“Nay, my lord earl,” said Bliss sweetly, sensing her victory, “I have never been kissed by any man but my father. You seek my kisses, do you not? What value do you place upon them, then?” The prey had become the predator.
Owen FitzHugh was not so easily led by his lust, however. He grinned wickedly at her and drawled, “I must sample your wares, Mistress Morgan, before I can place a price upon them.”
“Innocence once given, sir, cannot be restored,” she replied. “Do you take me for a fool that I should allow you to have for naught that which is my greatest treasure?”
“It is not your virginity I seek at this moment, pretty puss, just a kiss,” he mocked her.
“My first kiss,” Bliss said pridefully, blushing at his bold words.
“A first kiss is sweet for its innocence, and honors the recipient,” he told her bluntly, “but as kisses go, a maiden’s first efforts are usually childish, and ’tis somewhat like kissing a mackerel with its lack of passion.”
“Ohhhhhhh!” Both Bliss’s look and tone were of pure outrage, and furiously she hit at Owen FitzHugh with closed fists.
It was exactly the opportunity he sought. Catching her wrists in his strong grasp he forced her arms to her sides while pressing her body with his against the dark stone wall of the alcove. There was no way in which she could escape him, and there at his leisure he took her first kiss, moving his mouth sensuously over hers until with a helpless little moan Bliss’s lips parted beneath his.
“Now, puss,” he murmured against her quivering mouth, “that’s over and done with, and I will teach you how to really kiss. You had best learn to please me, Bliss, for know now that you’ll never kiss another as long as I have breath in my body!”
Bliss felt wild exultation pouring through her. She had never ever suspected that passion could be so wonderfully exciting as it was proving to be. The moment he had first looked at her earlier today she had known that he was the man for her, and now, her mouth dry with longing, Bliss looked up at Owen FitzHugh, and said but two words. “Teach me!” But before he might comply, a warning voice interrupted them.
“I cannot allow you to compromise my young sister-in-law, Owen,” said Edmund Wyndham.
Releasing Bliss, the Earl of Marwood turned to face his host. “I intend escorting Bliss home to ask her father’s permission for her hand in marriage, Edmund.”
The Earl of Langford nodded. “You will have company then in Nick Kingsley, who it seems has fallen under the spell of Mistress Blythe, and intends a similar mission.”
“Ohh, how wonderful!” cried Bliss, clapping her hands together with joy. “It would have been so awful if Blythe and I did not find happiness together. I could not have left her alone, but now she will have a husband also! Ohh, come, my lord! Hurry! I would be the first to wish my twin happy!” Catching at his hand, she dragged him impatiently from their rendezvous back down the hall.
“Blythe will want to be the first to wish us happy as well!” she finished, while behind her Edmund chuckled.
“Does that mean what I think it means?” said Dorothy Wyndham coming up to stand beside her brother. “Is Marwood offering for her?”
“Aye,” he answered her. “And Kingsley has declared himself for Blythe.”
“God’s foot!” swore Dorothy Wyndham. “I had hoped to have one of them for Tony.”
“Neither would have suited Tony,” replied her brother.
She nodded. “You are right, but yet with all of Blaze’s sisters there must be one that would suit my son. I suppose we must settle for Delight.”
“Delight is naught but a child, Doro!” the earl exclaimed.
“She says her womanhood is upon her, and can I doubt her word? Besides she already adores Tony, which is all to the good.”
“Whatever Delight may say, she is not yet a woman. The child has no breasts, Doro, and is yet tiny. Were she a woman her bosom would be swelling and she would gain height. She is near, but not yet ready for marriage. Tony will have to seek elsewhere for a wife, I fear.”
“Every eligible girl for miles is either wed, or betrothed, or too young,” complained his sister. “There is not even an available widow! Tony’s lack of interest in finding a wife to date is now hampering him. I do not know what we can do, Edmund. Perhaps he should go to court to seek a wife.”
