The Last Heiress (7 page)

There are enough lambs being born now,
Elizabeth thought,
that I
could sell some of my sheep off and be none the poorer for it. Shropshires,
Hampshires, or cheviots, but not the merinos. There are few estates in England with sheep like mine. I cannot be certain the Scots won’t eat them anyway, and use their lungs to make that disgusting dish they call haggis. So they
shall not have my merinos.

She laid the parchment aside. It would be weeks before any sheep 
could be taken north. Certainly not until they were well into spring.

And she would want her own shepherds and dogs to escort them.

There was nothing for it but that Baen MacColl would have to remain at Friarsgate until he could return with his sheep. She would discuss it with him this evening in the hall.
Damnation!
She did not want to go to court. How was Friarsgate to manage without her? Edmund was over seventy now, and she had chosen no one to follow him. Not that he would allowed it anyway. But when she came home they were going to have to discuss it.

It snowed for almost three days. And then the sun came out, and Baen MacColl insisted on helping the men shovel paths from the house to the barns and the sheepfolds. He could not, it seemed, remain idle, and he was certainly not afraid of hard work. He had listened to Elizabeth’s suggestion that he remain at Friarsgate until he could return north with the sheep she would sell him.

“Your father can send the price of the sheep back with my shepherds,” she told him, and he agreed.

“You’re not afraid we’ll steal the sheep and slay your men?” he teased her.

“The Leslies have sent you to me,” Elizabeth said seriously. “I trust them. Besides, my stepfather is the Hepburn of Claven’s Carn. If you attempted to cheat me Logan would gather his clansmen up and go north to seek you out, sir.”

He chuckled, the corners of his gray eyes crinkling. “I suspect you would ride with them, Mistress Elizabeth,” he said.

“Aye.” She nodded. “I would. Friarsgate is my responsibility, sir.”

“Do you think you might call me Baen?” he asked her.

“I could,” she agreed. “ ’Tis an odd name. Doesn’t bane meet woe or ruin?”

“
Baen
means fair in the Scots tongue,” he told her. “
MacColl
is son of Colin.”

“Was your mother in love with your father?” Elizabeth asked him, curious.

“They met but once,” he replied.

“Once?” Elizabeth blushed, shocked by his revelation. If they had 
met but once, then his mother had lain with the master of Grayhaven without even knowing him. It was difficult enough for her to contemplate a man in her bed.

“Once,” he repeated, the gray eyes twinkling. “I never knew who my father was until my mother was on her deathbed. She told me then, and said I was to go to him as soon as she was gone. My stepfather was not the kindest man.”

“How old were you?”

“Twelve,” he answered her.

“Since you’re here,” Elizabeth said, “I assume your father took you in and cared for you.” Twelve. He had been so young. She thought of herself at twelve: all legs and arms, and constantly baiting Philippa when she was home. She hadn’t had a care in the world at twelve, while he was almost an orphan. How odd life was.

“The master of Grayhaven is a good father,” Baen answered her.

“And you have siblings? Did they mind when you came to live with them?”

“Nay. Within a few days it was as if we had always been together. I am ten years older than Jamie, and Gilbert is even younger. My stepmother was kept very busy with the three of us. Meg, of course, was a good lass. She was our father’s only daughter, born to his first wife.

Ellen, our stepmother, was his third, and my brothers were her lads.”

“What happened to the second wife?” Elizabeth asked, curious.

“He strangled her when he caught her with another man,” Baen said matter-of-factly.

“He was jealous,” Elizabeth said.

“Nay, but he was dishonored. Killing her restored that honor,” 
Baen replied.

“Gracious!” Lord Cambridge, who had been listening, exclaimed.

“How deliciously savage, dear boy! Are you much like your sire?” His eyes were twinkling.

“I am his image but for the eyes. His are green. Mine the gray of my dam’s. But I too possess a strong sense of honor, my lord.”

“You must keep your wife close,” Elizabeth noted.

“I have no wife, mistress. I owe my father my allegiance for his kindness and care of me since that day I arrived so unexpectedly upon 
his doorstep. How can I ever repay him? He did not have to take me in, and yet he did. And when he did, I gained a family. But for my mother, God assoil her good soul, I have almost forgotten those early years when I was so sadly mistreated.”

