Courtly Pleasures
Page 26
“Is that so?” Frances could think of nothing she’d like more.
“Yes. I figure that if I keep you here long enough, I can convince you that you love me.” Henry met her eyes as he lowered himself back on the bed until they both lay on their sides, facing each other. Without the baby between them, there was nothing keeping them apart. Except for their clothes.
“But what if I don’t want to leave your bed?”
Smiling, he said, “Well, that in itself says something, doesn’t it?” He moved to pepper her face with kisses while he undid the lacings on her bodice.
“Yes, yes it does.” Frances sighed her words. Henry could not undress her fast enough. “May I still stay in your bed even if I were to say that you I love you already?” Frances’s voice lowered to a husky whisper on the last three words.
Henry let out a boyish laugh before he finished with her bodice and moved on to nuzzle her neck. “I may never let you leave either way.”
“That sounds wonderful to me.” Frances sighed as Henry’s teeth nipped at her ear.
Frances could hardly contain the sense of wholeness, the feeling of family and love that came with Henry and her children. He was home, truly home for reasons other than the quarterly income reports or the obligation of siring a babe.
Henry nuzzled her neck and whispered, “This is everything I have ever worked for and not known it until now. You are my wife, and it awes me that I’m worthy to touch you, that you want me.”
For the first time, they were equal. She wanted everything he wanted . . . or at least she thought so. It was almost silly how much she needed to hear him say that he loved her, that it was real, before she made herself more vulnerable to him by expressing her love. Then again, she had to trust what she felt, what she felt from him.
“Wanting to stay in my bed—our bed,” he murmured, “is no excuse to avoid saying it.”
Frances felt the heat of his words against her skin. Didn’t every breath she took scream it? Every sigh? Every kiss? No, it was not the same. Saying it now would be more meaningful than the vows they spoke out of duty ten years ago.
Shy, Frances whispered, “I do love you.” Her heart fluttered in her chest, and she felt as giddy as a young girl.
Henry paused his sensual torture of her neck to gaze at her with a beaming smile. “And I love you more than duty. More than the Crown. You are everything.” He leaned down to kiss her softly on the forehead. “I love you,” he kissed her on the tip of her nose. For a moment, Frances thought he looked very much like the boy she had wed . . . Only now her dreams of love and romance had actually come true.
His eyes burned with intensity as once more he said, “I love you.” He finished, claiming her mouth with a passion that made his words unnecessary.
Author’s Note
This story is entirely fictional. All the actual historical noble characters are at the approximate age and stage of their life they would have been in 1572. The Duke of Norfolk had just been executed. Francis Walsingham was in Paris following the St. Bart’s massacre and had not yet been knighted. A very young Anne Cecil had just married the self-centered and licentious Earl of Oxford. Robert Dudley was nearing the end of an affair with Baroness Howard and was picking up with Lady Essex. I originally wrote this to fill in the missing history of Frances and Henry Pierrepont, Frances being the eldest daughter of Bess of Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury. Because this is historical romance and not historical fiction and I was inventing so much of the story, I opted to change Frances and Henry’s names to LeSieur.
The real Frances and Henry Pierrepont were indeed married young and had a number of children, some who survived, but that was all I could discover. Their descendants, however, did make a name for themselves, and Holme Pierrepont is open as a historical home for tours in Nottinghamshire.
To all the history and costume buffs out there, please give me some allowance for poetic license. Some things needed to be adapted for the pacing of the plot. It was much more exciting for Frances to have her new dress right away instead of waiting a more realistic time period. I have been as accurate as I can within the scope of the flow of my story and my resources. The dances referenced throughout the story were accurate in choreography and were created and used during the Elizabethan era—but late era. They would not have been danced at court in 1572. For this historical inaccuracy, I apologize. I love the Italian dances too much to limit the story to French.
In this story, Frances is taking action to lift herself out of depression. In Elizabethan England, she would have been diagnosed with a melancholy and an unbalance of humors. Apothecaries may have prescribed any number of treatments, from bleeding to inventive suppositories. A wise woman may have created a tincture of St. John’s wart—an herb used today to battle depression.
In modern society, depression is taken seriously. Frances managed to solve her problems with positive attitude, a change of scenery, a shopping trip, and some good lovin’. Not everyone is so fortunate. I think the most important step of Frances’s transformation was that she allowed herself to have needs of her own—that she didn’t dismiss her thoughts and feelings as silly simply because they may have seemed irrational. She became the master of her own destiny by acknowledging that she had a valid problem that she needed to address.
Thank you for choosing to read this book. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
About the Author
Erin Kane Spock lives in Southern California with her husband, two daughters, an old-lady dog, and a puppy. She is a teacher and an active Irish dance mom.
Find Erin Kane Spock at her blog at courtlyromance.blogspot.com, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Spockromance, and on Twitter at @kanespock.
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ISBN 978-1-5072-0747-5 (ebook)
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