"As A Wife" by inlovewithnight- The Abduction Club
TITLE: As A Wife
AUTHOR: inlovewithnight
CHARACTERS: Anne Kennedy, James Strang, Catherine Kennedy
RATING: PG
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, I make no profit.
CHALLENGE PROMPT: Queues
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to romanticalgirl for the beta. And, um, yay obscure fandoms.
They're married at sea by the ship's captain, who seems to find the whole situation far more amusing than Anne thinks is quite proper. She lifts her chin and gives him her most stern and regal glare, and he only laughs again and closes his Bible and waves them all out of his cabin. James's hand is tight on her elbow as he guides her out the door, not enough to hurt but more than she is accustomed to. She pulls away as soon as they regain the deck and turns to take him to task before she remembers.
Her name is now Mrs. Strang. He is her husband, and she is no lady anymore. The courtesies and niceties that have been her due all her life are gone, as surely as each wave that breaks and vanishes against the ship's bow.
Garret says something; a joke, perhaps, as Catherine laughs, bright and soft as a bell. Anne ignores them, and studies James's face.
He isn't laughing, which is by far the best for both of them. He isn't even smiling. He's looking back at her, just as soberly, with those eyes of his, so indecently and impossibly blue.
It makes no sense for her to be so unsettled. This is, after all, precisely what she wanted to happen, what she insisted must happen, what she purposively helped to make happen.
And yet she finds that now that she is here, she is quite unsteady on her feet.
**
She has always known she would marry a man she hardly knew; that is as far from remarkable as she is from home. But she had expected to be the wife of a stranger in a grand house with servants, and to make his acquaintance surrounded with fine things and luxury that could take the sting from any disappointment she might find in him.
Instead, she has a cabin approximately the size of a closet, smelling of sea-salt and tar, and shared by an overly friendly ship's cat.
"I think you should find him preferable to the rats," James says when she objects to the feline companionship. She finds him far less amusing at sea than she did ashore.
He does not ask anything of her on the crossing, perhaps out of some obscure gentility, perhaps simply because she is seasick and miserable more often than not. She lies on her side in their bunk, staring at the rough wood of the hull and listing in her mind what she actually knows of this man with whom she will spend the rest of her life, which may be quite some time, notwithstanding how prepared for death she feels at this particular moment. She knows that he is impulsive, that he is romantic, that he has astonishing eyes.
And she is quite certain that he is kind. At the very least, he has been nothing but kind to her.
Really, those things are more than she has ever had any right to expect from a husband. And more than enough to balance out anything else that might time might reveal.
**
In Virginia, they sell the deed to the farm that Power gave James. (When Garrett threw his own papers back in Power's face, in the name of higher dramatic principles, James tucked his safely away and kept hold of them through all that followed. Anne makes a small addition to her mental list--that James is, perhaps, a bit more pragmatic than her sister's husband.) The money is enough to keep them fed and housed until both of the men stumble upon jobs.
Garrett finds work as a secretary to a man of some property and distinction; it takes several weeks and more than a few quiet corrections from James for Anne to get used to not thinking of and referring to him as a minor nobleman. James becomes a clerk at an auction house, which is entirely respectable and honest labor. She can hold her head high.
Which is perhaps only a small thing in the chaos of their new lives (living in cramped, dark, stale-smelling rooms; shopping in noisy, crowded markets full of people who talk too loudly, too quickly, and stand too close; finding that time and ease and beauty had never received their adequate due before and shan't be coming again), but she'll take whatever small things she can get.
Which doesn't explain why she finds it so difficult to accept the small things James gives her.
A rose he picked at the roadside on his walk home. Arranging to have one of the baker's ugly little sons bring the bread around so she needn't make one extra trip out of the house in the day. Thanking her for passing a plate or folding a shirt or wiping dust from a sill, all the maddening little things she's supposed to do without thanks or even notice.
She's startled each time he does this, looking at him in puzzlement and having to whisper her reply from a dry throat. And he smiles at her, and carries on, as though it's nothing at all.
**
She thinks, perhaps, she simply doesn't know how to be a wife.
For all that she was bred and brought up to be married, all of her training was to be a lady, to manage a great or at least good house, not to personally attend to all of the grit of things. She doesn't know what's expected of her, precisely, here. She doesn't know what he expects. And he's certainly anything but forthcoming, the impossible foolish man.
