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 on him. She had been chasing him for a full month now and always seemed to be at any gathering he was part of. She was attractive and no shrinking virgin, but Hal had resisted her thus far. Not because he was in the habit of refusing such open invitation but because…why? Because for some time lately he had had the strangest feeling. That there was something tremendous coming right to him out of the unknown. If asked, he would have found it impossible to explain this feeling, but it was affecting his every action at the moment. He felt strongly that a dalliance with Jane Maidstone, however pleasant, would distract and divert whatever it was. All nonsense of course! But so…insistent. Yesterday, he had begged leave to be absent from the court and taken a wild, half-broken horse from the stables and ridden out into the wind on an impulse to rid himself of the unaccountable feeling.
Instead of outrunning it, it had stayed with him for every league. He knew his family had a curious tradition of being “fey”. His mother, a reluctant inheritor of this gift, believed it had entered the Latimar family through her father’s Celtic mother, who had come out of Ireland to wed her father. One of each succeeding generation had had the uncanny facility to see or feel that which was denied ordinary mortals. Pausing to water his unruly horse yesterday, Hal had been glad to remember that his brother George carried the honours in this particular field. And thank God for that! George was a balanced personality, well able to deal with such unfathomable matters. He, himself, Hal felt would be the reverse. All the same, the extraordinary premonition of stirring events to come stayed with him.
These thoughts had taken no more than a fleeting second in real time and Philip was smiling and replying. “No sensible man would want other than to hear you say that. Latimars have been a part of the fabric of the English royal court for so long, have they not?”
Hal glanced over his shoulder into the black night. The clouds were low, the moon obscured and no star visible. But, between the sheltering trees, he could just make out the glitter of the Thames. “Taking no official status…” Philip was pursuing his train of thought “…but always significant in the life of the reigning monarch. A friend to them. It is quite a heritage for you, is it not?”
Hal moved uneasily. He had nothing against the man sitting next him; he was as agreeable and charming as any he had met, and presumably was just passing the night in conversation. He could not possibly know how tired Hal was of hearing of his great heritage. How each time he had this discussion of old times, dead times—dead men and women—he longed to shout: But I am not just a Latimar! I am Henry Francis Latimar, quite another soul altogether from my father, my brother and any other member of my family. I am a person in my own right and capable of writing my own message in history’s shifting sands. But was he? These endless comparisons—how they took the heart from a man. Tonight Philip’s words scraped a painful place on his soul. Once he had heard his brother say: What happens has been decided long ago. We may dispute it, we may try to change it, but…it will happen just the same. Terrible notion! Hal had thought then, for why trouble to rise each morning and confront the day?
He was silent for so long that Philip glanced sideways in consternation. “Have I offended you?” he asked. “It was not my intention.”
Hal got up abruptly, mentally shaking off old ghosts. The group in the room was now reseated at the table. “Not at all, my dear fellow. Shall we rejoin the others?”
“I think not. I am a country cousin, you know, and used to early nights.” Philip Sidney was anxious not to have alienated young Latimar, for he thought him an engaging young man. Attractive, of course, with his stunning fair looks, and witty tongue, but interesting, too. What had he read in the handsome face of his companion a few moments before? he wondered. As a student of human nature, as went with a poetic soul, Philip would have given much to know which particular nerve he had touched with his desultory comments. That flash of puzzlement and disillusion sat ill upon a boy who so obviously had everything. For, if anyone in this green realm could be said to have everything, surely Hal Latimar aspired to that title? However…Philip bowed and walked away.
Hal watched him go. Faces came and went at court, all of them mildly intriguing—for a while. He shrugged. Sidney was probably more talented and worthy than many, but—sooner or later—the changing pattern of any of the royal residences precluded fast friendships. Except for Piers Roxburgh. Hal’s eyes rested affectionately on the dark face opposite. He and Piers had served their pageship together: two grubby little boys in the teeming world of Petrie Castle, where Hal had been sent in the Latimar tradition to learn the knightly arts and courtly skills. At seven years old, Hal, already taller than average, blond and handsome and with the solid weight of an estate behind him, plus the knowledge that whatever situation he found himself in he excelled, had greatly enjoyed himself. Not so poor Piers, who had been born the illegitimate son of the heir to a proud family. His father was married to a barren wife and Piers had been the fruit of a union with one of the servants in the family castle home. Piers had never known his mother, had only met his father twice, was singularly poor and completely unacknowledged. A bitter inheritance indeed for anyone with his proud blood.
It was a mysterious attraction—that between golden Hal and sullen Piers, but curiously enduring. So much so that, when Hal received his summons to Maiden Court to celebrate his parents’ anniversary, he naturally took his best friend with him.
Chapter Two
Maiden Court, the family home of the Latimar family, was ablaze with light in the dusk of the evening which saw the first night of the three-day celebrations planned for Bess and Harry’s long marriage. It was a beautiful place, without the
