The Last Heiress (30 page)

“Nothing for the present,” Rosamund said. “Surely you do not wish to be inundated with Scots suitors of what your stepfather will consider more suitable births while you are attempting to bring Baen around? No. I shall tell Logan that there was no one at court who was suitable, but that Tom is considering several other families he had not previously considered. If Logan asks me who they are I shall simply say I did not inquire, as I trust my cousin implicitly, since he succeeded in matching your two older sisters so very well.” Rosamund chuckled.

“Your stepfather will not dare to press the issue further, for he trusts me completely, bless him.”

“Poor Logan.” Elizabeth grinned. “Does he realize how shamelessly you manipulate him, Mama?”

“Of course not!” She laughed. Then she grew sober once more.

“These Scots are prideful, Elizabeth. Remember that as you maneuver your own game. I like Baen. He would make you a good husband, and he will not usurp your authority, as your father did not attempt to steal mine. But his loyalty to the father who took him in is great. In the end, you may have to appeal to the master of Grayhaven if you wish his son as your husband. If that happens you must ask Logan to intercede for you, for only a Scotsman will understand another Scotsman, my daughter.”

“If he does not love me enough to remain with me,” Elizabeth said softly, “then I do not want him. I am not some prize to be bestowed.”

“Elizabeth! That is exactly what you are, and must appear to be. If the master of Grayhaven is to give up his oldest son it must be because the life you can offer Baen is better than what he can offer him. You have the advantage. Do not throw it away because of your own pride, I beg you!” Rosamund said low.

“He must love me enough to stay by my side, Mama,” Elizabeth said firmly. “The decision must be his, and no one else’s.”

Rosamund said no more. Arguing with her daughter would accomplish nothing but to make Elizabeth’s determination firmer. To her surprise Elizabeth remained with her until they reached the unmarked place where England flowed into Scotland. Sure enough, there was Logan Hepburn waiting with half a dozen clansmen to escort his wife home.

The laird of Claven’s Carn dismounted and came forward to greet them. He took his wife’s hand and kissed it. Their eyes met, and the passion that still existed between them was palpable, yet they spoke not a word. Logan turned to his stepdaughter. “Did you bring back a husband, lass?” he asked her bluntly. The vibrant blue eyes looked at her with interest.

“Nay, none of those court dandies are suited to the life Friarsgate has to offer, Logan,” Elizabeth answered him, “but Mama will tell you all the news. If we ride hard I will be able to complete at least half a day’s work when I get home. Good-bye, Mama. Thank you for coming. I love you!” Elizabeth blew them kisses, and then with a smile she turned her horse back for home.

“Good-bye, my darling,” she heard her mother call after her.

She was relieved to have escaped further cross-examination by her stepfather. Logan was Rosamund’s problem. That other Scotsman was hers. Her mother was right: Baen was prideful. But he wanted her. Elizabeth might be unskilled in the ways of men and women, but she knew when a man wanted a woman. And she intended on torturing her big Scot until he could no longer resist her blandishments. He was already hers, though he knew it not. Smiling, she hurried her horse home, her Friarsgate men following.

Her fields were green with grain, she noted, pleased. The hay was almost all cut, and drying before being stored for the winter. Her beasts were fat. They would begin shearing next week. Many sheared earlier, but Friarsgate sheared their sheep just after Midsummer’s Day. There was time through the remainder of the summer and autumn to grow back the fleece the sheep would need for the winter months. And the wool they harvested from the later shearing could be spun into longer and stronger threads. It was part of the secret of their particularly fine wool. Their flocks were great this year. They had lost no beasts to dis-ease or to any predators.

Strangely the hall seemed a little emptier that evening without Rosamund. She had for so long been the heart and soul of Friarsgate.

As they sat talking after the meal Edmund remarked that he was not feeling well, and then suddenly fell from his chair to the floor. Maybel shrieked her dismay, but Baen jumped forward to pick up the unconscious man.

“This way,” Elizabeth said quickly, leading him up the stairs to the chamber Maybel and her husband shared. She flung open the door.

Baen was quickly behind her, and laid Edmund gently upon the bed. Maybel pushed the younger man aside and began loosening her husband’s shirt, clucking and fussing as she did.

Edmund opened his eyes. “Lea . . . leave . . . me be,” he muttered.

Baen gently moved Maybel away from her husband and, leaning over, spoke into Edmund’s ear. “Where does it hurt?” he asked him.

