He flashed her a smile. ‘I thought I might surprise you.’
Joan’s hand flew to her throat. Perdita had never seen Joan so discomposed. ‘Surprise me? Good heavens, Adam, you have just about killed me.’ She looked around the table. ‘Now, you are acquainted with Simon but I doubt you remember his sister, my stepdaughter, Elizabeth? She would have been barely twelve at our wedding.’
Bess had been staring open-mouthed at the stranger. She managed a wobbly curtsey and a gracious inclination of her head.
‘Mistress Clifford, your servant,’ Adam Coulter acknowledged.
His gaze moved to Perdita. ‘And the last but not the least member of my household is our kinswoman, Perdita Gray.’
Coulter inclined his head. ‘Mistress Gray.’
Perdita met the startling intensity of his light grey eyes with equanimity. ‘Master Coulter, you are welcome to Preswood.’
Joan had never spoken of her family with Perdita, although Bess had told her the estrangement with the Marchants went back long before Joan’s marriage to Geoffrey Clifford. Joan called him this man her nephew but why was he introduced as Adam Coulter, not Marchant?
Joan asked the question that burned on Perdita’s lips. ‘What brings you here, Adam?’
As he took his seat, Adam Coulter turned to his aunt. ‘Denzil told me you have been recently widowed.’
The joy drained from Joan’s face, the pain of her recent loss stark in her eyes. She raised a trembling hand to her mouth.
Perdita answered for her. ‘Last winter,’ she said. ‘Lung fever.’
Perdita cast a glance around the table. The mention of Geoffrey Clifford brought back unhappy memories from them all. Bess bit her lip and pleated the material of her sleeve while Simon looked up at the ceiling.
Adam laid his hand over Joan’s. ‘I’m sorry, Joan. He was a good man.’ His gaze swept the table. ‘My condolences to all of you.’
Joan hefted a heavy sigh and squared her shoulders. ‘We miss him, but Adam, did you say Denzil told you? When did you see him?’
Adam’s mouth tightened in a grim, humourless smile. ‘Somehow Denzil had word I had returned to London, probably through that irritating lawyer. He sent for me and like a good brother I went. The reunion was not a great success.’
Joan’s lips parted but Simon interrupted. ‘Last I heard you were abroad, Coulter, fighting the German wars. What brings you back to England?’
Perdita detected a momentary hesitation before Adam Coulter replied. ‘Tired of the wandering life, Clifford. I’ve an eye to a small estate in the border country. In fact, I’m on my way there and promised Denzil I would deliver a message to Joan.’
Joan’s lips twisted in a wry smile. ‘A message for me? Is Denzil trying to mend the bridges his dear father burned. First you, and now me? Whatever next? What is his message?’
‘In view of your recent widowhood, he is offering you a home at Marchants.’
Joan frowned. ‘But I have a home here. Why would I want to return to Marchants?’
‘He believes this country is coming to war and is concerned for your safety. Is that what you think, Clifford?’
War. That seemed to be all men could talk of these days. Perdita and Bess exchanged resigned glances. There had too many dinners recently that had descended into talk of war with the women banished to the parlour.
Simon shifted in his chair and he cleared his throat with a quick sideways glance at Perdita. He knew her views on the subject. She tightened her lips as Simon said, ‘I believe so. I already have orders from Lord Northampton to raise my militia in the king’s name.’
Adam sighed. ‘Then let us pray that wiser heads take counsel and stop this thing before it becomes too late.’
The look of resignation on his face belied his word and Perdita challenged him. ‘You don’t believe that, do you?’
He looked at her and shook his head. ‘No. I think it’s already too late. I’ve just passed through Stratford. Lord Brooke…?’ He glanced at Simon for confirmation of the name, who nodded affirmation. ‘Lord Brooke had called a muster of the Warwickshire Militia.’
‘I know,’ Simon said. ‘A muster of those militia willing to take up the parliament’ cause.’
Adam regarded Simon thoughtfully for a moment. ‘I listened to what he had to say. He’s an impressive man, Brooke. He talks sense.’
‘He’s a puritan with his own reasons for wanting parliament to prevail.’ Simon paused. ‘How many do you think he has gathered to his cause?’
