“Trust me,” he murmured. “You won’t fall. The merlons are too high.” His eyes were as blue as the sky. Then abruptly the sky was no longer blue. A streak of ruddy carmine turned sapphire to rose petals. She felt the strange space between his fingers as his other hand pressed against her spine and then down to her buttocks, pulling her to him as he continued to play between her breasts, fingers first gentle around the aureole and then pulling at her nipples. “Your gown,” he informed her softly, “is in my way.”
She thought he might drag it off her, and whispered, “Someone might come past. The guards. One of the pages.”
He grinned. “Not here. We’re not expecting marauders or invasions just yet.”
The sinking sun shot sudden arrows of rich crimson against the darkening indigo. Way above where the hazy, lazy clouds still floated as if on shallow streams, the light remained. But the vivid interruptions sweeping up from the horizon now reflected in the moat and the castle was turning to gold.
Emeline heard his breath becoming strained. Then as his fingers forced within the neck of her dress, his left hand sought entrance below. She felt the sudden draught. He was lifting up the hems of her skirts.
“Open your legs. Let me in.” Now his eyes reflected scarlet.
Behind him, across the rising stone turrets, the Chatwyn banners flew in the breeze and from a tower’s peak, an iron leopard, crouched to spring, swung obediently, pointing in the wind’s direction. The sky was turning to purple as red shot through blue but faded into melted butter and cherry syrup’s sweet trickling pastels.
Emeline stared up at her husband. Now both his hands were beneath her skirts and his fingers were cold on her thighs. She felt the rasping tingle of his jaw against her forehead. His hands crawled higher, pushing her skirts up to her knees. The pads of both his thumbs, smooth and strong, rubbed her inner thighs, then stopping suddenly. His breath was now strained. He seemed to pause, to regain his own composure. Then his thumbs started to move again. Suddenly she felt the scrape of stone against the back of her legs; her skirts pushed higher. His knee was between her knees, his foot pushed between her feet. She leaned forwards against him and he supported her. The wind was on her neck. Both his hands remained beneath her skirts, the silken creases now hitched almost around her waist while his fingers were once again busy.
She whispered, “I love you, Nicholas. I love you loving me.”
The frogs were calling louder now and the shadows were deepening. The sky was soot coloured, but flashes of cinnabar gathered into sunset flames. Something flew overhead, dark and silent. The distant trees became black waving threads in the little wind.
She felt him pause again, one hand moving from her body, and knew he unlaced his codpiece. He entered her without warning, first his fingers and then immediately himself, thrusting hard and deep. She grunted. He caught his breath, then exhaled with a shudder of release into even greater pleasure. “Hold me too, little one. Touch me.”
He had stopped pushing, remaining still and rigid inside her. She could hardly move, hardly think. So he smiled, pressed once more, deeper inside, and took her fingers in his. She felt his hand moist and warm from her own body. The top of her gown was pulled to the side, the velvet trimming becoming unstitched, the fichu quite gone and the cleft between her breasts uncovered. The rich pink circle of one nipple peeped out. She felt the breeze in her hair and knew her headdress was fallings, pins tumbling down to the cold pavings at her feet. The backs of her legs were squashed against the stone, her stockings pulled down, the garters untied, and now her raised skirts, bundled up to her stomacher, left her entirely uncovered. She did not care about any of those things. She could only care about the fire in her belly and the raging desire in her groin.
Nicholas pushed her fingers between his own legs, pulling her hand up to where he entered her. “Now. Put your finger inside yourself,” he whispered. “Push inside. Push against me. Touch me where I touch you. Now, move your finger up a little. Now down. Caressing. Discovering.” His breathing quickened. “I’ll push. But slowly. Very slowly. So use that beautiful little finger of yours, my own beloved. Feel me as I feel you. Feel where my prick pushes and swells. There’s a ridge, and that moves as I fill you.” His voice became barely a whisper. “Touching me in such a moment, you understand the heart of me. And you understand yourself, and how you squeeze and feel inside.”
He leaned down quickly and kissed her hard as though drinking, as though desperate with thirst. She kissed him in return, reaching up to taste his tongue and his breath.
The setting sun slipped unnoticed behind the long crenellated towers. Stabbing ruby and topaz blurred and sank. The long twilight was settling. The frogs still called as the ducks and the forest creatures nosed into their nests, tree holes and burrows, safe for the night. Darkness swept in from the north. A thin pearlised slice of moon peeped.
Nicholas and Emeline saw none of it nor heard the soft hooting of a hunting owl. They remained within each other’s arms, tucked oblivious to the other world, knowing only each other as they neared their own climax.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The curve of the young man’s thigh skimmed the platters, spoons and napkins still neatly tidy, still ordered, awaiting his lordship’s appetite.
