“Marry? Beget heirs?Uncle, I haven’t even been to court yet! I know that Mama meant for me to have a little time at court before I married. I’ve never been anywhere or done anything in my entire life! My whole world has been here atQueen’s Malvern, or atBelle Fleurs, or at my grandparents’ chateau atArchambault.My whole social life has consisted of family parties. I’ve never been to London, nor have I even seen Paris! I will not be rushed willy-nilly into marriage before I have had a chance of doing these things! This wild Scotsman will not carry me off to that cold, wet land of his to imprison me in some damned dank castle simply to have babies! I won’t go! I won’t! You cannot let him take me! Wemustwait until Mama and Papa get back. It won’t be long now, I’m sure!” Her young voice was edged with panic.
Conn understood her plea. She had been very sheltered by her parents who adored her so very much. Velvet’s very birth had been a miracle, and until this trip neither Skye nor Adam had been content to let her out of their sight.
“We will explain everything to the earl when he comes toQueen’s Malvern, Velvet. I’m sure he’ll understand and be reasonable,” Lord Bliss promised, silently hoping that he was right.
Velvet kissed her uncle’s smooth cheek, then slipped from his lap. Though she led him to believe otherwise by her docile submission, she had no intention of sitting quietly and waiting for fate to sweep her up. She knew very well that if she allowed the earl to make the decision he would insist on celebrating the marriage immediately. She had seen how men looked at her of late, and it would be no different with this betrothed husband she had suddenly found she had. She was not that big a fool! Men thought they owned women.
“I am not getting married,” she muttered mutinously to herself. “At least not yet, and not ever unless I love the man!” Then she smiled mischievously. Uncle Conn had seemed so very relieved, innocently believing that everything was settled. Sweet old Dame Cecily thought Velvet was an angel, and would never suspect that she could be devious. There was no one to bother or interfere with her for several days, of that she was certain. It was time enough to put into action the plan she had been thinking of ever since she had digested the news of the Earl of BrocCairn’s impending arrival.
Although Velvet’s sister, Deirdre, was six years her senior, they had always been very close. Deirdre and her husband, Lord Blackthorn, lived just a few miles away atBlackthorn Priory.On the first of May they would be entertaining the queen, who was beginning her annual summer’s progress. Velvet had never met the queen that she could remember, although her mother said Elizabeth Tudor had seen her as a baby. The English queen was one of her two godmothers, the other being Queen Margot of France.
Deirdre had been half-promising for months that Velvet could come and get a peek at the queen when Elizabeth stopped overnight atBlackthorn Priory.Velvet’s scheme involved meeting the queen and becoming one of her maids of honor. The Earl of BrocCairn could scarcely go against Elizabeth Tudor’s wishes and take a royal maid of honor from court without the sovereign’s permission, and Velvet knew the queen’s attitude toward gentlemen stealing her maids away. She chuckled to herself, quite pleased with her own cleverness. In the queen’s service she would be safe until her parents came home and the matter of this betrothal was straightened out.
“I’m going to ride over toBlackthorn Prioryto get a glimpse of Her Majesty,” Velvet told Dame Cecily on the morning of the first of May. She had just come in from gathering an armful of flowers, and they were still wet with the dew. “Perhaps I may be of help to my sister, for she is surely very busy right now.”
“What a love you are, Velvet pet,” returned the old lady, “but have your forgotten, child? It’s your birthday. Do you want to spend it helping Deirdre with last-minute chores?”
“Deirdre is breeding again, Dame Cecily. She has been very tired of late, and I am sure she will welcome my help today. Besides, I really do want to see the queen. I never have, and here I am fifteen!”
Dame Cecily chuckled. “Run along then, child, and have your look at Bess Tudor,” she said. “With your parents still away ’twill not be much of a birthday for you again this year, I fear.”
Velvet almost shouted with joy as she rode the few miles between her home and her sister’s. It was an incredibly lovely morning, a perfect May day, and her big chestnut stallion galloped along easily. She reached the hall without incident and, slipping down from her horse’s back, tossed the reins carelessly to a waiting groom.
Inside, the priory was just as she had expected. Chaos reigned everywhere, and in its midst was Deirdre Blakeley, Lady Blackthorn, looking harassed and forlorn by turns, her fair skin flushed, her black hair half undone from its chignon.
