The Last Heiress (36 page)

“Give it to the servants as a treat,” she told Albert. She knew that within the dessert had been placed two marbles, two rings, and two coins. Whoever found the rings would find love and marriage. Elizabeth laughed bitterly thinking on it. Whoever found a coin would be rich. She was already rich, for all the good it did her. And those finding one of the two marbles would lead a cold and lonely life. That privilege was already hers. As for those who found nothing, it was their fate to lead a life of uncertainty. There was no uncertainty in her life. She would grow old alone.

The following day it was customary to hold a feast in honor of all the saints. That night her hall was filled with the Friarsgate folk, as she would not punish them for her stupidity. There was a roasted boar, which everyone loved. The next day, All Souls, prayers were offered for the dead, and the children went a-souling, singing and asking for soul cakes, which had been previously prepared and were given them.

Martinmas followed on November twelfth, and again the hall was filled with her folk, who this time were treated to roast goose. On the twenty-fifth of the month St. Catherine’s feast was celebrated with cathern cakes in the shape of the wheel upon which the saint was martyred.

The days were growing much colder and shorter, the nights long and dark. Elizabeth had overseen all the preparations necessary to protect her flocks and her folk. She had ridden out almost every day on some purpose or another. She had collected the herbs and flowers she would need to make fresh teas, salves, and poultices for her apothecary. It was her duty as the lady to minister to any in her care who grew sick. But no matter how busy she kept herself she was still bitter at Baen’s defection, and so very lonely. She still could not believe that he had deserted her when he loved her.

A messenger came from Claven’s Carn inviting her to spend Christmas with her mother, her stepfather, and her half brothers. Elizabeth sent him back with a message that she thought it unwise to leave Friarsgate with winter upon them. But the truth was that she had not felt well at all since Baen had gone. The thought of traveling into Scotland was unpleasant. She did not believe she could bear the happiness that surrounded her mother at Claven’s Carn.

A long, newsy letter arrived from Otterly. Lord Cambridge asked after her health, and sent his regards to Baen. The new wing of the house was perfect. He was safe from Banon and her noisy brood, and once more had his privacy. A small gallery had been built connecting the main house to Thomas Bolton’s snug wing. But the doors at either end of the gallery had but two keys that fit their locks. And Lord Cambridge carried these keys on his person at all times. The door at the far end of the gallery was fitted into the paneling on both sides, so unless one was aware there was a door, one could not find it. It opened into a secret passage that opened into a little-used hallway in the main house. Banon had no idea it was there, and Thomas Bolton had no intention of telling her until he lay on his deathbed. Hopefully that would be many years hence.

He was sharing his secret with Elizabeth, he said, in case he be struck down suddenly. She smiled reading this, almost hearing his voice, ripe with glee at having outfoxed her sister Banon. His library was coming along beautifully. He had found some rare manuscripts among his cache from London, including one by Master Geoffrey Chaucer. Will had come upon it among some lesser works, the dear, clever boy.

I shall not invite you to the Christmas festivities here at Otterly,
he wrote her.
If you were caught by the weather and forced to remain here,
Banon’s brood would put you off having an heir for Friarsgate entirely. Besides, I know that you are happy with everything the way it is now, and will
be settling down for the winter.
He asked after Edmund and Maybel. And then he closed, sending her his dearest love. Elizabeth put the parchment aside, feeling the tears behind her eyelids. She was feeling so fragile lately.

Then, looking up, she said to the Otterly messenger, “I will send you with a reply tomorrow. Go to the kitchens and eat. There is a bed space in the hall for you.” Going to her privy chamber, Elizabeth considered what she would say to her uncle. In the end she simply wrote that Master MacColl had returned north in the autumn.

Reading the missive several days later, Lord Cambridge pursed his lips. It was what Elizabeth hadn’t said that intrigued him far more than what she had. She could dismiss her lover so casually? He shook his head. She was hurt, of course, because she had been foolish enough to make his love a choice between her and his father. But when the spring came Baen MacColl would come south again, Lord Cambridge was certain. He loved Elizabeth Meredith, and she loved him. She would forgive him, and all would be well once more.

