Blaze Wyndham

by Bertrice Small

  “Do you want me to show you how?” Blaze offered.

  “Henriette showed me,” came the surly reply.

  “Yet you did it badly. Perhaps Henriette does not sew well. It is not easy to learn, Nyssa. I know I always had trouble. Your aunts Bliss and Blythe are ever so much better than I am, and faster too.”

  “They are?” Nyssa was interested.

  “Aye.”

  “Then perhaps my aunts should show me, madam,” was the child’s quick reply.

  She was clever, thought Blaze. Her father’s daughter without a doubt. “Not this time, but if they come at Christmastime then I shall ask them. Today, however, you must learn from me, for I am here and they are not.”

  “Show me then . . . Mama,” Nyssa said.

  “Hold your needle so,” Blaze said, showing her. “Good, child, now make your stitch.”

  “Look!” Nyssa cried excitedly. “It is much nicer than before, Mama!”

  “Aye,” replied Blaze. “If you do it that way, I will not have to reject your cloth when you are finished.”

  Dorothy Wyndham smiled as she watched the mother and daughter, their heads bent close together. Blaze was beginning to win Nyssa back to her. If only Anthony could win Blaze over as easily as she was bringing her daughter around. Their exaggerated politeness to one another was beginning to wear on her nerves. She would have even preferred that they fight. At least Blaze and Tony would have been showing some emotion toward one another, thought Doro.

  Delight Morgan arrived at RiversEdge. Doro had not seen her in some time, and was startled at the beauty Delight had become. Unlike her elder sister, who was petite like their mother and other sisters, Delight was tall like her father, and slender. She had perfectly proportioned features, and an exquisitely lovely body. Though she greeted Tony warmly, she was less than cordial to her elder sibling.

  “How could you marry him!” she demanded of Blaze when they were finally alone. “Knowing that I loved him, how could you do it? Is being the Countess of Langford so important to you that you had to wed your husband’s heir? You don’t love him! How could you? You don’t even know him!”

  It was no time to be gentle, Blaze realized. “I did not choose to wed him, Delight. It was an arrangement made by Tony and the king. It was Edmund’s dying request that Tony marry me.”

  “You might have released him from Edmund’s request, Blaze!”

  “Why?” said Blaze cruelly. “The king was tiring of me, and ’tis custom with discarded mistresses to marry them off. I should just as soon be wed with someone I know and like, as to some stranger. Besides, Anthony does not love you, Delight.”

  “He had not even the time to learn to know me,” the girl cried. “You saw to that! You lured him to court and stole him from me!”

  “God’s foot, Delight! I cannot believe that you really believe that tale, even in your secret heart of hearts. If I had wanted to lure Anthony, I should not have bothered to go up to court with Bliss and Owen. I might have stayed right here at RiversEdge and captured him even sooner. Anthony is not in love with you, Delight. He never has been, and God only knows you have tried hard enough to gain his love and his attention. He is not the man for you, sister. Admit to that fact, and get on with your life!”

  “Anthony is really in love with me, Blaze. ’Tis you who had best face facts!” Delight asserted firmly. “I have come to RiversEdge to take him from you, and I will!”

  “I am going to have to send her home to Ashby immediately,” Blaze told Doro as she recounted her talk with her younger sister. “I had hoped seeing Anthony and me together might convince her, but she seems unable to accept anything except what she chooses to believe. I think this passion she has for Anthony has unhinged her, Doro.”

  “No,” replied Dorothy Wyndham. “Let her stay but a bit longer, Blaze. Perhaps Henriette’s company will aid her pained spirit. It might also help if you and Tony appeared a bit more loving toward one another. You are polite to each other, but despite your bond of marriage, you seem totally uninvolved with one another. Remember that Delight saw you with Edmund, and she remembers it well. If you would like, I shall speak to Tony about it too.”

  Blaze felt herself flushing with embarrassment, but she managed to nod. How ridiculous that her mother-in-law must speak with her husband about such a matter, but she knew that Doro was right. Delight was behaving in a stubborn and an irrational manner. She needed more convincing. She must be forced to face the truth, for despite Doro’s reassurances, it was obvious to Blaze that her younger sister was tottering on the brink of madness.

