In the next few days there was much coming and going at RiversEdge. Lord and Lady Morgan arrived to comfort their daughter, who lay in her bed weeping for the loss of her husband, and her son, but recovering from her miscarriage. Lady Rosemary had overruled her daughter Delight, who, seeing her eldest sister’s tragedy as another opportunity to chase after Anthony Wyndham, wanted to come.
“None of you are to come,” said Lady Rosemary firmly. “We must leave immediately. Delight, you will be in charge of your sisters and brothers. If Lord Anthony did not want you before he became Earl of Langford, he will not want you now,” she said bluntly. “He can aspire to a much higher name, and undoubtedly he will. Now that he is the Earl of Langford, he will certainly marry when his mourning is over. I hope that, knowing this, you will decide to stop your foolishness, and accept one of the good offers we have had for you. You are, after all, sixteen and a half. Soon you will be considered too long in the tooth to be a wife. Is that what you wish? Surely you do not intend to end your days a maiden?”
Delight, Lady Rosemary found, was far easier to control than her eldest child. Blaze lay weakly within her bed, her eyes burning dark with her anger. “He killed Edmund,” she told her parents. “If I could kill him, I would!”
“Stop this, Blaze!” said Lady Rosemary in her firmest, most maternal tone of disapproval.
“What do you know, Mama? You have lived your whole life happily at Ashby having Papa’s children. You have never lost a child or a husband!” Blaze snarled at her mother. “Edmund would be alive today, and our son also, had not Tony goaded my husband into hunting that day. He planned to kill Edmund! I know it! He wanted Edmund’s place all along, though he masked it well, the bastard!” Her voice bordered on the hysterical.
“Nay, daughter, do not allow your sorrow to blind you to the truth,” said Lord Morgan in a quiet, firm tone. “Edmund wanted to hunt that day. Admit it. He grasped at the first excuse to do so. Do you really believe that Anthony was responsible for making that deer bolt from the forest directly in front of your husband’s horse? There were a dozen witnesses to the incident, and Edmund’s was not the only horse to shy. Unfortunately he was taken unawares, else he would have controlled his animal, for he was a fine horseman. It was an accident, Blaze. A terrible accident. It is unfair of you to blame Anthony for it. Unfair, and unkind. Edmund was Anthony’s best friend. They were more brothers than uncle and nephew. He grieves too for Edmund, and as deeply as do you.”
Blaze gazed mutely at her father, but Robert Morgan saw the pain she suffered, and took her into his embrace, where she wept until her eyes were burned closed with the salt of her tears. “I hate him!” she sobbed into her father’s shoulder.
“Hate him if you will, Blaze, but do not blame him for something that was not his fault,” replied Lord Morgan.
After two days in the family’s private chapel the body of the third Earl of Langford was moved to the Church of St. Michael, where it stayed on view another day so that his people might come and pay their respects. Had the weather not been cool they would not have had the opportunity. Atop the coffin rested Edmund Wyndham’s effigy, and within the closed casket, out of sight of the mourners, the earl held in tender and eternal embrace the swaddled body of his infant son, having gained in death that which he had so dearly sought in life, but had been unable to attain.
Blaze had insisted upon being present at her husband’s funeral and had been carried into the church by her father. The people wept all the harder seeing their beautiful young countess, for Blaze appeared to them to be brave and noble in her terrible grief. What sons would have come from such a woman, they thought silently, and mourned all the more their double loss.
It began to snow as they exited the church, having interred Edmund Wyndham’s broken body in its designated place within the family crypt. To her shock Blaze found herself alone with Anthony inside a coach.
“I must talk with you,” he said quietly, and when she did not reply he continued. “I plan to settle Riverside and its lands upon Nyssa as her marriage portion. I know that Edmund had not yet even considered her dowry, and now it is my responsibility. As a reigning earl’s daughter she would have been greatly sought-after. Her father’s death would lessen her value as a bride, but that I have given her Riverside. She is now a great heiress.”
“Are my daughter and I to live at Riverside?” she asked him coldly.
