[How long is the winding trip to the ferry slip? The streets are very narrow, and it's early yet so the closer ones may be clogged with enough foot traffic the farther they wind down through the city. Long enough to assure the trip across the water is distinctly uncomfortable, he thinks, some part of him (the part she doesn't have her teeth to being motivated by the ones which do) mentally calculating whether it wouldn't be better to simply stick his head out the window and ask to be driven round Hightown for an hour first.
Beneath the jacket is a wine dark waistcoat. It is possibly the only one he owns, though the dark stitching is needlessly elaborate under her fingers and its blacked buttons stamped with some pattern indecipherable in this light. In answer, to her hands or the taste of that lilac and tannin tang, his thumb sets very light at base of her throat as if contemplating the potential of his hand roving lower in kind.]
Where are we going?
[Is a very honest question when set next to all the other things they've said to each other this evening. But it's at least as practical as it is about the shifting of his thigh under her and his touch at her waist securing her near.]
( this carriage is altogether too small for the two of them and the entirety of her dress, and there is certainly a part of petra that wishes this conclusion had been reached on any other day, wearing any other far more sensible thing with fewer architectural undergarments and elaborate hairstyle and witnesses who had seen the latter and would have questions about her emerging with something different and simpler. she sets that aside to consider, and finally, )
To your quarters.
( —decisively. it'd be even better if by some miracle there could be any other possible explanation for her emerging from the walrus tomorrow morning, but she is not an unfamiliar face in the central tower and his quarters do not have a dog the size of a pony who has missed her these past hours and will be ready to interrupt. there are favours she might call with the maids; perhaps she and commander flint simply had a very early meeting. )
[It doesn’t solve the trip through Hightown and a fucking boat to follow, but that’s an issue of impatience at best and there is a difference between playing this game and being it. All things being equal, he’d rather take her there than whatever questionable room might be found between this point and that one that might appeal to some pirate without scruples.
He kisses her as agreement, and then his hands have moved to her heavy skirts.] We should find your gloves, [is the one hundred percent legitimate explanation, hummed low at the corner of her mouth, behind beginning to shift the fabric.
That, ( an arch murmur delivered almost directly into his whiskers, following the line of his jaw with interest (and teeth), ) is my garter, Commander.
( but it sounds rather like he's getting points for effort. )
[Which sounds suitably chagrined under her teeth. Is it? His mistake. The texture is so similar to the blind eye. His hand, all work rough, roves most obediently elsewhere.]
( that bedamned boat ride is going to be interminable.
she follows the line of his jaw to his ear, and to the stud in it, and tests this, too, with her tongue; his clothing less convenient for her to slide beneath within the carriage, and her hands inclined to search out fastenings regardless. reconnaissance. familiarizing herself with the sort of men's clothes she has become unaccustomed to navigating, or taking apart, and the firmness of him underneath them.
it is a careful balance. if she parts her knees incautiously, she may tumble from his lap at the next corner. on the other hand, has she truly lived if she doesn't. )
[He had thought he might set simply find his way through the ocean of her skirts and under the edge of her chemise to set his hand high on the top of her thigh for the duration of the time left to them. It would be easier to keep her cinched in close with such a convenient hand hold, and the blatant suggestion inherent in wandering hands is meant to have been suitably interesting.
But she has a habit of doing small things which compel him unexpectedly into commitment. Maybe it is her tongue and how warm her breath is, or the pleasant prickle of small hairs at the back of his neck in reply to the opening line of her thigh, or simply the appeal of how no part of this has been difficult and there is no reason to insist on being contrary now.
So he moves to take advantage of the slight space, and there he does set an anchor to keep her secure in his lap: taking a full hold of the very inside of her thigh, the side of his hand and the line of his thumb pressed firmly against the shocking heat of her. The temperamental jerk of the carriage encourages decisiveness. It also bumps his hand against her at small, irregular intervals.]
( the first time his knuckles press against her is a small thing, notable only that she might not have meant to bite him. the prospect of a comfortable roll down to the docks in his lap is a pleasant one, and she doesn't dislike the particular way she's held steady,
by the eighth time, her thighs are tense either side of his hand. she casts about for a diversion, something less obvious than repeatedly clearing her throat, settles on, )
[Somewhere between one and eight, he's gone back to a hand at her waist as well. There is something rational in that touch; were it not for the hand between her clenched thighs doing the work, it might otherwise be the point of anchor by which she is kept in his lap. As it is, a sailor of all people should know the benefit of a fail safe.]
