Not Quite a Husband

by Sherry Thomas

  Bryony’s heart sank. “So we can expect no more help from Malakand?”

  “Not until Malakand itself is relieved by mobilization from Nowshera. And Nowshera is probably empty just now—the regiments sent on punitive expeditions to Tochi Valley haven’t returned yet.”

  “I see,” she said weakly.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I suppose I should have said something more reassuring. I’m not accustomed to discussing such situations with ladies.”

  “It’s quite all right, Captain,” she said. “I assure you ladies prefer the truth to being kept in the dark.”

  Or perhaps not.

  As long as help was just around the corner, she could pretend that her stupid mistake hadn’t actually cost anyone anything. But now that Malakand itself was under siege, and no help was possible—

  When I’m a wizened old professor at Cambridge, and can barely climb up to the podium to lecture, I will think back to the frontiers of India—and life’s strange paths that had led me here—and remember that this was where the wanderings of my youth ended.

  He would never become that wizened old professor at Cambridge. He would never leave the frontiers of India. And the wandering of his youth—his youth altogether—would end here when the fort fell.

  Because she had no sense. Because she put her need to get away from him above their safety. Because she’d been so stupid as to believe that a week of heartache in peace and security would be worse than actual death.

  It was all her fault.

  They were infinitely removed from the safety of the plains of India, but not so much geographically that the men on the rampart didn’t swelter all day. The Pathans kept up their attacks on the fort. They seemed to have an endless supply of men and an endless supply of courage; their compatriots falling like dominoes at the base of the fort served only to harden their resolve. And any lull in the fighting was taken up with raising the height of the walls to provide better cover against the snipers in the hills.

  At nine o’clock that night Captain Bartlett found Leo. “I’ve a message for you from Mrs. Marsden. She has informed me that if you, sir, do not go down to get your dressing changed and sleep a few hours, she will refuse to extract any more bullets from my men.”

  Leo shook his head. “Women and their wiles.”

  “My thoughts exactly, sir. I can’t afford to be short a sawbones now, so you’d best do as she says.”

  But before he went to the surgery, Leo went to their quarters to wash: He didn’t want to go to her grimy and malodorous. With his uninjured arm, he made unstinting use of Surgeon-Captain Gibbs’s soap and probably squandered more water than he needed to rinse, just because it felt good to pour cool water over himself, after an entire day perspiring in both heat and fear.

  She was waiting for him when he came out of the bathroom. They stood a moment, staring at each other. She looked pale and shaken, much the same as she’d looked after their first encounter with hostile Pathans. Except now he too was equally shaken, equally terrified of what might come to pass.

  “Bryony,” he said softly.

  “You made your dressings wet,” she said. “Good thing we are changing them.”

  She washed her hands, leaned him against the edge of the desk, and took off his bandaging. On one knee, she pushed aside the towel he’d wrapped around himself and cleaned the wound on his leg. He sucked in a breath at the stinging coolness of the carbolic acid solution.

  He was tired—he hadn’t slept in more than forty hours. The stitches, once the local anesthesia wore off, had hurt as if a rabid dog had sunk its teeth into him. And his head pounded from too much coffee and too little food. But as she knelt before him, her fingers brushing his upper thigh, the tiny little air fluffs of her breaths mercilessly teasing his skin, everything else faded into a dull ache against the increasing sharpness of his awareness of her.

  Her white-streaked hair, smoothly coiled and obedient. The pretty lobe of her ear. The collar of her shirt, quite crumpled from the heat.

  She rose to her feet, to work on the cut on his side. Her head tilted to the side to get a better look; the light from the lamp limned her slender neck, or what little of it that was exposed with her shirt buttoned resolutely to the edge of her chin. He wanted to open a few of those buttons, if only for humanitarian reasons—it had grown stuffy inside the quarters, with the shutters closed against ricocheting bullets, and the walls still releasing their embedded heat.

  “Have you slept at all since we got here?”

