Hal blinked

A few moments ago this woman could have blended very well into the gray shadows of the night; now she was brilliant with color. A Spanish grandmother would explain that shade of hair color, and the ripe mouth. Her figure, too, undisguised by her ill-fitting gown, was seductively proportioned and her skin, so creamily pale, also declared her ancestry. But how to explain those eyes—the color of autumn-touched beech leaves—or the clipped English voice?

Madrilene’s Granddaughter
Laura Cassidy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LAURA CASSIDY

followed careers in both publishing and advertising before becoming a freelance writer, when her first son was born. She has since had numerous short stories and articles published, as well as novels. She began writing for Mills & Boon Historical Romance™ after discovering sixteenth-century romantic poetry, and very much enjoys the research involved in writing in the historical genre. She lives with her husband, who is a creative consultant, and their two sons, near London.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter One

In the fourth decade of their marriage, Bess and Harry Latimar decided they would mark this by gathering together all of their family for a grand celebration. It was worth so marking for it was unusual, even miraculous, that they should both have lived to such an old age and also that so many of their years had been spent within the confines of a happy and successful marriage. As was their custom, they discussed the idea in the small parlour of their manor house, after the last meal of the day and before a blazing fire.

“It must be only an intimate family affair,” Bess said thoughtfully. Their house, Maiden Court, was famed for its hospitality, but—these days—she felt lavish entertaining took its toll on the master and mistress.

“Mmm.” Harry was listening, of course, but he was also admiring the way the firelight shifted over his wife’s face, ignoring the lines of age and choosing to linger on the lovely bones, the pointed shadow of her eyelashes on her cheeks and her shining hair, once an unusual shade of silver gilt and now the true silver of old age. Bess ticked off each family member on her fingers:

“George and Judith, and their two children and grandchildren.” She paused, thinking yet again how unlike a great-grandmother she felt. “Then Anne and Jack must come from Northumberland with any of their offspring they can gather together. Hal, too, must be persuaded from Greenwich. Do you think the plan feasible, dearest?”

“Well, George and his brood have only to walk the short distance from the Lodge, so there will be no problem there.” Fifteen years ago, when it had become apparent that George and Judith’s two children, who had made their home in their parents’ house, were intent on raising a large family, Maiden Court Lodge, built on the Latimar estate, had been considerably extended to accommodate them. “But it may be difficult for Jack to get away, and his son, and I know Anne won’t come without them.” His son-in-law, Jack Hamilton, ten years since created an Earl to acknowledge his services to the English crown in commanding a defensive fortress on the Scottish border, was gradually relinquishing the reins of Ravensglass to his firstborn, but retained a strong sense of responsibility for his position. “But Hal will come from Greenwich if I have to personally go and haul the young vagabond home. After having settled his gambling debts yet again, no doubt.”

Bess smiled at this. After four years of marriage to Harry she had triumphantly produced twins, Anne and George, and then—to her great grief—no more live babies until Hal had been born eighteen years later. He was in his twenty-first year now, both a delight and a trial to his parents. A delight because, in the Latimar tradition, he was intelligent and handsome, excelling in both intellectual and physical pursuits; he surpassed any other young courtier in the games the ageing Elizabeth Tudor still so delighted in. A trial because he had inherited his fair share of his father’s attraction for the opposite sex and more than his fair share of Harry’s passion for gambling. In his day Harry Latimar had been the most reckless gambler in King Henry Tudor’s court. George, his heir, had never been a problem in this way, nor his sister Anne, so perhaps the taint—or extraordinary talent—had been concentrated in the youngest member of the family. Certainly from the time Hal could deal a deck of cards or roll a pair of dice he had been obsessed with any game of chance.

Catching Bess’s smile, Harry smiled in return. Bess always had a soft spot for a young gambler—after all, she had married one. She might not, he thought, be quite so sympathetic towards Hal’s other obsession—that of women. Apart from saving his younger son from penury every now and again, Harry had, in the last few years, been called upon to placate many an outraged father of a pretty daughter. These fathers would have been quite satisfied if the Latimar boy wanted a permanent liaison with their girls. Such an old established family, favoured by successive monarchs, would have been a welcome link. But Hal never had marriage in mind. No female ever held his interest for more than a few short months.

Harry closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the chair rest. The years had dealt very kindly with Latimar, but he was in his seventies now, still spare and upright, white-skinned and there was very little silver in his thick black hair. But lately he had had distressing symptoms—a sensation in his breast he could only describe as a hundred horses’ hooves galloping, occasional dizzy turns, and frequent lassitude.

Bess, vigilant as always over her beloved husband, asked immediately, “Are you tired, love?”

“I am,” he admitted. “It is after midnight, you know,” he added hastily. “Now, had you thought when this party might take place?”

“Well, ’tis April now. Allowing for the roads to be fit to travel should Anne and her family come, and before the harvest is upon us here, I thought…June?”

Harry rose stiffly, and stretched. “June…” he said thoughtfully. “That reminds me—” despite giving the impression to those around him of casual disregard, he was actually a thoughtful and organized man “—I recall that is the month I promised John Monterey to introduce his granddaughter to Elizabeth’s court.”

Bess sat up. “Oh! I had quite forgot…What exactly are the arrangements?” John Monterey was an old friend from Harry’s youth. At least, not exactly a friend, for John had been the wealthy and aristocratic heir of a great family and Latimar—in those days—had been spectacularly poor and disadvantaged apart from the interest and patronage of the young King Henry.

The Earl of Monterey had been blessed with two sons, Ralph and Thomas. Both, curiously, had been suitors for Anne, Latimar’s daughter’s hand, but that had come to nothing once she fell in love with Jack Hamilton. Thomas had been killed by an outbreak of plague when he was but five and twenty, Ralph had married and produced a daughter, before he, too, was dead from a duellist’s bullet. John had taken his little granddaughter to live with him at his vast estate near the capital called Abbey Hall. A year ago, knowing himself too old to present the girl in the way she should be introduced to the world, given her heritage and wealth, John had applied to Harry and Bess Latimar. They had agreed that they would use their influence with the Queen to further the girl’s career. And considerable it was, as Monterey had known. For the Latimars had been beloved of all the Tudors—Henry, Edward, Mary and Elizabeth, as well as their consorts. So it had been decided; Kat—Katherine Monterey—would be taken under the Latimar wing in June of the coming year.

“Just that we have the girl here for an extended visit, to live as part of the family and in due course take her to court. I must visit John to finalise everything…”

Bess stood now and put an arm about her husband. They leaned against each other at the hearth; lover-like, they smiled and turned about to look at the room. On their right on the wall, facing the window, there was a portrait of a man in grey standing behind a table on which lay a hand of playing cards. It was Harry’s likeness in the picture, and the cards displayed the hand with which he had won the house he had now been master of for almost half a century. When his older children had been toddlers he had, thrown off course during an estrangement from Bess, been forced to offer his Maiden Court to the moneylenders to cover staggering gambling debts. Henry Tudor had redeemed the note, gifted it to Bess and she had contrived a card game between her husband and herself whereby she had most conveniently lost it back to him.

Seeing Harry’s eyes on the picture now, Bess said soothingly, “Now don’t worry about Hal. He is a little wild, I’ll agree, but his heart is right. Of course I would be happier if he spent more time at home—he does run with a very sophisticated crowd.” Hal’s friends at the royal court were of the slightly raffish society Queen Elizabeth liked to surround herself with. All young, all wealthy, good looking and talented in one way or another, but without any apparent purpose in their lives. Elizabeth, although middle-aged now, encouraged them in their extravagances, frequently angering her more worthy friends and advisors.

Harry began to extinguish the candles. He grunted. He loved his children, and theirs, but Bess he loved most of all. If she wanted a family party, she should have it. If she wanted to think her younger son was not a young wastrel but a goodhearted gentleman, then let her think so. Right now Harry wanted the comfort of his feather bed and the further comfort of his wife’s fond arms about him. “I am sure you are right, you usually are. But no more talk of him or any of our brood just now. Let us get to bed.”

At the moment his parents were climbing the stairs of Maiden Court, Hal Latimar was sitting in on the preliminary stages of a card game likely to last the night and perhaps continue into the next day. The Queen and the older members of her retinue had retired. Hal had danced for a while in the great chamber, drunk for a while at the refreshment tables, and then been lured to Oxford’s apartments for a game. He looked around at the others who played this cool spring night. Ned Oxford, of course, slightly the worse for wear because he had a weak head for liquor and had indulged freely earlier. The ladies Ruthwen and Maidstone; both beautiful and superbly dressed, but past their first youth and with a reputation in common for being light as regards morals: Hal was familiar with these three. Also taking part in the proceedings was Piers Roxburgh—slim, dark, wryly witty and inclined to pick a fight if events did not go his way—and a new addition to the court, Philip Sidney, a soldier poet who was possessed of a fine and great name and had recently added lustre to it by being appointed to the Queen’s parliament. Roxburgh was Hal’s best friend, Sidney he hardly knew at all.

The play began and surreptitiously Hal yawned behind his hand. There would be no surprises tonight, he thought, and no excitement either. After a half-dozen hands, Sidney, on his left, asked quietly, “How do you do it?”

