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Highland cattle. I have two children: a daughter, Janet, and a son, Adam.”
    “Yet you speak only of your son,” Rosamund noted.
    “My lass was stolen away by slavers when we were in San Lorenzo. She was to wed with the duke’s heir. We had just celebrated the betrothal when she was taken. We tried to regain her custody, but could not.” His face wore an expression of intense pain. “I cannot speak of it, Rosamund. Please understand and ask me no more.”
    She kissed him tenderly. “I understand,” she said.
    For a moment all was silent in the chamber, and then the earl said, “Tell me of this Logan Hepburn who pursues you.”
    “A most irritating man,” Rosamund replied. “He claims to have been in love with me since I was six years of age. He says he saw me at a cattle market at Drumfie with my uncle. He appeared at Friarsgate just before I wed with my Owein. He had, he said, come courting. I told him I was to marry, and then the bold creature showed up at my wedding with his brothers and their pipes! They brought whiskey and salmon. I should have sent him packing then and there, but Owein found it amusing. After Owein’s death, Queen Katherine asked me back to court. She thought to cheer me, though if the truth be known I hated to leave my home and could scarcely wait to return. And when I did, there was Logan Hepburn! He announced we were to wed on St. Stephen’s day, and he would come for me then.”
    “He’s a bold fellow,” the earl said thoughtfully.
    “He is irritating and brash,” Rosamund said heatedly. “Thank God your queen sent me an invitation to come to this court. I should have had to fortify my house to keep that damned borderer out. He wants a son and an heir of me. Well, he had best find someone more willing, for I will not be broodmare to his stallion!” Then her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, Patrick! What if . . .”
    “There is no possibility, lass,” he told her. “Before I returned home from San Lorenzo, I contracted an illness. My face blew up like a sheep’s bladder, and my manhood ached and burned by turns. The old woman who nursed me told me that my seed would be barren from that point on. I have had several mistresses in the intervening years, and none has claimed a bairn by me. I have never cared until now, though I swear I do not consider you a broodmare to my stallion,” he finished with a small smile.
    She giggled, and reaching down, stroked his now-flaccid rod. “You do, however, my lord, have some most impressive stallionlike qualities.” Her fingers teased his length and found their way beneath to fondle his twin pouches.
    He closed his eyes and enjoyed the sensations she was engendering with her daring play. “I had been told you English were cold creatures,” he bedeviled her wickedly.
    “Whoever gave you such an idea, my lord?” she murmured, and then she squeezed him, causing him to groan with his budding arousal.
    “I cannot remember, madame, but I am relieved to learn it a lie,” the earl said.
    “I suspect his majesty could tell you that. It is said King Jamie is hot-blooded by nature. So, too, is his queen. Considering the bairns born to them, it would seem truth.”
    “Aye, but among those bairns not a living heir,” the earl noted.
    “This time will be different,” Rosamund said. “Come the spring the queen will deliver a healthy son, my lord. We all pray for it.”
    “Do you have the lang eey like our Jamie, then?” he asked. His hand cupped a breast, and he tenderly fondled it. The little nipple instantly thrust itself forth to salute him. He bent his dark head and kissed it. His tongue licked at it in a leisurely fashion.
    Rosamund sighed deeply. Every touch of his hand, his mouth, offered her the most incredible pleasure. While she had loved Owein, it had never been that way with him. Not like this. Nor her own king, who had taken her briefly for his mistress on her last visit to court. Nay. Henry Tudor was always interested in only