“Why have we not done this before, madam?” he demanded of her.
Blaze chuckled. “I do not believe that we ever thought of it,” she replied. She slid her hands beneath the water and boldly fondled his buttocks.
Edmund groaned, but the sound was not one of pain, rather it was a sound of pleasure. “Witch,” he said softly, “you will kill me with your kindness.”
“Turn yourself about, my lord, and try not to splash the water this time,” was her reply.
When he had obeyed her command, she began to lather his chest with the sweet-scented soap. Her slender fingers delicately encircled the nipples on his chest, sending small ripples of delight down his spine. Again her hands disappeared beneath the water to slide over his belly, to caress his rampant manhood. Her heart-shaped face gave no hint of what she was thinking, although he thought he detected the corners of her mouth twitching with amusement.
“Sit back, my lord, and give me a foot,” she finally said. Carefully, with serious demeanor, she washed the foot, soaping it thoroughly, thrusting a suggestive finger between each toe, then rinsing it off. The second foot was given its equal share of the same treatment, and when she had finished, Blaze said, “You are now bathed, sir, and it is my turn.” Then with a little smile she handed him the little cake of soap.
He signaled her to turn about, and began by washing her back as she had washed his. When he reached her buttocks she wriggled most provocatively against his touch. He slid his hands around to cup her round wet breasts, sliding them beneath the soft flesh to gently crush it in his grasp. His thumbs reached up to tweak at her hardened nipples, and she wriggled once more against him, causing his manhood to ache most furiously. “Be still!” he growled in her ear, nipping it with his strong white teeth, then kissing away the quick pain.
“I cannot help it,” she whispered at him.
“Shameless little witch,” he replied, and he stood up, pulling her up with him. Turning her about, he yanked her water-slicked body against him and found her mouth.
Slowly he kissed her, letting his lips move lingeringly against her lips.
The warm water had weakened her after the long ride, and she half-sagged against his lean body. She could feel his manhood raging against her thigh as she parted her lips to receive his tongue. She was dizzy with his kisses which were like heady wine to her.
Picking her up he carried her to the bed, and together they fell upon it, heedless of the fact they had not dried themselves off. Gently he stroked her, his hand moving down her arm, smoothing over the curve of her hip. “I want to love you, Blaze,” he murmured into her ear, “but I’ll not harm the child.”
She struggled to open her eyes, for her lids were heavy with her passion. “Mama . . . Mama says it is all right . . . until the end of June.” Reaching up, she pulled his head down to her breast, and sighed as he clamped his mouth over the nipple, suckling upon her until he drove her into a frenzy of desire. “Now! Oh, please, now!” she sobbed.
“Nay, my sweet. We will take our time, and make these moments last, for soon we will not have them until after the child is born.” He caressed her other breast with a tender hand before bending to suckle upon it.
With great effort Blaze struggled to master her own passion, and when she had succeeded, she felt the sweetness of his love pouring through her, and found greater satisfaction than she had ever found before in his arms. Together they reexplored each other’s bodies, stroking slowly, touching with tenderness, and anticipating without haste the final pleasure to come. When at last he entered her eager body, moving with deliberate lack of haste, it was as if he were determined that they enjoy every second of their coming together.
Her breasts were swollen hard, the nipples tight. The rest of her body felt an almost painful fullness such as she had never felt. She felt the heat of his manhood as he pressed it deep inside her, to be followed by an almost aching suction as he drew back so he might thrust within her again. Her senses were reeling, and she felt suddenly weightless as she was whirled off into a golden haze of the most powerful, undiluted pleasure she had ever known in her young life. Desperately, as if she sought to keep herself from falling, she clung to her husband, her fingernails digging deeply into his shoulders as with a cry he released his tribute into her waiting body.
They immediately fell into a deep sleep, not awakening until the morning. During the next few weeks the intensity of their passion for each other seemed to grow as if the knowledge of their future abstinence drove them to desperation. Though Blaze found herself nauseous in the late afternoons, there was not, for the time being, any other outward sign of her condition.
