A Dangerous Inheritance

His eyes are saying far more than his lips. I read in them admiration and undisguised interest.

‘It is a pleasure to see you again, my lord,’ I say formally.

‘A pleasure for me too, indeed,’ he responds, his smile as dazzling as the sunlight. ‘Shall we take a turn around the gardens? If you are not too warm, that is.’

I assent readily, and as we traverse the neat gravelled paths, his dog bounding joyously around us on the leash, and my silky darlings nestling in my arms, we make the kind of conversation expected in polite circles. Later, Lord Edward escorts me back to the house to visit his sister. We find Jane fully dressed and much amended.

‘I am joining you all for supper this evening!’ she informs us. ‘Just try and stop me!’

A week has passed since then, and Jane is almost her old self again. We have fallen to our usual laughing and giggling, and she takes great pleasure in showing me over the house and its many nooks and cra

Edward – or Ned, as Jane calls him – is displaying more than a brotherly interest in me. There comes a hot August day when, walking to the gardens with my dogs and my lute, I see someone ahead, waiting for me. It is Ned, standing there in a fine lawn shirt and slashed and padded buff-coloured breeches, holding his bow and arrows; he has been practising at the butts. His shirt is open at the neck, and the sight of a faint dusting of black hairs and the sheen of sweat on his ta

‘Shall we walk down to the lake?’ he asks, offering me his arm. We converse lightly of songs we both know, and mutual acquaintances, but there is something more subtle going on as well. Amidst the mulberry trees, the heady scent of the rose bushes and the beds bright with gillyflowers drowsing in the golden afternoon sun, we manage to convey, by smiles that promise much, the touch of our hands as he guides me down a pretty flight of marble steps, and the language of our eyes, that we like each other very much.

Seated on a stone bench by the rippling, sparkling water, we tell each other our life stories. Ned already knows something of mine, and I am touched by his sensitivity in skirting over the tragedies that have blighted my family. He says nothing of his broken betrothal to Jane, or what came after. But he does ask about my marriage.

‘You were wed to Lord Herbert,’ he says. It is a statement, not a question.

‘Yes,’ I say, remembering Harry’s sweet smile and the curly hair through which I once loved to run my eager fingers, and marvelling yet again that conjuring up these images no longer causes me a pang, even though they are reminders of what is missing from my life. ‘But our marriage was dissolved.’

‘So I heard. Did you love him?’

The question is unexpected; but I am aware that it matters to Ned.

‘Yes, very much,’ I say. ‘But that was a long time ago.’ Even now, I feel disloyal saying those words.

Ned looks at me with compassion. ‘That must have been a terrible time for you,’ he says gently.

‘It was. I had lost my sister and my father, and then I lost the husband I loved. I was thirteen, and did not know how to cope. Truly, I thought I might drown in grief.’ Suddenly tears are welling in my eyes, and I bend my head so that he shall not see.

Ned’s hand – ta

‘I understand perfectly,’ he answers, his own voice a little unsteady. ‘My father died on the block. It’s not just losing them that grieves you, but the ma

‘I too,’ I chime in with feeling, turning my hand to clasp his, as I perceive the pain in his eyes.

‘It’s the loss of family standing that follows,’ he goes on. ‘Feeling as if you are somehow unclean because your father was branded a traitor. Being shu

‘I was a wife but no wife,’ I add bitterly. ‘I was kept from the husband I loved. I paid a heavy price for the crimes of others.’

Ned stands up. ‘We should not be so mournful, Katherine. Come! Let me show you something cheerful.’ He pulls me to my feet and leads me back through the trees to a pretty knot garden enclosed by fragrant hedges of lavender, hyssop, marjoram and thyme.

‘Isn’t it a little paradise?’ he asks, as we stroll arm in arm between the beds of marigolds and violets, as naturally as if we had known each other all our lives. ‘It is my favourite place on earth. I spend a lot of time here.’ We stop to admire the riot of glorious colours and sniff the fragrant scents of Dame Nature at her most bountiful. Our dogs – they are friends now – gambol in the sun.

‘Forgive me if I have said too much,’ I say, feeling as if I have overstepped all kinds of bounds. ‘It’s just that we share a sad history, and you understand how I feel, and have been so kind as to listen.’

‘And will be kinder still, if I am let,’ Ned murmurs, his beautiful eyes holding mine. He stoops, plucks a marigold and presents it to me with a courtly bow. His gaze becomes more intent.

‘You are so very beautiful,’ he breathes. ‘You looked to me like a heavenly vision coming towards me along the yew walk that day. They told me you had grown into a charming young lady, and they did not lie. But you are so much more than that, my dear Katherine – if I may …’

My heart has begun to beat very fast. I want him – not in the desperate and naïve way I wanted Harry, but as an older and wiser young woman who knows that this man is the one. And so it seems the most natural thing in the world to go into his arms in the healing peace of his magical garden.

It seems that our idyll will last for ever. My sweet Ned ca

Thrown together by circumstance, we snatch every opportunity to enjoy our freedom. With Jane often in tow, we spend long hours riding around the estate and the deer park where once King Harry hunted buck and hare with A

We might be ru