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She met him at the inn’s door with strong arms and a soft kiss, embracing him tightly so he could not help but sink into her warmth, knowing the strength needed to make him forget himself, forget his stiffness and awkward formality, forget the open door, that their display was public for the whole street to see. It took a slow two heartbeats, but she felt the tension run from him like rain down the window shutters. His head bowed down to tuck in against her shoulder, and she brushed her lips across his temple and released her hold.
“My angel,” she said, and pressed her hand into his, drawing him into the warmth of the sitting room. “My darling. Welcome home.”
He let her sit him down, fuss about him for a moment or two, knowing that to let her do so brought her some comfort to make up for comforts not given, the long months he was at sea. She tried not to grudge him those months. She knew that he loved the sea; loved his ships and his men (and how he loved his men), and even loved the Navy with all its ridiculous ceremony.
But she loved him, and she was so pleased when he could come home.
Was any woman as happy with her husband as she? Her lovely Horatio, with his tall elegant figure and his sweet sad eyes. The days and weeks he could spend with her-- they were bliss.
Many of her friends, she knew, those with husbands also in the navy, were resigned to their husbands’ return. They loved them, Maria was sure, but had lives so apart, their days on land as alien to their husbands as their husbands’ days at sea were to them. Their husbands would have pent up energy to spend on them and a desperate thirst for beer and leisure. Horatio was easier to manage, came home without wild lusts, never prone to drinking binges, barely idle at all.
“Little Horatio has been sleeping straight through,” she said with pride, and saw his own instant interest, and worry, and pride. “We will have a bit of the night to ourselves-- you will be able to rest properly, and I’ll be able to look after you.”
His eyes flicked from side to side. She realized that he was overwhelmed by this sudden burst of affection and womanly attention after so long at sea, and tried-- really tried-- to moderate it, promised herself she would, but in her pleasure to see him she could only restrain her happiness so much.
She firmed her resolve and hurried away with his things, ignoring the muted movement she just caught from the corner of her eye, when he realised what she was doing. She had been a landlady’s daughter for much longer than she had been his wife; she wasn’t to shirk from lifting a bag, from hanging up a jacket.
“Everything is ready for you, Horry dear,” she said, and he followed her up the stairs to their lodgings. More than big enough for her and the child, sleeping now, and Horatio’s scant bags did not diminish the space, but his presence there, his fine slender figure in the doorway-- oh, it filled her up with joy!
She hung his jacket on the hook, and tiptoed over to little Horatio’s crib. He slept deeply for a child, rousing only for himself and seldom for his mother, and gave no hint of waking when she leaned over to brush his fine, dark hair with her fingers. “Sleeping, my love,” she whispered, and Horatio joined her to look down at their son, his dark eyes bright, his whole body quivering. He loved their son so much, and it made Maria ache with happiness.
“He’s grown so much,” Horatio whispered, his fine, elegant hand brushing the air above little Horatio. Her strong man, her hero, who could command a ship full of sailors, hesitant to reach down and touch his son.
She could not help but rise up on her toes and kiss his lean cheek, her heart was so full. “He will be as tall as his father,” she said. “Look-- he already has your lovely hair.”
Horatio patted at his queue self-consciously, and she left him with another quick kiss, letting him stare at little Horatio as he wanted, those long slender fingers gently petting his son’s curls. It made him forget his earlier discomfort, seemed to drive all other thoughts from him, and gave him a moment to collect himself, so when there was a knock on the door and the landlady bustled in with supper, he seemed quite himself again.
The landlady bustled about, greeting her Horatio, placing a still steaming pie on the table, filling two glasses, and Maria hurried over to help. The sight of their little table set for two filled her to the brim with happiness-- she was so accustomed to eating alone, but her darling was home! She beamed, clutching at Horatio’s arm as the landlady left them. He bore it with a forced smile, and she couldn’t help but lean over to kiss his cheek, the tight spot where the dimple would show when he was really happy.
