“But I miss you,” she said, softly but urgently.
He stopped and looked her full in the eyes. The fires burning there stole her breath. “How do you imagine I’m feeling? Before I was not a mortal. Now I am and I want you with all the desire of a hundred men. But we are going to wait until we are married if it kills me — and it might.”
Everyone said it was a most peculiar wedding. The bride wore a blue silk dress that had obviously been through the mill. The groom wore a green coat and a covetous expression. Yet when they kissed for the first time as man and wife, not an eye on the church porch was dry. Much is forgiven a couple in love, and much was forgiven Felicia and Blaic Gardner, though that is not to say there was not many a strange tale told of them around Devon hearths for long days after.
The new-wedded couple were to leave that afternoon for Plymouth, where they’d spend several days before the bride’s sister and companion would join them for their sea voyage to Italy. This was also a wonder. No one had ever traveled so far from home with his wife. Grand Tours there had been, but those had been taken by young men with oats to sow.
As Blaic shut the bedroom door behind him, he said, “Sir Elswith presumed to give me some addresses in Venice and Rome. He said that by the time we arrived I should be ready for a change.”
“Addresses? Of tailors?”
“No, my love. Of bawdy houses.”
Sitting up in bed, Felicia said throatily, “I trust you told him that you had no need for such advice?”
Wrapped in his dark green dressing gown, he stood beside the bed holding a candlestick. Felicia blushed as his gaze passed over her nakedness, but she made no move to cover herself. When a dribble of hot wax landed on his hand, he started and set the candlestick down on the bedside table. Felicia noticed with a thrill of feminine pride that his hands trembled.
Thrusting aside the gauze curtains that shaded the bed, he reached for her. She went into his arms willingly, with a fierceness of need that matched his own. A small battle broke out, each determined to overwhelm the other with the unconditional essence of their desire.
The hot pull of his mouth on her breast, the heavy slide of his thigh between hers, the gentle heat of his hands drove Felicia beyond the boundaries of her nature. She found that she could be shameless as she asked — then demanded — more.
Her self-conciousness slipped away until she was all sensation, though vividly aware that it was Blaic kissing her, touching her, taking her to a place she’d only glimpsed when he’d loved her before. Now she could trust him completely, both giving and taking in a journey that had only just begun.
Exploiting the freedom that their marriage bestowed on her, Felicia wriggled out from beneath him just before he entered. She pushed him back onto the bed, gazing down at his beautiful masculinity. The change that had brought lines to his face had not affected his body. She ran her hands over his bulging arms and traced delicate patterns over the shivering muscles of his flat belly. She laughed, delighted and proud, when he groaned.
“Do you like this?’’ she asked as she glided one fingertip over his arousal.
The veins stood out in his neck as he said through his teeth, “Felicia, what has become of you?”
“Haven’t you heard? You’ve married a wanton woman who is mad for you. Can’t you tell?” A thought occurred to her, and she stilled her hands. “It’s strange. Before we made love, I never gave such things a thought. But now I can hardly force my thoughts to any other subject. If this is the way it’s always going to be, I don’t know how I’ll ever accomplish anything else.”
Blaic pressed her hands against his body as he lightly flexed his hips. “Never mind. If you never accomplish another thing, I, for one, will not complain.”
He caught her by the hips and rolled so that she lay sprawled beneath him. Felicia meant to answer him lightly, but when she looked into his face and saw his green eyes alive with a desire so deep it burned, she had no words left. With a shivering sigh, she ran her feet up the backs of his calves, granting him his dearest wish.
For an instant, feeling him blunt and heavy at the entrance to her body, she tensed, remembering the first time. But this too was utterly changed. She knew nothing but joy, flawless joy, that seemed to sink into the deepest part of her and create a lightness that lifted her to the outer reaches of herself.
A long mindless time later, they lay curled together in blissful silence. Blaic’s hand was snugged between her breasts and his warmth was all along her back. The candle guttered and went out. Blaic stirred as though he’d rise.
“Are you awake?” she asked.
“I have not been asleep. I am happy.”
She sighed with deep contentment. “So am I. Blaic ... ?”
“Hmmm.”
“I believe . .. that is, it may be that I am with child.”
She heard his sleepy laughter in her ear. “If you are not, I am willing to oblige you, my lady, until you are. I am willing, as they say, to die in your service a thousand times.”
“I’m nearly certain I am already.”
He sat up. “You are?’’
“I believe so. You may not know this about women but—
“I asked Doctor Danby all about women.”
“Well, what does he know? After all, he’s a man.” Feeling they were becoming sidetracked, Felicia said, “Never mind Doctor Danby. I just want to know: Has a child ever been born of such a mating as ours?’’
“Sira and her husband had many children....”
“Yes? Were any of them conceived while she was still— you know?”
“One of the People? I don’t know.” The mattress shifted as he lay down again. Felicia wished the candle had not gone out. She would have liked to see his face to know if he was pleased or the reverse.
He drew her close. “I have lived through so much of history,” he said. “But I have never created it before.”
Laying his hand gently atop the rise of her stomach, he added, “I would never know this if it were not for you, Felicia. For this, as for my life, I thank you.”
“You have given me more than I have ever given you.”
“Well,” he said, “this will give us scope for our first argument, but let us reserve it for later. At the moment, I can think of other things to do besides disagree.”
Feeling the power returning to his body, she laughed and surrendered with the greatest of good grace.
Epilogue
“Easy now,” Blaic crooned. “Come on, let go your side, William. Is it straight, Harry?”