  It was early evening, and having overseen her household successfully, Blaze stood by the fireplace in the family hall staring into the fire. She watched as a log collapsed, sending a shower of orange sparks up the chimney. When his hand fell upon her shoulder she did not start, but turning her head, looked up at him. He smiled softly at her, and then to her surprise he bent his head, gently touching her lips with his.

  “Your sister is watching,” he murmured against her mouth.

  “Doro spoke to you?” Why was her heart beating so quickly? she wondered.

  He pressed little kisses along her upper lip. “Aye, in her motherly way she reminded me that I had never kissed you. Do you realize that, my angel? I have never kissed you until this moment.”

  Surely it was the warmth of the fire that made her cheeks so warm, Blaze considered as his arm slipped about her waist. “We did not kiss at our wedding, did we?” she noted.

  “The king kissed you most heartily,” he remembered, “but I did not. I realize that it is yet two months before we dare share a bed, my angel, but surely such pleasantries as these must not be denied us.” He kissed her lightly once again.

  “Tony—” she began.

  He put a finger to her lips to silence her. “Blaze, you do not love me, I know it. Still, we must eventually join our bodies to produce the next generation of Wyndhams. I would not make love to a stranger. I am not a man to make love coldly and without tenderness. Perhaps you will never really forgive me my part in Edmund’s death, unintentioned as it was, but do not hate me, I beg of you. I do not want our children born of hate, my angel. Can you understand that?”

  She put her hand up to touch his face in a gentle gesture. “Aye, my lord, I understand, and I agree. Anthony Wyndham, I beg your pardon, for I have wronged you. You were not responsible for Edmund’s death. Oh, you teased him to hunt that day, ’tis certain, but Edmund was a strong man. He went because he wanted to go, and your taunts offered him the excuse he sought to avoid his half-promise to me. As for our son, it was my anger, I am certain, that pushed his tiny body from my womb, and nothing else. I am to blame there, and not you.

  “I do not promise that I will ever love you, my lord, but I will cease warring with you. Perhaps if we take the time to know one another we will find that we can love each other, if only a little bit. Surely that is better than the anger and misunderstanding that has been between us.”

  “And in finding each other,” he answered her, “mayhap we can help little Delight to face life as it is.” His beautiful light blue eyes held a warmth she had never seen before, and Blaze found it not displeasing.

  “Does she still watch us?”

  “Nay, my angel, she was gone after our first kiss,” he said.

  She felt a sudden pleasure in his words. He had kissed her for Delight’s benefit, and yet he had kissed her again several times afterward because it pleased him. He had even stayed speaking quietly to her of working out their differences, and it had been for them that he had done it, not for Delight. Had she misjudged him? Had her hate blinded her to the man he really was? He was, after all, Edmund’s nephew.

  It was a quiet Christmas at RiversEdge. Both Bliss and Blythe preferred not to travel in their conditions, and a series of early and heavy snows had decided Lord Morgan and his family to remain at Ashby. Delight cared not, however, for she and Henriette Wyndham had become close friends.

  “I do
not care if I ever see Ashby again,” she declared at supper on Christmas Night.

  “You cannot remain here forever,” Blaze reminded her. “In the spring Tony and I intend seeking candidates for Henriette’s hand in marriage. She will be eighteen on June first and you will be eighteen on the seventh of June. You are both growing a bit long in the tooth to be wed. When I was your age I already had Nyssa.”

  “And the year after, you were the king’s whore,” said Delight, and Henriette giggled. “How Tony could honor Edmund’s request when you had so shamefully dishonored Edmund’s memory and the Wyndham name is hard for me to understand.”

  Blaze was too shocked to even speak, as was Doro, but Anthony Wyndham leapt to his feet, his anger all too apparent. “Go to your room, Delight!” he thundered. “You are not to be allowed out until I give my permission. How dare you speak to my wife in such a fashion, and in front of our daughter?” he demanded.

