Red Adam's Lady Read online

  “My dear child—”

  “I’ll not marry him!” Julitta said violently. The serving girl was still gaping by the door, and she signaled her to set down her burdens on a chest. The water was warm, a luxury seldom vouchsafed her; Julitta washed with vicious thoroughness to remove the taint of Red Adam’s hands and lips. The dagger was reassurance inside her sleeve, a deal more comforting than Lady Constance, fussing over her muddy gown that had never enhanced even its original owner’s looks. Her kerchief was gone. Lady Constance produced a comb, and she braided her hair as rigorously as its unruliness allowed. Then she braced back her shoulders, lifted her chin, ignored the qualms churning in her belly and stalked through the doorway.

  Red Adam lounged against the gallery rail, which creaked protest as he straightened. His gaze flicked over her. “I thought your hair was red,” he said irrelevantly.

  She stiffened and scowled defiance, her heart thumping at her ribs. He grinned, glanced past her at Lady Constance, and remarked, “A lass of discrimination as well as spirit. A cracked head’s a cheap price to pay.”

  “I wish I’d split your skull!”

  “I’m well aware you did your utmost, vixen.” He smiled wryly. “I’m resolved to remain sober henceforth. A man should reform his way of life when he weds.” He moved closer, and for all her defiance her flesh flinched. His voice softened. “I had less than my deserts, demoiselle, and I honor you”

  That she had never anticipated, and her composure came near cracking. She bit at her lip to steady it, blinking against the tears that pricked under her lids. A hard hand caught hers, turned her about and drew her back into the room.

  Out of spinning fog the hated voice said, “Here’s food and wine to hearten you, my lady.”

  She looked up, her sight clearing. Last night’s bear bowed clumsily and offered her a silver cup and platter. The resemblance was startling enough, emphasized by a rough dark tunic, but the brown eyes regarding her between shaggy hair and beard were amiably bovine.

  “My body-servant Odo, at your command.” Red Adam presented him, and took cup and platter to serve her himself. For a moment she was tempted to cast them in his face, then compelled herself to match his courtesy. The unwatered wine burned into her innards and woke appetite; the wheaten bread and cold boiled bacon were a more substantial meal than the usual crust that broke one’s fast. She looked up belligerently.

  “Fortified now to confront your uncle?” her tormentor inquired.

  “My—Is he here?”

  “Sighted at sun-up. We’ll hear the horn any moment. Come, greet him with me.” He gripped her hand and pulled her up. Like a sleepwalker, she followed him down turn after turn of stairs, across a guardroom as full of staring eyes as a basket of crabs, and out at the door. The wind swooped upon her, billowing her gown and tearing her hair into wild curls. The bright brown of it took fire from sun or torchlight, dulled to insignificance in gloom, but since she had scanty acquaintance with mirrors she did not guess why Red Adam eyed her in fresh appraisal. Pressing her skirts close against the wind’s insolence, she hurried down the stair. After heavy rain the bailey’s grass was churned to mire, and the rough paths of beach pebbles were slimy with mud. Every person in the court halted activity to gape.

  Red Adam towed her briskly towards the gatetower. His ears and the back of his neck had reddened as though even he could feel embarrassment. A horn bellowed, and the throng buzzed with conjecture and surmise, deserting kennels, stables, mews and worksheds to drift towards the gate. As Julitta passed the stables a redheaded fellow lounging in the doorway sniggered and leaned to mutter in a companion’s ear.

  Julitta caught the snigger but not the words. Her escort’s ears were quicker. He hurled himself across the grass. Before the man knew what was upon him Red Adam had him by throat and wrist. A vicious wrench flung him groveling in the mire and dung. He squalled and struggled, and a kick in the belly doubled him over on his knees. Odo, appearing from nowhere, set the butt of a riding whip in his lord’s extended hand. Red Adam stepped back a pace and swung it. The lash thwacked across the man’s shoulders. He yelled and jerked up, trying to scrabble away on all fours. Red Adam followed him with the whistling whip, and when he tried to roll inside the stable Odo dispassionately booted him forth again.

  Julitta watched, her hands clenched into fists and her belly quailing at every impact. The punishment did not shock her; she had seen much harsher inflicted for less reason. It was Red Adam’s ferocity, the instant eruption of temper, that appalled her. The offender, silent now, rolled against the wall’s footings and huddled into the angle’s protection with his arms over his head. The thong slashed, and a whimper broke from him. Julitta suddenly could not endure it; never before had she seen anyone beaten for her sake.

