His lips twitched into a smile at either the melodrama or the blatant lie or perhaps both. He and I both knew it would take more than a little heartache to reduce my vanity to ashes. Arthur was five years my senior, the result of a liaison between our father and a woman who had lived in a cottage on another of Father’s estates at Syderstone. She had been widowed when she bore Arthur and died soon after of the flux. Arthur was taken into my father’s household and there he remained. He had an uneasy relationship with my mother; they were always courteous to one another but I knew that his existence gave her pain, which was odd, I thought, since she had come to her marriage with two children of her own from her last husband. Perhaps it was the gossip that caused her grief, since it was still said in Syderstone, Stansfield and around, that Arthur’s mother had been an exceptionally beautiful woman and that our father was utterly besotted with her. Certainly, Arthur had been blessed with good looks just as I had. We quite put John and Anna in the shade.

“Let me guess,” Arthur said. He started to groom the mare again, long, firm strokes that brought up the shine of her coat to a rich chestnut gleam. “Our father is set on you marrying your fancy lord whilst your mother counsels against it. You must inevitably upset one or the other of them.”

I stared at him. “How did you know?”

Arthur glanced up at me over his shoulder. “You need to ask? When the house has resounded to your parents’ high words this week past? Everyone knows they are at odds, our father set on this ambitious plan and your mother arguing that his aims are too high.”

“What shall I do?” I said plaintively.

Arthur straightened up, the brush still in his hand. “Why are you asking me? You will do exactly what you want to do, Amy. You want to marry Robert Dudley so you will have him regardless of any opposition.”

Arthur knew me very well. I admitted, albeit to myself alone, that he was right. There was a whole host of reasons why I wished to marry Robert. Some were noble. We loved each other. Some were personal. He was handsome and charming. Others were less admirable. I wanted to make a match that would have my half-sister gasping with envy. Anna had married a gentleman the previous year and gone to live at a fine manor house, but she would never have dreamed of looking as high as I did for a husband. She would be green with envy. Robert had no money but he had connections, status and plans for greater things. But this, it seemed, was my mother’s objection. Arthur was right, we had all heard the bitter words exchanged between our parents as day after day, night after night they fought over my future.