“I have no husband!” Adair cried furiously. Her heart was beating with her outrage at the young man. “How dare you speak such an untruth!”
“Perhaps, poppet, we should all adjourn to the great hall, and I will tell you what you need to know,” the duke said quietly. “I am sure Lord Humphrey will be interested to learn of your marriage.”
“I am not married!” Adair shouted.
“I am afraid you are, poppet,” the duke told her ruefully. Dismounting, he took her arm and led her back into the hall, the others following behind them.
“I am not married!” she protested angrily, pulling away from him, her dark green skirts swirling about her legs. She glared at the young man with the duke. He was practically a child, she realized, certainly younger than she was.
“You are a wedded wife, poppet,” the duke told her firmly. “You knew the king wished you wed to the Earl of Pembroke’s son.”
“The Earl of Pembroke’s bastard!” Adair snapped.
“A fitting match for a king’s brat,” the young man sneered. He was at least an inch shorter than Adair, and wore a richly decorated short-skirted doublet of plum velvet and cloth of silver. His woolen hose were naturalin color, and his short black boots had turned-back cuffs. On his head was a hat covered in beaver fur that trailed several silk streamers of plum and silver. About his neck was a heavy gold chain with a pendant.
The Lynbridge brothers looked at each other, surprised, for they understood the meaning behind the young man’s words.
“I did not consent to any marriage, Uncle Dickon, and I was certainly not present at any wedding ceremony,” Adair said firmly. Her heart was beating wildly, and she suddenly felt like a rat in a trap.
“Your consent was not necessary. It was the king’s decision,” the duke reminded her. “The ceremony was a proxy one, with Princess Mary standing in for you,” he explained. “Llywelyn FitzTudor has taken your family’s name for his own, as John Radcliffe had demanded of the king many years back. My brother is not a man to go back on his word, Adair. I told you a long time ago, poppet, that your value would be in your title and your lands. The Earl of Pembroke is pleased with this union, and so is the king.”
“And now, madam, you will welcome me properly to Stanton,” Llywelyn FitzTudor said. “I will forgive you your surprise and your ignorance, for you are only a weak woman.” He held out his hand to her, waiting for her to kiss it.
Adair stared at him as if he were mad. She slapped the hand away. Then, turning, she ran from the hall.
They would not see her cry. And she needed time to figure out how she was going to escape from this night-mare that had been visited upon her.
But Elsbeth remained in the shadows, for she needed to know more. She listened as the Lynbridge brothers took their leave of the duke and his party.
As they departed the hall, Andrew Lynbridge murmured softly to Elsbeth, “Call if she needs us, mistress.
This laddie cannot last.” Then he was gone.
Elsbeth nodded slightly, her eyes making brief contact with his. Then she turned and listened as the duke attempted to soothe the boy’s anger at Adair’s behavior.
“I was told she would welcome me,” Llywelyn FitzTudor complained to the duke as Elsbeth gave the boy a goblet of wine. “My father thought it odd the bride had a proxy, but the king assured him all was well. And how, after days on the road, am I greeted? With shouts, anger, and bad manners! My father will not be pleased when I write him. This bride is a termagant! I can see I shall have to beat her into obedience.”
“I think, perhaps, my lord, you would do better to win her over with gentle manners and a subtle wooing,” the duke advised. “Adair was told she was to be married, but she did not believe it would happen so swiftly. She is surprised, of course, by your arrival, for no word was sent ahead, or the knowledge that the deed is done. She wanted to come home after ten years and reacquaint herself with Stanton and her lands. She barely escaped with her life that night when her parents were slain. She is a good maid, and if you will be patient she will come around. I shall stay the night so you two may begin to experience some familiarity with each other beneath the eye of a friend.”
Llywelyn FitzTudor held out his goblet to be refilled.
“I hope you are correct, my lord,” he said sulkily. But his mood did not improve when Adair refused to return to the hall that night. He was shown to an apartment at the far end of the corridor, where the bedchambers were located, by the house’s majordomo, who introduced himself as Albert, and politely addressed him as “my lord earl,” which allayed Llywelyn FitzTudor’s bruised ego.
But instead of the wedding night he had anticipated, he slept in a cold bed alone.
The duke attempted to reason with Adair the following morning when he came down to the hall to find her going about her daily duties. He suddenly realized how lovely she was, and how much she had grown up in thefew months she had been away from the court. She wore a simple loose housedress of violet wool that matched her eyes, and her long black hair was braided into a single plait. They sat by the fire together on a gray morning, and the duke gently scolded her.
“If you had stayed we might have avoided this,” he told her. “We could have reasoned with the king. Post-poned the wedding until you had had the opportunity to grow used to the idea.”
“How old is he?” Adair demanded to know.
“Fourteen,” the duke responded honestly.
“He is two years younger than I am. He has a face pockmarked with blemishes. He had a fine idea of his own importance, Uncle Dickon, and I suspect he knows nothing about running an estate such as mine. Yet he is not wise enough to allow me to do it, and will ruin Stanton if permitted.”
The duke sighed. “You are probably right,” he agreed,
“and so you will have to find a way around him so that Stanton remains prosperous.”
