"Then we have no choice but to stop at Claven"s Carn."
"I shall say I am weary and must go to my bed immediately," Rosamund decided.
"Aye," Glenkirk agreed, "that would be best. Slump in your saddle and feign great exhaustion, sweetheart. I will speak for our party. And we have Annie and her belly, too." He chuckled. " "Tis a sad group we are."
The earl had hired a group of men-at-arms in Edinburgh to accompany them to Friarsgate. Now, Rosamund, Annie, and the others behind him, he hailed the closed gates at Claven"s Carn. "Ho, the castle!" he shouted.
"Who goes there?" a voice from the heights demanded.
"Patrick Leslie, Earl of Glenkirk, the lady of Friarsgate, two servants, and twenty men-at-arms. We request shelter for the night. The lady and the servant girl who is with child are wearied and can travel no farther. We ask the hospitality of Logan Hepburn and his wife."
"Remain there while I seek my master," the voice from the darkened heights said.
They waited and they waited. The minutes pa.s.sed while the wind began to come up, and there was the smell of rain in the air.
"He would refuse," Rosamund said, "but his wife prevails upon him to remember that courtesy must be rendered to a traveler who asks it."
"You seem to know him well," Glenkirk said dryly.
"He is not a complex man," Rosamund replied sharply. Then she laughed softly. "He will have to give in to Jeannie"s pleas or seem quite mean-spirited. If he had not this young wife, he would refuse us. As it is, he will make us wait outside his gates like beggars, wondering. He knows we would not ask shelter of him had we any other choice."
"Tomorrow you shall be home," Glenkirk soothed her.
A light rain began to fall, yet they still waited. Finally, they heard the creak of the portcullis as it was slowly raised, and the double wooden entrance doors began to slowly open, but just enough to allow them entry, one by one, into the courtyard. There they found the master of the house awaiting them with his pretty wife, who was very great with child. Patrick dismounted and then lifted Rosamund down from her horse. She slumped against him as if she were barely able to stand.
"I appreciate your hospitality, Logan Hepburn, and yours also, my lady Jean," the earl said in gracious tones. "Is there somewhere my lady might lay her head, for she is spent with all our travels? We were too eager, I fear, to reach Friarsgate today, and the darkness caught us." He smiled.
"Oh, the poor lady!" Jeannie said sympathetically. Her blue eyes went past Rosamund to Annie. "Come la.s.s, you and your mistress," she said. "I will see you are bedded down. Have you eaten?" She bustled about them clucking.
"I fear I must carry the lady," the earl said, as Rosamund began to crumble to the ground by his side. He caught her up, murmuring as he did so, "Vixen! If there are stairs, you will have to carry me."
Rosamund swallowed back her laughter, pushing her face into his big shoulder to m.u.f.fle the sound of it. But her amus.e.m.e.nt was cut short when Logan spoke.
"Give her to me, my lord, for there are stairs, and the lady has not a child"s weight." He took Rosamund from the earl and strode purposefully into his house with Annie and the others following in his wake.
"He is so thoughtful," Jeannie said, taking the earl"s arm to bring him inside. "He will put her in the guest chamber. Follow after him, la.s.sie," she told Annie.
Logan took the stairs to the second floor of his house two at a time. He stamped down a dim hallway, kicked open a door, and entered a chamber. Dumping her on the bed, he snarled, "Did you have to come here, lady? Did you have to torture me once more with your perfidy?"
"I would have sooner bedded in h.e.l.l this night," Rosamund snapped back at him.
"So," he said, "you are not as weary as you pretended to be. Is there no end to your duplicitous nature?"
"Do not speak to me that way, my lord," she told him. "I simply wished to avoid the scene now ensuing between us. You have a good wife, and I actually like the la.s.s. I would not have her learn of your deceitful nature, especially as you seem to have gotten her so quickly with child. When is the bairn due?"
"It should be our child, Rosamund," he said softly. "I love you, and I always have. They forced me into this marriage because you fell so publicly into bed with Lord Leslie. This child should be ours!"
