Until You

by Bertrice Small

  “Twelve,” he countered, and seeing the look in her eye quickly said, “Ten is the lowest I can go, my lady.” His mouth puckered nervously.

  “Eight percent and not a penny more, Master Jacobs. I am being generous with you for the sake of your long-standing arrangement with my cousin. We have built the ship, grown the wool, and woven the cloth. The risk is all ours. Eight percent for bringing in return cargo is more than fair.”

  The goldsmith’s pursed lips turned up into a smile. “Agreed, my lady!” he said. Then he turned to Lord Cambridge. “She both bargains and reasons well, old friend.”

  “Indeed she does,” Tom said proudly.

  “What are we to do about a factor?” Rosamund asked him when they were once more in their barge on the river.

  “I think there is time for that,” Lord Cambridge said thoughtfully. “Perhaps we need not find someone on this visit to London. My instincts tell me to wait.”

  “Your instincts have always proven reliable before,” Rosamund said. “We will wait.”

  The following day the court decamped Westminster Palace and London for Windsor, where the king was looking forward to a summer of hunting in his green park. They rode with the royal progress, Lucy, Tom’s man, and the cart with their belongings mixed in with the baggage train and their own men-at-arms. Philippa rode with her friend Cecily FitzHugh and Rosamund and Tom with the Earl and Countess of Renfrew.

  The earl was a large man with gray eyes and sandy-colored hair. His wife was petite and dark-haired with fine blue eyes.

  “I remember your late husband, Sir Owein,” Ned told Rosamund as they traveled. “He was an honorable man and a devoted servant to the House of Tudor. I, too, have Welsh blood.”

  “Owein barely remembered the place of his birth, my lord. He went into service as Jasper Tudor’s page when he was but six,” Rosamund told her companion.

  “My wife and I spend more time at court now than in the marches,” the earl admitted. “Our son and his wife need to learn how to manage the family estates. It will be theirs one day. Tom tells me you have a large holding in the north.”

  “Friarsgate,” Rosamund said. “My parents and brother perished when I was three. I became the heiress to Friarsgate. Philippa is my heiress. I have land, cattle, and many sheep, my lord. Now Tom and I have begun a new venture, exporting my fine woolen cloth. We are building our own ship, for the cloth must be transported carefully.”

  “And your daughter will inherit all of it one day,” the earl said.

  “Aye,” Rosamund replied. “Her second sister, Banon, will inherit Otterly from Tom. As for my youngest daughter, Elizabeth, she will be given a very large dower portion. I seek a title for her.”

  The Earl of Renfrew nodded, understanding completely. Family connections were very important. “My second son, Giles—” he began.

  Rosamund interrupted him. “Philippa is too young, my lord, for me even to consider it yet, but I thank you. When she is old enough, in another three years, perhaps your son will still be available, and we may speak.”

  “You are a good mother,” the earl told Rosamund.

  They reached Windsor, where Tom had provided them with an entire floor of a fashionable inn. He had even arranged housing for the men-at-arms, telling them if they wished to earn extra coin they might hire themselves out. They must, however, be prepared to depart Windsor in late July, when Rosamund wished to return home. They hardly saw Philippa, for she and her new friend were part of a group of young girls of good families following the progress. They rode to the hunt during the day and spent part of the evening dancing and playing games. Philippa had never known such a life existed, but she liked the court far better than her mother ever had and said so.

  “It will be so dull to return to Friarsgate,” she said one morning as she prepared to depart for the day’s hunt.

  “Nonetheless, it is where you belong for now, my daughter,” Rosamund replied.

  “Oh, mama! You treat me like a child, and I am no longer a child!” Philippa cried.

  “You are ten years of age,” Rosamund said stiffly, “and a long way from being grown, whatever you may believe.”

  Philippa rolled her eyes at her mother and emitted a deep sigh.

  “We cannot go home too soon,” she told Tom after she had repeated the conversation to him. “I see Philippa has a stubborn streak in her that must be controlled.”

  “I wonder where she has gotten that,” he murmured, casting his eyes heavenwards.

