Finding Bliss

by B L Bierley

  Eric’s breathing grew labored as he felt her body’s response to his. Bliss marveled at how easy she could feel everything inside her. The rush of her blood to the point where they were connected seemed to sing in her veins. Her response was quickened as Eric changed the pace. His body glistened in the dim light.

  Instinctively Bliss used her tongue to taste the flavor of his body’s response where she could see the pulse in his neck. Eric whispered that he loved everything she did, begged her to do whatever she wanted. His pleas for her exploration were like an invitation.

  Bliss let her hands move across the moistness of his skin, touching his body down to the soft curls of hair below his navel, and moving up to frame the edges of his muscular chest. Eric braced his body and arched his back until he was buried deep within her. Her tongue tested the flesh of his nipples and found the neat buds forming with the teasing of her mouth.

  Eric made a sound of urgency as her body responded to the primal excitement she had elicited from him. Bliss felt her sex as it seemed to grip his in trembling beats, her senses rocked against his.

  The culmination of their first intimate dance spiraled upward in celebration. Eric’s body tensed and flexed like green wood, bowed without breaking as his own pleasure spilled from him. He called out to her, the words on his lips as he kissed her and growled the tortured sounds of a man letting go, filling the space between them with the force of his climax.

  It lasted only a few dozen heartbeats, but the impression was etched on her soul forever. Eric’s breath came in short pants as he milked the last moments with gentle movements.

  Not wanting to smother her with his weight, Eric leaned to his left and rolled off her, taking his warmth and his body from hers. Bliss sighed in protest, but her smile gave her away. In her mind the visions of their future, the physical relationship that would follow their marriage came in stunning waves.

  “OH! Oh, my, I was totally wrong!” she said in surprised wonder.

  “About what?” Eric asked, not completely in control of his breath.

  “About our wedding night, the next night and the next morning, I was completely and utterly mistaken on the details! I never should have doubted it for a moment! What I couldn’t see before was in no way represented by the passage of time! There were many things hidden within the hours that passed!” This caused them both to laugh heartily in the afterglow of their first love making.

  “You are an amazing man, Eric Benchley!” Bliss exclaimed with a happy sigh. “If I’d known how well you would do, I could have waited, I suppose. But I confess I am an impatient person! But you have much more to teach me. I cannot wait!”

  “Someday, my love, you’ll learn that in some things you should never doubt me, either!” Eric laughed.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The Penwood Manor Estate, Family, Staff, Guests, the Vicar, Cardiff, Late April 1811

  Lord and Lady Penwood spared no expense on the first marriage of one of their children. Bliss pulled her father aside the day before the wedding to remind him about how to break the news of her dowry to Eric.

  “Make sure you do it somewhere outside, preferably in soft grass. And remind him that the family properties are ours to use if we ask. I want to make sure we can spend a week or two in Brighton come July. And make sure to tell him that you really wouldn’t have murdered him. I think he’s still a bit wary of your blessing,” Bliss said with a smirk.

  Ollie gave her a crushing hug and wiped a tear away on his sleeve, thinking she wouldn’t know he was happily sad that his little girl was grown up. He jokingly offered her any sailor on any of his ships if she changed her mind before the morning and wanted to be a shore bride to live at home. Bliss shook her head in good-natured refusal.

  The wedding was a grand soiree. More people attended than anyone expected. With the vicar’s tolerance for their peculiar family’s tastes, the added vow never to doubt one another was spoken by the bride and the groom just before he pronounced them as husband and wife.

  Eric and Bliss were joined at last, and the family celebrated in grand extravagance all the way down to the stable yard. Bliss was soon dancing with her new husband on the veranda and discussing what their future held.

  “Do you want to live in Bristol? I know you’re happy practicing medicine there, but whenever you’re willing to discuss it I’d like to talk about moving to your father’s house. I wouldn’t mind our children growing up in the place we know and love.”

