Intrigued. Bertrice SmallЧитать онлайн книгу.

      Chapter 1

      “I hate Master Cromwell, and his pocky Roundheads!” Lady Autumn Leslie declared vehemently. “There is no fun in England or Scotland anymore, thanks to him.”

      “Autumn! Dammit! How many times have I warned you to mind your chattering tongue?” her brother, Charles Stuart, Duke of Lundy, said irritably.

      “Oh, Charlie, who is to hear me but the servants?” Autumn answered her elder brother pertly.

      “Not all the servants can be trusted these days,” the duke replied in soft tones. “Nothing is now as it was. This is not Glenkirk, where the loyalty is first to your father and only secondly to the state. The king will one day be back on his throne, but until then we must be discreet. Remember, sister, who my father was, and my uncle, King Charles, God assoil his soul. Remember that while I am the not-so-royal Stuart, I am a Stuart nonetheless. Cromwell and his ilk will never trust me, nor should they, but I must protect my family until this madness is lifted from the land, and my cousin, Charles II, returns to England to govern us in peace.”

      “But what are we to do until then?” Autumn demanded. “These Puritans are dreadful people, Charlie. They are joyless with their edicts. No dancing! No bowls upon the green! No Maying on May Day! No Christmas! Nothing that would bring a person pleasure, or happiness. And Scotland is, I fear, just as bad. Still, once I am back at Glenkirk it will be a little better, especially when the winter sets in, and no one can know what we do. Papa pays little heed to the Covenanters and their dolorous ways. When do you think I can go home?”

      The duke shook his head. “I do not know, Autumn. With Cousin Charles on Scotland’s throne now, and a battle brewing between him and Cromwell, I cannot honestly say when it will be safe for you to travel north. Are you not happy here at Queen’s Malvern with us?”

      “I love it here!” Autumn replied. “I always have, Charlie.”

      “Then what is it that makes you so restless?” he asked.

      “Charlie! I am going to be nineteen at the end of next month,” Autumn wailed. “And I have no betrothed, no husband, no man at all who takes my fancy. I am quite as bad if not worse than our sister Fortune. At least she had the opportunity to find a husband, but what chance have I amid all this civil strife? There is no court, and even family gatherings are mandated as to size now by the Parliament. How am I to find a husband before I am too old?”

      “Nineteen is hardly old,” he chuckled, reaching out to take her hand up to kiss it. “You are a beautiful girl, little sister, and one day the right man will come along to sweep you off your feet, steal your heart, and make Papa and all your brothers jealous.”

      “I wish I could be as certain of that as you, Charlie,” Autumn said. She sighed deeply. “Bess was still sixteen when you married her, and Rosamund was seventeen when she wed our brother Henry. I am old, Charlie! Eighteen going on nineteen, and not a suitor in sight, nor is there likely to be one. I hate Master Cromwell!”

      Charles Frederick Stuart laughed, unable to help himself. His baby sister was deliciously dramatic, and yet she did have a point. Theirs was hardly a fit society nowadays for a duke’s daughter to find a husband. There were men a-plenty who would have Autumn for her wealth and beauty, no matter her age; but it had always been his family’s policy to allow its daughters to wed for love. Certainly Autumn should have the same chance as their two elder sisters had had.

      “Mother will know what to do,” he told Autumn in an attempt to reassure her.

      “If I can ever get back to Glenkirk,” she replied gloomily.

      “The gossip is that there has been a battle in Scotland, and Parliament’s forces have won out over King Charles II’s army. Rumors, however, aren’t fact. Perhaps I shall go into Worcester later this week and see what I can learn,” the duke said.

      “Worcester? You are going into Worcester? When?” The young Duchess of Lundy came into the room with two of her children. “You must see if you can find us some thread, Charlie. We have not a bit and are at a loss to mend, or hem, or make Sabrina and her brothers new clothing. They are outgrowing everything. At least we have cloth, thanks to your frugal family, but without thread we are helpless.”

      Bess Stuart was a lovely woman with light brown hair filled with golden highlights and warm gray-blue eyes. The youngest daughter of the Earl of Welk, she and Charlie Stuart had fallen in love at first sight. She had just turned sixteen, and he at twenty-six was considered a rake and a rogue by those at the court who knew him. Still, his amber eyes had met Bess Lightbody’s sweet gaze, and his heart was immediately engaged. He began to play her most assiduous court.

      The Earl of Welk and his wife had been horrified that Charles Frederick Stuart, the late Prince Henry’s bastard offspring with the beautiful but notorious Jasmine Leslie—herself the dubious member of an infamous family—a young man openly accepted and beloved by the king and all his kin, despite his shameful birth, should seek to pay his addresses to their youngest daughter. They sent Bess home to Dorset, certain that would end the matter. They had underestimated their opponent.

      Bess had not been gone from court a week when she was recalled by royal command to be one of the queen’s maids-of-honor. The Earl of Welk sought to protect his daughter from the young Duke of Lundy’s insistent advances by seeking a suitable marital alliance with a thoroughly respectable family, preferably one with similar religious and political leanings. Upright, modest, prudent people by whom his daughter could be guided in order to become a dutiful and obedient wife. Again he did not take his adversary seriously enough.

      Learning from Bess of her father’s plans, Charlie had sought aid from his uncle, King Charles I. Understanding his nephew’s plight, the king had called the Earl and Countess of Welk into his presence.

      “My nephew, the Duke of Lundy, has told me that he wishes to wed your daughter Elizabeth,” the king began. “He has asked me to act for him in this matter. While your antecedents, my lord, hardly make your daughter a suitable match for Charlie, we are of a mind to allow it, for we love the lad right well. And he has never before asked a favor of us, unlike so many others who people our court. Bring your daughter to us tomorrow at this same hour. If she agrees to the match, we will permit it.” The king smiled one of his very rare smiles, then waved the Earl and Countess of Welk from his august presence.

      They backed away, bowing and curtysing, but once outside the king’s privy chamber the Earl of Welk gave vent to his anger. He sent his wife to the queen’s apartments to fetch their daughter and bring her to their small London house, where he would speak with her. Bess was not going to marry that bastard, he vowed silently to himself. And the king’s inference that the Lightbody blood was not the equal of a bastard, royal or no, infuriated him.

      When the women finally joined him, he told his daughter of their audience with the king. Then he said, “But you will not wed him, Bess! You will tell the king you do not want to marry his nephew. Do you understand me?”

      “I will say no such thing, my lord,” Bess answered. “I love Charlie, and he loves me. I will tell the king, aye, I will have his nephew for my husband, and gladly!”

      “You will not!” the Earl of Welk shouted at his daughter.