Reckless Angel

by Jane Feather

  And thus it was that on the twenty-seventh day of September, 1648, Henrietta Ashby became Henrietta, Lady Drummond, wife of Sir Daniel Drummond, Baronet, of Glebe Park in the village of Cranston in the county of Kent.

  Chapter 5

  “I think perhaps I will seek my bed.” Will yawned deeply and stretched.

  “But ’tis early yet,” protested Henrietta, replacing the draughtsmen on the backgammon board. “Let us play another game.”

  Will looked awkward. He glanced across the parlor to where Sir Daniel sat beside the fire, a book upon his knees. For a man on his wedding night, he seemed very relaxed to Will. And Henrietta was behaving as if nothing momentous had occurred in her life. It seemed to Will that the burden of recognizing this marriage as fact had fallen to him, and he did not know quite how to deal with it. Playing backgammon with the bride as the night grew late did not strike him as appropriate.

  “Nay,” he said, getting to his feet. “’Tis late, and I’m awearied. You should be too.” A pointed stare accompanied the latter declaration.

  Henrietta frowned. “I do not feel particularly weary. I expect ’tis because I lay long abed this morning.”

  “Well, I am going to bed,” Will said firmly. “So I’ll bid ye good-night. Good night, sir.”

  “But you will see him in a minute—” began Henrietta, then stopped, a fiery blush mounting to the roots of her hair. She lowered her eyes to the board and became very busy with the pieces.

  “Good night, Will,” Daniel said calmly. The door closed on Will and he shut his book with some deliberation, watching Henrietta, who still sat absorbed with the draughtsmen. Her head was bent, exposing the delicate, vulnerable column of her neck above the deep lawn collar and white neckerchief of her dark blue gown.

  “Henrietta?”

  “Yes.” She turned her head to look at him, her eyes very large.

  “I think you should perhaps follow Will’s example. We will have a long ride tomorrow and must make an early start.” He smiled gently.

  Her tongue moistened suddenly dry lips, but she rose obediently.

  “I will come to you in a little while,” he said. A jerky nod was the only sign she gave of having heard him as she hastened from the room.

  Daniel stared into the fire for long moments. It was his duty to consummate this marriage, but he was not ready to father children on that slight body, not after what successive pregnancies had done to Nan. She had been sixteen when he married her and was dead at twenty-one, worn out with the carrying and delivering of children. He would not permit that to happen to Henrietta. In a year perhaps she would conceive an heir, but until then he would have to take certain precautionary measures—measures that had not occurred to the lustily eager young man he had been.

  How much did she know about her conjugal duties? Nan had been completely ignorant, and he had been not much better. But they had learned together, after the first few fumbling awkwardnesses. He smiled in reminiscence. At least he could bring Henrietta the benefits of his experience and hopefully ensure that the loss of her virginity would not be unnecessarily painful.

  Henrietta was trembling as if in the grip of an ague as she undressed and released her hair from its braided coronet. It fell down her back in a shining, corn silk-colored cascade, rippling beneath the strokes of her brush as she tried to achieve equilibrium with the accustomed rituals of bedtime. But questions roiled in her anxious brain. This was not, after all, an ordinary bedtime and the accustomed rituals were perhaps not appropriate. Should she take off her smock and get into bed naked? Should she put on her nightcap? Should she blow out the candle? When would he come? Would he still be dressed, or would he come to her in his shirt?

  Deciding on compromise, she kept her smock on but left her nightcap off, then climbed onto the high feather mattress, pulled the sheet up to her chin, and sat gazing at the door with apprehensive eyes.

  Daniel came in carrying a candle that he set on the mantel before turning to the bed. “Oh, you poor little elf,” he said impulsively as she offered a tremulous smile that did nothing to disguise her apprehension. “There is nothing to fear.” He came and sat on the bed, reaching up to brush her hair away from her face, allowing the silken tresses to slip slowly through his fingers. “Why are you afeard?”

  “I am not,” she denied, but her eyes belied the denial.