  “I think it won’t be long. Bristol is fine if you’re a bachelor. But I think I agree with you. Children need a place where they can explore and roam. And besides, their grandparents will be here!” Eric smiled down into the face of his lovely bride. Then a curious expression creased his face.

  “What?” Bliss asked, already knowing he would ask.

  “How many children will we have? You don’t have to be exact, really. A rounded figure will do,” asked Eric with a quirked brow.

  “Less than my mother and more than Aunt Pen,” Bliss teased.

  “You aren’t going to tell me, are you?” Eric asked almost incredulously.

  “And spoil all the fun? Never,” Bliss giggled.

  “Will you at least let me know if I’ll have a son who’ll want to follow in my footsteps?” Eric pleaded in mock surrender.

  “I promise to tell you that as soon as I know. For now, I only see small things about them. The number, of course. The genders, oh, and which ones will look more like me and which ones will look like their papa! Their futures will not be determined until they learn and grow a little. But if they’re anything like your family or my family, they’re bound to be brilliant!”

  “I thought mine were just simple doctor-folk, and yours is the most accomplished,” Eric teased.

  “No, that’s selling us all much too short, dear! We can already claim two brilliant surgeons, two world-class sailors, an artist, a few shy romantics, an adventurer, a musician, and two as yet undetermined females with wit and genius untapped!

  “Oh, and a woman who is more aware than she has a right to be, but uses her talents only for the service of her loved ones! And those are just the ones who’ve already been born. Wait until we discover what’s to come!” Bliss smiled triumphantly.

  “Well that’s quite a lot already! I can’t wait to meet them!” Eric laughed heartily.

  “But you already know them! They’ve just not shown their fullest potential yet. But stay with me, and everything will eventually be seen. Take my word for it!”

  Epilogue

  The Benchley’s, Cardiff, Early March 1814

  “Hurry up, dear. Mama is expecting us to arrive early so she can have some time with Percy and Persephone,” Bliss urged her husband of three years. Her dress bulged large from her second pregnancy making it cumbersome to do much of anything.

  “Are you sure it’s safe for you to be so active, darling? I don’t want to have to deliver any babies while we’re celebrating at a ball. I’ve done that once, and it isn’t a regular habit I’m hoping to continue,” Eric said with worry creasing his forehead.

  “Relax, Eric. I’ve already told you. I’m not going to have the baby until next month. I promise I wouldn’t lie just to get to attend my family’s St. Patrick’s Day Ball. But I know I need to be there. There are some people I need to speak with. It’s too important an opportunity to miss.” Bliss told him.

  Eric wrestled the two-year old twins up into his arms with relative ease and stared at his very pregnant wife with misgiving.

  “I have your word before a vicar that you wouldn’t ever doubt me, sweetheart. Need I always remind you?” Bliss teased.

  “Of course not, my darling, I’m just having a little trouble when I see how ready you look, from a medical opinion, of course. But if you’re certain, then I suppose I should have Darren load the trunks in the carriage. Just promise me you won’t pick up either of the twins while we’re away and that you’ll only dance with me for the first and last sets,” Eric re
quested.

  “If it will make you more at ease, we’ll dance only once, and I promise not to lift anything larger than a pasty,” Bliss agreed.

  “Then we’re off, and God help us,” Eric said in an exasperated sigh.

  End of book one.

  Acknowledgments

  As always, I would like to thank my family for their unwavering support of my “paper kids” and their successes. It’s a great life when you get to do what you really love and have the people you love support you in doing it!

  A big thanks again to all of my proof-readers! I wouldn’t put one word out there for the public to enjoy if I didn’t have you all toiling through the process with me. You guys are the best!

  To my growing group of readers, thank you again for reading my novels! I appreciate the support, through purchases and reviews you write! Never be afraid to tell me how you feel about my work. I’m not writing these stories just because I love to write, I’m writing because I want you all to love reading what I write!

  And lastly, thank you to the Amazon.com/Kindle Direct Publishing family. All of you make doing what I love that much more rewarding. Thank you!

  The next book in The Penwood Legacy focuses on the eldest brother, Russ.

