The hillside now began to grow green with the coming of spring. The ewes proudly shepherded their new offspring into the meadows beneath the warm spring sun. The fields were plowed and the grain sown in those being used this year. The orchards came into full bloom. Rosamund’s second daughter, Banon, celebrated her eighth birthday on the fifteenth day of March. Philippa turned ten at the end of April, and Bessie was six by the end of May. Tom came from Otterly, as he had for the two previous birthday celebrations. He brought Bessie a small terrier pup as a present. She squealed with delight upon opening the basket in which he had placed it, and then she hugged him. The squirming puppy jumped from its basket and scampered across the garden with Bessie in hot pursuit, causing them all to laugh. It was at that moment uninvited guests arrived, ushered into the gardens by a house servant.
“Such gaiety,” Henry Bolton said. He was accompanied by a tall young man whom Rosamund immediately recognized as her cousin Henry the younger.
She arose. “Uncle, this is a surprise, but you are, of course, welcome.” She deliberately ignored her cousin.
“I have brought my son with me today. He has been living with me,” Henry said.
“I had heard he has taken to robbery, uncle,” Rosamund replied.
“Nay, nay, niece. He is a reformed man. Aren’t you, my son?” Henry said.
“Yes, father,” the young man responded. His gaze had fastened upon Philippa. “Is that the heiress to Friarsgate?” he asked his sire.
“You have never been noted for your subtlety, cousin,” Rosamund told him. “But if you think to wed my daughter, put it from your mind. I told your father this in December.” She glared at her relations.
“The little wench has to marry someone, cousin,” the young man replied.
“There are two criteria for her husband. She must love the man she marries, and he must be of a high social station. You fit neither of those standards, cousin. If that is the purpose of your visit, then you have wasted your time.”
“Is this the kind of hospitality you offer me?” Henry demanded, outraged.
“You come into our midst unannounced, uncle, bringing my cousin, who has spent his last years in robbery and mayhem. Your purpose is to make a match between my innocent child and this ruffian, something I previously told you was not possible. And you wonder I do not welcome you with open arms? You have dedicated your life, uncle, to stealing Friarsgate from me. You have failed. Now you hope you may yet gain it through my daughter. It will not happen, I tell you! Now, get out! Take your wicked spawn with you and know that you shall never darken my door again!” Rosamund stood as tall as she could, her index finger pointing out of the garden. About her, her family was very, very quiet. Her daughters had never seen her this angry.
“You were always a difficult girl,” Henry said. His face was red with his outrage. “This is Bolton land, you stupid bitch! It must remain Bolton land! I will kill you before I allow Friarsgate to be given to a stranger!” He lunged at her furiously, but Rosamund was quicker and stepped back.
“Get out!” she told him again in a hard voice.
Henry’s face now turned from red to deep red to purple. “Why could you have not died with your brother and your parents? You have ever been a thorn in my side, you damned bitch! This should all be mine!” He was foaming about his lips, and then with a loud cry, he collapsed at her feet and was very still.
“I think you have finally killed the old devil off,” Henry the younger said as Edmund knelt, seeking a pulse from his half-brother.
Edmund looked up. “He is dead, Rosamund.”
“Good!” she replied vehemently.
Father Mata stepped forward. “Have mercy, lady,” he counseled her gently.
“He had none on me,” Rosamund said softly. Henry Bolton was dead. She could scarce believe it, but it was true. Then she said, “I will give him in death what I would not give him in life, Mata. He may be buried here at Friarsgate.”
The priest nodded approvingly.
“His cottage?” Henry the younger said. “Is it now mine?”
“Nay,” Tom quickly said. “I built it for your father to live out his life in, but it is part of Otterly, and Otterly is mine. I know your father had a will, young Henry, and you are his sole heir. Meet me at Otterly in a week’s time, and we will see what it is you have inherited.”
The young man nodded. Then he turned to Rosamund and bowed. “I will not say it has been pleasurable seeing you again, cousin,” he told her wryly. “And I should far rather wed and bed you than the little wench who is your heiress. I am old enough now by far, and it is said that I am skilled in passion.”
“Get out!” Rosamund said once more. “The sight of you sickens me, and your lack of grief is shameful.”
“I do not grieve for him,” her cousin said. “He was wretched to my mother. I hated him for it. Had I gotten my hands on Friarsgate, I should have exiled him from it even as you did. And I would not have allowed his bones to be interred in its soil.” He bowed to her once more. “Perhaps I shall return, cousin.”
“Do not,” Rosamund said in a hard, cold voice.
Chapter 15
The morning after Bessie’s natal day they laid Henry Bolton to rest in the family burial site next to his mother. Rosamund’s parents and brother were interred next to her grandfather. His son had not returned for his burial. Rosamund was very concerned that Henry the younger was in the vicinity and that he had seen Philippa. “Did you know,” she asked Tom, “that my cousin was with his father this winter past?”
Tom shook his head. “If I had, I should have called the sheriff,” he said. “God’s blood, dear girl, I could have been murdered in my bed, and none the wiser!” He looked distinctly pale at the thought. “I wonder that Mistress Dodger did not tell me, but then I saw little of her during the winter. I shall certainly speak with her when I return to Otterly in a few days’ time.”
