The music died, leaving her quite breathless. He took her small hand in his as he lay the lute aside and kissed it tenderly. Their eyes met, and Rosamund felt a strange stirring within her heart.
“I have never been serenaded before,” she said softly. “Did you write the song?”
“Nay,” he admitted, realizing that he might have lied to her, and she
would have never known. “The poem is said to have been written by Abelard, a French philosopher and sometime poet. The tune, however, is mine. Like most Welshmen I have a knack for music. I am glad that I have pleased you with my small effort, lovey.”
“My uncle Henry did not come. I thought surely he would,” Rosamund said after a small silence.
“He knows there is nothing he can do now,” Owein replied. “He has had a year to grow used to the idea that Friarsgate will belong to your children and not to his grandchildren.”
“But I thought surely he would come, if only to complain at us for
stealing
the manor from him,” she said with a small smile.
Owein laughed. “He will be here eventually, and before the winter I am certain,” her bridegroom assured her. “Are you tired, Rosamund? It has been a very long day for you, and neither of us is quite recovered from our journey with the Queen of the Scots.”
“I will call Maybel to help me,” Rosamund answered him, and she stood up. She was relieved that their guests had departed and forgone the traditional putting to bed of the bride and the groom.
I am brave, but if they had made a fuss I should have grown quite embarrassed. I am not certain that I am not frightened.
She turned to her husband. “I will send Maybel to fetch you when I am ready,” she told him.
He stood, and kissing her hand, said, “I will wait here.” He watched her hurry from the hall, and he sat back down before the fire. She was nervous. Of course she was. She was a well-brought-up virgin, and he was a man of experience. But I have never made love to a virgin, he thought. He struggled to recall what he could about virgins. They must be treated gently and not hurried. That much he knew. But he would be firm with her, for the marriage must be consummated in order to be completely legal. He heard a discreet cough and looked up.
“The Hepburn brought us a small keg of whiskey, my lord,” Edmund Bolton said. “I suspect you could use a dram or two now, eh?”
Owein Meredith nodded and gratefully accepted the cup. He swallowed down a great gulp, savoring the smoky taste and the heat that suffused him from throat to belly. “I love her,” he said, almost despairingly.
“I know,” Edmund answered him.
“She doesn’t understand love,” Owein said.
“Nay, not a love between a man and a woman,” Edmund agreed. “But she will, and sooner rather than later I believe, my lord.”
“I am Owein when we are together,” the new master of Friarsgate said to Edmund Bolton. “Have a dram yourself, man.”
Edmund nodded. “I thank you,” he said. “The whiskey from Claven’s Carn is reputed to be excellent.”
“And sit down,” Owein told him.
Edmund Bolton poured himself some whiskey and then sat next to Owein Meredith. He sipped the brew appreciatively. “ ’Tis excellent,” he pronounced, a smile lighting his features.
“I’ll be good to her,” Owein promised.
“I know you will,” Edmund responded.
“I don’t know what a husband does, Edmund,” Owein said. “My father never remarried, and all the men I’ve known in the Tudor household have been soldiers. A man doesn’t love a wife like a whore. The king loved his queen, but I never knew what they were about when they were alone, which was rare, I tell you. You are a husband. What do I do?” His look was slightly despairing, and his voice now bordered on panic.
Edmund chuckled. “Husbands mostly do as they are told, Owein lad,” he said. “At least that has been my experience. Rosamund was raised by Hugh and me to be independent. We both hated Henry’s lust for this manor. We wanted our lass to be free. What does a husband do? Well, he must be strong where a wife is not, or when she needs him to be. He must be a lover, a friend, and a companion. She will want to spoil the bairns. You will know when she must not, and you will make certain your will prevails in that matter. You must be the strength and moral compass in your family, Owein Meredith. You will be loyal to her and to Friarsgate. ’Tis the best I can tell you. But for tonight, be gentle, be patient, and show her the pleasures of the marriage bed. Tell her what is in your heart so she may feel free to tell you what is in hers. Women like Rosamund never like to admit to love unless they are loved in return. I have never understood it, but there it is.”
“Thank you, Edmund,” Owein said quietly, and he put the dram cup aside. “I shall try to follow your advice.”
“You’ll learn along the way, Owein lad, but as I said, for now just love the lass. The rest will come.”
