Blaze Wyndham
miracle as Mama says?”
    “If I believed that marriage to Lord Wyndham were a bad thing for you, Blaze, I should not have agreed to the earl’s proposal. It is true that you must marry, and that this match is indeed an incredible piece of good fortune for us all. I would help you come to terms with yourself, however, my daughter. I do want you to be happy.”
    “I am frightened,” said Blaze, “but of what, I am not certain. I hate the thought of leaving Ashby. Yet, as Bliss reminds me, I am to be mistress of a great house. I cannot help but wonder if it is as beautiful as here. Whether I will grow to love it. What if I do not? I do no know this man I am to marry. He does not know me either. What if we do not like each other? I understand his reasons for wanting another wife, yet if those are his only reasons, can he learn to care for me, and I him? It is all very difficult and confusing, Papa.
    “One moment I am excited, for I never aspired to such a match. Indeed I fully expected to end up with Squire Greene’s younger son if they would have a dowerless girl. I suspected in my case that they might, for the squire is an ambitious man. I could see him weighing the thought of sharing grandchildren with a baron of the realm each time our families met.” She chuckled throatily, and Robert Morgan joined her laughter.
    “Yet in another moment,” Blaze continued, “there is a part of me, Papa, that resents the Earl of Langford’s arrogance in arriving here with scant notice to demand one of your fertile daughters to wive.”
    Robert Morgan nodded his understanding of his daughter’s feelings, then said, “He meant no disrespect, Blaze. Of that I am certain. Wealthy and powerful men look at these things differently. They come to the point quickly with little shilly-shallying. Time for them is a commodity to be husbanded as carefully as their gold. Lord Wyndham knew our position. He knew that as the father of eight daughters I would want to wed them to this family’s best advantage. He also knew that we had little if any financial wherewithal. The advantage was really his, Blaze. Yet at no time did he make me feel a beggar at his gates. If there is any of the arrogance in him that you accuse him of, I have not seen it.”
    “How old is he, Papa?”
    “He will be thirty-five in August,” came the reply.
    “That is very old, Papa.”
    Robert Morgan did not know whether he felt like laughing or weeping at his eldest child’s remark. He was but forty. From Blaze’s standpoint, however, he realized that thirty-five must look ancient. She would be sixteen on the last day of November. Still, such disparity in ages between a man and his wife was not unusual. Especially as women were apt to die younger due to the rigors of childbirth, and men were quite likely to remarry. A man, particularly a childless man or one with only daughters, would want a fecund female, not an older woman with little chance of birthing a son.
    A small cough from his daughter reminded him that she needed further reassurance.
    “Lord Wyndham is quite in his prime, Blaze. I expect that you will find him a vigorous lover.” He glanced over at her, and saw that his words had brought a deep blush to her cheeks. He chuckled wickedly.
    “ Papa! ” she scolded him, and kicked her mount into a canter.
    For a moment he watched her go, the sky-blue ribbon that held her lovely golden-brown hair falling away, and her tresses streaming out in the summer’s breeze. Lord Wyndham was going to be very surprised to learn that he had gotten himself quite a bargain in Blaze Morgan. Perhaps Rosemary was correct when she said that their daughters’ beauty must count for something. For a moment Robert Morgan’s eyes narrowed in thought. Blaze’s marriage. Her new position. The dowries for his other girls. All would enable him to rebuild Ashby, even improve it. The alliances he would contract for his daughters could help him to obtain an heiress for Gavin. He was

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