“Nay, Blaze, RiversEdge is your home,” he replied. “You are now the dowager Countess of Langford, and nothing has changed.
“My husband and son lie in the family crypt at Michaelschurch,” she said bitterly. “That has changed my life, and that of my daughter, my lord earl. I will never live at RiversEdge as long as you are there, Tony! I will take my daughter and go to Greenhill which belongs to me. Edmund gave it to me when Nyssa was born, and ’tis where we shall live!” Her pale face was resolute in its determination.
“Greenhill? You cannot live at Greenhill!” he said. “The manor house there is very old, and has not been lived in for thirty years. It is probably uninhabitable at this point.”
“Then why did Edmund give it to me?” she demanded of him.
“He was giving you the manor with its lands, not a house to live in,” explained Tony.
“But I will live in it,” she said stubbornly.
“It is not proper for a young woman without a husband to live alone in an isolated place,” he said through gritted teeth. “I will not allow you to live at Greenhill.”
Her violet-blue eyes darkened in their anger and narrowed dangerously. “You will not allow me? Who are you to say what I may or may not do? How dare you even presume to do so, sir!”
“Who am I?” he repeated, and his voice was deep with his own rising anger. “I am the Earl of Langford, madam, and you as its dowager countess are my responsibility, as is your daughter, who I would remind you is Wyndham-born. It is I who will say where you may live, and if the Lady Nyssa Wyndham may go with you. As Earl of Langford it is my decision you remain at RiversEdge, madam, and because you are young and attractive, and because I would have a care for your reputation, my mother will remain as your chaperon. Is that quite understood, Blaze?”
“Am I to be your prisoner then?” she queried him sarcastically.
“You are the honored widow of my predecessor, madam. You and your daughter belong at RiversEdge. What would people say if you no sooner buried Edmund than you moved bag and baggage with your child to another house?”
“And if you wed, sir, what will your bride think of our presence?”
“If I wed we will then discuss possible changes,” he answered.
She was the most irritating woman he had ever met, he thought. Yet he wanted to take her into his arms and comfort her, for he could see her pain over Edmund’s loss.
“Let me go home to Ashby for a time,” she said low. “I cannot bear the thought of Christmastide here at RiversEdge right now.”
He reached out to take her little hand in his, but she drew herself back into a corner of the seat like some wounded animal.
“Please,” she said, and although he could not see the tears in her eyes he knew that they were there, and he was torn.
“Would you take Nyssa with you?” he asked.
“Of course,” she replied. “You would not ask me to leave my child, would you? I will be with my parents. Surely you trust them to do the right thing even if you do not trust me.”
“You may go,” he said helplessly, for to have refused her would have been churlish, and he was desperate to gain ground with her. “I will expect you to return by Candlemas.”
“Oh, please,” she begged him, “let us stay until after Eastertide, my lord! I need to be with my family, and Nyssa will have her uncles for playmates.”
He nodded. Distance would give her time to think, and he believed that when she did, she would realize that he had not been at fault in the matter of Edmund’s death. Then, come the spring, upon her return, he would gently
court her.
Bidding Lady Dorothy farewell, Blaze returned to Ashby with her parents. She would have her own apartments in the beautiful new brick wing of the house that Edmund had gifted his in-laws with just last year. It was well that he had done so, for Blaze traveled with her tiring woman, Heartha, her child, and her child’s two nursemaids. She had her own groom, who looked after her white mare, and the young gray gelding Edmund had given her, and several liver-and-white spaniels who adored her, always following in her wake. Without this new wing Lady Rosemary would have been greatly put upon to house her eldest daughter and her small entourage.
After a few weeks back at Ashby Blaze realized that what her younger sister had said those three years back was true. Time had passed, and she had, of course, changed. Nothing was the same now as it had once been. She did not feel as if she belonged at Ashby, and she certainly did not belong at RiversEdge any longer. Having run her own large house, she was uncomfortable with her mother, and several times she caught herself opening her mouth to criticize something that her mother did that was not done that way at RiversEdge. She walked and she rode until the weather became simply too foul for being outdoors, which was worse, for she found that the sibling rivalry existing between her younger sisters was now beneath her.
