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She does not need to stay with him. After all, he is not her responsibility - although she already has so many of them he might be just that - and she is not his wife, lover or whatever this Barlow woman is to him. No, Eleanor could simply leave him to fend for himself. Well, she already has done enough - shown him bed hid away in that little alcove and made sure that he will not choke on his own vomit, as it would have happened if she was to let him stay on that chair. And yet she stays.
He stinks of blood, cheap wine, sour sweat and sea winds. Slowly, like she was performing a ritual, she pours water on a cloth and cleans his face. She wants to remember this face. Every wrinkle and scar, now slack jaw and mild expression that makes him look at least ten years younger. She could fall in love with him, she muses, pressing the cloth gently to the skin between his neck and shoulder. She could watch the horizon for his sails every day and keep him in her bed for days and talk about the idea of a pirate nation, of a kingdom that will never come, about human nature and things that are beyond the place where ocean meets sky. Eleanor knows that if she would fall in love with that man, she would not be happy - at least not in the conventional way of happiness. She wonders about that sometimes. She has seen Anne Bonny, this scary woman with not many words to say but with actions that speak. It is not conventional love they have, Anne and Calico Jack. They do not watch each others every move, they do not hold hands or speak of devotion and feelings and loneliness when the other one is not around. What they have is harsh like the sea and without sentiments for they are what kills people out there. She can see the appeal of that. They may be not a pair from romance books Eleanor reads sometimes but what they have may survive in this cruel world.
Flint is the kind of a man who would bring her pearls from his journeys and save a ring or a broach, the prettiest little thing he could find. He would offer it with an awkward smile and tenderness in his eyes. She smiles to that thought. It is a good one, one that makes her crave things she should not be craving for. Like a steady, good man in her bed and in her life. A man who would be her rock, unless until his ship sinks or his crew rebels against him or British Navy catches up to him and hangs them without mercy or at least a trial. She knows that life is cruel and short. Yes, short, especially in Nassau. Maybe that is the realization that triggers it. Or maybe it is something else entirely.
All in all, she leans - her breasts on his torso, she can feel his body's heat through two layers of clothing, his and hers - and brushes his lips with her own. They are chapped and taste like wine and she cannot help herself but to gently wet them with her tongue. She is sure that he is still asleep - or unconscious, maybe, it does not really matter - but his lips part under the pressure and before she knows what she is doing, no, before she realizes what she is doing and who she is doing it with - he returns the kiss sleepily and it it so intimate it hurts somewhere in her chest. When the kiss ends, he smiles with his eyes still closed and falls into deeper, peaceful sleep.
She feels flushed. For the first time in her goddamn life Eleanor Guthrie feels heat on her cheeks and her heart is pounding. Wet cloth is on the floor, completely forgotten and she stares at that mad, brilliant, broken man and feels that maybe it is too late to go back.
She really did not want this, just like she did not want this insanity with Charles Vane and Max and her life that went to shit. She is Eleanor Guthrie. She does not need a man to support her.
But, with her hand still over his heart, she thinks that it is too late.
It was already sealed.