  “Enough—oh, no more!” she cried, and ran to catch Red Adam’s arm.

  Her first word halted him, and his arm dropped at her touch. He swung round, his face a white blaze spattered with freckles, and she recoiled as though she had grasped a devil red-hot from Hell. He drew one harsh breath through flaring nostrils, and on the instant the fiend was gone. He flung down the whip.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’ll thrash any man who insults you, but never again before your face.”

  The redhaired groom stared witlessly at her and painfully heaved upright, as like Red Adam as a brother might be, so that there was no doubt of his begetting. His lord ignored him and reached for Julitta’s hand. “Come up and see how your uncle pricks to avenge you,” he invited, and hauled her perforce up the gatehouse’s tiny stair, past the portcullis chamber where the frame hung suspended, out on to the roof. The sentinel with the horn turned a startled face, saluted awkwardly, and at a jerk of his lord’s head scuttled down the stair.

  She wrenched against his hold. The open gate was below, and the free road to torment her. The dagger was in her sleeve, but her right hand was captive. He turned her about to survey her. His eyes, in the clear day, disconcerted her; with so strong a likeness he should have had old Lord Maurice’s blue ones, but they were deep green, rayed about the pupil with reddish brown. His smile vanished. “What’s amiss?” he demanded. “Hell’s Teeth, girl, why fight me so? I’m going to marry you.”

  “No!” she spat, furious at the complacency that reckoned any ceremony would make him acceptable.

  He stared in astonishment, and then seized her shoulder and swung her round to confront him. She winced, and he dropped his hand. His brows twitched into a frown. “I’d heard your uncle beat you twice a week,” he said harshly. “It’s true?”

  “Near enough. I misliked yesterday’s errand.”

  “That’s over. I shan’t beat my wife.”

  “I’ll never be that!”

  For a long moment he stood looking down into her inflexible face, a flush rising to the bandage’s edge. “Nothing I’ve done can commend me,” he admitted candidly. “But I’m not drunk now.” He hesitated, the flush deepening. “Demoiselle, can you put last night from your mind and let our acquaintance start—?” He checked, and answered himself, a wry smile twitching one corner of his mouth. “No. That would be too easy.”

  He drew her to the battlements and at last freed her hand, hitching himself up to perch sideways in a crenel. A score or so of riders were advancing up the track from the village. “No siege train?” he remarked, as she too looked out and confused fears battled in her. He missed no move she made; he had not forgotten the dagger. Suddenly his grin flashed. “A truce, lady, until your uncle is here. And enlighten me as to his company; I’m not as well acquainted with my neighbors as I should be.”

  “Whose fault is that?” she demanded waspishly; in his two brief visits to Brentborough since he inherited it he had avoided all social engagements.

  “Prudence, though you might find that hard to credit. I’ll dip no cup in this brew of treason that’s bubbling against King Henry—and a washy brew of froth and wind it is, stirred by such fools.” He leaned to scrutiniz
e the company. “Lord William I’ve met, and his eldest son behind him—Gilbert, is it? Doleful as the prophet Jeremiah, but that’s no marvel. The straw-thatched lout with the face full of teeth will be Gerald of Flackness, your betrothed. Faced with wedding that, you shy at me?”

  “What difference is there?”

  Her bitter query pierced every layer of arrogance, vanity and self-satisfaction, more hurtfully than a knife blade. Surprised, she watched the color drain from behind his freckles, his eyes widen in shock. He gazed almost blindly at her, while his brain accepted it; then he nodded. “That’s—very just.”

  “There has been no formal betrothal. I have no dower. He will be glad to repudiate me,” she informed him, as one nightmare ended another. “You need not fear his challenge.”

  “You reassure me. Who’s the cub breaking line on the left?”

  “My youngest cousin Gautier. He wishes to venture Outremer, but my uncle will not equip him.”

  “He should be thankful. He’d not last a month; I’ve been there. The lean badgerhead, falling back where the path narrows?”

  “Everard FitzJordan of Digglewick.”