  “Tom! I always did my duty when I was her age,” Rosamund protested.

  “I cannot say, dear girl, for we were not acquainted then,” he told her with a grin.

  “Edmund will tell you it is so,” Rosamund said heatedly.

  “We are departing in another few days, cousin,” he soothed. “Let her have her fun. Soon enough she will be back in the hall studying with her sisters and Father Mata.”

  “And the sooner, the better,” Rosamund muttered. Philippa was suddenly making her feel very old.

  Windsor Castle was a most impressive castle. It sat upon a hilltop overlooking green meadows and lush woodlands, the Thames River below it. The castle had been begun by the Normans in the year 1080. It was one in a nexus of nine castles being built to encircle and protect London. In the beginning it was no more than a wooden keep used as a hunting lodge by its Norman kings. The first of the Plantagenet kings, Henry II, rebuilt the castle in stone. Runnymede Meadow, where King John had signed the Magna Carta, was nearby. In the year 1216 Windsor had withstood a great siege. Henry III, John’s son, had the damage repaired and enlarged the royal apartments as well. A fire in 1296 destroyed much of Henry’s rebuilding.

  Edward III, born at Windsor, loved the castle and did much to add to its beauty and its use. Silver-gray stone from a nearby quarry at Bagshot was used in the new walls and buildings. Edward IV began building a magnificent chapel he dedicated to St. George, but it was not finished in his reign. His grandson, Henry VIII, was now in the process of completing the chapel. Henry Tudor loved Windsor for its great forest where he might hunt at his leisure all day.

  While Rosamund found the castle an impressive edifice, she thought Greenwich fairer. Windsor had no gardens or walks to enjoy. Philippa didn’t care. She was out a-horse with Cecily FitzHugh almost every day. And when the two girls were not hunting, they were with the queen, who might or might not be with child again. Katherine called Rosamund to her the day before the lady of Friarsgate planned to depart.

  The queen did not ask, she simply said, “I will want Philippa sent to me when she turns twelve, Rosamund. I have decided to have her as one of my maids of honor. Young Cecily FitzHugh will also be one of my maids. You know I will keep your daughter safe and chaste while she is with me.”

  Rosamund was not pleased. Philippa had taken too easily to court life, and if she were ever to remain at court, what would to happen to Friarsgate? Still, one did not argue with a queen. She curtsied to Katherine and said, “This is a great honor, your highness, and I know that Philippa will be thrilled to have received it. Am I to tell her, or will you?”

  “I have already spoken with her and with the Earl of Renfrew’s daughter, as well,” the queen replied.

  Rosamund curtsied again. “With your highness’ permission, I will withdraw now. We are departing in the morning for Friarsgate.”

  “You are eager.” Katherine smiled. “You have always loved your home, Rosamund. Go, then, and travel safely with God. I will pray for you.”

  “And I will pray for your highness,” Rosamund replied as she backed from the queen’s presence.

  When she told her cousin of the queen’s words, Lord Cambridge was delighted. “The trip has been a great success, dear girl. You are back in favor, and Philippa is to be a maid of honor in two years’ time. Wonderful!”

  They were seated in the small private dining room of the inn, having their main meal of the day as they spoke.

  “Philippa likes the court too well for my
peace of mind,” Rosamund said. “If she becomes involved in the life surrounding the king, she will neglect Friarsgate. I do not like it, but there is nothing I can do about it.”

  “It is but a phase she is going through,” Tom said. “Philippa has extraordinary common sense and will not allow herself to be lured by the pleasures the court can offer her.”

  “I was not like that at her age,” Rosamund said.

  “Nay, you were a dutiful chatelaine with an ancient husband at ten,” Tom reminded her. “The weight of Friarsgate was heavy on your shoulders, cousin, but Philippa is not you. It is a different time in which she lives. Besides, at court she is safer from Henry the younger.”

  “I wish we would go back to learn he has been hung,” Rosamund said darkly. “I do not relish the next two years, if he survives. Keeping Philippa from him will not be easy, Tom, but as God is my witness, I will do it!”