I've heard a new dog does best when kept to heel, [Which might be perfectly conversational, even so near skin, and is clearly meant as the precursor to some further throwaway remark. But what occurs to him is—] And the Enchanter's? How long is his line?
( by the time they had climbed into the carriage, this had been a nigh on foretold conclusion; the time for conversations in the gallery. in the division office, not their second meeting but their ninth, and then had been a conversation that his question drags her mind back to.
parrying, light on her feet even off them with her dancing slippers braced between his boots, )
[His laugh is abrupt and short. Later (in an hour, or two), he might find his mind wandering down the length of that suggestion. But in this one, it's just something clever being said in the close quarters of the carriage. Funny, he doesn't say, but the sentiment is there in the prickle of his beard and the lopsided line of his mouth at her cheek.]
No, [warm against her, hands all sure and sturdy.] I'm preoccupied.
[Her gloves aren't fetched until after they've quit the carriage - yanked out from under the seat and secreted away into some pocket on his person with no fanfare whatsoever.]
( her gaze follows her gloves, amused, but she makes neither protest nor comment as she steps carefully down into the ferry, her hand light in flint's as is proper and as if she has put right out of her mind where his was not minutes before the carriage door had opened.
she hasn't. she is acutely conscious of the line of his thigh beside her and the ferryman behind them, even as she makes pleasant, passing conversation on the party they had been unexpectedly (she is almost certain) both attending. how like her, to think of work still, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes on the tower rising ahead of them.
and then fists in her skirts, holding them out of her way up the stairs, carrying herself with the confidence of one who has come and gone from here at all hours for months and years, even. she knows the way. occasionally, she allows herself to know that it might have been coupe behind her coming up these stairs, once. but not tonight: she is preoccupied. )
--Maker preserve us from any young lord who thinks he knows anything about the world, [he is saying, a dry middle point of the long conversation which has carried them across the water and winding up through the Gallows. ] But the good news is that Cumberland's waterway remains open, so there may yet be some work to be done through there regardless with respect to Val Chevin.
[It is almost as if they might pass through this door (which he holds open for her), and continue this conversation. Not that he has forgotten the tension of her thighs around his knuckles, but that the conversation is a good one and in carrying it along this whole time they've wandered close enough to genuinely compelling territory just here as they've reached the office that maybe there is a question as to whether they will instead have drinks and continue it.
Then the door closes, the bolt is thrown, and he is very efficient about catching hold of her again.]
( there will be time to talk about the waterways of cumberland and the lords who would be distraught to know it's perfectly plain their knowledge would not fill her thimble; she rises onto her toes out of the carriage and out of his lap and out of numerous easy ways to right the difference between their heights, some warm thing that might have been a laugh pressed into his mouth instead. her skirts bouncing around his feet when she lets them go to catch herself against him, a tangle of fabric (temporarily) impeding want.
reconnaissance, was it. she finds the buttons of his (one) waistcoat, nimble fingers that have set to diplomatic reports and darning alike neatly and methodically jerking them undone, and give her half a chance, him, too.
perhaps they'll still have drinks. she had had a little wine, to show willing and to give the appearance of a social call that wasn't at all, but she had kept her wits about her in hightown's high society and there is some appeal in the thought of drinking his wine and dissecting his opinions from just above him, in his bed. )
Maker preserve me from men I require a box to reach, ( grumbled insincerely from her tippy toes, and probably a novel complaint for flint personally. )
Does it still count as a struggle if you're well acquainted with the effort? [This said against her warm cheek, satisfied by the angle of it all. Surely her calves are practiced.
As familiar as his hands are with finding the lacings and buttons of a fine woman's clothes, evidently. The benefit of reach helps, but there is a prerequisite of knowing where to go looking for them even for the cleverest fingers.]
( numerous layers are involved in creating the effect and appearance of madame de cedoux, out on the town; she is shedding them, now, on the floor of his locked office, impatiently pulling her arm loose a bodice so she can push his coat and his waistcoat from his shoulders— )
I am rarely in favour of the Enchanter's robes, but I am presently feeling very warm towards them,
( as flint presents somewhat more of a challenge. to undress, at least. )
[He laughs, a low pleased sound, and for a moment - he's loosening another tie, a deft turn to slip the lace free -, considers offering her no assistance whatsoever. She will sort it. He's confident.
But he is avid, and it is easier to just take the moment of not touching her to wrestle free of the layers she's done half the work of already. But after, his hands go to her half bared shoulders rather than returning to what fastening he can identify from before her. He steers her around by them, driving her before him toward the adjacent door. Besides, there is a series of buttons back here that he can open as they go.]
