“Look at her. She is delicate and has fine features.” He held out his hand to Adair. “Come, little one, and make your curtsy to Prior Peter.”
Adair stepped forward and curtsied to the cleric, but she was silent.
“How far have you come, my child?” the prior asked her.
“From Stanton Hall,” Adair answered him. “It is burned now.”
“And where is Stanton Hall?” the prior pressed further.
“In Northumbria, on the border with Scotland. You can see the Cheviots from my bedchamber window, sir,”Adair replied.
“Her accent is northern,” the prior admitted.
“Peter, the child, her dog, and her nurse have been onthe road for several weeks now. They are tired, half-starved, and frozen to the bone. They need dry beds and hot food. You have an abundance of both at St. Wulfstan’s,” the duke said. “I ask you to shelter them tonight.
Tomorrow I will send them to Westminster to the queen.”
“The dog too? She will not be pleased,” Prior Peter repeated.
“But she will take Adair and her party in, for it will please my brother, and Elizabeth Woodville is always prepared to please Edward,” Richard of Gloucester murmured softly.
“And what if she refuses?” the prior asked.
“Then I will take my niece into my household,” was the reply. “She is my blood kin, after all. I will be marrying shortly, and my bride loves children even as do I.”
“I do not need the queen,” Adair suddenly spoke up.
“If my sire, the king, will give me a rich husband I can rebuild Stanton. I would trouble no one but for that.”
Prior Peter looked astounded by the child’s blunt speech, but the duke laughed.
“One day, Adair, you will be given a husband,” he said, “but now is not the time. You are too valuable a prize, poppet, to be given quickly or squandered rashly.”
“I? Valuable? I am poor, my lord, I assure you. All I have Nursie carries. That, two horses, and a wolfhound.”
“You are the Countess of Stanton, poppet,” the duke told her. “You will bring your husband a title and an estate. That makes you valuable, my lady Adair. And the king is your sire, which but adds to your value. And you have a fine dower, for my brother promised it at your birth. He will not have forgotten that.”
“Indeed, my child, you can be considered a wealthy female,” the prior declared. Adair’s boldness in speaking up for herself had surprised him, but then he had decided he liked her. Reaching for a small bell on the table next to him, he rang it loudly, and immediately a young monk answered his call. “Take my lady the Countess ofStanton, her dog, and her servant to the women’s guesthouse. See that they are all well fed and made comfortable.”
“Yes, Reverend Father,” the monk replied.
Richard of Gloucester knelt down and took Adair’s small hand in his. “I will come and see you before you go to sleep. I would like to learn why you have come to seek your sire’s protection. Go with your Nursie now, my poppet.”
“Are you really my uncle?” Adair asked him softly.
“I am indeed,” the duke replied with a smile. This little girl had already caught at his heartstrings.
Adair threw her arms about his neck and hugged him. “I am so glad!” she said. Then, releasing him, she took Elsbeth’s hand and followed the young monk from the room, the wolfhound following in their wake.
“Tell me how Edward managed to sire that fairy child,” Prior Peter said. “Pour us some wine, Dickon, and come sit with me.”
The duke did as his cousin suggested. Then he told Prior Peter the story of King Edward’s seduction of Jane Radcliffe. “She pleased him but briefly, for she was an honorable woman, and not content to be mybrother’s leman.”
“I am surprised, but not shocked, by her husband’s behavior, though while the lady had honor, her husband, it would seem, did not,” the prior said.
“He was childless and had, I am told, come to the conclusion that after three wives his lack of an heir lay with himself, and not his wives. He was forty. Jane was sixteen, and my older brother’s reputation preceded him. John Radcliffe wanted an heir. Edward tells me he asked for the earldom in exchange for his wife’s virtue.
A lad resulting from such a liaison would be recognized only by the earl as his son and heir. But the king would recognize a daughter, though Radcliffe would give her his name, and make her his heiress if no other children came. Which, of course, they did not.”
