((Contains material of an adult nature.))

March 28th, 1614

The waterbound city of Cicile came alive on the day that saw the marriage of their Princess Adelina to the Duke of Elan, Leandro. Petals crowded the waters of the canals, each bridge and paved walkway crammed with people, rich and poor alike, eager to see the newly married couple on their progress through the city. The gondola in which they traveled was bedecked with a bower of orchids and roses, shading the Duke and his bride from the spring sunshine as they passed through Cicile. It was as much a farewell to Adelina as it was a celebration of the marriage, with many well wishes thrown to them as they floated by.

Then to the palace, where a lavish feast and ball was presented for them, where they danced with the Cicilian courtiers until their feet were sore, until the sun had long since departed beneath the horizon. And now Cicile was quiet, the night drawing in to welcome the blessed couple to their marriage bed and consummate the promises shared in the eyes of the Goddess.

It had been a long but happy day for them both and for all the people of Cicile. Leandro has been surprised at the warm welcome he'd been offered by her people and by all those he met, even if he wasn't fluent in their language. Now that they were alone in the quarters he had been occupying for the last two days, all of the excitement and anticipation seemed to finally come to a head. This was the night they had all been eagerly awaiting and anticipating since his arrival in Cicile, but this was something to be shared only between the two of them - no longer just the duke and the princess, but a husband and wife.

Adelina had been taken into the bedchamber moments after their arrival, the door closed against him while her lady-companion, whose name had finally been revealed as Valeria, helped her to prepare for this unique night in a woman's life. Yet it did not seem so very long before Lady Valeria opened the door and left the suite entirely, leaving Leandro to discover his bride alone. Perhaps discover was even the most appropriate word. Most men, on knowing they had married a maid, would expect her to wait within the bed, the covers held high to her throat, expecting to fear what was coming. Not so with the ladies of Cicilia. Adelina stood by the window, silhouetted in the moonlight that shone through the sheer softness of her nightgown, her hair tied back from her face with a single ribbon. There was no shame in her, and no fear of what was to come.

Silhouetted by the moonlight, the pale light shining through the window and illuminating her form, even clothed in sheer fabric, there was very little left to the imagination. He could easily make out the soft curve of her form beneath the sheer softness of her nightgown, the face that looked at him with eager anticipation lovelier than any he'd ever seen. She was a vision of loveliness, like the painting of a goddess captured forever on canvas. But she was no painting - she was flesh and blood, as real as he was, and she belonged to him.

She turned to face him as the door closed behind him, and if her hands shook a little as they fell to her sides, that was to be expected. She truly was hiding nothing, for the gown was not made to conceal but to accentuate. The bold gaze that had so impressed him at their first meeting was there once again, seeming to hold more of a challenge to herself than to him. The duke's wife curtsied to him in the moonlight. "Good evening, mio marito."

Though he wasn't fluent in her language, he didn't have to ask for a translation, having picked up a few words from her translator before the wedding, and it wasn't that difficult to figure out what she was saying just form the context of her words. "Good evening, esposa," he replied in his own language. She was going to get used to hearing it and speaking it sooner or later. "You look ..." It was there that words failed him. Lovely. Beautiful. Even in her language, there were no words to describe the vision of loveliness that was his wife.

She glanced down at herself, brushing her hair back from her face where it fell free from the ribbon that caught it back loosely. "I ....I please?" she asked hopefully, still determined to speak in Pasan if she possibly could. Two days had not appreciably increased her vocabulary, but perhaps two months would.

"Bella," he filled in the blank with the only word he knew in her language that came even close to describing her loveliness. It was not just her physical beauty, however, that held him enthralled; there was so much more to her than that, and he was only just starting to get to know her. Dressed modestly in a crisp white shirt, open at the collar, and a pair of simple black breeches, he stepped closer, extended a hand to draw her toward him.

Her hand slipped into his, bare feet bringing her over the ornate woven rug beneath them to step close to him at his direction. "Grazie," she thanked him in Cicilian, shaking her head with a nervous edge to her laughter before correcting herself into Pasan. "I thank you. You very handsome."