I'll see what can be done to simplify for the next time.
( the last layer above her chemise—blousy and sheer and meant for married women and mistresses of which she is arguably both—gapes, loosened, and she catches it against herself with one hand, the other finding the door to his private quarters as she studiously does not allow herself to consider the desk they pass by in the process.
he has said next time, and she doesn't dislike the presumption.
in the doorway of his bedroom she sheds her petticoats, the corset binding her small waist smaller, and her chemise hangs loose and long over her gartered stockings; the light cutting through the gallows' narrow windows from the moon and the dim glow of the city remaining awake silhouettes her prettily, and it was probably not expressly for his particular benefit that these things are all she's left wearing so much as a holdover of home, where smallclothes fashionable in thedas were not commonplace. she stitches her pretty novelties, but she wears them only when it strikes her as practical to do so.
[The room is not plain - it would be difficult for such a place to be bearable in the winter if it were -, but even now it isn't terribly particular. They are the quarters of a man who is accustomed to a swung cot and a series of stern windows being the extent to which he is expected to make a home, and the specifics of the office (with its carefully arranged desk, and kept hearth, and its miniature war table stacked with maps and chart books and every finer instrument required to wage remote wars) are left at the door.
But there is something about her in it which makes the room more appealing. Standing just inside, shy of the waves of her discarded petticoats, he studies the lines of her visible through the thin fabric with the benefit of more than a hand's span of distance between them.
(He is also undoing his belt, picking the knife out of it, and dumping the whole affair thoughtlessly into some convenient chair. His rings come next, a series of them stripped from either hand as he looks at her. He is wearing more ornamentation than she is.)]
( at the side of his bed, she removes not garters, not stockings and not chemise but the jet locket hanging beneath her clavicle that had stitched them together visually so as to ensure that it is very likely young lately-of-cumberland will be thinking of this very scene later tonight, alone in his own bed. she curls her fingers around it, a brief press of some sentiment, before setting it down on his side-table.
she listens to the clatter and muted thuds of the assortment of things that put together the striking image he cuts as she loosens and frees pins so carefully placed by a likely maid earlier, setting them beside her locket, methodical. blonde hair falls in curls and kinked tresses toward her waist, improbably riotous in attempting to hold the shapes its been pressed into for hours, softening her stern lines in a way that seems almost more intimate than the pert curve of backside implied beneath breathy fabric.
she sets a knee on the edge of his bed, leaning there, half-turning to observe him. sits, upon consideration, and she was never that kind of queen but there is an element of it to the way she seems perfectly content to watch him shed his pirate-skin for her obvious gratification.
it is not the expression of a woman who might say something like, I never thought—. it is very much the expression of a woman who did, and at length. )
[She watches at him, and he studies her - dropping rings into his pocket, then working one boot off after another. Her hair is all silver in the moonlight, she and her chemise are pale in the shadow of the room, and he is a dark shape in the doorway against the warmer glow of the office with its banked embers still living at the edge of the broad hearth.
A lit reed is fetched from the dying fire here in this room's smaller fireplace, a series of candles meticulously from it. It is easier to see her by - more gold than shade; maybe next time will be by daylight. Tonight he brings the light with him to set on the bedside table.
He is still in the process of undressing when he slides in between her knees, freeing the laces of his trousers with one hand and working his shirt free of the waistband with the other.]
You should show me how it works after this. --How you learned Tevene.
I might warn you to have a care, ( she says, lightly, her fingertips skidding up the outside of his thighs and then snagging more firmly in that waistband, drawing him nearer to her as she parts her knees to make space for him, sits up straighter, the hem of her chemise riding higher— ) did I think that Riftwatch would require a forgery of your signature be very convincing to make mischief.
( she will absolutely be able to convincingly forge his signature afterwards, but likewise she is probably right that someone only giving it the old college try might make almost as much trouble.
conversationally, as she bats one of his hands out of her way to take over the undoing of his trousers, ) My husband taught me the theory of the spell; rather incidentally in dictating it to me that it might be recorded. In Lamorre, it once was treason of the highest order. That has passed, but, ( she presses a kiss, almost incongruously chaste, to the strip of bare skin she finds between loosened shirt and undone trousers. ) This, now, would be punishable by death.