  “The fellow whose wife is with child after seventeen years of barren wedlock? Has he roused out all his neighbors to support—oh no! Rejoice in the Lord, all ye righteous! I interrupted a plotters’ convocation, and they’ve all trotted along to see the sport! Yes, there’s old Ranulf of Hostby; be sure he’d lend his sheep’s brain to any half-witted enterprise! And who is the miracle of manly beauty at your uncle’s right stirrup?” Fire scorched up her neck and face. Instead of grinning, he twisted his mouth in a curious grimace. “Humphrey of Crossthwaite?”

  She nodded, biting her lip for the betrayal, and dully wondering at his forbearance. She had betrayed herself months before when newly come, grudged and unwelcome, to her uncle’s hold; when she plunged into a girl’s first silly love for a handsome face and a casual smile. She had been rated and teased and mocked; but still she quivered with rapture at a smile, felt her heart quicken and her loins melt whenever he looked on her, and now was conscious with all her being of every move he made. Before Red Adam inherited Brentborough, her uncle had hoped to match his youngest child Sibylla with Humphrey, but their conceptions of an adequate dower had proved too wildly disparate. Julitta had dared to wish his new aim success, though she knew well that if Humphrey reckoned Sibylla’s dower insufficient he would never consider one who possessed nothing. And now he “trotted along to see the sport…” as though her ruin were an entertainment.

  She scowled at the man who had ruined her. He was looking beyond the cavalcade to another company appearing over the brow beyond. “If that’s not a skirt fluttering, procure me a staff and begging bowl!” he exclaimed, and slapped the merlon beside him with delight. “Prepared for all contingencies! He’s brought his womenfolk to take you in charge!”

  William of Chivingham, half a length in the lead as he reached the ravine that served as ditch, lifted his scowl to the two above and champed visibly. His crimson face shone violently at odds with the scarlet tunic that should have made kitchen clouts years ago, and with the molting fox furs adorning it. He sat awkwardly, and Julitta’s vitals cringed; yesterday’s wet weather had set hell fire throughout his joints, and in such a state he spread his affliction lavishly on all about him.

  “So much choler, not armed to avenge you?” Red Adam murmured.

  “He’ll make peace cheaply enough. He sets small value on me.”

  “His error. Don’t be afraid.” He seized her hand again to lead her down. “Saints, if ever he puts his face round the dairy door he’ll curdle all within!”

  She choked, but as she scuttled down the narrow spiral some oppression lifted from her, though she did not recognize the debt she owed his irreverence until the drawbridge began to creak down and her uncle’s face hung preposterously over its further edge. She met his glare as she had never done before, a queer triumph leaping in her.

  Red Adam stepped under the portcullis and bowed. “Save you, Lord William. Will it please you to enter, that I may answer for my conduct towards your niece?”

  Lord William scowled at Julitta. He was not devoid of family feeling, and had she been pretty and meek would have reconciled himself long ago to her presence in his household, but his tyranny and her barbed tongue had left them nothing but rancor. “Save you, Lord Adam. A sorry affair, but it shan’t stand between us and amity.” He clopped over the timber and heaved himself painfully from his saddle. A groom darted from the bailey to take the reins.

  “Very reasonable,” Red Adam answered, anger edging his courtesy. He smiled unamiably at Lord William’s advancing companions. “Since it seems you’re not here to hew me into hounds’ gobbets in my own bailey, enter. No challenge from the lady’s avenging kinsmen, nor her betrothed?”

  “There’s no betrothal!” Gerald of Flackness made hasty denial. “I’ll not fight over a scandal-blown wench who’s naught to me.”

  “The lady must thank Heaven to hear you.”

  Gerald checked with his foot still in the stirrup, his lips lifting from his formidable teeth, and Lord William said hurriedly, “We’re not here to quarrel, and you know I’ll not hold you to the match.” He turned on Julitta. “By God’s Blood, I’ve always known you’d shame my household!”

  “Hell’s Teeth! Dare you blame a guiltless maid for my sins?” Red Adam looked grimly into Lord William’s congested face. “An accounting is your due as the lady’s guardian.” He drew hard breath, and his hands clenched. Julitta incredulously recognized that he did not find this easy. “Last night, being vilely drunk, I mistook your niece for a peasant wench and bore her here by force. She saved her maidenhead by stunning me with a stool.” He touched the bandage.

  “A likely tale!” Gerald jeered.

