This kiss was different from the brief brushes of mouths we’d been enjoying whenever we met in private. He kissed me with a man’s kiss, with the taste of passion I’d never been privy to before this.
Strange to feel the roughness of his unshaved whiskers against my lips, his strong mouth on mine. I wrapped my arms around him, and Colby held me tightly in return as the savoring kiss went on.
The ghost of Thomas Seymour and his rough games rose in the back of my mind, before fading into quiet oblivion. Seymour had been oppressive and demanding, but Colby wanted me, Eloise. He saw me as a woman for whom he had affection, not a female to conquer.
For a long time we held each other, enjoying each other’s warmth.
“What do we do?” I asked him softly.
A hint of Colby’s smile flashed across his face. “Whatever we can.”
The little chamber was cold, but the bed had been piled high with comforters and warmed with a hot brick wrapped in cloths. James helped me undress then lifted the covers so I could burrow into the bed.
His doublet and shirt came off quickly, and soon the heat of his body warmed the little nest I’d begun. He pulled the covers over us and for a moment, the newlywed couple simply lay together under the weight of the blankets, shivering.
Colby’s hands found my skin, which he touched with utmost gentleness, raising his body a little to support the tent of blankets over us. I relaxed beneath him in the dark while he caressed me.
The feelings he engendered in me were strange but not unwelcome. My body lifted of its own accord, liking his warmth.
Colby heated my mouth with a kiss as he slid himself over me, and then he changed me from girl to woman in truth.
“Are you well, love?” he murmured when it was over.
For the first time in my life, I had no words. I nodded mutely, my wanton hands traveling his body. This was a beautiful man, my husband, and God had given him to me to enjoy.
Colby continued to kiss me, his warm weight covering me better than any quilt. We drowsed together, then he began the dance with me again.
The wooden bedstead creaked, the headboard bumping the wall. Patches of dislodged whitewash floated down to scatter like snow in Colby’s hair. That made me laugh, and he opened his eyes, his smile like summer sunshine.
“Do I amuse you?” he demanded.
“Yes.” I started to laugh.
His eyes widened in the faint firelight. “Dare you mock your husband?”
“Yes,” I repeated and grinned broadly. “I dare.”
Colby punished me by loving me so well I could laugh no longer. The little bed scraped across the floor, and at one time I heard an ominous snap, but nothing collapsed.
Chapter 23
My stepfather tried to petition Mary to have my marriage to Colby made illegal, but his plea never made it farther than Mary’s secretaries. I doubt Mary ever learned of such a minor problem, and if she did, she saw no reason to intervene.
My grandmother, on the other hand, had plenty to say. My mother had immediately sent her word after my visit, and I received a summons, before I could flee London, to wait upon her.
The message came to Somerset House, where’d I’d retreated, bruised but not defeated. Aunt Kat had gone back to Hatfield before my stepfather’s command to attend him, so she was not there to comfort me, but the house’s staff had been tending to me.
My grandmother lived in Surrey, south and west of London in the gentle countryside. Her house was not as large as the rambling, grand manors I’d been living in with Elizabeth, but was a substantial brick home behind a gate with a square courtyard and a wide garden beyond it. I’d admired the house as a child, and I admired it now when I arrived on horseback, sore and tired, with one manservant and a maid to attend me.
My mother had thought to send me here when I’d been a toddler, but my grandmother had declared she didn’t have the vigor to look after a child. Hence, she’d decided I’d live with Aunt Kat. She truly had known I’d have more advantage with Aunt Kat and Elizabeth, and I hadn’t regretted her decision for one day.
Grandmother waited for me in her upstairs sitting room, one I fondly recalled from sporadic visits with Aunt Kat when we’d been given leave to travel here. I’d certainly not had the chance since Elizabeth’s confinement at Ashridge, then the Tower, and Woodstock.
I curtsied to my grandmother, who remained seated, her hand on a walking stick. Unlike in my stepfather’s house, there were several chairs in this wood-paneled chamber, all softened with coverings, along with stools for my grandmother’s feet. The fire in the stone hearth was built high, Grandmother believing a person had every right to be comfortable in life.
“Let me look at you,” Grandmother began in her usual stentorian tones. “Turn around, girl, do.”
She’d called me girl since I could remember, and I supposed I still seemed so to her. She’d turned seventy in January.
