right, Merlyn thought. The little girl favored her father, and she was nobody’s idea of beautiful. God bless her, she was gangly and thin and nervous, and those huge eyes swallowed her face. Probably when she grew up, she’d surprise everybody by being a beauty, though. Often it was the ugly ducklings who made the most beautiful swans—simply by taking advantage of what they had and making the most of it.
“Good morning,” Merlyn said brightly, and smiled.
Amanda smiled, too. It was hard not to, when their visitor had such a contagiously sunny disposition.
“Good morning, Miss Merlyn,” she said. “Good morning, Grandmama.”
“Have you had breakfast?” Lila asked the child.
“No, ma’am,” Amanda murmured. She sat down on the glider, her hands folded on her skirt, her long hair in neat pigtails, her blouse spotless.
“Why not?” Lila prodded.
“I didn’t like to ask Mrs. Simms to fix it just for me,” Amanda said shyly.
“Nonsense,” Lila said. “Tilly doesn’t mind. And, Amanda, it isn’t as if we don’t pay her. Now go and ask for what you want.”
“But I’m not hungry,” the child insisted.
Lila sighed heavily. “Oh, Amanda, you’re just skin and bones.”
“She certainly is,” Cameron boomed, joining them. His dark, unsmiling eyes studied his daughter’s thinness. “Get in the house and eat,” he said curtly.
“Yes, Father,” Amanda said in a subdued tone. She got up without raising her eyes and went back into the house.
“My, what a way you have with children, Mr. Thorpe,” Merlyn said sweetly. “All the diplomacy of a rocket launcher, in fact!”
“Shut up,” he told her coldly, his dark eyes daring her to make another statement.
She got to her feet “Look here,” she said, “you may order Amanda around, but I’m a big girl. I’m here to work, not to…”
“Then why don’t you work, Miss Forrest, and leave my daughter’s upbringing to me?” he asked coolly.
“Mr. Thorpe…!” she persisted.
“Your duties include research, I believe, Miss Forrest, not child psychology?” Cameron went on, not giving his mother a chance to interfere.
Merlyn’s green eyes glittered at him. “My father used to be just like you,” she said angrily. “All work, all ice. I grew up on the mercy of neighbors. I wonder how you’re going to feel when Amanda is old enough to leave home, and if she’ll say the same things to you that I said to my father?”
He gave her one last glare before he turned and went back into the house, slamming the door behind him.
“Oh, my,” Lila murmured.
“Sorry,” Merlyn grumbled as she sat back down. “He makes me so mad! I did have a lot of terrible things to say to my father at one time. We’re good friends now, but we weren’t always. He and your son would get along just fine.”
“Yes, well, I’m sorry about all this,” Lila said. “He isn’t the most relaxing person to work around, even if he is my son.”
“I had no right to say those things to him,” Merlyn said after a minute, cooler now. “I’ll apologize, if you like.”
“And make him even more smug than he already is?” Lila exclaimed. “You will not!”
Merlyn laughed. “All right, then.”
Amanda came back minutes later, looking puzzled yet happy. “Daddy sat with me while I had breakfast,” she said. “He hasn’t done that in a long time. He even talked to me.”
Merlyn and Lila exchanged shocked, faintly amused glances before they got back to work.
Chapter Three
Lila scribbled on a yellow legal pad and Amanda played quietly with a doll, while Merlyn dug into several volumes of information on the Tudors. But her mind was wandering, tugged away unwillingly by the conversation she’d had with Cameron earlier.
My, my, wouldn’t Cameron Thorpe’s eyes bulge if he could see her as she really was? She pursed her lips and fantasized about coming down the staircase of her father’s town house in her white Bill Blass original with her blue fox boa draped lovingly over her bare shoulders, her hair in a high coiffure with a diamond tiara, and her mother’s diamond necklace and earrings gracing her milky complexion.…
She shook herself. Why destroy his illusions? Let him think what he liked.
“You said the history of the English Kings had always fascinated you. Why?” Lila asked, interrupting Merlyn’s mental wanderings.
She almost told the older woman the truth—that her own family history could be traced back to the time of the Plantagenets and Tudors. But that would be giving away far too much.
“Actually, I had a cousin who was British,” she said. Well, it was the truth.
“One you had a crush on?” Lila pursued.
Merlyn pursed her lips and smiled, thinking about that cousin—Richard the Lion-Hearted—and the dashing picture he made in fact and fiction. “You might say that,” she agreed.
“You must tell me all about him one day.” Lila sighed as she studied her notes. “This is going to be quite a feat when I really get started. I’ve only just roughed out the main characters. Merlyn, I’m fascinated by Uncle Jasper.”
“The one who was responsible for Henry VII’s accession to the throne?” Merlyn laughed delightedly. “I’m finding great material on him. During the War of the Roses, he took his brother’s widow, Margaret Beaumont, to his own castle at Pembroke and provided for her while she gave birth to his nephew Henry, who was to become Henry VII—father of Henry VIII. Jasper lost his fortune in the War of the Roses, conducted something of a commando campaign against the Yorks and eventually rescued Henry Tudor from them. Henry, you see, was the last surviving male of the Lancastrian line. Their great enemies were the Yorks. Those were the two factions that fought the War of the Roses.
“But to get back to Jasper, he and Henry spent quite a while imprisoned in Brittany until the death of Edward IV, whose sons were captured by Richard III—remember him? Anyway, a faction arose to support Henry’s bid for the throne, with the help of some political maneuvering by his mother, Margaret Beaumont. Uncle Jasper helped to raise an army, which marched finally into battle against Richard III. Richard was killed after a valiant defense, and Henry married Edward IV’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, uniting the Lancasters and Yorks and ending the War of the Roses.”
Lila caught her breath. “You do have it down pat, don’t you?”
“Not nearly as well as I’d like to,” Merlyn confessed. “There are a lot of questions about