  “What do you know of this business?” he asked, still playing with her hair. “Has your stepmother spoken to you?”

  She blushed, shaking her head. “She has never said anything to me, and Will was always so uncomfortable if I tried to ask him…and there wasn’t anyone else to ask.”

  Daniel smiled to himself at the thought of poor Will trying to deal with Henrietta’s eager questions. He was fairly certain she would have shown none of her present hesitancy when it came to discussing such matters with her hapless young friend.

  Catching her chin, he tilted her face, saying teasingly, “It is not like you to be out of countenance, Harry. Why do you not ask me your questions?”

  Her lower lip disappeared between her teeth in the manner she had of denoting perplexity. “I don’t know how to say it. Perhaps you could just show me what happens.”

  Daniel scratched his head in frowning silence for a minute while she continued to regard him anxiously. Then he nodded. “Very well, perhaps that is the best way.” Taking the sheet, he drew it slowly away from her. The big brown eyes remained riveted to his face as he began to unlace her smock before pushing it gently off her shoulders.

  He inhaled sharply at the two angry red weals across her shoulders where Sir Gerald’s whip had cut. “Why did you not move when he struck you?”

  “Because he was going to beat Will,” Henrietta replied, adding reassuringly in case he should feel the need to stop this initiation, “it is only a little sore now.”

  Daniel’s lips twitched, but he nodded gravely before sliding the smock to her waist. She was still looking into his face as he cupped the small, perfect breasts in the palms of his hands.

  “Are…are they pleasing?” she whispered in a voice that did not sound like her own.

  “Oh, yes.” Smiling, he bent his head to graze her nipples with his lips. Henrietta gasped at the strange sensation as the crowns of her breasts hardened, tingled, setting up a chain of reaction elsewhere in her body that was as disturbing as it was delicious. He moved his hands to span the narrow, girlish waist, his lips trailing upward to press into the hollow of her throat, to stroke the line of her jaw before finding her mouth.

  Her head fell back, her lips parted as his tongue pushed gently within, and at last her eyes closed. She was too busy trying to separate and define the myriad sensations engulfing her to respond to the kiss, and Daniel drew back to look down at her rapt face, eyes tightly closed, mouth still opened slightly as if she simply waited for his return. He touched the tip of her nose with his finger and she opened her eyes.

  “That was not at all like kissing Will.”

  “Am I to take that as a compliment, elf?” The black eyes sparkled with enjoyment rather than passion, but then passion had not been on his agenda. He had had passion with Nan and did not expect to find it again, particularly not with this odd, indomitable creature, who was sometimes an exasperating little girl, sometimes a reckless and courageous hoyden, sometimes a thoughtful young woman, but always refreshingly honest in her reactions, straightforward in her attitudes to life and events around her.

  “Was that not a good thing to say?” She looked discomfited. “I liked kissing Will, but of course I will not be doing so again. And I liked kissing you very much.”

  “Well, I am glad you will not be doing so again, and I am complimented,” he said solemnly. “But it is not customary to talk of one man to another when it comes to lovemaking.”

  “Then I will not do so again. But I did not know. It never arose with Will because I had never kissed anyone else.”

  Matters seemed to be drifting off course a trifle, reflect
ed Daniel. Conversation played havoc with sensuality. “Lie down,” he instructed, running his fingertips lightly over her arms, feeling her skin quiver beneath the delicate caress.

  The air was cool on her bared skin as he slipped the smock out from under her, lifting her with an intimate palm that shocked her so that for a second her body went rigid. A flush seemed to creep over her entire body as his eyes roamed slowly over her, lying so still and so naked on the bed.

  “There is no need to be uncomfortable,” he said quietly, his hands following his eyes. He had seen her naked before, but on that occasion had not permitted himself the luxury of acknowledging the woman’s body. Now he could do so, and it was an entrancing, lean little body, narrow hipped and long legged, her skin soft and creamy, the silken triangle at the apex of her thighs as fair as the tresses massed upon the pillow.

