The Last Heiress

by Bertrice Small

  “Do you love him?” Philippa wanted to know.

  “I don’t think so, but I like him, and I believe I could live together with him as man and wife. Passion can die, sister. A good friendship cannot,” Elizabeth said.

  “Friendship is a strong basis for a lasting love,” Philippa said quietly. “But if his loyalty is to Scotland first he is not the man for you, or for Friarsgate.”

  “There are plenty of mixed matches in the borders,” Elizabeth reminded her sister. “Our mother’s, for example.”

  “But none of those involved are people of importance, or have great estates. Mother turned Friarsgate over to you because she saw how deeply you loved it. As much as, if not more than, she did. It allowed her to finally live at Claven’s Carn with Logan and raise our wild Scots brothers in their father’s house, where they belong. Our brothers will have no divided loyalties, Elizabeth. Nor should the man you marry one day. Friarsgate is English. You are English.”

  “I am an old maid,” came the dour reply.

  Philippa couldn’t help but laugh. “I thought you wanted no man so you could rule over your kingdom unencumbered,” she teased.

  “I did,” Elizabeth said, “but I am now realizing the importance of having an heir, and the necessity of having a husband to obtain one. I want to go home! I was not so confused at home. Everything is just as I like it at home.”

  Philippa put her arms about her sister. “First you rest, and then you attend the birthday fete planned for you, and then you can pack for home,” she said, hugging Elizabeth. “Now go to sleep. You have dark circles beneath your eyes, and that will not do on your birthday. I will go with you to the fete, and wear that magnificent peacock costume that Uncle Thomas has had made for me, because he knew in the end I could not resist missing such an event. And then I shall go home to Brierewode, because I find the court not really to my liking these days, yet I do not wish to lose favor with the king lest it reflect upon my sons and their careers.”

  “Life is simpler at Friarsgate,” Elizabeth said.

  “Life is never simple.” Philippa smiled.

  “It is when you are a country farmer,” Elizabeth replied.

  “But not when you are a courtier,” Philippa countered.

  They laughed with each other. They were so different that sometimes it seemed to Elizabeth it was hard to imagine that they were sisters. But they were. Philippa left her younger sibling, and Elizabeth closed her eyes to sleep. On reflection she had been very foolish with Flynn Stewart. She hoped it had not spoiled their friendship. She still thought he would make a fine husband. Her situation was not unlike Philippa’s had been all those years back, when the boy she thought to marry jilted her for a life in Holy Mother Church. Philippa had gone to pieces and behaved badly. But then, she had been dreaming of her lad for five years. I have just met Flynn Stewart, and my heart is not broken, she decided.

  While she pondered all that had happened between them, Flynn Stewart had a momentary crisis of faith in the life he had chosen. Elizabeth’s words had pricked him. Why hadn’t his brother rewarded him with something other than a posting in England? Was he not worth a cottage somewhere? A house in Edinburgh? A wife with a goodly dower portion? A Scotswoman who would understand his loyalties, and concur with them? He knew he would hardly be in his royal half brother’s daily thoughts, but surely his service and loyalty all these years was worth something to King James V.

  But James V was a cold and ruthless young man, although he had incredible charm when he chose to exercise it. And his smile could be most winning. He had learned to be hard in the years he had been in the wardship of his stepfather, his mother’s second husband, the Earl of Angus. When the Duke of Lennox, who had been James IV’s nearest kinsman, had returned to France, Angus had stepped in to oversee the boy king. He had had him declared of age when James V had turned fourteen, but it had been an excuse to rule in his stepson’s name. He kept the boy relatively uneducated, unlike his predecessors, who had all been highly educated men. He saw to his sexual initiation in hopes the boy would be kept so busy with his mistresses that Angus could manage the government. And Flynn watched as the earl attempted to ruin his half brother.

  In secret he had forced James to practice his writing so that his hand would be legible when he signed papers. When Angus wasn’t there to observe he made him read the documents put on his writing table. “You’re the king,” he told his half brother. “You should always read everything before you sign it.”

