Blaze Wyndham Read Free Page B

absolutely no idea of how fortunate she was!
    Lady Morgan hurried from the library and up the staircase to the children’s quarters, where she found Old Ada, the children’s nursemaid, with her three youngest. “Where is Mistress Blaze?” Lady Morgan demanded of the servant.
    Old Ada’s sharp eyes considered her mistress’s request. She thought a moment. “Larke and Linnette, they be in the kitchens with Cook, or maybe in the pasture ogling those two new colts that was just born.”
    Lady Morgan sighed and waited. Old Ada knew just about everything that went on at Ashby, but she was elderly now and it was necessary to wait upon her memory.
    The old lady pondered further. “Now, Delight, she be trailing after the two busy B’s, and they was with Mistress Blaze.”
    “Where, Ada?”
    “Running about barefoot in the fields and forest, no doubt,” came the disapproving reply. “ ’Tis no way, I’m thinking, for marriageable girls to behave, but then who is to marry them, poor lasses? Who is to marry our sweet little beauties?” She rocked back and forth upon her chair, the tears suddenly running down her withered face.
    Lady Morgan left the children’s rooms, descending back down into the main hallway of her house. She was the possessor of the most wonderful and exciting news! She wanted to tell Blaze of her great good fortune. Where was the flibbertigibbet? Running barefoot like some peasant wench, no doubt! I didn’t chastise her enough, she thought. Then Rosemary Morgan laughed. Had they not raised—indeed were still raising—their children with a greater sense of freedom than most? Theirs was no formal society. They had never expected that their children would marry into important families, but now things were changing. The girls, of course, all had nice manners, and their housewifely skills were above reproach. Still, they would need to know more than she had previously taught them. Blaze, in particular, as she would be wed within two months to a wealthy and important man.
    Lady Morgan went to the open door of the house. Her husband, having bid farewell to Lord Wyndham, was disappearing in the direction of the stables. The earl and his troop were riding away back down the driveway. Anxiously she scanned the landscape for a sight or sign of her wayward daughters. To her annoyance there were none.
    “God’s foot!” she swore softly beneath her breath, startling even herself, for she was not a woman to use such language. Still, it was irritating to be the possessor of such marvelous news, yet not be able to tell it. She bit her lip in vexation. Damn Blaze! She could not shout for her, as Edmund Wyndham was yet within hearing distance. With a sigh and a grumble of annoyance Lady Morgan turned back into her house, slamming the door behind her in her immense frustration.

Part One
    ASHBY HALL
    Summer 1521

Chapter 1

    T he four girls, well hidden behind the shrubbery on the far side of the driveway that faced Ashby Hall, had a fine view of the elegant visitor although they could hear nothing that was said between him and their father.
    “ Who is he , do you think?” wondered Bliss Morgan, tossing her blond hair back from her face as she spoke.
    “He is most divinely handsome even if he is old,” noted her identical twin sister. Blythe’s daffodil-colored hair seemed always perfectly coiffed.
    “Maybe he’s a suitor come for one of us,” said Delight Morgan in a hopeful tone. Her deep blue eyes, so like their father’s, sparkled with eager anticipation.
    “Ohh, Dee, don’t be so foolish!” Bliss snapped at the younger girl irritably, causing her face to fall. “Look at the man! His clothes are of the very best materials, and that gold chain around his neck is worth enough to dower us all quite respectably. None of us has so much as a dried pea for a portion. Without a dowry we’ve little hope of making any kind of a decent marriage. We’ll be lucky if we end up as farmers’