"Grazie," he replied with a slightly amused smile, as his fingers curled around hers. "You need not be afraid, Adelina. I will be gentle," he promised her, unsure if she'd even understand him. "Gentile?" he ventured, uncertainly, gesturing to himself to try and convey his meaning.

Her brow rose, a small smile on her lips as she met his gaze, wondering what he knew of Cicilian customs. Did he know that his new wife had been taught by the best courtesans in the city in preparation for her wedding night, or was that something only rumored and not known as truth' "I have not afraid," she assured him in her broken approximation of his language. "I have ..." She paused, searching for the word. "Courteous?"

As broken as her language was, her grasp of his language was better than his of hers. He shook his head, not quite sure what it was she was trying to say. "I'm sorry. I don't understand." Whatever it was he'd heard of her customs, he did not want to make any wrong assumptions. It was important to him that he treat her with respect and courtesy. She was a princess, after all.

She smiled once again, bemoaning her lack of fluency not for the first time. "I have learn," she tried to explain. "How to be ....what is word" Sposato, coniugale ....for husband. I wish ....see how well I learn."

"Amante," he offered, the word in his own language for lover. He'd had other lovers, both experienced and inexperienced, but all of them paled in comparison to her in charm and beauty and grace. "I will teach you," he told her drawing her closer and lifting a hand to reach around to the back of her neck and tug at the ribbon that held her hair in place, letting it fall loosely to drape over her shoulders. "There is no hurry."

As he drew her closer to unbind her hair, she dared to do what very few untaught maids would. Her hands slipped beneath the loose hang of his shirt, smoothing the tender caress of her fingers and palms over his skin with none of the hesitation he might have expected. And all the while her eyes held his, warm and hopeful, her breath mingling with his.

He had hoped that by giving her pleasure first, it would make it easier to bear the pain, and it seemed from all the signs she was giving him, that he'd been right in that regard. He was unlike some men who cared little for the needs or desires of their lover, at least where she was concerned. She was unlike anyone he'd ever met - a virgin lover who was more skilled, more willing to please, than any of his previous lovers, no matter age or experience. What was it about her that made him care so much for her feelings and well-being and pleasure" Could he, at long last, be falling in love" He'd thought himself immune to such things, and yet, it had only been a few days and already he could not imagine his life, his world without her.

He did not need to imagine his life without her, for despite only meeting her two days before, she was his wife. Until death, she would be a constant in his life, and he in hers. Trembling in the wake of that first open display of passion, Adelina found herself smiling, rolling to trace her fingertips over his face and neck in wonder, murmuring tender endearments in the native tongue she would soon have to abandon if she was to have any hope of integrating into his society, his world.

It didn't matter that he didn't understand most of what she was saying, just the sound of the words from her lips was like music - poetry - to his ears. It wasn't just the words that were lyrical and lovely but the sound of her voice. He thought she could have been telling him of the weather or the time of day, and it would have sounded just as lovely. "Sleep now, princess, knowing you will be forever safe in my arms," he told her quietly, in his own language, unsure how much of that she might understand. He kissed her lips and her cheeks and her eyelids before settling down beside her and taking her in his arms, as lazy and content as a cat on a cold winter's day.

Adelina eyed him as he settled down to sleep, laughing at his readiness to succumb to slumber in the wake of passion. "They tell that man is brought low by love," she teased him, easing up to straddle his hips as she looked down at her husband. "You surrender, mio marito?"

He arched both brows up at her, a little surprised at her apparent unwillingness to surrender to sleep, as his other lovers always had. "Surrender?" he echoed, quizzically. "Surrender to sleep or to you, mi amor?" he asked, addressing her in his own language with a term of endearment he had never offered anyone before. The word was close enough to her own that there was no risk of her misunderstanding it.

"You say teach," she challenged him teasingly, her hair slipping down over her shoulder to caress his cheek and shoulder as she leaned down to him, one hand caressing once again as she arched with feline invitation over her husband. "I learn ....si"" Mischief sparkled in her bold gaze as she touched him, seeking to discover if it was true that men of other realms had only one arrow in their bow. It was not a shameful thing here in Cicilia, to enjoy the sojourn of a lover's embrace, and though he was her first, and likely her only, Adelina was more than prepared to enjoy him as he enjoyed her.