  Delight jumped up sobbing. “I understand, Tony,” she wept. “You were forced to the altar. I understand, and I forgive you.” Then, turning, she fled the little family hall where they were gathered.

  Henriette stood up, and with a curtsy to her elders she said, “I will go with her, and attempt to calm her. Pauvre Delight! Her heart is broken.” She hurried after her friend while behind her Blaze and Doro looked at each other in despair.

  Henriette easily caught up with Delight, and linking her arm with her friend’s, she chided her, “You are a fool, Delight, to so openly quarrel with your sister. Her kindness and her patience with you make you look all the worse for your tantrums. Have I not warned you, cherie?”

  “He loves me, and not her,” sobbed Delight. “I cannot bear to see him unhappy. I should be the one he kisses by the fireplace! I should be the one he beds with! I should be the one who has his children! Not her! Not Blaze! Anthony is the only man I have ever loved, Henriette! Why should she have him and not I?”

  “In time, chérie,” murmured Henriette. “In time you will have your Anthony, and I shall help you, I promise you!”

  “Why will you help me?” demanded the weeping Delight.

  “Because you are my very best friend in all the world, Delight Morgan, that is why!” said Henriette with such great conviction that innocent Delight believed her, and allowed her to put her to bed.

  “I shall never sleep,” complained Delight.

  “Yes you will, for I shall give you a special draught,” said Henriette, and pulling her little purse from her waistband, she dropped a pinch of powder into a small goblet of wine, and encouraged Delight to drink it all down. Within minutes the overwrought girl was asleep.

  Henriette looked down upon Delight scornfully. What a fool the girl was! The little idiot had convinced herself that Cousin Anthony had wed with his Blaze simply as a duty, yet Henriette could see that nothing was further from the truth. Anthony Wyndham was in love with his wife, and if she was not in love with him now, she would eventually be. Henriette hurried to her own room next door.

  “What was all the shouting in the hall?” demanded Cecile. She spoke in French, for her English was poor.

  “It was Delight, grand-mère, baiting her sister again. Cousin Anthony sent her from the hall. I have put the little silly to bed.”

  “Be careful, chérie! You must not call me grand-mère lest someone overhear you. As long as these English believe that I am your servant, and that I speak no English, they feel free to chatter in front of me. I can learn much for you.”

  Henriette hugged the elderly woman. “Do not fear, grand-mère. I gave Delight a sleeping potion to calm her, and everyone else is still in the hall.” She settled herself on the bed with her skirts tucked beneath her. “They spoke again of marrying me off tonight, grand-mère. Cousin Blaze says that Delight and I are getting a bit old to find husbands, and come the spring they will find us each a mate.” She laughed. “Beautiful Blaze, who is so sure of herself and her life. How I hate her! How I hate her for being married to Anthony when I had planned to wed with him myself. Is that not what Papa wanted for me, grand-mère?”

  “Oui, oui,” replied the old woman, “but it cannot be now, ma petite. You are fortunate that Madame Blaze was willing to keep you here, and is willing to see you dowered and wed well. She is not stupid, ma petite. She has been a powerful king’s mistress after all. Be grateful she has not seen through you.”

  “Do you think I shall wed with some English country squire when I have been promised a nobleman all my life? I intend being Madame la Comtesse de Langford, grand-mère!”

  “Zut alors, Henriette! And what of Madame Blaze?”

  “She will die,” said Henriette.

  “And Mademoiselle Delight?”

  “ ’Tis she who will murder her sister, and then in remorse over her wicked deed, kill herself. Then only I shall be left, ma chère grand-mère. I shall be here to comfort my poor cousin Anthony, to oversee that little brat Nyssa, who calls him Papa, to wed with him when his mourning is over.”

  “And how will you get Mademoiselle Delight to do your bidding, ma petite?” demanded Cecile.

  “I must move slowly, and carefully,” said Henriette thoughtfully. “Delight must be driven far enough that she will not panic at the last moment and foil my plans. That would not do at all, grand-mère. Trust me. I learned much at the court of the King François. I know just what to do.”

