A Dangerous Love (13 page)

“Yes, my lady,” Albert said. He turned to go, almost bumping into Elsbeth as he did. “Your pardon,” he said to her, and hurried from the chamber.

“The servants were gossiping. I told Albert the truth, and to tell them,” Adair said.

Elsbeth nodded. “ ’Tis better now that the cat’s been loosed from the bag,” she agreed. “What else? I know you well, lassie. There is more.”

Adair laughed. “You know me much too well,” she said. Then she went on to tell Elsbeth of her plans for Llywelyn FitzTudor.

“Do you think it wise to treat the lad so?” Elsbeth asked slowly. “He will expect his husbandly rights sooner than later.”

“Well, he shall not get them from me,” Adair said firmly. “I will not have that boy attempting to bed me, Nursie. He is pockmarked, and despite his fine clothes he smelled,” she remarked. “Nay. In the spring he goes back to his father. Did he have any servants with him when he arrived yesterday? I could see only the duke’s men.”

“There is one. A little dark Welshman who calls himself Anfri. He attempted to chat the servants up last night in an effort to learn about us,” Elsbeth said.

“Warn Albert to speak to the others. The man is to be tolerated, but told nothing that might be of value to him,” Adair said. “If he is a good servant he seeks to gain information that would allow his master an advantage over us. It shall not happen.”

“He was just coming down into the kitchens when I came up,” Elsbeth said.

“Is the boy up and in the hall yet?” Adair wanted to know.

“Nay, I have not seen him,” Elsbeth said.

“He has the habits of a sluggard then,” Adair noted.

“Well, so much the better. He will be out of our way.”

Llywelyn FitzTudor came to the hall in early afternoon. He found Adair at her loom weaving on her tapestry. The piece was half-done, and showed a good rendition of Stanton Hall on its hill, the gray stone house against a blue sky, the ground beneath it green.

Adair was working on some cattle in the meadow below the house.

“I am pleased to find you in suitable womanly pursuits,” FitzTudor said. He was wearing a beautiful short-skirted doublet of pea green and gold brocade with long hanging sleeves. His trunk hose were pea green, and the sollerets upon his feet were heel-less. The same heavy gold chain she had seen yesterday was upon his chest.

His mousy brown hair was cut to a medium bob. He was not unattractive, but neither was he attractive.

“Sit down, my lord,” Adair said, ignoring his remark about womanly pursuits. “Have you eaten yet this day?”

She didn’t bother to look at him, concentrating instead on her stitches in the tapestry.

“Yes, my servant Anfri brought me food, madam. We must discuss our marriage now,” FitzTudor said.

“There is nothing to discuss, my lord,” Adair replied.

“The king and your father made this match without my permission. Had I been there I should not have agreed to it, and holy Mother Church would not have forced me to the altar. I will return you home come spring. For the king’s sake I will keep you safe for the winter, for you would not have the time to return south before the snows, which began in late morning while you slumbered in your bed.”

“Whether you will or no, madam,” FitzTudor said, 
“you are now my wife, and I shall claim all my rights of you. It is the king’s will, and that of my father. Our marriage is meant to unite our families, Lancaster and York.”

“Arrogant boy!” Adair snapped. “Do you really believe the union of two bastard-born such as we are can accomplish such a high purpose? Nonsense! Perhaps a marriage between Henry of Lancaster and one of my half sisters will create a cohesive union between York and Lancaster, but you and I will not. We are merely the first payment in a possible arrangement of such magni-tude. We are not important, either of us. By the time I return you home, the proper matches will have been made. Your father will seek a comfortable heiress for you, and I will wed where I please one day.”

“I doubt my father will find another countess in her own right to pair me with,” FitzTudor said sarcastically.

“What made you so desirable to my father, madam, other than your paternity, was the earldom you would bring your husband.”

She was surprised. He was not as stupid as she had assumed he was. “You are two years my junior,” she said.

“You are shorter than I am. I do not like you,” Adair told him, finally looking up from her tapestry work.

“What do you know of managing one’s estates, my lord?”

“Nothing,” he said candidly. “It is not for me to manage an estate. That is what one has servants for, madam.”

“Servants, even the best of them, will steal when not properly overseen. It is a great temptation for them, my lord. Do you know how to purchase cattle?” she asked.

