To Adelaide, that was a threat. Those knowing words filled her heart with rage and terror, with jealousy and disgust. Something in his eyes told her that he did, indeed, know more than she thought he did. Perhaps he even knew everything. Even if he did, that didn’t matter now.
They were married.
She backed away from him, moving around the chair she’d been sitting in.
“I am going to my chamber,” she said. “You will join me there shortly. Do you understand? And no more drink. I will not take a drunkard to my bed.”
She didn’t wait for him to answer. As Adelaide quit the hall, moving through the smoke and the celebrating mass of soldiers, Thomas and his brothers watched her go. Thomas could hear Scott grunting unhappily.
“Tommy, if that woman has killed the two men before you, you are tempting fate by provoking her like that,” he said. “Must Troy and Atty and I go with you to your marital bed and protect you from your murderess wife now that she thinks you know about her killing tendencies?”
Thomas looked at his brother. “The only thing I fear in my marital bed is coupling with a woman that I detest,” he said. “Other than that, there is nothing to fear.”
Scott sighed heavily. “You must be careful, Tommy, please. She could be up there right now poisoning your wine.”
“I will not drink any wine.”
“Then she could be hiding a dagger under the pillow.”
“I do not intend to take the woman on her back. I’ll bend her over the bed and take her from behind, like a dog. That way, I will not have to look at her face.”
He was confident, as he usually was. Scott and Troy and Patrick exchanged glances, for certainly, nothing would convince Thomas to be cautious about his wedding night. The drink may have loosened him enough to perform his husbandly duties, but it also took away his sense of self-protection. Thomas had spent the past six months with Adelaide, insulting the woman, hating her, and detesting the coming marriage. Now that he’d finally married her, to Thomas, the marriage bed was simply a necessary evil and he had absolutely no fear of it.
The older brothers hoped that wouldn’t be his undoing.
“Very well, Tommy,” Scott said. “Let us drink to your wedding night and pray you live through it.”
Thomas lifted a cup to that. Even as he drained it and spoke of returning to Northwood Castle as soon as he could, Scott and Troy and Patrick were making plans of their own. Perhaps they wouldn’t invade Thomas’ marital chamber simply to ensure that his new wife wouldn’t slit his throat, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t follow him up there and linger in the corridor outside.
Something told them not to stray far from Thomas this night.
*
Adelaide was alreadyin a state when she reached her chamber and threw open the door. Hilde was in the room, having stoked the fire and prepared the marital bed with freshly washed linens. She’d sprinkled lavender buds between the linens and was in the process of lighting several banks of fat, yellow tapers when Adelaide burst in.
The woman was dressed in a beautiful pale green silk that she’d had specially made for the wedding. Green symbolized love and Adelaide had hoped the color would somehow inspire Thomas, but he didn’t seem to notice and if he did, he didn’t say anything. Frustrated, she moved straight to the bed and began ripping the adornment out of her hair.
“Damn him,” she said angrily. “All of this– everything I did– went unnoticed and unappreciated and now I know why!”
She was raging, a very bad sign as far as Hilde was concerned. She was over by the bedside, lighting the last bank of candles to give the room a soft, warm glow.
“What has happened, Lady de Wolfe?” she asked timidly.
Adelaide froze when she heard the woman address her by her new title. She stared at Hilde a moment before breaking into a humorless smile.
“Lady de Wolfe,” she muttered. “It sounds horrid. I should make him take the de Vauden name. That is the name of the earldom, after all. Or mayhap I shall not let him have the earldom, after all.”
A hint of warning went off in Hilde’s head because she knew what had become of the two men who had preceded Sir Thomas. Those deaths had been preceded by a mood much like the one Adelaide was displaying now. The first betrothed had been a fine young man from the Horncliffe family. He had been kind to Adelaide but she’d quickly grown bored of him. He wasn’t handsome enough or powerful enough. Rather than buy her way out of the contract, she simply decided to get rid of him. He’d met his end by being pushed down a flight of stairs, buried in the storage vault of Kyloe.
The second young man, blond and dashing Cabot de Berck, would have made a good earl but he’d suffered a bout with poison when Adelaide had returned from the trip where she’d first lain eyes on Thomas de Wolfe. It had taken poor Cabot twodays to succumb to the poison Adelaide had used, and his body had been buried next to young Horncliffe.
And now, Thomas was displeasing Adelaide as well.
Another body in the vault.
“He is your husband, my lady.” The old nurse tried to gently force the woman to see reason. “You have married him and he is the earl. This is what you wanted, was it not?”
Adelaide eyed the woman before resuming pulling the adornment from her hair, more slowly now.