“What?” enquired Hal, tossing down a card and picking up his winnings.

“Manipulate the play.”

Hal’s fine blue eyes narrowed. “You accuse me of cheating, sir?”

Philip made a deprecatory gesture. “No, indeed! ’Twas in the nature of an interested enquiry. For instance, I see you have managed it so your friend, Roxburgh, has won a goodly sum, that Oxford and the two ladies have lost consistently, and I have broken even, as it were. I am simply curious to know how you do it.”

Hal looked attentively at his neighbour. “If you have noticed my manoeuvres, I am obviously not as adept as I thought I was.”

“Oh, but you are! I only…noticed because it is the curse of any writer to be more observant than his fellows. I have also noticed you are bored by such skill, and so might ask you instead: why do you do it?”

Hal half smiled. “Why? Well, because Piers is out of funds at present and needs a little revenue. Ned has plenty of cash and can afford to lose. Meg Ruthwen and Jane Maidstone have elderly husbands tucked away in their rural mansions and—I can only assume—pay their ladies well to keep away. And you—you I do not know at all, so must not decide financial matters for.”

There was now a break in play. Servants refilled the wine jugs, rebuilt the fire and those around the table rose to stretch their legs. Philip Sidney followed Hal to the window which he had opened to reveal the thick dark. “You are George Latimar’s brother, are you not?”

Hal sat on the window seat, the breeze through the opening lifting his blond hair from the nape of his neck. “I am,” he agreed.

“I know George,” Philip said, sitting down himself. “You’re not in the least like him.”

“I know,” Hal said equably. “He is better than me in every way.”

“He is a lot older than you.”

“I was an afterthought. A Benjamin sent to try my parents in their twilight years.” Hal was answering almost automatically. For years he had been compared to his intellectual and politically adept brother. Or his pretty and talented sister. Or his parents, who both held such a special place in the circles he moved in. When he had been younger he had fought against such comparisons, but to no avail—his very name assured him of a place in the important scheme of things. It also denied him the chance to achieve such a place on his own merits. He was too intelligent not to have reasoned long ago that one did not strive for what was freely given. So now he was frankly bored by the kind of probing any newcomer to court subjected him to.

“I’ve met your father, too, and your sister Anne,” Philip continued.

“Have you made a study of the Latimar family?” enquired Hal ironically.

“Perhaps I have. I am interested in all things truly English.”

“Are we truly English? Is there such a race? Made up as we are of so much invaders’ blood?”

“So you are an historian!” Philip said delightedly. “I knew no Latimar could be merely a lighthearted courtier concerned only with trivia.”

Hal groaned inwardly. Here it was again. The assumption that no Latimar could be an average human being. He was truly bored with it. He attempted to put an end to this particular interrogation. “I am no historian. I take back what I just said—yes, I am English and wish no other title.”

From her place by the fire, Jane Maidstone had fixed her eyes full on him. She had been chasing him for a full month now and always seemed to be at any gathering he was part of. She was attractive and no shrinking virgin, but Hal had resisted her thus far. Not because he was in the habit of refusing such open invitation but because…why? Because for some time lately he had had the strangest feeling. That there was something tremendous coming right to him out of the unknown. If asked, he would have found it impossible to explain this feeling, but it was affecting his every action at the moment. He felt strongly that a dalliance with Jane Maidstone, however pleasant, would distract and divert whatever it was. All nonsense of course! But so…insistent. Yesterday, he had begged leave to be absent from the court and taken a wild, half-broken horse from the stables and ridden out into the wind on an impulse to rid himself of the unaccountable feeling.

Instead of outrunning it, it had stayed with him for every league. He knew his family had a curious tradition of being “fey”. His mother, a reluctant inheritor of this gift, believed it had entered the Latimar family through her father’s Celtic mother, who had come out of Ireland to wed her father. One of each succeeding generation had had the uncanny facility to see or feel that which was denied ordinary mortals. Pausing to water his unruly horse yesterday, Hal had been glad to remember that his brother George carried the honours in this particular field. And thank God for that! George was a balanced personality, well able to deal with such unfathomable matters. He, himself, Hal felt would be the reverse. All the same, the extraordinary premonition of stirring events to come stayed with him.

These thoughts had taken no more than a fleeting second in real time and Philip was smiling and replying. “No sensible man would want other than to hear you say that. Latimars have been a part of the fabric of the English royal court for so long, have they not?”

Hal glanced over his shoulder into the black night. The clouds were low, the moon obscured and no star visible. But, between the sheltering trees, he could just make out the glitter of the Thames. “Taking no official status…” Philip was pursuing his train of thought “…but always significant in the life of the reigning monarch. A friend to them. It is quite a heritage for you, is it not?”

Hal moved uneasily. He had nothing against the man sitting next him; he was as agreeable and charming as any he had met, and presumably was just passing the night in conversation. He could not possibly know how tired Hal was of hearing of his great heritage. How each time he had this discussion of old times, dead times—dead men and women—he longed to shout: But I am not just a Latimar! I am Henry Francis Latimar, quite another soul altogether from my father, my brother and any other member of my family. I am a person in my own right and capable of writing my own message in history’s shifting sands. But was he? These endless comparisons—how they took the heart from a man. Tonight Philip’s words scraped a painful place on his soul. Once he had heard his brother say: What happens has been decided long ago. We may dispute it, we may try to change it, but…it will happen just the same. Terrible notion! Hal had thought then, for why trouble to rise each morning and confront the day?

He was silent for so long that Philip glanced sideways in consternation. “Have I offended you?” he asked. “It was not my intention.”

Hal got up abruptly, mentally shaking off old ghosts. The group in the room was now reseated at the table. “Not at all, my dear fellow. Shall we rejoin the others?”

“I think not. I am a country cousin, you know, and used to early nights.” Philip Sidney was anxious not to have alienated young Latimar, for he thought him an engaging young man. Attractive, of course, with his stunning fair looks, and witty tongue, but interesting, too. What had he read in the handsome face of his companion a few moments before? he wondered. As a student of human nature, as went with a poetic soul, Philip would have given much to know which particular nerve he had touched with his desultory comments. That flash of puzzlement and disillusion sat ill upon a boy who so obviously had everything. For, if anyone in this green realm could be said to have everything, surely Hal Latimar aspired to that title? However…Philip bowed and walked away.

Hal watched him go. Faces came and went at court, all of them mildly intriguing—for a while. He shrugged. Sidney was probably more talented and worthy than many, but—sooner or later—the changing pattern of any of the royal residences precluded fast friendships. Except for Piers Roxburgh. Hal’s eyes rested affectionately on the dark face opposite. He and Piers had served their pageship together: two grubby little boys in the teeming world of Petrie Castle, where Hal had been sent in the Latimar tradition to learn the knightly arts and courtly skills. At seven years old, Hal, already taller than average, blond and handsome and with the solid weight of an estate behind him, plus the knowledge that whatever situation he found himself in he excelled, had greatly enjoyed himself. Not so poor Piers, who had been born the illegitimate son of the heir to a proud family. His father was married to a barren wife and Piers had been the fruit of a union with one of the servants in the family castle home. Piers had never known his mother, had only met his father twice, was singularly poor and completely unacknowledged. A bitter inheritance indeed for anyone with his proud blood.

It was a mysterious attraction—that between golden Hal and sullen Piers, but curiously enduring. So much so that, when Hal received his summons to Maiden Court to celebrate his parents’ anniversary, he naturally took his best friend with him.

Chapter Two

Maiden Court, the family home of the Latimar family, was ablaze with light in the dusk of the evening which saw the first night of the three-day celebrations planned for Bess and Harry’s long marriage. It was a beautiful place, without the grandeur which might be expected of such owners, and virtually unchanged since the Norman conqueror had caused it to rise from the hotly contested land he had been given as reward for his valour in battle. He had been named William after his commander and the estate had remained in the Christowe family for many years, until one of the young Franco-English heirs had misguidedly sat down to play cards with Harry Latimar.

Harry had brought his new bride, Bess, to it; it had then entered into its golden age, for Bess had been both lady and farmer’s daughter. Her strong instinct for the soil had encouraged her to bring the land back to fulfilment; her more delicate strain, vested in her by her aristocratic father, had enabled her to make it a true gentleman of England’s home. Over the past three decades Maiden Court had become renowned for being the most flourishing and lucrative estate within a radius of one hundred miles, and also a place English nobles enjoyed visiting to take their ease. Gay King Hal had spent many hours beneath its accommodating roof, as had his successive Queens, and his sickly heir, Edward. Mary Tudor had expressed the opinion that Maiden Court, with its peaceful verdant acres, “offers me peace in my troubled life”, and her sister, Elizabeth, obviously felt the same for scarcely a half-year passed during her reign when she did not visit.

Hal, pausing on the slope overlooking the manor and gazing down on the mellow house, every window yellow with candle light, smiled sideways at his companion, saying, “I have been riding back from some place or other for ten years and never fail to be moved by the first sight of my home.”