News of her impending motherhood seemed to race upon the wind, however, though no formal announcement had been made. As the summer came, and the orchards and fields grew ripe with their crops, so Blaze ripened with her child. To forestall any argument on his wife’s part, Edmund invited his sister to come and visit until after the birth. Lonely at Riverside, Dorothy Wyndham gladly agreed. Though he had not yet found himself a wife, Anthony remained at court. His new status as Lord Wyndham of Riverside had increased his chances of finding a wife, but if there was a woman who had taken his fancy, he had not yet communicated that fact to his mother or uncle.
On the sixteenth of September Blaze and Edmund celebrated the first anniversary of their marriage. Michaelmas came and went along with a particularly rainy autumn. On the last day of November the Countess of Langford had her seventeenth birthday. She was large with child, but she bloomed with a happiness that transmitted itself to all about her. As for Edmund, he was visibly more relaxed than his sister had seen him in years, for as each month of his wife’s pregnancy passed without all the symptoms and emergencies he had come to expect with poor Catherine, he began to believe even more strongly that he would at last have an heir.
So convinced was he finally of his wife’s good health that he did not argue with her when Blaze announced in early autumn that Christmas would be as usual at RiversEdge. Reconsidering somewhat later, however, he was reassured by his sister that she would see Blaze did nothing to injure either herself or the child at this late date.
“Christmas without the family would be depressing, Edmund,” she told him. “Besides, Rosemary Morgan will want to be with her daughter at the birth of her first grandchild. Who better could we have to help your wife than her mother, who has birthed so many children herself?”
“Blaze has been a good chatelaine from the beginning,” he replied. “She will want to supervise everything, I know it!”
“She can supervise from her chair in the Great Hall, brother. Cease your fretting! Carrying a child is a condition usual to women. It is not an illness,” Dorothy finished tartly.
Blaze’s eyes twinkled with laughter as her sister-in-law, with whom she was fast friends despite the disparity in their ages, repeated this conversation. “Poor Edmund,” she said. “I do not know who will be more relieved to have this child, he or I.”
“Pah!” came the sharp reply. “Men have no idea what it is like to bear a new life beneath your heart. Only a woman can know that, my dear. I remember the joy I felt each time I carried one of Richard’s children. A man’s relief stems from the eventual delivery of his heir, for that child is his immortality. Men, bless them, are simple creatures, and if you fill their wants, they are usually content. Those needs are very basic. Food, clothing, shelter, women, sons, riches, and power.”
Blaze laughed aloud. “Edmund does not seek power, Doro.”
“Nay, not he, but there are men who do, my dear. Beware them, for they can destroy you.”
“My life is here, Doro, with Edmund. I shall never leave RiversEdge but for little visits to my sisters and my parents. My world is simple, even as I would have it.”
Christmastide was upon them once again, and with the Twelve Days of feasting and merrymaking came the Morgan family and all their offspring. Blythe and her husband, Nicholas Kingsley, lived just a mile upstream and across the River Wye from RiversEdge. Lord Kingsley had caused a comfortable barge to be built so he and his wife might be rowed across the water, thus making their journey an easy one, as young Lady Kingsley was almost as great with child as her elder sister. Bliss, her belly as flat as her twin’s was round, arrived from court with Owen and Anthony. Her clothing was the absolute height of fashion, and she was brimming with delicious gossip that kept all the women of the family enthralled for days.
Lord Morgan and his wife arrived, and Blaze, looking closely at her mother, gasped. “Mama! You are . . .”
“I am having a baby, Blaze, even as you and Blythe. There is nothing unusual about my having a baby.” She smiled at her husband. “Your father and I have made a habit of it, and the house seemed so empty with the three of you gone, and Delight is going to be visiting with Bliss and Owen this winter. I cannot remember when last I felt so very lonely. I know it is foolish of me. I am thirty-four years of age, but I seemed to need just one more baby.”
“Except in your case, Mama,” laughed Bliss, “it is rarely just one, but tell us, when is this sister or brother of ours to be born?”
“Sometime in late March or early April,” replied Lady Rosemary.