“Why does your father want more sheep?” Elizabeth asked him.

“It was my suggestion that we improve our flocks,” Baen explained to her. “I thought a better grade of wool would bring in a decent profit.

The more prosperous Grayhaven is, the better matches my younger brothers can make. Jamie, of course, will inherit one day, but Gilly needs a bit more of an advantage.”

Elizabeth nodded. She understood, of course, but she had never before considered the obtaining of a match from a man’s point of view.

It was interesting to think that men had a similar problem to women.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “we will visit some of the folds, and you can see the sheep. Mine are very different from your black-faced Highland breed. Their wool is finer. You would do well with any of the three.”

“I want to know as much about how you manage your sheep as you can teach me,” Baen said earnestly.

“Very well,” she agreed. “I will put you with some of my best shepherds. And you must have your own dog, who will answer to your calls alone. There are some half-grown pups from one of my shelties in one of the barns. I doubt they’re all spoken for yet. When the weather gets better you will work with the dog and the sheep that will be yours,” 
Elizabeth told him.

“I am grateful, lady,” he thanked her.

“If you are Baen, then I am Elizabeth,” she said.

“Have you always been called so formally?” he asked.

Elizabeth smiled. “As a child I was called Bessie, but it is not a name for the lady of Friarsgate.”

“Nay,” he agreed, “I can see you are no longer a Bessie.” And then he smiled at her, and for a brief moment Elizabeth felt dazzled. “Your name suits you,” he told her.

“Aye, I think it does,” she agreed, and then she gave him a small smile in return.

Thomas Bolton watched this exchange silently. Too bad Baen MacColl was a bastard. A landless young man with not even his sire’s 
name to distinguish him. It was a pity, but there it was. Despite the fact that Elizabeth seemed to like him, and he her; despite the fact that they had much in common; he was not the man for her. Surely at court there would be one young man for whom Friarsgate was a golden opportunity, as it had been for Elizabeth’s late father, Sir Owein Meredith. The times were different, it was true, Lord Cambridge thought. Tradesmen’s sons were now serving within the hallowed precincts of the court. But did that not make the chance of finding a husband for Elizabeth even better?

Elizabeth Meredith was a plainspoken girl. She was not interested in a great name or in serving the court. Her passion was for Friarsgate, even more so than her mother’s had been. For Rosamund there had been no choice. Elizabeth, however, had chosen to take on the manor’s many responsibilities. There had to be one man at court to whom a girl like Elizabeth Meredith would seem a great blessing. She was beautiful. She was wealthy. She was intelligent.

And there was the ant in the jam pot. Elizabeth was clever and intuitive. She knew everything there was to know about Friarsgate. She was not going to easily share her autonomy with anyone. Rosamund had been that way, but Owein had understood, and she had gradually shared her rule with him. Elizabeth was a creature of a different stripe.

Lord Cambridge sighed. He feared that they had waited too long to find Elizabeth a husband. And if they had, what was to happen to Friarsgate?

The storm was the last one of the winter season. The days were growing longer, and the sun warmer. It melted the snow that had so recently fallen, and the snows beneath it. Sheets of white slid from the roofs, sometimes catching a passerby unawares. The meltoff ran in little runnels off the edges and corners of the barns. The lambs shyly ventured out into the bright day, hiding within the shadows of their mams, but then growing bolder with each passing hour.

“Which breed do you like best?” Elizabeth asked Baen as they walked across the muddy enclosure one afternoon.

“I think the cheviots, although the Shropshires are handsome enough beasts,” he told her.

“I will sell you some of each,” she said. “It cannot hurt your endeavor to have several different breeds to go with your black-faced Highlands.” The mud squished beneath her boots, and Elizabeth sighed.

“Why do they insist you go to court?” he asked suddenly.

“Because it is the place my mother found my father, and my sisters their husbands,” Elizabeth answered him. “My mother was a child when she went, and her match was arranged with my father because it was good for the king. Fortunately my parents adored each other. She had been wed twice previously: at three to a cousin who died of a childhood complaint, and then at six to an elderly knight who taught her how to control her own destiny before he succumbed.”