“Will you keep the man talking in the hall all night when his bride awaits him?” Maybel demanded as she bustled in. “Go on with you, Owein Meredith. Your bride is already in your bed waiting for you. Do not be a laggard now!”
The lord of Friarsgate jumped up from his seat and hurried from the hall, a smile upon his lips.
“You’re a wicked old woman,” Edmund teased his wife. “I had him all calm and quiet, and you come shouting orders.” He pulled her down into his lap and kissed her soundly.
“You’ve been drinking,” Maybel scolded.
“Would you like a dram yourself, old woman?” he asked her.
“Aye, but kiss me again before you get it for me,” Maybel said. “We may not be a bride and groom, but you’ve never been a loiterer in love, Edmund Bolton.”
He grinned at her. “And after all those months away from you, Maybel, I’m ready to prove my heart is yours once again tonight, as I have proven every night since you got home.” Then he kissed her.
H
e slowly opened the door of their bedchamber and stepped into the room, almost jumping as the door clicked loudly behind him. The draperies were drawn over the leaded paned windows. At one end of the chamber a large fireplace blazed brightly, warming the place. The room was nicely furnished with sturdy oak furniture, but it was the large draped bed that caught his immediate attention. The curtains about the bed were almost completely drawn.
“Owein?” Her voice sounded young and small.
“Aye, ’tis me, Rosamund,” he answered her, coming around the bed to where the hangings opened slightly to give him a glimpse of his bride sitting straight up against the pillows, clutching the coverlet to her chest. Her hair was loose about her bare shoulders.
“Come into the bed,” she invited him, her voice a bit stronger now.
“Are you so impatient, then?” he teased her as he began to disrobe.
“Aren’t you?” she countered mischievously.
He laughed. “You are a bold wench for a virgin.” He pulled his garments off as quickly as he might without seeming overeager, although the truth was that he was more than anxious to join her in their bed. His back was to her as he undressed.
“Oh, you have a fine rounded bottom,” she said wickedly as he pulled his sherte off, “but such hairy legs, sir. Is the rest of you so wooly? You are like one of my fine sheep.”
He turned. “I shall be the ram to your sweet little ewe sheep,” he said. He was fully naked now.
“Oh, my!”
Rosamund said upon viewing her first unclothed man. Her amber eyes carefully examined him, taking in his wide shoulders, the broad chest with its mat of golden fur, his long legs, his—
“Oh, my!”
she repeated as her eyes encountered the first manhood she had ever beheld. “That is your . . .” Her voice trailed off, but her gaze was fascinated, curious.
“Aye, that is the object of your downfall, lovely,” he told her. “Now move over, lass. I am freezing out here despite the fire. Can you not hear the rain against the windows? ’Tis August, yet the autumn is already coming.”
She flung back the down coverlet and slid over, inviting him to join her as she did. “How do you use it?” she asked naively.
He put his arm about her as they sat together in their bed. “It will grow larger as my desire for you grows,” he explained. He began to fondle her small rounded breasts.
She turned her head to look up at him. “And then?” His hands on her flesh were exciting.
He bent, kissing her softly. “Let us not get ahead of ourselves, lovey,” he told her. “I promise I shall explain as we go along.” His thumb began to rub a nipple, and he drew her deeper into his embrace, lowering her back against the pillows. “A woman’s breasts are very enticing,” he told her as he lowered his head to kiss the rounded flesh.
His lips were warm against her skin. Rosamund’s heart began to beat quickly within her chest. She murmured softly as he licked first one nipple and then the other. The velvet of his tongue sent a tingle through her. Then his mouth closed over a nipple, and he began to suckle upon her.
“Ohhh!”
The gasp of surprise escaped her.
He raised his dark blond head, and his eyes were almost glazed with something she did not understand. “
Ohhh
good? Or is it distasteful to you?” he asked her softly.
“No! No! It is good!” she assured him.
He lowered his head once more, this time moving to her other breast. His mouth pulled strongly upon the sentient nub of flesh. And after a brief time his teeth grazed the nipple gently.
“Oh, yes!”
Rosamund said as ripples of new pleasure began to wash over her. The teeth were sharp, but not hurtful. She found his actions very thrilling. He moved to suck upon her other breast, and Rosamund sighed. His sensuous actions were sending ripples of shivers down her spine. It was pleasurable and exhilarating, she decided.
