The Strand House was accustomed to bustle and grand guests arriving with little warning, but they were unprepared for the family procession which arrived on the first day of June, announced only one day previously by two galloping household outriders. Uproar followed.
By the time their lordships arrived, it was calm again, beds were tucked, clean linen laid, and the kitchens were steaming with every spit turning and every cauldron set to simmer. But Nicholas only strayed long enough to change his clothes, order his hunter brought out from the stables, and then, accompanied by his uncle and three of his henchmen, rode straight for the palace at Westminster. The precious letter he carried was safe in a leather pouch strapped inside his doublet.
He was back within the hour.
Emeline said, “A month’s travel, a child killed, discovering the treason of your own cousin, endless danger, fighting, disease, and a mire of expense – and what for? A ten minute audience with the king.”
Nicholas grinned. “I didn’t see the king. This is the eve of Corpus Christi and his highness is now on his way to Kenilworth. I saw Kendall.”
“Well,” she smiled, “you look good enough – for kings. It’s a long time since I’ve seen you so grand.” His sleeves swept the floorboards in great folds of cerise damask fully lined in black velvet, the edges trimmed in marten. The under sleeves, cut in three places with black silk, were saffron and the tight wrists then flared into cerise damask cuffs. His doublet, saffron brocade and laced in gold over a fine white linen shirt, was tight belted and stopped with a peplum so short it displayed the full length of his legs. Since Emeline was wearing her oldest gown and a posset stained apron, she felt a little out classed, and sighed. “I suppose,” she said, “you have turned every female head in Westminster.”
“I wouldn’t have noticed.” He was still grinning. “Actually, I was thinking of taking it all off. I want a bath.”
“Two baths? In one day?”
“This one,” he said, stripping off his riding gloves, “I intend taking with you.”
“I don’t remember you having a tub big enough for both of us.”
“So I wash you first, and you wash me afterwards.”
Half stripped, he bathed her with great intimacy, standing beside the well filled tub with his shirt sleeves rolled up, the suds frothing around his fingers and the steam turning to condensation against his forehead. He used a large sea sponge and perfumed Spanish soap. Briar rose, not lavender, as he pointed out. She laughed, lifting each foot as he commanded her. The bath was custom made instead of the half barrels she was accustomed to, and lined in softest linen with a padded cushion for her head. “Lean back,” he told her, “and move as I tell you, lift as I tell you, and obey me as I direct you.”
She stretched one leg clear of the heat, flexing her ankle and pointing her toes as ordered. “In everything?”
“In everything. Naturally.”
She smiled and closed her eyes, soap bubbles on her eyelashes. The heat was sensuous and the fingertip caresses delicious, and she giggled as he massaged, pretending to wash. But his hands were firm as he scrubbed, dissolving the tiredness of difficult days past.
As she climbed from the tub, he lifted her and wrapped her in heated towels, drying her briskly between her toes, her thighs, between her legs, her belly, her breasts and beneath, then finally her hair, now a damp tousle around warm pink cheeks and sparkling brown eyes.
“And now,” he told her, “you wash me.”
The water still steamed, the soapy bubbles floating like lilies on a pond. Nicholas pulled his shirt off over his head, tugged down his hose and stepped naked into the bath. “So, obedient still, my love?” He sat and presented her with the sponge. “Or shall I obey you?”
Emeline washed slowly across his belly where the dark hair lay in a central line towards the groin. Over the strong bones of his hips to his thighs, and down to the muscles of his calves, then back again to his groin. When she brushed the sponge upwards once more to his ribs, he clasped her hands, and brought them back.
“Will you not wash me there?” he murmured. She bit her lip. So he brought her hand between his legs, the water pouring over him. He cupped her fingers beneath his scrotum, whispering, “Is this so strange to you, little one? We’ve made love often enough. You know how I’m made.” Blushing, she used her fingers as he instructed, and explored, touching more firmly and washing each secret place, feeling how he grew larger and harder beneath her explorations. Then finally he climbed from the water and pulled her down onto the rug, both naked, both damp, and lay there a moment, staring at each other with the sinking light from the window catching the bright blue of his eyes and the softer brown of hers.
He kissed her nipples and stroked the swell of her breasts. She clung to his upper arms where she could feel every discovery of his hands, his fingers teasing between her legs as her hands sensing every twist and pull of his muscles. She smiled and said, “You still have streams of water and soap suds on your face. It’s as if you’ve painted yourself, like children do sometimes, pretending to be demons or dragons.”
Nicholas laughed and wiped across his own forehead, taking a thick smear of soap foam on his fingertip. He began to paint a thin warm line around each of her nipples so they seemed huge, and erect, and dark. Then, fingertip to her belly and downwards, he painted an arrow, leading deep between her legs. Playing, fingering and discovering, and smiling as she gasped and clung to him. Then, quite suddenly he rolled on top of her and pushed inside. As he entered her, hard and fast and deep, their wet bodies together like a slap, and stuck tight as he moved even further into her. She kissed him, pushing her tongue between his teeth, surprising him, tasting the smooth width of his tongue and the heat of his throat. Then she had no breath remaining for anything, and simply clung, panting fast.
“When we get back to the castle,” he whispered to her, “I’ll make love to you on the battlements. There’ll just be the sky above us and the rolling clouds.” He kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, and both her eyes. “Once during the day, with the sun making your body gleam,” he said, “and then at night in moonlight, with the stars reflecting across your breasts.”
She whispered back, “Will the castle be repaired, then, Nicholas my love? Can we live there?”
He nodded, his words muffled now against her belly where he laid his head, murmuring to the curls at her groin. “Then,” he said, “I’m going to make love to you in the forests beyond the moat, with the smells of good green summer growth, and the damp loam and the dry bark and the seeds all pushing up to search for the sunshine and the rain. I’m going to make love to you all day amongst the daisies until the moon comes up, and on through the night until you’re too tired even to beg me to carry you back to bed. I shall roll you naked on the grass, and watch you gasp. And finally I’ll carry you home and make love to you all over again.”
His climax seemed leisurely, no longer pushing but pulsing within, holding her tight and still, a heartbeat of sorts but so strong that she cried out, making him smile.
It was afterwards, lying close and tired on the bed, that he said, “Each time, each touch brings you closer, little one. Less timid. I like it when you show you want me.”
She spoke with her eyes shut, snuggling to the warmth of his body. “You want an adventuress.”
“I think,” he murmured, “I shall become domesticated instead. A creature of comfort and complacent arrogance. I shall keep my passion only for my wife’s bedchamber.”