“Why was she Friarsgate’s heiress?” he inquired.

“Her family perished and she alone was left,” Elizabeth explained.

“And your sisters?”

“Philippa visited the court at ten. She was invited to return at twelve to serve the queen. After that it was all she wanted. Uncle Thomas found her a husband when the boy she thought to wed preferred a churchly life instead. And Banon found her Neville at court. His family had dragged him there to hopefully gain a place in the royal household.

Instead he saw Banon, and was lost. She is Uncle Thomas’s heiress, and rules over Otterly like a queen bee. That is why he had been so delighted to winter with me. Banon’s brood of daughters drive him mad.”

Elizabeth laughed. “They say I must be wed so that Friarsgate may have another generation of heirs or heiresses. I have no time for a husband, let alone children. But to court I will be dragged, and they will find a husband for me, I fear. My sister, the countess, will already be looking for just the right man,” Elizabeth finished with a grimace.

He laughed, but then he said, “They are right, you know. This is a fine manor that you possess, Elizabeth Meredith, and you love it dearly. But like each generation that lives upon this earth, ours will one day pass away. Then who will care for Friarsgate?”

“I know,” she admitted, “but the thought of having some perfumed fool for a husband does not please me.”

“Are either of your brothers-in-law perfumed fools?” he asked her.

“Nay, but then Crispin manages his own estates, and Philippa is 
happy to let him do it, for it allows her time at court to see to the future of their children. And Robert Neville is more than content to allow Banon to control Otterly. He prefers hunting and fishing; and Banon makes his life such an easy one I think he has no idea she is wearing his breeks.”

“Is that the kind of man you want?” he said quietly.

“I think I could share Friarsgate with a husband, but he would have to love it as much as I do,” Elizabeth noted thoughtfully. “And he would have to understand that I know my lands, and I know how to buy and sell at no loss to Friarsgate. I do not believe that there is a man like that out there in the world, but I will go to court because it will please my family that I am being cooperative and doing what they want of me. But I will marry no man who cannot share my burden with me, or who wants that burden all for himself,” she said firmly.

“What of love?” he wondered.

“Love?” Elizabeth looked surprised at his query.

“Do you not want to love the man you wed, Elizabeth Meredith?”

Baen MacColl asked her. He was leaning against the fence of the sheepfold as he spoke, his gray eyes perusing her face carefully.

“I suppose it would be nice to love the man I wed. My sisters certainly love their husbands, but neither has the responsibilities I do. I must choose the man who will be best for Friarsgate, if indeed there is such a man,” Elizabeth said.

Baen MacColl reached out and took her heart-shaped face in his two big hands. Then, leaning forward, he kissed her lips slowly and tenderly.

Elizabeth’s eyes widened with surprise, and she pulled back. “Why did you do that?” she demanded to know.

“You’ve never been kissed before,” he replied by way of an answer.

“Nay, I haven’t. But you still haven’t answered my question, Baen.”

“It seemed to me at that moment that you needed to be kissed,” he told her. “You are very serious in your devotion to your duty, Elizabeth Meredith. Have you ever in all of your life had fun?”

“Fun is for children,” she answered him.

“You had better learn how to kiss if you are going into society,” he advised.

“And you are volunteering to be my instructor,” she snapped.

“I am told I kiss well, and you obviously have a great deal to learn about kissing,” he said with a grin.

“What’s wrong with the way I kiss?” she insisted upon knowing.

“When I kissed you your lips were just there,” he said. “They did not kiss back or offer me anything other than flesh.”

“Perhaps I didn’t want to be kissed,” she said, blushing to her annoyance.

“All girls want to be kissed.” He chuckled. “Shall we try again?”

“No!”

“You’re afraid,” he taunted her.

“Nay, I’m not!” she insisted. “I simply don’t wish to be seen kissing a virtual stranger in the middle of my sheepfold. What would my shepherds say, Baen MacColl?”

“Of course,” he agreed, to her surprise. “We’ll continue our lessons this evening in the hall, when your uncle has gone to his bed.”