“The court is no place right now to find a respectable wife, but mayhap he will meet someone with a sister or daughter who needs a husband. Aye, Doro. Send him to court after Twelfth Night. His future could possibly be awaiting him there. God only knows there is nothing here for him.”
Chapter 6
Blaze’s birthday fete over, her sisters departed for home the following day looking greatly forward to their return a week before Christmas, when they would come with their entire family. Bliss and Blythe were glowing with happiness, and despite the cold weather rode proudly beside their intended husbands. Within the coach Delight huddled morosely. She had never felt more gloomy in her entire life. Blaze was radiantly happy in her marriage. The twins had both found love at first sight. Delight knew that their father would heartily approve of both Lord Kingsley and the Earl of Marwood. The spring would see those weddings celebrated at Ashby.
Delight sighed as a great wash of self-pity engulfed her. She would be fourteen next June, and she was practically a woman. She was just as ready to be wed as were her three older sisters. Why could no one else see it? Why could not Anthony Wyndham see it? His mother liked her, she knew, and Lady Dorothy wanted her son married. Why could not that good lady realize that Delight Morgan was the perfect choice for Anthony Wyndham?
The tears flowed unchecked down Delight’s pretty face, and she was glad that Bliss and Blythe were riding outside the carriage. How they would mock her. Only her brother-in-law, Edmund, understood the true depth of her feelings about Anthony. He had taken her upon his knee last night when she had been feeling so despondent, and said to her that the man who wed with her one day would be most fortunate. Then he told her that Tony would be going to court to find a wife after Twelfth Night. When she had wept into his velvet-clad shoulder he had comforted her with sweetmeats and said Tony was not worthy of her. But he was!
She cried all the harder with the memory, realizing suddenly that she felt simply awful. Her head hurt. She felt nauseous, and her belly was cramping dreadfully. Miserable, she curled herself into a tight ball and attempted to sleep. She was secretly pleased when upon arriving home at Ashby her woeful state took immediate precedence over the twins’ news. Her mother hurried her off to Old Ada, who upon undressing Delight discovered the reason for the girl’s misery.
“Look, my lady! Look! Did I not say that Delight’s womanhood was upon her? And here is her first flux! I am never wrong!” the old woman crowed, pleased. She took the young girl’s bloodstained petticoats and handed them to a serving wench. “Take these to the laundress, Mab!”
Delight almost shouted with her joy at this turn of events. She felt suddenly better. Now they could not say she was too young for marriage! Now she had a chance with Anthony Wyndham, and come Christmastide she would make her move. She stood quietly while Old Ada bathed her, and her mother explained the proper ways a woman in her condition cared for herself. Fed warm mulled wine and tucked into bed with a flannel-wrapped hot brick at her feet, Delight drifted off into a pleasant dream.
On the eighteenth of December the entire Morgan family along with a few especially chosen servants descended upon RiversEdge.
“I hope we will not be crowding them out,” fretted Lady Rosemary, who had no real idea of the size of the house which her eldest daughter now managed. “The whole family seems like a great deal of people to me, especially now that Bliss and Blythe are betrothed and their fiances will be there. Lord Kingsley’s widowed mother has been invited too. I do hope she will like Blythe.”
“I am certain,” Lord Robert soothed his wife, “that Blaze is in full control of the situation. She would not have asked us all had she not th
e room. As for old Lady Kingsley, I am certain that she will love Blythe as we all do.”
Still Rosemary Morgan fretted until, finally gaining her first glimpse of RiversEdge, her pretty mouth fell open in amazement. “ ’Tis a palace!” she gasped, for although she had never seen a palace, she was certain that one must be as gorgeous as was this house.
“Nay, just a great house,” her husband replied with more aplomb than he was feeling. He had seen somewhat more than his wife in his lifetime, but although he would not let her know it, even he was surprised by the magnificent house that was now his daughter’s home.
The carriages carrying Lord Morgan, his family, and his servants rolled onward down the hill road from the village and into the large courtyard of RiversEdge. As the Morgans and their retainers stepped from their vehicles, they found themselves warmly greeted by both Blaze and Edmund, who had hurried from the house at the first sounds of their arrival and as quickly drew them inside, where all the many fireplaces were blazing merrily.
