Queen's Bounty by Fiona Buckley

Author:Fiona Buckley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Suspense
Publisher: Creme de la Crime
Published: 2012-08-01T04:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

Enter Margaret Emory

My name is Margaret Emory, as I’ve said. Until yesterday, I lived with my parents at Greenlease Farm, a mile or two the other side of White Towers, where the Ferrises live. Greenlease isn’t as big a place as White Towers, but it’s a fair size; we’re not poor. We look on the Ferrises as friends and more or less as equals, and my parents have always thought that one day we might be more than that. All the same, it came as a surprise – well, a shock! – when, a few days ago, they told me to pick out whatever clothes and so on I wanted to take with me, because I was to leave home and go to White Towers. Where Thomas Ferris, my future husband, lived.

‘You’re to stay with his family until the wedding,’ my father said. ‘Master Walter Ferris wishes it. You won’t feel too strange; after all, you’ve always known it’s what we were planning for you, given that Thomas turned out well, and he has. He’s a nice-looking, healthy lad. He’ll make you a good husband. Our two families’ve been friends since Adam and Eve, I reckon.’

‘It’s what we want for you, sweeting,’ my mother said. ‘A future in a family with a house like White Towers, with a big hall and a topiary garden and all. We’ve worked and saved for this – we’ve been saving for your dowry ever since you were born, and it’s as good a dowry as their girl Lucy had. In fact, it’s a little better!’

‘I won’t say it’s all gone as smooth as we hoped,’ Father said grumblingly. My father isn’t a light-hearted man. ‘We’ve had an understanding with Walter Ferris for years, but when we wanted to come to the point, he started humming and hawing. Got it into his head that he could do better, I suppose. Can’t think where, since there’s not another Catholic family round here that I know of.’

‘He’s got connections elsewhere; I suppose he could ask them to find a bride for Thomas,’ my mother said. ‘It’s worried us a lot.’

‘They’re only connections by marriage,’ Father said grudgingly. ‘His direct ancestry’s nothing special! If we ain’t got forebears who fought at Agincourt or went on crusade or came over with the Conqueror, neither has he. But some cousin of his dad’s married into a family of that sort, and so Ferris thinks a lot of himself. I’ve had to work to get this match made final for you, my girl.’

Timidly, I said: ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Your dowry ain’t just money, girl. I had to do Walter a couple of favours – rather odd ones, but he said it was all in order and important, and he promised that, all going well, Thomas should be your husband and we’d clap hands on the deal. And so we did, in the end. I’m thankful. Your mother’s right. This here’s what we want for you.’

But – I was being sent away from home.

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