Chapter 1
“ Adair! Adair! Now, where has that child gotten to this time?” Nursie asked herself aloud.
Pray God she hadn’t slipped out of the hall, as she so often did. Not now. Not when the Lancastrians were prowling the countryside, causing havoc. Especially when she had been specifically told not to wander about in these dangerous times. Not that Adair Radcliffe ever listened to anyone except herself, Nursie considered.
“Adair!” she called again impatiently. “Oh, bless my stars!” the servant cried, jumping back as her charge leaped out from behind a high-backed chair.
“Boo!” Adair Radcliffe said, grinning wickedly at her keeper.
“You bad thing,” Nursie cried. “You have given me quite a fright, child, but come. Your mother and father want to see you in the hall. Hurry along now, my precious. You don’t want to disobey your parents.”
“They’ve burned the village,” the six-year-old girl said. “I was up in the west tower, and I could see it. And the fields as well.”
“These are terrible times,” Nursie muttered, catching the child’s hand and leading her from the corridor into the great hall of Stanton. She saw her master and mistress at the far end of the room. They stood by the largeopen fireplace in earnest conversation. “Here she is, my lord, my lady,” Nursie said as they reached the Earl and Countess of Stanton. She curtsied, and then moved away, but Jane Radcliffe bade her remain.
“What we have to say concerns you as well, Nursie.”
The Countess of Stanton looked both worried and sad.
“Come, and let us all sit down.”
Adair climbed into her father’s lap, waiting to hear what her mother would say.
“You must save the child, Nursie,” Jane Radcliffe began. “The Lancastrians are moving toward the hall.
My husband and I are known Yorkists. They have burned the village and killed everyone they could lay their hands upon. They showed no mercy to old or young, we have been told by the few who managed to flee to the hall. They will kill everyone here when they come. You must take Adair to he who fathered her. You must take her to King Edward. He recognized her at her birth, and when you tell him what has happened here, the king will take her into his own household. The queen will not be pleased, for she is a cold woman, but when I left her service, she swore she would remember me with kindness. Tell her for the peace of my soul to render that kindness to my child. It is my dying wish.”
“My lady!” Nursie cried, paling.
The Earl of Stanton put Adair from his lap. “Go and comfort your mother, my child,” he told her. Then he turned his attention to Nursie. “You are not a young woman any longer, Elsbeth,” he began, “but Jane and I must entrust you with our most precious possession, our daughter. The Lancastrians have almost finished ma-rauding through the village and fields. It is several hours until sunset, and they will attack the hall before then.
They will kill all they find. They must not find Adair.”
“But how can we escape them, my lord?” Nursie quavered. It was true she wasn’t young, but neither was she old. She wanted to live.
“There is a tunnel beneath the hall. At one end arehorses, saddled. Their bags contain food for several days. And water. By tomorrow at this time the Lancastrians will have departed. You will exit the tunnel. Ride south, Elsbeth. For London. Someone will know where to find the king. Take Adair to him. When you have found King Edward, tell any who would stop you that Adair is his daughter, her ladyship the Countess of Stanton, come to seek his protection. Do not allow anyone to prevent you from getting to the king, Elsbeth. Do you understand me?”
Nursie nodded. “I will go and pack what I can take for my little mistress,” she said, standing. “With your permission, my lord.”
He nodded. “Go.”
Nursie left the hall quietly.
“She is loyal, thank God and his blessed Mother,”
Jane Radcliffe said.
“The last of my grandfather’s bastards,” he replied.
“We were born in the same year. I always remember how shocked my mother was by Elsbeth’s birth. Why my mother thought he was no longer interested in things of the flesh as an old man, I do not know. I was five when he died, and I still remember coming upon him in a corridor going at a maidservant with robust vigor. He had the girl up against a wall, and from her cries it was obvious he was giving her pleasure.”
“John,” the countess murmured softly, “these are not stories for Adair’s ears. We have more important things to discuss with our daughter.”
“Aye,” the Earl of Stanton agreed. “We do.” He sat next to his wife on the settle and, taking Adair from her mother’s lap, set her before them. “Now, Adair, I would have you listen well to what we have to tell you. King Edward the Fourth got you on your mother. I was unable to give your mother a child, and the king desired her. But your mother is an honorable woman. She refused him. He persisted and came to me. I gave them my permission to lie with each other, provided he createdStanton into an earldom, and that he recognize any daughter born and provide her dower. But I would recognize a daughter too, and give her my name. I did not sire you, Adair, but you are my child nonetheless, and I have always loved you. Now, however, you must use your connection with the king to help you to survive what is to come. And always remember you are a Radcliffe.”
“What if I had been a boy, Da?” the little girl asked him.
“The king would not have recognized you. Only I would have,” the earl explained. “But there is one other thing. Upon my death you become the Countess of Stanton in your own right, Adair. And I will be dead by the morrow.”
