Blaze Wyndham (5 page)

“But what you have done is beautiful,” Blythe said in an effort to soften her twin’s sharp words, but Blaze was used to Bliss and took no offense.

“Blythe and I will embroider the B and the E upon the bed linens,” said Bliss. “We shall intertwine them within a heart.”

“I will help,” replied Blaze.

“No!” cried Bliss. “You are slower than cold honey, and your pokiness will only drive me to madness. We can have them done in a trice.”

“But if you empty your chests to fill mine, what will you do?” Blaze worried.

“Do not fret, sister,” answered Blythe. “We need not empty our dower chests to fill yours. We shall this winter easily replenish what we give. It rather pleases me to think that a little bit of us will go with you to your new home.”

Blaze arose and hugged her younger sibling. “I like the idea that a little bit of you will be with me too. I suddenly realize that I am going to be alone for the very first time in my life.”

“
Alone?
” Bliss scoffed. “You are to be the mistress of a great house, sister! You will have a husband, and if you do your duty by him, you will quickly have a houseful of children. Can you call yourself alone amid the bevy of servants and retainers you are certain to have? Gracious, Blaze, you are a strange girl.”

Blaze laughed at her sharp-tongued sister. “I am not certain that I shall know how to handle such a ‘bevy’,” she teased, and then she grew serious. “It is my family I shall miss, Bliss, for though we be poor in worldly goods, we are rich in our love for one another.”

“I should sooner be rich in more practical ways,” grumbled Bliss with total candor.

“Then once I am settled as Lord Wyndham’s wife I shall have to see what I can do to provide you with a suitable husband. Suitable,” she amended, “meaning rich!”

“And for Blythe also,” Bliss said, protective as always of her twin.

“For Blythe also,” Blaze agreed.

“It can be no idle promise that you make, my dear,” said Lady Morgan. “Your sisters will indeed need your help and influence in finding husbands. As each of them weds, they in turn will help those remaining. This miracle of a match that has happened so suddenly to you is the answer to all of our prayers. The Earl of Langford is a most kind and generous man. If you make but the slightest effort to please him, you will be, I know, the happiest of women. He has sworn to us that you will be treated like a queen. When you give him an heir, Blaze, I suspect there is nothing within his power that cannot be yours.” She looked nervously at her daughter, wondering if the rebellion Blaze had exhibited earlier was still upon her.

Knowing that her mother needed the reassurance, Blaze said dutifully, “I shall indeed endeavor to be a good wife to the earl, Mama, and as I love children, I want my own every bit as eagerly as does Lord Wyndham.”

Lady Morgan looked relieved. “Oh, my dear,” she said, “I knew if you but thought things through you would see the wisdom of our decision.” Hugging her daughter, she finished somewhat tearily, “I am so happy for you!”

“Madam,” protested her husband, “you will have this entire household of females in hysterics quite shortly if I do not remove our eldest from your sphere of influence. Run upstairs, Blaze, and change into your riding skirt. There are more practical things a good chatelaine should know. As your father, I feel it is my duty to present the male side of the coin. Hurry now!”

Gratefully Blaze escaped the Great Hall of Ashby, her mother, and her sisters. She sped up the stairs to the small room she shared with Bliss and Blythe. Quickly she removed her everyday skirt and bodice, replacing them with a clean white shirt and a somewhat worn but sturdy dark velvet riding skirt. Whatever the skirt’s color had once been, the material had faded long since into an undistinguishable hue. From a corner she drew out her riding boots and pulled them on, wincing at the fact that they pinched her toes, which were now longer than when the boots had been made five years ago. Still, they had a comfortable familiarity about them. As she stood, however, it suddenly dawned on her that Lord Wyndham would probably have new boots made for her. New boots, and a riding skirt of deep blue velvet with a matching bodice, and a hat with a white plume! For a moment she closed her eyes, envisioning herself in such finery, and decided that she liked the picture. There were certain advantages to marriage with a wealthy man that she had not considered. How Bliss would chide her for that oversight.

She hurried back down the staircase, out the front door to where her father was already mounted waiting. A stableboy boosted her into her own saddle, and father and daughter moved off from the house at a leisurely pace. They rode in silence for a time, but once they gained the narrow path across the estate through the fields, Lord Morgan asked his daughter, “How do you really feel about this marriage, Blaze?”

“Would my feelings really make a difference, Papa? I must marry, must I not? And is not this match indeed a miracle as Mama says?”

“If I believed that marriage to Lord Wyndham were a bad thing for you, Blaze, I should not have agreed to the earl’s proposal. It is true that you must marry, and that this match is indeed an incredible piece of good fortune for us all. I would help you come to terms with yourself, however, my daughter. I do want you to be happy.”

“I am frightened,” said Blaze, “but of what, I am not certain. I hate the thought of leaving Ashby. Yet, as Bliss reminds me, I am to be mistress of a great house. I cannot help but wonder if it is as beautiful as here. Whether I will grow to love it. What if I do not? I do no know this man I am to marry. He does not know me either. What if we do not like each other? I understand his reasons for wanting another wife, yet if those are his only reasons, can he learn to care for me, and I him? It is all very difficult and confusing, Papa.

“One moment I am excited, for I never aspired to such a match. Indeed I fully expected to end up with Squire Greene’s younger son if they would have a dowerless girl. I suspected in my case that they might, for the squire is an ambitious man. I could see him weighing the thought of sharing grandchildren with a baron of the realm each time our families met.” She chuckled throatily, and Robert Morgan joined her laughter.

“Yet in another moment,” Blaze continued, “there is a part of me, Papa, that resents the Earl of Langford’s arrogance in arriving here with scant notice to demand one of your fertile daughters to wive.”

