Blaze Wyndham (17 page)

As for Bliss, she found herself suddenly in a rather deserted alcove at one end of the Great Hall, where, though she could easily hear the sound of gaiety from her eldest sister’s birthday celebration, neither she nor her companion could be seen. Owen FitzHugh towered over her, a wolfish look upon his very handsome, somewhat sharp features. He grinned down at her, and Bliss, looking back up at him, had to force herself not to shiver.

“Well, puss, here we are,” the Earl of Marwood said quietly.

“Indeed, sir, and why are we here?” she countered bravely.

“So I might kiss you, pretty puss. You have the most adorable mouth, but then that is obvious, and you have undoubtedly been told it a hundred times or more,” he said.

“Nay, sir, I have not,” Bliss answered him. “My sisters and I lead quiet, indeed almost solitary lives at Ashby.” Her look was cool, but her heart was hammering with excitement. So this was flirting!

“You have not been courted before?” His look was disbelieving.

“
Are you then courting me, sir?
” Her sapphire-blue eyes feigned surprise.

He pinioned her gently against the stone wall of the alcove, saying as he did, “Mayhap, so give me a kiss then, puss,” but Bliss managed to duck away from his faulty aim.

“
Sir!
” Her tone was one of outrage. “Our parents have warned us of such lechery as yours. My kisses are saved for he who weds me, and are not to be given lightly or carelessly to any who ask! Release me this instant!”

“Are you telling me that you have never been kissed, Mistress Morgan?” His dark eyes searched her beautiful face for the truth. She was the most exquisite creature he had ever beheld, and he knew even as he trifled with her that he must have her for his own. He would have to spend the rest of his life guarding her virtue from others, lest he find himself cuckolded. Such beauty as Bliss Morgan’s led only to trouble, yet even acknowledging this truth, he could never let another man have her.

“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.”

B
laze’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 the 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.