( they were undressing, but she bites his hip as she slides her hand beneath the undone laces. )
( the faint exhalation of air—against his skin, her free hand sliding lazily up his abdomen, exploratory—might have been a laugh, if it had been allowed. she says, )
I don't miss it. ( and then, tilting her head, ) Shall I? ( which is very polite and has the sense of being a continuation of a most satisfying thought she does not mean to immediately share. )
[Yes, says the faint press of his hip into her. But the real reply is his hand all bangled from where the sun has beaten the shadow of his jewelry into it setting at briefly at her cheek, then sliding up into the pin-irregular twists of her pale, fine hair.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Beneath the jacket is a wine dark waistcoat. It is possibly the only one he owns, though the dark stitching is needlessly elaborate under her fingers and its blacked buttons stamped with some pattern indecipherable in this light. In answer, to her hands or the taste of that lilac and tannin tang, his thumb sets very light at base of her throat as if contemplating the potential of his hand roving lower in kind.]
Where are we going?
[Is a very honest question when set next to all the other things they've said to each other this evening. But it's at least as practical as it is about the shifting of his thigh under her and his touch at her waist securing her near.]
no subject
To your quarters.
( —decisively. it'd be even better if by some miracle there could be any other possible explanation for her emerging from the walrus tomorrow morning, but she is not an unfamiliar face in the central tower and his quarters do not have a dog the size of a pony who has missed her these past hours and will be ready to interrupt. there are favours she might call with the maids; perhaps she and commander flint simply had a very early meeting. )
no subject
He kisses her as agreement, and then his hands have moved to her heavy skirts.] We should find your gloves, [is the one hundred percent legitimate explanation, hummed low at the corner of her mouth, behind beginning to shift the fabric.
Well, they should.
no subject
( but it sounds rather like he's getting points for effort. )
no subject
[Which sounds suitably chagrined under her teeth. Is it? His mistake. The texture is so similar to the blind eye. His hand, all work rough, roves most obediently elsewhere.]
no subject
she follows the line of his jaw to his ear, and to the stud in it, and tests this, too, with her tongue; his clothing less convenient for her to slide beneath within the carriage, and her hands inclined to search out fastenings regardless. reconnaissance. familiarizing herself with the sort of men's clothes she has become unaccustomed to navigating, or taking apart, and the firmness of him underneath them.
it is a careful balance. if she parts her knees incautiously, she may tumble from his lap at the next corner. on the other hand, has she truly lived if she doesn't. )
no subject
But she has a habit of doing small things which compel him unexpectedly into commitment. Maybe it is her tongue and how warm her breath is, or the pleasant prickle of small hairs at the back of his neck in reply to the opening line of her thigh, or simply the appeal of how no part of this has been difficult and there is no reason to insist on being contrary now.
So he moves to take advantage of the slight space, and there he does set an anchor to keep her secure in his lap: taking a full hold of the very inside of her thigh, the side of his hand and the line of his thumb pressed firmly against the shocking heat of her. The temperamental jerk of the carriage encourages decisiveness. It also bumps his hand against her at small, irregular intervals.]
no subject
by the eighth time, her thighs are tense either side of his hand. she casts about for a diversion, something less obvious than repeatedly clearing her throat, settles on, )
A short leash, I think,
( which is not much of one at all. )
no subject
I've heard a new dog does best when kept to heel, [Which might be perfectly conversational, even so near skin, and is clearly meant as the precursor to some further throwaway remark. But what occurs to him is—] And the Enchanter's? How long is his line?
no subject
parrying, light on her feet even off them with her dancing slippers braced between his boots, )
Do you wish to see for yourself?
( because he might. )
no subject
No, [warm against her, hands all sure and sturdy.] I'm preoccupied.
[Her gloves aren't fetched until after they've quit the carriage - yanked out from under the seat and secreted away into some pocket on his person with no fanfare whatsoever.]
no subject
she hasn't. she is acutely conscious of the line of his thigh beside her and the ferryman behind them, even as she makes pleasant, passing conversation on the party they had been unexpectedly (she is almost certain) both attending. how like her, to think of work still, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes on the tower rising ahead of them.
and then fists in her skirts, holding them out of her way up the stairs, carrying herself with the confidence of one who has come and gone from here at all hours for months and years, even. she knows the way. occasionally, she allows herself to know that it might have been coupe behind her coming up these stairs, once. but not tonight: she is preoccupied. )
no subject
[It is almost as if they might pass through this door (which he holds open for her), and continue this conversation. Not that he has forgotten the tension of her thighs around his knuckles, but that the conversation is a good one and in carrying it along this whole time they've wandered close enough to genuinely compelling territory just here as they've reached the office that maybe there is a question as to whether they will instead have drinks and continue it.
