Her domain with Edward in Somerset sat like a ripened peach in her mind, a sweet, decadent memory that smelled of long summers and vast forest paths. In Somerset, the staff was rather adapted to the offbeat twists and turns of the Duke and Duchess’ marriage. So much so, that Edward dragging her into her bedroom by the long, golden locks that crowned her head might have seemed like another Sunday, perhaps, or Alastrine returning home with thickets and branches caught in her dress, or no dress at all, soaked to the nines in lake water. She was, as her staff affectionately dubbed, the queen of Lake Wimbleball.
But poor, sour Meredith, who was not a native member of the Somerset household, nearly dropped dead at the sight of Edward’s thunderous beckoning of Alastrine’s company, her shouting, and his ravishing, in turn. It was all she could do to stifle her laugh as the old crumpet rushed from the room, heavy skirts shuttering wildly with her animosity. Edward was right. She’d never quite looked at either of them the same, after that.
“Oh?” Alastrine’s lips softened into a smile, hazel eyes tracing the slant of his jaw, the downcast flicker of his eyes. Was it a symptom of her pregnancy, perhaps, that the place in her chest carved out for her husband harbored something softer now, something homely? A sensation that made her want to hold his arm for the sake of holding it, not just to snake a hand down his thigh–though, most assuredly, she wanted both.
She walked forth, the soft, blue fabric of a newly tailored dress clinging most comfortably to her shape, “Fortunate that you’ve found me first, given that I would have jumped on your steed myself before you left without this.”
The Duchess took her husband’s wrist, heavy and warm in her grasp, and wrapped a embroidered cut of the softest velvet around it, tying it where his pulse throbbed. Edward’s mother (dear woman, that Margery, given how rotten her children could be) had sent along a chest of babe’s goods after hearing the buzzing news of Alastrine’s condition. What better thing to forge a favor from than the blanket that held his, and their child’s, name in bold thread? She pressed a thumb to the soft flesh of his palm, “And how fortunate, still, that no matter how you play, you have already won. Kiss me goodbye, won’t you?”
In unison with his wife’s uncommonly gentle touch, the sinuous roadmap of veins winding through Somerset’s wrist promptly leapt. He had once been a man utterly indifferent to such sensations – indeed, his first wife had driven herself mad attempting to bury his natural insouciance, willing her husband to return her love; if only a fraction of that which she bore him. On the contrary, Alastrine understood implicitly that his chief desire was to integrate himself into the king’s inner sanctum – and to remain apart of it until mortality willed him from court. To not only triumph in the political hemisphere, in serving crown and country, but to climb higher, achieve greater than those who paved the path before him. Although he suspected it had come between them once or twice, his wife had never vocally begrudged him his dearth of pleasure; his indifference toward love, and the incongruity that existed between their desires; she was not Constance, and had never begged for their hearts and mind to converge, never implored him to love her like a pathetic fool.
–––––- Perhaps Alastrine knew where Constance hadn’t that to all other vices he was immune, but she too understood that she could not compete with his duty. The one thing that meant the world to him – the only thing that would ever mean anything to him.
Fair brows knitted inward as he spared a moment to glance at the favor she bestowed him, a band of velvet latticework unfurling within her palm like a scroll, before she enfettered his wrist with it ––– knotting it in place where it would be seen under the glint of lemon-polished armor, where the rendition of their union would be made public upon the tiltyard, and where he himself would be forced to bear witness to it. ❛ Edward, ❜ Somerset mused aloud, reciting his son’s name, ❛ you have become matronly, Alastrine. It becomes you. ❜ His mouth creased into a noncommittal grin as his hand moved to the whetted edge of her jaw, prying her chin upward, savoring in the delight that crossed her countenance. ❛ You will cheer me on from the stands, yes ? And will you behave a fool if I am unseated, sweetheart ? ❜ His head canted laxly as he brought his lips to hers in a chaste caress, a gentle meeting of man and wife, his tongue gently parting the seam of her mouth.