She had a fragrance about her, he considered as he nuzzled her. She smelled of heather. It was the perfect scent for her, he thought. He began to kiss her sweet warm flesh, his lips moving from her breasts down her torso to her belly. He was surprised to find that he could feel her pulses jumping nervously beneath his mouth. He stopped at her navel, not certain how far he might proceed, but realizing once again that she was young and untried.
He lay his dark blond head upon her belly, and his fingers stroked her thigh. How did a man make love to a wife? He asked himself once more. If she had been older, more knowledgeable,
a whore,
he would have been surer of himself. But she was not. And therein lay his dilemma.
Why had he stopped? Rosamund wondered. Was something wrong? Had she done something she should not have done? “What is the matter, Owein?” she asked him softly. “Have I displeased you in my ignorance?”
Her voice. The innocent question she asked brought him back to reality. “I am not certain how to proceed with you,” he told her candidly. “I have never made love to a virgin, or to a wife, Rosamund.”
“Whom have you made love to then, sir?” she queried, genuinely curious, and perhaps even a bit jealous.
“Women of the court seek diversion . . . courtesans and whores,” he admitted. “You are so different, lovey. You are clean and sweet. You are my wife.”
“Do not all women have the same desires and lustful longings, Owein?” she wondered aloud.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I have spent my life in loyal and royal service, Rosamund. My couplings have been mostly hurried, and for the sole purpose of pleasure. You, however, are my wife. Our couplings are meant to produce children of our loins and our blood, not for sport or amusement.”
“Why not?” she demanded. “Why should we not disport ourselves for our mutual enjoyment in the getting of our bairns, my husband? Should our bairns not come from love? Why should our passion be sober?”
“It shouldn’t,” he agreed as her wise words penetrated his brain. Then he raised his head up to look into her warm amber eyes. “I love you, Rosamund. Do you, can you, love me?”
“I do not love you yet,” she told him honestly, “but I believe I can love you, Owein. Do you really love me?”
“Aye, I do. I probably have loved you since we first met. I admired how well you conducted yourself in the face of your uncle Henry’s behavior and greed, and Hugh Cabot just in his grave.”
“Your timely arrival saved me,” Rosamund said quietly.
“I know,” he replied.
“Owein, I do not want to talk anymore,” Rosamund told him. “I want to become a woman this night, and I want to know the pleasures of the marriage bed. Are you shocked?”
He thought a moment and then he said, “Nay, I am not shocked. I think I am relieved, for I am mad with love for you, my bride, and beginning to be filled with lust.” He bent and kissed her until she was quite breathless and rosy.
“I want your manhood inside me,” she whispered hotly, sending a bolt of raw desire through him. “Will you mount me like the ram mounts his ewe sheep, Owein?”
“I could,” he said, “but I will not. The more common way for a man and a woman to mate is face-to-face. Ask no more questions now, Rosamund. Just let me show you how much I love and desire you.” Now he began to kiss her again, his mouth fusing with hers, their tongues playing hide-and-seek with each other. The blond hair on his chest tickled her young breasts. He felt the smooth mounds giving way beneath his weight.
Her head began to spin in a most pleasurable way, Rosamund thought. Her nipples tingled as the soft fuzz on his chest taunted them. She let her fingers caress the nape of his neck, smooth over his broad shoulders. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the plethora of delicious sensations sweeping over her body and spirit. His lean body was hard against her. She felt a
ripple of unfamiliar sensation rising up. Was it desire? It had to be! She was experiencing desire for the first time!
“Ohhh, husband!”
she murmured against his ear, and then her teeth nipped at the fleshy lobe, for she was unable to constrain herself.
Her obvious rising and newly discovered lust thrilled him. He had been afraid as to how she might react to his own burgeoning passion. Catching her head in his hands again he kissed her once more. The auburn tresses were soft beneath his fingers. Her dark eyelashes lay spread across her cheeks like summer moths. Those lashes were gold tipped he noticed. There was so much he was going to discover about her now that she was his wife.
Rosamund felt the hardness against her thigh. A long and very firm hardness. His manhood had ripened and was ready to penetrate her. Her heart began to beat even faster. Now his hand was covering her mons and pressing down upon it.