Then the door closes, the bolt is thrown, and he is very efficient about catching hold of her again.]
no subject
reconnaissance, was it. she finds the buttons of his (one) waistcoat, nimble fingers that have set to diplomatic reports and darning alike neatly and methodically jerking them undone, and give her half a chance, him, too.
perhaps they'll still have drinks. she had had a little wine, to show willing and to give the appearance of a social call that wasn't at all, but she had kept her wits about her in hightown's high society and there is some appeal in the thought of drinking his wine and dissecting his opinions from just above him, in his bed. )
Maker preserve me from men I require a box to reach, ( grumbled insincerely from her tippy toes, and probably a novel complaint for flint personally. )
no subject
As familiar as his hands are with finding the lacings and buttons of a fine woman's clothes, evidently. The benefit of reach helps, but there is a prerequisite of knowing where to go looking for them even for the cleverest fingers.]
no subject
I am rarely in favour of the Enchanter's robes, but I am presently feeling very warm towards them,
( as flint presents somewhat more of a challenge. to undress, at least. )
no subject
But he is avid, and it is easier to just take the moment of not touching her to wrestle free of the layers she's done half the work of already. But after, his hands go to her half bared shoulders rather than returning to what fastening he can identify from before her. He steers her around by them, driving her before him toward the adjacent door. Besides, there is a series of buttons back here that he can open as they go.]
I'll see what can be done to simplify for the next time.
no subject
he has said next time, and she doesn't dislike the presumption.
in the doorway of his bedroom she sheds her petticoats, the corset binding her small waist smaller, and her chemise hangs loose and long over her gartered stockings; the light cutting through the gallows' narrow windows from the moon and the dim glow of the city remaining awake silhouettes her prettily, and it was probably not expressly for his particular benefit that these things are all she's left wearing so much as a holdover of home, where smallclothes fashionable in thedas were not commonplace. she stitches her pretty novelties, but she wears them only when it strikes her as practical to do so.
it had seemed unnecessary. even moreso, now. )
no subject
But there is something about her in it which makes the room more appealing. Standing just inside, shy of the waves of her discarded petticoats, he studies the lines of her visible through the thin fabric with the benefit of more than a hand's span of distance between them.
(He is also undoing his belt, picking the knife out of it, and dumping the whole affair thoughtlessly into some convenient chair. His rings come next, a series of them stripped from either hand as he looks at her. He is wearing more ornamentation than she is.)]
no subject
she listens to the clatter and muted thuds of the assortment of things that put together the striking image he cuts as she loosens and frees pins so carefully placed by a likely maid earlier, setting them beside her locket, methodical. blonde hair falls in curls and kinked tresses toward her waist, improbably riotous in attempting to hold the shapes its been pressed into for hours, softening her stern lines in a way that seems almost more intimate than the pert curve of backside implied beneath breathy fabric.
she sets a knee on the edge of his bed, leaning there, half-turning to observe him. sits, upon consideration, and she was never that kind of queen but there is an element of it to the way she seems perfectly content to watch him shed his pirate-skin for her obvious gratification.
it is not the expression of a woman who might say something like, I never thought—. it is very much the expression of a woman who did, and at length. )
no subject
A lit reed is fetched from the dying fire here in this room's smaller fireplace, a series of candles meticulously from it. It is easier to see her by - more gold than shade; maybe next time will be by daylight. Tonight he brings the light with him to set on the bedside table.
He is still in the process of undressing when he slides in between her knees, freeing the laces of his trousers with one hand and working his shirt free of the waistband with the other.]
You should show me how it works after this. --How you learned Tevene.
no subject
( she will absolutely be able to convincingly forge his signature afterwards, but likewise she is probably right that someone only giving it the old college try might make almost as much trouble.
conversationally, as she bats one of his hands out of her way to take over the undoing of his trousers, ) My husband taught me the theory of the spell; rather incidentally in dictating it to me that it might be recorded. In Lamorre, it once was treason of the highest order. That has passed, but, ( she presses a kiss, almost incongruously chaste, to the strip of bare skin she finds between loosened shirt and undone trousers. ) This, now, would be punishable by death.
( they were undressing, but she bites his hip as she slides her hand beneath the undone laces. )
no subject
The place you came from sounds-- [her hand is very warm] unreasonably dreary.
[This before he sheds his shirt, dumping it unceremoniously anywhere else.]
no subject
I don't miss it. ( and then, tilting her head, ) Shall I? ( which is very polite and has the sense of being a continuation of a most satisfying thought she does not mean to immediately share. )
no subject
All right.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)