Bliss(14)
Author: Lynsay Sands

" ‘Tis Lord Holden’s first. He says Lord Templetun sent him to see if you are ready. The Hammer is eager to come above, but Templetun wanted to be sure you were ready first."

Helen hesitated. Her first reaction was an emphatic "No!" But the truth was, she was ready. Or as ready as she would ever be. Biting her lip, she nodded. Ducky flashed her a sympathetic look, then turned back and started to open the door.

"Wait!" Helen cried, and Ducky promptly slammed the door she had just started to open.

"What is it?" Aunt Nell asked with concern, taking several steps toward her niece before freezing, her nose twisting in distaste. She promptly scuttled back to her spot beside the door. "What?"

"We need to air out the room, else all will know what we’re about." Helen explained to her aunt, then instructed Ducky, "Tell them I shall be ready in just a moment, that you shall come fetch them when I am."

"Aye, my lady." Ducky nodded and turned quickly to open the door and pass on the message.

"I am going up there." Hethe got to his feet determinedly, only to be yanked back down rather abruptly by both Lord Templetun and William.

"So impatient, my lord," Templetun chastised gently. "She will be ready soon. William said that he thought they were going to have you go up already, but that your wife forgot something. No doubt the maid will be down any – "

"Here she comes," William interrupted.

Hethe followed his gaze to see the maid crossing the hall toward them. Nothing could have held him in his seat then. Popping off the trestle table bench, he started across the hall toward the stairs at once. The others were a little slower to react. He heard Templetun mutter in frustration then the sudden scuffling of feet as all the men in the keep scrambled after him. He winced inwardly. He had already tried to convince them that there was no need for a bedding ceremony . After all, he’d pointed out, his wife had taken only her maid and her aunt to see her above stairs, so they should just forgo any men taking him up. But the men had all, every one of them, merely laughed at that suggestion. Especially his own warriors. He was not to escape without their interference.

Hethe would not have minded except that he was not sure what he would find once they got up there.

He was beginning to get an unsettled feeling, a sense of doom’s approach. He had given up his brief fantasies that she was bathing and perfuming herself for his pleasure. Instead, Hethe very much suspected she was preparing another battle tactic and was not overeager for the public to know that his wife was not pleased with their marriage. He had not kept silent about her tricks and stink warfare only to have it revealed at this juncture, and quite so publicly.

"Just a minute," Templetun hissed, catching up to Hethe in the hall outside the master bedchamber, drawing him to a halt. "We are supposed to carry you in, not follow you like lackeys."

Before he could protest, Hethe found himself hoisted on the shoulders of his first and another of his warriors. He grimaced. On the night of his wedding to Nerissa, he had had to be carried because he was too drunk to walk. He suspected his father had known that drunk was the only way he would carry out his husbandly duty on the young bride. Now he was reluctantly being carried into this room because he feared what awaited him. It was the last thought Hethe had before Templetun opened the door and he was carted forward.

"Here he is. Your groom," Templetun called out cheerfully as he led the small crowd of half-drunk men into the room.

Knotting his fingers in the hair of the warrior whose shoulder was under his right arse cheek, Hethe tried to keep from toppling backward off their makeshift chair as he peered quickly and suspiciously around the room. All seemed fine at first glance. His wife’s aunt stood out of the way by the covered window.

There was a bed, a fire, two chairs, several chests, and his bride in the bed, her hair spread around her in golden glory. That was all Hethe caught a glimpse of before he was lifted from the shoulders of the men carrying him and set on the floor. His feet had barely hit the ground when the group converged on him.

Ribald jokes and his clothes were suddenly flying through the air; then he was nak*d. And cold. Once his clothes were missing, he realized that the room was oddly chill. His gaze shot to the fireplace, but as he had seen, there was a raging blaze there. Before he could consider the matter further, Hethe was being dragged to the bed, where he was tucked in. Then, still laughing and tossing around some vulgar remarks, the men allowed themselves to be herded from the room by a beaming Templetun. Lady Shambleau, who had stood by silently throughout, left at a more dignified pace.

