Rosamund (42 page)

“He has been to Friarsgate?” Lord Cambridge said.

“Nay,” Edmund replied. “He knew she was gone, and he wrote to ask that we notify him when she returned.”

“Do not, at least not yet,” Lord Cambridge said. “Give Rosamund time to straighten this business out with the Hepburns. Rosamund does not need another annoyance, and surely Henry Bolton is a great irritation to her,” he finished with a smile. He stood up. “I shall follow my cousin’s good advice and go to my bed now. Good night, cousins.” And he departed the hall.

“I wonder if he would make a good mate for our niece,” Maybel said thoughtfully. “Rosamund tells me he intends to remain a while.”

“I do not think so, wife,” Edmund told her. “It is as he has said. He harbors brotherly feelings for her. And, she, I believe, treats him the way she would have treated her brother had he lived. Nay, put those thoughts from your head, woman. Thomas Bolton is not the marrying kind. Of that I am firmly convinced.”

Rosamund was up early. She ate scantily after the mass, and then hurried to the little privy chamber where she had her manor records. Everything was, she was pleased to see, in perfect order. Her uncle came and told her he had already given the order for the flocks to be gathered into three large groupings instead of the smaller clusters.

“Put them in the three meadows bordering the lake,” Rosamund said. “They cannot be driven off easily from there. And I want bonfires prepared at each site, and armed men with the shepherds, and more dogs. Whoever finds themselves under attack will light their fire to alert the rest of us. There will be no more sheep stolen from Friarsgate by those damned Scots!”

It took the entire day to bring the various flocks of sheep in from their pastures and resettle them in the meadows that Rosamund had designated. It was four days until the full moon, but the lady of Friarsgate ordered that all be ready by the following day. Lord Cambridge, who put in an appearance in early afternoon, was amazed by the activity and surprised by his cousin’s air of authority. This was the same woman who had
lain swooning in the king’s embrace. His respect for her grew mightily, and he suddenly realized that only a woman of such strong character could have survived Henry Tudor and not been destroyed by him. It was she who had wisely broken off the liaison and kept the king’s friendship in the bargain.

On the following day they departed for Claven’s Carn, Father Mata their guide and strangely their protector, for no one would attack a priest. Particularly a priest related by blood to the Hepburn himself. Rosamund had never been over the border, and she was surprised that the landscape was similar to that of Friarsgate. They rode for several hours beneath a bright blue sky, the sun at first in their faces, and then finally overhead, warming their shoulders. They spoke little, although the priest had assured Rosamund that it could not possibly be his half-brother who was stealing her sheep.

“Claven’s Carn,” Father Mata finally said, pointing.

Ahead of them, atop a heather-covered hill, they saw it. A stone keep, dark and very old in appearance. There were two towers. They approached the edifice slowly. Its gates were open, and they rode through into the courtyard. To Rosamund’s surprise Logan Hepburn was there, obviously awaiting her.

“You sent to him that we were coming?” she asked the priest.

“Aye,” he answered. “You could hardly appear unannounced, my lady. We do not do that here in the borders. The Hepburn would want to be here for your visit, and he does have other business to attend to, so I sent to him.”

The blue-blue eyes looked up at her. She stared haughtily down on him from her horse. “I have come to say one thing, Logan Hepburn. If you raid my flocks again I will see you hanged for it!”

“Welcome to Claven’s Carn,” he replied, smiling at her. He reached up, his fingers fastening tightly about her waist, to lift her from her mount. “You are more beautiful than ever, if such a thing is possible. And I am not raiding your flocks.”

“You lie!”
she spat at him.

He took her chin between his thumb and his forefinger, forcing her
head up so she had to look directly at him. “
I do not lie, madame!
Now, tell me who this overdressed fop is who accompanies you. If he is a new husband be warned I shall be forced to kill him on the spot.”

Lord Cambridge slid lazily from the saddle. “I am her cousin, my lord,” he told Logan Hepburn. Then he said to Rosamund, “You are right, dear girl. His eyes are blue-blue and really quite marvelous.”

