Maitland just shook her head. “More, Thomas?” she said, as she hesitantly took the pouch. “How much does one person need? Truly, you have done too much already.”
He watched her open the pouch. “I have not done enough,” he said. “You had better get used to it.”
She started to frown, to say something to him, but she dumped the pouch into her palm and out came the ring. Mouth open, she simply stared at it.
“What… whatisthis?” she finally asked.
With a smile playing on his lips, he plucked it out of her palm and held it up to the light. “The stone is the color of your eyes,” he said. “See it? The merchant says it is calledkrustallosand it is meant for protection. I want you to have it.”
He was handing it back to her. Maitland looked at him for a moment before taking it, looking at the beautiful stone set in the dark, hammered gold.
“It is the most beautiful ring I have ever seen,” she said, somewhat emotional about it. “But, Thomas, a ring? You should not give such things to me. It is not…”
She trailed off and he finished for her. “Proper?” he said, certain that was what she meant. Taking the ring from her, he lifted her right hand and put the ring on the third finger. It fit perfectly and he lifted it to his lips to kiss it. “Mae, we must stop thinking about what is proper and start thinking about what is right for us. Not to say I will flaunt you all over the north, because that would shame you. I would not do that to you. But we may be discreet with what we do, and what we feel for one another, because I told you that I belong to you forever. I meant it. And if I want to give you a ring that will cause you to think of me every time you look at it, then I shall do so. Please, Mae. It would make me happy.”
Looking at the ring, Maitland was swamped with a myriad of emotions. Since yesterday, everything seemed like a dream to her, feelings and sensations that were something she’d always hoped to experience but never believed she would. When Henry died and she committed herself to religious service, deep down, she believed her life was over. She thought she would be taking care of orphans for the rest of her life. Not that it wasn’t a noble calling, but she truly believed there would be no other chance for her. No love, no man of her own, no home and no children. But then came Thomas and all of that seemed to change, though the situation was far from simple. It was as complicated as it could be.
Was it right?
Was it wrong?
She was starting not to care. All she knew was that she was surrendering to the man in ways she could not have imagined.
Everything.
As Thomas led her back down the avenue, Maitland couldn’t imagine a finer thing than going through life with Thomas de Wolfe at her side. Truth be told, she would probably take him however she could get him. Even if he was married to another.
God help her… even if hewasmarried to Adelaide.
She simply didn’t care any longer.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Wark Castle
“Whereiseveryone,Hilde?”
The German nurse was picking up a few haphazardly thrown articles of clothing from the floor of Adelaide’s bower at Wark Castle. The lavish chamber, with the old blood smears on the bed curtains, and the stink of the apple bark wrapped around horse dung that Adelaide burned constantly. An apothecary from the village of Kyloe had told her that the smell would ward off evil spirits and ensure that only the good would remain, so Adelaide had taken that to mean it would keep Thomas in good spirits, good enough to like her and want to marry her. But, so far, it hadn’t worked. The more it didn’t work, the more she burned it.
All it did was stink up the entire keep and drive Thomas away.
“Sir Thomas escorted his parents home, my lady,” the nurse said steadily. “He told you this.”
Irritated, Adelaide turned to scowl at the woman. Spread out over her bed, she was restless and bored, and had been since Thomas had left the day before.
“I know that, you insipid sow,” she snapped. “But why is he gone so long? And why did he not invitemeto go?”
Hilde, the nurse from a small village in Saxony that had been sacked by the Northmen, didn’t want to have this conversation with her again, mostly because the last time they’d had it, Adelaide had resorted to throwing a cup at her head, which had hit her. She still had the welt. But that wasn’t unusual with Adelaide, who treated her servants abominably. Even those who had raised her since birth. The manners and propriety Hilde had tried to instill in the young girl, Edmund de Vauden and his spoiled tactics had bled right out of her.
“He did not invite you to go because of the reivers that killed your father,” Hilde said as she put the clothing away in the wardrobe. “Sir Thomas had enough to worry over with escorting his parents safely home. There was no need for you to be exposed to such danger.”
That actually made some sense to Adelaide, who sat up on her bed. “Do you really think so?”
“I do.”
She thought on that a moment. “But he is so nasty to me at times,” she said, muttering. “Nasty and cruel. Don’t you think so? And he seems to have no respect for my claims of being atempestarii. Do you think I should try something more to convince him that we are meant for each other? It has been six months and trying to convince him that I control the weather has not worked.”
Hilde didn’t answer right away, mostly because she knew Adelaide didn’t want to hear what she had to say. Adelaide wanted people to confirm her own wants and opinions, not give her their own.
