The earl’s voice wavered for a brief moment, and he ducked his head to hide his pain, then continued onward. “It is told me, sir, that Lady Rosemary has never suffered the loss of a child either before or after its birth. Surely a daughter of such a healthy woman would herself also be healthy. That is why I come to you, Lord Morgan. That is why I would have one of your daughters to wive. Do you have a marriageable daughter at this time?”
“I have three, my lord earl, and a fourth I suspect who is also not far from womanhood, but again I tell you I know not how I can dower one daughter, let alone eight.”
“Are those daughters fit, sir?”
“They have never had a sick day in their lives, any one of them. Indeed it is miraculous, for my otherwise healthy young son snivels and wheezes his way through each winter even as I do.”
“Pick whichever of your daughters you would, my lord Morgan. I care not as long as she is old enough to bear children, and does not squint. Keep your lands for your son: I will have your daughter without a dowry. As part of her marriage portion from me I will settle upon each of her sisters a dowry of her own, enabling you to make decent betrothals for them all. My bride will be treated like a queen, and shall lack for nothing that she may desire. This I swear to you upon the soul of my own dead Catherine.”
Rosemary Morgan pressed a hand to her mouth to suppress her cry. She could not believe what she had just heard, for it was a miracle, and surely the answer to their prayers. Her gray-blue eyes wide, she looked up at her husband. He was pale with the shock of the earl’s speech. She watched for what seemed like forever as he struggled to regain a mastery of himself.
Lord Morgan finally drew in a deep breath, and expelling it noisily as if to clear his head, he said, “I would, of course, choose my eldest daughter to be wed first. She will be sixteen on the last day of November. Her name is Blaze.”
“An unusual name,” remarked the earl.
“All of our daughters have unusual names,” said Lady Morgan, now recovering from her initial surprise. “I am afraid poor Father John disapproves most highly. In order to have my own way I have had to baptize each of my girls with a saint’s name first. As they have all been christened Mary, they are known as I would have them known.”
The earl chuckled. “Is your daughter Blaze as determined, madam, as you are? I would hope that her name is not indicative of her temperament.”
“Blaze is a good child, sir, but I would be honest with you,” said Lady Morgan. “She is no milk-and-water lass. None of my girls are.”
“And what are their names?” he queried her.
“After Blaze come Bliss and Blythe, our fourteen-year-old twins. Then there is Delight. She is thirteen, and still somewhat of a scamp. Our second set of twins, Larke and Linnette, are nine. Vanora is seven, and Gavin and his sister Glenna are five.”
The earl smiled once again at Lord and Lady Morgan. “I envy you that fine family. Particularly your small son,” he said.
“There were times when even I despaired of seeing him born,” Robert Morgan admitted candidly.
“But he was born!” the earl replied. “With a young and healthy wife, so shall my son be born too! It is settled then, sir? Will you have me as a son-in-law?”
“I will, and gladly, though it shames me I can send my daughter to you with naught but the clothes upon her back. Still, I will swallow my pride for her sake, and for the sake of my other girls. I love them, and I want them happy!”
The two men arose simultaneously and shook hands.
“Will you stay to dinner then, and meet Blaze?” Lord Morgan asked.
His wife cast anguished eyes to the heavens. Holy Mary! Sweet Saint Anne! Did Rob not remember that dinner was but soup and bread? Let the earl decline, and I will make a trip to Hereford Cathedral to light candles in your honor, she silently vowed.
“I regret I cannot, sir,” replied Lord Wyndham. “It is twelve miles cross-country to my home. I must be there before dark. Today is my sister’s birthday. I have planned an entertainment in her honor. The wedding contracts will be drawn up and sent to you. Whatever you desire changed, change. Then return the signed contracts to me. The banns shall be immediately posted. I will return on the thirtieth of September for the celebration of my marriage to your daughter.”
“A moment, my lord,” said Lady Morgan. Rising from her stool, she moved gracefully across the room to a long library table upon which was a rectangular box of dark wood banded in silver. Opening the box revealed a set of miniatures. Drawing the first one out, she turned and held it out to him. “Our elderly relative, Master Peter, amuses himself by painting miniatures of the children each spring. This is his latest rendering of Blaze. I thought, perhaps, that you would like to have it, my lord.”
