Philippa Read online

  “Where are we going?” Philippa asked him.

  “I have absolutely no idea,” he answered. “This is not a part of the river with which I am familiar. I’ll know the spot when I see it.” He drew her into his arms.

  “How will you be able to see what you’re looking for if you’re kissing me?” she asked curiously. His gray eyes held an expression she didn’t understand, but it didn’t frighten her at all.

  “I doubt there is a perfect spot so near Lord Cambridge’s house,” he quickly replied, “so it is best to fill our time kissing, madame. Practice, I am told, makes perfect.” His lips brushed hers. “You have been very negligent in your studies, little one.” He kissed her softly and slowly.

  “I was but waiting for the proper instructor, my lord,” she told him coyly when he freed her lips once again. “Are you he, mayhap?” She was flirting, Philippa thought. She was actually flirting with the man she was to marry on the morrow.

  He tipped her face up to his, gazing into the hazel eyes that looked shyly back at him. “I am he, Philippa,” he told her. “I will teach you with all the skill at my command, not just kissing, but the ways of passion as well. Do you understand, little one?”

  “Aye,” she whispered, and then she said, “I did not wear a chemise today, and my gown is front-laced, my lord.” Then her cheeks grew pink with the bold admission.

  He was astounded. “Philippa,” he said low. “You do me honor.”

  “Well, we are to be married tomorrow, and we are formally betrothed,” she reasoned. “You are an honorable man, I know. If I am a bit liberal today with the cream, you will still purchase the cow, I am sure now.”

  “I will,” he agreed, smiling down into her eyes.

  “You have never before been wed?” she asked him. “Not even betrothed?”

  “Nay. While my father lived I saw no need to marry, and my sisters had sons to take the title should something happen to me,” he explained.

  “But you did not remain at Brierewode,” she noted.

  “There was naught for me to do, Philippa. My father managed his estates with little help. He and his old bailiff, Roald. He had no intention of sharing his authority even with his only son and heir. I cannot be idle. I drifted into the court and caught the eye of Cardinal Wolsey. The next thing I knew I was being sent on diplomatic missions. Little ones at first, and then larger ones. And one day I was sent to San Lorenzo, one of those little duchies between France and Italy. The king’s ambassador had managed to irritate the duke, and was dismissed by him. I was sent as his replacement, but the duke would have no more Englishmen.”The earl chuckled. “I managed to smooth the duke’s ruffled feathers, but was sent home nonetheless. My next posting was to the duchy of Cleves. I was there when my father died. It was at that point I left the royal service. There was no time for a wife while I served the king.”

  “You are younger than your sisters,” Philippa said.

  “Aye, I am. I am thirty, Marjorie is thirty-seven, and Susanna is thirty-five. My mother was not very strong but she was determined to give her husband a healthy son. The effort sapped her strength. She died right after my second birthday. My sisters mothered me until they wed, and by that time I was old enough to survive on my own.”

  “I was barely six when my father died,” Philippa told him. “I can remember him but barely now, and my sisters remember him not at all. My littlest sister, Bessie, is said to resemble him, but Banon and I are like our mother. And my half brothers look like my stepfather, Logan Hepburn.”

  “He is a Scot, I am told,” the earl said.

  “Aye. His home is just over the border from Friarsgate. He has loved mama ever since he was a boy, to hear him tell it. He saw her first with her uncle at a cattle fair. He was very determined to have her to wife. He and his brothers brought salmon and whiskey to my parents’ wedding, and they played their pipes. Mama says she was angry, but that papa found it amusing.”

  “Was your mother much at court?” he wondered.

  “Nay, my mother hated court. When her second husband died she was sent into King Henry VII’s protective custody. She was only thirteen, I think, and her uncle Henry wanted to marry her off to his little boy to keep Friarsgate in the Bolton family. The king sent my father to escort mama to court where she met the Scots queen and Queen Katherine. They were all girls together in the Venerable Margaret’s household. My parents were betrothed, and returned north with the queen of Scotland’s wedding train. After papa died, mama visited Queen Margaret, and then Queen Katherine. But she was always eager to return home to Friarsgate. She and Logan move between it and his Claven’s Carn.”

