Fic: A Suitable Match 1/?
Title: A Suitable Match
Author: fringedweller
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, Pike/One, Rand/Kirk, others het and slash.
Warnings: Regency AU, with all that entails, including a wilful rewriting of history to suit my plot. I've fiddled with dates, made up entire countries, altered national political policy and pretended that racism didn't exist in the early nineteenth century. So, basically, your average regency romance.
Rating: PG to start, rising to NC-17 at the end
Beta: The fabulous seren_ccd, also others who have looked over the beginning of the fic. Thanks to all of you! Also huge thanks to searingidolatry who made all the fantastic graphics.
Length: 1000/49500
Summary: Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.
Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognise here is mine. Also, I'm not making any money from this.
Author's Notes: I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality. This section is image heavy. If that's not good for you there's an alternate version here without the images.
Chapter One: Where letters are exchanged, secret plans are made, and Admiral Pike receives two big surprises.
Her Royal Highness The Crown Princess Amanda of Vulcania to the Dowager Duchess of Albany, 2nd February 1815.
The Dowager Duchess of Albany to the Countess of Shrewsbury, 27th February 1815
Christopher Pike, naval hero and newly appointed admiral, Duke of Riverside and twelfth Baron Greenwood, snored.
His wife of three months turned in the weak dawn light to look at his handsome profile and smiled, despite the fact that she had been woken abominably early. Her mother, on the eve of her marriage, had taken her aside for a talk where she had been advised to keep a separate bedchamber from her husband, in case his behaviour at night was...unwelcome.
Una Pike, nee Chapel, now Duchess of Riverside, Baroness Greenwood, didn’t think that her mother had been referring to snoring when she had passed on her advice, but it did bear thinking about. Then Christopher rolled over lazily and wrapped his strong arms around her, and Una forgot the idea immediately. If she banished Christopher to another room, then she wouldn’t get to enjoy moments like this. However, he could not remain unpunished. She extended a finger and ran it lazily over his ribs, watching with amusement as the firm muscles there rippled with the gentle sensation.
“Minx,” he said sleepily, his eyes still shut.
“Your snoring would wake the dead,” she told him.
“Lies,” he yawned.
She prodded him more firmly in the ribs.
“Not lies,” she said indignantly. “You woke me up.”
“Really?” he asked, dropping his head to nuzzle at her neck. “My apologies, your Grace. Have you any demands for reparations?”
“Hmm,” Una sighed, “I think I can trust you to deliver an appropriate response without instruction.”
Her husband let out a huff of air that served as laughter. Una practically purred with pleasure as his large, weather-beaten hands toyed with the fine silk of her night rail, before slipping underneath it to caress her bare skin.
Una may have only have been a wife for three months, but she had waited seven long years to marry Christopher Pike and she was determined to enjoy every moment as a married women. Christopher had taught her everything she knew about the pleasures of the marriage bed, and she was always keen to indulge herself with the blissful sensations he awakened in her.
Their morning lovemaking was relaxed, and lazy; their evening lovemaking always passionate and exhausting. There had even been several times when he had appeared suddenly in her drawing room in the afternoon, locked the door and performed such acts of carnal wickedness she was sure that the windows would steam up.
He called her “Number One” as a playful tease on her name, but also as an indication of the place she held in his heart and in his mind. She had not expected him to be faithful during their years apart, but he swore that he had, and she believed him absolutely.
Una felt like the luckiest woman in the world, right until her maid arrived a few hours later with their breakfast and she vomited spectacularly over their brand-new bed-linen.
Her husband’s first reaction was to bellow for the butler to call for a doctor, then rush about in a fine panic as he dressed himself in the previous night’s clothing. By now the maid had whipped the thankfully unused chamber pot from under the bed and handed it to her mistress, along with a glass of water from the jug on the nightstand.
By the time the butler arrived and the household was in a complete frenzy, Una’s stomach had stopped rolling and the maid had removed the vile pot, replacing it with a cup of tea and a cool washcloth for her forehead.