Adam shrugged. ‘Not as many as I’m sure he would have liked. A couple of hundred, no more, for all that he was offering the comers five shillings and plying them with food and drink.’
Simon nodded and smiled. ‘That’ll please Northampton. He’s planning a muster at Stratford within the month for the king’s cause. Naturally I will be attending.’
Perdita looked from one to the other. ‘Are you saying that this must come to a choice? King or Parliament? Neighbour against neighbour?’ Neither man replied but their silence gave her the answer. ‘You men are making this thing a reality. The more you talk of it, the more it becomes a certainty,’ she said.
Adam Coulter regarded her for a long moment. ‘You are right, Mistress Gray. England has talked itself into war and I fear it is too late to turn back.’
Simon coughed. ‘Coulter, you’re most welcome at Preswood. Indeed, if you have some days to spare, I have need of help with my men.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I’m not much of a military hand. I’ve books of course, but it is not the same as practical experience.’
Adam turned to look at Simon. ‘Don’t ask me to take your side, Clifford. I’ve already told my brother that I’ve no wish to fight a civil war in my own country.’
‘I’m not asking you to join me, Coulter, but I’ve a reluctant tenantry armed with antique weapons or whatever they can lay their hands on, and an order from Lord Northampton to present them properly trained at the muster. To be honest, I could use the help of an experienced soldier such as yourself.’
Adam glanced at his aunt. She leaned over and laid her hand on his. ‘Stay a little while, Adam.’
He nodded. ‘Very well, I’ll give you a week, Clifford. What little help I can render is yours.’
A week? Perdita glanced at Simon, knowing his struggles to bring the tenants into some sort of order. From farmers to soldiers. Little wonder they were reluctant.
‘Enough of politics,’ Joan said. ‘I am determined not to let this meal be spoiled by talk of things that, God willing, may never come to pass. This meal is a celebration, Adam. Let us raise our glasses to Simon and Perdita whose betrothal we are celebrating.’
Perdita glanced away as Adam Coulter’s direct gaze fell on her again.
‘Betrothed? And I have come like a beggar at the feast,’ he said. ‘I apologise for interrupting what should have been a happy meal with such dark talk.’
Perdita raised her eyes to meet his. ‘I think, Master Coulter,’ she said, ‘that it is better that these things are talked of openly, for all our futures hang on these machinations.’
Joan clapped her hands. ‘Enough, Perdita. My nephew has returned from the dead. Adam, I can’t believe the change in you. Is this what soldiering abroad does for you? Do you remember Adam at my wedding, Simon? Lovelocks and a pearl earring, quite the courtier.’
Adam touched his left ear, where the faint indentation still marked a young man’s fancy.
‘That was a long time ago,’ he said with a rueful smile, running a hand through his dark, rough-cut locks, bleached at the ends by long days in the sun.
‘Over six years, Adam. Not a word,’ his aunt chided.
‘I never was a letter writer, aunt, and unfortunately for me, I spent a couple of those years immured in Leipzig Castle for my part at the battle of Vlotho.’
Joan gasped. ‘I had no idea you were a prisoner. Was there a ransom set for your release? Isn’t that how these things are arranged. If I had known…’
Chapter 3
Preswood Hall
12 July 1643
The three women sat in the window of the room the family called the great parlour, working on the banner Joan had designed for Simon’s newly formed company of foot soldiers. Perdita found it a grim task. Every stitch seemed to draw the inevitability of war closer.
She looked up from her work and eased her cramped fingers, her gaze straying beyond the window to where Simon’s motley contingent of reluctant tenantry drilled with ancient pikes. Their general air of gloom and despondency was not helped by the persistent heavy rain that weighed down their shapeless felt hats and soaked their new, blue uniform jackets.
Bess set down her end of the banner and sucked her finger. ‘My needle is blunt,’ she complained. ‘Why do we have to use such heavy material?’
Perdita gave her kinswoman a withering glance. ‘Because the wretched thing is to be carried in all weathers and into battle. Your pretty silks and satins would not last five minutes.’
Bess pulled a face and turned to look out of the window. ‘They’ve been at it for hours,’ she said. ‘Do you suppose they’re getting any better?’
Perdita threaded her needle into the fabric and laid it aside. She propped her elbow on the window ledge and leaned her chin on her hand.
