we met and our eyes found each other across the Great Hall at Stirling Castle. I cannot explain it, and neither can he. It is simply the way it is. But to put your mind at ease, he would wed me if I would have him. He knows I prefer not to remarry, and so he does not press me. There can be no bairns of our coupling, for his seed was rendered lifeless years ago by an illness. Now, that should satisfy your curiosity, and I will not discuss it further.”
“Why won’t you wed him?” Maybel demanded, satisfied, but still inquisitive.
“Because I will not leave Friarsgate, and his allegiance is to Glenkirk,” Rosamund explained. “He will return to Scotland this autumn. Perhaps he will come back to Friarsgate again, and perhaps I shall never see him again. Neither of us knows what will happen, but we know we are not meant by the fates to be together always. Now, Maybel, that is an end to it. I shall say no more, and you will be your dear self to Patrick.”
“A woman who doesn’t want to be a wife,” Maybel opined. “I do not understand it at all!”
Rosamund laughed. “I know,” she said. “It will ever be a puzzle to you, dear Maybel. I do apologize for flummoxing you so.”
Maybel stood up. “Well, at least it is settled between us, child. Your earl seems a nice enough fellow. I can see you love him as you have never loved another. I’ll go back to the hall now and see that the supper is ready. Where is that lazy Annie?”
“I have seen she and her husband have a comfortable room. I want her to rest for a few days. She has traveled all the way from San Lorenzo with a bairn in her belly. She is very tired.”
“You spoil the wench,” Maybel grumbled. “After dinner I’ll have your bathwater brought so you may bathe.” Then she departed Rosamund’s chamber, closing the door firmly behind her.
“She loves you very much,” Patrick said, stepping through the door connecting their two chambers.
“You heard it all?” Reaching up, she stroked his handsome face with her fingers.
“I was about to come through when she burst in,” he replied. “She is right, you know. We must not set a bad example before your daughters. They are charming, by the way. I am particularly enamored of your youngest.”
“When we retire to our chambers we will lock both doors to the hallway,” Rosamund said. “There will be no interruptions, my lord. And you will share my bath tonight. I have a delightfully commodious tub for two. Owein always liked bathing with me,” she told him with a mischievous smile.
“He was obviously a man of good taste and discernment,” the earl said.
“Come and lie with me,” Rosamund begged.
“It is almost the supper hour, and it would not do if we did not appear, or worse, appeared flushed and rumpled,” he advised.
“We will just lie together and talk,” she promised him.
They stretched out upon her bed together.
“Your lands are fair,” he told her, “and very different from mine. Glenkirk stands amid the hills, though I have a loch, too. We can grow only what we need to sustain ourselves. Your fields, however, are bounteous enough to feed your vast flocks as well as your people. I look forward to riding out with you tomorrow.”
“We are indeed blessed,” Rosamund agreed. “Why must you leave me, Patrick? Can your son not manage your lands? Are you really needed at Glenkirk?”
“Until King James made me the Earl of Glenkirk, Rosamund, I was the laird of Glenkirk. I still am to my folk. I am their lord and the source of all that is good for them. I will be as long as I live,” Patrick said quietly. “My son will not be accepted until I am dead. He will be respected as my authority in my absence, but he will not be accepted as their master, Rosamund. I know why you do not leave Friarsgate. It is for the same reason. And your girls are too young to manage on their own.”
“I was managing at their age, but it was difficult, and I very much resented my uncle Henry, who coveted Friarsgate for himself. I will not put my daughters in that position. Maybel, Edmund, and my uncle Richard, who is the prior of St. Cuthbert’s, protected me from harm, but it was hard on them, and they are older now.”
“So we are at the same impasse as we have ever been,” he said softly.
Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I know,” she admitted, “and I hate it!”
He kissed the tears from her face. “We must be grateful for what we have,” he told her quietly.
She nodded, but beneath her acquiescence anger was beginning to burn. She loved this man, and she always would. She didn’t want to be separated from him. Ever.
At the evening meal the Earl of Glenkirk was seated on the lady of Friarsgate’s right hand. And on his right hand was Philippa Meredith, the heiress to Friarsgate. Banon and Bessie had been fed earlier and were abed now, but at eight Philippa came to table with the adults.
“You are very handsome for an old man,” Philippa observed.
“And you, I think, look like your mother,” he replied, restraining his laughter.
“Maybel says I am my mother, too,” Philippa responded. “Are you going to live here forever, my lord?”
“Nay,” he told the child. “I have come to visit, as your mama and I became friends at King James’ court. I shall depart for Glenkirk in the autumn.”
“Will you ever come back?” Philippa asked. “I think my mother would be very sad if you did not come back.”
“I will try to come back, Philippa,” the Earl of Glenkirk said. “I know I will want to come back, but sometimes what you want and what must be are not the same.”
“I thought grown-ups always got what they wanted,” was the reply.
Patrick laughed softly. “Would that it were so, my pretty maid, but it is not. Grown-ups must do their duty, and more often than not that duty conflicts with what they want. Still, a duty should always come first. You must remember that, for one day you will be the Lady of Friarsgate.”
The child nodded. “I think you have given me good advice, my lord. I will remember it.”
She was a serious little girl, he thought. His own lost daughter, Janet, was so different at that age. Janet, the half-wild Highland child who rode her pony at breakneck speed and protected her little brother from any who would tease him or otherwise seek to do him mischief. His Janet was as proud of her heritage as was this solemn little girl who was already gaining a sense of duty to Friarsgate. He had hated losing her to the heir of San Lorenzo, but better Rudolpho di San Lorenzo than the fate that had claimed her. Adam said that one day he would find his big sister, but Patrick doubted it.
The Earl of Glenkirk found that Friarsgate possessed the same isolation that his own Highland home did. The only news was brought by travelers, mostly peddlers coming over the border from Scotland. They learned that King James’ shipbuilding was progressing apace and that the heir to Scotland’s throne remained healthy and strong. Both the English and the Scots were strengthening their border garrisons. King James had signed a renewal of the alliance with France. In Europe war raged. Spain marched into Navarre, and Henry Tudor into Bayonne, awaiting their aid to win his French crown back. Disappointed, his fleet pounded the Breton coast as they made their way home to England once again.
The spring melded into a summer that seemed to move slowly one day and quickly the next. Now that Rosamund could swim, she insisted that Patrick teach her girls as he had taught her. Together they splashed about in her lake as Philippa, Banon, and Bessie giggled and sloshed each other with water in their efforts to learn.
“The water is certainly a lot colder than the sea in San Lorenzo,” Rosamund remarked the first time they swam.
“ ’Tis not as cold as Glenkirk’s loch,” he swore.
“Do you break the ice before you enter it, then?” she teased him back.
“Only in May,” he assured her. “You’ll see one day.”
“Aye, I’ll come to Glenkirk if you do not come back to me,” she threatened with a grin. “Not this year, but next, I shall take my girls and we will winter in your Highlands as long as you will come back to Friarsgate with us the rest of the year.”
“ ’Tis fair, and a good idea, sweetheart,” he agreed.
“That way neither of us shirks our responsibilities to our holdings,” he said.
They sat upon the lakeshore, watching the children.
“Oh, Patrick!” Rosamund said, and her voice was filled with hope. “Could we? It would be a perfect solution to the problem that besets us.”
“Aye,” he agreed slowly, “and then perhaps you would agree to marry me, Rosamund, and we shall never be parted again.”
