Lord of the Forest
Page 22
“Where are we going?” She loved the feel of his powerful arms around her, the self-confidence of his stride. He’d recovered much of what he’d lost, but there was still enough of the lord of the forest in him to tantalize and excite her.
“You remember the old yew grove at the southern edge of the garden? It was so overgrown, you literally had to crawl in to penetrate it.”
She remembered. It had held no great interest for her.
He set her down and winked at her. “I’ve had some modifications made.”
She stared. In amongst the sinewy branches of the yews, new holly bushes had been planted. Transplanted from elsewhere, in fact, as some of them were quite sizeable.
“It still looks impenetrable.” And unenticing.
“Wait.” There was a fey look on his face, of mischievous excitement. He tugged at some holly branches, and an opening appeared, large enough to accommodate a person, even one with wide skirts. Lancelot made her a deep bow, lines of amusement etched into the corners of his mouth. “After you, Mistress de Glanville.”
She pushed through and found herself in a little glade, surrounded on every side by impenetrable foliage and twisting branches. The boundaries of the glade were decked out like a medieval bower—inside the dark bastions of holly and yew grew a hedge of hawthorn and box, twined about with honeysuckle, sweet briar, and bellbind. At the center of the glade was a pond, shaded by a willow—neither of which had been visible before. Both were well established and must have been concealed by the overgrown yew trees.
“Our own private bathing place. No gardener is permitted to enter from henceforth—I shall attend to the plants here myself. I daresay our children will discover it in time, and our privacy will be destroyed but, until then, we have our own miniature version of the forest. Here, you and I may be as untrammeled by care as we could wish.”
She laughed at him. “I suppose you’ve climbed the willow, to see if it makes a useful watchtower?”
“Fond wench—it is much too hard to climb a willow. And before you ask, I have set no traps, and mean to harm no duck, cony, pigeon, or dove that might trespass here. This is our own paradise garden, designed entirely for pleasure.”
She slid her hands around his trim waist. “What a delightful surprise—such peace and quiet after the endless ruckus of court.”
“And the noise and bustle of a country manor such as Emborough. I was hoping you would like it, and see it as a refuge we can share.”
She tipped her head to one side and looked at him contemplatively. “There’s only one thing wrong with it, Husband.”
“And what might that be, oh, light of my life?”
She beamed back at him. “You’re wearing clothes.”
His face registered shock, an indication of how far he had come since his wild days in the woods. But only briefly.
His hands went to the points of his doublet. “I shall remedy that forthwith.”
Raising an eyebrow, he shot her a look that sent darts of desire lancing through her. “I think a bathe before our midday meal would be invigorating. Don’t you?”
“Tempting though it is, I shall content myself with dipping my feet and ankles, I think. But do you go ahead, Husband.”
Another of those looks. Her knees started to tremble.
“You mean to watch me?” He shouldered out of his doublet.
“Nay.” She tossed back her head and let her joy flow unchecked. “I intend to help.”
He took her in his arms, and he laughed with her, until their private forest dell rang with the sound of their merriment, and basked in the heat of their love.
About the Author
Elizabeth Keysian is an international bestselling author of heart-pounding Regency romances, set mostly in the West of England. She is working on a fresh series for Dragonblade Publishing called Trysts and Treachery, which is set in the Tudor era. Though primarily a writer of romance, she loves to put a bit of mystery, adventure, and suspense into her stories, and refuses to let her characters take themselves too seriously.
Elizabeth likes to write from experience, not easy when her works range from the medieval to the Victorian eras. However, her passion for re-enactment has helped, as have the many years she spent working in museums and British archaeology. If you find some detail in her work you’ve never come across before, you can bet she either dug it up, quite literally, or found it on a museum shelf.
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