  Having gotten a reputation among his Navy cohorts, Lord Commander Russell Varenne, Count of Varenne and future Duke of Penwood, is more widely known as Lord Lazarus due to his ability to rise again and again. But it’s not from the dead that he’s always rising! Russ is quite the ladies’ man.

  On a particularly ordinary shore leave home for his mother’s usual St. Patrick’s Day Ball, Russ takes one too many chances. He ends up compromising a woman who never intended to get herself in the hot seat. Now he’s forced to be a husband to the one woman in the world who would rather run him up the yard arm than kiss him.

  Lady Adelaide Muriel “Admiral” Loudon is averse to life on land. Having been raised at sea with a no-nonsense father and a crew of sailors, Admiral is more than capable of defending herself. After taking a pointed dislike to the swarthy Lord “Lazarus,” Admiral cooks up a plan. Since the handsome rake is notoriously unconcerned with relationships, but mysteriously honorable for whatever reason, Admiral schemes to trap him into a bloodless union with her unfortunately seasick and off-balanced friend Lady Marie Snow—who needs a husband to allow her to remain on terra firma!

  Believing the rakish soon-to-be captain would likely leave his unwanted bride onshore, Admiral plots to have him compromise Marie and catch him in the act. But when things don’t go as planned, it is Admiral who ends up compromised and married to the infamous rake. She’s forced to plan an escape to try to talk some sense into her father’s thick head. But when her groom ends up being one step ahead of her, sparks and swords soon fly.

  No Escape from Love is the Second Book in The Penwood Legacy, an adventurous tale of infamy, seduction and swordplay that you won’t want to miss!

  EXCERPT

  No Escape from Love: Book Two of the Penwood Legacy Series

  Admiral felt her stomach twist as she rode toward Bristol. She had three hours of hard riding ahead of her. She would tie the horse at Lord Osterburg’s estate, Whisper Chase.

  Leaving the horse at the gate and walking back to the docks on foot was her only option. She was no thief. Lord and Lady Osterburg would return Lord Penwood’s horse eventually. The only thing she regretted was lying to everyone. Only Lady Bliss hadn’t been fooled. Her parting words were frightening.

  “You can’t run from fear or fate, darling,” was all the woman had said. Admiral couldn’t even acknowledge the statement. Instead she’d hugged the others and claimed a meeting with her husband.

  They’d all find out soon enough. She only hoped no one told her father before he left a little later. He was never one for goodbyes anyhow.

  Lord Captain Loudon never liked anything maudlin or sentimental. Every time she’d been sent away to school, he never once said anything. She was unceremoniously hauled away in a carriage that he “just managed to miss,” or so he always said later.

  Riding was not easy. Admiral was a priestess on the high seas, but a bumbling idiot on a horse. She made her way in the lengthening shadows of afternoon and prayed she wouldn’t be caught by any highwaymen. She had no cutlass or even a dagger so it would be wits and fists, definitely not her best defense arena. But no one was on the road as she made her way toward Bristol.

  At around six p.m. she pulled up her reins and dismounted painfully to the hard cobbled street. She left a note pinned to the mare’s blanket explaining the horse’s ownership, untied the knots to free her valise and barely acknowledged a stable boy running toward the horse as she walked briskly away. Expecting at any second to hear the lad calling, Admiral hurried around the nearest corner and ran full bore for the Allegro.

  Once she reached the dock, Admiral moved through the slipway and up to the Allegro’s main deck undetected. A voice met her when she was halfway up the gangway to the galley stairs.

  “What are you doing back here so soon? Father said you wouldn’t be back for this trip,” Hark asked accusingly. Admiral whirled around to face him, sullen and bitter without just cause.

  “Never mind that. I’ll deal with your deception later, brother! How could you throw me to the sharks that way? You’ve broken my trust, and it deserves no less than a stiff battle once we’re moving. For now, I will consider letting you live if you’ll keep quiet about me being aboard. I’ll hide in my room. No one will look for me in there,” Admiral announced with a sneer.