Delight irritated her most, for all she seemed to want to talk about was the very thing that Blaze did not want to talk about. Anthony Wyndham. Larke and Linnette were sweet creatures, but their simple conversation, most of which was in unison drove her to distraction. They were so alike, she wondered if her parents would ever find husbands for them. She would have liked to spend more time with ten-and-a-half-year-old Vanora, but Vana was like a will-o’-the-wisp, never in one place for long, and leading a secret life that had caused Lady Rosemary to throw up her hands in desperation. Glenna, she hardly knew now, and Glenna was shy of her eldest sister, who in coping with her grief was not of a mind to win over the youngest of the Morgan sisters.
Blaze found herself looking forward to Christmas now, when Blythe and Bliss would come with their husbands, but a messenger arrived saying that Mary Rose and baby Rob were ill. Although in no danger, Blythe had chosen not to travel with them to Ashby. Bliss and Owen did arrive, however, bringing with them a heavy snowstorm that left the countryside blanketed in a mantle of white.
Bliss had the perfect solution to her sister’s problems, and she shared the idea first with her mother.
“She will come back to court with us,” Bliss said.
“Your sister is in mourning,” chided her mother.
“She can mourn him as well at court as in the country, Mama. Though she says nothing, she still blames Anthony for Edmund’s death which makes her residence at RiversEdge uncomfortable at best. She is bored to death here at Ashby. Can you not see it? She needs to be someplace new where she will be distracted from her grief, and where she may even find herself a new husband. Think, Mama! Blaze is the widowed Countess of Langford with a widow’s generous portion and lands of her own. She is quite a catch, and there are plenty of suitable gentlemen at court who should be happy to have her for a wife. What can you and Papa do for her, really? As for Anthony Wyndham, he will now be far too busy finding a wife of his own, lest the Wyndhams die out. He cannot help Blaze,” finished the practical Bliss.
Robert Morgan agreed that there was merit in Bliss’s suggestion, and Blaze, when approached with the idea, considered a moment and then agreed, to everyone but Bliss’s surprise.
“You will have to leave Nyssa, however,” said Bliss. “Lodging at court is a crowded thing at best. If Owen and I did not have a small extra bedchamber at Greenwich we could not offer to house you. Heartha will have to sleep upon the trundle in your room, but there is no room for Nyssa and her entourage. I hope you understand, sister.”
“Nyssa will be just fine with us,” said Lady Rosemary. “Henry and Tom adore her. They have grown so used to her now that they would be lost without their little niece.”
“She bullies them disgracefully,” said Blaze.
“My goddaughter is a child after my own heart,” remarked Bliss laughingly. “I wish we could take her with us, but the court is really no place for a child. You will come even so, won’t you, Blaze?”
She considered again her quick decision. She was bored at Ashby although she tried hard not to show it. Her only other choice of a place to live was RiversEdge, and she would never live there again as long as Anthony Wyndham was Earl of Langford. Then a small smile touched the corners of her mouth. Tony had thought himself quite the fine lordling telling her that he was now in charge of her life. How magnanimous he had been when he had permitted her to return to her childhood home with her daughter. And ordering her back by the week after Easter! She almost laughed aloud now. She knew he would not bother with them thinking them safe at Ashby. Aye, she acknowledged to herself, Nyssa was better off here with her parents and her sibling uncles to bully and play with; but the dowager Countess of Langford was going to court, and his mighty lordship would not know it until after Easter when they did not return to RiversEdge! It would be impossible for him to interfere with her then.
“Aye, Bliss, I’ll come with you, and I thank both you and Owen for the invitation as well as the lodging.”
They left Ashby the second day of January, for the Earl of Marwood had promised his sovereign that they would be back in time for them to take their usual places in the king’s Twelfth Night masque. Bliss, who was considered one of the most beautiful women at court, had an important role to play. She was to be Innocence, who would be overcome by the king’s Ardent Desire.