The twelve days of Christmas came, and for the first time in memory there was no celebration in the hall at Friarsgate. Elizabeth herself went from cottage to cottage on Christmas morn, delivering the gifts she had for her folk. But there were no gifts for her, nor feasting in her hall. Twelfth Night came and went. The snows had finally come, and Elizabeth knew that her cotters were busily weaving the fine cloth that helped bring wealth to them all. But there was little for her to do now.

Her books were in order. There was, praise God, no sickness among them.

Candlemas was celebrated on February second. She presented Father Mata with a supply of fine new candles for the church in the new year. Reports were beginning to come to her that the ewes were starting to drop their lambs. Then one night Elizabeth heard the howling of wolves. The next morning she ordered the flocks moved even closer to the house and barns than they had previously been.

Dressing one morning she said to Nancy, “You must speak with the laundress. She has of late begun to shrink my garments. My gowns are becoming too close fitting.”

“The laundress does not wash your gowns, mistress,” Nancy said. “I look after them myself, and am most careful. But now that you mention it I have noted that your bodices are stretching across your bosom too tightly these days. And you are developing a belly beneath your skirts.” The words were no sooner from her mouth when Nancy gasped with the realization of what she had just said. “Mistress! I believe you are with child,” she gasped.

Elizabeth reached out to steady herself. “With child?” she repeated.

“When was your last moon link?” Nancy said, realizing that it had to be several months since she had prepared bleeding clothes for Elizabeth or taken stained chemises to the laundress. There could be no other explanation.

Elizabeth sat down heavily. “With child,” she said. What was the matter with her that she had not realized it? Of course she was with child. Although she knew her mother had ways of preventing conception, she had never needed to know them. Rosamund would have told her youngest daughter when she married. But all summer and into the early autumn she and Baen had made love at every opportunity.

She blushed, remembering the many places where they had lain, lustily indulging their passion for each other. He was a virile man, and the women in her family were noted for their ability to produce healthy offspring. Aye, she was with child. Elizabeth began to laugh, and she laughed until the tears rolled down her pale cheeks.

“Mistress.” Nancy’s voice quavered. “Are you all right?” The serving woman thought it odd that Elizabeth found this news so amusing.

The heiress of Friarsgate was carrying a nameless bastard child. Surely there was no humor in that.

“We must send for my mother,” Elizabeth said. “ ’Tis cold, but clear.

A messenger is to ride with all haste to Claven’s Carn and fetch her back to me.”

“Will you write a message?” Nancy wanted to know.

“Nay. Just tell him to say I need my mother immediately,” Elizabeth replied.

At Claven’s Carn, Rosamund Bolton Hepburn queried the Friarsgate man. “Is my daughter all right? What has happened?” Elizabeth wasn’t the sort of girl to send for her mother except under the direst of circumstances, and perhaps not even then.

“My lady, I know nothing more than what Mistress Elizabeth’s tiring woman, Nancy, told me. I was to fetch you with all haste. But I can tell you that my mistress appears well.”

“What the hell is the wench up to now?” Logan Hepburn, the laird of Claven’s Carn, demanded to know of his wife.

Rosamund shook her head. “I do not know, but Elizabeth would not send for me in the dead of winter without cause.”

“I’ll go with you,” he replied, and was surprised when she did not argue with him. She was worried, and Rosamund was not a woman to jump at shadows. “If the weather holds I’ll ride down to St. Cuthbert’s and pay John a visit while you see what it is your daughter wants.

When I return we will come home.”

“Is tomorrow too soon to leave?” Rosamund asked him.

“I can be ready,” Logan Hepburn said. She was worried.

They departed Claven’s Carn even before first light the following morning. Rosamund could reach Friarsgate the same day if she traveled early and long. Once over the border her husband left her with their clansmen to travel on to St. Cuthbert’s monastery, where his eldest son was now studying for the priesthood. He had a longer journey than Rosamund, but having made the journey once before he knew he could find shelter tonight with a border farmer who was related to the Hepburns. He traveled alone, leaving his clansmen to escort his wife.

Shortly after dark they reached Friarsgate.

Rosamund hurried into the hall to find Elizabeth already at the high board eating.

“Come in, Mama!” The younger woman waved the older forward.

