“If Edmund could find no sign, then there is none,” Maybel responded thoughtfully, “which is not to say you’re not correct. A pillow held to the head of a weak man could kill him.”
Rosamund nodded slowly. “Whatever he did he will regret,” she said. “I will not let Hugh die unavenged. He was a good friend to me. As his wife I owe him that duty.”
Rosamund and her nursemaid set about preparing the corpse for his coffin. They stripped the nightshirt from the body and gently washed the stiffening limbs with warm water from a pitcher in the fireplace coals. Maybel went to the chest at the bed’s foot and drew out a piece of linen. She tore it into a long strip and carefully wrapped it about Hugh Cabot’s head and beneath his chin so that his mouth would not hang open. She fixed the linen strip with a small pin, even as Rosamund was pulling her husband’s shroud from the same chest where it had been waiting for this moment.
The girl and the woman struggled to wrap the baglike shroud about the body, drawing it up and around him so that he was finally fully enclosed within it. Only his head showed, and it, too, would be covered once it was time for the burial. His long arms had been folded across his chest beneath the cloth. A simple wooden crucifix was laid upon the body. Rosamund reached out to smooth her husband’s silvery white hair with a gentle hand. She felt the tears pricking beneath her eyelids once again, and forced them back.
Edmund returned. “Henry is indeed drunk with your wine, niece. I have had him carried to his bed. The men are here with the coffin to carry Hugh to the hall. The bier has already been set up with candles at each corner. The prie-dieu awaits you.”
Rosamund nodded, and with a final look at her husband departed his chamber to await his arrival in the hall. When the coffin had been placed upon the bier, she lit the candles herself and then knelt in prayer. “I will pray until he is interred in the ground,” she told her servants. “Make certain his grave is dug deep.”
“It will be done,” Edmund assured her. He looked to his wife questioningly, but she waved him away, and he departed.
“I’ll watch with you a while,” Maybel said.
“Nay,” Rosamund said. “I prefer being alone.”
“But child...,” Maybel protested.
“I am no longer a child,” Rosamund replied softly. “Now go, but come back to me in the hour of the dawn.” She knelt down, her knees sinking into the little cushion of the prie-dieu, her hands clasped in prayer. Her back was straight, her head bowed.
Maybel looked at the young girl and sighed softly. Nay, Rosamund was no longer a child, but neither was she a woman grown. What was to happen to her now? She walked slowly from the hall. She knew what was going to happen. Henry Bolton would marry off his niece yet a third time, and a second time to one of his sons. The sniveling little boy he had brought with him would be the new master of Friarsgate, while Rosamund would remain a pawn for Henry Bolton to use. She sighed again. And yet, Maybel thought to herself, had not Edmund said something about Hugh making arrangements for Rosamund’s safety? But if she knew Henry Bolton, and she certainly did, he would probably ignore Hugh Cabot’s last will and testament. They would be able to do nothing about it.
Troubled, she entered her own bedchamber to find her husband waiting. “You left her alone?” he asked.
“She wanted it that way,” Maybel replied. She pulled her veil from her head and sat down heavily. “Lord bless me, husband, but I am weary. And surely my young mistress is even wearier, yet she will pray through the night for her husband’s good soul.” She paused, and then she said, “Do you think there is anything to what Rosamund says about Henry Bolton being responsible for Hugh’s death?”
“He was weak, and he was dying,” Edmund said softly, “but I did not think him ready yet to give up the ghost. I saw no marks of violence or physical force that would have caused his death, though. There was even a small smile upon his lips, as if he were amused by something that had been said. Yet his eyelids had been drawn down and closed. I have never, however, known Henry Bolton to be a man of wit.” He shrugged. “Perhaps it was just Hugh’s time. We will never know for certain, Maybel. So we must be guarded in what we say, and we must make certain our young mistress is also discreet. We can prove naught. What we may think, or even suspect, is another matter.”
“What will happen now?” Maybel asked him. “Did you not say that Hugh had made provision for our Rosamund? What did he do that your half-brother will now undo?”
Edmund chuckled. “Be patient, wife,” he said with a smile. “I can say nothing until the appropriate moment. Henry will be foiled, I promise you. There will be nothing he can do. Both Rosamund, and Friarsgate, are now safe from him and from his sons.”
“If I must wait to learn this miracle, then I shall wait,” Maybel said, standing up once again and beginning to unlace her gown. “It is late. The morning will come early. Let us go to bed, husband.”
“Agreed,” he replied, rising slowly. “Tomorrow will be a long and difficult day for us all.”
Chapter 3
“Your husband is dead?” Henry Bolton feigned surprise. “Well, then, niece, I shall not need his signature to marry you to my son, shall I? You are now once again in my charge,and,you shall do as I tell you to do.” He smiled toothily at her. “Let us get him in the ground and be done with it, Rosamund. I think, perhaps, I shall take you home with me so you may be guided in your behavior by my good wife. Hugh has given you ideas unsuited your station. I shall, against my better judgment, put Friarsgate back into the keeping of my father’s bastard, Edmund Bolton.”
“My husband will be buried before sunset,” Rosamund told him. “His tenants wish to do him honor and have been coming into the hall since the dawn.” Her voice was measured and controlled although her heart was racing nervously. She would run away before she would allow Henry Bolton to remove her from Friarsgate, but she trusted Edmund, and she had trusted Hugh, God rest his good soul, to save her.
“If you wait to bury him late in the day, Rosamund, then I must remain here another night,” Henry complained.
“Hugh Cabot was a good husband to me, and a good master over the people of Friarsgate,uncle.He will be allowed an honorable burial, not hustled off havey-cavey into his grave because it is inconvenient for you and your brat,” she answered him sharply. Her face was pale, and there were dark circles about her eyes.
“Oh, very well,” Henry replied surlily. “Another day away from Mavis’ carping is to the good, I suppose, but we depart on the morrow, Rosamund.”
“I cannot possibly be ready to leave Friarsgate with only a day’s notice,” she protested. “Besides, Hugh’s will is to be read by the priest on the morrow.”
“His will can make no difference to you, niece!” Henry was getting a belligerent look upon his beefy face.
“He was my husband, and had charge over me. I must obey his last wishes, uncle, whatever they may be,” she answered him sweetly.
“His wishes are of no account. I am your nearest male relation. You are in my charge now, as you have in reality always been since your parents’ deaths. The law, both man’s and God’s, says you must do what I command you to do, Rosamund. I will hear no more about it!” Henry Bolton reached for his cup of wine, swallowing down a great gulp of it. Then he slammed the cup upon the high board. “Do you understand me, niece? I am your master. None other.”
“My husband’s last wishes will be honored,” Rosamund said firmly. Then she turned and left the hall.
