The Last Heiress

by Bertrice Small

  “I do not know,” came the answer. “The responsibilities of Brierewode weigh heavily upon him. If everything he needs to do and to oversee is done in time, perhaps he will come to join us towards the middle of the month. A marriage is a partnership, Elizabeth. Crispin does his part, and that is why I come to court when I can to keep up our connections for the sake of our children. Being the Countess of Witton is not all frivolity and fetes, as you well know, Uncle. But Elizabeth should understand that God created husband and wife to serve their common good,” Philippa concluded.

  “I find your instruction most interesting, sister,” Elizabeth said sweetly.

  Amazing! Lord Cambridge thought. So she can be devious as well as direct. It would seem Elizabeth is a more complex girl than I had anticipated.

  “I only want your happiness!” Philippa said, throwing her arms about her younger sibling and hugging her. “I am so happy with my husband, and I know Banon is happy with her Neville. I just want you to know that same happiness too.”

  “You are most kind, sister, to come to court to help me,” Elizabeth said, “and were it not for the need of another generation for Friarsgate I believe I could be happy without a husband.”

  “You are a most unnatural girl to say such a thing!” Philippa said indignantly. “It is only because you fear to lose your power over Friarsgate that you say it.”

  “I shall not lose my autonomy,” Elizabeth replied quietly. “Any man who weds me must know that I am the heiress to Friarsgate, and while I will welcome his help, I will not be overruled.”

  “We are never going to find a husband for her!” Philippa wailed as they entered the house. “What man of breeding and honor could put up with a wife like that, Uncle?”

  “I do not know,” Lord Cambridge said, giving Elizabeth a wink of encouragement. “But tomorrow we shall go to court and begin to find out. Magical things happen on May Day, my dear girls.”

  “Perhaps I am like you, Uncle,” Elizabeth said. “Perhaps I am not destined to find a mate at all.”

  Philippa looked as if she were going to faint away with shock.

  “Nay, my darling girl,” Thomas Bolton replied. “I do not think you will be like me. Somewhere in this world is a man who will love you, and put up with your pride, and be content to let you rule over your little kingdom. If we cannot find him here at court, we will eventually find him elsewhere. Philippa, dear girl, do not despair. All will be well. Am I not the uncle who makes magic for Rosamund and all her daughters?” He put his arms about the two young women, hugging them close. “Come now, my darlings, we must decide what it is we will wear tomorrow, that we may dazzle all around us.”

  Chapter 5

  Flynn Stewart looked across the lawns at Greenwich Palace. It was May Day, and the weather was perfect. The bright sun reflected on the silken swath of the river beyond the greens. A maypole had been set up, and a bevy of pretty young women were now dancing about it as a group of gaily clad musicians played a sprightly tune. Some of the dancers he recognized. Others he did not. The king was walking about greeting his guests. He was clad in his favorite Tudor green, and the cat-faced Mistress Boleyn was by his side. She too wore green, and her thick black hair flowed down her back. There was a wreath of flowers atop her shining dark head. Henry Tudor was in a jovial mood on his favorite of all holidays.

  While not a diplomat, Flynn Stewart was at the English court at the behest of his half brother, King James V of Scotland. Officially his job was to carry any messages between King Henry and his nephew in Scotland. Unofficially he was his king’s eyes and ears. James Stewart did not trust any of the Tudors, including his own mother, now married to her third husband, Henry Stewart, Lord Methven. Yet he trusted Flynn Stewart, for not only were they half brothers, but Flynn had long since proven his loyalty to his late father’s house, though some thought it odd. While everyone knew that Flynn was the late king’s son, James IV had never officially acknowledged him, although he had insisted the boy bear his name.

  “Flynn, lad, look there,” his friend Rees Jones murmured, and he pointed.

  “Aye, a beauty,” Flynn agreed. “Who is she?”

  “I don’t know. She’s new. But that is the Countess of Witton with her. I know her. Shall we go and be introduced?”

  “How do you know the Countess of Witton?” Flynn asked his companion.

  “We’re distantly related,” Rees said. “Her father was Welsh. His brother was my maternal grandfather. She’s a delightful woman, if a bit restrained.”

