Madrilene's Granddaughter

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Madrilene's Granddaughter
Laura Cassidy

The beauty within…Hal Latimar could see it in Rachel's shy, quiet smile and patient stance. At a raucous celebration of wedded bliss, the secretive young woman was upstaged by her beautiful cousin. But Hal knew that outward beauty was sometimes hidden and deceptive. When Queen Elizabeth's plans brought them to Court, he found his sights firmly set on Rachel, whose sweetness knew no bounds. The more time he spent with her the more his appreciation gave way to desire. Though he was soon to learn that Rachel had a carefully guarded secret, which, once known, would jeopardize her presence at Court and the tender feelings growing between them.…

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 (http://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 (#u1adea094-509d-59df-9a82-1f6a4636a66f)

Chapter Two (#uc304001e-6a26-59e5-b56a-ce177c3d966f)

Chapter Three (#u7720942f-1b88-5133-ba4c-b643da421d4d)

Chapter Four (#ub76a4772-4c43-5d77-94ed-9df0347400bc)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

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.