The Last Heiress

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Last Heiress

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Electronic edition: September 2005

FOR MY LIVELY LADIES

Prologue

FRIARSGATE

Winter 1530

“Y
ou are going to court,” Rosamund Bolton Hepburn said firmly to her daughter, Elizabeth Meredith, in a tone that ordinarily no one challenged.

“I am not!” Elizabeth answered back in a tone that all listening knew boded ill for the conversation.

“You have to have a husband, Elizabeth,” Rosamund replied, an edge to her voice. This was a conversation they had both been avoiding for some time now.

“Why?” Elizabeth demanded. “Have I not shown that I am capable of managing Friarsgate, Mother? A husband would want to take my authority for himself, and I will not allow it. Friarsgate is mine, and it has been since the day I turned fourteen.”

“That was almost eight years ago,” Rosamund countered. “You will be twenty-two in a few months, Elizabeth. We have to find you a husband before it is too late, if it is not already too late.”

“Why?” Elizabeth said again, and this time her hazel-green eyes grew angry.

“You are a perfectly competent mistress of Friarsgate,” Rosamund began. “Indeed, you are doing a better job than even I did. But one day you will not be here, and who is to take over the Friarsgate inheritance then if you have no heirs or heiresses to follow you? Be reasonable, Elizabeth. You need a husband to sire children upon you.”

“Banon and her Neville have children. Philippa and her earl have children. I will leave it to whomever of them I feel is the right heir or heiress,” Elizabeth said.

“Banon has only one son, and he will one day inherit Otterly. He 
will not want—nor does he need—Friarsgate. Philippa’s sons would never suit. The eldest will be the earl one day. The second is a page in Norfolk’s household. The third is intended for a place in Princess Mary’s household. As for the baby, he will make a great match for Mary Rose one day. Like their parents, my St. Clair grandchildren are creatures of the court. You have no choice, Elizabeth. You must marry.”

Elizabeth Meredith sighed deeply.

“Is there any young man hereabouts who pleases you?” Rosamund gently asked. “If there is, speak up so that we may arrange the match between you. I do not want you unhappy, daughter. Both your sisters have married for love. I would give you the same privilege if it is possible.” Reaching out, she took her daughter’s hand in hers in a gesture of comfort. Of her three Meredith daughters Elizabeth was the one who looked like her father, with her soft blond hair and her hazel-green eyes. Rosamund could always see Owein in Elizabeth eyes, and while Owein had not been considered particularly handsome, his daughter was indeed a beauty. At least she was when her face was clean.

“Who would I know, Mother?” Elizabeth said. “Friarsgate is large, and it is isolated. I have no time for the niceties of society. I am too busy with my lands.”

“Then you must go to court to seek a husband,” Rosamund replied.

“You have no other choice. You are too old to be a maid of honor, and I cannot ask the queen to take you on as one of her ladies. You have no skills for such a position. You will have to stay with Philippa and Crispin. They go to court for the month of May, and can introduce you into society there. May is a wonderful time at court. I remember it well.”

“God’s wounds!” Elizabeth swore softly. “You would have me stay with Philippa? You know we do not get along, Mother. She is so high-flown you would think she sprang from a duke’s loins, and not those of a simple Welsh knight. And she always brings out the worst in me. I try not to let her aggravate me, but it takes less than a few moments, and I am ready to throttle her. It is hard to believe we are sisters with the same sire and mam,” Elizabeth said with a shake of her head.

“I have no choice but to send you to Philippa,” Rosamund responded.

“Yes, you do! Don’t make me go!” Elizabeth said with a grin.

Rosamund laughed. “Bessie”—she chuckled—“what am I to do with you?”

Bessie. Her childhood name. Elizabeth allowed few to address her by it these days. It was infantile, and not a proper name for the heiress of Friarsgate. She was Elizabeth Julia Anne Meredith now. Not Bessie.

“If you would make me go, could not Uncle Thomas take me the way he did Philippa and Banon? He still retains his London house, and the house at Greenwich. He and Will were speaking of a foray south at Twelfth Night. It seems that Banon’s noisy household is beginning to grate on his nerves. And it is at least three years since his last visit to court.”

“He swore he would never go again,” Rosamund noted to her daughter.

“Uncle Thomas always says that when he returns home. But then several years go by, and he begins to long for the color, the excitement, and the delicious gossip that only the court can offer him. And let us not forget his London tailor,” Elizabeth said dryly. “He always comes back with the most magnificent wardrobes that he may both dazzle and shock the local gentry around Otterly.”

“I don’t know,” Rosamund said slowly.

“Please, Mother! As it is, spring is a dreadful time for you to send me away, but I will go quietly if Uncle Thomas can take me. But I shall not go to Philippa’s. I won’t!”

“You will if I say you will,” Rosamund answered her daughter. The conversation, pleasant for a few moments, was beginning to degener-ate again into a battle of wills.

“How will you make me?” Elizabeth challenged her mother. “Will you have me trussed up like one of my lambs and delivered to Brierewode? And after that what? And if Philippa drags eligibles into my presence I shall belch, fart, speak with a broad North Country accent, and make myself generally undesirable. I doubt she could last a month with me, and will send me packing back home as quickly as she can.

