Kitabı oxu: «Madrilene's Granddaughter»

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.