Chapter Four
On her way back to the manor Rachel thought, Hal Latimar! He had said last night, “Don’t tell my mother”, yet he had done so himself at the first opportunity and caused upset to that kind woman and—what?—to herself. Yesterevening she had received kindness and sympathy from Bess; for the first time since landing on England’s cold coast she had felt that someone actually cared. Now it was all spoiled. Rachel entered the hall, raging with the injustice of the situation. Whatever her grandmother had done was nothing to do with her, it had been done and decided before she was born. Tears filled her eyes.
“Why, whatever is wrong?” Hal was standing just inside the door.
“You should know!” Rachel returned furiously. Judith, George’s wife, joined them, looking into the trug at the roses.
“Why, you did not do so well. Where is my mother-in-law?”
“Still in the gardens,” Rachel said indistinctly. “She no longer wished me to help her.” Judith looked out.
“I’ll go and help her. Find a receptacle for those, will you, Rachel?”
Rachel brushed past Hal. Yes, she would find a receptacle. That she could so, for that was her function—to be nothing more than a servant arranging flowers. Hal followed her.
“What do you mean, I should know?” he asked her at the kitchen door.
“Please stand aside. I must find a…receptacle.”
“My lady mother does not keep her flower bowls and such in the kitchen, but in a cupboard in the parlour. I will show you.”
Grimly she followed him to the parlour and selected a bronze bowl from those he showed her. Hal called for a maid and asked her to fill it with water. Rachel still held the basket gripped in her two hands. He removed it and set it on the floor.
“Now, what is this all about? Why are you so upset?” he asked again.
“You told your lady mother about what we talked of last night,” she accused him.
“I did not. I have just this moment come in from the stables and have not seen her yet this day. Besides—what if I had? Why should it matter so to you?”
“Why?” Rachel turned her eyes, tearful and brilliant, on him. “Because she was so kind to me last night and now looks upon me with disfavour. Extreme disfavour.”
Through the open door Hal could hear Katherine’s distinctive voice and Piers Roxburgh’s deeper tones. He had no time to waste with this girl’s fancies. Impatiently he said, “Well, if you walk about life looking as if you expected it to take a stick to your back, you can be sure it will. The real world is not…kind, or…favourable, Rachel. One must hold one’s head high and learn to keep one’s pride.”
Rachel was outraged. “I beg your pardon? I hardly think you are the best judge of that!”
Hal considered her for a moment in silence, then said slowly, “Why? Because you perhaps think, as so many do: there goes Hal Latimar—good looks, good breeding, wealth, competent skills in all the courtly arts and a proud ancestry? Fortunate man! But, my dear girl, where I have chosen to make my way there are dozens better bred, scores better heeled, and hundreds more comely. The one advantage I have over any of them is my heritage of the Tudor monarchs’ penchant for Latimars. And that is a card I would disdain to lay.” There was a heartbeat’s pause in which she, in turn, considered him, guessing this was a side of the golden Latimar boy he rarely exposed. It was interesting, and so was his first comment to her.
“Do I really look as you described?”
“Indeed you do. When you entered the hall last night you looked for all the world as if you expected to be banished with all speed to the servants’ quarters.”
The unshed tears were still present in her eyes. She blinked them away. “Is that so surprising?” she asked with a catch in her voice. “It is hard to be me, you know. With no one do I come first now. Or even second or third.”
“Yes, well,” he said uncomfortably, “I can see it must be difficult to spend so much of your time with someone so incomparably beautiful and talented as your cousin.”
That was not what she had meant at all! Annoyed, she retorted, “My mother was ten times more lovely and talented, and she treated those who served her with the same respect they granted her.”
“I am sure you intend no criticism,” he said coldly. “I assume you have some gratitude towards the Lady Katherine,” he said the name with reverence, “for welcoming you into her home and making you her friend.”
“We are not friends—” Rachel bit back her next words which would have been bitterly lacking in “gratitude”. Many times in the last year she had thought, Some keep a dog they can kick when the mood takes them, Katherine keeps me for this purpose. There was a rustle of silk at the door and Katherine herself appeared in the doorway. She wore a gown of amber satin, almost an exact match for her eyes, and flashing diamonds at her throat and in her ears. Inappropriate, Rachel thought, for a midday meal where children would be present, but Katherine often displayed poor taste in an area where any true lady would have been adept.
“Hal; so this is where you are hiding yourself,” Katherine said in her attractively husky voice. She moved aside to allow the maid to bring in the bowl and place it on the table, then picked up the basket of roses and began to transfer them. “Mmm, how sweetly they smell.” Rachel and Hal watched the slender white hands deal with the defenceless blooms with differing thoughts. Every movement she makes is graceful, Hal thought. Every situation is turned to her advantage, Rachel thought.
“Now, where had you thought to put these?” Katherine turned to Rachel. Having come upon her cousin and an attractive young man in intimate conversation, she now sought to put Rachel firmly back into her place.
“I will take them through to the hall,” Rachel said resignedly. She picked up the heavy bowl. Piers, who had come in unobserved, sprang forward and took it from her.
“Allow me, my lady, this is much too heavy for you. Show me where you would like it placed.”
When the two had gone, Katherine laughed and said ruefully, “Now Piers will think me unkind. Actually, Rachel often makes me feel in that unhappy state. And yet I am sure I do my very best to please her.”
“She is a prickly girl,” he agreed.
“When she arrived, last year, she was quite haughty,” Katherine said, sighing. “I remember my grandfather remarking that she behaved as one might expect visiting royalty to do.”
A faint warning bell sounded in Hal’s head. He had met the Earl only a few times some years ago, but thought it a strange observation for the man he remembered to make. “It is hard to believe the Lady Rachel could ever have felt secure enough to behave so,” he said thoughtfully.
Katherine, aware she had made a mistake, recouped it deftly. “Ah, well, I suppose her grandmother made her feel like a little princess—Rachel’s parents died many years ago and there were no other children. Brothers and sisters make a difference, I should imagine. As you will know, I think.”