Help, Romance Readers??

[catsinthesun]

I'm looking for the name and author of a romance novel I read years ago. It starts in a castle where two women are in labor at the same time while a dinner party or something is going on downstairs. I think it might have been storming, too. After the births, during which one or both of the mothers died, I think - the father of the girl, it turns out, had DEFINITELY wanted a boy and somehow, in some arrangement or way I don't remember now, ends up with the boy as "his". Later that night, there is a fire, and a woman (possibly the midwife??) or the woman's husband, takes both the babies and brings them to their home where they are raised together, in a modest but very happy childhood, naturally become very close and the girl totally idolizes the boy. When they are teenagers, the boy is taken away by the man who had wanted a son, to his castle, where the man begins training him as his son and a knight, or warrior, or whatever. Somehow the girl ends up there, too, but is not really wanted, the other girls aren't overly nice to her and she's jealous of them flirting with the boy. The man's new wife (the one who had the baby died) who is now the boy's "stepmother" and the Queen or something, there, wants to control the boy and ends up forbidding him to see the girl anymore. That's all I remember about it and would like to read it again but don't remember the name or author. Can anyone tell me?

[freeflowingjoy]

Was it Lindsay McKenna??

Just a guess.

Best of wishes
Ruth