"Villain!" she cried. "Get out! Get out! Oh, I pray the Holy Mother that your wife never learns how cruel you really are."
"I am never unkind to Jeannie," he quickly responded. "She is as much a victim as I am, though she knows it not. She is like a small helpless kitten. You cannot be cruel to such a creature. You love it, and you protect it."
"Then why do you speak to me so?" Rosamund demanded of him.
"Because I love you," he said.
"You wanted an heir, and any woman would do, my lord," she replied.
"Aye, I want an heir. "Tis every man"s right. But that was not why I wanted to wed you, Rosamund Bolton. I love you. Why can you not believe it?"
"Get out of my chamber, Logan Hepburn," Rosamund said. "They will be wondering in the hall where you are. Ah, here is Annie. Come in, la.s.s, and let us prepare for bed now. Good night, my lord."
"Do you really love him?" the laird of Claven"s Carn asked.
"Aye, I do," Rosamund answered him. "As I have never loved any other, or will."
He turned and departed without another word.
"Lady Jeanne says she will send us supper," Annie said, wide-eyed.
"How much did you hear?" Rosamund inquired of her servant.
"All of it, my lady. I was outside the door, but I feared to come in," Annie responded.
"You will forget all that you heard," Rosamund told her.
"Aye, I will," Annie agreed. "His lordship says to tell you he will sleep in the hall with Dermid."
Rosamund nodded.
"Lady Jean is very kind," Annie noted. "She was most solicitous about my condition, her being in the same way but a few months farther along. Her bairn will come in September, she says."
"She is a sweet girl," Rosamund agreed. "We must pray she gives him a son, else he not be satisfied."
"I hopes it"s a lad I carry," Annie said.
A maidservant came to light a fire to take the chill off the evening. Another servant girl brought a tray with two bowls of lamb stew, bread, cheese, and ale. A third carried in a basin of warm water for bathing and set it on the edge of the coals in the fireplace to keep warm. The lady of the keep knew how to see her guests were made comfortable. Rosamund and Annie ate their supper with a good appet.i.te. They washed their faces and their hands, then stripped off their gowns and climbed into bed. The bed was fresh and smelled of lavender. They slept soundly until the dawn.
Hearing the early birdsong outside the chamber"s window, Rosamund awoke. She slid from her bed and pulled the chamber pot from beneath it, peeing, then emptying the pot out the window afterwards. The day was warm, with a south wind. And there was something in that air that called to her. Home, she thought. A few hours more, and I am home again at Friarsgate. Patrick is with me, and I will have my family about me. She sighed. I am happy, she thought. She pulled her clothes back on and drew her boots onto her feet. A bath! Tonight she would have a real bath for the first time in weeks.
"Annie." She gently shook her servant by her shoulder. "Wake up, Annie. We will be leaving soon, and we will be home by afternoon."
Annie groaned, but she dutifully arose.
"I"m going downstairs into the hall, Annie. Do not be far behind me, la.s.s," her mistress instructed, and Rosamund hurried from the chamber. In the hall she found Patrick up already, and she ran to him and kissed him. "I missed you last night," she said softly.
"He did not come down right away," the earl said softly.
"He would quarrel with me. Did I not warn you?" Rosamund replied.
"He got drunk before his brothers put him to bed, but his lady wife appeared not to be disturbed by any of it. She was too busy chattering with me. She is lonely here, I think. Her sisters-in-law are both flighty la.s.ses with little on their minds but ribbons, laces, and bed sport."
"Let us go as quickly as possible," Rosamund said. "It is but a few more hours to Friarsgate. I do not wish to have to face Logan Hepburn again."
"You will tell me later," Patrick said. "I think we must at least wait for the lady of the house before we go. Come, sweetheart, and eat some porridge. There is a freshly baked cottage loaf, too." He led her to the high board, and a servant at once placed a large trencher loaf filled with oat stirabout before them. There was honey and heavy golden cream, which Rosamund added liberally to the hot cereal. They ate, and their goblets were filled with wine. A small round cottage loaf had been set before them, and Rosamund tore pieces from it, dipping the bits in honey and feeding them to her lover. He returned the favor, and soon they were laughing as they licked the drizzles of honey from each other"s mouths.