Accepting her offering, he gazed down into the proud little face in the miniature. His mind was still so full of Cathy that he had not even considered until this moment what his new wife might look like. It had not mattered to him as long as she was healthy, and fulfilled her chief wifely duty, which was to produce his heirs.
The face before him, however, was a beautiful one. A fair and perfect heart with well-spaced oval-shaped eyes of a violet-blue edged with thick dark gold lashes. Her nose was just slightly retroussé. The mouth small, yet full and pouting. It was the sort of mouth a man would not tire of kissing, he thought, if the sensuality of her lips proved truth, not lie. Her hair, parted in the middle, was a rich golden chestnut in color. It hung soft and loose about her lovely face.
Raising his eyes from the charming miniature, he said, “Madam, I asked for a wife. You offer me a treasure. I am overwhelmed, and grateful.”
“I hope,” said Rosemary Morgan with a little smile, “that you will say all those charming things to my daughter. She has never been courted. It would be a shame for her to miss such a wonderful part of life.”
“I do not think,” he answered her, “that it will be hard to say such things to Blaze. Her loveliness quite takes my breath away.”
“Be patient with her, my lord. She is young, but she is strong in both body and mind. Nonetheless she will prove worth the trouble, I promise you.”
Edmund Wyndham nodded. “My hobby is cultivating roses, madam. Roses are fussy creatures that need a great deal of loving concern in order to bring forth perfect blooms. You have given me a perfect rose, and I swear to you that I shall treasure it with my very life, and cultivate it with the utmost care.” Then taking her hand up, he kissed it in farewell, and departed the library in the company of Robert Morgan.
Lady Rosemary watched her husband escort the earl from their house, the two men speaking in quiet tones that she could no longer distinguish. She looked down at her hand as if she expected to find it had changed. Then she laughed softly at herself. She was behaving exactly like a young girl, but the Earl of Langford had had that effect upon her. In a way she almost envied her daughter. Then she sobered. Blaze had absolutely no idea of how fortunate she was!
Lady Morgan hurried from the library and up the staircase to the children’s quarters, where she found Old Ada, the children’s nursemaid, with her three youngest. “Where is Mistress Blaze?” Lady Morgan demanded of the servant.
Old Ada’s sharp eyes considered her mistress’s request. She thought a moment. “Larke and Linnette, they be in the kitchens with Cook, or maybe in the pasture ogling those two new colts that was just born.”
Lady Morgan sighed and waited. Old Ada knew just about everything that went on at Ashby, but she was elderly now and it was necessary to wait upon her memory.
The old lady pondered further. “Now, Delight, she be trailing after the two busy B’s, and they was with Mistress Blaze.”
“Where, Ada?”
“Running about barefoot in the fields and forest, no doubt,” came the disapproving reply. “ ’Tis no way, I’m thinking, for marriageable girls to behave, but then who is to marry them, poor lasses? Who is to marry our sweet little beauties?” She rocked back and forth upon her
chair, the tears suddenly running down her withered face.
Lady Morgan left the children’s rooms, descending back down into the main hallway of her house. She was the possessor of the most wonderful and exciting news! She wanted to tell Blaze of her great good fortune. Where was the flibbertigibbet? Running barefoot like some peasant wench, no doubt! I didn’t chastise her enough, she thought. Then Rosemary Morgan laughed. Had they not raised—indeed were still raising—their children with a greater sense of freedom than most? Theirs was no formal society. They had never expected that their children would marry into important families, but now things were changing. The girls, of course, all had nice manners, and their housewifely skills were above reproach. Still, they would need to know more than she had previously taught them. Blaze, in particular, as she would be wed within two months to a wealthy and important man.
Lady Morgan went to the open door of the house. Her husband, having bid farewell to Lord Wyndham, was disappearing in the direction of the stables. The earl and his troop were riding away back down the driveway. Anxiously she scanned the landscape for a sight or sign of her wayward daughters. To her annoyance there were none.