Catherine, of course, is dizzily happy with her Garrett. The two of them seem to fall into step like cart-horses at the traces. In her less charitable moments, Anne suspects that this is because neither one of them has the wit or sense God gave a cabbage, to realize that things are difficult.
Or perhaps things simply aren't difficult if you don't insist on making them so. She isn't quite sure how to tell.
The crowning glory is the morning Catherine comes to her, flushed and radiant and as happy as Anne can ever recall, and says that she thinks she might be with child. And isn't that marvelous, Anne?
Anne smiles and embraces her sister and holds back her shudders until she's alone again. She's glad that her sister is so happy, truly; Catherine should have all of life's blessings and joys. And Anne is appalled by her own unwomanly reaction, but she cannot deny it. As much as she knows that it is every woman's duty and destiny to be matron after maid, something in her rebels at the notion. Dear God, do not bring this upon her yet. Not until she is a bit more certain of herself, her place, this man she married. Not until the ground steadies beneath her feet. Let children be her burden and joy in due time, but not yet.
She isn't precisely certain how she'll know when things have changed, but surely there must be a sign.
**
Their bedroom has a window, and she slips out of bed in the pale shaft of just-barely-morning light, reaching past him for her dress on its hook by the door.
"You should come round to the sales house this afternoon," he says, not looking up from the buttons of his vest.
"Why?" Her tone is sharper than she intended, and she winces, but he seems to pay it no mind.
"A few of the big plantations down the river have sent up some horses to sell." He finishes with his vest and takes up a comb, glancing briefly at her as he moves to the mirror. "I only thought you might like to see them."
"Oh." She smooths her skirts into place, hating the flush of surprise under her skin, suddenly tired of being shocked every time he thinks of her. "Yes, I'd like that. I love horses."
"I remember." He laughs softly and starts to pull his hair back into its queue. "That's how we met, after all."
"Yes." She watches him another moment, then shakes her head and steps over to his side. "Let me do it. You're making a mess."
Their eyes meet in the mirror, and now he's the one who looks surprised.
She smiles, shakes her head again, and focuses on her hands, on pulling his hair back neat and straight and proper into its plait and then winding the ribbon around just so. No husband of hers is going out looking less than tidy, as if he doesn't have a proper and loving wife at home.
AUTHOR: inlovewithnight
CHARACTERS: Anne Kennedy, James Strang, Catherine Kennedy
RATING: PG
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, I make no profit.
CHALLENGE PROMPT: Queues
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to romanticalgirl for the beta. And, um, yay obscure fandoms.
They're married at sea by the ship's captain, who seems to find the whole situation far more amusing than Anne thinks is quite proper. She lifts her chin and gives him her most stern and regal glare, and he only laughs again and closes his Bible and waves them all out of his cabin. James's hand is tight on her elbow as he guides her out the door, not enough to hurt but more than she is accustomed to. She pulls away as soon as they regain the deck and turns to take him to task before she remembers.
Her name is now Mrs. Strang. He is her husband, and she is no lady anymore. The courtesies and niceties that have been her due all her life are gone, as surely as each wave that breaks and vanishes against the ship's bow.
Garret says something; a joke, perhaps, as Catherine laughs, bright and soft as a bell. Anne ignores them, and studies James's face.
He isn't laughing, which is by far the best for both of them. He isn't even smiling. He's looking back at her, just as soberly, with those eyes of his, so indecently and impossibly blue.
It makes no sense for her to be so unsettled. This is, after all, precisely what she wanted to happen, what she insisted must happen, what she purposively helped to make happen.
And yet she finds that now that she is here, she is quite unsteady on her feet.
**
She has always known she would marry a man she hardly knew; that is as far from remarkable as she is from home. But she had expected to be the wife of a stranger in a grand house with servants, and to make his acquaintance surrounded with fine things and luxury that could take the sting from any disappointment she might find in him.
Instead, she has a cabin approximately the size of a closet, smelling of sea-salt and tar, and shared by an overly friendly ship's cat.
"I think you should find him preferable to the rats," James says when she objects to the feline companionship. She finds him far less amusing at sea than she did ashore.
He does not ask anything of her on the crossing, perhaps out of some obscure gentility, perhaps simply because she is seasick and miserable more often than not. She lies on her side in their bunk, staring at the rough wood of the hull and listing in her mind what she actually knows of this man with whom she will spend the rest of her life, which may be quite some time, notwithstanding how prepared for death she feels at this particular moment. She knows that he is impulsive, that he is romantic, that he has astonishing eyes.
