Blaze Wyndham Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Part One - ASHBY HALL

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Part Two - RIVERSEDGE

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Part Three - KING’S CHOICE

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part Four - RIVERS EDGE

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  New American Library

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand,

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © Bertrice Small, 1988 All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  ISBN : 978-1-101-54967-4

  Small, Bertrice.

  Blaze Wyndham.

  I. Title.

  PS3569.M28B’.54 88-1659

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  To my good friend and former secretary, Donna Tumelo, of Wilmington, North Carolina. Thanks, kiddo!

  THE PLAYERS

  THE MORGANS OF ASHBY HALL

  Sir Robert—the lord of the manor

  Lady Rosemary—his wife

  THEIR CHILDREN

  Blaze—the eldest

  Bliss and Blythe—the eldest set of twins

  Delight—the next eldest

  Larke and Linnette—the second set of twins

  Vanora—the seventh daughter

  Gavin and Glenna—the third set of twins

  Henry and Thomas—the fourth set of twins

  THE WYNDHAM FAMILY OF RIVERSEDGE AND RIVERSIDE

  Lord Edmund Wyndham—the third Earl of Langford, and family head

  Lady Dorothy Wyndham—his elder half-sister

  Sir Richard Wyndham—her husband, and distant cousin

  Anthony Wyndham—Edmund’s heir, his half-sister’s son

  Henriette Wyndham—a cousin, half-French

  THE OTHERS

  Old Ada—the Morgan family’s nursemaid

  Heartha—Blaze’s tiring woman

  Owen FitzHugh—the Earl of Marwood, a friend of the Wyndhams’

  Lord Nicholas Kingsley—a friend of the Wyndhams’

  Cormac O’Brian—the Lord of Killaloe

  THE ROYAL COURT

  Henry VIII—King of England, reigned 1509—1547

  Catherine of Aragon—his wife

  Cardinal Wolsey—the primate of England

  Mistress Anne Boleyn—a daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn

  Mistress Jane Seymour—of Wolf Hall

  Princess Mary—the king’s only legitimate child

  Sir John Marlowe—a gentleman of the court

  Lady Adela Marlowe—his wife

  Will Somers—the king’s fool

  Father Jorge de Atheca—the queen’s confessor

  Prologue

  ASHBY HALL

  July 1521

  “There is no way,” said Lord Morgan hopelessly. “There is simply no way in which I can dower eight daughters. What can the future possibly hold for them under such circumstances? God curse the day my sweet darlings ever saw the light!” His shoulders slumped with despair.

  “Oh, my love, say it not!” protested his wife, and catching his hands in hers she looked up into his face with tear-filled blue-gray eyes. “It is all my fault, Robert! If only Gavin had been born first instead of last we should not have this problem. Yet I would not wish our girls away! Surely we can find the means to dower one, and then perhaps she may help her sisters to obtain husbands. We may be poor, but our daughters are beautiful. I know that counts for something with men!”

  Robert Morgan sighed sadly. Then he put a comforting arm about his pretty wife. How could he explain to her that it would take a miracle to scrape together enough to dower their eldest? That whatever dowry he might manage to assemble would not be enough to gain them an available great name? That most great names were betrothed in the cradle to other great names? That only a daughter successfully placed at court would have the opportunity to help her sisters fish for their own husbands? That those men must be so captivated by the beauty of each of the Morgan sisters as to render their lack of a dowry meaningless? How could he explain all of this to his sweet wife? How could he tell her that their daughters’ great beauty was as much a liability as a blessing? Only their poverty and the remoteness of his hall had kept his girls innocent; had kept them from being tempted into a less-than-honorable place in the world.

  His dear Rosemary would know naught of such things. A rural squire’s daughter, she had been born and bred in the country. Indeed in her whole lifetime she had never traveled any farther than the nearby town of Hereford. She was a good wife, a good mother, a good chatelaine, a good woman. Her only real fault had been the abundance of daughters that she had produced. Yet in the sixteen years she had been his wife she had never lost a child, nor had she ceased trying to give him an heir, nor did she complain unreasonably. He considered himself fortunate in his marriage.

  Bending down, he kissed the top of his wife’s ash-blond head. “I must think more on this, sweeting. Leave me to myself now,” he said, and Rosemary Morgan, with a cheerful little smile, dutifully departed her husband’s presence convinced that he would make it all right, as he always did.