  “Why?” James demanded, their father’s eyes looking directly at him.

  “Because I would not like you to sign my execution order unknowingly,” Flynn Stewart had said with a grin, and he gently cuffed his half brother. “You’d feel dreadful about it afterwards, Jamie.”

  But the two areas where the young king excelled were in music and in warlike pursuits. How odd, Flynn thought, that both he and his uncle of England had such wonderful musical ability. Were they any two other men they would be friends, drawn together by their musical passion. But they were not. They did not know each other, but they distrusted each other, for unlike other men they were England and Scotland.

  And then when James V was in his sixteenth year, he escaped from the Earl of Angus’s clutches, exacted his revenge on Angus and his kin, and began to rule on his own. One of the first things he had done was send Flynn to his uncle in England. Flynn would be the personal messenger for his royal half brother. He would bring any messages Henry wanted to send to James with all possible speed, and return with answers. Flynn had not wanted to go.

  “You need me here as I have always been. I am your eyes and your ears, my lord,” he had said to his brother.

  “Which is why I need you at my uncle’s court, Flynn,” King James had told him. “You are the one person in all the world whom I can trust. I know that you cannot be bribed away from your loyalty to me. There is no one else among my retainers for whom I can claim that virtue. My ambassadors will couch everything in the language of diplomacy. It seems that they are unable to speak plainly. They will curry favor with my uncle. But you, brother, will tell me the truth of whatever is happening in my uncle’s court. You will be discreet, and none will consider you a threat.”

  “I am loath to leave you, my lord. I have been by your side since you were a small lad,” Flynn said. “I would give my life for you.”

  “I know that,” the young king had said. “I will not keep you away forever, Flynn, but you must do this for me. I am yet young, and my uncle of England would snatch my kingdom from me, given the opportunity. And he would choose a wife for me if he could. I have already chosen to wed with King Francois’s daughter, Madelaine, but it will be several years before she is ready to be a wife. In the meantime I must fend off Uncle Henry’s efforts on my behalf.”

  “I will go, my lord,” Flynn had said. His life was his service to his half brother. Yet Elizabeth Meredith was correct. His king had taken his loyalty for granted. He was out of James’s sight, and therefore out of his thoughts. Yet he knew if he asked James for a wealthy wife or a bit of land it would eventually be forthcoming. His brother had never been mean or closefisted. Then Flynn sighed. What a pity Friarsgate wasn’t on the other side of the border. Elizabeth had made most plain her interest in him, and the hurt in her eyes when he had been forced to reject her advances had saddened him. But the English lambkin was not for him. Sooner or later England and Scotland would find themselves at war with each other again. And he had no doubt that Elizabeth Meredith would defend her beloved Friarsgate from all comers, as her mother before her had undoubtedly done. He had never thought to really care for a woman, but he knew that he could easily love the lovely heiress of Friarsgate. Ah, well! She would be gone in just over a week, and he was unlikely to see her again.

  Elizabeth kept to her bed the next day, reassuring her worried uncle and her sister that she just needed a little more rest. “This court life is far more exhausting than the daily life at home,” she noted. “Uncle, p
lease tell Anne I am so honored by the fete, and will be there come the morrow.”

  But Anne Boleyn had fretted nonetheless and, escorted by Lord Cambridge, had come through the garden door to visit her friend. “You look pale,” she noted.

  “I am not used to staying up till all hours of the night dancing and gaming,” Elizabeth said with a small smile. “I cannot sleep two or three hours and then be at the Mass, perfectly dressed and coiffed, as you seem able to do. I am a country girl, and used to sleeping more than several hours a night.”

  “Don’t you get up with the sun?” Anne wanted to know. “And the sun rises early these days, Bess.”

  “Aye, but I go to bed early in the evening. Your life is tiring, Anne. I should rather spend my day out on horseback riding from flock to flock than spend my life in idle merriment. Your pardon, dear friend, but I am not used to such a life.”

  “But you have had fun, haven’t you?” Anne asked.

