Bertrice Small - Until You

“And if our countries continue to war?” he asked her.

“Then you must stay on your side of the border, and I will remain on mine,” Rosamund teased him with a smile.

“Of course,” he told her, “if we remain free of political entanglements and know nothing of the world outside of Friarsgate and Claven’s Carn, we shall never be separated.” Then he kissed the tip of her nose.

“What a clever man you are,” Rosamund told him. “I think I will marry you after all, Logan Hepburn.”

“And one day you will come to love me?” he said hopefully.

“I think some small part of me has always loved you, Logan,” she admitted. “And I will be a good wife to you and a good stepmother to your son. I promise.”

“And I will be a good father to your girls,” he vowed. “I remember their father, and he was an honorable man. I can be no less to you, or to them.”

“And if we should have bairns, Logan?” she asked.

“They will belong to Claven’s Carn,” he told her firmly.

She nodded. “Then it is settled, my lord. But if we are indeed to have bairns, you will have to pay more attention to me than you have been,” she teased him.

He grinned down at her. “Madame, I have already put a bairn in your belly, but until he objects, Rosamund, you and I will enjoy our bed sport.”

And Rosamund laughed aloud, her heart soaring with her happiness. Aye! She was indeed happy again, and she knew that with Logan Hepburn by her side she would be happy forever, no matter the world about them.

T hey were not married the next day, but rather a month later, on the eighteenth of October, St. Luke’s Day. The ceremony took place not at Friarsgate or at Claven’s Carn, but rather in the hills between both estates where the border between England and Scotland was acknowledged to be by both parties. The bride stood on the English side of that border. The bridegroom stood in Scotland. Both were smiling as they joined hands across that border. It was a perfect autumn day. The sky above was a clear, strong blue, and the bright sun was warm on their shoulders. The hills were dressed in russet and gold, and the air about them was soft, but there was no breeze.

The simple ceremony was performed by Prior Richard Bolton and Father Mata. The invited guests were few: Maybel, Edmund, Tom Bolton, Philippa, Banon, and Bessie Meredith, little John Hepburn. And when the formalities were over and done with, the laird of Claven’s Carn took his bride up on his horse and invited them all back to his keep for the celebration. There in the hall, as the day waned, his clansmen and clanswomen raised toast after toast to the newly wed couple, the pipes wailed, and there was much dancing. John Hepburn spent most of that afternoon curled in his new stepmother’s lap. Rosamund frequently caressed the little boy’s dark hair, wondering if the child she now carried would be dark-haired, too.

And eight months later Rosamund discovered that he was, when Alexander Hepburn was born into the world to the delight of his three half-sisters and his half-brother. He was christened at Friarsgate Church by Father Mata, Edmund and Tom standing as his godfathers and Maybel as his godmother. And watching, Philippa Meredith could but consider if this was the last of her mother’s children she would see born, for in ten more short months she was to go to court and join the queen’s household. In ten months she would see her friend Cecily FitzHugh again. She would be twelve years old. Old enough to be considered a possible match for the right young man. She wondered if that young man would be Giles FitzHugh, or perhaps another, someone she had yet to meet. Someone she did not even know. Someone with whom she would fall madly in love. As her mother had with Patrick Leslie.

“I cannot wait!” Philippa said softly to herself. “I cannot wait!” And she smiled as she contemplated her life to come.

I hope you have enjoyed Book Two of The Friarsgate Inheritance. I will tell you that no one was more surprised than I was to have Patrick Leslie, the first Glenkirk earl, and the father of my very first heroine, Janet Leslie, a.k.a. Cyra Hafise ( The Kadin ), appear as the great love of Rosamund’s life. I had always wondered what had happened to him.

In Book Three of this series I will have some other surprises for you. Look for it in October 2004. In the meantime I hope you will visit my Web site at www.BertriceSmall.com or you may write to me at P.O. Box 765, Southold, NY 11971-0765. God bless, and much good future reading from your most faithful author,

Bertrice Smallis a New York Times best selling author and the recipient of numerous awards. In keeping with her profession, she lives in the oldest English-speaking town in the state of New York, founded in 1640, and works in a light-filled studio surrounded by the paintings of her favorite cover artist, Elaine Duillo. Because she believes in happy endings, Bertrice Small has been married to the same man, her hero, George, for forty years. They have a son, a daughter-in-law, and three adorable grandchildren. Longtime readers will be happy to know that Nicki the Cockatiel flourishes along with his fellow housemates: Pookie, the long-haired greige and white; Honeybun, the petite orange lady cat with the cream-colored paws; and Finnegan, the black long-haired baby of the family.