“Is Master Anthony not my husband’s heir?”
“Master Anthony’s always known his uncle would one day have sons of his own. He’s never really expected to inherit from the earl. He’ll inherit from his own father. Riverside is his real home. Its lands match those of the earl, although it is much smaller. His uncle always jokes about Master Anthony’s firstborn daughter marrying his firstborn son.”
“Master Anthony is married?”
“Nay. It isn’t easy for a man lacking in means to find himself a wife, begging your pardon, my lady. Master Anthony has a nice little home, and a small income. He’s no great catch like his uncle, and he seems to be in no hurry either. Time enough for him, says I.”
Blaze laughed. She liked the jolly outspoken woman that Lord Wyndham had sent to be her servant. Heartha’s easygoing manner, while not perhaps the most proper, had certainly put her new mistress at her ease. I wonder, thought Blaze, if the earl knew she would? Was this stranger she was to wed possibly sensitive to her needs after all? It was something to consider, especially as by this time tomorrow she would be meeting her husband for the first time.
“The earl also sent you a riding outfit, my lady,” said Heartha’s voice, penetrating Blaze’s thoughts.
“Ohh,” she cried, and her delight was evident. “Blue velvet! Dark blue velvet! I have always dreamed of having a riding skirt and jacket like this! How could he have known?” Her eyes swept over the swatch of rich velvet that made up the skirt down to its hem, where a pair of black leather boots stood upon the floor. “Ohhhh,” Blaze sighed, and immediately sat down upon the edge of the bed, kicking off a shoe so she might try on a boot. Reverently her hands caressed the supple leather as she fitted her slender foot into the boot and slowly drew it up her leg. The fit was a perfect one. “Is the earl a magician,” she asked Heartha, “that he could know the size of my foot?”
Heartha chuckled. What a sweet and ingenuous little creature the earl’s bride was, but then Edmund Wyndham had always had good luck. The girl’s sweetness, however, was a good omen. “Think, my lady,” Heartha said in answer to Blaze’s bemused question. “In all the bridal preparations, was not your foot measured? I think it was, for all those measurements were delivered to my lord several weeks ago. The village cobbler has been busy at work ever since on all manner of shoes and boots for you.”
Suddenly Blaze found herself weeping. “It is not right,” she said, “that I should have so much, and my family so little!”
Heartha put comforting arms about the girl, saying, “Why, bless me, child, you must not feel that way. Now that you are to be the earl’s wife you will be able to aid your family. The earl has much wealth, but he would give it all for what your father has. A son. Give my master that son, and neither you nor yours will ever lack for anything, I’m thinking.” She gave Blaze a hard hug, saying, “Let me help you to try on your new riding outfit, that you may show your mother and sisters what a fine lady you now are.
As Blaze pirouetted shortly afterward for her mother and her siblings, Rosemary Morgan looked approvingly upon the relationship she saw beginning to form between her eldest child and the tiring woman. A loyal body servant was important to a young woman going to a new home.
The family was somewhat subdued at the evening meal. The reality of Blaze’s imminent departure was suddenly upon them. They also found themselves put off by the rare presence of a stranger in their family unit. As for Anthony Wyndham, he was both fascinated and enchanted by this family with whom his uncle was allying himself. Lord and Lady Morgan were to his eye both attractive and intelligent. The daughters were beautiful and, he suspected, in a less tense situation, charming, fun-loving girls.
As for the heir to Ashby Hall, young Gavin Morgan was not in the least subdued by his sisters’ unusual quiet. It was rare that he and his twin sister, Glenna, were allowed in the hall for a meal. Gavin was a sturdy little boy with dark brown hair and his father’s features. He chattered away quite unconcerned with his family’s guest, telling Anthony about his dog, who had just last week whelped a litter of six fine puppies, showing off his rudimentary Latin, and, to his parents’ relief, being a general delight.
“How my uncle would love a fine lad like Gavin,” said Master Anthony softly to Lady Morgan.
“I am certain that my daughter will be able to oblige him, sir,” came the mischievous reply. Lady Morgan could not help but smile a smile that quickly faded with her daughter’s sudden harsh words.