Hethe watched the door close with amazement. His entry had come off without a hitch. There had been no public humiliation, no sign that his bride wished him anywhere but here. Speaking of his bride…

He turned to peer at the woman in the bed beside him. The men had sat him on the mattress, and Helen lay there flat on her back. She had been silent and serene throughout his men’s rude jokes and gibes. She had merely lain calmly under the covers waiting. She was still lying serene and calm, waiting, he saw as he peered down at her.

"Well." He cleared his throat. She wasn’t even looking at him but staring at the drapings over the bed, her cheeks pink with embarrassment. Hethe cleared his throat again, realizing for the first time that this was a damned uncomfortable situation. He tried to recall his first wedding night, to remember what it had been like, but truthfully, he had been young and nervous that first time and had drunk quite a bit as a result. It was all rather a blur. He had the vague recollection of merely pouncing on his first wife.

But he had been young and unskilled them. It had been forgivable. It was not now. He sure wished he could, though, he admitted with a sigh. Worse, Wee Hethe was wide awake and urging him to do so. He could feel the way the linen on his lap was tenting with his excitement. But he had to show some finesse here. It would be shameful to just pounce.

Instead, he tried for some conversation. "Well, that was not so bad. I had feared they may get carried away."

Lady Helen squeaked something of an agreement, but didn’t move. Hethe sighed. "I – "

"Shall we get to it, my lord?" she asked in a voice that was not quite steady. Hethe paused, his eyes widening. Dear Lord! She had just given him permission to pounce!

A smile of relief splashing across his face, Hethe turned in the bed and leaned over to press a kiss to his new wife’s lips.

Helen stiffened as his mouth covered hers, her body going rigid with shock at his touch. She hadn’t expected him to start like this! Well, she really hadn’t considered how he would start, else she would have realized that a kiss was the most natural beginning. He would hardly just rip the linens aside and go at her like a dog after a bitch in heat.

His lips moved over hers, infinitely gentle yet firm. Much to her dismay, she had the most amazing desire to soften beneath the caress. That was enough to panic her, and Helen began to shift beneath the linens, intent on pulling her arms out from where they were pressed to her sides under the bedclothes. The moment she began to shift, however, Hethe lowered his body on top of hers, effectively trapping her where she lay.

Helen promptly opened her mouth to ask him to let her up, but the moment her lips opened, something filled them. His tongue, she realized a bit dazedly as it swept inside. Her next thought was a rather incoherent Oh, dear as she felt her body begin to churn out sensations she had never before experienced.

There was an odd sort of warm hum going through her blood as he kissed her. It was creating the oddest instinct in her to arch beneath the linens, to press herself closer to him, though they really couldn’t get any closer with him lying half atop her as he was. Then she felt one of his hands cresting over the heavy fur beneath the linens covering her, smoothing over one mound that was her breast and closing there briefly, giving a gentle squeeze, then a firmer one that made her moan into his mouth.

The sound of her own pleasure grated in her ears. Shock, embarrassment and panic swelling inside her, Helen began to struggle. She was suddenly desperate to get her arms out, but she was well and truly trapped and knew it was all her own fault. Then his hand moved away from her breast. It slid over the linens, across her stomach, tracing the impression of her body to the mound between her legs. He paused there to press gently, and this time Helen couldn’t stop herself from arching up. She actually lifted him slightly with her reaction, a combination of startled surprise at both the touch and the heat that it ignited deep inside her.

Shocked as she was, Helen’s legs parted of their own volition beneath the linens. Not much. Just the few inches the tight bedclothes binding her allowed. But it was enough for Hethe to ease his hand between her legs and press the bedclothes against her more intimately.

As she felt the spark within her deepen into a fiery ache, Helen stopped lying quiescent beneath him and began to kiss back hungrily; her mouth widened under his, her head shifting slightly, her tongue braving out to meet his. She wasn’t sure she was doing this right, but didn’t much care – she was just doing what felt good. And, God, did it feel good. Without realizing it, she closed her legs around his hand, trapping it there briefly as she kissed him, pressing it tighter against herself. Then she felt him pull his hand free and moaned her disappointment into his mouth.