And she is quite certain that he is kind. At the very least, he has been nothing but kind to her.
Really, those things are more than she has ever had any right to expect from a husband. And more than enough to balance out anything else that might time might reveal.
**
In Virginia, they sell the deed to the farm that Power gave James. (When Garrett threw his own papers back in Power's face, in the name of higher dramatic principles, James tucked his safely away and kept hold of them through all that followed. Anne makes a small addition to her mental list--that James is, perhaps, a bit more pragmatic than her sister's husband.) The money is enough to keep them fed and housed until both of the men stumble upon jobs.
Garrett finds work as a secretary to a man of some property and distinction; it takes several weeks and more than a few quiet corrections from James for Anne to get used to not thinking of and referring to him as a minor nobleman. James becomes a clerk at an auction house, which is entirely respectable and honest labor. She can hold her head high.
Which is perhaps only a small thing in the chaos of their new lives (living in cramped, dark, stale-smelling rooms; shopping in noisy, crowded markets full of people who talk too loudly, too quickly, and stand too close; finding that time and ease and beauty had never received their adequate due before and shan't be coming again), but she'll take whatever small things she can get.
Which doesn't explain why she finds it so difficult to accept the small things James gives her.
A rose he picked at the roadside on his walk home. Arranging to have one of the baker's ugly little sons bring the bread around so she needn't make one extra trip out of the house in the day. Thanking her for passing a plate or folding a shirt or wiping dust from a sill, all the maddening little things she's supposed to do without thanks or even notice.
She's startled each time he does this, looking at him in puzzlement and having to whisper her reply from a dry throat. And he smiles at her, and carries on, as though it's nothing at all.
**
She thinks, perhaps, she simply doesn't know how to be a wife.
For all that she was bred and brought up to be married, all of her training was to be a lady, to manage a great or at least good house, not to personally attend to all of the grit of things. She doesn't know what's expected of her, precisely, here. She doesn't know what he expects. And he's certainly anything but forthcoming, the impossible foolish man.
Catherine, of course, is dizzily happy with her Garrett. The two of them seem to fall into step like cart-horses at the traces. In her less charitable moments, Anne suspects that this is because neither one of them has the wit or sense God gave a cabbage, to realize that things are difficult.
Or perhaps things simply aren't difficult if you don't insist on making them so. She isn't quite sure how to tell.
The crowning glory is the morning Catherine comes to her, flushed and radiant and as happy as Anne can ever recall, and says that she thinks she might be with child. And isn't that marvelous, Anne?
Anne smiles and embraces her sister and holds back her shudders until she's alone again. She's glad that her sister is so happy, truly; Catherine should have all of life's blessings and joys. And Anne is appalled by her own unwomanly reaction, but she cannot deny it. As much as she knows that it is every woman's duty and destiny to be matron after maid, something in her rebels at the notion. Dear God, do not bring this upon her yet. Not until she is a bit more certain of herself, her place, this man she married. Not until the ground steadies beneath her feet. Let children be her burden and joy in due time, but not yet.
She isn't precisely certain how she'll know when things have changed, but surely there must be a sign.
**
Their bedroom has a window, and she slips out of bed in the pale shaft of just-barely-morning light, reaching past him for her dress on its hook by the door.
"You should come round to the sales house this afternoon," he says, not looking up from the buttons of his vest.
"Why?" Her tone is sharper than she intended, and she winces, but he seems to pay it no mind.
"A few of the big plantations down the river have sent up some horses to sell." He finishes with his vest and takes up a comb, glancing briefly at her as he moves to the mirror. "I only thought you might like to see them."
"Oh." She smooths her skirts into place, hating the flush of surprise under her skin, suddenly tired of being shocked every time he thinks of her. "Yes, I'd like that. I love horses."
"I remember." He laughs softly and starts to pull his hair back into its queue. "That's how we met, after all."
"Yes." She watches him another moment, then shakes her head and steps over to his side. "Let me do it. You're making a mess."
Their eyes meet in the mirror, and now he's the one who looks surprised.
She smiles, shakes her head again, and focuses on her hands, on pulling his hair back neat and straight and proper into its plait and then winding the ribbon around just so. No husband of hers is going out looking less than tidy, as if he doesn't have a proper and loving wife at home.