  “Nobody has, so I don’t feel deprived. What about you? Were you able to sleep last night?”

  Abruptly, the walls shook with the boom of the war drums. Gunfire, a minute ago desultory, intensified into the roar of a hailstorm. Shouts erupted as the Pathans charged the fort, always the shouts, single-minded and feral.

  She stopped, listened for a while, then pressed on with her task, her teeth clenched. When she was done, she busied herself gathering the soiled bandaging. Only then did he see her hands shake, almost imperceptibly, but shaking nevertheless.

  He took her hands in his, her fear a dagger in his heart. “Bryony.”

  “Sleep,” she said, not looking at him. “You need your sleep.”

  He pulled her closer to him. “Bryony, listen to me. We are hardly at the end of our rope. The fort has plenty of store and ammunition. Our men are superior in discipline and musketry. We’ll hold out until relief comes.”

  If only his words didn’t sound so flaccid to his own ears.

  He wasn’t lying, but he’d certainly narrated only the most encouraging aspects of the situation. Not the sea of Pathans he’d seen in the morning, not the fatigue that was beginning to weary the defenders, and most certainly not the almost trancelike resolve on the faces of those who rushed at the front of the attacks. The Swatis and their neighbors wanted the British gone, and they were quite glad to die for it.

  Her eyelashes lifted, her eyes moss green and wild. “If you want to put me at ease, it’s really quite simple. Let me apologize. Let me grovel and rend my hair. Let me be abjectly, miserably sorry. Please. And let me do it now, before it’s—before it’s too late.”

  “All right,” he said. “Go ahead.”

  She looked at him uncertainly. “Go ahead?”

  “Yes. Go ahead.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was completely childish and irresponsible. Forgive me.”

  He kissed her lightly on her ear. “Forgiven.”

  A more beautiful word did not exist in the English language. She cupped his face and rained kisses upon his cheeks, his jaw, and his lips. Finally her mouth settled against his and she kissed him tenderly. He tasted of the roasted fennel seeds Indians chewed after meals to freshen breath. She wanted to savor him slowly, a connoisseur before the finest vintage of the century; she wanted to devour him, a drunk trembling for that first swallow of the day.

  Her hands wandered down his arms. His skin was cool from the bath and smooth to the touch. The whole of him was tightly built, his musculature strong and spare. And he smelled, rather wonderfully, of Surgeon-Captain Gibbs’s Pears soap.

  She pulled back. “Let me put you to bed. You’ve only a few hours to sleep.”

  She put her arm about his middle, acted as his crutch as he crossed the room, and helped lower him to the edge of the bed. But as she straightened, he gripped the front of her shirt. She went utterly still. Outside the battle continued to escalate, but inside she could only hear her own tattered breaths and the hard thumps of her heart.

  He kissed her on the tip of her chin, the tip of her nose, the corners of her eyes. Then, his teeth grazed the edge of her earlobe. She shuddered.

  He released her. “Want more?”

  She nodded.

  He scooted back on the bed until his back was against the wall. “Then come here.”

  “What about your stitches?”

  “We won’t do anything to worry the stitches.”

  She sat down next to him, her ba
ck to the wall. He chuckled, put his uninjured arm about her waist, and swung her toward him. She squeaked, terrified that her weight would land the wrong way and pull on the stitches. But she came down on her knees, braced to either side of him.

  She put her mouth to his again and kissed him, in ways that seemed rather pushy and improper. But he did not seem to mind. The soft sounds he made in his throat were those of pleasure and arousal. His hand skimmed along her arm, then along the outside of her thigh. He dragged her skirt and petticoat free from underneath her knee and lifted them out of the way. Underneath she had her combination. Slowly, slowly, his hand ascended toward the open seam between her legs.

  She whimpered. He stroked her there, almost-harmless little touches interspersed with the most unchaste caresses possible. The pleasure came like monsoon rain, hot and thick. She wanted to cling to him, to meld into him, but she dared only push her palms against the gritty surface of the wall, her fingers spread, seeking desperately to hold on to something. Anything.