  “I know you will, dear girl. Why, you frighten me half to death when you get that look in your eye,” he teased her.

  “Are the men-at-arms gathered together now?” she asked him.

  “We will depart as early on the morrow as you can arise, cousin,” he said.

  “I am most eager to get back,” Rosamund said.

  “To Friarsgate or to your brazen Scot?” he asked, a single eyebrow cocked.

  “To Friarsgate, of course!” she said immediately. “I do not know what is to happen with Logan Hepburn and myself. We shall see.”

  Tom did not pursue the subject further with Rosamund. He knew what was going to happen even if she didn’t. She was going to marry the laird of Claven’s Carn, and damned well about time, he thought. He didn’t know how Logan would bring off this miracle, but it would happen. The Scotsman loved his cousin deeply, even if she was too stubborn to see it. They had both been through much in their lives, but now it was time for them. And Lord Cambridge intended to see it happen. He knew that Edmund and Maybel were in agreement with him on this. It was just a matter of making Rosamund see reason. It amazed him that his cousin, an intelligent and clever woman where Friarsgate was concerned, could be so foolish in the matter of her own emotions. He did not doubt for a moment that Patrick Leslie would always be in her heart, even if she spoke little of him anymore. But there had to be room in her heart for another love, as well. For the first time in a long while, Tom prayed.

  A knock at the chamber’s door opened to reveal the same page who had escorted Rosamund to the king at Westminster. The lad bowed smartly, saying as he did, “His majesty wishes to see the lady of Friarsgate before she departs. Please come with me.”

  “Where is the king?” Rosamund asked the boy.

  “At the edge of the wood behind the inn, my lady,” was the answer.

  “Come, Tom. For my reputation’s sake, I beg you to accompany me,” Rosamund said.

  He nodded, standing immediately, and together they followed the boy out the back door of the inn, through the kitchen courtyard, and across a small swath of meadow to the edge of the forest where the king stood half-hidden in the trees. The page and Lord Cambridge stopped, while Rosamund moved forward and curtsied to the king.

  “You are determined to ruin my reputation with the queen, Hal,” she greeted him.

  He laughed. “And you, fair Rosamund, are determined to be what you were born to be.” Reaching out, he took her small hand in his big one and kissed it. “I came only to tell you that you will always have my friendship, as you have Kate’s. I wanted there to be no misunderstanding between us on that point.”

  “I am glad, then, that you called me to you,” Rosamund told him. “It is a wise woman who keeps the friendship of both her king and her queen.”

  Again he laughed. “Direct and honest as you ever were, madame. I am sorry we may not take up where we left off. No one has ever spoken to me as you do, Rosamund.”

  “I am a countrywoman, my liege, and we do see things differently,” she told him.

  “Then this is adieu, fair Rosamund,” he told her as he drew her into his arms and kissed her lips.

  Now it was Rosamund who laughed as she drew away, shaking her finger at him. “You will always be the bad lad,” she told him. Then she curtsied, saying as she did, “I am grateful for your friendship, Hal. My daughter Philippa will be coming to serve the queen as a maid of honor in two years’ time. I hope you will grant her your friendship, as well. She is Owein’s child, and the Merediths were ever loyal to the House of Tudor.”

  “I will watch over her as if she were my own child,” he said. If I had a child. The unsaid words hung in the air between them.

  “There will be a child, Hal. I will pray for it,” Rosamund promised. Then, with another curtsy, she backed away, finally turning to rejoin her cousin, the page passing her as she went.

  “He wanted to say good-bye,” Tom said. “How charming. It is good to know that you still retain his favor.”

  “If I had remained, if we had taken up where we left off, he would have soon been bored. Hal has always sought the unattainable. It is the chase he enjoys far more than the possession,” Rosamund noted.

  “Then it would appear that our business here is done, cousin.”

  She nodded. “Aye, Tom, and I am indeed eager to get home to Friarsgate.”

  Chapter 18

  “I wonder how long it will take the laird to know that you are home.” Tom teased Rosamund as they rode down the road to Friarsgate.

  “Did you not see the clansmen on the hilltop?” she asked him, laughing.