Horatio pulled out her chair, flustering her, and seated himself across from her, dividing the pie and serving her the bigger portion, shushing her when she tried to protest. He was the dearest, most loving man. It was chicken pie, and seemed quite to his liking-- far more so than the steak she had served him, so long ago now, the morning before he left to take command of his Hotspur the first time. He had been so worried about hurting her, so awkward with his affection, trying to spare her distress about the meal, about his eagerness to set sail. She smiled fondly at him with the memory.
“Much better than salt beef and biscuit,” he said, a speared carrot halfway to his mouth, embarrassed now under her close regard.
“Yes,” she said, though she doubted he had been eating salt beef and biscuit. But seeing him so embarrassed made her decide not to bring up the matter of Doughty tonight, because he would know she was being jealous when she asked after him. Tomorrow, perhaps.
They made a very good dinner-- if he still seemed to be a little surprised, now and again, to be on shore-- and sat up quietly a little while. Maria mended and watched the fire; Horatio read an old copy of the Chronicle that she had already read through.
Then there was little enough to do but go to bed, though neither one was precisely tired.
He was still a little hesitant to undress in front of her, shy of his body; Maria was not pleased with what she showed, in fact, but had become resigned to being small and wide. They glanced at each other out of the corners of their eyes and shyly avoided one another’s look until they were comfortably in their sleeping things.
He clambered into bed and she blew the lamp out, waiting until the light was gone to smile at the picture he made with his slender legs out the bottom of his nightshirt. She found it quite dashing, in fact, in a comical way. His poor dignity was easily bruised and she tried not to smile at him too much, when he was comical. She adored it of him; he loathed it in himself.
But he made her smile-! Her heart swelled with it, and she climbed into bed with him and drew the curtains around them, snugging into his arms. Hesitantly, and then with a little more feeling, he drew her close.
It was always a question of what to do, if they were not going to sleep; she kissed him. His lips were thinned and held stiff against hers for a moment, as they had been when she had met him at the door.
“My darling husband. My dearest,” she whispered, clinging tighter to him, and again he melted like wax, enfolding her warmly and sweetly. She could feel every inch of him through the thin cotton of their nightclothes. He was lean and his angles hard; the jut of his hip was bony; she might, if she put her hand under his shirt, feel his ribs.
She stroked his side, but only through his shirt. She was hesitant, at first-- and then, remembering, she stretched out her little hand as far as she could to feel all of him at once. She had never had such neat knowledge of a man’s body, until her Horatio.
“I did miss you, my dear,” he said, and she heard the uncertainty in his voice. It was a very hard thing, she knew, for him to show emotion. He wavered on the cusp of it sometimes-- sometimes tipping over into unguarded love, sometimes forcing a terrible play-act of affection. She must not hurt him or wound his pride; she must not blame him for that deceit, and instead give all her heart to treasuring his honesty.
“Will you be here for very long?”
“I think several weeks at least. Hotspur is in to be refit-- to be repaired.”
That meant there had been a battle. She felt her stomach twist, like a rag being wrung-- it was so dangerous, so very dangerous, and Hotspur was such a little ship. She set her head against the hard plane of his chest. She could hear his heart beating, smell the salt of the sea still clinging to his nightshirt and his sweat, more pungent than hers, not unpleasant. She stroked his flank, pressed her lips against the cotton, against his breast, and held him very tight.
“I am glad that you are home. I am so glad,” she murmured.
“I am glad to be so,” he said, and she felt that he did mean it in that moment, though he was uneasy. She understood why when he started to caress her more deeply, to roll as if he would get atop her. She put a hand up to his breast and stilled him.
“Oh, darling, no. Not tonight. You have been in danger-- you are only just home. You must lie back easy,” she said tenderly. He felt he had a duty to her, when he came home; a duty he could perform, had been sure to fulfill when last he was in England, but did not really like to.
