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At first Bess thought he was apologizing for coming too fast and leaving her unsatisfied. She stroked his hair gently.
“I didn't mean to hurt you—forgive me for being such an animal!” he begged.
Bess realized he was apologizing for forcing sex on her. “Will, you didn't hurt me, and you're certainly not an animal.” She sat up and lit the bedside candles.
“I love you so much; how could I have done that to you?” The look of shame and agony on his face was hard for her to fathom.
“It's all right; you didn't hurt me.”
“Really? Oh, God, you have no notion how much I enjoyed it. You excite me beyond anything I've ever experienced. Bess, you're so understanding about a man's pleasure.”
“Will, making love can give a woman pleasure too.”
He laughed and shook his head. “You don't know the excitement or the pleasure I felt. It's different for a man. A lady could never experience anything so … carnal.”
Bess wanted to laugh. No, she wanted to cry. What she really wanted was to be brought to climax. She deliberately licked her lips and lay back down. When he blew out the candles and moved against her, Bess knew she'd be ready this time. He kissed her tenderly, and she arched against him invitingly. Her thigh brushed against his groin, and she felt him flaccid and soft. He kissed her again, and she thrust the tip of her tongue to tease him.
“Good night, Elizabeth … thank you.”
Bess lay staring up at the bed canopy long after she heard his breathing slow into sleep. All men are not created equal! She realized that she had deliberately chosen St. Loe because he was the antithesis of Cavendish. Bess simply did not want to love another. She told herself that she did not want all that passion and pain ever again. St. Loe was a good man; it would be a good marriage. She did not regret it!
As Bess lay beside her new husband, the hollow, empty feeling inside her belly was like ravenous hunger, only worse. “William,” she whispered two hours later as she slipped into blessed sleep. But it was not William who filled her dreams that night, nor was it the new husband she had wed.
A voice like black velvet whispered in her ear. “You've never been loved by a man of your own age—a man in his prime.” Bess turned and gave herself up to his arms. “Sable bedgown … black stallion … impale you … naked for a week … peak of your arousal … sheathe myself to the hilt … second coupling … writhe for an hour.” The third time he made real love to her, cherishing and worshiping her with his body until she dissolved in liquid tremors and yielded everything he ever wanted from her.
The following day, when Bess and Syntlo arrived at Brentford, they enjoyed a private celebration with her family. The newlyweds had been excused from Court, and Bess decided to use this time to move her family back to Chatsworth. She couldn't wait to show Sir William the magnificent house she was building and, in turn, show off her new husband to her noble friends in Derbyshire.
Jane and Marcella totally approved of Bess's marriage to St. Loe and treated him with almost reverential respect. Her daughter Francie seemed a little reserved in her welcome to her new stepfather, but Bess's sons, now nine, eight, and seven, vied with each other for Syntlo's attention. Little Elizabeth and Mary, who were four and three respectively, showed no fear of the gentle man with the close-clipped gray beard, and both climbed onto his knee as they had on his previous visits.
While Bess busied herself packing up the entire household, St. Loe purchased spices, artichokes, olives, wine, and anything else he could think of that was plentiful in London but might be in short supply in Derbyshire.
Before she left, Bess gathered a good supply of dragonwort to be certain she avoided conception. She may have taken another husband, but Cavendish was the only man who would ever father children on her. It was quite a cavalcade that set off on the Great North Road, for both of them took their personal servants, and Bess took most of her household staff, including her children's tutors and nursemaids.
On the journey the newlyweds were never alone until their bedchamber door closed each night. The bridegroom was so profoundly affected by sharing his bed with his bride that his excitement seemed to increase rather than diminish. When he fell asleep each night, he was the most sexually sated, replete man in the realm, who had no notion that his beloved Elizabeth lay awake beside him, aching and unsatisfied.
When Chatsworth came into view, Bess felt almost dizzy with happiness. She had come within a hairbreadth of losing it, and she vowed never to put it in jeopardy again. She had courageously taken the reckless chance that if she postponed selling it to pay the crippling debt to the Crown, fate would intervene on her behalf. Standing before her dream home, Bess knew she had done the right thing. She had gambled and she had won!
Sir William was suitably impressed with Chatsworth, whose pleasure gardens alone covered five miles.
“Chatsworth is my great passion,” she told him, with tears of happiness in her eyes.
“As you are mine, my dearest. I want you to start building again. I want you to finish it.”
“Thank you, Will, that is the best wedding present you could ever give me.”
Bess lost no time. She immediately hired men to dig limestone to make plaster, and others to mine coal from her estate's shallow pits to fire up the lime kilns. With the aid of her stewards, Francis Whitfield and Timothy Pusey, Bess hired masons, joiners, slaters, and glaziers. She sat down and penned a letter to her dear friend Sir John Thynne at Longleat, asking him to let her have the services of his artistic plasterer. She signed the letter Elizabeth Cavendish, saw her mistake immediately, and, crossing out Cavendish, substituted her new name, St. Loe.
Sir William was in his glory. Domesticity was new to him, and he delighted in playing father to his ready-made family. He was exceptionally generous, unfailingly kind, endlessly patient, and tirelessly supportive of anything Bess wished to do. His father had left him a large inheritance, which he was happy to spend on his new wife and children.
Syntlo had been at Chatsworth only a fortnight when he received a dispatch from the queen, requesting his immediate return. Elizabeth wished to move her Court to Windsor for the rest of the summer and could not manage without her captain of the guard and chief butler of England. Bess hid her disappointment and told him she would pack immediately.
“My dearest, there is no need for you to return. I want you to stay here and enjoy your summer with the children. The queen may order me about, but she may not order my wife. As soon as I get back to Court, I shall pay off your debt. That will put Her Majesty in a sweet temper. I shall miss you terribly, but you love it here, and your happiness is all I desire.”
“Oh, Will, I shall miss you too. You are so kind and generous.” And after he had gone, Bess found that, indeed, she did miss him. He had indulged her every whim, and she could do no wrong in his adoring eyes. She soon busied herself in building the third story of Chatsworth and also took on a new project so that her every waking hour was filled. Since the law stated that she could claim any land that she improved, Bess enclosed an additional twenty-five acres at Ashford with hedge and ditch and called it Lark Meadow.
Sir William faithfully sent a wagonload of supplies up to Chatsworth every week, including books and candies for the children, and along with cloves, ginger, dates, and figs, he sent Spanish embroidery silks for Bess. His letters were touchingly affectionate and always began, My own, more dear than I am to myself.
Toward the end of summer, Frances Grey arrived from Bradgate for a visit, and Bess was appalled to see how much weight her friend had gained. Frances had to be helped in and out of a chair, and once she sat down she preferred to remain there all day gossiping.
