Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Lydia and Joseph's wedding was decorated only by the beautiful landscape around them at the Fairy Spring where they first met. Though nobody but the two of them knew the story of their meeting, their family and small number of guests could see why that lovely area was so special to the bride and groom.

All anyone knew about the significance of the location was that the spring was a magical hidden oasis and one of Lydia's favorite places to be.

Lydia planned her wedding herself and kept it simple. Everyone walked through the fields together from Briarwood House to the spring, where there was no altar other than the canopy provided by the trees. Lydia, her sisters, Sophia, and Maria carried wildflower bouquets tied with long green ribbons, while Lady Winstone and Lady Briarwood wore pretty flower crowns to honor them as mothers of the bride and groom.

Even the vicar seemed to enjoy the non-traditional ceremony. He happily married the couple in the beautiful clearing, surrounded by the trees and flowering bushes in bloom.

Lydia's simple, comfortable wedding dress was made of light green cotton. Joseph, Henry, and William wore white shirts with no jackets, and the viscount's tunic was the very same one he'd worn that fateful day he'd been caught swimming in Lydia's favorite spring.

When their wedding was complete, Joseph and Lydia raced each other into the water as some of their guests followed suit.

Lord Briarwood and Lord Winstone stayed on the bank where they rolled their eyes and agreed that their families were perhaps the silliest in all of Cheltenham.

"Maybe even the entirety of England," Lord Winstone mused.

Bridget Kelly was invited to the wedding, too, as were Briarwood tenant farmers John and Emma Musgrove, with their two young daughters. Lydia had introduced Bridget to the Musgroves and their girls over the past week and they had become immediate friends.

It was the same day that Lydia and Joseph visited the Musgroves for the first time together, as well. Joseph had listened as John explained his struggles with overused farmland, crop pests, and needing farm equipment updates that his income from low harvests couldn't yet support.

Then Joseph had spoken with William and Lord Briarwood about how their estates might work together to make change for the farmers in their care. The viscount stayed at Briarwood House all week, which helped greatly in building his relationship with the Carter men.

The new friendship between Joseph and William was still strained, but Lydia continued to encourage them to spend more time together. And she finally talked to William about Sophia one afternoon when Lydia and Joseph invited William to join them for tea.

"I support you, William. And though I think you take great risk by sneaking around to be with your love, it's not an unfamiliar experience." Lydia had looked over at Joseph with a smile, who winked in response. "I hope you and Sophia can be together out in society someday, dear brother. Whatever we can do to help make that happen, please know that we shall do it."

Joseph had raised an eyebrow at his betrothed for offering to get involved with William's romance. "We will?"

Lydia gave him a stern look and nodded. "Yes, my lord, we will."

William chuckled at them both and took his sister's hands in his own. "And I am eternally grateful for such an understanding sister, despite your choice in husbands."

Joseph had laughed at that remark and the three of them vowed to keep William and Sophia's secret intact until the time that they might be together for good.

***

After Joseph and Lydia's wedding ceremony and an impromptu swim in the spring, everyone walked back to Briarwood House, drenched and ready to celebrate even more. Wet clothes were changed to dry ones and the wedding reception began in the gardens behind the house.

Lady Winstone and Lady Briarwood had outdone themselves in planning the reception. The many serving platters full of magnificent food included sweet cakes decorated with edible petals like those served at the Winstone flower ball.

After filling their bellies with incredible treats and dancing the evening away, Joseph and Lydia snuck out to the secluded pond together, each carrying a lantern to lead them through the deepening dark.

No longer able to keep their desire at bay, the newlyweds pressed together on the footbridge and danced slowly in each other's arms to the music the orchestra near the house was still playing for their family and guests.

"Are you sorry that we had to wait, my lord?" Lydia pressed her lips to Joseph's neck as they swayed.

"It was the perfect wedding at the perfect time and place, little nymph. I wouldn't change it for the world." He slid a hand into her hair and pulled away the pretty clip that held it behind her head. Then he lifted a handful of her silky strands up to his nose and breathed deeply of her lovely natural scent with hints of lavender and spring water.

"No, I meant that we had to wait for more private experimenting together." Lydia let out a slow breath against Joseph's shirt where his buttons were open at the top. She could see glimpses of his chest hair and ached to slide her fingers through it.

The viscount pulled his bride closer to his body so she could feel his heat and his arousal. "You, my love, are worth the wait. But if you make me wait another night longer, I will surely go mad with want for you."

Lydia giggled and wrapped her arms around Joseph's neck while matching the rhythm of her husband's swaying hips with her own. "We should have brought my notes about kissing with us tonight. I fear it's been so long I may have forgotten how."

"You just kissed me at the spring today, my lady. And you did so very well." Joseph placed a gentle kiss on her forehead, and then another on the tip of her nose.