Chuckling softly, Hethe broke the kiss and smiled at her. "Don’t worry, little one. I – "

Helen blinked and glanced down when he stopped talking so abruptly. His gaze had traveled downward and he appeared confused. Glancing down at herself as well, she saw the fur he had revealed by removing the upper linen while she was distracted. The desire inside her died a quick death. Uh-oh , some part of her brain cried out like a child. Helen steeled herself against what was to come.

Hethe stared rather blankly. It was not a cold night. Fur was not needed; a simple linen would have done. But his wife was swathed in a fur that was tucked tightly around her body, covering her from the neck down. Even her arms were under it. He hadn’t noticed it when they had hustled him into the bed, but now, as he stared at it, he felt the passion inside him fading away to be replaced with apprehension.

All of his earlier suspicions regarding her "preparations" returned. This fur, he suspected, did not bode well. Part of him wanted to think she had covered up out of shyness, to prevent any of the men from seeing anything that only he should see, but he very much feared that wasn’t the case. Deciding he had best look and get it over with, Hethe reached out grimly and pulled the fur aside.

Helen waited for the explosion. She fully expected one. Shrieking, shouting, roaring, bellowing. Perhaps even hitting. She had known it was a good possibility; this was the Hammer, after all. But she got none of that. In fact, at first she got no response from him at all. The man just sat, frozen beside her, as the odious scent of the plant Ducky had called stinkweed began to waft out into the room around them. Helen had rubbed the plant over every inch of her skin as if she were putting on some lotion.

It was terribly potent, she knew, but Hethe was not responding as she had expected. He just sat. Then she chanced a glance at his face and realized that his eyes had gone round with horror, his mouth opening and closing silently, and his nose had pinched closed all on its own. He was pale, but quickly gaining a greenish tint.

"Is something amiss, my lord?" she asked when she couldn’t stand the silence any longer. She hoped she managed to infuse complete innocence into her voice. "Are we not going to consummate the marriage now?"

Just to add to the moment, she brazenly whipped the covering away from her body completely, revealing herself, but also fanning the odor outward at him. The trap was sprung! She watched with interest as he blanched, gagging under the assault, then made a mad scramble off the bed.

He backed away from her, his eyes shooting wildly about the room until they settled on the chamber pot.

The next thing Helen knew, her new husband was hanging over it, heaving out his meal.

Surely this would push him over the edge and send the man running to the king to have this wedding annulled, she thought with satisfaction. More importantly, so much for the wedding night, she thought with an amusement impeded only somewhat by the misery her own scent was causing her. The amusement fled her face and she eyed him warily as her new husband’s retching finally ended, and he straightened to glare at her.

He was not pleased.

Actually, she would say he was furious. Enraged. Yes, she had certainly gained his attention with this stunt. This was no longer a silent war. It was out in the open.

"What is that?" he asked grimly.

Helen didn’t even bother to pretend not to know what he was talking about. "Ducky calls it stinkweed.

It grows in a marshy area not far from here." She smiled sweetly and asked, "Did you wish to try it on, like you did the garlic? I am sure Ducky could fetch some more, should you wish."

She felt immense satisfaction when he blanched in horror. There was no need to fear consummation tonight. She had won. Helen had barely formed that satisfying thought when Hethe suddenly strode to the door and flung it open. She wasn’t all that surprised to see Ducky and her aunt outside, having huddled by the door to await his reaction. They had probably both feared he would kill her; Helen suspected he may just have done so, had he been able to bear coming near her. He was furious .

For a moment, Helen feared he may take that fury out on the trembling maid and her aunt, but he didn’t.

His voice was cold with rage, but controlled, as he ignored her aunt and snapped at Ducky. "You will fetch a bath up here. You will also fetch every ounce of perfume, every flower petal, every anything that smells pleasant and bring it up here as well! Do you understand me?"

"Aye, my lord." Ducky scurried away as quickly as her feet would take her. Helen saw the woman crossing herself as she rushed toward the stairs. Her husband’s gaze then turned to Aunt Nell, who took a wary step back.

"I think I shall just…" She waved vaguely and made a quick escape under his glower.