“I realize, my lord,” snapped Blaze, “that the earl weds with me only for what he hopes will be my fertility, but it would indeed be nice if for just a brief time I were allowed to believe I possessed other charms that might entice him!”
“
Blaze!
”
“What, Mama? Should I apologize to Master Anthony for being so indelicate? Very well then! Forgive me, sir, for discussing my fertility so openly, but everyone else seems to be doing it.” She stood abruptly, and without even asking her parents’ leave, walked swiftly from the hall.
“It must be bridal nerves,” said Lady Morgan weakly, and then she stared fiercely at her next three daughters, who had had the temerity to giggle. Her husband’s sudden fit of coughing did not help matters. It would be better, she thought, to send all of her children from the Great Hall before Master Anthony received the wrong impression, if he had not already received it. Perhaps amid an adult quiet, and with a goblet of good malmsey, her husband could repair any damage Blaze’s sharp words had caused. She signaled discreetly to Old Ada, who came forward to shepherd her charges from the hall.
While the nursemaid saw to the littlest of the Morgan children, the elder six crowded into the chamber shared by Blaze and the eldest twins. They found their eldest sister lying upon the bed staring up at the beamed ceiling. She wore only her chemise.
“Go away,” she muttered. “I need to sleep.”
“Nay,” said Blythe. “This is the last night of our lives that we shall all share together as maidens. Tomorrow night you will become a woman. It will never be the same again for us. You are the first, Blaze. After you we will all be wed, and go away from Ashby. In a way it is the end of childhood for us all. Let us stay and talk as we have on so many nights before this one.”
“Oh, please, yes!” said Larke and Linnette.
Blaze sat up and gazed at the eager faces about her. Her heart melted within her. She felt the tears pricking at the back of her eyelids. She loved her sisters, every one of them! She was going to miss them terribly. Oh, yes, she would see them again, but it would not be the same thing as living with them. Blythe was correct. It was the end of their childhood.
Blaze smiled. “Make yourselves comfortable,” she said, and then laughed as they all once again plumped themselves onto the bed that she shared with the twins. “What shall we talk about?” she asked them.
“Let’s talk about what it’s like to become a woman,” said Delight, a shiver running down her little spine. “After all, Blaze, tomorrow is your wedding, and tomorrow evening will be your wedding night.”
“How would I know about such things, you silly goose?” responded the bride-to-be.
“You’ve got some idea,” retorted Delight, offended at having been called a silly goose. “We’ve all seen the animals in the fields when the male mounts the female.”
“I cannot believe that people behave that way,” said Blaze.
“Then how do they behave? Hasn’t Mother said
anything
to you about it?”
The eldest sibling shook her head.
Bliss laughed aloud. “Of course Mama hasn’t said anything to any of us. She’s so busy running the house, and worrying about Papa and his worries about Ashby, that it has probably never occurred to her. Undoubtedly she meant to speak with Blaze just before her marriage, but with the suddenness of today’s developments, it has, I think, flown from her mind.”
“I know how men use women.”
The sisters turned to look at seven-year-old Vanora, who sat directly in their midst, her dark eyes bright.
“How could you know such things?” scoffed Bliss. “If you persist in telling lies, Vana, I shall smack you!”
“I watch from the stable loft when the serving men use the serving women. I’ve even seen Papa, though not often, go at one of the milkmaids,” Vanora said smugly. “Do you want to know how they do it, or not? And if you smack me, Bliss,
I’ll never tell!
”
The bedchamber grew very silent, and six pairs of curious eyes turned upon Vanora.
“
Well?
” demanded Bliss, her sapphire-blue eyes narrowing dangerously. “Are you going to tell us or not?” Her fingers itched with their desire to wipe the self-satisfied smile from her younger sister’s face.
Vanora was relishing the moment that gave her a superiority over her elder sisters, but even in her victory she knew the limits to which she might drive them, particularly the sharp-tongued Bliss. She drew a deep breath. “Men,” she began, “have long things between their legs just like the animals. They are not, of course, as big as the stallions’, but they are larger than Papa’s hunting dogs’. Much
larger
,” she said with a heavy emphasis.
“Ohhh,” whispered Larke and Linnette, their small mouths making perfect O’s at this revelation.
