The Last Heiress

by Bertrice Small

  His hands reached up to crush her two breasts. “We will handfast, you hot-blooded border bitch, because I love you, and to protect any fruit of our passion. But my first loyalty will always be to he who sired me and acknowledged me as his own.” He rolled her over and began pumping her fiercely.

  Elizabeth cried out, half with anger, half with pleasure. “You bastard!” she hissed at him, and he laughed.

  “There has never been any doubt of that, sweetheart,” he told her.

  The air crackled with their determination and energy as they made passionate love. Their need for each other had but grown over the weeks since Elizabeth had first come to Baen’s bed. They both admitted to being in love, but it made no difference. Their loyalties were divided, and neither would give way to the other.

  “I hate you!” she cried in the throes of her desire for him.

  “Liar!” he mocked her, kissing her hungrily until her mouth was bruised.

  Elizabeth struggled to restrain her tears. Then she realized he had not gone yet. There was still time, and she would handfast with him to bind him even closer. She let the passion they shared sweep over her like a great wave of water, and cried out with her satisfaction at the same moment he cried out with his.

  What had begun in secret between them was now an open affair. There was no one at Friarsgate who did not know the lady was in love—and in bed—with the Scot. Maybel fretted to Lord Cambridge, who was preparing to return home to Otterly.

  “She has wantonly thrown away her virtue, Tom. Who will have her now?”

  “She wants none but him, my dear,” Thomas Bolton said gently.

  “A Scot? What will Rosamund say?” the old woman worried.

  “She encouraged Elizabeth to it, so relieved was she that her daughter had finally found a man she could love, and share Friarsgate with, Maybel.”

  “Even now he plans to return to Scotland,” Maybel said. “I have heard him say it. Now that Edmund can take up some of his duties again he will go.”

  “Aye, he will go,” Elizabeth said coming upon them, “but you and Edmund will go to your cottage to live, for my great-uncle can no longer bear the burden of this estate. I am not such a fool that I do not know that. If Baen leaves me, I will manage my lands without help. Have I not trained all my life for this role?”

  “And who will take care of you?” Maybel wanted to know. “You are strong even for a woman, my child, but you are not invincible.”

  “Nancy takes care of me, thanks to you,” Elizabeth said, hugging the older woman warmly. “And Jane has directed the housemaids while you nursed our Edmund. You trained her yourself, Maybel, and she is quite competent, you must agree.” She turned to Lord Cambridge. “When will you leave, Uncle?”

  “Two days after Michaelmas,” he said. “Will writes that my wing is now ready for habitation, and my books have arrived from London. But I do love Michaelmas here at Friarsgate, dear girl. So I will not go until October first.”

  “I am sorry you must go at all,” Elizabeth told him, “for I do enjoy your companionship, Uncle. Soon I shall be alone with only myself for company,” she said seriously. “But I shall be so busy I shall probably not notice my lack at all. Is Edmund awake, Maybel?”

  “Aye, and anxious to see you,” Maybel replied.

  “I’ll go to him now, and tell him of my plans,” Elizabeth said, and departed her hall.

  “What is to become of her?” Maybel said, shaking her grizzled head. “The land consumes her. She loves the Scot, but she will let him go from her. And what is the matter with him that he would leave her when he loves her too? His sire must be a monster to demand such loyalty of the lad.”

  “I think,” Lord Cambridge told Maybel, “that both Elizabeth and Baen are confused. She cleaves to Friarsgate as if it were the most important thing in her life, and he clings to his sire for the same reason, when the truth is they should be pledging their loyalty to each other. I do not think the master of Grayhaven would forbid his son a rich wife. Even a rich English wife. But I suspect Baen, in his misguided loyalty for his father, will say naught of Elizabeth to the fellow. Still, I do believe that love can surmount much that is foolish in this old world, dear Maybel. Let them be parted for the long, cold winter months. If the spring comes and neither has overcome their stubbornness, then we must do something ourselves to bring about this happy union for everyone’s sake, but most especially for Elizabeth and Baen.”

