A Dangerous Inheritance Read Online Free PDF Page A

have put the wrong leaves in the salad.
    It is now evening, and many of the guests take their leave, some of them a touch unsteady on their feet as they wobble onto their waiting barges. I see their early departure as ominous, for usually at weddings the company stays to see the bride and groom put to bed, but Harry seems unbothered and I push the thought aside. And anyway, the festivities are continuing, as my parents invite their new kinsfolk to a private banquet. Harry squeezes my hand as he leads me to the table; already there is a sense of togetherness between us. I am in no doubt that he likes me as much as I like him.
    Guilford is looking a little better now—well enough to guzzle the delicious sweetmeats provided—and the Duchess of Northumberland is disposed to be gracious about the shortcomings of our cook. My lady the Countess of Pembroke is full of smiles for me, her new daughter-in-law, and talks of dogs and horses and the happy life I will lead with my new family at Wilton Abbey, the Herberts’ country residence in Wiltshire; and the earl adds a kind word here and there, telling me how comfortable and welcome I will be there.
    “But tonight you will lodge with us at our town house, Baynard’s Castle,” he says. “I hear that the Lady Jane is to return home to Suffolk House with your parents.”
    That sounds a little strange. Jane is to return home, while I am to go to my husband’s house?
    “What of Lord Guilford, sir?” I ask.
    “He too is to return to his parents.”
    “I see,” I say, but in truth I do not. And I am not much enlightened later, when I meet Jane coming out of the stool chamber.
    “I am so glad to see you, Kat,” she says, looking a lot happier than she had been earlier. “I have such good news. I am not to bed withGuilford for the present. I can go back home to my studies, at least for a while!”
    “But why?” I ask. This news may have pleased her, but it dismays me.
    “I do not know, and I do not care. They are just using us. They made these marriages for their own benefit and profit, not ours. Are you to come home too?”
    “No!” I say, more sharply than I had intended. “The earl says I am to go to Baynard’s Castle with them.”
    Jane smiles and embraces me. “Well then, I wish you joy of your marriage bed, sister. I can see you are eager for it.”
    After hugging and kissing Jane and kneeling with Harry to receive my parents’ blessing, I climb onto the Herberts’ gilded barge and seat myself in the cushioned cabin for the short journey to Baynard’s Castle. I have passed it often, that massive white stone building with tall towers that rises majestically from the river; and as we glide past the gardens of the Temple, Bridewell Palace, and the mouth of the Fleet River, it lies before us, with the tower of the church of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe behind it. But tonight, when I see Baynard’s Castle, I feel an odd frisson of unease: eerily pale in the moonlight, it has something unearthly about it, as if it has taken on a different aspect with the coming of night. What secrets do its walls contain? I wonder. Who has lived here, laughed here, loved, suffered, and died here in the hundreds of years it has stood?
    The impression of strangeness is fleeting, the result of too much wine, no doubt. I am with Harry, and this is his home, and it is one of the greatest houses in London. And now it is to be my home too. I should count myself fortunate!
    Imposing stone stairs ascend from the lapping water to a first-floor doorway, and torches burn brightly to light our ascent. As the barge draws alongside, Harry takes my hand; we follow his parents up the steps, cross the balustraded bridge, and pass under the lintel on which is proudly displayed, carved in stone and painted, the arms of Pembroke, three lions on a red and blue ground. I feel the grasp of Harry’s hand on mine and catch his sweet, loving looks in the moonlight glimmeringon the river below us. The night seems