“Zeems to be, zur.”
“Excellent! I like it.” Blaic looked past the statue of a Greek god that he was installing on his plinth to wave at his wife standing at the upstairs window. Felicia smiled and held up her hands in silent applause.
“How old do this one be?” William Beech asked. Blaic had quite forgiven him for his approaches to Felicia and had encouraged the young man to set up the hives he found so fascinating.
“The fellow that sold it to me claimed it’s a thousand years old.”
“Fancy that.” The gardeners looked with new respect at the marble statue they’d manhandled up from the carrier’s cart.
“But I don’t believe it,” Blaic went on, withering their awe. “I should be surprised to learn it’s more than a hundred or so. Yet what difference does it make? It’s a fine statue and it becomes this spot very well. Besides, Mrs. Gardner likes it.”
That, as everyone at Hamdry Manor knew, clinched the matter. There was never a woman more indulged than Felicia Gardner. Her husband and sister seemed determined to ruin an otherwise sensible disposition with the depth and frequency of their regard. Even those who had entertained suspicions of her now seemed determined to expunge by kindness any memory she might retain of their former faithlessness.
Blaic glanced up again at the window, the very one he’d first walked through that long-ago day when a woman’s tears had changed his life forever. Felicia had disappeared. Grinn
ing, Blaic realized that in all probability the reason for everyone’s soliticious care of Felicia had awakened.
“She never will allow the nurse to take him,” he said to himself as he strolled along, here evading a ball left on the path, there picking up a rag doll to push into a pocket for later return to a mother whose worry was not diminished by her tiny size. From the other side of the hedge he heard the whick and crack of a jolly game of cricket on the oval lawn.
He met Clarice on the terrace. “Felicia sent me to find you. She’d like to see you at once, in the nursery.”
“There’s nothing amiss?” he asked anxiously.
“No, not exactly. Are they playing cricket? I’ll just go see if they need another bat.”
“Clarice, is something wrong? Some trouble with the baby?”
She gave him a brilliant grin which, while reassuring, was also disquietingly amused. “Trouble? Yes. But more for you than for the baby. Go on up.”
Thoroughly curious, Blaic ran up the now somewhat battered front stairs. Since the children from the orphanage had begun spending so much time at Hamdry Manor, the house was considerably more frayed, as well as infinitely more cheerful. They had come for a visit before Christmas, and a series of freak snowstorms had kept them there for a month. After that, there seemed little point in sending them back to Tallyford.
Blaic eased open the nursery door. “Felicia?”
“Come in, Blaic. I’ve something you should see.”
His son, three months old, lay in his cradle, kicking his feet under the broad lace trim of his robe. His large eyes, a mixture of his mother’s blue and his father’s green, fixed on Blaic, and a light seemed to come into them. He smiled, cooed, and kicked harder.
“He knows me!” Blaic said, grinning. “Hello, Morgain James. If only your grandfathers could see you now.”
“That’s the trouble,” Felicia said, still smiling. “I think at least one of them can.”
“What do you mean?” He couldn’t resist reaching into the cradle and lifting his son out. Felicia came to stand beside him, not, as he knew, because she feared he’d drop the child but because they were always happiest when close to each other. Morgain James had simply added to that closeness.
“Just this.”
Felicia opened a small wooden box covered over with the twisting, mystical patterns of ancient runes. Blaic’s eyes widened. He knew his former People’s work when he saw it. Felicia opened the box and a roulade of sweet music poured forth.
Morgain James waved his fat hands in the direction of the enchanting sound. With the first pass of his hand, a tiny bird arose from the wood. Its body was a single pearl, its minuscule beak two bits of yellow jade. A second pass and the ruby eyes blinked while the beak opened, adding bird-song to the tune.
“Fairy-make?” Felicia asked.
“Without a doubt. I told you this might happen, but you insisted on naming him for my father. Still, there are worse inheritances.”
“I know. Watch.” She closed the box, the bird sinking down in coordination with the wooden hinges. Morgain James’s face flushed clear into the roots of his fine, reddish hair. His brow formed tiny crinkles as he drew breath to scream.
“Open it again,” Blaic said.
“Wait.”
The plump fists flailed, seemingly without meaning. Yet the lid of the box lifted without a touch and the bird’s song rose again, filling the nursery the way the sun filled the room with light every morning.
Blaic glanced at his son, his eyebrows lifting in amazement. “Oh, my word.”
“Oh, my son,’ you mean.” Felicia put the box down and wrapped her arms around husband and child. “As if there could be any doubt...”
Morgain James, cradled between the two hearts that loved him best, ceased to look for the music box. He nestled down against Felicia’s shoulder and blinked his eyes like a contented owl.
Blaic whispered, “This should prove quite a challenge.”
“Good. It will keep you out of mischief.”
“I? What about you?”
She kissed the sweet-smelling fuzz of her child’s head, then lifted her mouth for Blaic’s kiss. As always, the touch of her lips made him slightly dizzy with need. Yet he heard quite clearly, “If I can keep an enchanted prince happy, surely an enchanted baby should be simple!”
“I’ll remind you of that when he’s twenty.” Blaic laughed, but quietly, for their child slept at peace in their arms.
Copyright © 1999 by Cynthia Bailey-Pratt
Originally published by Jove (ISBN 0515125059)
Electronically published in 2011 by Belgrave House
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228
http://www.BelgraveHouse.com
Electronic sales: [email protected]
This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.
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