The second book in the Friarsgate Inheritance series, 2003

“You are absolutely mad,” Sir Thomas Bolton said to his cousin Rosamund as they rode across the border into Scotland. It was a cold but clear day.

“Why?” she demanded. “Because for once in my life I would do the unthinkable and dare to be the one to choose? I am tired of being told who I shall marry, and ’tis always for someone else’s benefit, not necessarily mine. I was fortunate in Hugh, and again in Owein, but next time? I dare not take the chance. I want to make my own decisions from now on, and I intend to, dear Tom. Besides, I am not particularly interested in being someone’s wife again. I have been a wife one way or another since I was three years of age. I am yet young, and I want to visit King James’ court quite unencumbered by a husband. Perhaps I shall take a lover.”

“You are surely planning some mischief, dear girl, and if you are, you simply must share it with me,” he told her with a wicked grin.

“Oh, Tom,” she laughed. “Please don’t ever leave me! I do not know what I should do without you. You are my best friend in all of this world!”

“Now, wench, don’t go getting sentimental on me,” he replied, but he was smiling, for he loved his young cousin every bit as much as she loved him. His much younger sister had been like Rosamund. And how lonely he had been when she died in childbirth, and her child with her. And then, thanks to the queen, he had found Rosamund, the heiress to the major branch of his family. She could never take his sister’s place, but she had made her own place in his heart.