“Oh,”
she cried out with the sensation he produced. A single finger began to move along her slit, sliding through to find her love bud, which was already tingling in anticipation. He played with it but briefly, instead sliding the long finger within her wet love sheath. Then he pressed a second finger forward, moving the two digits slowly back and forth.
“Yesss!”
she hissed. She was ready.
Without a word Owein mounted his wife, his love lance pushing forward through her nether lips, gently, gently, entering her eager body. He paused a moment, allowing her the opportunity to become used to this first invasion.
“Are you ready to become a woman, lovey?” he murmured against her love-swollen lips.
She nodded, and then her amber eyes widened as he thrust deep within her. She cried out as her maidenhead was torn asunder, quick tears slipping down her cheeks, which he swiftly kissed away, but to his relief she clung to him as he pistoned her until he could bear no more of the sweetness that possessing Rosamund’s body had given him. To his delight he heard her cry out, but this second cry was one of pleasure and not pain. His love juices thundered into her love bower even as her fingernails dug sharply into his shoulders and raked down his broad back.
There had been pain, and then it had dissolved almost magically. The fierce driving, repetitive motion of his loins had had a strange effect upon her. She seemed to lose all control over herself, living only for the delicious sensations that poured through her straining body. With each thrust of his love rod she had grown more dizzy until finally the passion erupted within her, and she had actually lost consciousness for a brief moment or more.
“Owein! Owein!”
she heard her voice calling out to him from a very far distance.
He enfolded her within his arms, kissing the top of her auburn head. Warmth streamed through them both. “There, lovey,” he whispered. “You are a woman now, and perhaps this night we have made a child.”
She sighed and snuggled against him. “I should like that,” she told him in a low voice. Then she looked up at him saying, “It was wonderful, sir knight. Even the pain was good, I vow. I am relieved to be a maid no more, and a true wife at last, Owein. Thank you.”
He could feel the tears pricking against his eyelids and forced them back. Men did not cry. “Nay, lovey,” he told her. “ ’Tis I who must thank you for the magnificent gift of your virginity. I shall always be true to you, Rosamund. This I swear to you on our wedding night.”
In the morning Henry Bolton arrived at Friarsgate early, even as Maybel brought down the bloodied sheet from the bridal bed. Boldly she waved it at him.
“She’s wed good and true this time,” Maybel said with a grin.
“He could die,” Henry Bolton said grimly.
“She could already be with child,” Maybel snapped. “You’ll not have Friarsgate now, Henry Bolton. Hugh Cabot, may God assoil his good soul, outfoxed you!” And Maybel laughed aloud.
“He could die, and children perish young in this country, as you and I well know,” Henry persisted. “Then she would have no choice but to wed my son.”
“The Hepburn of Claven’s Carn came courting, and only went away because he is an honorable man,” Maybel replied. “God forbid anything happen to Sir Owein, but if it did, the Hepburn would be over the hills and into this house as quick as a wink.”
“That Scots bastard had the temerity to come courting my niece?” Henry Bolton demanded angrily.
“Aye, he did, and he’s a good man, too,” Maybel answered. “He came to my lady’s wedding and played his pipes for the bridal couple.”
“He came to get the lay of the land,” Henry Bolton snarled.
“He brought salmon and whiskey, uncle,” Rosamund said entering the hall and overhearing the conversation. “The salmon was delicious, and we will enjoy the whiskey this winter. We are sorry that you and Mavis missed the wedding. Did she not come with you, uncle?” She smiled at him, smoothing her russet skirts of an imaginary wrinkle.
“My wife is not well, which is why I missed your nuptials,” Henry Bolton said.
“Good morning, brother Henry,” Richard Bolton said as he entered the hall. “We missed you at the mass, niece, but under the circumstances you are forgiven.” He chuckled. “I will break my fast and then depart.”
Rosamund colored becomingly, but then she laughed lightly. “We shall be sorry to see you return to your monastery, uncle.”
Richard Bolton grinned, then turned to his youngest sibling. “Henry, you do not look well yourself. Too much rich food and too much wine, I will vow. Abstinence in your excessive habits is to be advised, I think.”
“Mind your business,” Henry Bolton snapped. “I will not be preached at by a bastard, even if he is a priest. Niece, will you offer me no food, and after I have ridden from Otterly Court since before the dawn? It was chill for August. I have no wine. Your servants are lax and need a firm hand. ’Tis to be hoped that your husband can manage them, since you cannot.”