Piers shifted in his saddle. “There is no place like home, or so they say,” he murmured sardonically. “Naturally, I do not speak from experience.” He knew it was unforgivable to make such a bitter comment, but—just sometimes—he was overcome by envy. It was irrational, he knew, for he probably had been given in his short life every reasonable entitlement. But, a dedicated gambler, he often felt the odds to be so damned uneven. Why should one man have so much, another so little? It was not a question which could ever be answered, or presumably there would be less miserable beggars at the gates of Greenwich or Windsor or Richmond. And he had to admit he was more advantaged than they. After all, his reluctant father need not have made so casual a gesture as ensuring his bastard son was educated and trained and sent out into the world as a qualified soldier. And yet, occasionally, Piers was resentful. Resentful of Hal Latimar who had it all: good breeding, good looks, plenty of money and not a care for any of it. Not a thought other than where the next card or dice game would be held, or the next cock fight or bear-baiting bout would take place. And if these excitements palled, there was always the prospect of an assignation with a pretty woman, usually falling over her silken skirts in her haste to succeed in snaring Latimar where so many of her sisters had failed.

Hal put a swift hand on his arm. “You know,” he said, “you are always welcome in my home.”

Piers returned the smile ruefully. It was impossible really to resent his generous friend for long. “I know, but your mother’s letter said this was to be a purely family affair—I may be out of place on this occasion.”

Hal shook his reins and began to descend the rise. Over his shoulder he replied, “Nonsense! If anyone suggests any such thing, we shall take our leave immediately.”

In fact, Bess was a little put out that Hal had brought his friend, not because she did not like Piers, but because she knew Hal well enough to know he rarely made the journey home without company because this company was a kind of protective armour against any complaints which might be directed towards him. She was aware her husband wanted to speak to his son of the debts he so frequently incurred and of his irresponsible behaviour in general. This coming autumn Hal would come into his majority, would be granted—if he wished—an establishment of his own and considerable monies would be settled on him. Thereafter he would be his own master. Meanwhile, he must live within his generous allowance. Nevertheless, she embraced both boys fondly and hurried them into the house.

“Are the rest of the clan not gathered yet?” Hal asked as he looked about the hall, acknowledging its unspoken welcome and accepting a glass of wine.

“Sadly Anne and the rest of the Hamiltons cannot get away, but George and his family are expected before nightfall and we are soon to entertain visitors…Tonight will be an adult party, tomorrow we will do it all over again with the little ones present.”

“It sounds terrifying,” Hal commented, turning towards the stairs as Harry Latimar descended. Regretfully, Hal noticed the slow movements, the breathless pauses, the general deterioration of his father since last they met. With his characteristically graceful stride he crossed the floor and leaped up the stairs to embrace the other man who gratefully took his arm for the remaining steps. Safely in his chair by the hearth, a glass of his own in his hands, Harry gave the charming smile his younger son had inherited to both young men. “Dear Hal, how well you look, and Piers, my boy! Come, both shake my hand and forgive my decrepitude.” Piers and Hal leaned affectionately over the back of his chair, laughing and joking. But soon Hal straightened up and his eyes sought his mother’s across the hall. She made a wry little grimace and turned back to the table.

At that moment horses’ hooves and voices could be heard in the yard outside. The door opened and a young woman stepped inside, throwing back the hood of her cloak. Bess hurried forward. “Katherine, my dear, welcome to Maiden Court!” The girl acknowledged the greeting with a little smile and offered her cheek.

Hal, conscious that his father was struggling to rise and that Piers was helping him, remained rooted to the spot. He was dazzled. Surely this latest addition to the hall had brought every last ray of the setting sun in with her. Katherine Monterey was astonishingly fair. No, not fair, but golden. Golden-haired, golden-eyed; her vivid face cream and rose and gold. She shimmered against the dark panelling of the old hall. Time paused for Hal as she smilingly and sympathetically waited for Harry Latimar to reach her.

She then stood on tiptoe to kiss him, took his arm and that of his lady and, thus linked, came further into the room. Behind these three George was ushering his family in, but Hal had no eyes for anyone but the apparition approaching. He moved at last and Harry introduced him gravely. Katherine smiled mischievously.

“Well…the only member of the family I have not yet met. How do you do, sir? I have heard a great deal about you.” She laughed, a marvellous musical expression of enjoyment, then glanced behind her. “Rachel—where is Rachel?” Unnoticed, a small dark girl was standing shyly amongst the chattering visitors. “May I introduce the Lady Rachel Monterey? A very distant cousin who is lately come to England to be my—er—companion.”

The girl came forward tentatively and dropped a graceful curtsy. Rising, she said in a soft timorous voice, “Good evening my lord, my lady and sir.”

Katherine grasped her hand and turned her about to present her to the others. Hal bowed and his uninterested, but assessing, eyes swept over her.

Rachel Monterey was delicately made, unfashionably full-bosomed, but otherwise very small and slender. Her downpouring of shining blue-black hair appeared too heavy for her elegantly moulded head on its slim white neck. Her face was a pale triangle, distinguished by a small straight nose, a determinedly firm chin and a pair of extravagantly lashed dark eyes overlarge with an expression both wary and proud. She had been born in Spain of an English father and a mother who had both English and Spanish blood in her veins. Her father she knew only from a little miniature painted before he died, her mother from a great portrait which had hung in her maternal Andalucian home, painted the year before she died when her little daughter was but eight years old. Rachel had been raised by her grandmother who hated all things English.

Two years ago, when Rachel was fifteen, the grandmother—her only relative in Spain—had died and she was suddenly alone. A strict Catholic, she had applied to the local priest for advice and the good man had been dismayed to find that when all the estate debts were paid there was nothing left for Rachel. The servants in the casa were fiercely protective of their little señorita and one remembered that her mother had once spoken of her husband being related to a great and aristocratic family in England. Enquiries were made and it was established that Rachel did indeed possess powerful paternal links. Various letters were dispatched and received and eventually she had left the warmth and light and colour of Spain for the cold grey coast of Dover. She had been met there by one of John Monterey’s envoys and so transported to Abbey Hall near London.

John, although he acknowledged the connection with Rachel’s father and was anxious to do his duty, was very old now, very sick and felt he had shot his last bolt in this world in arranging for his dead son’s daughter to take her place in society. In her one interview with her great-uncle, Rachel had had the impression that the poor man was simply awaiting death, content to allow his well-run estate to run down and his granddaughter to reign supreme in his manor.

Through Katherine, Rachel had been made aware of her status—that of poor relation, a well-born beggar who should be overwhelmingly grateful for each poor scrap tossed her way. She had learned this lesson well over the last year and arrived at Maiden Court at the end of this brilliant June day knowing her place.

Accordingly, as Katherine was welcomed and made much of by the Latimars, Rachel withdrew respectfully to the fire hearth and sat down. She was glad to do so for her boots were her cousin’s cast-offs and both too short and too wide. She had ridden the miles from Abbey Hall on another cast-off: poor shambling Primrose had been Katherine’s first real mount and was now pensionable. Every stitch of clothing on Rachel’s body and in her battered trunk was also second-hand, either too shabby or outdated to interest their first owner. Never mind, Rachel thought, looking around this new place with interest. The great thing is I am clothed and fed and housed.

On the journey here she had witnessed sights to make her shudder. Beggars, ragged and starving and desperate. The girls had been sent to Maiden Court with three sturdy grooms and they had thrown coins to these scarecrows and frowned over their misery. The Lady Katherine had shrugged her shoulders and frowned in a different way. She disliked such evidence of suffering because it offended her eye, not her heart. I am no better than those beggars, Rachel had thought miserably, wishing she had something to give them, no better than these pathetic examples of abandoned humanity and much less deserving of pity for at least I have a place in the world, however insignificant. She was vastly surprised, therefore, to feel a gentle hand on her arm now in this stronghold of plenty when Lady Bess Latimar came to ask her how she did, and to offer her wine.

“You are a Monterey cousin?” Bess enquired, sitting in the other chair at the hearth.

“Very distant,” Rachel agreed mutedly. “Scarcely related at all. I had always lived in Spain, but when my grandmother died the Earl took me in. It was very kind of him,” she added dutifully.

Bess, sensitive always to others, thought she understood the painful vibration she had received on first meeting Rachel. “It is not easy to lose a loved one, or to be uprooted to another country; the two combined must have been very painful.” Rachel stared into her glass without speaking. “In so little time,” Bess went on, “you have done wonderfully to master a new language so thoroughly.”

“My…mother had an English lady as companion.

She stayed with us and we always spoke English when together. She was glad to do so because she missed her home so much.” And how my grandmother had always hated that, Rachel thought wryly.

Bess settled herself more comfortably in her chair. She was a good listener, and would be interested to hear this girl’s story. She said, “You have very unusual looks. Were both your parents English?”

“They were, but my maternal grandmother was Spanish. When my father died my mother lived with her and Spain became her home. I was born there and it was very…dear to me. An unpopular sentiment in this country and in these times, I know.” Spain and all things Spanish were viewed with a distrust bordering on the obsessive by the English. Its religion was outlawed and its converts and devotees subject by law to charges of high treason. Rachel’s slim fingers touched the outline of the gold cross slipped within her bodice.

Bess had seen the movement. “You are Catholic?”

Rachel lowered her wide eyes. “Not officially, naturally—out of respect to the family who kindly gave me a haven. But when I arrived the Earl of Monterey asked me the same question and then said no one should insist I attend the Abbey Hall prayers.” This was a considerable concession actually, for those who did not practise the Protestant faith were viewed with extreme suspicion, as were those who condoned such a lack.