“We’ve only asked the immediate family, and those about to be,” apologized Edmund. “I hope it will not be too dull a time for you, belle mère.”
“Nay, my lord, I like family best on these occasions,” said Rosemary Morgan, her quick eye counting over twenty people excluding servants within the Great Hall.
Blaze had waited until her sisters’ arrival to decorate the house, and so the following morning while the men went out upon their first hunt for the Christmas boar, the women hurried off to seek and cut the greens. When the men returned that night unsuccessful in their quest, they found the women had not been at all unsuccessful during their day. RiversEdge was garlanded with evergreens, holly, boxwood, laurel, and bay. Each room was fragrant with sweet smelling pine, and Christmas candles, which were representative of the Star of Bethlehem, had been placed upon the mantels and sideboards and any other flat surface that would contain them.
Anthony Wyndham was unanimously appointed the Lord of Misrule over the festivities, and he immediately ordered a game of blindman’s buff. Even Blaze was encouraged by her husband to join in, which she did with much relish, and was soon as tousled as the rest of her guests. Delight deliberately allowed herself to be caught by Anthony, and when asked what forfeit she would pay, boldly said, “A kiss!” Recognizing his victim by both her size and voice, Tony turned his head just slightly at the proper moment, and to her vast disappointment, Delight found her lips making contact with his cheek, which was not at all the way she had planned it. Before she might protest, however, she found herself blindfolded, and It.
On the twenty-first of December, which was the Feast of Saint Thomas, they entertained parties of children from each of the Langford estate’s nine villages, who came a-wassailing into the Great Hall of RiversEdge.
Wassail, wassail, through the town,
If you’ve got any apples, throw them down;
If you’ve got no apples, money will do;
The jug is white and the ale is brown,
This is the best house in the town! ...
piped the enthusiastic young voices to their master and mistress and all their assembled guests. Each child was rewarded with a small silver penny, and Lord Robert and his wife marveled to themselves at their son-in-law’s great generosity.
The twenty-third of December finally saw the gentlemen hunters successful, and a great boar with ugly curved tusks was brought home trussed securely between two poles. Little Gavin Morgan, who was almost six, rode excitedly ahead of the hunting party as they returned, triumphantly blowing upon his hunting horn. It had been his first grown-up hunt, and he could not sleep that night for his excitement.
The twenty-fourth of December saw the Yule log cut from the trunk of a huge fallen ash, hauled in from the forest through the Great Hall, and set into the huge main fireplace, which it more than filled. Everyone in the household from the lowliest scullion to the earl himself had pushed and pulled the great Yule log to its final resting place, for it was considered good luck to do so.
It was Blaze’s duty as mistress of RiversEdge to light the Yule log. Custom dictated that each year’s log must be first lit with a brand from the previous year’s log, which had been kept safe beneath the bed of the lady of the house. As Edmund Wyndham had not formally celebrated this holiday the year before due to his first wife’s death, it was now the brand from Catherine Wyndham’s last Yule log that he gave to Blaze. Their eyes met as she thrust the burning brand into the dry kindling, and she somehow felt that in completing this simple act she was truly Edmund’s wife, and the Countess of Langford. Catherine Wyndham, God assoil her good soul, was now only memory.
There had been much singing and laughter, and now that the huge log burned red-gold within the Great Hall’s main fireplace, all were served ale, and a merry Christmas was toasted. From the minstrel’s gallery now came music. Special Yule cakes were served along with hot Christmas frumenty, which was fine hulled wheat boiled in milk and sweetened with a sugar loaf. This was a very special treat for the servants, for sugar was a precious commodity.
Shortly before midnight they departed for Saint Michael’s church, reaching it just on the hour as the bells in the church tower, and all over England, joyously tolled in the Christmas. The bells celebrated not only Christ’s birth but also the firm Christian belief that that birth signaled the devil’s destruction. Stepping from their carriages, the earl, his family, and his guests entered the church to celebrate the first Mass of Christmas.
