“I think,” Rosamund told him, “I shall leave the stratagem to you, cousin. I shall simply watch over Friarsgate and all that entails.”
Logan Hepburn came late the following day. Rosamund looked at him as a man for the first time in a long while. He was still handsome in his rough-hewn way. His eyes remained that blue-blue color that had once had the effect of making her weak in the knees when she looked into them. She wondered if they could do that again. But was there the faintest touch of silver at his temples amid the ebony of his thick hair? He slid easily from his mount, and coming to greet her, he smiled.
“Welcome home, lady,” he said.
“You did not bring my daughters back?” she asked him.
“Nay. I think it best they remain hidden at Claven’s Carn with me until we have solved the difficulty of your cousin,” he told her.
“You know?” But she wasn’t surprised. The priest was his kin and would have told him, of course.
He nodded. “His men have been watching Friarsgate, and we have watched them, though they know it not,” Logan said with an engaging grin.
“I don’t know what to do,” Rosamund said honestly. “I cannot keep looking over my shoulder forever. And I cannot have Philippa frightened over this.”
“Then we must find a way to defeat Henry Bolton the younger, for good and for all,” the laird told her frankly.
“How?” Rosamund asked.
“Perhaps we may even use your Lord Dacre against him if we are clever. Henry is raiding on both sides of the border right now, lady. Lord Dacre is raiding on the Scots side, though he has been told to cease by his king. Still, Henry Tudor makes no effort to enforce his edict with Lord Dacre, which leads me to believe he raises havoc in the borders with private royal sanction though your king cries otherwise.”
“What do you propose, then, my lord?” Rosamund asked him.
“Your cousin raids out of his lust for riches. He has no loyalties to anyone but himself, having never been taught otherwise. Lord Dacre raids not simply for what he may carry away, but out of a sense of loyalty to his king and to England. Lord Dacre hates the ancient enemy. He fights to the death. What if he believed that your cousin and his band of ruffians were renegade Scots? What if he and his men met up with your cousin and his men?” The laird of Claven’s Carn smiled wolfishly.
“You hope that they will kill each other,” Rosamund said, “thus relieving us both of an enemy. You do not do this just for me.”
“I did not say I did,” he replied. “We are far enough to the west in the borders to have been safe so far. But what if Lord Dacre comes to Claven’s Carn unexpectedly? He will not ask if any of the inhabitants are English. He will simply slaughter everyone he can find, lady.”
“Then bring my daughters home,” she replied nervously.
“Dacre has not cast his eye in our direction. Your lasses are safer with me,” he reassured her.
“This is how you would court me?” she demanded of him suddenly.
“I have not come to court you, Rosamund Bolton,” he told her. “I have come to strategize with you to our mutual benefit. Perhaps one day, if I think you are ready, I will indeed come to court you. I am not of a mind to marry again quite yet.” He smiled.
“Good!” she said. “Neither am I, Logan Hepburn.” But she was thinking, He was a devil if she ever had met one. All that soft talk he had used before she had gone down to court, implying that he loved her yet and wanted her for his wife. He hadn’t changed at all. It had been nothing more than a deception. He was probably revenging himself on her for refusing him once. Well, she didn’t need him, but she did need his clansmen. “May I retain the use of your men?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said, smiling again. The look of surprise on her face when he had said he hadn’t come courting her had almost caused him to laugh aloud. The clansman who had ridden through the night to fetch him had brought a message from Tom Bolton. Rosamund’s cousin had advised the laird of Claven’s Carn to pretend he might not be as interested in remarrying as he had previously indicated. Rosamund far preferred a challenge and would respect him more if she believed she must work to regain his love. Follow your instincts with her, Lord Cambridge had advised the lord of Claven’s Carn. And so he had. The results had been far better than he had hoped for.
Rosamund, he knew, had believed that she would control their courtship. She thought that he wanted her enough to dance to her tune. And he did. But he realized now that Tom knew exactly what he was saying when he suggested play difficult to obtain. It had been just the right thing to do. Now the next move in this game they were playing would be up to her. He wondered what she would do.
“You will remain the night,” she said. It was not a question on her part.
“Nay,” he said. “I think it better I return to Claven’s Carn, lady. I must think on how we may bring your cousin and Lord Dacre into serious conflict with each other. I will return when I have the answer to my questions.”
“Very well, my lord,” Rosamund answered him. He was not staying. Why would he not remain? Could they not have spoken together and made a plan? “Perhaps if we dealt with the matter together, Logan Hepburn, the solution might come easier and sooner,” she heard herself suggesting.
“Do you think so?” he said. She was asking him to stay.
Rosamund nodded. “Certainly Claven’s Carn is well protected in your absence, as your son resides there,” she reasoned. “And it would indeed be a quicker ride home for you in the daylight.”
“You may be right,” he said casually. “Very well, lady. I will stay.”
“Come into the hall, then,” she invited him, and turning, she led the way.
Logan winked at Lord Cambridge, and then he followed her.
“What was that all about, I should like to know.” Maybel demanded. “What mischief are you up to, Tom Bolton?”
Tom grinned at the old woman. “I have simply advised him how to win her. He must pretend his interest in her is beginning to wane so it is Rosamund who will have to convince him that they should be man and wife,” he told Maybel.
“Oh, traitor!” Maybel said, and then she laughed. “My child would not be happy if she realized how well you have come to know her, Tom Bolton. But you are right. If we are to see her married again, and happy at last, it must be her own wish, not ours.”
“You’ll not tell on me?” he said, his eyes dancing with their conspiracy.
“Nay, I’ll not,” Maybel promised. “You have been her guardian angel since the day in which you came into her life, Tom Bolton, and I thank the Blessed Mother for it.”
“Thank you,” he said softly. “But you well know we have been a blessing to each other, Maybel. Come along, now, and let us see what is transpiring in the hall. Are you not curious? I know that I am.”
That evening, after the meal had been served, Rosamund, Logan, Father Mata, Maybel, Edmund, and Tom sat together in the hall plotting. Philippa had been sent to her bed, her windows barred, Lucy on the trundle by her bedside, and the Hepburn clansman on guard outside the girl’s door.
“The bait must be something tempting to them both,” Rosamund said.
“Then the trap must be baited twice,” Logan told them. “Once for Henry the younger and once for Lord Dacre.”
“If Dacre believes that Henry and his men are Scots,” Rosamund considered, “that should be bait enough for him. But what will bring them together at the same time and in the same place?”
“There is a deserted abbey near Lochmaben,” the priest said. “What if Lord Dacre learned that gold, previously hidden there, was to be transported from that abbey across Scotland to Edinburgh for the little king’s use? He would want to take that gold. And what if Henry the younger learned about the same gold? The abbey is in a desolate area. Both men would consider it an easy haul. Lord Dacre would be warned of this band of renegade Scots in the neighborhood. Henry would not be warned of Lord Dacre. If they came upon each other, certainly a battle would ensue.”
“I remember once,” Edmund remarked, “my brother Richard saying you would go far in the church, Mata. Your talents are indeed wasted in this rural outback.”
The young priest grinned.
“To get them to the same place at approximately the same time,” Logan noted, “that is where our problem will lie.”