  The pleasure stretched her taut. It plucked and thrummed her. It made her thighs quake with the strain of holding herself upright.

  All the while he kissed her, as if she were air, water, fire, everything he couldn’t do without. As if she were as sweet on the tongue as the first snow melt high in the Himalayas. As if he’d meant to kiss her for years and years and must make up for the eternity of waiting.

  And he kissed her as she gasped with the spikes of her climax. As she moaned and hissed with the intensity of it. As she called his name, again and again, a prayer for things beyond hope.

  “May I do that for you also?” she asked, her breaths not at all even.

  He shivered. “Well, one of us would have to.”

  She shifted her person so that she was next to him, rather than straddling him. Looping her left arm about his neck, she kissed him on the shoulder. The little drop-kisses turned into moist nibbles. And then, openmouthed worship of his skin and flesh.

  He grunted with the testes-jolting heat of it.

  “I imagine I should take care to be very gentle about it?” she asked, the fingers of her right hand peeling apart the towel at his waist.

  “I rather hope you will be very forceful about it. It’s not a Ming vase.”

  “Goodness,” she murmured. “Will you show me what to do?”

  He took her hand and wrapped it about his length. “Grip it, as hard as you can.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It’s what I always do.”

  She whimpered. And then, with a soft grunt of effort, her hand clamped over him, a hot, smooth vise. She was strong. And he was so aroused it would take barely a touch to undo him.

  He guided her hand into a naughty motion. “Yes, that’s it. Just—do that.”

  And she did just that. His heart pumped. His breaths quickened—to his own ears he sounded like a bellow operated by a madman. He seized a handful of her skirt.

  Then she shifted her weight again and kissed him, her mouth warm, her tongue hungry. He lost all control. He kissed her back with the gentleness of an avalanche. His pelvis lifted from the bed despite all her exhortations to stay still. And he came hotly, endlessly, whispering incoherent words of relief and gratitude as he kissed and kissed her.

  She scooted away from him to inspect his stitches, scolding him severely for not obeying her commandment. He wanted to tell her he wasn’t quite that stupid, that he’d used solely his uninjured limb for leverage. But his exhaustion at last caught up with him, and he fell asleep with her admonishing words echoing sweetly in his ears.

  He awoke three hours later, when the hospital assistant came to call her away to help an injured sowar. Within fifteen minutes he was back on the rampart and did not leave for the next thirty-six hours. She sent the hospital assistant after him one time. But Ranjit Singh took one look at the situation—the enemy inside the barbed wire enclosure, ladders raised against the walls of the fort—and concluded that it was no time to pull any man away from the battle.

  When Leo did finally get away, he stopped by the surgery, but she was in the middle of an operation, her brows furrowed, her face pale, cursing in surprisingly vivid German. So he hobbled to their quarters, fell into bed and fell asleep instantly.

  He dreamed that she was there with him, carefully nudging his trousers down to examine the stitches on his thigh and tsking in disapproval. Her fingers were cool and reassuring. He adored her touch.

  Her fingers meandered away from the stitches and dipped down to the inside of his thigh. He was immediately aroused. Put your hand on me. Give me some blessed relief. I have wanted you too long.

  Her hand moved away. His hopes plunged. But then something even better happened. She kissed him just above the dressing, a moist, lingering kiss. He groaned with the magnitude of his need. Inch by inch she nibbled and licked. He was dying—such pleasure, such torture.

  And then she came to a most logical but no less shocking destination: She took him inside her mouth. He was instantly on the verge. It was her mouth, her lips, her tongue on him. Burning, exquisite, unbearable.

  He shuddered and jerked, barely holding back at the edge. He tried to give her a warning. I have to—I’m going to— Too late. He lost all control. His emptied into her in hot convulsions, the pleasure fearsome, almost terrible in its blinding intensity. And she—good God—she swallowed everything.