Then Patrick suddenly grew serious. "It is not just that I want you, Rosamund. I find, to my surprise, that I need you."
She smiled into his green eyes. "I feel the same way, my love," she told him.
The mistress of the keep entered the hall. "Oh, you are both already up," she said. "Have you been fed? Did you sleep well?" She hurried up to the high board, smiling.
"We have been treated very well, my lady Jean," the earl told her.
"You have been a gracious hostess," Rosamund added. "I am so grateful for the lovely supper you sent me last night. I was so tired. We only arrived home recently. It seems, but for our lovely sojourn, we have been traveling for weeks."
"I am so glad you broke your journey here," Jean said. "I did so want to see you again."
"You are welcome at Friarsgate anytime," Rosamund told her.
"Oh, once my bairn comes I shall be going nowhere," Jean said. "And I am certainly in no condition to travel now. One day I shall come and visit you, however, when my bairns, for Logan"s brothers say I must have a houseful, are grown, and not before." She smiled. "You have daughters, do you not?"
"Three, and a son lost," Rosamund responded softly.
"Everyone says it is a lad I"m carrying, for I am so big," Jean said.
"You cannot know until the bairn is born," Rosamund warned her. "La.s.sies can appear large, too."
Jean shook her head. "Nay, this is a lad, for Logan wants a lad. I cannot disappoint him."
"I am sure there is nothing you could do that would disappoint him," Rosamund replied. She turned to her lover. "My lord, are we ready to depart?"
"Where are Annie and Dermid?" he queried.
"We"re ready, my lord," Dermid said. Annie, looking slightly sleepy, was by his side. "Horses are in the courtyard, and everyone"s been fed. My thanks, lady." He bowed neatly to Jean and then turned to depart the hall with his wife.
"Please let us know when you are safely delivered," Rosamund told her hostess. "I will have Father Mata pray for you, Jean Hepburn. Tell Logan I am sorry we did not see him before we left. He seemed unwell last night. I hope whatever was bothering him has now left him. Say I asked after him." She smiled and slipped a hand into the earl"s big one.
"I will." Jean smiled. "Travel in safety, Lady Rosamund."
When they were out again in the courtyard of Claven"s Carn and mounted, Patrick leaned over, speaking so only Rosamund might hear him. "You have sharp claws, madame," he said. "I take it his offense last night was suitably unforgivable that you would torture him so cruelly."
"He once again declared his love for me," Rosamund muttered angrily.
The Earl of Glenkirk nodded. "That was indeed unforgivable," he agreed, "and particularly so as that trusting little wife of his is big with his heir."
They rode from Claven"s Carn, down the hill, and onto the track that led over the hills into England.
"It bothers me that Jean Hepburn should ever be harmed by believing that her husband is not true to her. She is striving so hard to be a good wife to him."
"Do you think she loves him?" the earl wondered.
"I know not," Rosamund answered, shaking her head. "But he owes her his loyalty, and to tell me within the walls of his own house, with his wife in the hall below, that he still loves me-I wish I had slapped him. I was astounded by his words, Patrick! He is what I always believed him to be. A rude and crude borderer."
"I feel sorry for him," the earl said, surprising her.
"Why on earth would you feel sorry for him?" Rosamund demanded, her tone aggrieved.
"I feel sorry for him because he truly does love you, Rosamund," the earl said quietly. "I know you always believed he courted you because he needed, and wanted, an heir. That may be true in part, but the man is also deeply in love with you. The sight of us together last night tortured him. When he returned to the hall he said practically nothing, but he drank himself into a stupor. His brothers had to carry him to bed."
"I am sorry for that," Rosamund replied. "But, Patrick, I never said I would wed him. I said no. I always said no. I feel sorry for him, too, but I will not be put in the same position with sweet Jean Hepburn as I was with my own queen. I am not comfortable with guilt, my lord, particularly when those who are responsible for these situations feel no guilt at all. Logan feels sorry for himself. He does not think of his wife. But I do. Henry Tudor felt deprived when I returned to Friarsgate. He did not consider the hurt he would do the queen if she had learned a trusted friend had been in her husband"s bed. But I did."