“You’ll be alright, your Grace,” the maid had whispered as she whisked Una out of her spoiled nightrail and into a voluminous wrapper. “It was the same for my sister, and it all stopped after the first few months. It’s all natural, your Grace, don’t you worry.”
It took Una a few moments to process the woman’s kind words, as she was distracted by her husband loudly ordering every footman and groom in the building out on every horse in the stables to find every doctor in the county and drag them back here immediately.
“Christopher, do stop being an ass,” she said wearily. “I do not need a doctor.”
“But you were sick,” he said, dropping to one knee by the side of her chair and taking her hand between his. He stole a look at the ruined bed-linens. “Copiously so.”
“I rather believe that we must expect this to be the case most mornings for the foreseeable future,” Una said, a small smile playing on her lips.
It took her husband a regrettably long time to register what she was hinting at; had they been alone, she could have spoken more plainly, but by this point her husband’s voice, trained to be heard over the crashing of waves and thunder of cannon, had brought nearly every above-stairs member of staff crowding into their bedchamber. He threw discretion to the wind and grabbed her into a fierce hug, murmuring “A baby, a baby,” over and over again.
Gradually the butler shooed everybody out of the bedroom, and shut the doors gently behind him, giving them some privacy. Her husband acted as her lady’s maid that day, lacing her into her corset and tying her garters. He had the vaguely stunned look of a man who had run face-first into a wall, and kept staring at her midsection as if he expected it to balloon at any minute.
“You have made me incredibly happy,” he told her later that day, as they sat side by side in the morning room and began to talk of names for their future child. “I cannot think of anything that could spoil my mood today.”
Then the butler scratched at the door, handed the duke his post, and Una’s vague plans of a quiet, relaxed confinement went straight out of the nearest window.
Provided by website-hit-counters.com site.
Author: fringedweller
Pairing: McCoy/Chapel, Pike/One, Rand/Kirk, others het and slash.
Warnings: Regency AU, with all that entails, including a wilful rewriting of history to suit my plot. I've fiddled with dates, made up entire countries, altered national political policy and pretended that racism didn't exist in the early nineteenth century. So, basically, your average regency romance.
Rating: PG to start, rising to NC-17 at the end
Beta: The fabulous seren_ccd, also others who have looked over the beginning of the fic. Thanks to all of you! Also huge thanks to searingidolatry who made all the fantastic graphics.
Length: 1000/49500
Summary: Lady Christine has successfully dodged the clammy-handed, small-brained idiots on the Marriage Mart for two Seasons, but everyone, including her recently married sister, insists that there's a suitable match out there for her. She doubts it.
Disclaimer: Nothing that you recognise here is mine. Also, I'm not making any money from this.
Author's Notes: I know that Sulu is canonically American, not Japanese, but for the purposes of this fic I've changed his nationality. This section is image heavy. If that's not good for you there's an alternate version here without the images.
Chapter One: Where letters are exchanged, secret plans are made, and Admiral Pike receives two big surprises.
Her Royal Highness The Crown Princess Amanda of Vulcania to the Dowager Duchess of Albany, 2nd February 1815.
The Dowager Duchess of Albany to the Countess of Shrewsbury, 27th February 1815
Christopher Pike, naval hero and newly appointed admiral, Duke of Riverside and twelfth Baron Greenwood, snored.
His wife of three months turned in the weak dawn light to look at his handsome profile and smiled, despite the fact that she had been woken abominably early. Her mother, on the eve of her marriage, had taken her aside for a talk where she had been advised to keep a separate bedchamber from her husband, in case his behaviour at night was...unwelcome.
Una Pike, nee Chapel, now Duchess of Riverside, Baroness Greenwood, didn’t think that her mother had been referring to snoring when she had passed on her advice, but it did bear thinking about. Then Christopher rolled over lazily and wrapped his strong arms around her, and Una forgot the idea immediately. If she banished Christopher to another room, then she wouldn’t get to enjoy moments like this. However, he could not remain unpunished. She extended a finger and ran it lazily over his ribs, watching with amusement as the firm muscles there rippled with the gentle sensation.