“You have stolen my thunder, Mama,” teased Blaze. “Here I, with my child’s birth impending, hoped to be the center of attention this Christmas.”
Rosemary Morgan laughed. “Indeed, Blaze, and you will be, for I can see that your child will not wait much longer to put in an appearance.”
“By Christmas Day,” said Blaze. “I remember praying last year for just such a gift from God.”
Her prayer, however, was not answered. The feast of the Christ Child’s birth came and went, yet Blaze’s child remained firmly rooted within its mother’s womb. The Countess of Langford found herself growing cranky. Gazing at Bliss across the Great Hall, she sighed deeply. How beautiful and slim her sister was. And Delight. There was another surprise. In the eight months since the twins’ wedding Delight had grown taller than her three elder siblings, and had developed a beautiful bosom that even Bliss did not tease her about, being secretly jealous. At almost fifteen years Delight Morgan was promising to be a ravishing beauty within another year or so.
Larke and Linnette were now eleven and a half and Vanora would be nine in February. The elder two were coltish, and had taken to whispering behind their hands and giggling a great deal. Vanora, however, had lost her baby look. There was the hint of a young girl about her, and her boldness had not decreased one whit. She still delighted in baiting Bliss who, despite her months at court, was as yet vulnerable to her little sister’s taunts. As for the youngest Morgans, Gavin and his sister, Glenna, they seemed unchanged at this time.
On the last day of the old year Blaze’s child announced its impending arrival. If she had ever been grateful for her family, she was most grateful for them now, for all the old bad memories came racing back to haunt Edmund, and he feared for his young wife. She could not concentrate upon easing his fears right now. All her energies must go to bringing her child safely into the world. She was relieved to learn from Bliss that her father, Anthony, and her two brothers-in-law had taken her husband into the Great Hall and were getting him drunk.
Bliss and Blythe were also sent to the Great Hall to oversee the children, for Blythe, near her own confinement, was deemed in too delicate a condition to help with the birth. Bliss, however, wandered back and forth between the two camps bringing news to each of the others.
“I do not know why Delight cannot take care of the younger ones,” she complained to her mother.
“Bliss, be fair. Delight is desperately attempting to attract Anthony’s eye. Why do you think she begged to come and visit you at court this winter? He has yet to settle upon any female, and Delight is ready for marriage.”
“Her flux has begun?” asked Lady Dorothy.
“A year ago,” came the reply.
“Hmmmmmmmm,” considered the good lady. “Perhaps then we should help things along between those two. If no one at King Henry’s court has caught his eye, and his heart, then Delight is as good a match as any, say I!”
Rosemary Morgan smiled, knowing how Lady Dorothy’s words would please her fourth-born child. Delight had obstinately refused to consider any of the possible matches her parents had proposed over the past year. “We can, of course, speak on it, Doro, but first let us see to Blaze’s safe delivery.”
The young Countess of Langford labored lightly throughout the entire day and evening. Her labor grew harder as the night deepened, until, a few minutes before the midnight hour, she brought forth her child. In the Great Hall they heard the loud and squalling cry of the infant, and Edmund, still sober for all his in-laws’ efforts, leapt to his feet. Bliss dashed from the hall, her skirts held high to prevent her from tripping. They waited, and then as the bells began to toll in the new year of Our Lord, 1523, Dorothy Wyndham appeared in the Great Hall, a swaddled bundle tucked within her arms.
Walking up to her brother, she placed the bundle into his arms, saying as she did, “My lord, your daughter. Blaze has delivered of a fine and healthy girl!”
Edmund looked down at the infant in his arms. Catherine’s babes had been tiny and pale. This child was big and rosy. From her small head sprang a wealth of dark curls, and to his great surprise, he found her blue eyes were focused most distinctly upon his face. She blinked solemnly at him, and he laughed joyously. It was more than obvious that this child would live. What matter that it was a daughter, and not the desired son? They would have other babies, and there would be sons enough among them. He looked up at Doro. “Blaze?”
“Happy, but furious not to have had a boy. You must go and reassure her,” came the reply, and Dorothy took her niece back from her brother’s arms.