She wished she could make him understand that it was quite unremarkable for a husband and wife not to consummate their vows too frequently. She could have told him of half a dozen well-brought-up women, the wives of very respectable men, who spent not more than one night in a year in their husbands’ arms and who all relied upon the same general consolation, as the dark-haired wainwright’s apprentice was affectionately called. She could have told him that she was quite content without relying on such consolation, her loyalty to him undying, and that he was a perfectly good husband. She could have told him that what she wanted was his friendship, his trust, not his passion, unless it was freely inspired and given; and truly, she did not want for it more often than not. It wouldn’t have mattered; what Horatio Hornblower set out to do, he set out to do to the utmost, to a standard far outstripping anyone else, and he fretted when he did not meet that impossible standard.
Ridiculous, precious man. He was just as bad at sea, she had letters from Lieutenant Bush all about it.
“But--”
She exerted a little force-- though smaller than him she was not at all frail-- and pushed him back, tucking against his side.
“My own hero. Don’t think of me as your wife tonight. Think of me as your friend.”
“My dear friend,” he agreed, with a little more honest warmth. “That you have always been.”
“Darling,” she whispered, and stroked his shoulders; they were hard and corded with strain, they nearly always were. “There, dearest, let me at these.” He was such a great man and he had pains like any laborer-- it must be a hard life at sea.
She tried to roll him over, to better reach his all the places he must ache; he resisted her, locked up stiff and curled away like an insect, but bore her touch without complaint, and she knew him well enough to know his responses were born of his natural shyness, his discomfort with himself, and not a sign that he was forcing himself to submit to her attention. There was none of that telltale hesitation of movement and breath that meant he was too focused on her feelings, with no consideration to his own, that he was sparing her perceived heartbreak by sacrificing his own comfort and happiness. She did not want to be born with sufferance-- she wanted to give pleasure. And in this moment, she did.
Her hands were too used to labor to be really ladylike, but they were strong, and she could feel him beginning to slump against her, knots of muscle and strain giving way as she kneaded him, and he let loose a groan of honest pain and pleasure. This time he did not resist, and turned onto his stomach, giving her access to his strong, lovely back-- she could feel the lines of it through his nightshirt, so trim, so well-made.
She worked the back of his shoulders like bread dough, reveling in the shudders and little sounds he made, could feel the knots loosening, unraveled like tangled yarn. She ran her hands down his sides, her thumbs digging into his long back muscles as she drew them down, her fingers skimming over the bumps of his ribs, the strong muscles of his stomach, drawing closer together when they rested on his hips. He was so slender, so strong.
Her handsome Horatio, with all his sharp angles and long lines and elegance, so sweet when he forgot himself, when he was giving with affection, with his kindness. So sweet too, when he could not be comfortable, could not give freely but still tried for affection, a shy little boy reciting lines. How she loved to touch him! The skin on his face was so dark, and on his beautiful hands, and so white on his arms, his chest, the soft flesh at the backs of his knees, his thighs, and his neck. Even in the dim light she could see the difference, where his nightshirt didn’t cover, so fine and pale, there on the nape of his neck. How she wanted to kiss it, to press her mouth to the places where his colour changed, where his uniform hid him away, to trace it with her tongue and taste the salt on him, to see if the sea touched him more in some places than others, like the sun.
She rubbed his neck, took out his queue, loosened the hair and spread it out across his shoulders, worked her fingers gently against his skull. He arched up against her, as pleased as a cat, and with his face hidden in the pillow and the darkness she could smile freely at the sight. Her queer, handsome, comical, darling husband. When he made a slight sound of relief, she took the hint and stroked his temples the way she rubbed her own when she had headaches. He positively melted.
After a while she was only petting his hair, and he turned over a little limply, reaching up to catch her down against him-- while he had no carnal feelings, he had so much affection, when he remembered it. He liked to touch her nearly as much, to snug skin against skin, liked kisses, and caresses, like playful children might bestow.
