“I was not like that at her age,” Rosamund said.
“Nay, you were a dutiful chatelaine with an ancient husband at ten,” Tom reminded her. “The weight of Friarsgate was heavy on your shoulders, cousin, but Philippa is not you. It is a different time in which she lives. Besides, at court she is safer from Henry the younger.”
“I wish we would go back to learn he has been hung,” Rosamund said darkly. “I do not relish the next two years, if he survives. Keeping Philippa from him will not be easy, Tom, but as God is my witness, I will do it!”
“I know you will, dear girl. Why, you frighten me half to death when you get that look in your eye,” he teased her.
“Are the men-at-arms gathered together now?” she asked him.
“We will depart as early on the morrow as you can arise, cousin,” he said.
“I am most eager to get back,” Rosamund said.
“To Friarsgate or to your brazen Scot?” he asked, a single eyebrow cocked.
“To Friarsgate, of course!” she said immediately. “I do not know what is to happen with Logan Hepburn and myself. We shall see.”
Tom did not pursue the subject further with Rosamund. He knew what was going to happen even if she didn’t. She was going to marry the laird of Claven’s Carn, and damned well about time, he thought. He didn’t know how Logan would bring off this miracle, but it would happen. The Scotsman loved his cousin deeply, even if she was too stubborn to see it. They had both been through much in their lives, but now it was time for them. And Lord Cambridge intended to see it happen. He knew that Edmund and Maybel were in agreement with him on this. It was just a matter of making Rosamund see reason. It amazed him that his cousin, an intelligent and clever woman where Friarsgate was concerned, could be so foolish in the matter of her own emotions. He did not doubt for a moment that Patrick Leslie would always be in her heart, even if she spoke little of him anymore. But there had to be room in her heart for another love, as well. For the first time in a long while, Tom prayed.
A knock at the chamber’s door opened to reveal the same page who had escorted Rosamund to the king at Westminster. The lad bowed smartly, saying as he did, “His majesty wishes to see the lady of Friarsgate before she departs. Please come with me.”
“Where is the king?” Rosamund asked the boy.
“At the edge of the wood behind the inn, my lady,” was the answer.
“Come, Tom. For my reputation’s sake, I beg you to accompany me,” Rosamund said.
He nodded, standing immediately, and together they followed the boy out the back door of the inn, through the kitchen courtyard, and across a small swath of meadow to the edge of the forest where the king stood half-hidden in the trees. The page and Lord Cambridge stopped, while Rosamund moved forward and curtsied to the king.
“You are determined to ruin my reputation with the queen, Hal,” she greeted him.
He laughed. “And you, fair Rosamund, are determined to be what you were born to be.” Reaching out, he took her small hand in his big one and kissed it. “I came only to tell you that you will always have my friendship, as you have Kate’s. I wanted there to be no misunderstanding between us on that point.”
“I am glad, then, that you called me to you,” Rosamund told him. “It is a wise woman who keeps the friendship of both her king and her queen.”
Again he laughed. “Direct and honest as you ever were, madame. I am sorry we may not take up where we left off. No one has ever spoken to me as you do, Rosamund.”
“I am a countrywoman, my liege, and we do see things differently,” she told him.
“Then this is adieu, fair Rosamund,” he told her as he drew her into his arms and kissed her lips.
Now it was Rosamund who laughed as she drew away, shaking her finger at him. “You will always be the bad lad,” she told him. Then she curtsied, saying as she did, “I am grateful for your friendship, Hal. My daughter Philippa will be coming to serve the queen as a maid of honor in two years’ time. I hope you will grant her your friendship, as well. She is Owein’s child, and the Merediths were ever loyal to the House of Tudor.”
“I will watch over her as if she were my own child,” he said.If I had a child.The unsaid words hung in the air between them.
“There will be a child, Hal. I will pray for it,” Rosamund promised. Then, with another curtsy, she backed away, finally turning to rejoin her cousin, the page passing her as she went.
“He wanted to say good-bye,” Tom said. “How charming. It is good to know that you still retain his favor.”
“If I had remained, if we had taken up where we left off, he would have soon been bored. Hal has always sought the unattainable. It is the chase he enjoys far more than the possession,” Rosamund noted.
“Then it would appear that our business here is done, cousin.”
She nodded. “Aye, Tom, and I am indeed eager to get home to Friarsgate.”
Chapter 18
“Iwonder how long it will take the laird to know that you are home.” Tom teased Rosamund as they rode down the road to Friarsgate.
