Nothing of note was happening. Laura traced the grain of the thick oak table beneath her fingertips, following it under heavy cream linen, and sighed as hard as she could without coughing. Her husband woke with a start, his napkin sliding down his chest and crumpling on his knee.
'She's the very wife of the devil, Lamb' spluttered Paul, hoping the new addition to his young wife's ladies in waiting was still the topic of her grumblings. There was always something wrong. Paul couldn't understand how a young, comely woman like Laura could find so much to complain about, with all her life stretched out before her. In the short time they'd been married he'd felt the pleasures of those soft thighs only once and she'd avoided his eye then, too.
Long gone were the days of Maria, his first wife. She'd welcomed him home from years bathing in the blood of the French with open arms, legs and everything else. The night he'd returned, aching and tired, she bathed his wounds and distracted him from the pain well. He'd left her a timid maid, barely speaking a word of English and had returned to a woman who spoke perfectly, in a warm Spanish purr. In the years since her death in childbirth he'd been alone until Laura was sent his way, rich in land but poor in title. Twenty two, a widow at twenty and apparently barren. Her father had practically begged him. She was a year older than his son.
'Please allow me leave, my husband' Laura whispered 'to the chapel.' she added.
'Aye.' He muttered. The girl knelt often, but never in the manner that would make up for all the velvets and pearls he bought her.
Watching her rise, her throat and breasts heaved past his face, close enough to smell the warmth of her. She lingered a second, removing her napkin and brushing off her skirts vigorously. Paul gazed unabashedly, congratulating himself silently on at least having married another woman whose tits could kill a man with enough force. Pressed together by her corset, powdered and juicy, he remembered those pink, soft areolae in the candlelight. They'd puckered at his lips, regardless of her apparent coldness. As he'd bent her over and slid his hand down her belly, he'd encountered a thicket of inky black curls that were already damp, and a cunt that was hotter than a brazier and soaked in honey.
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Laura swept out of the hall and out into the courtyard, and the hammering rain. In the five seconds it took her to cross and enter her rooms she was drenched. Her hair plastered down onto her shoulders and neck, and her heavy velvets suddenly weighed more than granite. She slopped up the worn steps to her own bedchamber, a warm retreat from the cold bedroom her husband preferred, and as far away as it was possible to get within the same building. Her ladies had lit a fire and candles, and after removing her sodden dress and undergarments had left her to brush her hair in a dry shift. The linen had been washed often, and softly draped over her bare skin. Goosebumps across her thighs and shoulders smoothed as she sat near the fire, staring into the spitting wood and letting her mind wander.
