“I am going to bed!” Elizabeth said furiously.
“You most certainly are not!” Rosamund countered. “You are going to sit at your high board with your husband by your side and see we are decently fed. We have ridden all day on a handful of oatcakes and are hungry, my daughter.”
“He is not my husband!” Elizabeth shrieked.
“Did you or did you not handfast with him last summer?” Rosamund said.
Elizabeth glared at her mother sullenly. “Aye,” she muttered. “But a handfast isn’t a real marriage. ’Tis just a promise to marry, and I’ve changed my mind.”
“Well, I haven’t,” Rosamund said. “Tomorrow morning Father Mata will formalize the union you contracted with Baen MacColl while in the throes of your lust on a summer’s night. My grandson will be born on the proper side of the blanket, for he is the next heir to Friarsgate, damn it!”
“How can you be certain ’tis a lad?” Elizabeth snapped.
“Because Hays usually throw sons,” Baen said to her. He put a hard arm about her thickened waist, drawing her close to him, and his big hand caressed her belly, feeling the child within move strongly as he did so. He grinned, pleased. “Aye, ’tis a lad,” he said. “’Tis our son you carry, Elizabeth. Yours and mine.”
She had felt the child inside her move with the touch of its father’s hand. For a moment feelings of tenderness threatened to overwhelm her, but then Elizabeth hardened her heart against him once more. “You’ll never have Friarsgate,” she snarled at him.
“I don’t want it,” he replied. “I want you. I want our son and the other children we will have. Friarsgate is yours. You are its lady, and nothing can change that.”
“A husband can change that,” she said. “Do you think I am a fool, and do not know the law, Baen? A woman becomes chattel once in the hands of a man. My mother suffered that, but she escaped. I will not be any man’s possession!”
“Sit down, Elizabeth,” Rosamund told her daughter. “Sit down and read the marriage contract that Baen willingly signed, and that you must now sign.” She turned at the sound of a familiar footfall as her daughter sank heavily into a cushioned chair. “Ah, Mata, here you are. Come and witness Elizabeth’s signature. You will perform the marriage in the morning. Logan and I want to return home as quickly as possible. We have left the boys alone, and the boys do quarrel when we are not there to mediate.”
Elizabeth had spread the parchment out into what now passed for her lap. Her hazel-green eyes scanned the document. Baen was to hold the position of her steward, which was, she thought, honestly fair, but other than that nothing was to change. Friarsgate remained hers, and hers alone. And if she died it returned to her mother or her heir. Relief poured through her, and her heart stopped hammering in her chest. She drew a deep breath and said, “Someone find me a quill with which to sign this.” She arose and went to her place at the high board. When the inked quill was brought to her she signed the marriage contract, sanding it afterwards to fix her signature. She said nothing more, affixing her seal into the hot wax she poured on the document. Then she shoved it towards the manor priest. “Keep it safe, good Father Mata,” she told him.
The meal was now brought to the table, and Elizabeth was surprised at the bounty of her board, for her guests had not sent a messenger ahead. It was obvious that her servants had been expecting company, even if she had not been. Baen took his place at her right hand. She glanced at him from beneath her thick lashes. He was so handsome. She wondered if their son—their child, she corrected herself—would look like him. She had noted the name of her bridegroom on the marriage document. Baen MacColl Hay. So he was at last taking his father’s surname. Hay, she decided, would be a less contentious name here in the borders.
He watched her carefully during the meal. Her appetite was good, he was relieved to see. The bairn would be born strong and healthy from a mother who ate as Elizabeth did. But then, she had always had an appetite that surprised him on a woman. He noted she watered her wine heavily. Curious, he thought.
When she saw his interest she said, “Pure wine does not agree with me now.”
They were the only words she spoke directly to him during the evening.
After the meal, when they all sat together by the fire, Elizabeth said, “We must send for Edmund and Maybel. I cannot wed without them by my side. They were with you at my birth, Mama. They should be here when I marry.”
“Send to them tonight then,” Rosamund said. “I will not linger another day.”
“Nor I,” Lord Cambridge said. “Another day of hard riding, and I can be home at Otterly tomorrow night. I have missed my Will, and I have missed my home. I want my own bed, and meals to please my palate, and long days in my library. I shall have to undo everything dear Will has done in my absence, for he will not have cataloged to suit me. And I shall have to do it surreptitiously, lest I hurt his feelings. In the end he will believe he has done it all for me, and I shall thank him profusely.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Uncle, you are ever the sly fox.” Then she slowly rose to her feet. “Now I have done all that is required of me I shall depart to my bed. Good night.”
“Shall you join her?” Thomas Bolton asked mischievously of Baen when he believed Elizabeth was out of their hearing. His amber-brown eyes twinkled.
“I think it wise I wait until Elizabeth asks me back into her bed,” Baen answered.
“Never!” Elizabeth snapped, for her hearing was very sharp and then she was gone.
Logan chuckled.
“I think you are very prudent,” Rosamund told him, throwing an annoyed glance towards her husband. “No matter what the marriage contract says, you must convince my daughter that you will keep to your bargain. And then when she has stopped spitting at you like an angry cat you will have to woo her all over again. But when you win her for good, Baen, it will be a victory worth having, I promise you.”
“Aye,” Baen told his mother-in-law. “Elizabeth is an incredible prize, lady, and well I know it. But she has never been easy.”
His companions laughed, and Rosamund admitted, “Nay, she never has.” Then she signaled to Albert, who hurried to her side. “Has the lady sent a messenger to Edmund and Maybel’s cottage?” she asked him.
“Yes, m’lady, on her way to her chamber,” the hall steward replied.
“Then we may retire too,” Rosamund said. “Baen, you know where Elizabeth’s chamber is, of course. Sleep in the room next to hers. The one before her door,” she said. “It has a connecting door for the time when you are forgiven,” Rosamund concluded with a small smile.
