Blaze Wyndham (48 page)

“And no wonder!” snapped her mother, coming into the room. “Stop eating those sweetmeats, and put that wine down, you little idiot! When did you ever see me eating and drinking in the midst of labor? You are going to be as sick as a pig, Bliss, and ’twill serve you right!” scolded the good lady, snatching the goblet from her daughter and sweeping up the dish of candies.

“But, Mama,” wailed Bliss, “it keeps me from thinking about my pain!”

“You are supposed to think on your pain. How else is your child to be born if you do not consider on your pain? I do not think, however, that you are in that much pain if you can eat and drink sitting up. When was the last time you felt a spasm?”

“A little while ago,” said Bliss vaguely, but then she gasped with surprise as a very sharp pain knifed through her vitals. “Ohhhh!” she shrieked. “Here is another one, and sooner than the last, Mama!”

“I am astounded,” replied her mother dryly, “for I would not have been surprised if you had rendered my grandchild in his cups with all your wine! Where is the birthing table? Is no one in this house properly prepared for Marwood’s heir?”

Lady Morgan took immediate charge. She sent her son-in-law off with her amused husband, who cast her a fond look as he escorted Owen FitzHugh away from the scene of activity. Her orders quickly rang out, and Marwood Hall’s servants, used to their more lackadaisical mistress, scurried to and fro obeying Lady Morgan’s recognized voice of authority. Under her mother’s guidance Bliss got down to the serious business of having her child. Her labor quickly progressed stage by stage until shortly after ten o’clock in the evening she brought forth her son, and as the infant’s howls rang through the house, Owen FitzHugh burst into his wife’s chamber to find his exhausted but happy wife cradling their child, a look upon her face that he had never seen before.

“Is he not wonderful?” she cooed at her husband. “Is not my little Owen a fine baby boy?”

The Earl of Marwood knelt hollow-eyed by his wife’s bedside. “I will never do this to you again, sweetheart,” he vowed to her.

Bliss looked down on him as if he had gone stark raving mad. “God’s foot, Owen! I’ve had a baby, ’tis all, not endured the Holy Inquisition! Little Owen is only the first. I want a houseful like him!”

“But what about the court?” he asked her, confused. “Do you not wish to return to court, sweetheart?”

“Oh, there is time enough for that,” she answered him airily, “but first I want to raise my children.”

Rosemary Morgan was still laughing about that two days later when they returned to Ashby. “Did you see the look upon his face,” she asked her husband for the hundredth time, “when she said she wanted a houseful of children?”

“Motherhood is a potent emotion,” chuckled Lord Morgan, “but you have been a shining example for our daughters, my dear. In the end the acorn does not fall far from the oak.”

“Delight will be so excited to know that she is to be little Owen’s godmother. I am glad we sent the children a message of Bliss’s safe delivery. At least they did not have to wait until we returned home to know their sister and her son were all right. Now I can concentrate properly upon Delight’s wedding. Unless there has been some difficulty with Blaze’s confinement, you must convince Anthony to allow her to come, for I would not have her the only one of my children absent on such a particularly happy occasion.”

“I will do my best, my dear,” her husband replied, “for I agree that upon such a happy day we should all be together once again.”

Lord and Lady Morgan and their escort reached their home shortly after sunset. It had been a lovely spring day for a ride, even as long a one as they had just completed. They were anxious to be home, for Lord Morgan had three mares in foal near their time, and his wife was concerned about their two youngest sons who had been sniffly. There was also something to be said about the comfort of one’s own bed. Entering the house, they were greeted by Vanora.

“Lord O’Brian has kidnapped Delight,” she announced without any preamble.

For a moment her parents looked uncomprehendingly at Vanora, but she did not bother to repeat her words, for she knew that they were not deaf.

Finally Lord Morgan said, “What do you mean that Lord O’Brian has kidnapped Delight, Vanora?”

“They were gone the morning after the betrothal, even before the messenger arrived from Marwood Hall to tell us of Bliss’s son. They have not been back since, and there is a letter in your library for you.”

“That does not mean that he has kidnapped her, Vanora,” said Lady Morgan. “Wherever do you get such fanciful ideas from in the first place?”

Vanora looked mightily offended, but she could not respond sharply to her mother as she might have to her siblings. “Mama,” she said frostily, “what am I to think when Lord O’Brian comes from the house carrying a struggling, muffled body over his shoulder, which he slings onto one of the two mares that you promised him, Papa? What am I to think when he, his servant, the muffled body, and the two mares go off? What am I to think when Delight is no longer here afterward?”

“You actually saw all of that?” her father said.

“Aye, Papa, I did. The bedchamber was stuffy, and as it was dawn, I saw no harm in opening the window, which as you know overlooks the front of the house. Lord O’Brian even saw me. He grinned, and he waved farewell to me.”

“Oh, Rob!” cried Lady Morgan. “I feared that this match was a mistake.”

“Let us see what the letter says before we render too quick a judgment,” answered her husband as he hurried into his library. There the letter sat, just as Vanora had said, upon his desk. Slowly he picked it up and broke the thick wax seal. Carefully he unfolded the heavy vellum and lowered his eyes to peruse its message. He read:

“Oh, Rob, what is it?” begged Rosemary Morgan.

Lord Morgan looked up from the message. His fine blue eyes were bright with their amusement. “Well, my dear, I suppose one might say that Lord O’Brian did indeed kidnap our daughter, since Delight did depart under some duress. He has taken her back to Ireland to wed, as he feels it is dangerous for him to be off his lands for so long, particularly, I suspect, as he has no sons right now. The Irish are an opportunistic race. We are invited to come to the wedding if we can.”