  He kissed her belly, nuzzled her navel, feeling her skin mist, bedewed with a faint sheen of perspiration, as she half protested these attentions yet yielded to the wild turmoil of sensation. “You are very beautiful, Henrietta,” he said, looking into her eyes as he parted her thighs.

  She resisted the pressure of his hands spreading her wide, her head shaking in vigorous negative although she could find no words. But the inexorable trespass continued and with a shuddering sigh she gave in, allowing herself to be tossed hither and thither by weird and wonderful feelings that in her soul she thought should be shameful, yet they were not and she could not have cared if they were.

  When at last he removed his own clothes and came down onto the bed with her, the feel of his skin against hers, the strange roughness of it so unlike anything she had before experienced, brought her to vibrant awareness of his physical presence. She inhaled deeply of the scent of him, felt his hair tickle her cheek, the hair of his chest slightly abrasive against her breasts, the hard throb of him against her thigh. He took the bolster and slipped it beneath her bottom, angling her body to facilitate his entrance into the tight virgin portal. She bit her lip hard, her whole body seeming to tighten against him as she looked up into his face, feeling him now as an alien presence, a stranger who would invade and possess her. His eyes were open, as if he was seeing into some other world, and he pressed ever deeper within, refusing to acknowledge her resistance. Then he looked down at her, at her fearful face, saw her confused anger at this invasion, and he lowered his head to kiss her eyelids, gentling her with nonsense murmurs, concentrating now on her so that the anger and fear left her.

  For a moment he had forgotten her youth and inexperience as he reveled once more in the glory of being within a woman. For four years he had been chaste, as if by such denial he could atone for the responsibility he bore for Nan’s death, and only now did he realize what a sacrifice that denial had been. It required every effort of control to delay his own satisfaction and bring all the skill he possessed to the fore, so that the girl lying so still beneath him began to relax, began to make little sounds of perplexed pleasure as she entered the realm of womanhood.

  He withdrew from her body the instant before his own pleasure peaked, and Henrietta, whose education in these matters was but barely begun, thought nothing of it. She lay, feeling strangely limp, accepting the heaviness of the body upon hers, now accepting the body itself, the physical presence in all its sensory reality, that had so frightened her with its unfamiliar and invincible power.

  Daniel rolled away from her, propped himself on an elbow, and dropped a kiss on her brow. A smile trembled on her lips, but she said nothing because she could think of nothing that seemed appropriate. A shyness now filled her, as if, despite the intimacy they had just shared, again she was in the company of a stranger. But Daniel Drummond had not been a stranger from the first moment she had become aware of him as a person after the battlefield at Preston. It was a paradox beyond unraveling.

  Daniel read something of this confusion in her face and with quiet wisdom decided that sleep was her best medicine. He lay down, sliding an arm beneath her. Henrietta rolled into his embrace and was instantly asleep. Once he was sure he would not disturb her, he gently disengaged himself and slid out of bed, snuffing the candles and building up the fire before returning to bed in the flickering firelight.

  Henrietta woke once in the night. She lay disoriented in the darkness and the befuddlement of new waking. Her nakedness surprised her for a minute, as did the presence of a bedfellow when she knew she had been granted the luxury of a bed to herself since they arrived in London. Her body in its private places didn’t feel as usual either, sticky and a little sore. She touched herself and remembered. Looking up into the shadowy darkness, she twisted the heavy gold ring on her finger. It was Daniel’s signet ring, all that could be produced in the haste and imperative of her wedding. Her father had ridden off immediately, without even reentering the Red Lion to drink to the health of the bride and groom. In the morning Will would leave, and she would go naked into her new life—as naked as she now was.