"It is unlikely that you will see him again for some time, if ever," the earl responded. "The very sight of you is painful. I believe he respects his wife, even if he does not love her. And there is his pride to consider, as well."
"Aye, Logan is a proud man," Rosamund noted.
They rode for several hours, and suddenly the landscape about them began to grow familiar. She knew the hills about them. Rosamund leaned forward eagerly.
"You sense Friarsgate," he said to her.
She nodded excitedly. "I do!" she said. "Just one more hill, Patrick, and we will see my lake and my fields. Oh G.o.d! I cannot believe I stayed away so long! Yet I should not have been anywhere else but with you, my darling. You love your Glenkirk every bit as much as I love Friarsgate. I look forward to seeing it one day."
"And you will," he promised her.
They followed the faint track of the road down the hill and then began to climb up the next. At its crest it was as she had said, and she stopped to take it all in. Below them lay Friarsgate, its meadows green in the late spring sun. There were sheep and cattle grazing placidly. The fields were golden with grain, and the orchards, as they rode down the hill and past them, were full of blossoms. The lake beyond the stone house sparkled in the afternoon light. The bell in the church began to peal, and the people came from their work and cottages, running to greet their returning mistress and her party. They reached the house, and Maybel came out, smiling broadly, with Rosamund"s daughters in tow.
The lady of Friarsgate jumped down from her horse and, kneeling, gathered her children into her arms. "Oh, my darling girls!" she cried, covering them with kisses. Bessie, the baby, now four, squirmed protesting, but Banon and Philippa were openly glad to see their mother again.
"I did not expect you to be gone from us so long, mama," Philippa, age eight, said. "Uncle Thomas is a fine companion, but we missed you." Her gaze turned to the Earl of Glenkirk, and she quirked an auburn eyebrow.
Rosamund stood. "Philippa, may I present you and your sisters to Patrick Leslie, the Earl of Glenkirk." She looked sharply at her daughters, and they curtsied politely. "The earl will be visiting with us for a time," Rosamund said.
"Do you have a castle, my lord?" Philippa asked boldly.
"I do," he answered her, smiling down on this smaller version of his love. "One day I hope your mother will come and bring you to see it."
"Well, and "tis past time you got home!" Maybel said sternly. "Although from the look of this fine gentleman I can see why you remained in Edinburgh so long. Come into the house now." Then she stared hard at Annie. "What"s this? What"s this? Do you return home with shame in your belly?"
"I be a respectably married woman," Annie said, and she pulled Dermid forward. "Yon Scot is my man, Maybel. Mistress has promised us a cot eventually."
"You"ll have to earn it, girl," Maybel said sharply. "And just where was you wed, my la.s.s?"
Annie looked to her mistress, and when Rosamund nodded, she said, "In a great cathedral, and by a bishop his-self, Maybel! There isn"t a la.s.s at Friarsgate who ever had a finer wedding, I"ll vow."
Maybel looked astounded, but Rosamund spoke up, saying, "We have a wonderful tale to tell you. But not here. We have been riding most of the day, and we need food and wine, and most of all, a hot bath! It has been weeks since either of us has had a decent bath. Edmund!" She greeted the gentleman who had just come from the house. "Patrick, this is my uncle, Edmund Bolton. Uncle, Patrick Leslie, the Earl of Glenkirk." She led them all into the house now.
The hall was pleasantly cool, and looking about it, Rosamund sighed with pleasure. She had enjoyed her adventures in San Lorenzo and Edinburgh, but by G.o.d"s blessed body it was good to be home at last. She settled herself immediately in her favorite chair by the hearth. She saw a fire already laid for the evening and smiled. She could hear the servants bringing in the luggage, and Annie, full of self-importance, directing them as to where it would go. A little maidservant with whom she was not familiar brought a tray with wine and sugar wafers.
"Who are you, child?" Rosamund asked.