Blaze Wyndham Read Free Page A

so shall my son be born too! It is settled then, sir? Will you have me as a son-in-law?”
    “I will, and gladly, though it shames me I can send my daughter to you with naught but the clothes upon her back. Still, I will swallow my pride for her sake, and for the sake of my other girls. I love them, and I want them happy!”
    The two men arose simultaneously and shook hands.
    “Will you stay to dinner then, and meet Blaze?” Lord Morgan asked.
    His wife cast anguished eyes to the heavens. Holy Mary! Sweet Saint Anne! Did Rob not remember that dinner was but soup and bread? Let the earl decline, and I will make a trip to Hereford Cathedral to light candles in your honor, she silently vowed.
    “I regret I cannot, sir,” replied Lord Wyndham. “It is twelve miles cross-country to my home. I must be there before dark. Today is my sister’s birthday. I have planned an entertainment in her honor. The wedding contracts will be drawn up and sent to you. Whatever you desire changed, change. Then return the signed contracts to me. The banns shall be immediately posted. I will return on the thirtieth of September for the celebration of my marriage to your daughter.”
    “A moment, my lord,” said Lady Morgan. Rising from her stool, she moved gracefully across the room to a long library table upon which was a rectangular box of dark wood banded in silver. Opening the box revealed a set of miniatures. Drawing the first one out, she turned and held it out to him. “Our elderly relative, Master Peter, amuses himself by painting miniatures of the children each spring. This is his latest rendering of Blaze. I thought, perhaps, that you would like to have it, my lord.”
    Accepting her offering, he gazed down into the proud little face in the miniature. His mind was still so full of Cathy that he had not even considered until this moment what his new wife might look like. It had not mattered to him as long as she was healthy, and fulfilled her chief wifely duty, which was to produce his heirs.
    The face before him, however, was a beautiful one. A fair and perfect heart with well-spaced oval-shaped eyes of a violet-blue edged with thick dark gold lashes. Her nose was just slightly retroussé. The mouth small, yet full and pouting. It was the sort of mouth a man would not tire of kissing, he thought, if the sensuality of her lips proved truth, not lie. Her hair, parted in the middle, was a rich golden chestnut in color. It hung soft and loose about her lovely face.
    Raising his eyes from the charming miniature, he said, “Madam, I asked for a wife. You offer me a treasure. I am overwhelmed, and grateful.”
    “I hope,” said Rosemary Morgan with a little smile, “that you will say all those charming things to my daughter. She has never been courted. It would be a shame for her to miss such a wonderful part of life.”
    “I do not think,” he answered her, “that it will be hard to say such things to Blaze. Her loveliness quite takes my breath away.”
    “Be patient with her, my lord. She is young, but she is strong in both body and mind. Nonetheless she will prove worth the trouble, I promise you.”
    Edmund Wyndham nodded. “My hobby is cultivating roses, madam. Roses are fussy creatures that need a great deal of loving concern in order to bring forth perfect blooms. You have given me a perfect rose, and I swear to you that I shall treasure it with my very life, and cultivate it with the utmost care.” Then taking her hand up, he kissed it in farewell, and departed the library in the company of Robert Morgan.
    Lady Rosemary watched her husband escort the earl from their house, the two men speaking in quiet tones that she could no longer distinguish. She looked down at her hand as if she expected to find it had changed. Then she laughed softly at herself. She was behaving exactly like a young girl, but the Earl of Langford had had that effect upon her. In a way she almost envied her daughter. Then she sobered. Blaze had