And how she liked his kisses and caresses-- too much! It was very perverse and a little irksome that his indifference made her interest so acute. She did not wish to force him to perform-- she did not want anything from him that he did not want to give-- but there was a compelling safety in knowing that he would press for nothing, nag after nothing, force nothing on her. She had thought a disinterested husband would complement her own disinterest: instead, with him in their bed, it had cured it. She loved to touch him, to shyly learn and relearn every jut and dip of his slender body.
He was not a broad man like the sailors he favored, but he was undeniably muscular-- she felt it in the darkness, the tight, slight roundness of his rear end, the lean strength of his back. His hands were large and only a little calloused, and they stroked her hips as if she were a fragile, ladylike thing instead of a hearty stout one. It made her squirm, her thighs pressed together, and his hand went searching playfully between them, too.
“What’s hiding here, my dear?” he said merrily, a smile in his voice, with no sign that he was at all affected in the same way. It ought to have abashed her that he was so removed from the proceedings-- instead, it gave her the pleasant sensation that he was entirely in command of them. She felt heat rise to her cheeks, tightening her legs playfully. “Disobeying your captain?” he growled, mock-serious. “None of that, I’ll have those legs open now.”
She giggled and spread them, and giggled again, higher pitched and more feverishly, as his capable fingers played along her inner thighs. That slight roughness to them set up a rasp that fairly drove her wild.
“There’s your problem, my lad,” he said, with all his pretend-roughness. “The seam’s split wide open here, you can feel the damp.” His thumb slipped between her nether lips and tweaked at that little bud there-- she squeaked.
This he had learned during his last visit home, by watching her-- and she had tried to make him see, had really done her best, that he was not expected to do this, that it was not required of a husband--
But he made it so very difficult to argue the point with one strong arm around her and his fingers stroking and squeezing. It quite drove all thought away. She smiled helplessly, wriggled in his arms, and he growled to her about fidgeting and mutiny with a laugh in his voice that made her feel simply delicious.
He laid kisses across her neck, the nip of his teeth sending tingles all over her, and worked fingers into her while his thumb still stroked outside. He had this quirk of fingers he had learned-- before ever he had met her, he must have-- and it set up the most giddy feeling.
She made breathless little noises and he praised her progress with that rasping tone he used with sailors and when he played, and that only made her more breathless, and she felt like she was floating on the sea he liked so much, higher and higher, and then the last swell and the dizzying plunge into contentment. Smaller waves after that, smaller plunges, and then she was panting and reaching out to still his hand.
“Oh,” she said, still entirely unable to find words. “Oh my. Oh.”
An embarrassed chuckle, his chest moving against her as he cleaned his hand against his nightshirt, and then embraced her tenderly. “Poor second, my dear, but your husband can offer you something.”
She protested-- he shushed her.
He did like it. She had seen his face before in candle-light, seen him pleased with his work, seen how he became gentle and affectionate after he had watched her come all to pieces. But it was just like him, to think what he liked was not as important as what he should be doing, which she would not have liked so much either.
If he had an imperfection it was that he did not understand how he was perfect. She embraced him; he was soft and yielding for a while, distracted from the sea, with her and happy to be so. They slept.
She woke a short while later to little Horatio’s cry, tired to her bones. She felt so warm and pleasant, and knew her feet would ache when she stood, but her son needed her.
“Wait,” the elder Horatio said, when he felt her starting to rise. “I can see what the little lad needs.”
“Oh no-!” But he was already out of bed, closing the curtains behind him, and it was grateful to lie still and let her eyes shut again. Her husband returned after a time, her fractious little son in his arms. She could hear the slippered footsteps of one, the cries of the other, and then the bed-curtain parted and there was the chill of the room and a little light.
“I fear he’s hungry,” Horatio said, his voice dull with sleep. “I can’t help him there, my darling.”
“No,” she agreed, and held out her arms for the tiny figure. The infant quieted once he found her breast and started to nurse, and she lay half-awake until the greedy boy had had all there was to have and had to be shifted to nurse on the other side.