  “Wait a minute, what’s that you’re wearing?” Hark asked following her close at her heels. He tugged at the ribbons now flowing in tatters behind her back.

  “Nothing, just a silly gown for the ball I didn’t stay for. Now, are you going to keep jabbering like a popinjay, or are you going to keep shut of this? I’ll fight you now if it’s the former.”

  Admiral turned to peer back at him up the galley stairs. She hurried past the wardroom and into the mid-deck lastage that had served as her room since she was old enough to need privacy.

  “Is that a wedding ring you’re wearing?” Hark teased quietly. “I believe it is. What in the hell have you done, sister?”

  “None of your bloody business! Now shut your gob, or I’ll shut it for you!” Admiral hissed.

  Hark chuckled darkly and continued to hound her all the way to her chamber. When she was inside, she didn’t light a candle. Closing the door behind her, Admiral dropped her bag to the floor in exhaustion.

  Before she took two steps, she heard a noise. Without thinking, she turned to open the door again. It was locked from without.

  What the hell?

  “Hark? Open my door right this minute!” Admiral yelled, not trying to be sneaky now. The next sound she heard was from inside the room. A feeling of dread soaked her skin in a cold sweat.

  “Is that noise really necessary, dove?” Russ’s thick, dusky voice called from the far corner.

  “You! How did you …” and suddenly she knew so she added, “Let me guess, Lady Bliss?”

  “You have no idea the times in my life I’ve cursed her gifts. But I think today I might owe her an apology. She saved me from a most embarrassing reception faux pas my three hour bride committed. I should buy her something large to express my gratitude,” Russ’s voice dripped with sarcasm. Admiral turned again to work on the knob.

  “You should be quiet unless you want your father to hear. He was readying his horse at the same time I was. He was hard on my heels. Everyone’s probably already on board. Now, I want to know first off, why did you leave?” Russ asked simply

  He walked forward and struck a match in his fingertips. He lit the candles on her desk near the left wall of the room and waited. In the flickering candlelight, Admiral could see tense lines of anger. But his fury was barely registering compared to hers.

  “You had no right to do what you did! Why on earth did you offer for me? I would have talked my way out of it!” she shou
ted, moving away from the door. Russ stood by and casually fingered the dead match with his thumb.

  “The way I understood it, you were counting on my offering marriage after my little indiscreet liaison,” he answered without yet meeting her intense glare. Admiral quickly and dangerously moved until she was directly in his face.

  “I intended to have you offer for Marie because she bloody wanted to marry! I only meant to aid her in her quest, because I wasn’t particularly keen on having her displace all the water in the Atlantic with her vomit!

  “You didn’t give me time to explain before you put your hands on me! I’m not accustomed to being pawed. I didn’t react appropriately, or I surely would have sheared your manhood with a sharp blade,” said Admiral coldly.

  “Tsk, tsk, Lady Varenne, is that any way to talk to your husband?” he said leveling her with a steely gaze that nearly unhinged her knees. She backed away instinctively.

  “You … that’s … you didn’t even try to let me apologize before you were kissing me,” Admiral stammered.

  “It didn’t seem to me that you intended to utter another syllable after your tongue entered my mouth. But if you’d like to apologize now, I’m listening,” Russ’s tone stayed level, but his eyes burned into her face like hot pokers. Admiral staggered toward her desk in stunned frustration.

  “What do you want with an apology now? It’s too bloody late! We’re married except for the wedding night, which I assure you will not happen until Hell itself freezes like the Alps in winter!”

  To punctuate her statement, Admiral flounced around to face the door again and began pounding incessantly.

  “Hark, I will gut you like a tuna if you don’t open this door at once! Hark? I know you can bloody well hear me! You bastard son of a whoring pirate! Open the bloody door!”

  “Is this the same mouth you kissed me with last night? I’m surprised my lips didn’t burn! What kind of language is that for a lady?” Russ was closer to her, and she could feel his heat.