This Heart of Mine by Bertrice Small Read Free Book Online Page B

would be too late. She needed a powerful protector, and there was none more powerful than England’s own queen. She smiled at herself, a grin of smug satisfaction.
    “Ah, I knew that you were planning some mischief,” Lord Blackthorn said as he reentered the room.
    “You imagine it, my lord,” came her quick denial.
    “Nay, Velvet lass, I do not imagine it. I hope you do not think to appeal to the queen in this matter of your marriage. Elizabeth Tudor is a firm believer in parental authority and the keeping of contracts.” He looked closely at her, but Velvet’s face was devoid of expression.
    “John, you must think me appallingly ill-bred to believe that I should attempt to involve Her Majesty in a family matter,” Velvet said tartly. “I have no intention of discussing my marriage with the queen. I came to Blackthorn today to help Deirdre if I could; and, if I may remind you, my sister promised me months ago that I could come to see the queen when she stopped here. If you think I seek to cause some sort of scandal, however, then I shall tell Deirdre that I have a headache and go home to Queen’s Malvern.”
    Lord Blackthorn could not rid himself of the feeling that his young sister-in-law had some scheme in mind, but Velvet was not a liar, and if she said she would not discuss her marriage with the queen then he believed her.
    “Nay, lass, I want you to stay. I simply don’t want to find myself in the middle of a family argument. I don’t want to endanger my position with your parents. You know that they worried at first that I was not right for Deirdre.”
    Velvet felt a small twinge of guilt at his words. Her family had come to Queen’s Malvern when she was barely two years of age. Deirdre had been eight then, and John Blakeley twenty-eight. His first wife was still living and his life was a misery. Maria Blakeley was totally mad, and had been since the stillbirth of her only child ten months after her marriage. For the past eight years, she had been confined to her apartments where she raved and wept but showed no signs of either recovering or dying.
    At first Lord Blackthorn was drawn to Deirdre because the child his wife had miscarried was a girl and would have been Deirdre’s age. Deirdre’s own life had been a rather topsy-turvy one, and though it had finally become settled, she who had been fatherless for most of her life suddenly discovered that she now had two father figures. Adam de Marisco was a loving stepfather, but he was unable to conceal that Velvet, his only child, was the light of his life. Had John Blakeley not been there for Deirdre, her life would have been a sadder one. When his love turned from paternal to passionate, and her love grew from a child’s to a woman’s, neither was ever sure.
    Maria Blakeley escaped from her captivity and drowned herself in the estate lake at the priory when Deirdre was thirteen. A year and a day later, Lord Blackthorn asked Deirdre to be his wife and was joyously accepted by her.
    Deirdre’s mother and stepfather, however, were not pleased, and at first refused their permission. They felt John Blakeley was far too old for Deirdre Burke. Lord Blackthorn pleaded desperately, for he was a man in love. Deirdre pined away as more suitable suitors were paraded before her, only to be weepingly rejected. In the end the lovers’ persistence won out, and they were married four months after the bride’s sixteenth birthday. For a time afterwards Skye and Adam de Marisco worried that Deirdre might not be happy. Only just before they had sailed had they become convinced that John Blakeley was the perfect man for the gentle Deirdre.
    “I swear to you, John, that I shall cause you no trouble,” Velvet promised him now.
    “Go along then, lass, and see to your sister. She’s too excited to sleep, but she’s lying down.”
    With great control, Velvet walked calmly from the room, then fled up the staircase to Deirdre’s apartments. To her great relief, her