  In the aftermath he trembled and gasped, undone. This had to be the best bloody dream he’d had in a long time. In real life, he would never even think to suggest to her that she pleasure him with her mouth, let alone that—

  He opened his eyes. Judging by the light seeping in around the edges of the door, it was still the middle of the day. But as the shutters were kept shut—there were constant sniper shots during daytime—a kerosene lamp had been lit to dispel the dimness inside the room.

  He had not lit the lamp.

  He turned his head. Bryony knelt between his legs, panting slightly. At his look she quickly lowered her head and pulled up his trousers.

  It had not been a dream. For a moment he was paralyzed with dismay.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I thought I was dreaming. I didn’t know—I wouldn’t have—”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said softly. “It had to go somewhere and it wasn’t as if I didn’t know what was coming.”

  Then she did something that amazed him: She giggled at her own words. “That was a horrible pun, wasn’t it? I’d better go make my rounds. You go back to sleep.”

  That night she woke up panting in arousal. It was pitch dark. He was in bed with her, his hand between her legs, playing her like a lyre.

  “Move a little higher,” he ordered.

  He was on his back, she on her side. She wiggled toward the head of the bed, careful not to bump into his right thigh even by accident.

  “Now come closer.”

  She did. In the next moment, his mouth captured her nipple, and warmly, kindly lavished it with attention. Desire ripped through her—he knew exactly how wildly she responded to the coddling of her nipples: A breath of air blown across the tips had them hard and quivering for touch; a gentle lick had her moaning and straining for more; a tug with just the right amount of force as she hovered on the edge of a paroxysm sent her over promptly.

  When his lips retreated, she moaned in protest. He palmed her breast. “Patience, patience,” he murmured.

  His other hand still fiddled with her, gently, almost sleepily. She wanted more. She wanted more aggression from him, more urgency, more—

  He pinched her nipple. As aggressive and urgent a pleasure as she ever knew jolted her. Suddenly she was there, her spine curving, her inside quaking.

  He kissed her on the forehead. “I’d tell you to go back to sleep, but I’m not sure you are even properly awake.”

  “I am,” she protested. And fell back asleep in the next second.

  When she woke up again, it was still night.

  She stared at the ceilin
g, wondering what had pulled her out of her deep slumber. After a while she realized that it was the silence, the night as still as a thief. She sat up. Where was everyone? Was the battle over?

  A match flared into life. Leo, seated at the edge of the table, his good leg propped up on a chair, lit the lamp. He discarded the match and lifted a half-eaten fig from the table. His clothes were hopelessly rumpled, his hair mussed, his face rough with a four-day growth of beard. He should appear haggard, but as he watched her, there was such a jauntiness to him—almost a swagger—that he merely looked at once battle-tested and virile.

  Remembering the state she had been reduced to in her sleep—the front of her shirt open, her corset hanging loose, the top buttons of her combination undone, her skirt and petticoat up around her waist—she hastily reached for a blanket, only to realize that she was decently dressed, her skirts down at her ankles, her breasts perfectly contained.

  “I didn’t want to imperil anyone’s chance of survival by keeping the surgeon in a state of undress,” he said, smiling. “I also didn’t want soldiers dying of bliss should you rush out of this room with your bosom in plain view.”

  She cleared her throat. “Thank you. Most kind of you.”

  “But I would like to see you,” he said softly. “And perish of bliss.”

  She bit her lower lip, then set her face into an austere expression. “Not when I’m still upset with you.”

  He flushed. She stared at the abrupt and visible reddening of his complexion—she’d never seen him flush before.

  “I’m sorry. I was dreaming and I—I—” he stammered.

  She flushed too. “That’s not what I’m upset about.”

  “No?”

  She felt the warmth of her cheeks spread to her throat and bosom. It was a few seconds before she could speak. “You promised you would stay off your feet and only load rifles for others. But when Captain Bartlett came to tour the injury ward he couldn’t say enough about your marksmanship.”