Only one toppled candle, not yet congealed, lay out of place. The pale melting wax had oozed into one thin stalactite pointing towards the shadowed boards below. The great table, set for a late supper not yet served, otherwise remained undisturbed for the attack had caused little disarray and no sound. His lordship, placid in his comfortable stupor, had felt nothing but the deepening of sweet sleep.
Yet now the lord of the Strand House, to which he had returned on leaving court for the day, lay silent upon his back, his corpulence in unashamed evidence as the velvet belly proudly rose, the codpiece, a smaller protuberance beneath, now a little askew, and then lay the muscular stretch of the legs, thighs spread apart upon the floorboards, shoes pointing to the small dancing flames of the lit chandelier above.
The Earl of Chatwyn’s heavily jowled face appeared peaceful, but the hole in his throat was ragged and the subsequent bleeding had pumped across his doublet even to the padded shoulders before hardening and turning stiff and black.
David Witton replaced the much stained carving knife on the tablecloth, stood and looked around. It was time to set the cleansing fire, but he was momentarily reluctant.
The house had long belonged to the Chatwyn family; often repaired, enlarged and consistently adored throughout the generations. Lord Nicholas Chatwyn, now the earl although he could not yet know it, loved this house. David would not willingly do what might sadden his master. Every action, every studied detail, every killing and every blazing furnace had been designed only to help his master, and for no other reason. Now Nicholas would no longer be shamed or insulted by his great pig of a father, and could inherit the title he deserved. But he would be sorry to lose this grand house.
Mister Witton sat a moment, gazing down with pride at the destruction of the man who had so often caused Nicholas pain. First in his service when Nicholas the boy was little more than sixteen, David had witnessed bitter years of turmoil and spite, wilful misunderstanding, unjust punishments and the harsh rejection of any affection or warmth. David had considered killing the foul old man many years ago, but had decided to wait. Protecting his master by killing that master’s father was not an easy decision. Now setting the fire was an even more challenging choice.
But the stars were singing. Beyond the tall glass window and its gleaming diamond reflections, a hundred spilling stars shone their music across the paths and hedges below, even down to the glittering water’s edge. There could be no mistake.
At first, followed by long months of doubt and self-loathing, David had thought setting the flames to the castle hall had been a mistake of disastrous misunderstanding. At the time his master’s enforced marriage to Peter’s mistress, a woman of stubborn ignorance who had been taught to
loathe her new husband, was a wretched business which David had believed he must end as quickly as he might. Finishing the union in fire and death had been the direct order from above. Then it had somehow proved wrong. For it was Nicholas who had suffered, rushing to save, to extinguish and restore, declaring himself the hero he surely always had been, but near dead from the flames. Not only, but now, with the marriage proved a success, it was hard to see why the order from the singing stars had been sent at all.
Yet David thought he understood. It was that very disaster which had burned away the hatred and ignited the love. The blossoming happiness of his master’s marriage was, David decided, the direct result of the initial misery.
The wife, who had initially arrived at the castle in sin and immorality, had been cleansed also by fire. David had found her alone in the lord’s bedchamber, bathed in soot and sleeping in ashes. He had caressed her, and even, he admitted, desired her, seeing her that way. He was aroused by her acceptance of the flaming destruction, and her own wickedness thus washed clean in embers. By wallowing in ash, she had acknowledged the filth of her past, and so was saved. And it was the stars, the fire and David which had saved her.
And so, one by one, by such acts of salvation never noticed and never seen by others, David Witton had continued to destroy any creature or cause which threatened his master. The flames that destroyed the village eaten by pestilence, where the guard had dared to threaten. The hypocritical father-in-law who had disrespected a man he should have felt overwhelmingly honoured to welcome into his own paltry family. The old witch who had murdered the unborn Chatwyn infant, and who, if left alive, might have stood witness against the family. Immorality, impropriety, and deliberate wickedness against the preaching of Holy Church. One of the most important, of course, was the eradication of the vile brother and his whore. And there had naturally been others. A valet caught stealing. A villager spreading gossip and rumour.
The stars were never wrong.
And there must always be fire, for fire cleansed. Fire had killed his own father, another brute without love, who had worked in the woods beyond London, felling trees for the charcoal furnaces and the casting of the cannon. David had been fourteen, still nursing the bruises his father gave him each evening, when one day the whole forest burned and his father with it. His mother, sodden in drink as always, claimed she had lit the fire, though David doubted it. It had surely been the stars, knowing best as always.
Then the year afterwards he had watched her burn when she tumbled cupshotten onto the hearth. The woman had screamed and disturbed the neighbours, but it had seemed a reasonable justice. And it had given David his freedom. Shortly afterwards, tramping north, he had found Chatwyn Castle and the master he loved.
So he took the spill he had folded ready, held it to the remaining candle flame, and then lowered it to the earl’s flabby oozing carcase. The old man’s hair was a frizzled grey but it turned dark, singed into carmine prickles. Springing into tiny dancing flamelettes, each with a perfect golden heart, while the sagging degenerate features turned to melting lard.