“You do not call the Earl…Grandfather…or Great-uncle?” Bess asked.

“Oh, no! Katherine said that would be most inappropriate.”

On her arrival at Abbey Hall, confused and terrified and taken immediately to confront an elderly gentleman, so sick and grey-looking against the mountainous white pillows, Rachel had run to the bed, eager to embrace her new family with the whole of her warm nature. Looking at her, even John—so weary and tired of trying to face each day—had brightened before such entrancing life. Katherine, who had been present, had soon put a stop to that, keeping her cousin away from John and his few visitors.

“Oh, but surely—” Bess began, then caught herself up. It was not her concern, naturally. She knew Monterey very well—her daughter Anne had once been courted by his older son, who had been a poor heir to such a fine man, and she and Harry had retained friendly relations since. She looked thoughtfully over at Katherine, holding court with Hal and Piers hanging on her every word, and George’s two sons-in-law annoying their wives by doing the same. Bess returned her eyes to Rachel. Poor little girl! No parents, no brothers or sisters and forbidden even to call her scant-remaining relative fondly. Her sympathy was communicated to Rachel, who took a breath.

“Please don’t feel sorry for me, my lady. I am so lucky, really. On the road here I saw so many far more badly placed. I wish I could have done something for them…”

Brave, too, Bess thought. An admirable sentiment for a girl who had little enough. She sighed and smiled and rose to go into the kitchens to ensure the splendid meal under preparation was progressing well.

As was her habit, Bess ordered the places of those around her table. In the merry confusion, Rachel scarcely noticed who her supper companions were until she was seated with an empty plate before her and a glass of wine to hand. Nervously she sipped the wine and saw that she was to the right of George Latimar and to the left of his brother Hal. George, in his easy pleasant way, helped her to food, saying, “So many Latimars must be quite intimidating for you, my dear.”

Rachel looked at the delicious food. Abbey Hall made the greatest effort when entertaining, but that was rarely these days with its master ill, and usually the housekeeping was fairly mediocre for Katherine was a poor manager and Rachel—who could have helped, for she was an excellent housewife—was never asked for her advice. Everything on the board tonight fulfilled the dual role of pleasing the eye as well as the appetite, she thought. Beautifully cooked spiced meats, green asparagus gleaming with butter, tiny orange fingers of new carrots and fat river fish, baked whole, their scales removed and replaced with costly slivers of almond. There was even—as a separate course—a deep glass dish of salad, its contents glistening with oil and lemon juice: a delicacy Rachel hadn’t seen since leaving Spain where she and her grandmother had often gone out into the warm gardens to gather the leaves and tiny jewel-red tomatoes… “Oh, yes,” she murmured, swallowing with a throat closed by homesickness.

“My mother tells me you have been at Abbey Hall for nearly a year now. One of the Earl’s sons—Tom—was a great friend to me in my youth. ’Tis a beautiful place, I remember, with splendid gardens, once the talk of the countryside.”

“Yes, sir,” Rachel said, thinking of the remains of what had obviously been a showpiece of horticultural beauty, now run to ruin without care and attention from its mistress. Too cold! Too rainy! Too boring…Such was Katherine’s opinion of any outdoor activity. A silence fell.

“Are you not hungry? My mother prides herself on her fine food,” George tried again. Rachel lifted her eyes to his face, noticing, even as she blinked away the memory of a mass of vivid blooms which had jostled each other in splendour around her bedroom window every summer of her life before she was banished from her home, how like his father he was and, in turn, his mother. Looking about the table, she saw Latimar features produced again and again: the unusual height in both men and women, the extreme slenderness, the fine eyes—of whatever colour—and the clear pale skin. And, especially, the peculiar vivacity of manner. They all had these traits, in some degree or another, but by some strange alchemy it had been distilled in Hal Latimar. He was, Rachel mused absently, the most perfect human being she had ever encountered.

“Well…” George was smiling at both her perusal and sudden thoughtfulness “…do you approve of us?”

She smiled tentatively in return. “You are a very good-looking family.”

He inclined his head. “Thank you. Tomorrow you will inspect the next generation. I am a grandfather, you know, and scarcely believe it.” At ease now, Rachel began to eat, relaxing and offering a comment here and there. At length George turned to his mother on his other side and Rachel glanced sideways at Hal.

Hal had spent the meal so far staring at Katherine. Part of the effect she was having upon him was the extraordinary excitement he felt because it was so long since he had been so immediately attracted to a woman: she was very different from the women he was used to—so vital and fresh, as well as so beautiful. Throughout the meal she had shared her favours between Piers Roxburgh and Harry Latimar. Piers seemed as struck with her as his best friend, and Harry, with a lifetime’s association with the great and glamorous behind him, was plainly enjoying her company. “I beg your pardon?” Hal turned courteously to Rachel as she spoke.

“I was just remarking how very fond your family seem to be of each other. I have seldom heard so much laughter and happy conversation.”

“Oh, yes, we are all good friends. We do not see much of my sister and her husband, but letters are exchanged on a regular basis and George and his family are near enough to be a part of our life here.” He again allowed his gaze to centre on Katherine and Rachel fell silent. For a brief time, while she was speaking with George, she had felt interesting and worth noticing. Now she was back to feeling the tolerated onlooker. The outsider of any group.

After the meal there was a general move towards the parlour and Rachel came to Bess’s side and asked leave to retire. “’Tis a family party,” she murmured. “I have no place there.” Bess was swift to hear the desolation in her voice, and gave her a thoughtful glance. Rachel’s looks, the set of her head and firm chin, somehow did not match the uncertainty of her manner. There is good blood there, Bess mused, and she reminds me…A memory from the distant past tugged at her.

“My lady?” Rachel was bearing the scrutiny meekly enough, but her expressive eyes darkened. She is judging me, she thought, as all in her position must do when confronted by someone like me.

“You may go to your rest, of course,” Bess said, “but I would be pleased if you would stay for the rest of the festivities.”

“In that case…” Rachel’s smile flashed out.

The impression of having known her, or someone very like her once, grew stronger in Bess, although she could not think who it was. It would return to her—these days her memory was not what it was. Meanwhile, she led the way into the parlour where she and Harry received gifts and more good wishes. Later the family caught up with the news.

George and Hal sat on the long settle. Hal had been a baby when George married his love, Judith; in his growing years his older brother had been raising his family and frequently away in Elizabeth Tudor’s court. As George began to spend less time in the royal residences, Hal had completed his training, received his silver spurs and duly been taken up by the Queen. He and George saw little of each other, but were very good friends.

“So, little brother,” George said now. “How is it with you? You look fit.” It was an understatement, he thought wryly, for he had never seen such an example of fair and handsome youth.

“I am,” agreed Hal. “You look fine yourself, George. I am sorry not to see Anne here tonight. Is she well, do you think?”

“I know she is.” George and Anne were twins—the one always knew the other’s feelings and state. “I think if she could speak to you now, she would say: I wish I could be at Maiden Court, but my beloved husband and children need me.”

Hal glanced at him; he would not argue with one who knew what he was talking about. “Yes…well. What think you of our visitors?”

“Katherine Monterey and her handmaiden? I think Katherine a very beautiful girl.”

Hal turned to him. “So do I! She is lovely, is she not? And also sweet.”

George considered. He knew Katherine, of course—as the niece of one of the greatest friends of his youth, Tom Monterey, he had taken an interest in her. He knew his parents had been asked to present her when she was old enough. He also had known her father—Ralph—a court favourite and dead these long years. Ralph had sued for Anne Latimar’s hand and George had been greatly relieved when the projected match had foundered for he had had no liking for the attractive unscrupulous courtier. Was his only daughter like him, George wondered, or like her grandfather, who had been as fine an example of stalwart English gentleman as could be found? He said, “Piers seems to share your enthusiasm.” Piers had drawn up a chair close to Katherine’s and was holding earnest conversation with her. Hal frowned.

“I think I have made it clear this night, even after knowing her so short a time, my regard for Katherine,” he added stiffly, “Piers is my friend.”

“Friendship is the first thing cast overboard when a woman gets between two men,” George said mildly. There was a short silence, during which Hal’s fair face darkened. Piers was certainly doing all he could to charm Katherine, he thought cynically, with the kind of performance he only usually put on for a lady who might advance his static career. Obviously he had registered the name of Monterey—He rose abruptly. “Excuse me, brother.” As he moved purposely across the floor, his mother touched his sleeve.

“Hal, my dear, I was speaking to Rachel earlier of our small innovation here at Maiden Court. The Queen’s Rest, you know. She expressed a wish to see it, and I thought we would go now. Come with us, won’t you?” Hal looked down at her blankly. “I need a little air,” Bess went on.

For a moment she thought he would refuse, but he smiled and said, “Very well, Mother. I will ask Piers and Katherine to join us.” He bowed before Katherine and leaned to offer his invitation. She shook her curls and protested how comfortable she was. Hal looked at Piers. “You will escort us, won’t you, Piers?”

“Thank you, but no, my friend. I would not leave such a charming lady unattended.” Katherine gave Hal a mischievous look, then fixed her marvellous eyes once again on Piers. Hal turned on his heel.

