Читать книгу The Beauty of the Wolf - Wray Delaney, Wray Delaney - Страница 16

VIII

Later that St Valentine’s Day, when the snow had settled thick and white, covering the truth of earth and the lies of lovers, Eleanor wondered who it was who had entered the house that bitter winter morn, who it was who had been intent upon mischief. In the quiet of that afternoon, as the sun once more began to fail and the snow fluttered at the window, she shuddered with the joy of remembering and felt not one ounce of guilt.

Gilbert, Eleanor at his side, had carried the basket up the stairs, through the long gallery to her chamber. Neither of them had said a word, nor had the infant announced its arrival. Gilbert closed the door and they waited, hoping that none of the servants had heard or seen them.

She whispered, ‘My maid is asleep in there,’ and Gilbert Goodwin silently closed the door to the antechamber.

Still the infant had not cried out.

At the end of the bed was a chest where Eleanor had kept the swaddling clothes and the sheepskin bedding that her babes had slept in when newly born. She took out what was needed and wrapped the babe in the long linen cloth before laying him in the cradle to sleep. His hand fought its way free to find his mouth.

‘You will be needing a wet nurse, my lady,’ said Gilbert.

‘Not yet awhile,’ she said and sat to rock the cradle, to think what she should do, how she would explain the child’s sudden appearance. Could she claim the baby as her own? True, when she was with child, she had been slight, had never grown to the size of a galleon in full sail.

Back and forth, back and forth, the cradle rocks back and forth and with each gentle movement she feels a strange heat. It starts in her thighs and spreads up into her belly, into her very womb, up to her breasts. It is an overwhelming heat, the like of which she had never experienced before. She stands up abruptly and forgetting all about Gilbert, forgetting all about modesty, she throws off her fur-lined gown. Still her womb feels to be a cauldron of flame. She discards her underdress.

‘I am on fire,’ she says.

Gilbert sees her naked, her arms wide open and turns his face away.

‘My lady, shall I call for Agnes?’

She looks at him and he turns to her, his full lips parted. She leans forward, her lips touch his. It is kindling for the blaze.

Frantically, she undoes his doublet. He pulls off his shirt, her hand slips into his breeches, she is pleased to feel his cock is hard. On the bed he parts her tender limbs, kisses her lips, her neck. He nuzzles her breasts and gently enters her, not with the violence she is used to, nor is the act over with the pain of a few uncaring thrusts.

Gilbert whispers, ‘Slowly, my lady, slowly.’

He takes his time, waits for her. At each stile the lovers encounter he helps her over, and deeper into her he goes. Then, at the height of their ardour, when all appears lost, Eleanor gives a cry that wakes the baby, that makes the lovers pull away, she embarrassed by the completion of an act that she never knew could be so tender.

Gilbert climbs out of bed, picks up the infant and holds it to him. They wait for the knock on the door, for their sin to be discovered.

But there is not a sound, the house is still wrapped in an enchanting spell. The sorceress would not allow these two lovers to be disturbed. More needs to happen before the cuckoo is well and truly hatched.