“Tom!”

Logan Hepburn burst out laughing. He clapped Lord Cambridge on the back, staggering him, and said, “Come into the hall. I’ve some fine whiskey I keep for friends.”

“I am not coming into your house, damn you! I have said what I came to say, and now I will go home,” Rosamund told him.

Logan Hepburn shook his head. “You will not be an easy woman to live with,” he told her. Then he picked her up and strode into his hall with the struggling, swearing woman in his grasp.

“Put me down, you damned Scots bastard!” she yelled at him. “I don’t want to go into your house! I want to go home!
Put me down!
”

He put her on her feet and then stopped her mouth with a hard kiss. Rosamund reared back and hit him a blow that caused him to see stars. He kissed her again, this time his arms wrapping themselves tightly about her, pulling her hard against his long, lean body. She tried to draw away, but he held her fast. For a moment she couldn’t breathe, but then she was able to yank her head away from his. Still he had her arms pinioned firmly, and she could not hit him.

“Let me go!”
she said through gritted teeth. Her eyes spit sparks at him.

“Never!” he growled back. “You and I have played this game long enough, Rosamund Bolton. I love you, though why I do not know, for you are the most difficult woman I have ever met. I want you for my wife. I have driven my clansmen to distraction by refusing to wed because I would have none but you. Now the time has come for us to marry, and for you to give me an heir, for I know you are capable of it. God only knows I am capable of it as the number of my bastards will attest. I have not been stealing your sheep. The only thing I want from Friarsgate is its mistress.”

“Well,” she said, gasping. “Dammit, Logan Hepburn, I cannot breathe
if you will hold me so tightly; if you are not stealing my sheep, then who is? There are any number of Scots, I suppose, from which to choose.”

He loosened his grip on her. “I will help you find the culprits, Rosamund,” he said calmly to her, “and then you will pick a wedding day, my fine auburn-haired lass.”

“I can find the guilty myself. I’ve already set a trap for them.
And I’ll not marry you.
I’ll not marry ever again. How dare you, Logan Hepburn! I am not some ewe sheep to be bred by the Scots ram. If you want heirs, then get them on some simpleminded lass who will think you are wonderful.
I do not!
”

“You’ll spend the night,” he said calmly.

“I’ll not!” she shouted, pulling away from him and hitting him a blow that he barely avoided, seeing it coming. Her fist glanced off his shoulder, and it stung him.

“Why would I want some milk-and-water lass when I could have you?” he asked her. “I like a woman with spirit. She breeds up fierce sons and fiery daughters,” he said with a wicked grin.

“You will not get Friarsgate,” she said stonily.

“I don’t want it. It belongs to your lasses by Owein Meredith. Our bairns will be of Claven’s Carn, not Friarsgate.”

“I am going home now,” she said, and turned away from him.

“Very well,” he said. “My men and I will ride with you, for you cannot travel the borders so close to the full moon without a proper escort. We’ll remain and help you catch the thieves.”

“No!”

“
Aye!
Mata, for God’s sake reason with her.”

“My lady,” the young priest began, but Rosamund walked from the hall without another word.

“Have some whiskey,” the Hepburn said to Lord Cambridge. “Are you really her cousin?”

“Aye, I am, but aren’t you going to stop her?” Thomas Bolton looked a bit nervous.

“She can’t go anywhere until she has her horse back, and she’ll not get it until I give the word. Mata, find my brothers and tell them to gather
the men and be ready to leave immediately.” He went to a sideboard and poured out two dram cups of whiskey, handing one to Lord Cambridge. “What the hell is your name?” he asked.

“Thomas Bolton, Lord Cambridge, at your service, my lord.”

“Are you in love with her?” Logan Hepburn demanded.

Lord Cambridge laughed. “Nay, though I do love her. She reminds me of the sister I lost. Do you mind?”

“Nay,” Logan Hepburn said, and downed his whiskey in a gulp.