Chapter Three

In the cool night air Rachel dropped behind the others until Bess turned and offered her arm. “Perhaps we should have brought our cloaks, Rachel. It is not as warm as I expected.”

“Would you like to go back in?” Hal asked immediately. He resented being pressganged for this expedition; who knew what progress Piers—so adept with women—would make in his absence?

Rachel looked at him. If he was reluctant to be out in the moonlight, it certainly admired him. Inside the manor, by soft candlelight, he was almost too handsome: so much coin-bright hair, vividly blue black-lashed eyes and classically modelled face gave the impression of delicacy. In this pure cold light the strong bones of his face, allied to the athletic shape of his body beneath the rich clothes, conveyed uncompromising masculinity. When Bess shook her head decisively in answer to his question, he passed a hand over his hair resignedly.

Rachel had particularly noticed his hands at the supper table. They were unusual in their length of sensitive square-tipped fingers and a beautiful example of the human bone structure. She thought, quite impersonally, that she had never seen quite so lovely a feature on a man’s body before.

The innovation Bess had mentioned to Rachel and called the Queen’s Rest was a little stone house built on a space of land just before the formal house gardens became the pasture land. It was solidly built, its apertures glazed. From the front could be seen the manor, surrounded by its protective trees, from the back the open fields of the estate, patchworked in this white light. It was furnished very simply with two wooden, cushioned settles and warm and faded rugs underfoot.

It had come into being because the Queen enjoyed walking outside in all weathers but was becoming older now and needed to rest after even short walks. Maiden Court had, for many years, been somewhere she could go to relax in informal congenial company. Her long-time love, the Earl of Leicester, was very attached to George Latimar and liked to visit his friend—Elizabeth often came with him. Recently she had said to Bess that she found it difficult to remain mobile for even short periods, and so the stone building, known as the Queen’s Rest, had been established.

“Oh, I like it!” Rachel said now, sitting down and looking back towards the lighted house. Bess sat, too, but did not reply. After a moment, Rachel’s eyes were drawn to the sweep of rolling countryside. She did not see it, however, for her mind’s eye produced the very different view which she remembered from her grandmother’s casa in Spain. If I were there now, she thought wistfully, I would be looking at the tangled groves of olive trees, and listening to the cicadas which would surely be active on this June night. Later would come the traditional Andalucian singing until dawn— “I beg your pardon, my lady.” She started as Bess spoke to her.

“I was saying that it is positioned just right to see two views, but sheltered from the worst of the weather.”

“Indeed, my lady,” Rachel agreed.

“Now you have seen it,” Hal, who had propped his shoulder against the stout doorway, spoke impatiently, “shall we go back to the house?” Each moment, he felt, away from Katherine was a wasted moment. Who knew what advances Piers was making in his absence? As he thought this, he experienced a shock to realise how close he was coming to being seriously at odds with his best friend. Dangerously so, given Piers’s reputation—no insult, fancied or real, was allowed to pass by Roxburgh. It must not come to that, Hal resolved…but if it should, then so be it. Tonight he had met the girl, the one girl, he wished to marry. No one, not even Piers, could change his mind on that.

“If I could pay a short visit to the stables,” Rachel said, getting up.

“The stables?” groaned Hal.

“Why, yes,” Rachel said resolutely. “I rode here on a very…old, but valiant, mount. I would see she is quite happy before retiring myself.”

As they walked the path to the stable yard, Hal asked, “If she is so old, Rachel, why is she still in commission?”

“You should ask my cousin that question,” Rachel said quietly. “Where I am come from, such a horse, with years of faithful service behind it, would be out to pasture. Katherine feels differently.”

In the stables, filled with the warm breath of its occupants, Rachel looked about her with bright eyes as Bess paused to caress those she knew and Hal attended her. Harry Latimar kept a fine selection of blood horses. Rachel progressed along the stalls until she found Primrose, who greeted her with weary delight. As Bess began a conversation with one of the grooms, Hal came to Rachel’s side. He looked Primrose over with a frown, sure that the Maiden Court stables had never seen such a shambling wreck before. He said idly, “You enjoy riding, lady?”

“Yes, I do, or at least I did.” She was sure he was not interested, but added just the same, “In Spain, in my home, I was set up on my first pony before I could walk. My former countrymen are the best judge of horseflesh in the world.”

“Is that so?” Hal enquired, stifling a yawn. “But since coming to this country, you do not enjoy the activity as you used to?”

“I have no opportunity to enjoy it, sir,” she said bleakly. “You see before you—” she indicated Primrose “—the poor creature I was given for the journey here. She is, in fact, the only horse at my disposal.”

Hal raised his eyebrows before her vehement tone. “Yes, well, while you are here please feel free to take any nag you wish from our stables and try it. My father, too, is accounted a fair judge of the animals.”

“I know,” Rachel returned unguardedly. “My grandmother told me that many times.”

“Your grandmother?”

A little flustered under his suddenly interested eyes, Rachel said, “Yes…my grandmother, who was, in her time, also a connoisseur of all things equine. In fact, the horse that she acquired in England when she knew your father and took back to Spain was so fine an animal it sired a whole generation of colts owned eventually by the great families of Madrid and Castile.”

Hal blinked. A few moments ago this little girl could have blended very well into the grey shadows of the night; now she was brilliant with colour. A Spanish grandmother would explain that shade of hair colour, black with a bluish sheen, and the ripe mouth—rose-red without resort to the French paste. Her figure, too, undisguised by her ill-fitting gown, was seductively proportioned and her skin, so creamily pale, also declared her ancestry. But how explain those eyes—the colour of autumn-touched beech leaves—or the clipped English voice? He said, “And your parents? Were they Spanish?”

Rachel lifted her chin before his deprecatory tone. “My father, sir, was an English gentleman, and my mother of Irish descent, whose antecedents claimed Brian Boru as their blood kin.”

“Ah, well, that explains your interest in horses. A combination of Spanish and Irish blood is indeed formidable in that field.”

Rachel flushed brightly. Her tongue had been carried away by the familiar scents and sights in this place, and she had made a fool of herself. Before she could answer a groom appeared in the half light.

“Lady Bess has returned to the manor, sir,” he said to Hal. “She bids you return when you are ready.”

“I am ready,” Rachel declared. “More than ready.”

Hal laughed easily, saying, “Well, if the Lady Rachel is satisfied, then so am I.” He glanced at the groom. “She is somewhat of an afficionado in the place we are standing now, Wat.”

Rachel, who had been conscious of her flush and trying sternly to repress it, now found herself colouring more deeply. Afficionado! she thought angrily. To use such a word clearly puts me in my place. There followed some private thoughts using the untranslatable language of the Spanish stableyard where she had spent so many of her formative years. She followed her escort back to the manor, struggling for control, thinking also that it was a year since she had felt so angry—or so painfully alive.

In the hall, where a yawning servant was quenching the candles, they discovered the party had disbanded. George and his wife and family were being accommodated in the house and Bess and Katherine had also retired. Only Harry Latimar waited courteously in his hall to bid them goodnight.

Hal embraced him. “Go to your bed, Father, you look exhausted.”

“It is the excitement of having so many family members all in my home at once,” Harry said. “Some of whom,” he added with characteristic irony, “are seldom to be coerced back.”

Hal smiled. Only his father could issue a rebuke with such grace.

“Will you show the Lady Rachel where she is quartered?” Harry said as he turned to walk slowly up the stairs.

“I will.” Hal and Rachel watched him climb the stairs, then looked at each other. Used to court hours, Hal thought he could not sleep so early. He might as well spin out the time in the company of this odd girl. “Shall we go into the parlour and take a last glass of wine?” he asked. Rachel felt she had no choice but to accept. Why, she wondered, was she plagued with this feeling of inferiority? It was…humiliating.

The lights had been doused in the main hall, but the parlour still showed a flickering yellow glow from the heaped fire and a wash of moonlight pouring in through the open window. Rachel walked towards this light, wishing she could go to bed, and despairing with herself because she did not have the confidence to say so. She seated herself on the window seat. Hal opened one of the oak cupboards and took out a flask. He extracted the wooden stopper and poured a portion of the contents into two glasses.

“My mother’s blackberry cordial,” he said, turning with the glasses in his hands. “Reputed to be the best in four counties.” He had always loved this potent brew—or perhaps he loved the memories it evoked of endless hot Maiden Court summers, with their bounty of fruitfulness at the end, and the memory of himself, a small boy accompanying his beloved mother as she gathered the sweet-smelling berries under a hazy burning English sun. They had been such happy days, he thought now, he so intent on eating that which she wished to confine in her basket. He had often defied her, he recalled, with aggressive stance and stained mouth, but had never received a word of rebuke. Instead, Bess had laughed at his infant fury and cuddled him close, calling him her little wild man.

As Hal crossed the floor of the parlour to give Rachel her glass, he found himself wanting to relive those times—to tell her of them. It was a foolish notion, he decided, for his mother had been soft and gentle and this young woman was stern-faced and hardy. She had had, he guessed, a difficult youth, and such people were incalculable. He did not sit beside her, but stood staring out at the moon-silvered gardens. “So,” he said, when the silence between them had lengthened, “your grandmother knew my father once?”

