Never Land the First Fish

Chapter Nineteen, Part 3

Emily woke from a sleep fathoms deep to the sound of singing outside the door. For a moment, she struggled to remember where she was. Not a hotel. Certainly not the rooms in Dublin she had shared with Giancarlo. Not the apartment in New York. None of those rocked, never stable, tipping through the horizontal and back again.

The voice hushing the singer was familiar. "You'll wake the ladies. Julia needs her sleep." Gills. No one else said 'Julia' with such fond irritation. She was on Maddox's ship, in his stateroom, and that singer in the hall—no; the passageway—was Maddox. Emily sat up against the bulkhead. After a bite of supper, a good wash, and a walk in the fresh air, Julia had been mostly well and ready for a good night's sleep. Emily had gone to bed, meaning to wait for Maddox, but she must have been more tired than she thought.

Maddox ignored Gills, continuing several verses of an unprintably explicit song detailing what the singer experienced with women around the world. The chorus complained that none of them compared to the love who held... And at that point the chorus always morphed into another verse, with another country, and another erotic adventure.

He was fumbling with the door, Gills still expostulating behind him. He broke off mid-chorus, and his words sounded loud as he stood in the open door. "Go to bed, Gills. With luck, we shall both see our ladies tomorrow."

The door clicked as it shut. Emily's eyes were adjusted to the dark, and she could see Maddox as he stumbled slightly, crossing the room while picking up the chorus where he'd left off, "...none could compare to my love, my true love, who held... Ah ah ah ah ah," his voice soared and then shifted down an octave to the start of the next verse, "My toe, my toe, all the sailor boys know what the lady from Oslo could do with a toe. She could..."

Emily couldn't help her giggle. Maddox was charming company and possessed of a sly wit that sometimes had her biting her tongue so as not to laugh aloud at the fops and witlings he skewered in whispered asides to her, but she'd never seen him play the fool before.

He turned toward the bed, his mouth hanging open, squinting into the darkness. "It is I, Maddox," she assured him.

He took two strides to grope for her hands, then felt his way up her arms to her shoulders. "Emily? I thought you were still with Julia." He hugged her close, and his brandy-laced breath confirmed what she'd suspected before.

"You're drunk," she observed, frostily. She had learned through hard experience that drunk men were unpredictable.

"A little top-lofty." He allowed her far enough away to look into her eyes. "I would have been sooner and less elevated if I had known you were waiting for me." He pressed a kiss to her forehead and wrapped his arms around her again. "I missed you."

"I wasn't far away, and it was only for one night." Did he think he owned her, just because she allowed him to be her lover? Emily Kilbrierry belonged to no man, and Maddox had better not forget it.

"And two days," he complained. "I love having you to myself at night, but I miss having you there when I turn to tell you something. I miss your opinions. I miss your laughter." He let her go, suddenly, and pushed away from the bed, turning his back on her, his shoulders slumped. "And now I've come to you drunk. I must disgust you."

Like any glimpse he allowed her of his vulnerabilities, his obvious shame melted her irritation. "No, Maddox. I found your song very interesting, actually. What did the lady from Oslo do with toes?"

He was suddenly on the bed again, leaning over her, switching from maudlin to cheerful in flash. "I could demonstrate," he suggested, his face absurdly hopeful.

He was too close, and the fumes of brandy clouded her thinking, bringing to mind other occasions when a man had loomed over her with drunken demands.