“Ohh, my poor Delight,” wailed Rosemary Morgan “and in her fragile condition too!”

Lord Morgan was forced to laugh. “Delight is about as fragile as a rock, my dear. Cormac O’Brian is an honorable man. I have no fears that he will marry her. Father John will keep us informed through the letters that he and Father Kevin exchange.”

“He had no right to steal our daughter!” Lady Morgan was now indignant.

“Our daughter,
but
his betrothed wife,” reminded her husband. “Perhaps you will think me mad, my dear, but I think it is the best thing that could have happened to Delight. He has yanked her away from everything that is familiar, and forced her into a different world from the one that we know. Delight is a strong girl. She has to be, to have survived what she has survived. Now she must be strong for herself, and she will be, my dear. She will be!’

“I think that it is heavenly,” murmured Vanora, her dark eyes dreamy. “Imagine having a man so in love with you that he cannot wait until your wedding day, but must steal you away instead.”

“How old are you now, Vanora?” asked her father thoughtfully.

“Twelve, my lord, this February past,” she answered him.

“Time to be considering a husband for you, I think, my daughter,” replied Lord Morgan.

“I shall choose my own husband,” said Vanora stubbornly.

He smiled down at her. “Perhaps you will, little one. Perhaps you will. Run along now, and tell the others that your mother and I have come home. We will see them all in the chapel for vespers shortly.”

Vanora curtsied to her parents and ran off.

“Well now,” said Lord Morgan, sounding extremely pleased with himself, “we can truly count ourselves quite fortunate, my dear, can we not?” He smiled broadly at his wife.

“I do not understand you, Rob. Delight has been kidnapped by her betrothed husband, and you consider us fortunate?”

“One must look at the larger picture, my dear,” he told her, and when she looked puzzled he said, “Four are wed,
and
but four to go!”

L
ord Morgan rode to see his three married daughters several weeks later that he might explain to them that there would be no wedding at Ashby come August.

“You do not seem unduly distressed,” remarked Bliss as she nursed her greedy son.

“I am not,” her father said. “Cormac O’Brian is the man for Delight, whether she has the sense to admit it or not.”

“Ohhh,” said Bliss. “You make him seem quite fascinating, Papa. I am sorry I did not get to meet him.”

At Kirkwood the gentle Blythe smiled at her father’s news. “Delight,” she said, almost repeating his very words to his wife, “will survive quite nicely, and before it is all over with, poor Cormac O’Brian will find himself her slave. He was quite obviously mad for her, Papa.”

Lord Morgan left his horse with the Kingsleys, and took their barge across the Wye to RiversEdge. There he encountered his eldest daughter dozing upon the green lawns beneath a tree in the late July sunshine. He looked down upon her, and he smiled. Blaze had surely grown even lovelier over the years, and being with child obviously agreed with her, for she had a glow about her that he had not seen before.

Kneeling down, he gently shook her awake. “Blaze. It is Papa, my dear. Wake up.”

She stirred, yawned, and then with a sigh she opened her violet-blue eyes. “Papa?”

“ ’Twas such a fine day, I came for a visit. I was with Blythe earlier, and yesterday I went to Marwood Hall to see how my new grandson is doing.”

“Mama?”

“Fine, but still somewhat in shock. Lord O’Brian has taken Delight back to Ireland with him.”

Her look both surprised and startled, Blaze sat up, brushing a lock of her honey-colored hair aside as she did. “What? Why on earth would they go to Ireland with the wedding so close? Will they be able to be back in time?”

“There will be no wedding here in England. It is to be celebrated in Ireland. Lord O’Brian could not stay away from his lands any longer for fear of encroachment by his neighbors, and he worried that late-summer storms could prevent his claiming Delight in August. He did not want to wait until next year. They were gone when we returned from little Owen’s birth.”

“I am quite surprised that Delight would go with him without waiting for you and Mama to return,” said Blaze.

“Vanora says that Lord O’Brian forcibly kidnapped your sister,” came the amused reply, and then Lord Morgan went on to explain to his oldest child what Vanora had seen.

Seeing her father’s amusement as he told his tale, Blaze could not help but smile. “You are not saddened by this turn of events, are you, Papa?” she said.

“I am saddened that a looked-forward-to family event will not be, my dearest, but I know that Delight is going to be very happy when she ceases being very angry,” their father wisely noted.

“Now,” teased Tony that night as he and Blaze curled together in their bed, “I shall not have to fight with you. about traveling in your maternal condition.”

“Then I shall have to find something else for us to fight about, my lord,” she taunted him back.

She felt him push her hair off her neck, and then his warm lips pressed a series of little kisses upon the sensitive skin. Drawing her back against him, he sought for, and found, a plump breast, which he fondled. She murmured and purred as he touched her, grinding her bottom against him until finally, carefully arranging her legs as she lay upon her side, he was able to enter into her, thrusting with long yet gentle strokes until they both found sweet fulfillment. “You are such a randy fellow,” she mocked him afterward. “What will happen when we can no longer do this? And we cannot much longer. I want no harm to come to this child.”

“Neither do I, my angel,” he whispered back, wondering if she would ever love him.

The summer passed, and the Countess of Langford ripened with her child even as the apples in their orchards ripened. It was a happy summer. Doro grew plump with her contentment of family life, and Nyssa, nearing her fourth birthday, seemed to lose her baby looks. Bliss and Owen came from Marwood Hall to show off their healthy young heir. Blythe, Nicholas, and their offspring came from across the river to visit. They spread cloths upon the lawns and picnicked. The three sisters, their colorful skirts spread out about them like the petals on a flower; the men, their formal attire put aside, and sleeves rolled up as they played at bowls; the children, scampering about barefoot, and wading in the shallows of the Wye.