speaks and presses messy kisses there until he has to, has to kiss him fully again, the hand at his shoulder gripping him as though he might vanish from beneath their four hands. He fantasizes sometimes about a world where James lives with them properly, where he is not pulled from them for these stretches of time-- and yet he'd never wish it, knowing how connected to the sea he is (the salt of him, on his skin, on his clothes, down to his marrow Thomas thinks) and finding the idea of asking someone to change or chain themselves so miserable. This is James, elemental and unbound, choosing to be here with them. Perfect-- perfect.
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Because Thomas's mouth and tongue are as mesmerizing as the heat between Miranda's legs. His hand under James's there-- he can feel himself jerk as a string plucked when Thomas turns his hand there and presses fingers into her right there. He can feel the answering twitch of Miranda under the line of his thumb and hears himself make a low, thoughtless sound into Thomas's mouth. It's easy to imagine-- anything. Everything. Thomas with his beautiful hands, so astonishingly articulate as he pins him or strips Miranda down.
(That's a ridiculous fantasy; James is so much more adept at taking Miranda out of her clothes than her husband is. The ties fastening stays, the ribbons there, come open under his fingers as easily as any other knot might.)
Still. How easy it is to get swept up by the appeal of them when he's been so far awat. If he had been in London these last months instead of on a ship, he might not be so easily convinced to make a fool of himself in a carriage with a very immediate destination. As it is, he kisses Thomas so fiercely it's as if they're the only ones who know how to; he feels where Thomas's fingers press into Miranda and lingers over the possibility of doing the same. Of pressing a third finger into her. Having Thomas demonstrate exactly how he touches her. James thinks and thinks and thinks and none of it has amything to do with how near they might be to the Hamilton house until the sound of the road under the wheels alters and the horses slow.
"Fuck." Which: yes. That's probably the idea. He balks, hand drawing abruptly out from under Miranda's skirts so he can desperately begin putting himself back together. "The pair of you--"
He doesn't finish the thought, twisting under Thomas to do up rows of unfastened buttons.
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Her eyes open, brief, the sigh she refuses to help. The rock against the set of Thomas' fingers and the steadiness of James' hand. She enjoys it, to the purpose entirely, without shame. Enjoys them, watching - hers and her own, and completely lost in each other, all of a self-evident truth:
The rest is sheer practicality. Something she flicks in practice of the many years managing her husband's lack of it. Loathe as she is to lose their touch, that ease of his fingers inside of her, she shifts - her own cue of following along. She flicks her skirts, smoothes them to neatness again, and with the bulk of that material in hand, shifts herself between her men and the carriage door. Her hands moving up to check the set of brown curls, redraping herself with half the effort as she settles in the bench the other side of the small space to allow her to step out first - whatever it took to give James' the time to rearrange himself.
So considerate, they could be.
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His other hand slips from James's shoulder to help tuck the ends of his shirt back into place, but it's far from hurried. He should probably fish his jacket and wig out from wherever he's left them in here, too - his staff are so used to his dislike of those items in particular he can't imagine anyone would so much as blink at the state of him, but it's a kindness to James's nerves.
('Could' be. Thomas still has fingertips mocking the existence of propriety when the handle of the carriage door squeaks, but in in the next heartbeat is innocently arranged.)
London is as dreary outside the Hamilton home as it is directly beside the Thames, but it's warm and comfortable inside, rich colors and dense decor set as if to hold all who enter in an intimate embrace. Thomas's wig is off again as soon as the doors are shut behind them, setting one of the girls in the house to run a bath for the guest room.