  “Aye, I have had fun, but you see me today in my bed recovering from the past few weeks, and tomorrow I know will be busy from dawn to moonset,” Elizabeth said.

  “Yes! Yes!” Anne agreed. “We are going to have barge races on the river, and archery contests for both the ladies and gentlemen, and dancing, and singing. It will be wonderful! And the feast! I have chosen the menu myself. We will have peacock, swans, game pies, beef, duck, and goose. And subtleties of spun sugar, and marzipan.”

  “Gracious!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I am hardly worthy of such a spectacular effort, dear Anne. There are many who will be jealous that you have honored a simple country woman as myself.”

  “I know,” Anne Boleyn said. “Won’t it be fun?”

  Elizabeth laughed. “You are really very bad, Annie,” she told the older girl, “but I believe they deserve it for their behavior towards you. I am sorry that others do not know you as I do. You have a good heart, but you are sorely treated, and much is asked of you. I would wish it were not so,” she concluded.

  “I will survive. One in my position learns quickly or perishes, Bess. I will not be beaten by them. I will do what I must, and I will be queen one day. And I will birth my lord Henry’s son, and he will live, as those poor Spanish Kate bore did not. I am strong!” Then Mistress Boleyn jumped up from her place by Elizabeth’s bed. “I must go,” she said. “I just came to be certain you are all right. Lord Cambridge swore you were, but I needed to see for myself. Is your costume for tomorrow wonderful?”

  Elizabeth chuckled. “You will be very surprised when you see me,” she told her companion.

  “Will I recognize you?” Anne wanted to know.

  “Easily,” Elizabeth assured her. “You will see tomorrow.”

  “Farewell then,” Anne Boleyn said, and hurried from the chamber.

  Elizabeth Meredith’s twenty-second birthday dawned fair and warm. She was awakened by Philippa and Thomas Bolton, both of whom brought her flowers. “How lovely!” she exclaimed, smiling at them both.

  “Are you ready to face the day, dear girl?” Lord Cambridge asked her with a twinkle in his amber eyes.

  “I am ready,” Elizabeth assured him, “and Philippa has promised to come too, haven’t you, sister?”

  “I have already tried on my costume,” the Countess of Witton said. “How you can manage to have a gown made for me, Uncle, when you have not seen me in over three years is amazing.”

  “You do not change, dear girl,” he told her.

  “But I might have,” she responded.

  “Nonsense,” he replied. “It is simply not in your nature, dear girl.”

  “Have you seen my costume, Philippa?” Elizabeth wanted to know.

  “I have,” her sister answered. “It is quite outrageous, but then it is also quite clever, and ’twill suit you. You are mocking the courtiers who would mock you. The king will very much enjoy the jest. Mother will too, when you tell her.”

  “I have never been ashamed of who I am,” Elizabeth said quietly.

  “Nor should you be, dear girl,” Lord Cambridge said.

  They left her, and Nancy brought Elizabeth’s breakfast to her bedchamber. The tray contained a little dish of fresh strawberries with clotted Devon cream, a plate of Cook’s wonderfully short scones, butter, honey, and watered wine. Although she would have eaten eggs and meat had they been offered to her, Elizabeth knew Cook was considering her very fitted costume. She ate slowly, enjoying her food, and putting off for just a short while more the time when she would have to be dressed and at Greenwich. When she had finally satisfied her appetite enough, Nancy had her little tub ready. “How am I to wear my hair with the costume?” she asked her young tiring woman. “I don’t think it should be down, do you?”

  “I’m going to contain it in a gold mesh snood,” Nancy said. “You don’t want your lovely hair detracting from your wonderful costume.”