This time she had no protest when Horatio lifted the baby back away and went to settle him in the crib. She meant to be awake when he returned, so she could thank him, tell him he didn’t need to do that, not that she was not grateful that he had. He loved his son, was happy to spend time with him, what little he had here on shore-- but to rise from bed and tend to him in the night! Maria didn’t think she would tell her friends this; some of their husbands were more affectionate toward their children than others, but her angel outstripped them all. She thought she might be more scandalised, caught by her own boldness to let him do her work, if it didn’t feel so wonderful to be press herself into the pillows and know the baby was being cared for.
She fell asleep before Horatio returned, and it wasn’t until morning when she pulled back the bed curtain and found her husband, dressed already, sitting at the table with a pile of papers forgotten and his son on his knees, little Horatio’s big toothless smile brightening the room almost as much as his father’s honest, open joy, that she resolved she would never hint to her dear ideal that he could ever spend less time with his child.
Little Horatio gave her presence away, reaching for her over his father’s shoulders. Her Horatio glanced over, as open in his happiness to see her as their son, and she scooped little Horatio up under his reaching arms before she could forget her promise to herself last evening to let Horatio have the space he needed, to not drown him in womanly affection when he was still so fresh from sea and the company of men, and so shy and solitary to begin with.
He must have been the sweetest, shyest little boy. She looked fondly between little Horatio and his father, and tried to imagine him tiny and soft. A fussy baby, she decided, and could not stop the smile.
“You should always be smiling that way,” Horatio said gallantly, rising, and pressed a chaste, unguarded kiss to lips. Her heart, already so full, swelled again. Her husband was her dearest friend; were there five other women in the world this lucky?
He beamed at her, and then, remembering something, his smile became abruptly artificial.
She guessed why at once-- the news he would be loathe to break to her. “You will be going to see to Hotspur?”
“She will need her captain.”
This business of talking about ships like they were very expensive mistresses, Maria reflected, must have been a source of vexation for a thousand captain’s wives before her. She did her best to smile-- he deserved a smile and a strong wife to see him away.
“Will you be home for supper, my love?”
“I may dine in the officer’s club-- but I will only play a rubber or two, I promise you, and be home before it is very late.”
It was really unfair that a captain-- a hero of the royal navy-- should have to supplement his winnings at the card table as if he were still a penniless lieutenant. She felt it strongly for both of their sakes. But he was a good, careful player, would not squander their little store of money, and might bring more home.
She trusted him entirely: she turned her face up for a kiss and received a peck on the lips, and then raised little Horatio’s arm to wave goodbye to his father. “I will go to market and see about a respectable supper, and we will wait for you tonight.”
“Goodbye, my darling,” he said, though it was distant-- his mind was with a different darling entirely, one made of wood and canvas sails.
“Your father is very silly,” she told little Horatio, when Horatio had gone. “One day I will take you to meet your aunt Hotspur and you will see that too.”
Marketing took up much of her day, this gossip and that-- she got hold of a fat chicken for dinner, and felt lucky. Chicken her husband liked. It was a terrible chore to get him to admit that he did not like anything she gave him, but he lied so poorly, and she tried to be careful to spare them both the embarrassment. It would be a good little dinner, and the weather was tolerable enough to hang little Horatio’s things outside so that the rooms would smell a little fresher-- though the clothes had to be watched as they dried, lest they wander away.
She set aside cold chicken when he did not return, as he’d said he wouldn’t, a lion’s share for him to have tomorrow, and soothed little Horatio to sleep with a few songs.
It was not out of anxiety that she sat up waiting; she had a comfortable seat, and was tired enough to be content. Mending was simple and easy and let her mind wander and still, until she felt half asleep.
She did not realize that she had slept until she was starting awake at the door opening-- Horatio coming in, forcing a smile. She did not ask him how much he had lost, although she was worried. It would not have been too much.
She simply picked up the mending she had dropped and went sleepily to kiss him. “There, dear. There. You look tired-- come to bed.”
