Briar Rose - Dinah Dean
- Author: Dinah Dean
- Publisher: Mills & Boon #215
- Year: 1984
- Setting: England 1539-40
Book Description
Blurb
The Front:
"I've found you a husband now!" Master Cressy declared triumphantly. "For God's sake, girl! Don't be a complete fool! Here's a young handsome man come to offer you a better marriage than you could ever have hoped to make, and to solve all my problems into the bargain! It's not an offer you'll ever get again, so take the chance while it's there."
Kate drew breath to continue her onslaught on her father, but was neatly forestalled by Master Hartwell, who suddenly stood up and spoke with such firmness and confidence that Kate, at least, was sufficiently impressed to pay him close attention, thinking half-consciously that he seemed merely quiet and pleasant, yet there was certainly more to him than at first appeared...
"By your leave, Master Cressy, Mistress Kate," he said, "or without it, if you insist, but this has gone far enough! I do not make my offer with any intention of buying a wife, or merely finding an honourable means of providing for a man who has suffered as a result of the dissolution of a monastery. Neither purchase nor charity enter into the matter. I make my offer to Mistress Kate because it's my wish to share my life here with her. All else is incidental and peripheral."
"You know where my heart lies," Kate said, looking at him earnestly and searchingly.
"Yes, and if I thought for one moment that there was any hope in that direction, I'd not have spoken. I do not ask for your heart not yet, at least..."
Back: The year 1540 was a time of changes at King Henry's Court. Woodham Abbey would soon cease to exist then what would become of her? wondered Mistress Kate Cressy, daughter of the bailey.
She was forced to watch Master Matthew Hartwell from the Court of Augmentations poke his nose into her household, making an inventory and despising her few possessions. Now he was just waiting to claim her family home... Kate's chances of finding a husband were slim faced with her insurmountable problem of a lack of dowry and she might have to give up her dreams of marrying her beloved Amyas, but she was not going to marry Mr Hartwell just because he was rich and suitable. And certainly not just so that she could keep house for him, and her father could continue to live there!