“And you actually intend to marry her?” Lord Cambridge asked. “You do understand that she is not an easy woman?” He quaffed down the dram cup of whiskey, gasping, his eyes watering at its potency.

“Aye,” Logan Hepburn said, and added, “I make the whiskey in my own still. Do you like it?”

“Oh, it’s grand,” Lord Cambridge said, wondering if all the flesh had just been stripped off the insides of his throat, or just the top layer.

The young priest came back “The men are ready, Logan, and Rosamund is walking because they would not give her her mare.”

Thomas Bolton laughed aloud. “Oh, ’tis going to be a grand match between you two,” he said.

They went into the courtyard and after mounting their horses followed after Rosamund, whom they found half a mile down the road, grim and determined. The clansmen surrounded her, and Logan said, his voice filled with laughter, “Get on your horse, madame. We’ll get back to Friarsgate a lot faster if you do.” Then he slid from his stallion and boosted her into her saddle. They reached the manor just after sunset when the twilight was still lighting the skies above them. Edmund came to greet them.

“He says he isn’t our thief, though I am not certain I believe him,” Rosamund said as she dismounted her horse.

“We’ve come to help,” Logan Hepburn said.

“Thank you, my lord,” Edmund Bolton replied gratefully.

“You surely don’t believe him?” Rosamund snapped. “Wait. The full moon will come, and there will be no raid upon our flocks.”

“I do believe him,” Edmund said. “The Hepburn of Claven’s Carn is known to be an honorable man, niece.”

“Billet his men in the stables. They may come into the hall to eat,” she said, and hurried into the house.

“He says he is going to wed her,” Lord Cambridge said as he dismounted his gelding. “They already spar with words like an old married couple.”

“I
am
going to marry her,” Logan Hepburn said implacably.

For the next two days Logan Hepburn’s men kept well out of sight, remaining in the stables or in the hall, sleeping, eating, and dicing among themselves. The night of the full moon was clear. The planet rose and cast a bright light over the landscape. In the meadows where the flocks now grazed the sheep were easily visible. The lake bordering the pastures reflected silver as the moon reached midheaven. Rosamund and Logan Hepburn stood peering through the window of her privy chamber on the second floor of the house.

“There!”
he said suddenly to her. “Look to the hillside left. See the shadows moving down? I believe our friends have arrived. Let’s go, my lass, and see who it is.”

She did not argue, but followed him downstairs and outside where their horses were already waiting with the Hepburn’s clansmen. “Tom,” she said to her cousin, “if anything happens to me, the lasses are yours to mother. Promise me.”

Maybel began to weep softly.

“Cease your greeting, old woman,” Rosamund told her. “I do not intend anything to happen, but if it does, he is younger than you, and can gain the king’s ear against uncle Henry. Father Mata, bless us, and confirm my wishes should it be necessary.”

“Aye, my lady,” the young cleric said, and he blessed the group.

They rode off slowly, carefully, so as not to alert the raiders that they had been discovered. Halfway to their destination the bonfire in one meadow sprang to life. This meant the raiders were now enclosed within the circle of sheep. Logan Hepburn raised his hand, and they spurred their horses into a gallop. Within the circle the Friarsgate shepherds and their companions were already engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the raiders. The dogs were barking and attacking where directed. Before their
unwelcome guests might escape, the Hepburn clansmen reinforced the circle, and the battle was quickly over; the enemy was disarmed and forced to kneel before the mistress of Friarsgate.

Rosamund dismounted and moved around the kneeling raiders. She suddenly saw a face she recognized. Reaching out, she fastened her fingers in a head of thick hair and yanked it up.
“Mavis Bolton!”
she exclaimed, very surprised.

“You’re hurting me,” Mavis snarled.

“Let my mother go!” came a young voice next to Mavis.

“Why cousin Henry, how you have grown,” Rosamund drawled to the lad next to Mavis.

The boy looked up at her, eyes filled with hatred.

Rosamund laughed. “Does your father know what you are about, young Henry? Or is my uncle here among you, too?”

“Him?”
Mavis said scornfully. “Not bloody likely.”