She took him there, undressed them both, and tried-- with love and gentleness-- to show him that she understood and did not blame him, but he drew away into a tight ball with his back to her and his shoulders set.
She did not know what to say to him that would not make it worse: she kissed his shoulder and rolled over to sleep soundly.
In the morning he was more himself, coming awake and pacing beside the bed in the early morning, with an intent look in the faint morning light that showed that he was thinking of something complicated and satisfying and either to do with ships or cards. She watched him sleepily and smiled.
He came to some decision, and remembered the world-- turned to her-- smiled. “Your hair, my darling.”
She had forgotten her curling papers-- she put a hand to her head and made a small distressed sound.
“With a little care it will be as lovely as ever,” he said, and came to comb it with his fingers, smiling tenderly at her as he shifted its thick, uneven mass so gently. She beamed at him.
Afterwards, he let her rebraid his queue-- his hair was so soft and full of waves, any lady would have envied it.
“Shall we have Mister Bush to dinner, my dear?” she said thoughtfully, tugging his plait into place even as it tried to spring back, his hair’s natural curl resisting her. It was not a perfect braid she made, but she tied it lovingly into place with a dark ribbon and let it fall against his back.
“Hmm-mm, if he can be spared from Hotspur. There is a great deal to do with her.” He was being distant again, his mind half at sea, and Maria felt a slight pang, quickly repressed.
“If we can spare the expense, we might get him a room here at the George-- or at least a cot made up,” she said, quite innocently, although her thoughts were not even remotely so. Lieutenant Bush and she had reached an accord through the post, or at least as best they could, hampered as they were by the long delay between mail getting out to the ships, which had meant Bush had only been able to send two packets of letters, and Maria’s letters to him had been received in two groups as well. It was further complicated by trying to write things that would not raise an alarm if somehow they came into the wrong hands-- some sort of awful accident of mis-address or French capture of a mail ship or anything.
At least their prospective duties had been easy to propose and to agree too-- they agreed with each other entirely on that point! It was for Bush to take care of Horatio onboard a ship, as an officer and as a lover; it was for Maria to do so on shore, more as a friend than a lover. But she might-- if Bush were willing-- share that duty, even ashore. If Bush were willing; if she had not imagined the very bare hint put down in his second letter. He was fonder of women than her husband, though perhaps not of small dumpy women from Southsea.
Then again-- the devotion of sailors could take a most startling bent. There was that Admiral Sir Edward that her Horatio was so fond of, who had been his captain once. He had a roughish sort of way about him at times, and one growled order at Horatio not long after their marriage to do your duty, sir had led to a very surprising night for the newlyweds. It had quite inspired her dearest-- privately, she credited the admiral for the existence of their son.
If Bush were not immune to similar orders, delivered by her husband....
Well! Then he would have something in common with Maria herself. She found herself blushing, and Horatio turned to smile at her and kiss her round cheeks again and again until she could not help laughing and pushing at him. They struggled playfully into bed and fell back onto the mattress in one another’s arms, drowsing with shocking indolence until the smaller Horatio’s cry from the next room roused her up to go tend to him.
It was only later when she had dressed and got to the business of the day that she remembered the matter of Bush-- her conclusion in any case was only that if he were willing it would be pleasant, and if he had eyes only for one person bearing the name ‘Hornblower’ then she would make herself comfortable elsewhere until those two sailors had concluded their naval discussions. It made a pretty thought-- and it made her happy to know that she really did offer something to her wonderful husband. She was not pretty or well bred or even half as clever as him, but she could keep him safe. He had done so much for her. He had given her a son, made her a captain’s wife and given her so many new opportunities of travel and society, more than ever she could have hoped for teaching small sticky children their numbers. She was proud to know that she could repay him in some small way for all he had done for her.
Little Horatio started to fuss: she chose not to be vexed. Instead, she imagined that he would grow up sullen and brilliant like his father, and smiled. It was a good life, she had-- and as a wife, she was so lucky.
She would write to Lieutenant Bush today.