  “Why is it that you always make problems that are difficult seem so simple to correct, Thomas Bolton?” she asked him wryly.

  “It is a gift, dear Maybel,” he told her with a grin. “It is my fate to bring happiness to all who surround me, all whom I love.” And Thomas Bolton chuckled.

  “You mock yourself, Tom Bolton, but you speak the truth,” Maybel told him. “Never have I known a kinder and more generous man than you are. What a shame that the Boltons should die with you.”

  “That too is fate,” Lord Cambridge said quietly.

  Michaelmas, celebrated on the twenty-ninth of the month, was a perfect late-September day, with bright sunshine and clear blue skies. A pole was set up before the house, and atop it Elizabeth had set one of the beautiful kid gloves with its pearl embroidery that she had worn at court. Around the pole visiting merchants would set up their booths to ply their wares. In order to participate they had to swear before Father Mata that they would give a portion of their profits to the church. Elizabeth paid her servants for their year’s labor, warning them not to lose their wages in careless gambling or purchasing shoddy products from the fair’s booths.

  In midafternoon, as the fair was at its height, she found her lover and led him away from the festivities to stand beside the lake. “It is time,” she told him quietly, taking his hands in hers and facing him, “for us to handfast ourselves to each other, my darling Scot. In God’s presence beneath the blue sky I gladly take thee, Baen MacColl, as my husband for a year and a day. May Jesu and his dear Mother Mary bless us.”

  “And in God’s presence beneath this canopy of blue sky I gladly take thee, Elizabeth Meredith, for my wife for the term of a year and a day,” he replied. “May Jesu and his sweet Mother Mary bless us.”

  “There, now that was not so difficult, was it?” she teased him.

  “Nay,” he agreed, “it was not.”

  “And we will tell no one of our handfast,” she said. “Will you swear it?” Now when he remained with her they would all know it was because he loved her better than his father, and not because she entrapped him into a handfast union, Elizabeth thought.

  “Aye,” he said. “I swear it.” He was already ashamed, knowing that soon he would depart Friarsgate for Grayhaven, and it was unlikely he would ever see her again. And in a year and a day she would be free to wed a man who was worthy of her. His heart was breaking with this knowledge, but he had warned her, hadn’t he?

  William Smythe had returned to Friarsgate the day before Michaelmas to escort his master back to Otterly. Now, on the morning of October first, the two men and their escort prepared to take their leave of Elizabeth.

  “It has been a very interesting year, dear girl,” Thomas Bolton declared. “I am most devastated to have failed you in your search for a husband.”

  “I am not an easy girl, Uncle. Do not all say it of me? I have already chosen my own mate, and despite your most delicate discretion you are well aware of it,” Elizabeth said with a smile. She patted his velvet-clad arm.

  “He will return to you,” Lord Cambridge said encouragingly.

  “If he leaves me, Uncle, he need not return,” Elizabeth replied quietly.

  “Do not be foolish, niece,” Lord Cambridge warned her. “He must work out his loyalties in his own time, and if you do not force the issue he will. And he will return, for even a fool can see he loves you.” Thomas Bolton kissed her on both cheeks. “Now bid my good Will farewell, dear girl.”

  “I will miss you, William Smythe,” Elizabeth said. “Go with God, and take
care of my uncle as you have done so well these past nine years.” She kissed his cheek.

  Lord Cambridge’s secretary and companion bowed low. “Listen to him, Mistress Elizabeth. We but seek your happiness.”

  “Come along, Will!” Lord Cambridge, now mounted, called. “I am eager to return home! Good-bye, dear girl!”

  Elizabeth watched the two men as they rode off from the house surrounded by their men-at-arms. She loved Thomas Bolton and would miss his amusing presence in the hall. And Edmund and Maybel had departed yesterday for their own cottage. Still weak and not fully recovered, Edmund had ridden in a cart with his wife. Maybel had wept, of course, as if she would never see Elizabeth or the house again.

  “You but go down the path a piece,” Elizabeth said, laughing.

  “I know! I know!” Maybel sobbed, “but I have spent most of my life in this house looking after the lady of Friarsgate. And Edmund has stewarded the estate since he was barely out of boyhood.”

