“I wonder if swans’ feet hurt,” Elizabeth muttered darkly.
Thomas Bolton chuckled. “Your mother left this endeavor too long, I fear,” he said. “But go to court you will, darling girl, and you will be a sensation if it is the last thing I ever do for this family!”
The shoes were brought, and Nancy fitted them onto her mistress’s feet.
Elizabeth stood up. “They are too small, and much too tight,” she said.
“Show me!” her uncle barked, and she held out her foot. Thomas Bolton looked up at Nancy. “Fetch your mistress a pair of silk stockings at once, girl! No wonder these shoes do not fit. She is wearing her heavy wool boot stockings. Such elegant footwear is not made for wool stockings.” He sighed. “I must speak with Maybel.”
Nancy ran off again, and returned quickly with a pair of silk stockings and garters to hold them up. She rolled her mistress’s wool leg coverings off and replaced them with the fine silk stockings. Then she fitted Elizabeth’s feet into her slippers. Elizabeth stood up, swayed just slightly, and looked to her uncle.
“Try walking across the room again,” he said.
Elizabeth complied, but this time she moved more carefully, slowly, and seemingly without any purpose other than to get from one side of the hall to the other. The shoes were not as comfortable as her boots, but neither were they as uncomfortable as they had previously been. She turned and looked to Lord Cambridge again.
“That was better, my angel girl, but we still have a lot of hard work ahead of us,” he told her.
And for the next hour Elizabeth walked her hall in her silk stockings and court shoes until at last Thomas Bolton was satisfied with what he saw and allowed her to sit down. She collapsed into a chair by the fire, kicking off the shoes. “I don’t want to go to court, Uncle,” she said. “I don’t care if I ever marry!”
And what a pity that would be,Baen MacColl thought. No one as lovely as Elizabeth Meredith should die a virgin. Why was it this beautiful girl was not yet married, and a mother? Was there something wrong with her that he did not know about?
Why had her family not seen properly to her future?
Elizabeth called to Nancy. “Give me my boots and wool stockings, and take these others back to my chamber. I have work to do.”
“Today? In the midst of a blizzard?” Lord Cambridge said.
“It is the day of the month I set aside for going over the accounts. There have been many lambs born, and I must enter them in my ledger, Uncle. I collected the numbers as I was out yesterday seeing to my flock’s safety,” she said, standing up, her feet reshod. She turned to Baen MacColl. “I am sorry there is naught for you to do, sir, but sit by my fire. As you can see the storm outside these walls is only just beginning to roar.” Then she was gone from the hall.
“Do you play chess, dear boy?” Lord Cambridge asked hopefully.
“I do, my lord. My father taught me when I first came to live with him,” the Scotsman replied. “Tell me where the board is, and I will set it up for us.”
When William Smythe entered the hall shortly afterwards, he found his master and Baen MacColl engaged in a very lively game. He watched, and then he smiled. His master was beginning to become alive with his court personality once more. It was a side of Thomas Bolton he did not see often any longer. He came and stood by his side, saying, “He is beating you, my lord. I am quite surprised.”
“We have only been playing for a short while, Will. Like most young men this one is in a hurry, and when one is in a hurry one makes mistakes.” He took Baen’s knight in a smooth motion, and set it on the side of the board with a small grin.
The Scot laughed. “Well played, my lord,” he said with a bow of his head.
Why, the clever young fellow,William Smythe thought as he continued to view the game.He is going to let my lord win this contest when he is really the better player. How diplomatic of him, considering he is little more than a rough Highlander.He moved off. He had his duties to complete despite the bad weather, and he would complete them far more quickly if his lordship was being amused.
In the little chamber she used for estate business, Elizabeth read the missive sent her by Colin Hay, the master of Grayhaven. He had, he wrote, two nice-size flocks of black-faced Highlands, but while the wool sheared from his sheep was good, it was ordinary, and hardly worth the bother of shipping to the Netherlands. His friend, Adam Leslie, had said Friarsgate raised several kinds of sheep, and the wool sheared was excellent. The master of Grayhaven wanted to improve his flocks. Would the lady of Friarsgate be interested in selling him some of her sheep?
Elizabeth sat back in her chair and considered his request. Her Shropshires, Hampshires, and cheviots all produced an excellent and high grade of wool. But there were two secrets to the Friarsgate blue wool: the secret of how its color was obtained, and the fact that the wool came from merino sheep. Her mother had learned of this breed from Queen Katherine, and with the queen’s aid had imported several ewes and a young ram. The flock had grown over the years, and now a quarter of the Friarsgate sheep were merinos. Their fleece was heavy and snow white. They were self-lubricating, so that their inner wool was incredibly soft.
There are enough lambs being born now,Elizabeth thought,that I could sell some of my sheep off and be none the poorer for it. Shropshires, Hampshires, or cheviots, but not the merinos. There are few estates in England with sheep like mine. I cannot be certain the Scots won’t eat them anyway, and use their lungs to make that disgusting dish they call haggis. So they shall not have my merinos.
She laid the parchment aside. It would be weeks before any sheep could be taken north. Certainly not until they were well into spring. And she would want her own shepherds and dogs to escort them. There was nothing for it but that Baen MacColl would have to remain at Friarsgate until he could return with his sheep. She would discuss it with him this evening in the hall.Damnation!She did not want to go to court. How was Friarsgate to manage without her? Edmund was over seventy now, and she had chosen no one to follow him. Not that he would allowed it anyway. But when she came home they were going to have to discuss it.
It snowed for almost three days. And then the sun came out, and Baen MacColl insisted on helping the men shovel paths from the house to the barns and the sheepfolds. He could not, it seemed, remain idle, and he was certainly not afraid of hard work. He had listened to Elizabeth’s suggestion that he remain at Friarsgate until he could return north with the sheep she would sell him.
“Your father can send the price of the sheep back with my shepherds,” she told him, and he agreed.
“You’re not afraid we’ll steal the sheep and slay your men?” he teased her.
“The Leslies have sent you to me,” Elizabeth said seriously. “I trust them. Besides, my stepfather is the Hepburn of Claven’s Carn. If you attempted to cheat me Logan would gather his clansmen up and go north to seek you out, sir.”
He chuckled, the corners of his gray eyes crinkling. “I suspect you would ride with them, Mistress Elizabeth,” he said.