  “But you love the court,” he said.

  “From the first time I came with mama and Uncle Thomas!” Philippa told him.

  “Well, there is something we have in common,” he told her. “I like the court too. But of course we must make us an heir before we can spend too much time there.”

  Philippa nodded. “I know my duty, my lord, and I promise you that I will do it.”

  “But first,” he said, “we need to become more intimate, little one. You know that babies do not come from the fairies, I assume.” His big hand cupped her face.

  “I am most aware of it, my lord, but I am not yet certain just how it is all accomplished,” she admitted candidly.

  “I am a patient man to a point, Philippa, which surely you must admit you can understand by now,” he began, and his fingers began to unlace her bodice slowly. “We shall attain our goal while giving each other much pleasure.” He loosened the laces enough to open the garment, and he gazed with admiration upon her small creamy round breasts. “Ahh, how lovely you are,” he told her, a single finger tracing a path between the two breasts.

  Philippa bit her lip nervously, and whispered to him so softly that he had to lean nearer to hear her. “The rowers, my lord.”

  Her warm fragrance rose up to assail his nostrils. “... have not eyes in the back of their heads, as I have previously told you, little one.” He cupped one breast in his palm. It lay soft and quivering like a young dove newly netted. He touched the nipple with a fingertip, and it immediately puckered tightly. He bent his dark head and licked the nipple slowly, slowly.

  Philippa hadn’t realized that she wasn’t breathing until she exhaled gustily. “Oh!” The sound was small, sharp, and very surprised.

  “Did you like that?” he asked her, raising his head from her breast.

  She nodded, her hazel eyes very wide. But for the moment she could not speak.

  “Would you like me to do it again?” he said.

  “Aye!” She managed to squeeze the word out but her throat was tight.

  He drew her deeper into his embrace, and now his face pressed itself against the warm flesh bared to his sight. He covered her little breasts with kisses, and at one point felt her beating heart beneath his lips. He licked at the other nipple, and then he took it into the warmth of his mouth and began to suckle upon it gently.

  Philippa shuddered with the utter pleasure he was giving her. A low moan escaped her lips, and then he suckled harder and harder upon her nipple until she felt an odd sensation in her nether regions, a tingle, no, a tiny throb, and she was wet but not from pee. It was a warm and sticky substance. She moved against him.

  Suddenly Crispin St. Claire lifted his head from her bosom. The look in his eyes was one of unexpected surprise. Clumsily he began to relace her gown. “Are you a witch?” he asked her low.

  “I do not understand,” Philippa replied. “Why have you stopped? I liked it!”

  “So did I,” he admitted. “Perhaps too much, little one. I have never considered myself lustful, and yet I believe if we continue on in so intimate a manner I may steal your virginity from you before our union is blessed by the church. You would hate me for it, Philippa, and I do not want you to hate me.”

  “Let me,” she said, and she completed the lacing, tying the bodice neatly in a small bow. “I have never before been touched in s
o tender and familiar a manner, my lord. I feared it, and yet when you made yourself free with my person, I was not afraid.” She sighed. “Indeed I enjoyed it, and regretted it when you stopped.”

  “When this all began,” he told her, “it was for the land. But now I find that I desire you very much. But I honor you as my wife as well. I will not take your virtue in a boat upon the Thames, though were you not a virgin, Philippa, you would have been impaled upon my loveshaft five minutes ago.” Then he kissed her hungrily, his mouth exploring hers fiercely, forcing her lips to part, pushing his tongue between them to forage for her tongue.

  Startled, she found that tongue caressing her tongue fervently. His hard body was pressed tightly against hers, crushing her breasts until she cried out in pain.

  “I’m sorry!” he apologized. “God’s boots, what is this magic you have suddenly unleashed upon me, little one?” Jesu! His cock was as hard as stone from what should have been an innocent encounter to prepare his bride for her marital duties.