“She often spoke of him,” Rachel said softly.

“My father used to have quite a reputation with women. Were they in love, do you think?” His voice, light and dismissive, annoyed her. She lifted her eyes to the portrait on the wall facing her. In love? What an understatement! At least, on her grandmother’s part.

Hal ceased looking out at the shadowed gardens and watched her face. “Well,” he continued, with an amused smile, “if it was a grand affaire, please don’t tell my mother.”

“Why should I? Anyway…it was a long time ago. Over and forgotten.” She had noted the smile and was instantly defensive in a way which hurt her to acknowledge.

“Nothing is ever over—or forgotten—with wives, or so I have heard,” Hal replied wryly. He finished his drink and went to the cupboard to replenish his glass. “What happened with them, I wonder?”

“Oh…my lord Earl preferred your mother, I believe.”

Hal came back to her, frowning. “So. My mother knew your grandmother, too? When did all this happen? Surely not after my parents were wed?”

“I believe so.” Why had she begun this? Rachel wondered. Only because she had desired his full attention after his disparaging treatment of her in the stable and later in this hushed room. Well, she had his full attention now: his blue eyes were fixed accusingly on her face. Yet, it was truly so long ago. But, surely, strong emotions must have a life of their own and continue to exist long after those who felt them were consigned to the cold grave, or sterile old age? Madrilene de Santos’s passion for Harry Latimar, so often expressed, even when she should have been past all physical longing, had been so vital—its very substance and force was tangible even in this quiet room, in this quiet house, where she had never visited. “I loved him so!” she had so often, and so fervently, declared, “and he would have loved me, too, if that coldhearted woman had been prepared to let him go.”

Bess Latimar had been that coldhearted woman, Rachel thought. Bess, who had most warmly welcomed her rival’s granddaughter to her home, Rachel also thought guiltily: and it is her son who stands before me now, defensive for his mother. Perhaps he would always associate her with something which had happened a lifetime ago, and judge Rachel Monterey as he must judge Madrilene. He had mentioned his father’s reputation—but we are two different people, Rachel and Hal, and should meet as distinct personalities. Even so, seeing the cynical smile playing over his mouth, she thought, if he has family to defend, so have I! She said indignantly, “It was not like that!”

“Like what?” Hal was startled once again by her sudden change from resigned composure to vivid attack.

Rachel got up. She crossed the room with her graceful step and stood before the portrait. Harry Latimar’s likeness looked disinterestedly out of the faded canvas. “I know what you are thinking,” she said. “But it was not like that. My grandmother was not one of your father’s…light o’ loves. She was a lady of the first water.”

That curious dignity, thought Hal, looking at her straight back and delicate, yet strong, shoulders. It is so hard to define, but I recognise it. My mother has it, and all my family. But it is more a part of this girl than them, for it has been hard won, and hard to maintain for her…And that expression in her eyes! As if she had just now seen the biggest threat to something dear to her. He reached behind him and closed the window with a sharp thud. “Well, as you say, it was all a long time ago. Now, you must be tired. If you have finished your drink, you will wish to seek your bed. I will show you where.”

Rachel swallowed. Why was she continually making herself appear foolish before this man? It seemed a long time since anyone had been able to provoke her so. She watched him select and light a candle, trying to decide why he antagonised her.

He came to the door and stood back so she could pass through before him, giving her his negligently charming smile as he did so. At the door of her room, he opened it, placed the candlestick on a table just inside and bade her a courteous good night.

Surprisingly she fell asleep as soon as her head touched the well-stuffed pillow.

In the early morning she awoke and lay for a few moments wondering where she was. Her room at Maiden Court was small, but well appointed; lowceilinged over a very comfortable bed, richly curtained as was the glazed window. A luxuriously thick rug covered almost all the floor space. Rachel sat up, noticing the polished chests, the shallow bowls of dried herbs and flower petals thereon, the way the sunlight streaming in picked out the delicate embroidery of the wall hangings. A beautiful and tasteful room, she thought with satisfaction, arranged exactly as she herself would have done.

This chamber had one door to the passage and another to a larger apartment which had been given to Katherine. It was too early yet, Rachel judged, for Katherine to begin to call for hot water, for food, for…well, anything the spoiled young woman wanted and which she expected her despised young kinswoman to provide for her.

Rachel lay back a moment, enjoying the unaccustomed luxury and leisure. What had Hal Latimar said last night? Take any nag from our stables and try it! She thought she would do that now.

Suitably dressed, she found the stables. A groom came forward and politely asked if he could help her. Together they examined the satin-skinned animals, and—Oh! the delight of choosing a lively, lovely creature with breeding and pride in every line; the joyous freedom of galloping out into the new day, scarcely dawned but already warm and fragrant with the scent of summer. To be riding through leafy country lanes, the fields on either side so full of healthy crops. Rachel rode for miles, ecstatically happy, until the position of the sun overhead reminded her she was a long way from Maiden Court and should turn back. She rode more slowly home; her mare was still lively but Rachel knew better than to return her to her stall in a lather. As she cantered gently down the slope before the manor house another rider joined her and she saw it was Hal Latimar.

“Good day, lady.” He removed his cap as he drew level with her. “I see you took me at my word last night.”

“Indeed.” She smoothed Belle’s damp mane. She was embarrassed by the exchange between them the previous evening, but saw that no such awkwardness existed for him. He sat carelessly on his tall chestnut, playing with the reins, his eyes fixed on the flushed roof of his home. The climbing sun turned his hair to gold. “You are out early today.” Somehow she had fancied him one of the breed of men who lay long abed in the mornings.

He turned to survey her and, as if reading her thoughts, replied, “We are early risers, us Latimars—well, apart from my sister who dearly loves to waste the best part of the day. Shall we ride on down?” He assisted her to dismount in the yard and took both horses into the stables.

Bess was already in the hall. She had enjoyed the supper last night, but would enjoy today even more for her precious great-grandchildren would be present.

“May I help you with anything?” Rachel asked, shedding her cloak.

“How kind. I would welcome your help cutting some flowers from the garden. I love to have fresh blooms in the house, but fear bending is difficult for me these days. There is a basket and shears by the door.” The two women strolled out into the radiant day.

“It will be hot today,” Bess remarked.

Rachel lifted her eyes to the sky. “Yes. I enjoy this warm weather, it reminds me of home—my old home, I mean.” Her voice was so wistful.

Bess said in quick sympathy, “Yes, I suppose you must miss Spain very much.”

“Oh, I do!” Rachel said, adding impulsively, “You cannot imagine, unless you have seen for yourself, how much colour and light there is there. Even the poorest of dwellings has its brave show of flowers in little pots the owners have made themselves. And the sea is almost as bright a blue as the sky.” She paused as she saw Bess regarding her with a little pucker on her brow. “I beg your pardon, my lady.” She flushed. “Of course it is not quite…proper in England to praise anything Spanish.”

Bess began to walk along the path, looking into the flower beds. She touched a fragrant bush of roses. “Shall we have some of these? They smell so sweet, apart from being beautiful. As to praising one’s home—we all should be allowed to do that.”

Rachel bent to snip an armful of the glossy-leaved flowers and, as she leaned close to Bess, her own perfume hung in the air between them. Bess closed her eyes a moment. It was not a scent favoured in England; it was both subtle and invasive and it held memories for her. Of another girl in another time.

“Madrilene…” she murmured.

Rachel started. “That was my grandmother’s name,” she said without pausing to think. “Madrilene de Santos—very unusual, I believe. Few have heard it.”

“I have heard it,” Bess said shortly. She began to walk swiftly away. Rachel followed uncertainly.

“My lady?” she faltered. “Have I offended in some way?” Bess stopped and spun around.

“I think I knew your grandmother,” she said abruptly.

Rachel blushed. “Yes…I know.”

“Ah…you know,” Bess repeated. She looked about her garden unseeing, then said, “I think I would prefer to gather the flowers alone. Pray return to the house.” That time! she was thinking, that dreadful time! When an unscrupulous girl almost wrecked my good marriage. Now her granddaughter stands on my land as bold as brass and says, Yes…I know! Ever since Rachel Monterey had entered the hall of Maiden Court, Bess had been constantly reminded of someone else. Reminded! Why, she must have been blind. Rachel could be Madrilene’s reincarnation. And she had felt pity for the girl. Pity, bah! Any female with Madrilene de Santos’s blood did not need that gentle mercy—her pathetic ways were just a pose as her grandmother had assumed so many. Oh, it was an old, old story, but as fresh to Bess as if it were yesterday.

While Bess had been confined producing her twin son and daughter, Harry Latimar had remained with the royal court when Madrilene de Santos, spoiled and wealthy Spanish ward of King Henry Tudor, had arrived to take her place as one of Catherine Howard’s waiting ladies. Immediately her lustrous dark eyes had alighted on Harry and she had waged a deliberate campaign to snatch him for herself. Bess, and Harry, too, had eventually foiled her in this, but—standing now in the tranquillity of her gardens—Bess could still remember the pain of that whole year of her life. And the anger. Gentle and peaceable Bess had always been, but not meek, and to be confronted nearly four decades later with such an unwelcome ghost roused fire in her breast. With a face of stone she made a sweeping gesture. “Go back into the house, I say!” As Rachel stumbled away, she thought again, I must have been blind. Why, it could be she, my old enemy: all that shining black hair, that walk—as if she carried a crown on her elegant head. She stared after the retreating figure with hatred in her heart.