Whatever it was she'd been taught or told, he had no problem rising to the occasion a second time and likely a third and fourth, if it came to that. It was only a matter of keeping him awake if he became too sleepily contented. Like a man drunk on wine, he could become drunk on love. "Are you bewitching me, Adelina" I have heard that Cicilian lovers are hard to please. Is that true?"

"What is ....bee witch?" she asked him, her curiosity piqued even as she lowered her mouth to his skin once again, her eagerness to please forestalled by an unspoken wish to kiss every scar as though such kisses could soothe the pain inflicted when they had found their place on his flesh.

He was hardly aware of the way her kisses were deliberately administered as if to soothe the pain of old scars mostly forgotten, though he was keenly aware of the effect those kisses were having on his body as his desire for her was renewed afresh. "Enchant," he murmured, his hands moving to touch the softness of her back, her shoulders, her hair as she leaned over him.

It was another word she did not know, but it was similar enough that she could make sense of his former accusation, however fond it might have been. "I learn," she murmured to him between those slow kisses that laved his skin with tenderness. "We learn. No man leave Cicilian wife."

"I have no intentions of leaving you, Adelina," he murmured back, though her ministrations were making it difficult for him to find the coherency to converse. Surrendering to her meant letting go of control and trusting her to do with him as she would. For a woman who had never been with a man before this night, he marveled at the skills which rivaled those of his past lovers.

Given opportunity to truly explore, she was exceedingly thorough, teasing him with lips and tongue, with hands and fingertips, even with the ticklish passage of her hair. This was the secret of Cicilia, rumored abroad but never spoken of outright. Their courtesans were famous, but it was the education of their young men and women in preparation for marriage that was their greatest strength. No wonder the royal household had proliferated with children before the King and Queen grew past their time; no wonder, too, that no one ever refused the offer of a Cicilian spouse. If Adelina was any measure to judge by, it was a hidden strength that might one day unite all Meringia.

For perhaps the first time in his life, he submitted himself completely and willingly to the wiles of a woman, marveling once again at the ease with which she brought him to the brink of rapture and took him over the edge, for the second time that night. How many more times that night they would trade places, making love and being made love to, was either one's guess. If this was what life with a Cicilian princess was going to be like, he doubted he'd ever get bored of her. It was after they had made love the third time and showed no signs of slowing that he whispered the question that had been playing on his heart and his mind since he'd met her. "Do you think you could learn to love me, Adelina?" he asked as he held her quietly in his arms, waiting for the hammering of his heart to slow.

"Love?" she whispered back to him, herself breathless, trembling in his arms, in awe of the promise her marriage bed had fulfilled many times over. In awe of this man, who had made her his, and would keep her all the days of her life. "Ah, amore, affetto ....I love?" She paused, the words absorbed, giving him the courtesy of not answering in the aftermath of passion, when tenderness and pleasure could make a fool of even a wise tongue. "You wish my love" I ....think I learn, as you learn. Penso che potrei facilmente imparare ad amare te, il mio duca." I think I could easily learn to love you.

He turned to face her, not only to absorb and try to understand her words, but so that he could look on the face of this lovely woman who was well on her way to stealing his heart. "I do not understand everything you say, but I think I could love you, Adelina, and it is more than I have ever hoped for. You are more than I have ever hoped for." He touched her cheek with gentle fingers as if to underscore his feelings with that simple caress. She was slowly opening his heart to the possibilities of love - a heart that he'd feared closed to love.

A soft smile touched her face as his fingers caressed her cheek, understanding the sentiment, if not the words as he spoke them. In answer, her fingertips touched over his heart with a soft touch of their own. "I practice," she promised. "We speak better, soon."

He smiled - a rare thing for him but something that might become more common now that he was married. "No more words," he told her, tracing her lips with a fingertip. He had been the one to initiate the conversation with his question and he was the one to finish it with a kiss.

There would be other kisses and many of them, but that kiss signified something more than a simple marriage agreement. It was their first step, together, toward something that would not be purely words on a page, a union for union's sake. It held a promise and an oath, hopeful and tender, that one day soon there would be something else to celebrate in this match of theirs. It was a beginning.

((What, were you expecting another timid virgin" :grin: Huge thanks to Leandro's player!))