Page 61 of Love, Remember Me

"But Nyssa is just a girl, Blaze!"

"Our daughter is a married woman," she said. "You will simply have to accept it. She might even be with child already. They have been married almost three months, after all."

"Do not even think it," the Earl of Langford said. "Nyssa is far too young to be a mother. Besides, we are far too young to be grandparents."

Blaze laughed again. "I was seventeen when I had Nyssa. She will be eighteen shortly. She is certainly old enough. You refuse to see it because she is your daughter. Ohh, Tony, she will always love you. You have not lost her because she is married. But her husband must now be first with her, and then their children. Still, there will always be room for us, and the rest of the family." She kissed her husband.

"What happened, Blaze? She was just a little girl the last time I really looked," he said. "Suddenly she is a beautiful woman, a wife, the Countess of March. The time has gone too quickly."

"Children grow up, Tony," Blaze said gently to her husband. "I do not know what my daughter would have done without you to look to as her father. We have much to thank you for, and you know that Edmund, may God assoil his good soul, would bless you also for the love you have given his daughter. Now she is grown. We have two little girls of our own. Give Jane and Annie the love you have given Nyssa."

He nodded, and then said to her, "I do not suppose you would like to have a bath, Blaze." His blue eyes were hopeful and twinkling. "If Nyssa grows with age to be as beautiful and as wise as her mother is, my angel, Varian de Winter will be a fortunate man."

Blaze smiled and took his hand in hers. "Let us go and bathe, my dear lord," she replied to him.

NYSSAand her husband remained with the Wyndhams of Langford for several weeks. Varian sent word to his servants at Winterhaven that he would be arriving at the end of August with his bride. In the meantime he became acquainted with his bride's family.

News of the king's marriage to Catherine Howard reachedRiversEdgethe end of the first week in August. The marriage had taken place quietly at the king's hunting lodge at Oatlands on the twenty-eighth day of July. That same morning, quite early, the king's former chancellor, Thomas Cromwell, was executed on Tower Green. The Howards were now triumphant.

"We must find a particularly nice gift to send Cat," Nyssa told her husband.

The royal honeymoon progress moved slowly through Surrey and Berkshire to Grafton in Northamptonshire, on to Dunstable, to More, and finally to Windsor. The king, it was said, had become a new man. He behaved very much like the young man he had been in his youth. He arose between five and six in the morning, attended mass at seven, and then rode until tenA.M., when he wanted his dinner served. He played at bowls and archery in the afternoon, and then danced the night away with his lively, laughing bride. His leg seemed to have healed, and his temper was excellent.

The international situation seemed not to require his personal attention for the moment. Cleves was content with the treatment he had meted out to their princess. Indeed Duke William was reported to have said he was glad his sister fared no worse than she had. France and the Empire fussed at each other, but that was nothing new. Henry Tudor had nothing on his mind but pleasure in that hot summer of 1540. Few other than the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk could remember his ever having been so merry.

The Earl of March had to twice postpone their departure for Winterhaven, for Nyssa had not been feeling well. He was beginning to wonder if he was ever going to get his wife to leaveRiversEdge, and voiced his distress to his sympathetic mother-in-law as the month of August ended and September began.

"Wait until mid-month," Blaze advised him. "She will feel well enough to travel then, Varian, and it will be less dangerous."

"Less dangerous?" He looked puzzled. "What has danger to do with our traveling to Winterhaven? There is no danger."

"Has Nyssa said nothing to you, then?" Blaze was surprised.

"About what?" he asked her.

A strange look came over the Countess of Langford's face. "Oh, dear," she said. "I wonder if she even knows herself."

"Knows what?" the Earl of March demanded.

"Come with me, Varian," Blaze said, and she hurried off to seek Tillie. She found her daughter's tiring woman mending the hem of a petticoat in Nyssa's dressing room. "Tillie," the Countess of Langford said to her, "when was your mistress's last link with the moon broken? Think carefully, my girl."

" 'Twas June, m'lady. Is something wrong?"

"Did you not think it strange that she has had no flow since then, girl? Why did you not come to me about it when you got home?"

Tillie looked totally astounded. Why on earth would she have even bothered to mention such a thing to Lady Nyssa's mother? Then suddenly Tillie knew, and clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with comprehension. "Ohhhhhhh!" she gasped.

"Oh, indeed!" the Countess of Langford replied. "Where is your mistress now, Tillie?"

"You'll find her lying down, m'lady. She was took with one of them queer spells again," Tillie answered.

Blaze hurried into her daughter's bedchamber, followed by her son-in-law. Nyssa lay upon the bed. She was pale, and clutching a cloth scented with lavender to her nose. "How could you live in this house all your life and not know what is the matter with you, my child?" her mother began without any preamble. "You have seven siblings, Nyssa! Did you not even once suspect?" Blaze demanded of her daughter.

"Suspect what, Mama?" Nyssa replied weakly.

"I cannot believe I have raised such a doltish daughter!" Blaze fumed. "You are with child, Nyssa! It is as plain as the nose upon your pretty face. From what Tillie tells me, I would say you are to have a baby sometime in mid to late March. Ohh, I am so excited! I am to be a grandmother at long last!"

Nyssa grew even paler at her mother's words. Her poor stomach was roiling. Reaching for the chamber pot, she retched into it. Her forehead was riddled with tiny beads of perspiration. "Ohhhh," she moaned helplessly, setting the pot back upon the floor and putting the cloth back to her nose. "I do not remember you ever being sick like this, Mama, when you had a baby. I thought it was the fish we had at dinner today. I cannot be with child. It is too soon."

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