The night was calm and black. The stars above surely as sharp and bright as the very night of the Nativity itself. From within Saint Michael’s came the pure high voices of the church’s choristers, their clear tones floating to the heavens as they sang.
Venite adoremus, Dominum!
Venite adoremus, Dominum!
and,
Gloria! Gloria in excelsis Deo!
Within the church there was barely room to move, for everyone from the eldest soul to the littlest children in the villages and outlying farms of Michaelschurch and Wyeton had come to share the Christmas Mass with the earl and his beautiful countess. Blaze did not believe that she had ever been happier than she was at this moment, her hand tucked into her husband’s hand, her beloved family about her. Only one thing would make her life perfect. A child. Next year, she prayed. Let me stand in your house on Christmas next with my child, O Lord!
Returning to the house, she made certain that all her guests were comfortable before taking her own rest. “I have sent Heartha to her own bed,” she told Edmund. “You will have to be my tiring woman, my lord.”
“Not an unpleasant task, my sweet,” he told her, turning her about so he might unlace her. Tossing her jeweled bodice aside, he slid his hands into her chemise front, cupping her round breasts within his hands. Teasingly he rubbed his thumbs over her nipples, and grinned to himself, pleased when he felt the flesh pucker beneath his touch. The softness within his hands grew taut and firm as his kisses moved from her rounded shoulder to the junction between her shoulder and neck.
“Hmmmmmmmmm,” came her murmur, and arching her back, she pressed her little buttocks into his groin, rotating her hips as she did so. Feeling his length harden against her, it was Blaze’s turn to smile.
“Witch!” he groaned through gritted teeth as she increased her sensuous little movements.
Blaze laughed low, and moved out of her husband’s grasp. Turning about to face him, she loosened her skirts and petticoats, allowing them to slip to the floor. Stepping away from the colorful pile of fabric, she pulled her chemise over her head, and but for velvet shoes and dark knit stockings, was nude.
“Come, sir, my nightrail,” she teased him.
Edmund Wyndham’s dark brown eyes burned with open desire as he stared at his beautiful wife. With quick deliberate motions he tore his own garments off until he stood completely naked, his aroused state no longer hidden from her. Catching at Blaze’s hand, he drew her down upon the bed.
“My footwear!”
she protested.
He slipped the shoes from her feet, and then drew each stocking with its saucy garter down her pretty legs. “I’ll not wait,” he said. “You’ve roused me beyond a mortal man’s capacity to wait.”
“I am ready for you, my passionate lord,” she whispered back, pulling his head down so they might kiss.
With a groan of despair mixed with relief he returned her kiss, all the while plunging his sword within her burning sheath. As always, she was eager for him, and just as eager to please as to be pleasured.
Blaze felt him filling her with his great throbbing desire, and she gave in almost at once to the wonderful feeling of delight that he never failed to arouse in her. Was it wrong to so enjoy this heavenly conjunction of a man and a woman? She was yet too shy to ask her mother, and besides, she suspected that it was not something a girl might easily ask her mother. She would be glad when Bliss and Blythe joined her in nuptial pleasures so she might compare notes with them, but she hoped that they would enjoy this aspect of married life as much as she did.
“Ohhh!” she cried softly, reaching her first peak. “Ohhh! Ohhhh! Ohhhhhhh!” as wave upon wave overtook her. She thrust herself up gladly to meet his downward plunge. “Ohhhhhhhhhh, Edmund!” she sobbed as his hardness delved deeper and deeper into her responsive flesh. Was it never bad?
His excitement finally overcoming his control, the earl poured a libation of his love into his wife’s golden cup before collapsing upon her heaving breasts. “Dear heaven, how I love you,” he murmured hotly in her ear.
Surely a child must come from this, she thought sleepily when he had rolled off her and lay dozing by her side. Next Christmas! We will have a son by next Christmas, I am certain!
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