Page 52 of Love, Remember Me

"My aunt looks very smug," Nyssa observed. "She has obviously bested Lady Marlowe somehow." Then she giggled. "I keep thinking about your remark last night about tying Lady Marlowe's tongue in a knot. Do you think such a thing possible, my lord?"

He waggled his bushy black eyebrows at her menacingly. "Shall we try?" he asked her wickedly, causing his wife to dissolve into another fit of giggles. "Do you think her tongue forked like a snake?"

Nyssa laughed harder. Her sides were aching. "Stop, my lord!" she begged him. "I will wear myself out laughing if you do not cease. Then you shall be left alone and filled with desire tonight. Surely you do not want that?"

"Nay, sweeting," he said softly, drawing her into his arms, covering her face with little kisses.

"My lord," she chided him helplessly, but she did not really want him to stop. "Remember, my aunt and Lady Marlowe can see us."

"So much the better," he answered her. "It will give them something else to chew upon, my adorable Nyssa. God's bones, I wish we could go home to Winterhaven now. This very day! I want you all to myself, and we have but tomorrow. Then you must report back to the queen."

"We will have most of our nights," she told him, her eyes growing soft beneath his passionate gaze. "I no longer have a place to sleep in the palace, nor do you, my lord. Each night we will meet here, and secrete ourselves away from the world, Varian. It is enough for now."

"Blessed Mother!" Adela Marlowe said, scandalized. "He is kissing her, Bliss! Why, he looks as if he would take her right there upon the lawn. 'Tis most shocking to say the least!"

"I think it rather romantic," Bliss replied softly. "They are newly wed, Adela, and learning to know one another. It is charming. I am so relieved! Nyssa's happiness will certainly reassure my sister and her husband. It will take some of the sting from the situation."

"Have you written to them about the marriage?" Adela Marlowe asked.

"Nay, Nyssa and Varian wish to tell them. When the matter of the king's marriage to the queen is settled, they will leave court, going toRiversEdgefirst, and then on to Winterhaven," the Countess of Marwood told Lady Marlowe. "They are right to do it this way. A letter is so impersonal when dealing with such a delicate situation."

Nyssa and Varian had now reached the seated women. They bowed, and then passed on into the house, still hand in hand, smiling.

"Where do you think they are going?" Lady Marlowe wondered.

"To bed, to make love, of course," Bliss said with a laugh. "I know that if I were Nyssa, married to that handsome devil, that is where I would be going. They both arrived yesterday afternoon, and did not come out of their bedchamber until after ten o'clock this morning. Tillie brought them a tray last evening. Nothing was left upon it this morning when the maid brought it back to the kitchen. Not a crumb of food, Adela, nor a drop of wine." Bliss chuckled. "He has the look of a man with stamina," she observed wickedly.

"Your niece is certainly behaving boldly for a girl who purports to have been a virgin two days ago," Lady Marlowe noted sharply. "Why, she barely knows the man, or at least so you all claim, yet her demeanor is that of an experienced woman."

"She was a virgin," Bliss said, suddenly angry. "The king insisted upon seeing the proof of the consummation. He required that Owen and I be there to see it too, so there would be witnesses to the validity of the union. The Duke of Norfolk himself brought the bedsheet from the bridal chamber. And Tillie told my May that she saw the blood on Nyssa's thighs when she helped her to dress that morning. Do not dare to even suggest that Nyssa was not a virgin.She was! "Then realizing what, she had in her anger, blurted out, Bliss continued, "And if you dare to tellanyonewhat I have told you, Adela Marlowe, I shall never speak to you again! Nor would the king be pleased to hear you gossiping about such intimacies regarding Nyssa."

"I just knew there was something you weren't telling me!" Adela Marlowe crowed triumphantly. "Do not fear, Bliss, I shall tell no one else. I just wanted to know all the details myself. Sometimes it is much more fun knowing what others do not know, don't you think so?"

The newlyweds spent another passionate night together, after their day picnicking in the woods. The following morning, however, Nyssa's two brothers arrived to meet their brother-in-law. Philip was plainly disturbed by the gossip he had been privy to, but young Giles, with his natural diplomatic tendencies, cautioned his elder sibling not to prejudge the Earl of March.

"You must discount more than half of what you hear at court, brother," Giles wisely told Philip, with the aplomb of a more seasoned courtier, "and even then you can believe only a small portion of the remainder. Surely you have learned that in our months with the lady Anne. The merest flutter starts a rumor racing."

"But Nyssa is married," Philip countered, tight-lipped. "The king and the lady Anne have told us it is so. I would know why! I fear for our sister. Lord de Winter's reputation is not a savory one."

"There is but one scandal attached to Lord de Winter's name," the more practical Giles said patiently to his elder brother, "and it happened years ago. Lady Marlowe and her friends simply refuse to allow the tale to die a natural death. Perhaps if the Earl of March were not such a handsome fellow, it would have done so."

"I want to know how this marriage came to be," Philip Wyndham repeated stubbornly. "If Nyssa had been planning to wed, she would have certainly told us. Besides, she would have wanted to go home toRiversEdgeto marry."

Philip's first glimpse of their sister did not particularly comfort him. There was something very different about her. Something he could not quite put his finger on; a new lushness. She did not look like an unhappy woman. Indeed she was more beautiful than he had ever seen her.

Philip, Viscount Wyndham, and his younger brother, Giles, made their most courtly bows to their sister and her bridegroom. "Good morrow, Nyssa," Philip said tightly. "Good morrow, my lord." His young face was serious.

"May I present my husband, Varian de Winter, to you, my brothers," she responded.

Philip exploded in anger, much to Giles's disgust. "And just how did this man become your husband, Nyssa? What am I expected to tell our parents? The gossip is not pretty, sister! What explanation can you offer me for your behavior?" He glowered at her.

"How dare you, Philip," Nyssa replied angrily. "You have no right to question me. I am your elder by four years. Have you forgotten it, or has your service at court gone to your foolish head?"

Giles snickered, and was glared down by both his siblings.

"Despite the disparity in our ages, sister, as heir to Langford it is my duty to oversee your behavior," Philip said pompously. "It is reported your behavior was wanton, Nyssa."

"By whom?" Her look was scornful. "Philip, you are a fool," his sister told him bluntly. "Being at court has done nothing to improve you, I fear. For your edification, I was married in the Chapel Royal by the archbishop and Bishop Gardiner. Uncle Owen and Aunt Bliss were there. There is nothing else you need know about it. Where, I should like to ask you, is the scandal in a lawfully contracted marriage?"

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