  Lord Morgan gazed out through the leaded-paned windows of his small library. Ashby was a beautiful estate. It was rich in fertile land, but the land must be kept whole for his five-year-old son and heir, Gavin. There had been Morgans on this land since before King William, and it was unthinkable that any of it be sold. Still, he might not have that choice if he were to successfully marry off his daughters. No matt
er if a woman wed God or man, she must have some portion to bring to the marriage.

  Once there had been great flocks of woolly sheep grazing upon Ashby’s pastureland. It had been from those sheep that the family had earned its small wealth. They had never been a powerful family, but they had been comfortable. They dowered their daughters respectably, sent well-equipped sons to fight England’s wars, had even produced a bishop for the church, and they paid their taxes.

  Twelve years ago, however, an epidemic had wiped out their flocks. Two years afterward the smaller, newly reestablished flocks had suffered a similar fate. Every bit of the modest family fortune had gone into that second flock, and it too had been lost. There had been no time to rebuild their former prosperity.

  Since then Lord Morgan had waged a never-ending battle to earn enough monies to pay his taxes, to feed his family and his people. That he was successful was a tribute to his stubborn determination that he should not lose his lands. Now as he looked out over his rolling fields, he seriously considered the possibility of selling, or at least giving, some acreage to each of his daughters as a dowry. Then he shook his head. What suitor of worth would accept such a pittance, for he could not give away too much of his son’s inheritance. Still, he could not let his girls go to men of lesser birth; yet, would they be better off husbandless under the circumstances? The whole situation was utterly hopeless, and he felt as caught as an animal in a poacher’s trap.

  A gentle rapping upon the library door shook him from his unhappy thoughts. “Come in,” he called, and the door opened to reveal one of the house servants.

  “There is a rider come, m’lord. He wishes to speak with you.”

  Lord Morgan nodded. “Send him in then,” he replied, and the servant turned, nodding to a shadowed figure behind him. Robert Morgan hid a small smile at the thought that his was certainly no grand house with grand manners.

  “Lord Morgan?” An upper servant in orange-tawny and gold livery stood before him.

  “I am Lord Morgan.”

  “My master, Lord Edmund Wyndham, is an hour from Ashby, and begs leave to call upon you. I am to bring your reply.”

  Robert Morgan was somewhat startled. Edmund Wyndham was the Earl of Langford, a wealthy and somewhat mysterious figure. What would such a man want with him? Still, he could not be inhospitable. “I shall be honored to receive your master, the earl,” he told the liveried servant.

  The advance rider bowed most courteously to him, and turning, left the room.

  Lord Morgan impatiently yanked the tapestried bellpull that hung by the fireplace. “Fetch your mistress quickly,” he told the answering servant. “We are to receive a visit,” he told his wife moments later, “from the Earl of Langford. He will arrive in less than an hour.” He awaited her reaction.

  “Is he to stay to dinner?” fretted Lady Rosemary. “Blessed Holy Mother, I pray not! There is neither meat, nor game, nor fish. We were to have soup. I gave Cook permission to kill that stringy old hen who no longer lays. Soup and bread, Robert! What kind of fare is that to serve any guest, let alone an earl?”

  He smiled. “There was nothing said about the earl staying for a meal. Just that he wished to stop and call upon me. There is a cask of malmsey left in the cellar from better days that you can tap. Do we have any small biscuits?”

  She nodded, her expression brightening.

  “Good,” he said. “That will be hospitality enough, my love, for such an unexpected visitor.”

  “You must change your linen, my lord,” she chided him. “There is a stain upon your shirt front. ’Tis not proper to receive a guest thusly.”

  “Immediately,” he agreed.

  They each hurried off in separate directions. Lady Rosemary to her wifely duties, Lord Robert to change his clothing. When he returned downstairs once more he was wearing his best black brocaded doublet, a garment that saw little use, and was consequently still in good condition; a clean, natural-colored linen shirt with a ruffle at both the neck and the wrists; black velvet haut-de-chausses, scarlet-and-black-striped stockings, and square-toed black shoes. A heavy silver neckchain with a garnet-studded medallion lay upon the rich fabric of his doublet. It was Lord Morgan’s only valuable piece of jewelry other than the red-gold family ring with the cat’s-eye beryl that he wore on his left hand, and the simple gold betrothal band that his wife had gifted him with so long ago.

  “You are still the handsomest man I know,” declared Rosemary Morgan to her husband as he descended the staircase from their bedchamber.

  He smiled at her. “And you, madam, are as lovely as the day I first saw you.”

  “I am older,” she protested.

  “Are you? I had not noticed,” he said gallantly.