  He grinned at her. “You can’t blame the man for being eager. How long has he been waiting for you?”

  “Tom, I have not said I would marry him. He has not even asked me,” she protested.

  “Do you doubt for a moment that isn’t his intent, dear girl?” he replied.

  “Perhaps I just want him for a lover,” Rosamund answered him. “What is the purpose in my marrying again, Tom? I have three heiresses. He has an heir for Claven’s Carn. I am English. He is Scots. I will not give up Friarsgate until I die. He will not give up Claven’s Carn. We are, I am coming to realize, very much alike.”

  “Two like beings—a perfect partnership, dear girl!” Tom insisted.

  “We shall see,” Rosamund said again, as she had been saying all the way home.

  Lord Cambridge clamped his lips together. If he heard her utter those three words again he was simply going to scream. Or shake her until she got some common sense. He would remain overnight, and then he had to get home to Otterly. This whole situation was beginning to wear on his nerves. He did not wish to be around while his cousin and Logan Hepburn sparred with each other. He did not envy the laird of Claven’s Carn, and as much as Tom loved his cousin, she could sometimes be very difficult.

  Reaching the house, Philippa was off her horse before her elders, throwing herself into Maybel’s arms and chattering a mile a minute about all her adventures and her best friend, Cecily FitzHugh. Maybel hugged and kissed the girl, then set her aside firmly, looking to Rosamund. Rosamund dismounted and went wordlessly into Maybel’s outstretched arms.

  “God’s blood, old woman, it is good to be home again!” she said, hugging Maybel. “Has all been well while I have been away? The sheep are looking fat enough.”

  “Edmund will tell you everything you need to know and some things that you don’t, but I can’t stop him,” Maybel replied. “You look better than I have ever seen you returning from court, lass.”

  “That is because I stayed but a brief time, and having made my peace with the king and his queen, took little part in the activities of the court. I was able to eat and sleep enough, which my daughter was not, for she loves the court, I fear.” She linked her arm with Maybel’s, and the two women strolled into the house, seating themselves in the hall together on a settle by the fireplace. “Philippa’s good manners, more your doing surely than mine, have won her the queen’s favor. She is to return in two years to take her place among Kate’s maids of honor,” Rosamund told Maybel. />
  “What an honor!” Maybel said, but then she fretted, “She will yet be a child, Rosamund. How can we let her go?”

  “There is no choice in the matter, Maybel. But I would trust my daughter with the queen, for her household is orderly and chaste. Her maids are the most virtuous girls in the kingdom, I am certain. And Philippa has made a good friend in Cecily FitzHugh, who will serve the queen with her. She is the daughter of the Earl of Renfrew. The younger of her two brothers may be a possible match for Philippa. He is fourteen, and having served in the queen’s household is now being sent to France and Italy for more studious pursuits.”

  Maybel listened, nodding as Rosamund spoke. “Does Philippa know of this lad?” she finally asked. “What does she say?”

  “I have not spoken to her about it, for it is too soon, but you can be certain that she knows. These little girls at court know more gossip than even the servants do,” Rosamund laughed. “Besides, they may grow acquainted and decide they do not like each other. Nothing has been formally discussed or settled. There may be another boy better suited to Philippa. I have time, but Tom frets like an old lady.”

  “And with good cause, dear girl,” he said, joining them. “She does not understand the necessity of looking about now and winnowing the possible from the impossible.”

  “That’s all right, Tom,” Maybel said calmly. “As long as our Rosamund has you to rely upon, she’ll not go wrong. Of course, she may take another husband one day, and then your influence would certainly wane.”

  “His influence will never ebb with me, Maybel,” Rosamund said. “And as for marriage, we shall see.”

  Lord Cambridge gritted his teeth so hard they hurt.

  Edmund and Father Mata joined them at the high board late in the day as the meal was served.

  “Has all been well, uncle, in my absence?” Rosamund asked him.

  He nodded slowly. “But I have been grateful for the laird’s clansmen, lass, for there have been strangers on the heights, of late, observing Friarsgate.”