  “So it is time then for you to go home, and look after each other, and enjoy the days remaining to you,” Elizabeth said. But she knew her house would be very lonely without Maybel and Edmund. She had written her mother, and Rosamund had fully approved Elizabeth’s decision, not that she had needed Rosamund’s permission. She was the lady of Friarsgate, and had been for eight years.

  Two days ago it had not been so, but today there was a distinct nip in the air. It was autumn. October. And before they knew it winter would be upon them. And she would spend the long nights wrapped in her handfast husband’s arms making sweet love. She sought Baen now, having last seen him in the hall bidding her uncle good-bye. Returning to the hall she asked Albert, “Where is Master Baen?”

  “Gone to the stables, lady,” was the answer.

  Elizabeth turned and hurried from the hall to the stables. He was saddling his horse. “Good!” she said. “We must check the outlying meadows today and be certain their shelters are ready for winter, stocked, and secure. But I think we should keep the flocks closer this year. It is just an instinct.”

  “I am leaving, Elizabeth,” he said quietly. He tightened the girth about his horse.

  “When?” Surely she had not heard him aright. He was not going to leave her.

  “Now. Today. It is better I go before the weather sets in. Already they will have seen snow on the heights of the bens in the Highlands,” he told her. He fastened the tabs of his saddlebags. “With your uncle gone it is a good time for me to leave as well.”

  She would not beg, Elizabeth thought, her heart hardening. “Why not remain until St. Crispin’s?” she asked him. “We would give you a fine sendoff then.”

  He shook his head, but then, stepping forward, he put his arms tightly about her. “I do not want to go,” he said, “but you know that I must.”

  Her heart cracked, and then she did what she had sworn to herself she would not do if the horrible day ever came: Elizabeth Meredith began to cry. “No! You do not have to go, Baen. You do not! You are my husband. How can your loyalty to your father be greater than your loyalty to me? I am your wife!”

  “We handfasted to give any child we made a name,” he said.

  “Do you truly believe that was the only reason, Baen?” she cried. “You love me!”

  “Aye, I do love you, and nay, ’twas not the only reason I handfasted with you, my hinny love. I did it because more than anything in the world, I wanted you for my wife.”

  “You would put your loyalty to a man who didn’t even know you existed for the first twelve years of your life above me?” she sobbed bitterly.

  “A man who for the last twenty years has sheltered me, and treated me as if I had been born on the proper side of the blanket and not the wrong,” he reminded her. “Aye! My father is my first loyalty, and I have made no secret of it, Elizabeth. You have known from the first that once I had learned those things I needed to know to set up a cottage industry at Grayhaven that I would go. I never deceived you. If I deceived anyone it was myself. In loving you, in handfasting with you, Elizabeth, I dreamed briefly what it could be like to have a wife and a purpose of my own. I thank you for it.”

  His words were kind, yet cruel. Elizabeth struggled to regain her composure. For a moment she rested in his arms, her cheek against his doublet, the steady sound of his heart in her ear. Then, swallowing hard, she stiffened her spine and pulled away from him, looking up into his handsome face. “Do not go,” she said softly. It was a plea, yet it was not a plea.

  “I must,” he replied. Then his hand reached out and he cupped her face. “In a few months you will have forgotten me, sweetheart. And in a year you will be free to wed a proper man,” Baen said in a clumsy attempt to comfort her.

  Elizabeth shook her head at him. “You are a fool, Baen MacColl, if you really think that I could forget you. And a bigger fool to believe I would wed another. Ever!”

  “Elizabeth—”

  “If you leave me you can never come back. Do you understand, Baen? If you go I do not ever want to see you again,” Elizabeth said in a hard voice.

  His hand dropped away from her face. He stepped back wordlessly and, turning, took the bridle rein of his horse. His dog crept from the shadows to join him.

  “Never!” she cried as he walked through the stable doors. “Ever!” she shouted as he mounted the animal. “I hate you, Baen MacColl!” she shrieked as he began to move off.