  “Yet true.”

  The menace in his voice halted mockery. Lord William declared, “There’s none here will deny any tale you testify to, Lord Adam. We’ve all been young and randy-drunk in our time.”

  “There’s only one reparation I can make. I ask her hand in marriage.”

  As though he were a basilisk whose gaze turned men to stone, they gaped at him in unbelief. “But—she’s dowerless!” Humphrey of Crossthwaite croaked at last, exposing their minds indecently naked. Red Adam’s glance brought scarlet to his face.

  “That’s not my foremost consideration.”

  Gerald brayed coarse laughter. “Virtue for you, in a Lorismond!”

  Red Adam ignored him, though his shoulders stiffened. He was waiting on Lord William, who was speechless with conflicting and ungratifying emotions. Julitta, knowing how vital an alliance with Brentborough was to his plotting against the King, could guess at them, and caught her breath in hope; it would not suit him in the least to marry his niece to its lord.

  “Most nobly offered,” he pronounced, “But there’s no need of it. Your word suffices—”

  “I’ll not take damaged ware,” Gerald hastily asserted.

  Lord William shot him a glance of acute dislike, shifted painfully and winced as his joints twinged. “She can go back to the convent. If I withdraw my lawsuit the Abbess should be thankful enough to take her cheaply, and you’re honorably quit of her. If not, I could give her to one of my sergeants.”

  “Your brother’s daughter?” Red Adam protested.

  “Of that I’m less sure than he was. She’s daughter to the whore who destroyed him, and harlotry’s in her blood.” He glared at his niece, and plunged into his astounding offer. “It’s been my dearest hope that you’d match within my family, Lord Adam. I’d bind alliance closer still. My girl Sibylla is virtuous and well-dowered. Send this wench to the convent and I’ll gladly wed you to my daughter.”

  “It was not your daughter I wronged.”

  Lord William’s head reared in affront. He encountered opposition so rarely that he had come to reckon his behests incontrovertible as the will of God. “You’re daft!” he began, recognized inflexibi
lity, gulped and assumed an unconvincing smile. “If your heart’s set I’ll not refuse you.”

  Julitta had been praying earnestly for the convent. She had no vocation, she reckoned the life dismal, she detested the Abbess, but it would be a haven from marriage to this raptor. “No!” she cried, starting away as Red Adam reached for her hand. “No!”

  “What’s this? You’ll do as you are bidden, girl, and thank God your shame’s covered.”

  “Let me take the veil, and never set eyes again on a man.”

  “I’ll not dower you to spend forty years as a penitent whore, my vixen. Wed me, or the next unlovely oaf your uncle rakes from the midden,” Red Adam told her grimly, heedless of Gerald’s snarl.

  She turned from one hard face to another, flinching from the brutes who disposed of her, from Ranulf of Hostby’s embarrassment and Everard FitzJordan’s shamed sympathy, in betraying appeal to Humphrey. There was no aid in him. He had less feeling for her than the neighbors. Despair filled her as he frowned and drew her uncle aside a pace to mutter urgently in his ear. Scarcely comprehending, she caught three words. “Mistake—not amenable—”

  Red Adam came briskly to his point. “An immediate wedding, you’ll agree, Lord William?”

  “Aye, that’s wisdom. Then none can point, however soon she pups.”

  In the silence which followed this infelicitous observation Humphrey’s contrary advice was more audible than he had intended. “Delay! Keep her to bargain with!”

  “Bargain?” Red Adam asked gently, and as he reddened furiously, turned to Lord William. “We’ve witnesses at hand. Summon your ladies, and we’ll go to church straightway.”

  “Here—and now? It’s against all custom—no time to prepare! A week—three days—at least time to provide bride clothes!”

  “This afternoon. Your lady is here to order it, and assemble what state there’s time for. Neighbors all, you’ll honor my marriage feast?”

  The half-dozen bewildered witnesses meekly surrendered their swords to the porter and their horses to the grooms. The women, waiting beyond the drawbridge, clattered in; Lady Matilda, Gilbert’s wife Bertille, the wives of seneschal and marshall escorted by their husbands, Sibylla agape with curiosity, a dozen waiting-demoiselles and servants, and six men-at-arms for guard. Julitta, scanning all their censorious faces for that of the one who would surely not have failed her, roused suddenly.