Blaze had never seen a masque before, but Bliss assured her that she would love the pageantry that surrounded the king. “He is quite in his prime, being only thirty-three his last birthday. He is very, very tall, and he has the most wonderful red-blond hair, though it be thinning. His eyes! God’s mercy, such eyes! They are as blue as a lake, and so deep that you could drown in them! He is learned and witty, and altogether most amiable. He is the greatest king in the world, Blaze. There is none to match our good King Harry!”
“Indeed,” agreed Owen FitzHugh, “Bliss speaks the truth. You will be amazed at the wonders and delights that you find at court. I am proud to be considered among the king’s friends. He is a great and noble lord. Only in his wife has he been unfortunate.”
“Why is that?” Blaze asked.
“He should have never wed Catherine of Aragon, Blaze, but this, of course, you must not ever voice aloud. There is talk that he has been denied living sons because he committed a sin by taking his brother’s widow to wive. Although it is not known widely yet, the king is seeking to gain a papal dissolution from his marriage to the queen so he may remarry and sire legitimate sons. Elizabeth Blount, who is now Lady Tailboys, has given the king a fine lad, young Henry Fitzroy, who is to be six this year. Mary Boleyn’s baby son, Henry Carey, is also said to be the king’s get. So you see, the king can sire strong sons, but not on the Spanish princess. Besides, she is now past her childbearing years, sad lady. The king deserves better, and with God’s blessing he shall have it,” finished Owen FitzHugh.
The Earl of Marwood’s traveling coach was extremely comfortable. Well-sprung, it had real glass windows that could be raised and lowered, which was considered quite a luxury. They traveled to Greenwich, where the king was now in residence, snug and warm beneath lush fur rugs, hot bricks wrapped in flannel at their feet. The weather had turned milder on New Year’s Day, and though muddy, the roads were passable.
Blaze had bid her family farewell, hugging her little daughter to her heart and promising to bring the child a present when she came again. Nyssa, who had received a surfeit of gifts just several days before upon her second birthday, was not overly impressed. Bidding her mother goodbye, she immediately turned back to her playmates. Blaze laughed weakly. “I am glad she is so self-reliant at such an early age.”
The coach rumbled away from Ashby, and looking back at her family standing bef
ore the house, Blaze had a feeling of déjà-vu. Once before she had left Ashby, and she had found great love. What would she find this time? she wondered.
Part Three
KING’S CHOICE
Twelfth Night 1525—
Autumn 1525
Chapter 9
“Will I really get to meet the king?” Blaze asked her younger sister for the third time.
Bliss laughed. It seemed strange to her, but she felt more like Blaze’s elder sister at this moment than a younger one. “Owen is one of the king’s best friends,” she said once again, as she had said thrice before. “You will get to meet the king, but I shall tell him that you are in mourning lest he want you to take part in the gaiety. You really should not, you know.”
“You sound like Mama,” Blaze replied, and now it was her turn to laugh. “I do not want to involve myself in the court quite yet, Bliss. Perhaps I shall never involve myself in it, but I had nowhere else to go right now. You know that.”
Bliss wisely held her tongue. For one so young she was amazingly knowledgeable of human nature. As great as her sister’s pain was now, it would pass in time. Bliss did not mention another husband, but she knew the ways of the world well, and of course Blaze would have to remarry eventually. What better place than the court to find a husband, and Bliss was generous enough to concede that her sister was beautiful. Perhaps not as beautiful as she was, but nonetheless lovely enough to capture many hearts.
Despite three years of marriage, however, Blaze was an innocent, Bliss thought. She would have to steer her sister carefully through the shoals of this dangerous and fascinating place, but innocents like Blaze either learned to survive quickly, or they found themselves gobbled up like so many hapless lambs. The court was greedy for pretty little girls, but if one were wise, one could survive.
The room that Bliss had so kindly supplied her with was indeed small, and while her sister and brother-in-law hurried off to practice their parts in the masque to be given tomorrow night, Blaze and Heartha settled themselves.
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