"Oh, I'm not speaking of that kind of kiss, you handsome beast. The kissing I want to revisit is much more seductive and scandalous. It's the kind where you put your hands on my bottom and slide your wet tongue between my parted lips. Remember that one?" Lydia combed her fingers through Joseph's blond hair at the back of his head and enjoyed watching his hazel eyes darken with desire.

"You need to stop talking now, little nymph, and give that pretty mouth of yours to me."

"For science, my lord?" Lydia laughed as Joseph reached his hands down to cup her backside and bring his warm face to hers.

"For us, my feisty viscountess."

Joseph's lips tasted like cake and cherry port as he kissed Lydia's lips with slow-moving tenderness. But it wasn't long before she could feel his need grow stronger and more urgent with every touch of their tongues.

He dragged his mouth down Lydia's neck, placing wet kisses along her collarbone and her chest. Then he moved his hands from her bottom to cup her breasts through the fabric of her dress.

Lydia smoothed her hands over Joseph's shoulders and moaned with pleasure. "Your awkward appendage is poking my wedding dress, my lord." She playfully bit his earlobe before letting her fingers slide from his back to his chest and tug at his shirt buttons until they had all been opened one by one.

"Perhaps you should take your wedding dress off, my lady. My aching appendage craves full access to your luscious nether lips." Joseph gently tugged Lydia's bodice with one hand to release her left breast from the fabric with the other. He and his bride both moaned with pleasure as he kissed his way down Lydia's pillowy flesh to lick and suckle her pink peak.

Lydia gasped and held tightly to Joseph's arms as she watched his tongue circle her nipple, sending waves of euphoric feelings throughout her entire body, but most especially between legs.

"What, here? On the footbridge? I cannot disrobe where our wedding guests might see us." Lydia's whispering voice was raspy with arousal as her legs began to weaken and shake. She had never in her life felt anything so tantalizing as what her husband's mouth was doing to such a sensitive point on her body.

The viscount released her breast from his wet lips and passionately kissed her on the mouth again. "Tell me where you would want your first lovemaking experience to happen, my love. And please lead us there as quickly as possible."

Lydia tried to think of where she wanted to go while Joseph massaged her exposed nipple with his stroking fingers and pressed his face between her breasts to smell and kiss her skin.

"I change my mind, my lord. I cannot bear to wait any longer, either! I think there is only one solution to our predicament, which was perhaps the answer all along." Lydia ran her hands through Joseph's hair again and pulled his face back up to hers.

"Which is?" He hesitated only a moment before covering Lydia's mouth with his one more time. He pressed his groin harder against her belly, which Lydia instinctively knew meant he needed her more than ever.

"Let me show you." She pulled herself out of Joseph's arms and walked off the footbridge to the bank of the pond. She kept her gaze locked with her husband's surprised eyes as she pulled her wedding gown over her head and tossed it aside.

She kicked off her slippers and rolled down her stockings as Joseph scanned his eyes down her cream-colored shift. Without further hesitation, Lydia pulled her shift up over her head and stood fully naked in front of the viscount for the first time.

The lamplight danced across her skin as she stepped into the pond until the water reached her thighs. She scooped handfuls of it into her cupped palm and trickled the water over her body like a nymph wooing her mate in the most sensuous of surroundings.

Joseph took slow steps toward the end of the footbridge, clearly mesmerized. As he watched Lydia sprinkle water on her breasts and her belly, he tugged off his tunic and unbuttoned his breeches.

"You are the most beautiful woman I have ever beheld, little nymph." He reached the bank of the pond and kicked off his boots, his stockings, and slid his trousers down his toned legs.

As he stood in the moonlight with fire in his eyes, Lydia could see from the protrusion in Joseph's pale cotton drawers how much he wanted her. And she couldn't wait any longer to see his erect masculinity in all its glory.

"We need to finish our experiment, my lord. Please come to me." Lydia held out her hand, water dripping from her outstretched arm.

Joseph hesitated only a few seconds more before he lowered his drawers and stood naked in front of his bride.

Lydia gasped at the sight of him and couldn't help but stare with wildly hungry eyes at his stiffened sex. His magnificent appendage had far more presence than the few illustrations of a naked man's body that she had seen. He had the appendage of a Greek god, or as a woman with her wild imagination would expect one to be.

She giggled as she thought of his silly names for such a stunning physical attribute. His "Winstone wood" looked as sturdy as the trunk of an oak, and just as exciting to climb.

"Oh my," she whispered, as Joseph walked through the water and sloshed his way to her side. "My Lord, you are breathtaking."

Joseph smiled, then pulled Lydia into his arms and gave her another sensuous kiss. When he released her mouth again, he smiled and smoothed her long hair away from her face. "Normally we would be doing this lying down in a soft bed, my love. Your choice of a pond coupling has its challenges, but we've never been a traditional kind of couple, have we?"