  He stopped and, turning, looked at her, his face a mask of anguish. “Yet I love you, Elizabeth Meredith,” he said to her. And then, kicking his mount, he cantered from the stable yard and towards the road to the north, Friar loping along by his side.

  She watched him go, the tears she had attempted to stem pouring down her face. Elizabeth began to shake, and then she crumpled to the ground on her knees, sobbing. A lone stable boy, seeing her, ran to her side.

  “Mistress, be you all right?” he asked her, frightened. He had never seen the lady cry. And she was crying so bitterly. He was young, but he recognized the sound of misery when he heard it.

  Still in shock at what had happened, but aware of her position, Elizabeth put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and pulled herself to her feet. “I’m all right,” she said in a shaking voice. “Saddle my horse, lad, for I have a long day ahead of me.”

  Trained to obey, the boy hurried to do his mistress’s bidding, and then he watched her as she rode off towards the high meadows. All the day long Elizabeth Meredith did what she had been trained to do. She inspected each shelter in each meadow to make certain that it was stocked, or see if it needed to be stocked with winter supplies. She looked over her flocks and spoke with her shepherds, giving them instructions to move nearer to the manor house and barns in the next few days. “I sense a bad winter ahead,” she said, and the shepherds took her at her word. After all, she was the lady of Friarsgate, and who would know better than she?

  When she finally reached home, it was almost dark. Above her the sky was darkening to a strong deep blue. The sunset stained the western horizon with its vibrant shades of red and orange. A young crescent moon hung above it all. She dismounted, tossing her reins to the same lad who had saddled the animal for her earlier in the day. Then she hurried into her house. All was silent but for the crackling fire.

  “Albert!” she called, and the serving man hurried forward.

  “Yes, lady?” he inquired politely.

  “You have served me well,” Elizabeth told him. “I am appointing you steward of the hall. You and Jane will see to my comfort from now on. I have much else to do and cannot be bothered. Is supper ready yet?”

  “Yes, lady,” Albert replied, struggling to maintain his composure at this elevation in his rank. “Will Master Baen be joining you shortly?”

  “The Scot left this morning to return north,” Elizabeth said in a cold voice. “I am hungry. Bring me food at once!”

  “Yes, lady,” Albert said in a calm voice. He had known Elizabeth Meredith all her life, and he easily recognized her anger. “I sh
all serve you myself immediately. You have but to be seated at the board.” Why had the Scot gone so precipitously? He dashed off to fetch his mistress’s meal, and to relay his new knowledge. In the kitchens as he piled a tray high with a vegetable potage, some slices of ham, bread, butter, cheese, and a dish of newly stewed pears, he repeated what he knew.

  “Gawd almighty!” Nancy swore softly. “They was lovers! Her heart will be broken. How could the villain leave her?” She stood up from the table, where she had just finished her meal. “I’d best go and prepare a nice bath for her. She’ll be in want of soothing. Take that tray, Albert, and I’ll bring a fresh carafe of wine.”

  The two servants hurried upstairs to the hall, where Elizabeth sat in solitary splendor awaiting her supper. They placed the dishes and plates before her, and, taking the wine from Nancy, Albert poured their mistress a full goblet while his female counterpart scuttled off to prepare the bath.

  “Leave me!” Elizabeth said to Albert. “I’ll call if I want anything.” She looked at the dishes brought. She had not eaten since early morning, yet she seemed to have little appetite. She speared a piece of ham and laid it on her plate. She sliced herself a wedge of cheese and pulled a chunk of bread from the cottage loaf. The ham seemed too salty. The cheese was dry, and the bread, even generously buttered, stuck in her throat. Only the wine tasted good. Ignoring the pears, which usually were favorites with her, Elizabeth drank the entire carafe down. Briefly she felt content. So Baen MacColl was gone. Well, good riddance! She didn’t need him. Let him run home to his father, the sainted master of Grayhaven, like the child he was. He was a fool, and she had no tolerance for fools. He had walked away from her, from Friarsgate, from a life of his own. And for what? An old father who had two other sons perfectly capable of caring for him. Fool!