  “In other words, you have considered seduction,” the Scot said.

  “Philippa St. Clair is not the sort of woman you seduce,” Rees Jones replied. “She is one of the queen’s adherents. No. I like her sense of honesty and her wit, Flynn. Now, if we are to meet the exquisite creature in her company, we had best hurry, for new blood always attracts the gentlemen of the court.”

  The two men strolled casually through the gardens until they had reached the place where Philippa stood with Thomas Bolton and Elizabeth.

  “Cousin!” Rees greeted the Countess of Witton. “How are you, and who is this lovely lass by your side?” He smiled broadly, showing all his unusually fine white teeth.

  Philippa held out her hand to be kissed as she replied, “Rees, how nice that you are here. This is my youngest sister, Mistress Elizabeth Meredith, come to court with our uncle, Lord Cambridge, of whom I have spoken. She is your relation too.” Philippa gave her sister a little poke to remind her to offer her hand to the gentlemen.

  Elizabeth quickly picked up on the signal, holding out her hand to be saluted. Lord Cambridge was relieved to note the weeks of creaming had had their effect. It was an elegant hand. “And how are we related, sir?” Elizabeth asked Rees Jones.

  “We share a great-grandfather,” he said, and then explained further, adding, “It was your father’s success at court that paved the way for me,” he concluded.

  “I do not really remember my father,” Elizabeth said. “I was very young when he died. But I am told he was a good and honorable man. I am said to resemble him.”

  “He died young then?” Rees Jones said.

  “In a fall from an apple tree,” Elizabeth replied.

  “Elizabeth!” Philippa looked mortified.

  “My sister considers the manner of our father’s death an embarrassment, I fear. Perhaps if he had perished in battle, or in his bed of a wasting sickness, she would find it more acceptable,” Elizabeth murmured.

  “What was he doing in an apple tree?” Rees asked her, ignoring Philippa.

  “Helping our people harvest the crop. None at Friarsgate had ever thought to go to the top of the tree and shake the fruit down. They picked what they could reach, and left the rest to fall and rot. My father considered that a great waste, I am told. So each autumn he would go into the orchards with the peasants and help them. One year, sadly, he lost his balance and fell to his death,” she explained.

  “He was a good Welshman to the end then, Mistress Elizabeth,” Rees Jones told her with a chuckle, “for waste is an anathema to the Welsh race.” Then, turning, he drew Flynn Stewart forward. “Cousins, my lord, may I introduce my friend Flynn Stewart.”

  Flynn stepped forward to kiss first the Countess of Witton’s hand, and then Elizabeth’s. He bowed politely to Thomas Bolton.

  “Flynn is King James’s personal messenger to King Henry’s court,” Rees explained.

  “Ah,” Lord Cambridge said, eyeing the young man. “Then you are the spy.”

  The Scotsman burst out laughing. “Nay, nothing so glamorous, I fear, my lord, although I can understand you might assume that. Some do.” His amber eyes twinkled. He stood just over six feet, and had a thick head of red hair.

  “You look like your father,” Lord Cambridge remarked. “The resemblance is quite remarkable, dear boy. Did you know him well?”

  “I had that privilege, my lord,” Flynn Stewart replied quietly. The Englishman had surprised him, for he had taken the man, gi
ven his most fashionable garb, for nothing more than a foppish courtier. Stewart’s parentage was known, but rarely spoken about.

  “I spent many a delightful hour at his court in Edinburgh, and in his company. He was a rare and unique gentleman,” Lord Cambridge said.

  “Uncle!” Philippa looked truly uncomfortable.

  “My dear girl, the fellow is dead, and King Henry triumphs. There can be no harm in my speaking of Jamie Stewart, the fourth of his ilk.” He patted her shoulder.

  “Thank you, my lord,” Flynn Stewart answered Thomas Bolton.

  Elizabeth had listened, fascinated. She had quickly realized, given the references, that Flynn Stewart was one of James IV’s bastards. The royal Stewarts did have a predilection for spreading their descendants around the countryside.

  “Madame,” the Scot said, “may I have your permission to walk with your sister?”

  “Of course,” Philippa replied. The Scot was not the sort of party that Elizabeth should be involved with, but she could honestly think of no reason to refuse him. “You will remain within my sight, of course,” she added.