But the fire did not immediately spread, and the household would quickly smell the danger and rush to stamp out and douse the burning body. The house might yet be saved, even while the flames obeyed their destiny and the cleansing was achieved.
He hoped the threatened invasion from France would come indeed. His master, too badly wounded to join any battle, would be safe. But David, in his master’s place, would have one more opportunity to prove his worth.
Backing slowly from the chamber, David turned to the door, did not look back, and strode from the house. On the morrow he would journey north again and back to Chatwyn Castle. He would take the news with him, of his master’s newly inherited rank and rise to the family title; Earl of Chatwyn.
Outside the stars were still singing. David smiled.
Dear Reader,
Once again we get to the end, so where should we go from here? Can we recapture that wonderful journey to Medieval England? Are you ready for the next expedition? Join Alex in his medieval venture.
England, 1485. Alex has just survived the bloody chaos of the civil war at Bosworth, he’s lost both his father and his King. But has found instead, a young girl disguised as a boy, hiding from the soldier’s intent on rape.
Becoming a servant may be Alex’s only option in a world turned upside down… His closest cousin has been murdered and he finds himself accused.
If you loved ‘The Flame Eater’, Then this could be the next book for you, with even more mystery and just as much fun.
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Acknowledgements and Historical Notes
My novel is fiction and my principal characters are fictional. But I am, as always, strict concerning the absolute historical accuracy of my settings, background situations and various authentic figures of the past.
Anyone can make mistakes. I probably do, although unwittingly, and I apologise for any that may creep in. But I make every effort towards accuracy, and in this I am exceedingly indebted to friends who know more than I do, and to the many non-fiction books which have provided for my endless research over the years.
Christopher Urswick is a genuine historical character, priest and personal confessor of Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor who eventually became the first king of the Tudor dynasty. Urswick later supported Tudor’s invasion, and before this acted as a messenger between the exiled Henry in Brittany, his mother in England, and John Morton who had escaped abroad in 1483.
Polydore Vergil, Henry VII’s official biographer who obtained his information directly from his king, tells us that back in early 1485, following the persistent rumours that King Richard III was considering marrying his niece, Elizabeth of York, (a slightly absurd rumour which we now know as untrue since at the time King Richard was negotiating to marry the daughter of the King of Portugal, and the Portuguese Manuel to marry Elizabeth) Henry secretly sent Christopher Urswick to England with a letter for the Earl of Northumberland, seeking a marriage with any one of the Herbert girls, who were the earl’s sisters-in-law. The letter was intercepted, Vergil informs us, and was never received by Northumberland. At that time this comparatively unimportant exile and proclaimed traitor was by no means an obvious candidate for marriage to a young English heiress, closely related to one of the greatest of the existing nobility.
Yet it appears that Henry Tudor had some expectation that his proposition would be acceptable to Northumberland, and that the earl would agree to negotiate Tudor’s alliance within his close family.
This opens many questions, but these cannot be answered unless further documentation comes to light in the future, and I do not attempt to cover those points in my book. Christopher Urswick’s presence in England as related in my novel, and the reason for it, is therefore historically accurate. As are the related movements of the Marquess of Dorset, and the situation relating to the king, Richard III, at that time.
I should particularly like to thank the eminently helpful and knowledgeable Annette Carson and her several important non-fiction books on the subject and in particular RICHARD III: THE MALIGNED KING, which is a continuous source of both delight and expert information.
I should also like to thank my wonderfully patient and endlessly helpful family, in particular my daughter Gill and my granddaughter Emma, without whom I could not have published any of my novels.
About the Author
My passion is for late English medieval history and this forms the background for my historical fiction. I also have a love of fantasy and the wild freedom of the imagination, with its haunting threads of sadness and the exploration of evil. Although all my books have romantic undertones, I would not class them purely as romances. We all wish to enjoy some romance in our lives, there is also a yearning for adventure, mystery, suspense, friendship and spontaneous experience. My books include all of this and more, but my greatest loves are the
beauty of the written word, and the utter fascination of good characterisation. Bringing my characters to life is my principal aim.
For more information on this and other books, or to subscribe for updates, new releases and free downloads, please visit barbaragaskelldenvil.com
Also by Barbara Gaskell Denvil
Historical Mysteries Collection
Blessop’s Wife
Satin Cinnabar
The Flame Eater
Sumerford’s Autumn
The Deception of Consequences
The Stars and a Wind Trilogy
A White Horizon
The Wind from the North
The Singing Star
Box Set
Crime Mysteries
Between
Time Travel Mysteries
Fair Weather
Future Tense
Children’s Bannister’s Muster Time Travel Series
Snap
Snakes & Ladders
Blind Man’s Buff
Dominoes
Leapfrog
Hide & Seek
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AVICE’S CONTEMPLATION
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