Robert Morgan nodded his understanding of his daughter’s feelings, then said, “He meant no disrespect, Blaze. Of that I am certain. Wealthy and powerful men look at these things differently. They come to the point quickly with little shilly-shallying. Time for them is a commodity to be husbanded as carefully as their gold. Lord Wyndham knew our position. He knew that as the father of eight daughters I would want to wed them to this family’s best advantage. He also knew that we had little if any financial wherewithal. The advantage was really his, Blaze. Yet at no time did he make me feel a beggar at his gates. If there is any of the arrogance in him that you accuse him of, I have not seen it.”

“How old is he, Papa?”

“He will be thirty-five in August,” came the reply.

“That is very old, Papa.”

Robert Morgan did not know whether he felt like laughing or weeping at his eldest child’s remark. He was but forty. From Blaze’s standpoint, however, he realized that thirty-five must look ancient. She would be sixteen on the last day of November. Still, such disparity in ages between a man and his wife was not unusual. Especially as women were apt to die younger due to the rigors of childbirth, and men were quite likely to remarry. A man, particularly a childless man or one with only daughters, would want a fecund female, not an older woman with little chance of birthing a son.

A small cough from his daughter reminded him that she needed further reassurance.

“Lord Wyndham is quite in his prime, Blaze. I expect that you will find him a vigorous lover.” He glanced over at her, and saw that his words had brought a deep blush to her cheeks. He chuckled wickedly.

“
Papa!
” she scolded him, and kicked her mount into a canter.

For a moment he watched her go, the sky-blue ribbon that held her lovely golden-brown hair falling away, and her tresses streaming out in the summer’s breeze. Lord Wyndham was going to be very surprised to learn that he had gotten himself quite a bargain in Blaze Morgan. Perhaps Rosemary was correct when she said that their daughters’ beauty must count for something. For a moment Robert Morgan’s eyes narrowed in thought. Blaze’s marriage. Her new position. The dowries for his other girls. All would enable him to rebuild Ashby, even improve it. The alliances he would contract for his daughters could help him to obtain an heiress for Gavin. He was going to be very careful in the matches he made. Now he could afford to be choosy.

“
Papa!
” Blaze had stopped her headlong flight and was now calling him.

Robert Morgan waved his hand at her and grinned. “I am coming, Blaze,” he shouted. “I will race you to the lake!” Kicking his stallion into a gallop, he raced after his daughter, who, hearing his words, had already sent her own horse into flight.

“
Y
ou place us in a difficult position, sir,” said Robert Morgan. There was no mistaking the irritation in his voice.

Anthony Wyndham flushed, but he held his ground. “The matter is as hard for me, sir, as it is for you, but I am only following Edmund‘s—my uncle’s—orders.”

“My daughter is a sensitive girl,” Lord Morgan protested. “She has never even met the earl. Finding herself promised in marriage to a stranger has taken some getting used to for her. Yet knowing that she would meet her betrothed before the wedding within the bosom of her family has helped her to come to terms with this match. Now you tell me that you have come to wed Blaze by proxy for your uncle, and that you will escort her back to him at RiversEdge. I like it not, sir!”

“I have already explained to you, my lord, why my uncle has sent me to ask this of you. You and your family are invited to come back to RiversEdge with me for the second ceremony.”

Lord Morgan slammed his fist into the palm of his other hand. “We cannot leave Ashby right now, sir! It is the harvest season. All hands, even our fine white noble ones, are needed here on this estate if my people and I are to survive the winter.”

Anthony Wyndham’s manner softened. He knew the position that Lord Morgan was in, for his uncle had been more than frank with him. Only four years separated the two men, and having been raised together, they were more like brothers than uncle and nephew. “My uncle’s people need to see the ceremony of his new marriage. They need the hope that it offers them. Surely you understand this, my lord.”

“Rob.” Rosemary Morgan spoke quietly. “It is certainly very disappointing for us not to have the full pomp of Blaze’s wedding, but I know that you would not endanger the match in your chagrin.” She smiled encouragingly at her husband.

Anthony Wyndham thought to himself as he watched her that if the daughter was as lovely as the mother, then his uncle was certainly a fortunate man. Lady Morgan was a radiant beauty.

“I know,” she continued softly to her husband, “that Blaze is your especial pet, but with our large brood there will be weddings aplenty. Those weddings cannot, however, take place unless this one does.” It was a gentle warning that even Anthony Wyndham understood.

Lord Morgan gave a soft groan of defeat. “You are right, my love,” he said, and looking up, pierced the earl’s nephew with a half-angry gaze. “When?” he demanded.

“Tomorrow, my lord. I must bring the bride to RiversEdge as quickly as I can.”

“Blaze’s dower chest is in complete readiness,” said Lady Morgan, forestalling the new outburst she saw brewing in her husband’s blue eyes. “The proxy ceremony can take place first thing in the morning. It is better that our daughter not dwell upon this sudden change, although she will certainly be distressed.”

Anthony Wyndham’s relief was openly visible. “I have brought with me a maidservant of my uncle’s to be a traveling companion to his betrothed wife. Her name is Heartha. She has with her the bridal garments and other clothing for the lady Blaze.”

“I shall go and fetch my daughter,” said Lady Morgan. “I shall allow you to tell her of these changes, Master Anthony, for I believe you can do it better than either my husband or myself.” Rising from her seat, Rosemary Morgan hurried out.

Lord Morgan snorted. Then he grinned broadly at his guest. “You do understand that my wife believes that if you tell Blaze, she will not cause a scene.”

“Your daughter is hot-tempered?” Anthony Wyndham’s light-colored eyes showed mild curiosity.

“You will soon judge for yourself, sir,” replied Lord Morgan with a small chuckle. “Of course there is the possibility that my daughter will remember her manners.” Then he laughed aloud.