  “Am I magical, my lord?” She was teasing him now, and to her surprise Philippa felt happier than she could ever remember feeling.

  He laughed. “Aye, you are enchanting me, little one. And you have no idea at this moment of the power you hold over me, but you do. I think you will become a very dangerous woman one day soon.”

  “I do not understand, but I will admit that I like the sound of your words, my lord,” she responded.

  “Philippa, my name is Crispin. An odd, and an old-fashioned name, I will admit.”

  “It is not odd at all,” she told him. “It is from the Latin, Crispis, and he is the patron saint of shoemakers, my lord.”

  “I should like to hear you say my name,” he said to her.

  “Crispin,” Philippa said, “but there must be more.”

  “Crispin Edward Henry John St. Claire,” he said. “Edward and Henry for the kings, and John for my father.”

  “Why Crispin?” she asked him.

  “It is a family name, and every few generations one male in the family is blessed or cursed, depending on his viewpoint, with the name,” he explained.

  “I like it, Crispin. Oh, look! On the right bank of the river, a grove of willows. What a lovely place for our picnic! Please tell the rowers to pull in to the shore.”

  The earl drew the diaphanous curtains aside and gave the order, and the rowers obeyed his command. The little boat touched the shore, and the earl jumped out, turning to help Philippa disembark. One of the rowers handed them the picnic basket, a coverlet for them to sit upon, and several silken pillows.

  “There was an inn just downriver, milord,” one of the two rowers said. “May Ned and me go back?”

  “How long until the tide turns again?” the earl asked him.

  “About four hours, milord, and then there is the calm between the tides,” the man answered him.

  “Come back in three hours’ time then, or sooner if you prefer. Let us try and catch the tide downriver before it turns again,” Crispin St. Claire said.

  “Thank ye, milord,” the rower responded, and then jumping back into the barge, he and his mate turned the vessel about and headed back down the Thames to where they had seen an inn.

  Philippa had spread the coverlet on the ground beneath a large willow. She set the pillows about and put the basket down. “Will you come and sit by my side, Crispin?” she cooed at him. Why had she ever been afraid of the intimacy between a man and a woman? When he had caressed her it had been wonderful. Before he turned back to her she pulled open the bow holding her laces tied, and quickly licked her lips.

  He turned, and caught his breath. She was simply lovely. She wore no cap or veil, and her rich auburn hair flowed artlessly down her back. Her silk gown, a flattering Tudor green, was one piece. Her lips beckoned him on to his destruction. What the hell was the matter with him? Why this sudden burst of uncontrollable lust for Philippa Meredith? She took a deep breath, exhaled, and the laces of her gown gave way dangerously, and then she sat down upon the coverlet.

  “Will you not join me, my lord?” she invited him sweetly.

  “This was not a good idea,” he said as if to himself.

  “Of course it was,” she disagreed. “Are we not getting to know one another better, Crispin?” She held out her hand to him. “Come, and sit with me. I want to be kissed and cuddled again. We are alone, and there is no one to see us in our little riverside grove of willows.”

  He did not take her hand, but he sat down. He was a grown man. A man of experience. He could certainly restrain himself one more day. He was not some green and callow youth who sprayed his seed down his hose in a frenzy of eager desire. “I am hungry,” he said, eyeing the basket. Food would take his mind from his passion.

  “So am I,” she replied, eying him as if he were some particularly rich sweet that she just had to have. Now.

  He felt his mouth struggling not to smile. What had he done with just a few kisses and caresses. It was as if all her ladylike inhibitions were forgotten. “Madame,” he said in what he hoped was a stern, warning voice, “you must learn to control yourself.”

  “Why?” she questioned him, pouting adorably. “I want to be kissed.”

  “But just yesterday you did not. Why this sudden change in you?” he demanded to know. “First I cannot get you to kiss me, and now you must kiss me.”

