Bess sat up. “Oh! I had quite forgot…What exactly are the arrangements?” John Monterey was an old friend from Harry’s youth. At least, not exactly a friend, for John had been the wealthy and aristocratic heir of a great family and Latimar—in those days—had been spectacularly poor and disadvantaged apart from the interest and patronage of the young King Henry.
The Earl of Monterey had been blessed with two sons, Ralph and Thomas. Both, curiously, had been suitors for Anne, Latimar’s daughter’s hand, but that had come to nothing once she fell in love with Jack Hamilton. Thomas had been killed by an outbreak of plague when he was but five and twenty, Ralph had married and produced a daughter, before he, too, was dead from a duellist’s bullet. John had taken his little granddaughter to live with him at his vast estate near the capital called Abbey Hall. A year ago, knowing himself too old to present the girl in the way she should be introduced to the world, given her heritage and wealth, John had applied to Harry and Bess Latimar. They had agreed that they would use their influence with the Queen to further the girl’s career. And considerable it was, as Monterey had known. For the Latimars had been beloved of all the Tudors—Henry, Edward, Mary and Elizabeth, as well as their consorts. So it had been decided; Kat—Katherine Monterey—would be taken under the Latimar wing in June of the coming year.
“Just that we have the girl here for an extended visit, to live as part of the family and in due course take her to court. I must visit John to finalise everything…”
Bess stood now and put an arm about her husband. They leaned against each other at the hearth; lover-like, they smiled and turned about to look at the room. On their right on the wall, facing the window, there was a portrait of a man in grey standing behind a table on which lay a hand of playing cards. It was Harry’s likeness in the picture, and the cards displayed the hand with which he had won the house he had now been master of for almost half a century. When his older children had been toddlers he had, thrown off course during an estrangement from Bess, been forced to offer his Maiden Court to the moneylenders to cover staggering gambling debts. Henry Tudor had redeemed the note, gifted it to Bess and she had contrived a card game between her husband and herself whereby she had most conveniently lost it back to him.
Seeing Harry’s eyes on the picture now, Bess said soothingly, “Now don’t worry about Hal. He is a little wild, I’ll agree, but his heart is right. Of course I would be happier if he spent more time at home—he does run with a very sophisticated crowd.” Hal’s friends at the royal court were of the slightly raffish society Queen Elizabeth liked to surround herself with. All young, all wealthy, good looking and talented in one way or another, but without any apparent purpose in their lives. Elizabeth, although middle-aged now, encouraged them in their extravagances, frequently angering her more worthy friends and advisors.
Harry began to extinguish the candles. He grunted. He loved his children, and theirs, but Bess he loved most of all. If she wanted a family party, she should have it. If she wanted to think her younger son was not a young wastrel but a goodhearted gentleman, then let her think so. Right now Harry wanted the comfort of his feather bed and the further comfort of his wife’s fond arms about him. “I am sure you are right, you usually are. But no more talk of him or any of our brood just now. Let us get to bed.”
At the moment his parents were climbing the stairs of Maiden Court, Hal Latimar was sitting in on the preliminary stages of a card game likely to last the night and perhaps continue into the next day. The Queen and the older members of her retinue had retired. Hal had danced for a while in the great chamber, drunk for a while at the refreshment tables, and then been lured to Oxford’s apartments for a game. He looked around at the others who played this cool spring night. Ned Oxford, of course, slightly the worse for wear because he had a weak head for liquor and had indulged freely earlier. The ladies Ruthwen and Maidstone; both beautiful and superbly dressed, but past their first youth and with a reputation in common for being light as regards morals: Hal was familiar with these three. Also taking part in the proceedings was Piers Roxburgh—slim, dark, wryly witty and inclined to pick a fight if events did not go his way—and a new addition to the court, Philip Sidney, a soldier poet who was possessed of a fine and great name and had recently added lustre to it by being appointed to the Queen’s parliament. Roxburgh was Hal’s best friend, Sidney he hardly knew at all.
The play began and surreptitiously Hal yawned behind his hand. There would be no surprises tonight, he thought, and no excitement either. After a half-dozen hands, Sidney, on his left, asked quietly, “How do you do it?”
“What?” enquired Hal, tossing down a card and picking up his winnings.
“Manipulate the play.”
Hal’s fine blue eyes narrowed. “You accuse me of cheating, sir?”
Philip made a deprecatory gesture. “No, indeed! ’Twas in the nature of an interested enquiry. For instance, I see you have managed it so your friend, Roxburgh, has won a goodly sum, that Oxford and the two ladies have lost consistently, and I have broken even, as it were. I am simply curious to know how you do it.”
Hal looked attentively at his neighbour. “If you have noticed my manoeuvres, I am obviously not as adept as I thought I was.”
“Oh, but you are! I only…noticed because it is the curse of any writer to be more observant than his fellows. I have also noticed you are bored by such skill, and so might ask you instead: why do you do it?”
Hal half smiled. “Why? Well, because Piers is out of funds at present and needs a little revenue. Ned has plenty of cash and can afford to lose. Meg Ruthwen and Jane Maidstone have elderly husbands tucked away in their rural mansions and—I can only assume—pay their ladies well to keep away. And you—you I do not know at all, so must not decide financial matters for.”
There was now a break in play. Servants refilled the wine jugs, rebuilt the fire and those around the table rose to stretch their legs. Philip Sidney followed Hal to the window which he had opened to reveal the thick dark. “You are George Latimar’s brother, are you not?”
Hal sat on the window seat, the breeze through the opening lifting his blond hair from the nape of his neck. “I am,” he agreed.
“I know George,” Philip said, sitting down himself. “You’re not in the least like him.”
“I know,” Hal said equably. “He is better than me in every way.”
“He is a lot older than you.”
“I was an afterthought. A Benjamin sent to try my parents in their twilight years.” Hal was answering almost automatically. For years he had been compared to his intellectual and politically adept brother. Or his pretty and talented sister. Or his parents, who both held such a special place in the circles he moved in. When he had been younger he had fought against such comparisons, but to no avail—his very name assured him of a place in the important scheme of things. It also denied him the chance to achieve such a place on his own merits. He was too intelligent not to have reasoned long ago that one did not strive for what was freely given. So now he was frankly bored by the kind of probing any newcomer to court subjected him to.
“I’ve met your father, too, and your sister Anne,” Philip continued.
“Have you made a study of the Latimar family?” enquired Hal ironically.
“Perhaps I have. I am interested in all things truly English.”
“Are we truly English? Is there such a race? Made up as we are of so much invaders’ blood?”
“So you are an historian!” Philip said delightedly. “I knew no Latimar could be merely a lighthearted courtier concerned only with trivia.”
Hal groaned inwardly. Here it was again. The assumption that no Latimar could be an average human being. He was truly bored with it. He attempted to put an end to this particular interrogation. “I am no historian. I take back what I just said—yes, I am English and wish no other title.”
From her place by the fire, Jane Maidstone had fixed her eyes full