Page 53 of The Pirate and the Pagan
“I wanted to see what you tasted like,” she whispered.
“And what do I taste like?” he demanded huskily.
“Salt,” she softly.
He reached up to draw her face down to his and took her mouth savagely, using his tongue to arouse her to fever pitch. She needed more than his thigh and moved over him so that his thick manroot could penetrate her soft womanliness and fill her with his burning brand. Lovemaking was still new enough to cause her to gasp upon his initial entrance. She could have sworn he became larger every time he made love to her. As her tight sheath stretched to accommodate his great size and the pleasure became intense, Ruark gripped her with his thighs and rolled with her until he gained the dominant position, then proceeded to love her into submission.
Much later when Summer stretched luxuriantly and slipped from the bed, Ruark suggested, “Don’t dress, darling, keep that black thing on. It was designed to give a man pleasure.”
She fastened the ribbons beneath her breasts and brushed her hair. “Why didn’t Charles bring the Queen?”
He lay propped on one elbow, watching her. “She’s preparing for her mother-in-law’s visit. She’s traveling down to Portsmouth at the end of next week, I believe. Aren’t you glad you don’t have a mother-in-law? I am,” he said wickedly.
She ignored his banter. “Ruark, why is Charles unfaithful to Catherine?”
He sighed. “Until she came to England, Catherine lived in seclusion in the royal palace of Lisbon. She probably only left it half a dozen times in her life. She never saw a man who wasn’t a relative. She was surrounded by disciplinary, protective duennas and no doubt suffered from a surfeit of religion. She was more suited to becoming a little nun than to mating with our lusty monarch.”
“Then you don’t think she loves him the way I love you?” she asked.
“No man was ever loved the way you love me,” he teased. “Come back to bed and love me again.”
“Be serious, Ru!”
“I think she loves him very much, but our cultures are so different it will take her years to adjust. She was always dressed in those hideous rigid hoop skirts and it was a sin to show her feet in public, let alone her breasts. She likes the idea of love, but hates lovemaking. Charles, like every full-blooded man, longs for a woman whose senses he can arouse and who can arouse him.”
“Like Barbara Castlemaine,” she concluded.
He shrugged, not much interested in the King’s affairs. “If she brings him happiness, I’m sure he shouldn’t be condemned for a little illicit pleasure.”
Summer put her head on one side. “Barbara won’t bring him happiness. She’ll punish him every day of his life for not marrying her.”
“You’re a shrewd little baggage.” He darted from the bed, picked her up squealing and kicking, and took her back to the bed. He whispered, “To hell with Charles and Barbara, I want to see you on your pretty hands and knees for me.”
A hunt was organized for the afternoon to replenish the Grenvile larder, but since hunting was anathema to Summer, Ruark joined the King and most of the other gentlemen, who were glad for a chance to be outdoors, well mounted on Grenvile Thoroughbreds.
When the maid came to do Summer’s hair for the gala evening, she decided to wear it àla négligence, that is to say curled loosely about her shoulders. Summer’s dark silken mass of hair had only one rival in that whole assembly and that of course was the mahogany tresses of Barbara Castlemaine. Summer decided to wear the vivid peacock-colored gown which opened down the front to display the pale green petticoat embroidered with silvery threads. She had an eye mask in the shape of a butterfly which was made from jade and turquoise-colored feathers and she carried a silver lace fan. She knew she was more beautiful than any other woman present. She knew that because of it, she would make enemies, but she didn’t give a damn.
The weather was not kind to the elaborate plans Lady Grenvile had made for the masque, and so it was moved indoors to the long gallery. Alas, it lost something in the transition from leafy glade to the overcrowded gallery.
The titled ladies of Cornwall and their daughters put on an amateur theatrical performance with a plethora of shepherdesses, milkmaids, and nymphs, gracefully coming forward to say their rhymes in an allegory whose underlying meaning was woefully blurred, and lost on everyone save the ladies who had labored over it.
The manners of the gentlemen were impeccable as always and they applauded and swore they loved it. The ladies from London were not so kind. Although they were highly entertained by its rusticity, their fans did not conceal their eyes rolling to the ceiling nor their voices from floating about the gallery.
“Lud, I was better entertained last month when we went disguised to Ram Alley in Whitefriars where we watched two naked women wrestle,” Barbara whispered to Buckingham.
Lady Lauderdale leaned across her husband and hoarsely whispered back, “They should take their playlet to Bartholemew Fair, where the crowd could shie coconuts at them.”
When the last lady had come forward to pay homage to the King, he gallantly murmured, “Most fetching.”
Barbara’s fan went up again. “Did he say retching?” she whispered to the company at large.
Buckingham nudged her, and under cover of the applause which ran around the room, he said, “Keep your voice down.”
There were a few polite cries for “more” and Barbara, enjoying herself thoroughly, asked, “Did he shout bore?”
Summer turned around, looked Barbara straight in the eye, and said, “Perhaps you heard someone shout ‘whore’!” It was wittily done, but though Ruark bit his lip to keep from laughing, he took Summer’s hand in a hard grip and squeezed. She gasped and decided she did not like him teaching her manners in that way. She turned her face from him angrily and fanned herself. Her eyes narrowed behind the butterfly mask and she knew she would pay him back.
Tonight the great dining hall had been transformed. Instead of a formally set six-course dinner, there was a sumptuously laden buffet, a thing King Charles infinitely preferred at these gatherings. Small tables lined the walls where the guests could sit and chat before they went back to refill their plates. This mingling allowed the ladies to show off their clothes and jewels and indulge in their second greatest passion, which was gossip.
