Page 54 of By the Sword
Outside the storm began to abate, while in the guest chamber the bed rapidly warmed as two people lay entwined in each other’s arms, sated with love.
***
Jonathan sat on the low stone wall overlooking the brook that ran behind the house, tossing pebbles into the water. Beside him, Tom watched the stones fall into the swiftly flowing water, swollen by the recent rain.
‘I’m sorry about Robert,’ Jonathan said at last.
‘Mother says it gets better and that I’ll stop feeling sad.’
‘It does, Tom. The pain will get better but you never forget the person who is gone. Do you remember how you felt when your grandfather Ashley died?’
‘Yes, but that was different. He was old, like Sir Francis.’ The boy looked up at him. ‘Will you miss Sir Francis?’
Jonathan nodded. ‘I’ll miss him very much. He was the one person in the world I could rely on to give me sound advice.’ He paused. ‘Has your mother told you about Seven Ways?’
‘What about Seven Ways?’
‘That Sir Francis named you his heir?’
Tom’s eyes widened in evident surprise and Jonathan quietly cursed himself. Kate must have had her reasons for not telling the boy. He had no right to interfere.
‘You mean Seven Ways belongs to me?’
‘Strictly speaking not until you’re twenty-one,’ Jonathan said, ‘but, yes.’
‘But what about you?’ Tom asked. ‘Aren’t you his heir?’
Jonathan threw a large pebble into the water and it landed with a thunk as it sunk.
‘What would I do with Seven Ways? I get the title though.’ He smiled at the boy. ‘I’m the third baronet now.’
‘That sounds very grand,’ Tom said. He frowned. ‘If I own Seven Ways does that mean I can go and live there?’
‘That’s up to your mother. You wouldn’t want to leave your home and your friends would you?’
Tom’s face took on a pinched look and he mumbled, ‘I don’t have any friends, not now Robert is dead.’
‘Of course, you do,’ Jonathan stood up. ‘I cannot dally any longer. Dickon should have Amber ready for me by now.’
‘Must you go?’
Jonathan nodded. ‘Yes.’
The boy looked up at him. ‘When will I see you again?’
A shaft of almost physical pain cut through Jonathan’s heart. Both mother and son were his world now and he hated to leave them.
‘I don’t know.’
Jonathan put his arm across the boy’s shoulders as they walked back to the house where Kate waited with a parcel of food and a flask of ale.
She said nothing and he silently thanked her for knowing better than to ask him to stay. Her very silence was harder to bear than if she had screamed and begged. At the end of the lane, he looked back to see her standing by the gate, with the letters from Giles he had left for her to forward to Nell pressed to her breast.
He raised his hand and turned away. He could not look back again.
Chapter 15
Relieved that it had fallen to Jonathan to tell Tom about Seven Ways, Kate still hesitated on a decision. Following Jonathan’s fleeting visit, she had sent Giles’ letters on to Nell with a brief letter of her own, explaining the situation with Robert’s death and her sister’s need for her.