  “Of course.” He bowed politely, and then offered Elizabeth his arm.

  Well, at least he had good manners, and he was their cousin’s friend, Philippa considered. And Elizabeth had to start somewhere.

  Elizabeth took the Scotsman’s arm and they moved off. “You are every bit as much an outsider here as I am,” she remarked softly as they walked.

  “You do not look like an outsider in that gown,” he replied. “Pale blue suits you.”

  “So my uncle says,” she responded.

  “You do not look like your sister,” he continued.

  “Nay, I do not. My two older sisters look like our mother. I favor the father I cannot remember.”

  “Why are you here?” he wondered.

  “I am the heiress to a rather large holding,” Elizabeth told him. “I have not married yet, and I have been brought to court with an eye to finding a husband.”

  “I would have thought a beautiful girl like yourself would have been wed long since,” Flynn Stewart said.

  Elizabeth laughed. “Why?” she asked him mischievously, looking up into his face. “Just because I am considered beautiful and rich, though my sister would shudder to hear me express such sentiments? My mother believes in allowing her daughters to make their own choices in the matter of marriage. It is unusual, I know, but there it is.”

  “And there is no one you would wed, so you have been sent to court in an effort to broaden your search,” he remarked. “Well, you will find plenty of young men here—and not so young men—more than willing to have a beautiful heiress to wife.”

  “I will find no one,” Elizabeth said. “The man I marry must be willing to live at Friarsgate and help me manage the manor. I have had the responsibility of it since the day I turned fourteen, and I will not allow anyone to take that autonomy from me. I will share it with the right man, but I shall never relinquish it. Look about you, sir. Do you think any of these perfumed fellows will suit me?”

  “Then why are you here if you think it is a waste of time?” he asked her.

  “I have come to please my family, my mother in particular,” Elizabeth said.

  “What will happen when you return without a mate then?”

  “My mother will fret and be angry, I suspect. My stepfather, the laird of Claven’s Carn, will attempt to drag out a younger son of one of his friends. But eventually they will all calm themselves,” Elizabeth said. Then she sighed. “I know I must wed if I am to have an heir one day, but none of this seems right to me.” Then she looked up at him. “You ask many questions, sir, and I find myself answering when I really should not. We are strangers to each other.”

  “No longer, Elizabeth Meredith,” he told her. “Now, would you like to meet some other young people? Your sister may not consider them entirely suitable, but if your stay at court is to be a short one, then you should have some fun.”

  “Will we be out of Philippa’s sight if I say yes?” she asked him.

  He nodded with a grin.

  “Then lead on, sir,” she told him.

  “You are not an easy girl, are you?” he teased her.

  She laughed, and then to her surprise he led her to where Mistress Anne Boleyn sat surrounded by a group of gentlemen.

  “Mistress Boleyn, may I present the Countess of Witton’s sister, newly come to court,” Flynn Stewart said.

  Anne Boleyn looked at Elizabeth sharply. She was beautiful, and very fashionably attired in pale blue silk, the bodice of her gown and the turned-back cuffs of her sleeves embroidered in silver threads and pearls. Her underskirt was brocade. She wore a French cap on her head that was edged in pearls. She was just the sort of perfect English beauty that the king could be attracted to, and Anne was uneasy. She nodded slightly to Elizabeth in answer to the introduction, and the blond girl curtseyed to her.

  “You are a Meredith then,” Sir Thomas Wyatt said.

  “I am, my lord.”

  “Was Sir Owein Meredith your father then?” Sir Thomas probed.

  “He was, God assoil his soul,” Elizabeth replied.

  “Are you husband hunting then, Mistress Meredith?” he questioned boldly.

  “My family is, but I am not, my lord,” she answered him pertly.

  Anne Boleyn laughed, as did the others about her. She could not help it. The girl was not the least intimidated by the high and mighty surrounding her. There was a freshness about her, but she was still too beautiful.

  “Are you rich?” George Boleyn, Anne’s brother, demanded to know.

  “I am,” Elizabeth said. “Are you interested in offering for my hand, sir, and coming north to Cumbria to wed me?” She was mocking him, and they all knew it.