Besides, she gave up Friarsgate because no court gentleman would 
have an heiress with a Cumbrian estate. What makes you think I can do any better? And I shall not give up Friarsgate, Mother.”

Rosemund glared at her daughter. She had absolutely no doubt that Elizabeth would behave exactly as she threatened if sent to Philippa’s unwillingly. But if Lord Cambridge escorted his young relative then perhaps, just perhaps, there might be the chance of Elizabeth snagging a husband with whom they could all live. Philippa and Crispin would be their entrée into the court, but Thomas Bolton would be Elizabeth’s guardian, adviser, and protector. Even as he had been for her those many years ago, and then her two oldest daughters, Rosamund considered. “I will ask Tom then,” she conceded, “but swear to me, Elizabeth, that you will follow his advice, and obey him. He is hardly a young man now, and if he agrees to do this for you, you cannot embarrass or defy him.”

“Uncle Thomas and I have always gotten on well, Mother,” Elizabeth said, “even if Banon is his favorite. I was Glenkirk’s favorite. I still remember him, you know.”

“Do you?” Rosamund said, and pulled herself up from her seat. “I must get back to Logan, and my laddies,” she said. “I’ll write Tom now before I go, and Edmund will see it delivered to Otterly.” She bent and kissed Elizabeth’s cheek. “We will see whomever you wed must defer to your authority here, Bessie. I promise you that. You are a good mistress for Friarsgate.”

“Godspeed, Mother,” Elizabeth said, escorting her mother from the hall. “Tell Logan I send him my love.”

Rosamund hurried to the small room that served as the estate’s place of authority. Seating herself at the oak table, she drew a sheet of parchment from the basket and picked up the quill. She considered her words carefully as she wrote. She was asking a great deal of her beloved cousin Tom, but Rosamund knew that Bessie would not cooperate in this endeavor unless he would agree to help her. Her youngest daughter was a clever young woman. Polite society, however, was not her forte. She would need to go into this adventure with a strong advantage. But Tom Bolton was no longer a young man. He had just turned sixty at the beginning of the month. Elizabeth was a great responsibility with which to saddle him. Still, her cousin’s secretary 
and companion, William Smythe, was a much younger man. He would go with them. Perhaps together the two men could manage the very independent and stubborn heiress of Friarsgate. Perhaps together they could find a husband suitable for Elizabeth, and suitable for the great estate she possessed. It wasn’t that she didn’t have enough grandchildren, Rosamund thought wryly. It was just that none of them belonged to Friarsgate.

Chapter 1

T
homas Bolton, Lord Cambridge, read over the letter his cousin Rosamund had sent him from Friarsgate prior to her departure back to her own home along the Scots border. He pursed his lips, and his brow wrinkled in thought. “Hmmmm,” he said.

“What is it?” William Smythe asked. “Is all well with your cousin?”

“Do you recall our discussing a little visit to court just a few weeks ago?” Lord Cambridge said. “My darling Rosamund has just offered me the perfect excuse. We shall go in the spring, dear boy! And while we are gone the workmen can complete the new wing of the house.

While I adore Banon and her brood, I do not think I can live much longer in such close proximity to them.”

“Her daughters are lively lasses,” William noted dryly.

“Lively? They are five veritable little demons!” Lord Cambridge cried. “While each is prettier than a summer’s morn, not one is blessed with more than a flea’s wit. I shudder to consider poor wee Robert Thomas’s fate with such sisters dancing about him.”

“He will either learn to defend himself early, or become one of those poor lads who is fearful of his own shadow, and ruled by his womenfolk,” William said. “Now, tell me what Rosamund has written, and how is it to take us to court?”

“The Friarsgate heiress needs a husband,” Lord Cambridge said, his amber eyes dancing with glee. “She does not want to go to court.

God’s foot, Will! How that reminds me of Rosamund in her youth. But she has consented to go only if I will take her. Rosamund apologizes for imposing what she refers to as an onerous duty upon me. She wanted to send Elizabeth to Philippa.”

“The Countess of Witton?” Will shook his head. “Oh, no, my lord, that would never do, I fear. The two sisters do not get on at all.”

“Precisely what Elizabeth told her mother, and then said she would go only if I escorted her. We shall be at court in May, dear boy! Greenwich! There will be masques, for I hear the king’s little friend, Mistress Boleyn, has introduced such elegant entertainments into the court. It will be heavenly, dear boy! And we must pay a visit to Master Althorp in London, for my poor wardrobe is surely aeons out of fashion. Ahh, Will! What would I do without my darling cousin Rosamund?”

“One wonders indeed, my lord,” William Smythe said with a small smile. Eight years ago Thomas Bolton had lifted him from obscurity, taking him into his service. Being in Lord Cambridge’s service meant being taken into his family as well, and that family had welcomed and accepted him. In his entire lifetime William Smythe had never felt so secure, or so content. “When shall I plan our departure, my lord?” he asked.