“Albert! A plate for the lady Rosamund.”

“What is the matter?” Rosamund demanded, flinging her fur-lined cape at a servant and sitting down next to her daughter.

“How good you are,” Elizabeth said. “You came immediately, didn’t you?”

“You have never been a child to ask for my help, Bessie,” her mother said. “When you do then I know it is a serious matter.”

“Do not call me Bessie,” Elizabeth said softly, but there was an edge to her voice.

“Tell me,” Rosamund repeated.

“I know how you have fretted that there was no heir of my body to follow me here at Friarsgate. I wanted you to know, Mama, that come the spring there will be an heir, or perhaps an heiress, for Friarsgate.

Are you not pleased?”

Rosamund heard her daughter’s words, but at first she could not absorb what Elizabeth was telling her. But then the import of her daughter’s announcement exploded in her brain. She gasped, and then she said, “What have you done, Bess—Elizabeth? What have you done?”

“I fell in love, Mama. Was that not allowed? You loved my father.

You loved Lord Leslie. You love Logan. Philippa loves Crispin. Banon loves her Neville. Even Uncle Thomas loves his Will. Am I not permitted the same privilege? ‘You must marry, Elizabeth. We need a husband for you, Elizabeth. Friarsgate must have an heir, Elizabeth.’ Did you not all say it to me over and over and over again? So I went to court to please you all, but there was none for me there. Did you expect me to find a man of the land among those boring perfumed courtiers, Mama?”

“It’s the Scotsman, Baen MacColl, isn’t it?” Rosamund said.

“Of course it is Baen MacColl, Mama. Was he not perfect for me?

For Friarsgate? But he would put his parent above me, and above what I had to offer him.”

“He has taken advantage of you!” Rosamund cried.

Elizabeth burst out laughing. “Nay, Mama. I took advantage of him.

I seduced him boldly, and without a thought for what might come of our passion. I thought—nay, I believed—that because I loved him, because he said he loved me, that he would come to understand we were meant to be together here at Friarsgate. But none of it meant anything to him. His damned father, this master of Grayhaven, is more important to Baen than I am. Than Friarsgate is! He could have been the master here, but he chose to remain his father’s bastard. I never want to see him again!” Her voice was shaking.

“Did he know you were with child when he left you?” Rosamund wanted to know.

“I didn’t realize it until just a few days ago. Baen left the same day my uncle returned to Otterly,” Elizabeth said. “We had handfasted ourselves, yet he still went.”

“He must wed you properly,” Rosamund said quietly.

“Children of a handfast union are legitimate,” Elizabeth said.

“There can be no cloud of any kind tainting this child’s right of inheritance,” Rosamund told her daughter in a suddenly hard voice. “My uncle Henry Bolton’s last wife bore many bairns, but only the eldest was a true Bolton. Still, my uncle did not deny her brats for fear of being ridiculed, though all knew he was a cuckold. But they bear the name Bolton, and so under the law are Boltons. I will not have one of them suddenly arriving at Friarsgate to take it from us, Elizabeth.”

“Did you not hear me, Mama? I never want to see Baen MacColl again!”

“Do not be ridiculous, Elizabeth,” Rosamund snapped. “You will be properly wed in the church so that none of Mavis Bolton’s brats—

should any still be alive, or near—can claim our home. When is the bairn due?”

“In the spring, I suppose,” Elizabeth said in a surly voice.

Rosamund drew a long, deep breath. “When were you last linked with the moon?” she demanded of her daughter. “We must know if this child will come early or late.” Her brow furrowed in thought. “If he left at the beginning of October then you had to be with child then,”

Rosamund considered. “So probably by August.” She looked for Albert and, finding him, motioned him towards her. “Find Mistress Elizabeth’s woman for me,” she said.

“Yes, my lady,” the steward said. Standing so near he had heard everything that had transpired between the two women. Had he not been recently elevated to his position he would have been eager to share what he had overheard. But he was the steward of the hall, and a man in his position did not gossip. Finding Nancy, he sent her back to the hall. She undoubtedly knew of her mistress’s condition, but had said nothing. Such a woman of discretion would make a good wife for the steward of the hall, Albert thought.