  “Cumbria?” George Boleyn looked horrified. “Is not that where all the sheep are raised, Mistress Meredith?”

  “Indeed, sir. I raise Cheviots, Shropshires, Hampshires, and Merinos,” Elizabeth replied.

  “Sheep have names?” he said, curious in spite of himself.

  “They are breeds, sir,” Elizabeth responded.

  “And you are able to recognize them?”

  “I can recognize all sorts of beasts, sir, even a jackass,” Elizabeth told George Boleyn with a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

  “God’s blood, George! You have been launched on your own petard,” Sir Thomas Wyatt said, and the group of courtiers surrounding Mistress Boleyn burst out laughing.

  “What is all this merriment?” The king had come to join them, slipping his hand into Mistress Boleyn’s hand. Then he stared at Elizabeth Meredith. “Why, you are the last of Rosamund’s daughters,” he said. “And you look like your father, God assoil him. Your sister said you were here, as did Lord Cambridge. Welcome, Elizabeth Meredith!” And he held out his big beringed hand to her.

  Elizabeth quickly took the hand and kissed it, curtseying low as she did. “Thank you, your majesty.” She rose from her curtsey.

  “And how is your dear mother?” the king wanted to know. “Still shackled to that Scots border bandit she would insist on wedding?”

  “Aye, your majesty,” Elizabeth replied, laughter in her voice.

  “And how many children did he sire on her?” the king demanded.

  “Four sons, your majesty,” Elizabeth said.

  “He is a fortunate man, that Scot,” the king remarked. “You are having a good time, Elizabeth Meredith? Your mother, despite her protests, always enjoyed her visits.”

  “It is my first day at court, your majesty, but I have been made to feel most welcome, and especially by Mistress Boleyn and her companions,” Elizabeth said.

  “Indeed?” The king turned to the girl at his side. “That is good of you, sweetheart, and nothing could make me happier. Mistress Meredith’s father was a most loyal servant of the Tudors, and her mother spent part of her girlhood first in my mother’s household, and then in my grandmother’s house. Rosamund Bolton and my sister,
Margaret, were close friends. Do they still correspond, Mistress Elizabeth?”

  “Now and again, your majesty, they do. I bring you greetings from my mother, your majesty. She said I was to remind you that she is always your loyal servant.”

  The king laughed. “When you write her, you will tell her that the king said if she were as loyal as she claims she would not have wed that Scot of hers, and then gone over the border to live.”

  “I will quote your majesty precisely,” Elizabeth promised with a smile.

  Flynn Stewart watched and listened to this exchange. So Elizabeth Meredith’s mother was a friend of his half brother’s mam. And she was wed to a Scotsman. It was indeed a small world, he thought.

  The king was now laughing, for Mistress Boleyn had repeated Elizabeth Meredith’s jest on George Boleyn. “Be careful, George,” the king warned the young man. “If Mistress Meredith is anything like her mother, you will never get the best of her.” And he chuckled.

  “Did you never get the best of her?” Anne Boleyn asked him.

  “Nay, sweetheart, I did not,” the king said. He knew how jealous his Annie could be, and he did not want her transferring her jealousy from his long-ago relationship with Rosamund Bolton to her daughter. It had been the most discreet of all his dalliances, and never been public knowledge.

  Anne Boleyn smiled. “Mistress Meredith is a beautiful girl, Hal. You have always favored fair women.” She was probing.

  “Aye,” the king agreed. “She is like her father. But I prefer a dark girl with sparkling eyes and a quick wit. Do not fret, Annie, love. I could never be attracted to Mistress Meredith, having been her parents’ friend. It would be like incest, I fear.”

  Anne Boleyn sighed happily at the king’s admission. She was always fearful of losing the king to another woman. A less chaste woman. She had led him a merry dance for several years now, but while she had allowed him many privileges of her body, she had never allowed him in her bed, and she remained a virgin. Anne Boleyn would not be one of Henry Tudor’s whores like her foolish sister, Mary. Anne Boleyn meant to be the king’s wife. But now she could be friends with Mistress Meredith, for the girl obviously posed no threat to her ambitions. Anne had no real women friends, though some pretended to like her.