  Kent…she had never been to Kent. The garden of England they called it. Orchards and pleasant rolling countryside…and two little girls…motherless little girls who were about to be faced with a stepmother. Etched into her soul was every memory of the day when Lady Mary Ashby had arrived at Sir Gerald’s side to be introduced to the terrified, grieving child who Henrietta knew still existed within herself. Her own mother had been dead but six months when her father brought home his bride and her three children. And Henrietta had loathed them all upon sight in instinctive reaction to a bone-deep recognition that she herself was despised and distrusted. She had put frogs in her stepbrothers’ bed and laughed merrily at their screams of repulsion. Boys were not supposed to be frightened of frogs. She expected Marie, her stepsister, to be timid and would not have teased her, except that Marie delighted in telling tales. It had become clear to Henrietta that she might as well be punished for offenses she had committed as for those she had not. So it had continued for ten years and more.

  What about Daniel’s little daughters? Would they view a stepmother with fearful, hostile eyes? Was he a stern father? A loving one, she believed absolutely. But how could she be a mother to motherless children when she had had no mother of her own, only a travesty on which to mold herself?

  And how was she to be a wife? Tentatively, she put a hand against the warm back beside her. It seemed almost like spying to touch someone in this way when he was sleeping, yet she found the feel of him comforting, a solid reality to inform her unquiet conjecturing. She let her body roll against him, the warmth of his skin lapped hers, the rhythm of his breathing soothed her, seeming to insinuate itself into her own bodily rhythms, and she slept again.

  Daniel woke at dawn to a deep sense of gloom. The war was over and lost, and the future looked bleak for a Malignant, particularly for one who had just acquired a five-hundred-pound debt. The land was in the grip of a vengeful Puritanism. He had been away from his home for six months and there was no knowing what had occurred in his absence. He had seen too many times the orchards cut down, the fields scorched, the gardens destroyed, the houses wrecked by Parliament’s vengeance.

  He turned his head to look at the sleeping face on the pillow beside him. What had he done? Not only had he at great expense bought a penniless bride, but she was such an odd and unpredictable little thing with a deal of maturing yet to do. Did he have the patience to let her grow at her own pace?

  Henrietta opened her eyes, as if aware of his scrutiny, and saw the cloud on his face the instant before he banished it. “You look unhappy. What is it?” She touched his cheek with her fingertips and the initiative she showed with her tentative caress surprised him.

  “Not unhappy,” he said. “But anxious to be home. I’ve been too long away.”

  She nodded, sitting up. “Then we should rise and begone.” Energetically, she sprang from the bed, then shivered in the cold dawn. “I forgot I have no clothes on.” She gave him a glinting smile that could only be described as mischievously inviting, and again he was surpris
ed, wondering if she were aware of the blatant sensuality of her expression. Remembering the shy and fearful maid of the previous evening, he decided it must be unconscious; anyway, now was not the moment to find out.

  “Aye, we must get up,” he said. “We’ve sixty miles to ride today.”

  Henrietta made a face. “I shall not be able to sit down for a week if I ride that distance in one day!”

  He laughed, shrugging into his shirt. “Riding is apt to work such mischief, I grant you, but you have been in the saddle every day for the best part of a month, so you should be hardened.”

  “Callused,” she said with a mock groan, sitting naked on the edge of the bed to pull on her stockings.

  He smiled. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Swooping on her, he lifted her to her feet, turning her around to run his hands over the soft curve of her buttocks and down the backs of her thighs. “Not a callus in sight.”

  Blushing slightly, she gave him that same mischievous look over her shoulder. “I thought we were in a hurry.”

  For a moment he wished they were not. “We are.” He gave her bottom a brisk pat and tossed her smock toward her. “Make haste. I will go and see mine host about breakfast.” Tucking his shirt into his britches, he strode to the door.

  Henrietta stood frowning at the closed door. Why did she feel so funnily disappointed? It must be hunger, she decided, and dressed rapidly in her plain riding habit of dark green cloth, braided her hair neatly, looked with distaste at the porringer, then crammed it on her head before hastening to the parlor.

  Will and Daniel were already at their breakfast. Will, his mouth full of sirloin, mumbled a greeting but for some reason would not meet her eye. Henrietta wondered if he was embarrassed, knowing as he must what had transpired in her bedchamber.

  “Good morrow, Will,” she replied with a cheerful smile, taking her accustomed stool at the table. “I am famished.”