“Why would I?” he returned.

“All the cattle from these lands were stolen when my parents were killed. In the spring I will have to replace them.”

“You have been home several months,” he re
sponded. “Why have you not already done so, madam?”

“Because the Stanton folk are few, and not able to grow enough grain to feed a large herd through the winter. And why should we feed them when someone else will? The spring is the best time.”

“Oh,” he answered. “My father is sending us a herd of heifers, and a young bull,” FitzTudor said. “I did not ask when they would come.”

“Your father’s people will understand, and not send them until spring. By that time you will be back with the Earl of Pembroke, and he will not have to send them. I would not take his cattle under false pretenses,” Adair answered.

“You are my wife!” the boy said angrily.

“Temporarily, and in name only,” Adair replied calmly. She almost expected him to stamp his foot at her.

Llywelyn FitzTudor jumped up from the settle before the fire where they had been sitting. He yanked Adair up. Putting his arms about her he tried to kiss her, mash-ing his mouth against hers desperately. “You belong to me now!” he raged at her.

Not only was he shorter than she, he was slight of body. Adair, almost gagging on his bad breath, broke his hold on her and shoved him away. “Do not ever dare to accost me in such a manner,” she snarled at him. “You disgust me, my lord!”

FitzTudor struggled to his feet and lunged at her again, but suddenly he found himself facing a large and snarling wolfhound who bared yellowed but still sharp fangs at the boy, who screamed in fright as he was backed away by the dog.

Adair waited until her would-be husband had been pushed into the settle, where he fell, half sobbing.

“Enough, Beiste. As you can see, my lord, I have protection against such assault as you have just committed.

Touch me again and I shall order the dog to tear out your throat. Do we understand each other?”

“Bitch!” FitzTudor cursed at her.

Adair laughed at him. “Boy,” she taunted him.

Outside the windows of the great hall the snows began to come down in earnest, the cold outside matched only by the cold inside. By Christ’s Mass the countryside was hidden beneath a deep coverlet of white. Adair passed out gifts to her servants and her villagers. She did not include FitzTudor in her largesse; nor did he present her with anything. Twelfth Night came and went. They barely spoke. In fact, they barely even met except now and again in the great hall, when FitzTudor would come to the high board and join her for a meal.

January ended, and February was ushered in with a great blizzard and snows that reached the eaves of some of the cottages on the outskirts of the village. The Stanton folk were kept busy keeping open the road through the village and up to the house. The servants kept to the hall. To Adair’s surprise and delight, Beiste had sired a litter of pups, who were born early in the month. He would sit almost grinning by his mate’s side, guarding her while she nursed their offspring. But he also continued to watch over Adair, the hair on his back bristling whenever FitzTudor came into the great hall.

Llywelyn FitzTudor was not happy with the situation, and he complained to his manservant, Anfri. “I am master here by right, and yet I am not.”

“Your every wish is obeyed, my lord,” Anfri said, “is it not?”

“Aye, but I can tell it is not because I am the earl, but because she told them to obey me. These Stanton folk do not see me as their lord. They behave as if I were a guest who has overstayed his welcome,” FitzTudor grumbled. “And she is worst of all. She is my wife under God’s law and the king’s law, but she practically ignores me. And I cannot get near her because of that damned dog. Miserable old cur. Beiste. He is well named. I hate the damned creature!”

“If you could get near your wife what would you do?” 
Anfri murmured boldly.

“I would place her on her back and fuck her until I put a babe in her belly,” FitzTudor said. “Then she could not send me away. But as long as she maintains her virgin status she has grounds for annulment. I will be made a laughingstock in my father’s house. She is a beauty, isn’t she, Anfri? My cock hardens just thinking about her. At least in my father’s house I had women on which to ease my lust, but not here. It has been pent up for several months now.”

“Then surely your seed is at its strongest now, my lord,” Anfri said. “You should look to catch the lady when the dog is guarding his mate. She is most vulnerable then. I believe part of this dilemma is that she has a virgin’s fears. If you could soothe those terrors she would surely be more amenable to you, my lord.” His black eyes glittered as he spoke to his master.

“And just how do you suggest I do that?” FitzTudor demanded.