  Elizabeth quickly bathed, drying herself with a large cloth that had been warming before the fire in her bedchamber hearth. Then with Nancy’s help she began to dress. First she sat and drew on her creamy white silk stockings. Next came a man’s short silk chemise. She pulled on the white breeches, which were slashed, with tufts of lamb’s wool peeking from the slashings. A sleeveless jerkin of curly lambskin went over the chemise, followed by an open-fronted white silk doublet with large puffed sleeves. Like the breeches the sleeves were slashed, with tufts of lamb’s wool poking through, and the doublet itself sewn with crystal beads. She sat briefly so that Nancy might gather her hair and tuck it into a gold mesh snood. The girl then placed several little pink-and-white-striped bows in Elizabeth’s hair. Then the tiring woman knelt to place black leather shoes, cut to resemble sheep’s hooves, onto her mistress’s feet. Elizabeth stood up.

  “Oh, mistress!” Nancy exclaimed. “It is so clever.”

  “You have the masque?” Elizabeth asked.

  Nancy nodded, handing it to her.

  Elizabeth held the masque of a pretty lamb’s head to her face by its long gilded stick. “What do you think?” she asked Nancy.

  “I think”—Nancy giggled—“that you would frighten the flock if you appeared in the meadow that way; but today you will delight the king and his court with your cleverness. Shall I go and see if Lord Cambridge is ready?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “And her ladyship too,” she said, turning about to peer at herself in the mirror. The costume was perfect, and she smiled. Today’s fete was in her honor. Elizabeth Meredith, a simple country heiress from the north. Not a noblewoman of impressive lineage with a great name, but the daughter of one of King Henry VII’s loyal knights. She wondered what the father she did not remember would think of it all. When Nancy returned to say that both her ladyship and Lord Cambridge awaited her, Elizabeth moved downstairs to the foyer of the house to join them.

  “Dear girl! It is even better than I had anticipated,” Thomas Bolton crowed, delighted. He was quite splendid himself in a matching costume of black silk and black sheep’s wool. His doublet was also decorated with crystals, and he carried a silver masque. On either side of his head had been affixed curved ram’s horns.

  “Philippa,” Elizabeth said, looking at her sister, who was quite beautiful in a gown of blue-green iridescent silk sewn with crystals. The silk brocade fabric of the underskirt looked like a peacock’s tail in design, and she carried a masque of peacock feathers. Her glorious auburn hair was loose about her shoulders.

  “It is daring,” she said in a worried tone. “Your legs are most prominent, sister. I wonder if you should show them so boldly.” Then she laughed at herself. “But no matter! There is no gentleman here for you, so it means little. And the Friarsgate heiress shall certainly be remembered for her wit and her ability to play a clever jest on the court. Most will wear naught but masques, but others will be gloriously costumed.”

  “Then we are ready,” Lord Cambridge said.

  Together they walked through the house’s garden and the wood beyond the brick wall. They exited onto the lawns of the palace and mad
e their way to where the king sat with Anne Boleyn by his side. She was garbed in his favorite Tudor green, and carried a little mask representing a frog. As they had previously planned, Philippa moved ahead of her sister and uncle. Stopping before the king, she curtseyed low, smiling as she did, although she thought her face would crack at greeting not just the king, but the Boleyn wench as well.

  “My liege,” she said politely, drawing her masque away just long enough for him to see her.

  “Lovely!” the king enthused. “You are a perfect peacock, Countess.”

  Philippa curtseyed again, then stepped gracefully aside to allow the king a view of her sister and uncle. Both bowed, and then, as they had decided earlier, Thomas Bolton and Elizabeth Meredith danced a gay little dance all the way to the foot of the king’s chair, where they bowed once again, drawing their masques aside so he might see them.

  “We greet your majesty and Mistress Anne,” Lord Cambridge said.

  “Bravo! Bravo!” the king cried, clapping his hands delightedly. “How clever you are! Never have I seen such costumes. They are quite marvelous!”

  “We hoped it would please your majesty,” Elizabeth said.

  “You thumb your nose at the court, Mistress Meredith.” The king chuckled.

  “I simply wish to point out that I am what I am,” Elizabeth returned wickedly.

  “By the rood,” the king said, “ ’tis a pity there is no man at this court worthy of you, Elizabeth Meredith. If there were I would make the match myself, but you are your mother’s child, more so than your sisters, I see. You must return home to find your fate.”