  “We are betrothed now. Our wedding is tomorrow,” she said as if that explained it all. “Don’t you want to kiss me, Crispin? Are you one of those men who wants what he cannot have until he gets it, and then he doesn’t want it anymore?”

  “Philippa, I want to kiss you. I want to caress those sweet little titties of yours. But I have discovered to my surprise that what began as a mere lesson in passion to reassure you has whetted my desires so greatly that I am not certain I can control them. I want you a virgin tomorrow night. Our wedding night. I want the servants to gossip about the bloodstain on the bedsheet after we have departed for Brierewode. In the years to come I want them to remember that you were pure and untouched when I first took you. That you were an honorable woman.”

  “Oh, Crispin!” she cried. “I should kiss you if you had not already assured me it would release the ravening beast in you. When I have returned to the queen’s service I shall proudly tell her of the honorable man to whom I am married. You are just what she would have wished for me. Alas, however, it seems that you have aroused a lustful nature in me that is perhaps not quite respectable. I long for your touch.”

  “And I for yours, little one, but we will restrain ourselves for now. We will not have to restrain ourselves in another day. So you think the queen would approve of my gallantry, do you? Do you think I am the kind of man your mother would want for you?”

  “I doubt it would matter to my mother, as you will not be the master of Friarsgate,” she told him frankly. “She will be happy that I am happy, for I know she loves me even if we do not always see eye to eye. You will like her.”

  “I hope that you will like Brierewode,” he said. “The countryside is very unlike your wild Cumbria. The hills are gentle and the meadows green.”

  “Are we on the Thames?” she asked him.

  “Nay, we are to the west of the river, but I have planned with your uncle that we travel home via the river. We shall have his large barge, as he is returning to Otterly with your sister the day after our wedding. We shall go as far as Henley, where our horses will be awaiting us. We will ride cross-country to Cholsey, and then continue on by barge to Oxfordtown itself. After that we will ride home. It should take us about seven days. Your Lucy and my Peter will travel overland with the luggage cart. We will meet them first in Cholsey, and then Oxford.”

  “Where will we stay at night?” she asked him.

  “There are several charming inns along the river, and Lord Cambridge has made arrangements for us,” he told her.

  “So we shall drift up the river alone, together, with no cares,” she said.

  “I thou
ght you would enjoy it,” he told her. “And had we not suddenly gotten along so famously it would have given us time to learn about one another.”

  “Shall we make love along the way?” she teased him.

  He grinned. “Oh, madame, I have much to teach you, and I am delighted to find in you such a willing pupil,” the earl told her. “Now open that damned basket, Philippa, for one of my appetites must be fed this minute or I cannot be responsible for what will happen.”

  “Yes, my lord,” she said meekly. Marriage to this man, she suddenly decided, was not going to be so bad after all.

  Chapter 12

  April thirtieth dawned bright and sunny. The river at the edge of Bolton House sparkled in the cheerful light of morning. The gardens were abloom with early flowers, and the birds were singing sweetly. Philippa had awakened early enough to watch the sun rise. She had gone downstairs into the gardens in her night garment and gathered dew from the grass which she spread upon her face as if it were May morn. Then twirling amid the fragrant blooms, she ran on bare feet back up to her bedchamber to prepare for this most important day in her life. She realized to her surprise that she very much wished Rosamund were here today. But at the end of April her mother would be busy with the lamb count, the culling of her flocks, and preparing to ship the wool cloth woven by the cotters over the long winter months off to her European markets.

  Crispin St. Claire had awakened early too. Going to his window he had seen the lithe figure dancing amid the flowers in the garden below. It was Philippa. He watched her, enchanted, and in that moment the earl of Witton realized that he was falling in love with the girl he would marry this very morning. He smiled, surprised, thinking himself briefly an April fool. She was so innocent and yet so sophisticated. And he had a great deal more to learn about her.

  Banon came into her elder sister’s bedchamber, rubbing her eyes sleepily. “I vow I shall never catch up with the sleep I have lost these months at court,” she complained. “Can I share your bath?” She yawned broadly, and then, sighing, sat down on the bed.