“By putting your manly cock within her love sheath, my lord. Nothing cures a maiden’s alarm of the unknown like a strong familiarity with her fears,” Anfri replied.

“You give me food for thought,” FitzTudor said thoughtfully, and after that he began to watch Adair more closely. And by doing so he saw one day after the main meal had been served and eaten that his wife went to her chamber alone. Looking about, he saw that the old dog was snoring with his mate and their puppies by the fire. Fortified with several goblets of rich, dark wine, Llywelyn FitzTudor followed Adair upstairs, watching as she entered her chamber. He listened carefully, but did not hear the key turn in the lock as he did each night. Slowly he crept down the dimly lit corridor. He put his hand on the door’s latch and felt it give way. The door opened. Surprised, he stood for a moment in the open door, and then he quickly stepped through into the bedchamber, shutting the door behind him and quietly turning the key in the lock.

Adair heard the door open and, assuming it was Elsbeth, asked, “What is it, Nursie? Can it not wait until I have cured this wretched headache?”

“I think I have waited long enough, madam, to exer-cise my rights over you,” Llywelyn FitzTudor said. His young voice almost squeaked in his excitement, and he could almost taste his victory over her as he walked across the room.

Adair was up and off her bed in a trice. “How dare you enter my bedchamber without my permission, boy!” She wore no shoes. “What do you want?”

“It is past time, madam, that you became my wife in every way,” FitzTudor answered her. He began to loosen his trunk hose and doublet.

“Get out!” Adair said in a cold, hard voice.

“No! I shall have your virginity of you, madam, and none shall say I was not man enough to do the deed,” he told her stubbornly. He tossed his upper garment aside.

“You shall have nothing of me,” Adair said angrily.

“Not my lands, nor the title, nor my virtue, my lord!

When the snows go, you go! Now get out of my chamber or I shall begin to scream for help.”

“The door is locked, and it is my right to have you,”

FitzTudor declared. He moved around the bed in an attempt to corner her.

“Get back!” Adair warned him. “Get back, take your clothing, and go. If you do not I will do what I must to defend myself.”

He laughed aloud. “You are a mere girl,” he sneered.

“A weakling of a female.”

Adair said nothing more. Reaching out, she grabbed the earthenware pitcher from the table by the bed and smashed it over his head as hard as she could. His legs gave way and he began to fall. Adair walked around FitzTudor and, going to the door, opened it and shouted,

“Beiste! To me! To me!” The dog came up the stairs of the house with a roar that emanated from deep within his furred chest. “Take him away,” Adair ordered the dog.

Beiste went over to where FitzTudor lay in a crum-pled heap. He sniffed at the boy just as FitzTudor opened his eyes and, seeing the creature, made a strangled whimpering sound in his throat. Beiste snarled.

Then, opening his mouth, the dog clamped his teeth gently about the boy’s still-shod foot. FitzTudor fainted, his eyes rolling back in his head as Beiste pulled him from Adair’s bedchamber out into the hallway.

“Good dog!” Adair praised her animal. “Go back to Anice and the pups now.” She shut her chamber door and relocked it. Spring, she decided, could not come soon enough for her. What in the name of all heaven had possessed FitzTudor to attempt to assault her? She intended on moving him to a bed space in the great hall and posting a man at arms at her door each night. Elsbeth would sleep on the trundle in her room until Adair had sent the boy back to his family.

She would plead with Uncle Dickon to convince the king to arrange for an annulment, and if the Earl of Pembroke objected to it she would threaten to tell everyone in the kingdom that his by-blow was incapable of mounting a woman and doing his duty by a wife. It would be her word against the boy’s. And she would wager that Jasper Tudor would not wish to have his family embarrassed publicly by a cry of impotence against his son. Adair smiled, pleased with herself and her plan.

February faded away and March quickly followed. FitzTudor complained about having to sleep in the great hall, and berated Anfri for his bad advice. April came, and with it Andrew Lynbridge, who rode up to Stanton Hall early one morning. Finding Adair in the great hall, he greeted her.

“There is an early cattle fair to be held today at Brockton. Would you like to come? The beasts will be a bit scrawny, but the farmers who have housed them 
over the winter won’t want to feed them any longer, as they are low on feed,” he told her.