Lydia grinned and returned her husband's loving gaze as she dared to touch his engorged sex and stroke its thick tip. "No we have not, my lord. What do you suggest as the best approach to whatever comes next?"

The viscount breathed heavily from Lydia's touch and visibly struggled to keep steady on his feet through the experience. Then he suddenly lifted her up, wrapped her legs around his waist, and gripped her backside to hold her in place against him.

Joseph buried his face between Lydia's breasts again, kissed his way over to her thus far neglected nipple, and gave it a full minute of attention with his wet tongue.

Lydia pressed the swollen lips between her legs against Joseph's belly and threw her head back to release a few feminine grunts toward the moon. She felt primal and wild in a way she could never have guessed was possible as the wife of a nobleman. And she was certain in that moment she never wanted this kind of primal play with her husband to end.

Joseph finally came up for air and responded to Lydia's question about how they would proceed. "We improvise, my love. Hold on tightly to me while I slide inside you as a husband fills a wife. There might be a little pain since it's your first time, but that will subside quickly. Are you ready for me, little nymph?"

Her eyes widened as Lydia realized she and Joseph's bodies were about to become one in a very surprising way. She was both frightened and excited, and fully trusted him to take care of her through the experience.

"I am ready," she whispered, then wrapped her arms more tightly around Joseph's neck and tightened the grip of her legs around his waist.

The viscount kissed Lydia's lips again, then lifted her body slightly higher and dipped his sex into her soft opening. He and Lydia both gasped as he slowly pushed deeper until he was fully buried inside her warmth.

"Are you quite well, little nymph? Look at me, please." Joseph stayed as still as possible until Lydia opened her eyes and nodded.

"Yes! Please don't stop, Joseph. You feel so good."

That was all he needed to hear. He focused on Lydia's expressions as he slowly thrusted between her legs, testing her comfort level little by little. When she opened her mouth to gasp with pleasure again and again, Joseph quickened his rhythm, pressing ever deeper with each pulse of his hips into hers.

All other distractions in the world fell away as Lydia felt herself soaring with feelings she never even knew were possible. For if she had, she would have demanded that Joseph take her just like that back when they met at her favorite spring.

Had she known then what she knew now, she wouldn't have wasted even a minute before riding him like a steed until her insides burst into a million brightly lit sparkles as brilliant as fireworks in the night sky.

"Oh, Joseph! I'm flying, I'm flying!" Lydia laughed at her own choice of words, but she had no other way yet of describing how Joseph's thrusting inside her was making her feel. She was flying and bursting and panting and grunting and riding the exquisitely titillating friction into a vast sea of stars.

Her heart soared just as high, knowing that all of those feelings were intensified because of the love she and Joseph shared.

As she felt herself nearing a pinnacle of pleasure so intense she might not survive it, Lydia's gratitude for having attended that first bloody Winstone ball made her appreciate how things turned out even more.

The water below their bodies sloshed and splashed as Joseph bounced Lydia into heavenly oblivion. Then it was his turn to grunt and gasp, and sail on his own waves of pleasure that Lydia could feel happening inside her as he shuddered and released.

Joseph hugged Lydia close and whispered against the nape of her neck as his breathing began to slow again. "My love, you have no idea how incredible that felt for me. I love you and need you more than you could ever possibly understand. How are you feeling?"

Lydia kissed the top of Joseph's head and smiled. "I feel glorious, my lord. And I love you so much, too. When can we do that again?"

Joseph laughed and continued to hold her close as he eased their bodies toward the deeper center of the pond where they could cool off. "As often as you wish, little nymph. Though let's try it in a bed next time, so you have at least one traditional mating experience."

"If you insist, Viscount Winstone. Though don't expect me to be a traditional lover or a traditional wife!" Lydia grinned and laid back in the water with her legs still circled around Joseph's waist.

He slowly spun her around as she floated on the surface with her arms outstretched, feeling light as a feather and changed for the better.

"I wouldn't dare, little nymph. I expect there will be a lot more experimenting in our future. Though maybe keep your notes under lock and key next time?"

Lydia giggled and splashed her irresistible husband, then let him pull her back up to nestle against his chest as the water around their waists swished between their limbs.

"Good idea. Or maybe I'll publish my findings so other women can benefit from my discoveries. Especially those unsuspecting women who fall for a beastly man like you."

Joseph released another laugh on a long, bliss-filled breath and kissed Lydia's cheek.

"There is no other beastly gentleman as lucky as me, little nymph. And there never will be."

Lydia sighed and kissed her husband's lips again and again. She couldn't wait to prove him right for the rest of their lives, and in every spring they could find.