“Minx,” he said sleepily, his eyes still shut.
“Your snoring would wake the dead,” she told him.
“Lies,” he yawned.
She prodded him more firmly in the ribs.
“Not lies,” she said indignantly. “You woke me up.”
“Really?” he asked, dropping his head to nuzzle at her neck. “My apologies, your Grace. Have you any demands for reparations?”
“Hmm,” Una sighed, “I think I can trust you to deliver an appropriate response without instruction.”
Her husband let out a huff of air that served as laughter. Una practically purred with pleasure as his large, weather-beaten hands toyed with the fine silk of her night rail, before slipping underneath it to caress her bare skin.
Una may have only have been a wife for three months, but she had waited seven long years to marry Christopher Pike and she was determined to enjoy every moment as a married women. Christopher had taught her everything she knew about the pleasures of the marriage bed, and she was always keen to indulge herself with the blissful sensations he awakened in her.
Their morning lovemaking was relaxed, and lazy; their evening lovemaking always passionate and exhausting. There had even been several times when he had appeared suddenly in her drawing room in the afternoon, locked the door and performed such acts of carnal wickedness she was sure that the windows would steam up.
He called her “Number One” as a playful tease on her name, but also as an indication of the place she held in his heart and in his mind. She had not expected him to be faithful during their years apart, but he swore that he had, and she believed him absolutely.
Una felt like the luckiest woman in the world, right until her maid arrived a few hours later with their breakfast and she vomited spectacularly over their brand-new bed-linen.
Her husband’s first reaction was to bellow for the butler to call for a doctor, then rush about in a fine panic as he dressed himself in the previous night’s clothing. By now the maid had whipped the thankfully unused chamber pot from under the bed and handed it to her mistress, along with a glass of water from the jug on the nightstand.
By the time the butler arrived and the household was in a complete frenzy, Una’s stomach had stopped rolling and the maid had removed the vile pot, replacing it with a cup of tea and a cool washcloth for her forehead.
“You’ll be alright, your Grace,” the maid had whispered as she whisked Una out of her spoiled nightrail and into a voluminous wrapper. “It was the same for my sister, and it all stopped after the first few months. It’s all natural, your Grace, don’t you worry.”
It took Una a few moments to process the woman’s kind words, as she was distracted by her husband loudly ordering every footman and groom in the building out on every horse in the stables to find every doctor in the county and drag them back here immediately.
“Christopher, do stop being an ass,” she said wearily. “I do not need a doctor.”
“But you were sick,” he said, dropping to one knee by the side of her chair and taking her hand between his. He stole a look at the ruined bed-linens. “Copiously so.”
“I rather believe that we must expect this to be the case most mornings for the foreseeable future,” Una said, a small smile playing on her lips.
It took her husband a regrettably long time to register what she was hinting at; had they been alone, she could have spoken more plainly, but by this point her husband’s voice, trained to be heard over the crashing of waves and thunder of cannon, had brought nearly every above-stairs member of staff crowding into their bedchamber. He threw discretion to the wind and grabbed her into a fierce hug, murmuring “A baby, a baby,” over and over again.
Gradually the butler shooed everybody out of the bedroom, and shut the doors gently behind him, giving them some privacy. Her husband acted as her lady’s maid that day, lacing her into her corset and tying her garters. He had the vaguely stunned look of a man who had run face-first into a wall, and kept staring at her midsection as if he expected it to balloon at any minute.
“You have made me incredibly happy,” he told her later that day, as they sat side by side in the morning room and began to talk of names for their future child. “I cannot think of anything that could spoil my mood today.”
Then the butler scratched at the door, handed the duke his post, and Una’s vague plans of a quiet, relaxed confinement went straight out of the nearest window.
Provided by website-hit-counters.com site.