“Head,” Edmund ground out. “I c-c-can’t seem to m-move.”

Baen nodded. “You must rest, Edmund, and let Maybel take care of you. You will feel better tomorrow. You have been working very hard.”

“Aye,” Edmund said, and his eyes closed again.

“What has happened to him?” Maybel begged Baen. “He has always been so strong. What is the matter with him?”

“I do not know what they call it,” Baen said, “but I have seen this before in old men, Maybel. With God’s blessing he will regain the use of his limbs, although he will never be as strong again as he was. With some the power of speech is lost too. He is fortunate there. Keep him warm, and give him watered wine if he is thirsty. Sleep is the best healer that there is.”

“I will prepare a carafe of wine,” Elizabeth said. “I will put a sleeping draft in it so poor Edmund can rest. Stay by his side. I will hurry back.”

“As if I would leave him!” Maybel huffed with a bit of her old spirit.

The two younger people left the bedchamber to hurry downstairs.

“Poor Edmund,” Elizabeth said. She called a servant and sent the man to her apothecary cabinet with instructions on what to bring back. “What could have caused this? He is not a man to be ill.”

“I cannot tell you what caused it, but I heard once that it is an eruption within the head. It can cause death if it is severe. I do not think it is that severe with Edmund, but it is unlikely he will regain his full strength again,” Baen told her.

Elizabeth nodded. “I will need your help then,” she said. “You came to learn our ways with the sheep and the wool. Now you will have to take Edmund’s place for me until he is well again, but I will teach you myself what you need to know, Baen.”

“I will do whatever I can to help you, of course,” the Scot answered her, “but I cannot step into Edmund’s shoes. It would be presumptuous of me. What would your Friarsgate folk think of such overweening conduct from me? They would resent me, and rightly so, Elizabeth.”

“If you are right he will be well soon enough,” Elizabeth said. “Besides, if you have my authority they will accept it. Please! Until Edmund is well again. I have no one else, Baen. Edmund has never had anyone to assist him, nor have we ever considered a time when he could not do his duty.” She looked up into his handsome face, her eyes filled with worry and concern. “Please!”

He nodded. “Very well,” he told her. “But only until Edmund is well again.”

“Thank you!” she cried and, flinging her arms about his neck, kissed him.

“Nah, nah, lass!” he admonished her, but he was smiling, and he did not push her away when she snuggled even closer. “Would you cause a scandal?”

“Do you think we could?” she asked innocently.

“Elizabeth!” He unwrapped her arms from about his neck. “Here is Albert with your herbs. I think Maybel will feel safer once you have mixed your potion.”

Elizabeth took the small container from Albert, giving him a wink as she did. The middle-aged man could not restrain his grin. “Thank you, Albert,” she said sweetly. Then she set to work adding just the right amount of a powered substance to the wine, gently shaking the stoppered carafe to mix it in. “I will take this to Maybel. Please remain in the hall until I return,” she told Baen. “We must talk further.” Then she hurried off, the carafe of wine in her hand. Reentering the bedchamber where her steward lay, she set the carafe upon a small table and poured a draft into an earthenware cup. She gave it to Maybel, saying, “See he drinks all of it,” and she waited while the older woman gently coaxed her husband to finish the wine. Elizabeth took the cup back and set it by the carafe of wine.

Edward was quickly asleep, and Maybel turned to look at her young companion. “What is the matter with him?” Her voice quavered.

“What will happen to him, Elizabeth? Is he going to die? And who will help you with Friarsgate now?”

“Baen says he has seen this kind of thing before. It is an eruption within the brain. It will take many months for him to recover, but Baen thinks he will. Edmund Bolton is my blood kin as well as my steward,” Elizabeth said. “His position is his, but I have asked Baen to take over his duties until Edmund can manage them once again. Do you think I have made the right decision, Maybel? Edmund has never permitted anyone to help him, nor has he trained any to take his place one day.”

“What man wants to think of his own mortality?” Maybel asked in a broken voice. “Baen MacColl is a good man. Edmund would approve your choice, Elizabeth. Thank you for your kindness, my child.”

“Kindness? Maybel, you and Edmund are my family!” Elizabeth cried.