“God’s foot!” she swore softly beneath her breath, startling even herself, for she was not a woman to use such language. Still, it was irritating to be the possessor of such marvelous news, yet not be able to tell it. She bit her lip in vexation. Damn Blaze! She could not shout for her, as Edmund Wyndham was yet within hearing distance. With a sigh and a grumble of annoyance Lady Morgan turned back into her house, slamming the door behind her in her immense frustration.
Part One
ASHBY HALL
Summer 1521
Chapter 1
The four girls, well hidden behind the shrubbery on the far side of the driveway that faced Ashby Hall, had a fine view of the elegant visitor although they could hear nothing that was said between him and their father.
“Who is he, do you think?” wondered Bliss Morgan, tossing her blond hair back from her face as she spoke.
“He is most divinely handsome even if he is old,” noted her identical twin sister. Blythe’s daffodil-colored hair seemed always perfectly coiffed.
“Maybe he’s a suitor come for one of us,” said Delight Morgan in a hopeful tone. Her deep blue eyes, so like their father’s, sparkled with eager anticipation.
“Ohh, Dee, don’t be so foolish!” Bliss snapped at the younger girl irritably, causing her face to fall. “Look at the man! His clothes are of the very best materials, and that gold chain around his neck is worth enough to dower us all quite respectably. None of us has so much as a dried pea for a portion. Without a dowry we’ve little hope of making any kind of a decent marriage. We’ll be lucky if we end up as farmers’ wives.”
“Aye,” echoed her twin mournfully. “We’re all doomed to spinsterhood or worse. Not even the church will have us.”
“Do you really want to go to the church, Blythe?” drawled the eldest of them in an amused tone, more than any aware of her sister’s worldly penchants.
“You know I don’t, Blaze! I want to be married and have children,” replied Blythe somewhat indignantly.
“What you mean is that you want to be wed to a rich man, little sister,” said Blaze, her tone somewhat cynical.
“It is just as easy to love a rich man as a poor one,” Bliss pointed out instantly, defending her sibling. “We are poor, and I do not like it at all. I think I should enjoy being rich.”
“There is little chance of that,” Blaze retorted with a rueful laugh. “Look at us, sisters! Look at us in our linen skirts that are too short for us now, and our way-too-tight bodices. When did any of us ever have something new to wear?” She sighed almost bitterly.
“Delight’s bodice isn’t too tight,” snipped Bliss, “but then she’s still a baby yet and not ready for a suitor even if one did come along.”
“Old Ada says my womanhood is close upon me,” Delight hissed spiritedly at her elder.
“The old woman always knows too,” Blythe said grudgingly. “So then there are four of us ready for marriage. To what purpose? Ahh, how sad to have naught!”
“We have each other,” Blaze replied, recovering from her bout of self-pity first.
The four pairs of eyes met. Then Bliss smiled a smile that transformed her thin little face into an extremely beautiful face.
“Aye, we have each other, ’tis true, Blaze, and what would we do without us?” She smiled at her sisters, saying thoughtfully, “I should still like to know, however, just who the gentleman is. My curiosity is burning to learn why such a distinguished fellow would pay our father a call.”
“There’s time to learn all you need to know later,” said Blaze, “but right now there’s a late cherry tree I’ve found on the edge of the orchards that’s full with sweet cherries that can be ours for the picking. We’d best hurry before the birds get them all, little sisters!” She turned and started off. The three younger girls followed in her wake.
The Morgan sisters had learned the lessons of frugality early in life. Poverty had taught them that nothing was to be wasted. When they finally returned to their home in late afternoon their willow baskets were filled to overflowing with the cherries that Blaze had so fortunately found for them. Hurrying to the kitchens, they put aprons on over their gowns, washed the fruit carefully in the worn stone sinks, and then set about pitting them, putting aside any bruised cherries to stew for their supper. When seven-year-old Vanora wandered into the kitchens she was put to work pounding a small sugar loaf to a fine powder.
“Let’s candy some of the cherries,” suggested Delight. “They always taste especially good just before Lent begins.”
