HartsLove (30 page)

‘It doesn't answer my question.'

‘Oh, Arthur,' she said. ‘Haven't you noticed?'

‘Noticed what?'

‘We're done with doubt here. It's all out of fashion.' He tried to stay serious. With Rose skipping round the chestnut tree, it was impossible.

The return of their mother and the saving of Hartslove helped Lily bear the imminent loss of Rose. She was also helped by Snipe's renewed, though still secret, attentions. Her dove-cage was soon replaced by an aviary. A pair of swans appeared on the river. Two white kittens were left in a basket by her bedroom fire. This strange, one-sided
courtship endured for decades, tacitly encouraged by Mrs Snipper and puzzled over but unquestioned by both Charles and Clara de Granville. Lily believed her suitor to be a ghost, and that pleased her. When she became a ghost herself they would meet, and that was enough.

The twins were bridesmaids at Rose and Arthur's wedding. Aunt Barbara came and stayed for weeks afterwards, helping Clara to take up domestic reins she had never fully grasped. Clover and Columbine disliked this arrangement, particularly when Aunt Barbara, disapproving of their passion for newspaper obituaries, suggested a governess. Yet all was well. The first governess lasted only a month, the next one a week, the third only a day. The One grew used to being woken at midnight, whitewashed and ridden around the courtyard by Daisy as Father Nameless tolled a bell. If the governess was particularly stubborn, Garth would perform backflips along the ruins or fold himself up until he had no head.

The Dead Girl and Clara de Granville watched these antics from an upstairs window. Neither interfered. Both agreed that though Barbara understood many things, she never understood that Hartslove would teach the twins all they needed to know.

All this time, over the wedding preparations and long after, Clara and Charles hovered about each other like two uncertain birds. At mealtimes, Clara sat in her old place under her portrait and Charles hardly sat at all, picking up
his fork, putting it down, walking swiftly to the fireplace, fiddling with the logs, then walking back and sitting, before doing the same all over again. The children watched him, and watched their mother, and watched their mother watching him. Both before her wedding, and when she visited afterwards, Rose took to nervously chattering, trying to make everything seem quite normal, and the others joined in to help her. When the dining-room candles were snuffled out, they all leaped up to relight them.

One evening the candles did not go out, and much later that night, Clara found Charles between her and the Dead Girl as they observed The One on his ghostly, governess-frightening parade. After a while, the Dead Girl faded and Clara discovered she was leaning against Charles. He expected her to draw away when she realised what she was doing. She did not, and when he rested his chin in her hair she sighed. They heard the governess scream as The One galloped off in a white flourish. They heard her drag her suitcases across the floor. They smiled at each other when, night-time or not, Clover could be heard offering the services of the new carriage. They remained quietly together after the carriage drew up and drew away again. It was very late indeed by the time Charles walked his wife back to her room, and it was almost dawn when, instead of murmuring, ‘Goodnight,' she drew him in and closed the door.

At sunset on the anniversary of the Derby triumph, Daisy went to the stables. Her crutches were leaning against The One's door. ‘Come,' she said softly. The horse followed as she swung out of the yard, along the drive and over the grass to the Resting Place. Although everything else was still, shadows danced on the tombstones. The One scratched his neck against the chestnut tree and nibbled the buttercups that covered Gryffed's grave. Daisy watched him for a bit, then dropped her crutches and lay face down on the flat stone. It was still warm from the day's heat. Beneath it she imagined the wheel of Hartslove's history turning. She rolled on to her back. In his own time, the horse ambled over and lowered his head, his forelock tickling Daisy's face and his long blaze shining like painted moonlight. If Daisy had put up a hand, she could have felt the tiny scar on his snip. But she did not put up her hand. She put out both arms. It was a broad embrace, the broadest she could manage. It took in The One and all the previous The Ones. It took in everything that belonged to Hartslove, both what Daisy could see and what she could not. ‘Who'll be here in a hundred years?' she asked as the horse licked the stone beside her ear, curling his lip at the fuzziness of the lichen. The question was needless; Daisy already knew the answer. She rolled on to her stomach. In a hundred years, the castle would still be here, the ghosts of Hartslove still racing across the valley in a smoky tumult. The One hovered over her. ‘And our ghosts will be here too,' she said, ‘yours and
mine. Don't you think, The One? We'll be the ghosts of Hartslove.' The One raised his head. He knew nothing about ghosts, but he did know about Daisy, and whatever she said, he agreed.

If you liked
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by K.M. Grant

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It is a time of unrest across the country, and the young King Richard II is just hanging on to his throne. A malign character on the pilgrimage suspects Chaucer of treason and slowly winds Belle into a political intrigue. At the same time, the impulsive Belle is drawn towards both Luke and Walter, the wealthy son of a knight. But Walter himself is guarding his own romantic secret.

As the uprising against the king starts to gain pace and the web of intrigue around Belle and Chaucer tightens, Belle and her friends must risk everything to save their country and themselves . . .

Chalus Chabrol, 1199. The Occitanian knights battle for their lives against Richard the Lionheart. They are guarding the Blue Flame under which all Occitanians must unite to resist invasion. But the knights cannot survive and so it falls to Parsifal, young son of the knight Bernard, to travel on alone and find the true keeper of the flame. Yet when Parsifal returns home, the Occitan is ablaze. Catholic Inquisitors and Cathar heretics, far from uniting, are fighting each other for the soul of the land and its people. To which sect does the Blue Flame belong?

Parsifal's path intertwines with that of Raimon, son of a Cathar weaver, and Yolanda, daughter of a Catholic count. They are falling in love. But in a time of hate, love is never left in peace. With family against family, north against south and Catholic against Cathar, Raimon must help Parsifal find the Blue Flame's true meaning before the Occitan is destroyed.

‘She has woven such a gripping plot that I shall certainly be lining up to read book two. I hope she doesn't keep us waiting too long'
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Will Raimon's and Yolanda's love survive the ravages of a siege, her enforced betrothal to Raimon's enemy and the growing divisions within their beloved Occitan?

Raimon has escaped the pyre and carried the Blue Flame, the true spirit of the Occitan, to the mountains above Castelneuf. But there he is besieged by the Catholic Aimery and the Cathar White Wolf. In Paris, Yolanda, believing Raimon is dead, resists marriage to Sir Hugh, who is building a war train to topple Raimon and bring the flame and the Occitan under the rule of the French king . . .

In a blazing finale, as Castelneuf burns, all sides are forced to reconsider what they are willing to sacrifice for the Occitan, for power and ultimately for love.

‘For all the book's political and emotional complexity, the pace is breakneck . . . Volume three in this tricolore trilogy,
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As Yolanda's lover Raimon and her brother Aimery set off to regain the flame and the heart of the Occitan, Hugh prepares to lay siege to the Cathar stronghold where the flame burns. Unbeknown to him, his wife Yolanda flees his castle into the freezing snow.

What is Yolanda running from? What underhand game is Aimery about to bring into play? And will Raimon's passion for the flame cause him to lose Yolanda and even himself?

K. M. Grant's spectacular novel weaves together the friendship, love and bitter rivalry of her wonderfully evoked characters in a finale to a superb trilogy of romance and adventure.