Maybel shook her head wearily. “If you had a husband,” she said, “I believe Edmund and I would retire to that cottage of ours. But how can we leave you to manage Friarsgate alone?” She paused as if considering her next words, and then she said, “The Scot is a good man, Elizabeth. And I see that you like each other. Many a marriage has been celebrated on less than that. If your mother would approve it, child, Baen MacColl could be the answer to your problem.”

Elizabeth smiled. “I have Mama’s permission to pursue him, Maybel, and I intend on doing just that.”

The older woman gave the girl a wan smile, and nodded. “Does he know it?” she asked. “He seems a strong and independent man.”

“Not yet,” Elizabeth admitted with a twinkle, “but he will soon. I think he will be more comfortable, Maybel, knowing you approve my decision to put him in Edmund’s place temporarily. If I sit with your man will you go down to the hall and tell him?”

Maybel arose from her place by her husband’s bedside. “Aye. He’s the kind of man who would not impose himself where he is not wanted. I will tell him I am grateful for his aid in our troubles.” She moved towards the door to the chamber. “I will not be long, lass.”

Elizabeth sat by the bedside of Edmund Bolton. He was sleeping peacefully now, but the right side of his mouth was pulled down and crooked. His hands were frozen, partly open, the right one more so than the left. He did not move, and only by the rising and falling of his chest did Elizabeth Meredith know that her great-uncle lived. To see Edmund helpless and frail was somewhat of a shock, for he had always been so hearty and robust a man. But he was no longer young, Elizabeth realized. He was past seventy now by a good year.

Elizabeth sighed softly. How foolish she had been. She had not taken the passing of time seriously. She had not considered that each year she added to her own age those around her were also growing older as well. Edmund and Maybel would not be with her forever.

Had they not earned their rest in their own dear little cottage that they rarely visited these days? And Friarsgate. Her beloved Friarsgate. None of her nieces or nephews were suited to inherit it. What had she been thinking when she had so obdurately refused to consider marrying?

Yet she knew. Her mother had found love thrice in her lifetime.

Philippa and Banon had found love in their own marriages. And Elizabeth Meredith would not, could not settle for any less than what they had. But until Baen MacColl had come into her life she had seen no hope of finding a man to love, a man who would love her enough to accept her as she was. The lady of Friarsgate. However, Baen did. Now her only problem would be in convincing him to stay with her. She had her mother’s permission to bring him to the altar if she could. And even now Maybel was convincing him how necessary he was to Friarsgate, to them all.

And indeed the old woman was. She had taken up his hands and kissed them both before bursting into tears. “Thank God and his blessed Mother Mary that you are here to aid us, laddie. We should be lost without you,” she told him, sobbing.

Instinctively Baen had put his arms about the weeping woman.

“There now, Maybel, do not greet. Your Edmund will be all right with God’s good help. I am here to help, and I will until he can get on his feet again. How is he now?”

“Sleeping,” Maybel said. “Elizabeth gave him the draft and is sitting with him while I have come to thank you. But I must return now,” she said, moving from the comfort of his strong arms.

“Is there anything we can do to make him more comfortable?” Lord Cambridge asked. He had come into the hall shortly after Edmund had been carried upstairs.

“Thank you, Thomas Bolton,” Maybel said. “I believe all is being done that can be done for now.” Then she hurried back to her husband.

“Well, dear boy, I thank heavens you are with us,” Lord Cambridge said. “For all the ladies of Friarsgate think they can manage, each has needed a man at one time or another,” he said. “Poor Edmund, but alas he is not a lad any longer, I fear. None of us is, of course, but he is the oldest of the Boltons.”

Elizabeth returned to the hall and requested of Albert that the evening meal be served. Father Mata arrived from his church, where he had been schooling some of the younglings in the Latin of the Mass. Elizabeth told him what had transpired, and then said, “Eat first, Mata, and then go to Maybel. I know you well, and you will remain the night by Edmund’s side with an empty belly if I do not make you eat now.”

The priest said the blessing, and then gobbled his meal of lamb stew with carrots and leeks, trout with butter and parsley, and bread and cheese. Then, rising, he made for the stairs. Several minutes later Maybel entered the hall, and Elizabeth beckoned her to the high board to eat. She finished her meal as quickly as the priest had, and disappeared back to her chamber, where Edmund lay silent. Thomas Bolton and Will Smythe excused themselves from the hall after a single game of chess, leaving Baen and Elizabeth alone. The servants cleared the remnants of the evening meal away, and the hall was suddenly empty but for the Scot and the lady of Friarsgate.