“Are they long and red like the animals’?” queried Delight. She was genuinely interested, for like her sisters, she would one day face this mystery. The key to overcoming fear, she knew, was a complete knowledge and understanding of what you were to face.
“It’s hard to see too much detail from the hayloft in the stables and barns,” admitted Vanora, “but it appears to me that only the tip of the man’s thing is a purplish red.”
“Get on with it!” hissed Bliss.
“Aye,” said Blaze, “I would know how the act is done if I am expected to do it tomorrow. Ohh, why did Mama not explain this to me? The earl will think me a perfect fool, although I do not expect virgins should have too much knowledge in these matters.”
“But we should know what is going on,” said Blythe. “Girls should really be taught what they should know in these matters. Say on, Vana. Though Bliss will not admit it, we are
all
dying of curiosity.”
“Sometimes the men kiss and cuddle the women. They seem to like to feel their titties, and slip a hand between the women’s legs. The women appear to like this, for they giggle and sigh and encourage the men onward. I’ve even seen some of the women fondle the men,” continued Vanora. “After a while this play ceases. There doesn’t seem to be any set period of time. With some it’s longer, and with others shorter. Finally the man will lay the woman upon her back, climb atop her, take his thing from his drawers, and stick it between her legs up into her belly.”
“I don’t believe you!” said Bliss furiously. “You have made it all up just to get our attention!”
“I do not care if you believe me or not,” retorted Vanora spiritedly, “ ’tis true! They call it fucking. The servants are always doing it in the barns. Just hide yourself in the haylofts, and you will see that I speak the truth!”
“You say you’ve seen Papa doing it with a milkmaid?” Bliss demanded.
“When?”
“I’ve only seen Papa twice and both times it has been when Mama was ill,” came the answer.
“Do the women seem to like it, Vana?” asked Blaze.
“Aye, they do, but for the life of me I do not know why. It seems a silly way to have fun. The men bounce up and down on the women, who bounce right back at them. They moan and groan, and kiss and lick at each other. It certainly does not look to me like anything that I would want to do,” finished Vanora.
Larke and Linnette nodded their heads in unison, agreeing with their younger sister.
“Sometimes,” admitted Delight, “I think about what it would be like to have a man make love to me.”
“Humph!” snorted Bliss derisively.
“What of you, Blaze?” said Blythe. “It is, after all, you who are to be wed tomorrow. Have you thought of the earl’s loving you?”
“Until my betrothal I rarely thought of a man in that way,” said Blaze honestly. “There was no point to it. I did not know if I would ever marry, and who was there to even court us here at Ashby? Since my betrothal I have tried to think of what it will be like as Edmund Wyndham’s wife. Alas, the man is faceless to me! I try to dream of him, for it seems that I should, but it is hard when I do not know the man. I am afraid to make him something that he might not be, for then my disappointment would be hard to bear.”
“Do you think he is as handsome as his nephew?” wondered Blythe. “Do you think there is a family resemblance?”
“I hope not! I find Master Anthony arrogant and impossible,” said Blaze furiously.
“What’s this?”
pounced Bliss.
“This,
as you put it, is nothing,” responded Blaze. “I simply do not like Master Anthony.”
“Why?” demanded Bliss. “You haven’t known the man long enough to either like or dislike him.”
Blaze pondered a moment. “I don’t know why,” she finally answered, “but he irritates me. I can only hope that his uncle is nothing like him, and that we will not have to see too much of him at RiversEdge.”
“That may not be possible,” warned Blythe. “From what that Heartha told Old Ada, the two men are but four years apart in age. They were raised together by your husband-to-be’s half-sister, Master Anthony’s mother. They are more like brothers, and very close. You had best hide your dislike, sister. Your husband-to-be and his nephew are friends as well as relations.”
“I can mask my feelings, Blythe. Later, when the children come, Master Anthony will be of less importance to my husband. My lord will have his own family and his nephew will no longer matter to him that much.”
“What’s this? What’s this?” Old Ada’s grizzled head popped around the door. “Why are ye not abed, my chicks? There is a wedding to be celebrated on the morrow, and ye’ll not look yer best, any of ye, if ye don’t get yer sleep. To bed with all of ye!” she scolded fondly as she chased Delight, Vanora, and the second set of twins from the little chamber.