Deirdre’s blue eyes lit up at the sight of her youngest sister, and Velvet felt a twinge of sadness, for Deirdre looked so very much like their mother.
“Velvet poppet, thank goodness you’ve come! I’m at my wit’s end, and the queen is due by two o’clock!” Deirdre exclaimed.
Velvet flung an arm about her older sister. “I came to help, sister. You have only to tell me what it is you need done and I will do it.”
Deirdre lowered her slender form, with its very distended belly, into a chair. “I’m not sure where to begin, Velvet. I’ve never entertained the queen before. I don’t even know how she knew ofBlackthorn Priory, but her secretary wrote that she had heard of our fine gardens and wished to see them. How could she have heard of our gardens? We are not a part of the court and neither is anyone else in the family except for Robin, and he withdrew from it after Alison’s death. I doubt Robin made any remarks to the queen about our gardens. Gardens are not our brother’s métier.”
“Don’t fuss so, Deirdre. ’Tis a great honor the queen does you and John. She rarely ventures out of the home counties to come to Worcestershire.”
“Better she hadn’t decided to venture this far!” said Deirdre irritably. “Do you have any idea what it costs to entertain royalty? Nay, how could you? You’re just a child!”
“I wish that Scots earl claiming to be my betrothed understood that,” muttered Velvet, but her elder sister didn’t hear her for she was too concerned with her own problems.
“It will cost us a small fortune to have the queen and her court here. Of course, John wrote to Her Majesty’s household controller, Sir James Crofts, that we could not entertain the entire court. The priory is simply not big enough for all those people. Do you know what he wrote back? That Her Majesty would only expect us to put up fifty or so of her people within the house and that the rest would be housed in tents upon our lawns! Can you imagine what the lawns are going to look like after five hundred people, their horses, and baggage trains have trampled upon them? It will take us five years to restore them!” She shook her head in an agitated fashion. “I don’t mean to sound inhospitable, Velvet, but what will we get out of all of this besides debts—and the privilege of saying that the queen stayed in the Rose Bedchamber, which of course will have to be renamed the Queen’s Room now. She won’t even be sleeping in the bed there since she travels with her own and will sleep in no other.”
Velvet listened to her sister with a sense of growing amazement. She had never known Deirdre to be this way. Deirdre was the serene daughter. She had never fussed like Willow or Velvet herself.
“It’s all too much,” wailed Deirdre, “and I’m sure that we have neither enough food or drink for such a huge gathering. We shall be disgraced, I am certain.”
“Tell me what’s been done so far, Deirdre,” Velvet said soothingly. She could see that her sister was growing more nervous by the minute.
“The whole house has been turned out,” Deirdre began. “The Rose Bedchamber has been completely redone. Heaven only knows where I’m going to put the rest of her attendants! Thank the Lord they will only be here for one night. God’s bones! I only hope I have enough food for the whole company!”
“What have you laid aside?”
Deirdre furrowed her brow in concentration. “There are six dozen barrels of oysters packed in ice, twenty-four suckling pigs, three wild boars, trout from the river, twelve legs of lamb, another dozen sides of beef, six roe deer, and six stags; two dozen hams, five hundred lark pastries for tonight, capons in ginger sauce, goose, at least three dozen, larded ducks, pigeon pies and rabbit pies, a hundred apiece. Every house in the neighborhood has baked for us.” She stopped to draw a breath. “There will be bowls of new lettuce, cress, radishes, scallions, artichokes in white wine, carrots glazed in honey, and enough bread to feed an army! There are molded jellies; marzipan of every imaginable color; fruit tarts from dried apples, peaches, apricots, and plums; custards; and the first strawberries of the season with clotted cream!” she finished triumphantly. Then her brow puckered. “Will it be enough?” she fretted.
“ ’Tis not elegant, but I suspect ’twill serve,” Velvet teased. “You’ve not forgotten the wines?”
“Nay, there are a full two hundred casks each of both red and white fromArchambault, bless your grandparents, as well as a hundred barrels of Devon cider, which Robin sent fromLynmouth.Then, too, we have our own October ale.”
“Well,” observed Velvet, “if they don’t stuff themselves with all the foods you’re offering, they will most certainly drown in the drink!”