Chapter Four

On her way back to the manor Rachel thought, Hal Latimar! He had said last night, “Don’t tell my mother”, yet he had done so himself at the first opportunity and caused upset to that kind woman and—what?—to herself. Yesterevening she had received kindness and sympathy from Bess; for the first time since landing on England’s cold coast she had felt that someone actually cared. Now it was all spoiled. Rachel entered the hall, raging with the injustice of the situation. Whatever her grandmother had done was nothing to do with her, it had been done and decided before she was born. Tears filled her eyes.

“Why, whatever is wrong?” Hal was standing just inside the door.

“You should know!” Rachel returned furiously. Judith, George’s wife, joined them, looking into the trug at the roses.

“Why, you did not do so well. Where is my mother-in-law?”

“Still in the gardens,” Rachel said indistinctly. “She no longer wished me to help her.” Judith looked out.

“I’ll go and help her. Find a receptacle for those, will you, Rachel?”

Rachel brushed past Hal. Yes, she would find a receptacle. That she could so, for that was her function—to be nothing more than a servant arranging flowers. Hal followed her.

“What do you mean, I should know?” he asked her at the kitchen door.

“Please stand aside. I must find a…receptacle.”

“My lady mother does not keep her flower bowls and such in the kitchen, but in a cupboard in the parlour. I will show you.”

Grimly she followed him to the parlour and selected a bronze bowl from those he showed her. Hal called for a maid and asked her to fill it with water. Rachel still held the basket gripped in her two hands. He removed it and set it on the floor.

“Now, what is this all about? Why are you so upset?” he asked again.

“You told your lady mother about what we talked of last night,” she accused him.

“I did not. I have just this moment come in from the stables and have not seen her yet this day. Besides—what if I had? Why should it matter so to you?”

“Why?” Rachel turned her eyes, tearful and brilliant, on him. “Because she was so kind to me last night and now looks upon me with disfavour. Extreme disfavour.”

Through the open door Hal could hear Katherine’s distinctive voice and Piers Roxburgh’s deeper tones. He had no time to waste with this girl’s fancies. Impatiently he said, “Well, if you walk about life looking as if you expected it to take a stick to your back, you can be sure it will. The real world is not…kind, or…favourable, Rachel. One must hold one’s head high and learn to keep one’s pride.”

Rachel was outraged. “I beg your pardon? I hardly think you are the best judge of that!”

Hal considered her for a moment in silence, then said slowly, “Why? Because you perhaps think, as so many do: there goes Hal Latimar—good looks, good breeding, wealth, competent skills in all the courtly arts and a proud ancestry? Fortunate man! But, my dear girl, where I have chosen to make my way there are dozens better bred, scores better heeled, and hundreds more comely. The one advantage I have over any of them is my heritage of the Tudor monarchs’ penchant for Latimars. And that is a card I would disdain to lay.” There was a heartbeat’s pause in which she, in turn, considered him, guessing this was a side of the golden Latimar boy he rarely exposed. It was interesting, and so was his first comment to her.

“Do I really look as you described?”

“Indeed you do. When you entered the hall last night you looked for all the world as if you expected to be banished with all speed to the servants’ quarters.”

The unshed tears were still present in her eyes. She blinked them away. “Is that so surprising?” she asked with a catch in her voice. “It is hard to be me, you know. With no one do I come first now. Or even second or third.”

“Yes, well,” he said uncomfortably, “I can see it must be difficult to spend so much of your time with someone so incomparably beautiful and talented as your cousin.”

That was not what she had meant at all! Annoyed, she retorted, “My mother was ten times more lovely and talented, and she treated those who served her with the same respect they granted her.”

“I am sure you intend no criticism,” he said coldly. “I assume you have some gratitude towards the Lady Katherine,” he said the name with reverence, “for welcoming you into her home and making you her friend.”

“We are not friends—” Rachel bit back her next words which would have been bitterly lacking in “gratitude”. Many times in the last year she had thought, Some keep a dog they can kick when the mood takes them, Katherine keeps me for this purpose. There was a rustle of silk at the door and Katherine herself appeared in the doorway. She wore a gown of amber satin, almost an exact match for her eyes, and flashing diamonds at her throat and in her ears. Inappropriate, Rachel thought, for a midday meal where children would be present, but Katherine often displayed poor taste in an area where any true lady would have been adept.

“Hal; so this is where you are hiding yourself,” Katherine said in her attractively husky voice. She moved aside to allow the maid to bring in the bowl and place it on the table, then picked up the basket of roses and began to transfer them. “Mmm, how sweetly they smell.” Rachel and Hal watched the slender white hands deal with the defenceless blooms with differing thoughts. Every movement she makes is graceful, Hal thought. Every situation is turned to her advantage, Rachel thought.

“Now, where had you thought to put these?” Katherine turned to Rachel. Having come upon her cousin and an attractive young man in intimate conversation, she now sought to put Rachel firmly back into her place.

“I will take them through to the hall,” Rachel said resignedly. She picked up the heavy bowl. Piers, who had come in unobserved, sprang forward and took it from her.

“Allow me, my lady, this is much too heavy for you. Show me where you would like it placed.”

When the two had gone, Katherine laughed and said ruefully, “Now Piers will think me unkind. Actually, Rachel often makes me feel in that unhappy state. And yet I am sure I do my very best to please her.”

“She is a prickly girl,” he agreed.

“When she arrived, last year, she was quite haughty,” Katherine said, sighing. “I remember my grandfather remarking that she behaved as one might expect visiting royalty to do.”

A faint warning bell sounded in Hal’s head. He had met the Earl only a few times some years ago, but thought it a strange observation for the man he remembered to make. “It is hard to believe the Lady Rachel could ever have felt secure enough to behave so,” he said thoughtfully.

Katherine, aware she had made a mistake, recouped it deftly. “Ah, well, I suppose her grandmother made her feel like a little princess—Rachel’s parents died many years ago and there were no other children. Brothers and sisters make a difference, I should imagine. As you will know, I think.”

Hal smiled, the moment of uncertainty faded and he took her arm. “I do indeed. Shall we join the others?”

The meal was a triumph of delectable fare. Bess was a very good housewife; her kitchens were—as was the rest of the manor—spotlessly clean, her staff industrious and happy, too. In season she delighted in bottling and preserving all the fruits of her flourishing estate. Her gentle but firm hand extended to all parts of her little kingdom and both human and animal creatures who called Maiden Court their home received her compassionate care. No animal was ill treated, no man or woman or child need fear a bitter winter, a failed harvest, an illness or disability.

Tonight the laden table, the gleaming surroundings, gave evidence of her talented husbandry. And all in an atmosphere of willing service, Rachel thought as she came down the stairs, having changed from her riding clothes. On returning to her chamber she had found her only presentable gown laid over her bed, newly sponged and pressed. A cheerful maid had tapped on the door asking if she might “wash and dress my lady’s hair”. The bed linen had been changed, the bowls of fragrant dried flowers renewed.

Descending to the kitchen and offering to help in some way, the fat and jolly cook had asked her if she might like to transfer some of the redcurrant jelly and mint sauce into little bowls for the table.

“My lady does like them with the mutton. And you’ll find the little pots of horseradish that my lady sets up for the beef.”

Exploring the larder, Rachel was transfixed by the rows and rows of jewel-bright sealed glass containers, all with their labels written in Bess Latimar’s careful hand: Quince Jelly, this year of Our Lord 1582; Damson Jam, this year of Our Lord 1583. Rachel turned out the enviably clear jelly and the pungent horseradish into little dishes and took her place at the table where the others were already assembled.

Two great sirloins of beef dominated the table, flanked by two pink hams, baked in honey glaze and spiked with costly cloves. There was fresh white bread to soak up the juices from the beef, a dish of new carrots and another of tiny green peas. There was river fish, baked in their skins, then denuded of them and replaced with slivers of almonds, then returned to the hot oven to brown. After the savouries came the sweetmeats; marchpane and gingerbread and little coffers of pastry filled with sugared currants and topped with yellow cream. Finally came sweet and spicy dried apple rings and walnuts.

The Latimars en masse were merry company and took a lively interest in the two strangers in their midst. Katherine was an immediate favourite, so beautiful and vivacious, and Rachel was perceived to have a charm all her own, particularly when she had relaxed enough to chat shyly to her neighbours. As these neighbours were children she might have earned Bess’s approval, but Bess found herself unable to look at Rachel without seeing another woman entirely.

Hal’s eyes, too, were frequently on Rachel, with irritation rather than approval. Aggravating woman! he thought, she had quite unsettled him earlier, when he especially wanted to feel confident and able to project that confidence to Katherine Monterey. Why had he spoken so personally in the parlour earlier? Why had he spoken of that closely caged demon to her—the fear that came to him on dark nights that he was somehow masquerading as the model of a successful courtier, successful man, that all he really was was the lucky inheritor of generations of favour? He hated to acknowledge this fear, and it was humiliating to have voiced it to another. He also regretted his unkind comment on her personal demeanour, for he also disliked feeling guilty of unkindness.

