“Then I will warn them to keep their distance, for I am the laird of Cleit’s mistress, and he is a very jealous man,” Adair snapped back at him.
His hand grasped her wrist hard. “You will walk by my side, Adair,” he snarled.
“Yes, my lord. I will walk by your side, but as your slave should I not be several steps behind you?” she cooed at him.
“Shut your mouth, woman,” he roared.
“Yes, my lord,” Adair said in dulcet tones, and when he glared angrily at her she smiled sweetly at him in return.
Chapter 13
After midsummer the weather was dank and rainy. The cattle and the sheep grew fat in the borderland meadows. Sometimes Adair would stand on the heights of the keep, looking toward England. She wondered who had survived last year’s raid on Stanton, and if the king had given her lands to a new lord. And what of Robert Lynbridge and his family? When had they learned of her disappearance?
He had not yet told her that he loved her, and the summer was fast coming to an end. September loomed, and at the end of that month both she and Elsbeth were free to either stay or go. She could not, would not wed him if he did not love her. And she could not remain as his mistress. Adair began to debate with herself about her situation. The truth of the matter was that she was just as stubborn as he was in this matter of love.
Yet she had said she would go, and she would. If she did not follow through on her word he would think her weak. He would make her his victim, and she had never been anyone’s victim. When Henry Tudor had thrown her out of Windsor she had gritted her teeth and managed to make her way back to Northumbria. When she had found her home destroyed she had managed again to survive, and keep her Stanton folk safe. Well, if shehad to walk all the way back to Stanton she would. And she would make her home wherever she could. Surely there was a cottage left. And if she was alone, then she would be alone. She was Adair Radcliffe, the lady of Stanton, and she needed no one’s help. She spoke to Elsbeth about her plans.
“You’ll go alone, my chick,” her old Nursie told her.
“I love you best of any in this world, but I cannot stop you from your own foolishness. We have a home here, and the laird loves you. He would wed you if only you would say yes.”
“He does not love me or he would say it,” Adair replied. “How can I stay, Elsbeth? How can I wed a man who has so little care or respect for me?”
Outside of the kitchens the rain poured down, but the hot fire in the hearth took the damp and the chill from the room. They had somewhere along the way acquired a large, fat orange cat who had become Elsbeth’s especial pet. The cat, a rather excellent hunter, kept the kitchen, the larder, and the pantry free of rats and mice.
Elsbeth spoiled him outrageously, and he now snored in her lap.
“Conal Bruce is not John Radcliffe or your uncle Dickon, my child,” Elsbeth said. “He is not a civilized English gentleman like Andrew Lynbridge or his brother, Robert. He is a rough-hewn Scots borderer, but his heart is good. He cares for you. I see it in his eyes when he looks at you. But like many men he has not the talent for speaking what is in his heart. You must accept that, Adair.
“Why would you go back to Stanton? There is nothing there for you. You love Conal Bruce, though you will not tell him. You have a chance at happiness, my child. Do not walk away from it. Not now. Not when you are carrying his child,” Elsbeth concluded. “The bairn deserves to know his father, and you deserve a good husband.”
Adair’s mouth fell open. “What do you mean, now that I am carrying his child?”
“You have had no bloody flux since early summer, my child. Were you not concerned by its absence? Flora and Grizel do the laundry, and they only recently mentioned the lack of bloody rags,” Elsbeth remarked.
“Oh, Jesu, I am a fool!” Adair cried. “I have been so busy helping Conal to earn a bit of coin for his cattle without his realizing I was helping him that I did not notice. Well, perhaps I did notice recently, but I put it from my mind.”
“The bairn will probably come in the very early spring,” Elsbeth said. “You must tell the laird, Adair.”
“If I tell him he will force me into marriage,” Adair said low.
“If you do not tell him within the next few days then I must,” Elsbeth answered. “This child will not be bastard-born when his father wants him, and he will.”
But Adair was afraid to tell Conal of the coming child, even as he struggled with telling her that he loved her.
September was half over now, and the hunting for the cold larder had begun again. The weather, so rainy the summer through, had turned clear and sunny. The laird and his men were out every day, even on the one day it had rained. It was a hard storm, and Conal Bruce returned home feeling ill. By morning he was burning up with fever. He struggled to get from his bed.
“We have to hunt. The grouse are scarce this season, and I haven’t seen a single deer in days,” he told her.
“You can’t go. You’re sick,” Adair said.
“But we need the game for winter,” he protested.
Then he fell back on his pillows. He was pale, and his forehead was dotted with beads of sweat.
“Your brothers can go,” Adair told him. “You are staying in bed, my lord.”
“Ah, you lustful wench, you just wish to have your way with me,” he teased her weakly, attempting to leer, but then he began to cough.
