Page 113 of His Forsaken Bride

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It was perhaps not surprising that Fen was distracted at supper. Oswald did not appear until the table was laid, and he only had chance to kiss her cheek briefly before they were all seated and the food dished up. The meal was game pie, stewed leeks and onions which none of the children, including Cuthbert seemed to like. Meg pushed hers around her bowl until the gravy dripped over the side and Lily shed a tear when her father told her sternly to eat it. Fen noticed with interest that he undermined this almost immediately by setting her on his lap and sending Gertie down to the kitchen to fetch bread and cheese for them instead.

“The girls are tired,” said Linnet apologetically. “They’ve had a long day today.” Little Archie was being tended to by Nan over by the fire and was contented with his lot for once.

“How did it go with the Queen?” asked Fen.

“Oh, she was very gracious with them,” said Linnet, lowering her voice. “Only, it is a little tedious for small children to sit still for so long.”

Fen nodded, she could well believe it.

“Queen Armenal did ask me several questions pertaining to you, Fenella,” her sister-in-law told her complacently.

Fen nearly dropped her spoon. “She did?” She darted a look over at her husband, but he was listening intently to something Mason was telling him.

“You have not spent much time in her company it seems?” said Linnet, looking puzzled. “I had thought- what with Oswald’s position at court…” she broke off awkwardly.

“Oswald does want me to try to ingratiate myself with the Queen,” admitted Fen. “Alas, I have not managed to impress her overmuch so far.”

Linnet seemed to relax a little at her words. “But you would like to,” she said with visible relief. “That is the important thing.”

Fen nodded. “At first, I did not expect to spend much time at court,” she confessed. “My husband told me that I would find little change in my day-to-day life.”

Linnet looked startled at this. “I do not quite follow?”

“As I would be going back to Sitchmarsh,” she explained. “Where I’m from, and where Vawdrey Keep is situated.”

“Oh, I see,” said Linnet, still not looking convinced. “I have never journeyed there, but from things Mason has said, I understand it is in some considerable state of disrepair.”

“Yes,” agreed Fen. “And Oswald now seems to have some reservations about its suitability for his seat in the country.”

“I have heard him say, that he meant to pull it to the ground and rebuild,” murmured Linnet, glancing at the three brothers. “But I have never repeated that, as I do not know how everyone would react to so radical a course of action.”

“He has never discussed such plans with me,” said Fen truthfully. Her eye rested a moment on her husband who appeared to be listening to a question from one of his nieces.

“Perhaps it was just a passing thought,” suggested Linnet.

“Perhaps,” muttered Fen, dropping her gaze as he looked up to find her watching him.

“I was impressed,” said Linnet in a sudden change of subject “To see how much you have drawn the little Martindale out of her shell. I have never seen her look so animated. Or speak so much.”

Fen nodded, but before she could make a reply, a trencher of bread and cheese clattered down on the table before them. The children cheered, and plates were hastily shoved away as the loaf was torn into.

“More pie for me,” said Roland, happily scraping the contents from the abandoned plates onto his own.

The girls were yawning, long before a cake covered in a layer of nuts was brought in for the after-dinner course. Linnet disappeared briefly while they were put to bed, but by the time Fenella had cut slices for the adults she had reappeared, and the two of them retired to the window-seat together to eat theirs whilst the Vawdrey males remained around the table.

“Let us leave them to it,” suggested Linnet. “Whilst we have a cosy chat.”

Fen plumped a cushion and leant back. In truth, she had not much appetite for the cake, but she was keen to elicit some advice from Linnet, as to moving in royal circles.

She soon found that it was not about court that Linnet wished to converse, but surprisingly, about their father-in-law and the promises he had wrung from her on his death bed.

“I have been so worried,” confessed Linnet. “For when someone is on their death-bed, you do not feel you have the right to deny them what they ask of you, however unreasonable. And poor Father was so very insistent about Oswald, though he was rambling at one point and I found it quite hard to follow. It seemed he considered him to be quite promised to someone, but when I asked Mason, he said Father had promised Oswald in marriage to dozens of girls over the years, so I was quite stumped.”

Something stung Fenella into speaking. “He meant his first betrothal. That is the one Baron Vawdrey thought was still valid. The one agreed with my father, Sir Jeoffrey Bernard.”

Linnet’s eyes widened, and she sat bolt upright. “Yes!” she said. “Bernard! That was the name he spoke of! I had forgotten it until now. Wait! Do not tell me that you are ‘the little Bernard girl’, of whom he spoke?”