Blaze nodded in agreement, and smiling, the older three put some of the sweet fruit aside. The rest was equally divided. One half to go into the syrup pot, where it would be boiled down into a sweet thick syrup. The remainder of the cherries would be used for jelly.
“Stop stuffing your face with our cherries, Vanora, or I shall smack you,” Bliss threatened as she caught the younger child in the act.
Vanora’s sharp little face was covered with the evidence of her crime. Not the least intimidated by her elder sibling, she unwisely stuck out her pink tongue at Bliss, who immediately retaliated, reaching out to pull the child’s hair. Vanora howled with outrage, her earsplitting shrieks setting the maidservants agog and bringing her mother running. Vanora sobbed noisily, more outraged than hurt. She looked slyly from beneath her wet eyelashes to see what effect her outrageous behavior was having upon the others as Lady Morgan demanded to know why Vanora was carrying on so.
Vanora hiccuped dramatically, but in the moment in which she drew breath preparatory to leveling an accusation at Bliss, Blaze spoke up.
“She has pounded her finger instead of the sugar loaf, Mama.” Blaze put an apparently loving arm about her younger sister’s narrow little shoulders and squeezed her hard. “Do stop raging, Vanora sweeting. I know it hurts, for many a time I have pounded my fingers too.”
Vanora sobbed. Looking up into her eldest sister’s face, she saw the stern warning in Blaze’s eyes. Immediately she ceased her wailing. Blaze was her favorite sister, but Vanora knew the danger of getting on her bad side.
“There now,” said Blaze sweetly, “that’s better. Return to your task, Vanora, for without the sugar we shall not be able to preserve these luscious cherries. Yours is the most important task.” With a final sniffle Vanora obeyed. Turning to her mother, Blaze said, “I found a late bloomer in the orchards. We managed to get to the cherries before the birds did, Mama. I’ve never known a cherry to bloom so late. It’s a good month out of season.”
“Nature is not always predictable,” replied Lady Morgan. “How fortunate, Blaze, that you found the tree, and how good of you to so quickly rally your sisters to pick the fruit, but, dearest child, I have news. Wonderful news!”
“Does it have to do with that gorgeous man who was speaking with our father outside the
house earlier?” Delight burst out.
“You saw Lord Wyndham then?” her mother asked.
“We were all hiding behind the hedge, Mama. Since you didn’t call us, we did not think you wanted us, and went on to the orchard,” said Delight truthfully.
Lady Morgan smiled at her fourth daughter. Delight was quite incapable of telling an untruth. Blaze she had known to tell white lies to protect the feelings of others. As for her first set of twins, both Bliss and Blythe lied so easily that they often believed what they said to be truth, for there was no real malice in either of them.
“Lord Edmund Wyndham is the Earl of Langford,” Lady Morgan continued. “He was widowed over a year ago, and is without children. He has chosen Blaze to be his next wife. Is that not incredible news, my daughters?”
“I told you so! I told you so!” Delight danced around the kitchens to the amusement of the cook and the maidservants.
Rosemary Morgan smiled, then looked anxiously toward her eldest child. Blaze appeared stunned.
“Holy Blessed Mother! An earl! You are to marry an earl, Blaze!” gasped Bliss enviously. “He’s even handsome!”
“You are going to be a countess,” Blythe squealed excitedly, clapping her hands. “Lady Mary Blaze Wyndham, the Countess of Langford! Ohhh, why are you so lucky?!”
“Lucky?” Blaze whispered. “Am I lucky?” She drew a deep breath. Her voice was stronger now as, facing her mother, she demanded, “Why does this man want to marry with me? How can I marry anyone? You have fretted often enough, Mama, that there is no dowry for us.” Blaze’s violet-blue eyes were filled with unspoken questions.
The kitchens had grown deathly still, only the crackle of the flames in the fireplaces breaking the silence. Looking about her, Lady Morgan saw the avid curiosity of her servants, and clamped her lips in a thin disapproving line. There was nothing wrong with them knowing that Blaze was to wed, but the details were not their business.
Blaze Wyndham Page 2