  She colored prettily, and said softly, “I love you, Rob. I always have, and I always will.”

  For a moment they stood staring at one another. Then, hearing through the open front door the sounds of horses coming up the gravel drive, he took her by the arm and led her outside so they might greet their noble guest.

  Edmund Wyndham’s brown eyes missed nothing as he made his way up the winding drive. The land was fertile, but badly underutilized. He could easily see where the woodland had encroached and was continuing to do so upon the pastureland. The cottages, although in decent repair, had an air of sadness about them, and the children playing before them were ragged and looked ill-nourished. Still, they seemed lively enough, and the faces that peered from the cottage doors were friendly and curious. Lord Morgan might be a poor man, but he was obviously a good master.

  Ahead of him he could see his host standing before the doorway of the attractive stone house that was his home. Beside him was a petite, beautiful woman in a wine-colored silk dress, its long divided overskirt showing a pretty cream-colored petticoat embroidered with tiny black and gold thread flowers. Her blond hair, parted in the center, was only partly covered by a close-fitting golden caul. The lady of the manor, undoubtedly, thought Lord Wyndham, was dressed in her very best. He smiled. The attractiveness of the couple before him boded well.

  Drawing his mount to a halt before the doorway of Ashby, he dismounted with an easy grace, and turning said, “Lord Morgan? I am Edmund Wyndham. I thank you for receiving me on such short notice.”

  “Although we have not met before, sir, you are most welcome to Ashby. May I present my wife, the lady Rosemary.”

  Edmund Wyndham bowed over Lady Morgan’s hand, his lips touching the back of her palm just briefly. “Madam, it is my honor,” he said.

  She curtsied. “I, too, welcome you to Ashby, my lord.” The voice was sweet, if slightly countrified, he thought.

  “Come into the house, my lord,” said Robert Morgan. His eyes worriedly swept over the earl’s escort. There were at least a dozen men.

  Edmund Wyndham saw the furtive look, and said easily, “If my men might be allowed to water their horses, sir, they can await me here.”

  “They will be thirsty themselves, my lord,” said Lady Morgan. “I will have the servants bring them cider. I regret I cannot offer them wine, but our cellar is small.”

  The earl smiled at her, and Rosemary Morgan felt a tingle right down to her toes. “Water would have satisfied them, I assure you, madam. Your sweet cider will be a treat. I thank you for your hospitality.” He turned then and followed his host into the house.

  Giving the attending servant quick orders, she hurried after them. Having settled both men in her husband’s library with the malmsey wine and sweet wafer biscuits, she turned to go.

  It was then the earl suggested, “Perhaps, my lord, you would like your good lady to remain. What I have come to discuss concerns you both.”

  Lord Morgan nodded to his wife, and she seated herself upon a stool by his side. “Say on then, my lord,” he said.

  “I was married,” the earl began, “for eighteen years to Lady Catherine de Haven. Thirteen months ago my wife died. We were childless. Although I have an heir in the presence of my sister’s eldest son,
I am but thirty-five years of age, and there is still time for me to father a son of my own. I understand that you are the parents of eight daughters, and so, hoping that one or more of them are of marriageable age, I have come to you seeking a wife.”

  Robert Morgan heard his wife’s tiny gasp, and he wondered that his own jaw did not gape in surprise at the earl’s words. Instead he heard himself saying coolly, “I should be honored to have my family joined with yours, my lord, and daughters to marry off I have aplenty, but though my name be old, and my estates respectable, I am a poor man. Only today my wife and I have spoken on the difficulties involved in dowering one child, let alone eight. I could offer but a tiny bit of land for a dower portion. Certainly a man of your standing expects a wealthy woman to wive. I cannot deceive you, Lord Wyndham. As much as it would please me to see one of my girls your countess, I do not have the means to compete in such a rich marriage mart. I thank you nonetheless for considering our family.”

  “I was quite well aware before my coming to Ashby of your circumstances, sir,” said the earl. “Gold, lands, and standing I have in abundance. What I lack is children. What I need is a son, and for my son’s mother I would have a strong and healthy wife. My Cathy was a gentle soul. We were betrothed in the cradle. She was her father’s only surviving child. His lands, which were not entailed, matched my father’s lands. It was considered a good match. We knew each other all of our lives. Like Queen Catherine herself, my own Catherine suffered miscarriage and stillbirths over the otherwise happy years of our union. She died giving birth to the only one of our children to survive outside of her womb. Alas, but our son followed his mother within hours of her own death, and was buried in her arms.”