Madrilene's Granddaughter. Laura Cassidy

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