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noble prisoner, Lady Cicely, and you are certainly that. Daughter of an earl, betrothed to a duke – and what do they call you in these parts? The “Rose of Raby”, do they not? Your mother’s favourite child. Oh yes, the dowager will give much to see you back safely under her wing. I believe I can look forward to taking possession of my rightful inheritance very soon.’
    This mocking speech had brought me close to tears but I forced them back. I knew enough about the senior branch of the Nevilles to appreciate that life had not been kind to them. The stories of the present earl’s childhood accident – a fall from a horse which had weakened his back and gradually robbed him of the use of his legs – and the unfortunate death of both his parents within a year of each other were well known in the north-country, as was the vast discrepancy between the grand-paternal legacies to him and those to my mother. Also, not only had my father left the bulk of his estates to our side of the family, while enjoying a flush of royal favour in his later years he had secured marriages and titles of much higher rank for his second family than his first and the best match of all had been won for me. Richard, Duke of York was the richest nobleman in England and, having reached his majority in September of the previous year, had spent the intervening months establishing his claim not only to the York estates but also to those of his cousin Edmund, Earl of March, his mother’s brother, who had died without issue at about the same time as my father. Ever since I had known him, Richard had been looking forward with a fervent appetite to petitioning parliament for his vast inheritance and, if I am honest, I shared his eagerness, having desires and ambitions of my own. In that respect I was my father’s daughter and he had made a perfect match, for Richard of York was no prouder or more ambitious than Cicely Neville.
    What the Brancepeth branch of the family did not know – at least I certainly hoped they did not – was that the day was fast approaching when Richard of York would come to Raby to claim me as his bride and it would be unfortunate to say the least if, when he arrived, I was not there to marry him. I could imagine the heated debate that would take place between my mother and those of my brothers who were available; the urgent necessity of my return balanced against their united determination not to cede one stone or acre of their inheritance to the other side of the family. I would doubtless have found it funny if the situation did not make me feel like a scrap of meat being fought over by snarling dogs.

3
    Raby Castle
    Cuthbert
    M y half-brother Hal paced the floor of Countess Joan’s salon, his face displaying anger and fatigue in equal measure. He had ridden through the night from his castle at Penrith to attend this family summit meeting, gathered twenty-four hours after Cicely had vanished off the moor and twelve since the ransom note had been received from Brancepeth.
    ‘You have indulged the girl too much, my lady mother, and this is the result.’
    Only Hal dared to address the majestic Dowager Countess of Westmorland in such an admonitory tone. Her eldest son, the first of the thirteen children she had borne to the late earl, he was the only one to whom she deferred because he had inherited our father’s air of authority, though not his devastating charm or extreme height. Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, was known in the family as Hal for reasons that went back to the establishment of the Lancastrian dynasty at the turn of the century. Having been baptized in honour of King Richard the Second, who had granted my father both the earldom of Westmorland and the marriage to his cousin, Joan Beaufort, the name became an embarrassment when Henry of Lancaster forced King Richard to abdicate in his favour – and so the baby Richard Neville quickly became known as Henry instead, or Hal for short. However, by the time