Barbara DENVIL - Blessop's Wife

The new king was travelling far away. He journeyed slow, introducing himself to all England’s citizens and to those distant towns which relied on rumour since official messages were rare, and therefore had barely understood the events of previous months. The king’s progress wound through England’s gentle countryside, but his grace’s royal entourage did not include all of his most trusted servants. Appointed to positions of official dignity within the capital city, these men continued their secret business undercover. London bustled, but there would always be the discontented, the conspirators and those who expected personal benefit under a different reign. So, King Richard ordered his spies to pay careful attention to the safety of the young bastard princes still comfortably housed in the Tower but vulnerable to plots and treachery. There were orders left to smuggle both boys in great secrecy across the sea to Flanders should danger come too close. But for now the summer was ablaze in vibrant pageantry, and few believed in misery to come.

Lord Leays was making love to his wife.

His belly flat to hers, one hand cradling her face, he moved long and slow, watching her as she squeezed her eyes and gasped and caught her breath in delight. The silky sweat-damp curls at his groin nestled tightly to hers, all the weight of his muscled elegance sweeping down against her body.

When he paused, still lying deep within her, she opened her eyes and gazed up at him, mesmerised. ‘Too heavy?’ He smiled, teasing.

‘A lady never feels crushed.’ Her fingers crept around his back, finding the familiar valleys beneath his shoulder blades, then crawling down to his pelvis and the places where she knew her touch made him shiver, enjoying her power, increasing his arousal. She whispered, ‘You’re not moving. But you are moving. Little tugs inside, swelling and pressing. It’s like another language.’

His smile continued to tease. ‘Poetry perhaps?’

‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘It’s much more dangerous than that.’ From caressing his spine, her fingertips slipped up to the hollow at the back of his neck, then rubbed into his hair below the blunt stubbled angle of his jaw. She found the special place she had been feeling for. ‘It’s like this,’ she said, whispering softly. ‘You have a little pulse, a tiny heartbeat – just here. And down below, that’s what you have there, too. I can feel it now, beating inside me. Throbbing as if it hurts. But I know it’s not hurting – it’s pleasure. And if I squeeze like this – that pulse pounds harder, ready to explode.’

‘Explosion is quite likely, my beloved. At any moment.’

She thought his eyes glittered, the lids lowered, narrowing his gaze. Each line of his face intensified as his body moved again, steadying into slow hard strokes. When the rhythm of her breathing quickened, so he thrust deeper. When she gasped, he responded, his arms quickly pushing under her, grasping and lifting her tighter against him.

But his voice remained soft and lazy. ‘You have your own fires, little one. Flames of another kind.’

He explored her mouth, forcing his tongue between her lips. When she could breathe again, she whispered, ‘I didn’t know I had places so – deep.’

He grinned. ‘You want me deeper?’

No more than a breath. ‘I haven’t anything deeper.’

‘I’ll find it.’

He held her afterwards as she shuddered, uncontrolled, her head to his shoulder as her body convulsed. He was still on top of her, still inside, but he reached behind and tugged up the bedcover, tucking it around her, again enclosing them both in caverns of shadow. Waiting until she calmed, he began to smooth back her hair, and the strands of pale curls from her eyes and mouth. Then he bent and kissed her briefly. His lips brushed her forehead and his tongue moistened and warmed each eyelid, like a cat waking her newborn. He murmured, ‘If you do not pause, little one, and throw me off, and tell me how tired you feel, I shall be impelled to take you again.’

She opened her eyes, the lashes glistening wet. ‘It should be you feeling too tired,’ she whispered.

He shook his head slightly so that all the thick black length of his hair tumbled forwards as he wedged himself up on his elbows, removing the full force of his weight from her body. ‘Bedding you exhilarates me.’

She mumbled, ‘You never seem tired. You’re still so hard, and that feels so – tantalizing. Everything about you is so – different.’

‘I’ve one mouth, two arms, two legs and a prick.’

‘But some men – they have different reasons for making love to their wives, and they want different things.’ She held her breath a moment, waiting for him to understand but he frowned and seemed not to understand at all. Finally she said, ‘You remember, don’t you, my love, that I’m barren? Now you’re a lord, you will want an heir.’

He gazed down at her, bemused. ‘I thought it was me who liked to talk nonsense while I bed you.’

‘I’ve caught the habit.’

He pressed himself deeper once more, slow and careful, savouring the press of her breasts beneath him and the moist tightness around him. ‘I’ve small experience of good fatherhood,’ he said. ‘Let what happens, happen. What we lack matters not one jot in comparison to what we’ve gained. We have a good king again, my love, and great hopes for a safe future. This is your home now, and where we both belong. There’ll be neither war nor famine nor pestilence, just peace and prosperity. We face a golden age. The man I admire sits England’s throne, and the woman I adore lies in my arms. There’s no one will spoil that for many a long year, you’ll see, my love.’

She was losing her voice and her breath. ‘No need for spying? You’ll be bored and restless.’

‘I shall discover contentment.’

‘Unless the king sends you to Brittany, after all.’

‘To spy on Henry Tudor?’ Andrew smiled, quickening the rhythm once more. His strokes thrust deep and his voice rasped, concentration on her body, and his own. ‘I doubt it,’ he murmured. ‘That miserable wretch has neither rightful claim, nor good reputation. All he has in his favour is a determined mother. His highness considers that threat insignificant.’ Andrew paused, lying a moment against her, catching his breath, savouring the familiar cushion of her body. One hand behind her, the other travelled her body. Pushing between his belly and hers. Then he kissed her breast, pulling at the nipple, making her grunt in delight. ‘Life,’ he said finally, his voice no more than a little warm breeze against her cheek, ‘is about to prove itself sweet as marchpane, little one.’

Dear Reader

Were you disappointed to turn the last page and find yourself back in the modern world? Are you ready for your next Medieval escape?

Then there’s more medieval perplexities waiting for you in THE FLAME EATER

Emeline is young and hot-headed but counts herself fortunate when her betrothed turns out to be the charming, handsome son of an Earl… that is until his violent death forces her to marry his monstrous brother instead.

If you thought ‘Blessop’s Wife’ had twists and turns, then ‘The Flame Eater’ will have you reeling and reading through the night!

And do remember that when a reader leaves a review, an Author Angel gets their wings!