  The old Frenchwoman nodded her head as her granddaughter spoke. Her own husband had been an Italian from the court at Firenze, where he was an apothecary. He had taught both his wife and his daughter all of his knowledge of poisons and potions. It was this skill that had gained Henriette’s mother her place with the French queen, who was constantly slipping love potions into her husband’s wine in hopes of retaining his passion. Both Henriette’s grandmother and mother had passed on their skills to her in hopes that she would one day be given a place in some important household. Henry Wyndham, however, had had other plans for his pretty little daughter.

  “You will be a lady, my little Henriette,” he told her over and over again as she grew up. “One day I will see that you marry a fine English lord, and then your papa can go home to live out his old age in style.”

  When she had just turned eleven she had gone with her parents to the meeting of the two great kings, François and Henry, that was called The Field of the Cloth of Gold. There, by chance, her father had met his brother and his brother’s wife. Henry Wyndham had not seen his family in many years, but there was no animosity between the brothers. She remembered that her uncle, Lord Richard, had given her sugarplums and a silver piece. She remembered him bemoaning his son’s wifeless state.

  Afterward her father said to her, “If Anthony Wyndham is not wed by the time you are old enough, then by God, I shall match you with your cousin, ma petite!”

  She had never forgotten his words, and when she had arrived at RiversEdge she had been more than pleased to learn that her cousin was still without a wife. Though she was shocked when he returned two months later from Greenwich with a bride, she had hidden her deep disappointment very well. No one, not even Madame Blaze, suspected her. The coming of Delight Morgan with her stubborn passion for Anthony Wyndham was a wonderful piece of luck. She would use that silly and bitter young girl to rid her of her rival, and then she would take Anthony for her very own.

  During the long winter she would play upon Delight’s jealousy. Carefully. Oh, so carefully. She would rouse the innocent girl’s desires and natural lust for Anthony. She would drive her gently to the very brink, and then . . . Henriette laughed.

  “I shall make a most elegant comtesse, grand-mère, shall I not? Then I will go to court and surprise my old friend Mademoiselle Boleyn! She will be very surprised to see us, will she not?”

  The old woman cackled. “Indeed she will, ma petite! Poor King Henry Tudor. He will not rid himself of Mistress Anne Boleyn as easily as he has rid himself of his other amours. She means to have it all, that one!”

  “The king wants
to fuck her, grand-mère, but I know Anne well enough to tell you that though his desires strain his codpiece to the breaking point, he will not get his royal cock into Mademoiselle Boleyn’s sweet hole until he has made her his wife! She is a proud little bitch.”

  “ ’Tis a shame that you were not so scrupulous in your behavior, ma petite , as Mademoiselle Boleyn, else your papa would not have died of those fearsome wounds he gained defending your honor. An honor that was long lost, Henriette.”

  “Papa would have never found out about Monsieur le Duc but that Mademoiselle d’Aumont coveted him also.” She shrugged. “I did not ask him to defend me. Besides, grand-mère, you know that I love to fuck.”

  “Aye, child,” was the answer, “but you must be careful here, else you are discovered, and your plans fail.”

  Chapter 12

  The new year of Our Lord, 1526, had begun. The snows of December showed no signs of abating as the cold January days passed. Nyssa had celebrated her third birthday on the last day of December. Though her temper showed no signs of easing, she had now completely accepted Blaze once more as her mother. Under her mother’s tutelage her stitchery had improved tremendously, and the little girl was extremely proud of her accomplishment.

  “I believe she will sew as well as Bliss and Blythe,” chuckled Blaze to Tony one evening as they sat before the fire in her dayroom. “It is very embarrassing to have such a small child outstrip you.”

  He laughed back at her, and reaching out, took her hand in his. “She imitates you, you know,” he told her. “She watches you very carefully, and then tries to mimic what you do. The way you stand, for instance, when you are giving the maids orders. I saw Nyssa set herself just like that the other day, and give orders to Polly.”

  “The little imp!” said Blaze, not knowing whether to be angry or whether to laugh.