After the last morsel had been enjoyed they all left the table to play various games suitable to the young guests. Then came the present-giving and Bess and Harry accepted the gifts from the children, gravely appreciating the effort and thought as much as the content. Lastly there was a spirited display of dancing.

Rachel, watching the proceedings from a wide settle by the hearth, said to Hal, who had most reluctantly had to give Katherine up to Piers and so moved out of the line of dancers, “They are all so happy, are they not?”

“Mmm.” Hal looked moodily across at Katherine. She and Piers grew more friendly with each passing moment…An ignominious thought crossed his mind: perhaps if Katherine knew how very impoverished Piers was, she would—Hal was instantly ashamed of this thought. Firstly because it assumed that Katherine cared for such distinction, and secondly because it was a disloyalty to his best friend, for there had never been any division between them regarding estate—at least on his part. Rachel glanced at him.

“You’re not enjoying yourself. Why? Because of Katherine’s performance? It means little, you know, and jealousy only makes you miserable. It’s a very unproductive emotion.” As she said this a premonitionary shiver ran down her spine. She had never been jealous of Katherine for what she had materially—and “jealous’ was the wrong word for the pangs she had always felt that her cousin had her definite place in the world. So why the cold feeling in this warm room now?

Hal sat down and leaned back, saying in answer to her words, “Well, you should know.”

The half-acknowledged thought flashed away and anger took its place. “If you are saying I am jealous of Katherine, then ’tis not true!” she said angrily. “You think that because she has…everything and I nothing. As if I cared for a few baubles and furs. Truly you and she make a good pair!”

Since this was his ambition for the future, it was hard for him to decide why this last statement seemed such an insult. “I don’t understand,” he said abruptly, “why you are always so angry with me. Have I earned such enmity?”

She blinked. He had the habit of making these surprisingly direct remarks, which sat so ill with his usually casually polished conversation. She was startled into forgetting that he had offended her twice with his comments on her character and admitting, “No. It is just that, when I am with you, I feel as if I want to fight with you.”

“Because you think I betrayed your confidence to my mother?” He gave her the straight, blue Latimar look.

“No…for if you tell me you did not, then I believe you.”

A slow smile spread across his fair face. “I am glad of that, for I am a good person to share secrets with. And, actually, I do not have your secret over this, for you told me only meagre details.”

She sighed. “I should not have said even what I did. And how your mother knew…I cannot see how.”

“Why don’t you tell me all about it, Rachel?” Hal folded his arms and looked attentive. Most of his interest was for his parents’ part in the story, certainly, for their past was part of the history of the world he occupied. But some was reserved for Rachel, so nervously engaging. He could not help noticing that the colour coming and going in her face, the light changing in her expressive eyes, improved her looks, already arresting. Also, whatever Rachel Monterey was, she was extraordinarily easy to talk to.

Rachel took a breath, conscious that her cursed tendency to blush was upon her now. She looked down at her clasped hands, then up into Hal’s face. “It was this way…” she began, stopped and began again. “My grandmother, Madrilene, came to the English court when she was but seventeen—the age I am now…She was half-Spanish, half-French and a ward of the old King, Henry. Almost at once she fell in love with your father, who was a good friend of the King. She was—even when I knew her in her old age—a passionate impulsive creature, and must have been more so at that age…Anyway, she saw your father and wanted him, pursued him, I suppose…but he was married to your mother and would not be led astray.” Rachel paused again. This story, told in the house of two of the characters in her tale, was difficult to tell without her grandmother being seen as the villain.

Hal signalled for more wine to be dispensed for himself and Rachel. When it was, he leaned more comfortably against the broad cushions. “Yes? And then what happened?” Rachel was embarrassed, but he was not. He was a sophisticated courtier of the most glamorous court in the world. He had heard it all before—apart from it being more personal on this occasion.

“What happened then,” Rachel said bleakly, “was that my grandmother lost the battle between herself and your father and was dispatched forthwith back to France and from there to Spain, where she found some sort of solace with my grandfather, and her daughter—my mother. That is all,” she ended lamely.

“All? I don’t think so,” Hal said softly. “Otherwise, why should my mother—usually a sensible person—resent you so?”

“Well…” Rachel looked away, then back at him. “Of course that was not…all. For my grandmother never got over him—not having him poisoned her life. And that would not have happened if she had not felt the force of her love was returned in however small a way.”

“That is what my mother felt,” Hal said thoughtfully. “And the resentment she felt for your grandmother is now transferred to you.” He sipped his wine, adding, “I am sorry.”

Rachel smiled wryly. He was sorry. Well, who was not—for her? Poor Rachel Monterey, so well-born, but un-dowered. Poor Rachel, whose father had been a gallant officer of the throne of England, whose mother—so lovely—had chosen badly. Poor Rachel, born into Spain in privileged circumstances, but reduced by her grandmother’s gambling to penury. Poor Rachel, whose only contact, a simple Spanish priest, had said, Dear child—to ensure your future, your personal goods must be sold and you can then go to England, the home of your relatives. You will be a poor girl, but you will be with your family…

“And apart from being a keen horsewoman,” Hal asked, after a moment of watching the varying emotions darken her eyes, “what was your grandmother—Madrilene—like?”

It gave Rachel a strange feeling to hear the name on his lips. In spite of their differing colouring, she thought Hal very like his father. No wonder her grandmother had become so obsessed with a similar attractive creature. “Oh…” She became aware of his enquiring expression. “She was beautiful; even old, when I knew her, the way she walked, the way she used her hands and her vivid presence drew all glances. She was also,” she added wryly, “not to be trusted with a peso when there was any game of chance in prospect. She was rich when she met and married my grandfather, still rich when my mother was alive but…towards the end of her life she had lost it all in one way or another. One way or another usually involving cards or dice, or horse races…well, whatever can be gambled upon.”

Hal laughed. “Well, I can understand that.”

“Are you a gambler?”

Hal didn’t answer. Did he gamble? Yes, he did, it was the ruling passion in his life, or had been until he had set eyes on Katherine Monterey. As this thought struck him, he glanced to the floor where there was now a general move towards the party breaking up. It was well into the early evening and the children needed their rest, they were becoming tearful and cross. George and Judith decided they would stay another night; their children chose to take their little ones home to their own cots. The female adults fluttered about finding outdoor clothing and fitting it on to tired and wailing tots.

Bess and Harry bade a fond farewell to those leaving and Hal was delegated to escort duty. The rest of the family retired to the parlour.

“I think it went very well,” Bess said, relaxing into her chair by the hearth.

“Indeed it did,” Harry agreed, taking his own place near her. Judith dropped a kiss on the top of his head in passing, and put a full glass in his hand. He sipped appreciatively.

“It was lovely,” declared Judith. “Was it not, George?” George agreed, and busied himself finding seats for everyone. He hastened to the door to welcome two latecomers. Katherine had flown up the stairs to her chamber to repair her toilette, and Rachel had been helping to clear the table in the hall. They took their chairs, spread their skirts and raised their glasses to their lips.

Katherine set hers down and spoke. “My dear Lady Bess, you should be very proud of your efforts today. So many guests, such fine food—so much of it prepared by your own hands! It is all very praiseworthy.”

Bess smiled wryly. She wanted no praise for what was a pleasure, and resented the patronising tone the girl used. She had seen how her younger son had reacted to the exquisite Katherine but hoped it was just another case of beauty making its usual impact on Hal’s susceptibility in this area. He had always been so; even as a child he seemed to love the more physically attractive among his small circle, however kind and worthy the others. It was a fault, Bess had always conceded indulgently, but then children were like that. Now Hal was no longer a child, it worried her more, for beauty did not last nearly as long as other qualities and those qualities did not have room to emerge when a woman traded only on her looks, as the lovely Monterey demoiselle did. Bess’s sharp eyes had noticed that Katherine had annoyed most of the ladies tonight by flirting with their men, and—even though it was all in the family today—it was unacceptable behaviour.

Most of Hal’s women, so far, had been like that, Bess mused, her blue eyes wandering over Katherine, who could have come from the same mould. Involuntarily her eyes moved to the girl sitting beside her, then quickly away. Better that known and familiar devil, than the one incalculable in the shape of Rachel. Last night Bess had liked Rachel Monterey, today she saw nothing but her likeness to a distressing phantom from the past.

“What are you thinking of so carefully?” Harry asked her, leaning forward. She smiled to see him so well today. Those attacks of his came and went, and she felt strongly one must make the most of each day of good health.

“That Hal is very taken with Katherine Monterey.”

“Hal is always taken with any female of passing good favour.”

“I think this may be different. After all, she is the granddaughter of an old friend of yours and I feel he would not have made it so plain if he were not serious.”

Harry laughed. “I believe you are right. Our son is not a fool, and John Monterey, despite his disability, is a hard man.” He stretched out his legs, blissfully free of pain today. “What about the other little girl? I rather like her, but understand she is some kind of poor relation to the Montereys, with no means at all.”

“No.”

“But very taking looks, you must admit. Since she came here I have had the strangest feeling—as if I have known her before, although I cannot think where. I’m getting old, I suppose.”

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