On the forecourt, Adam Coulter stood with his hands on his hips, Simon beside him. Their backs were turned to the house, their sodden hats dripping water on to their buff leather coats.
Adam barked an order, and as one the little band of militia executed a left turn, pikes swaying and at least two of the farm hands half a beat behind the others.
‘I suppose they are,’ she said. ‘Adam Coulter certainly seems to have more success with them than Simon did.’
‘Well, he’s a soldier. You’d expect him to know what he is doing,’ Bess agreed. ‘I must say, he’s quite pleasing really. Not that I really like dark haired men.’
‘Bess,’ Joan chided.
Bess shot her stepmother a sulky sideways glance. ‘It’s not as if there is a parade of young men to our front door, is there, Joan? I’m twenty-one and I shall be an old maid soon. Tell me, how old is Adam Coulter?’
Joan thought for a moment. ‘He would have been thirty-two on his last birthday,’ she replied.
‘There, perfect,’ Bess declared. ‘What do you think of him, Perdita?’
‘Me?’ Perdita turned to look at Bess. ‘I’ve scarcely had a chance to form an opinion.’
Privately she thought Adam Coulter exceeded Bess’s description of ‘quite pleasing’. The years of soldiering had left their mark on his face. A silvered scar about two inches long skimmed his right eyebrow, giving him a rather dangerous demeanour, but it was not just the physical marks. The dark, intelligent face had a wary look to it, as if ready to spring into action at the rustle of a leaf, and those grey eyes missed nothing, no nuance of conversation or indiscriminate flutter of a hand.
Bess selected another needle and under the pretence of resuming her task, settled in for gossip. ‘So why did he go off to the Continent, Joan?’
When Joan didn’t answer, Bess looked up and cast a Perdita an uncertain glance.
‘Joan?’ Bess prodded.
‘I can’t tell you,’ Joan said.
‘But we’re family. Surely we have a right to know,’ Bess wheedled. ‘Did he kill someone in a duel?’
Joan looked up, the surprise on her face giving both women the answer before she spoke. Joan recovered her demeanour. ‘Someone died,’ she said. ‘That’s as much as I can tell you.’
Bess huffed out a sigh. ‘Very well, then tell us why is his name Coulter when the rest of you are all Marchants?’
Joan cleared her throat. ‘Adam is… ’ She paused for a moment, her gaze drifting to a corner of the parlour. ‘Adam is the baseborn son of my brother, the late Lord Marchant. When Denzil was about three or four, my brother came home with a boy of a similar age and told us that he was the son of a woman called Ann Coulter who had died. As the child’s father, he felt incumbent to take him and treat him as one of his own children.’
Bess set down her needle and put a hand to her mouth. ‘How did his wife take it?’
A humourless smile lifted the corner of Joan’s mouth. ‘She was not amused and indeed when my brother was from home she spared nothing for the boy. Adam had a poor time of it. As Lady Marchant despised me equally, Adam and I became quite close. I couldn’t protect him from her but I could provide something of a haven. We were both outcasts in my brother’s home.’
Perdita glanced through the window at the man and wondered about the lonely child. Even from this distance the difference between Simon and Adam couldn’t have been more marked. Adam stood nearly a head taller than Simon and as lean as Simon was of middling height and stocky build. He held himself straight and still while Simon fidgeted.
‘Small wonder you have no wish to return to Marchants,’ Bess said. ‘Does Lady Marchant still hold court there?’
Joan shook her head. ‘No, she is dead these eight years past. Denzil’s wife, Louise, is now Lady Marchant in her place.’ Joan’s mouth tightened. ‘Louise is no better. My brother secured places at court for both boys. Denzil as a page and later a member of the royal household. He sent Adam to be a soldier in the King’s lifeguard.’ Joan smiled. ‘You wouldn’t have recognised him then, quite the darling of the fine court ladies, but it all ended badly. Denzil and Adam fell out and Adam left court to avoid a scandal. Last I had heard he took up arms in the Continental wars.’ Joan glanced out of the window, her gaze falling on her nephew’s straight shoulders. ‘And now he has come home. Why do I feel trouble will follow him?’
‘But it sounds like he and his brother are reconciled,’ Bess observed.
Joan scoffed. ‘Denzil would only have attempted a reconciliation if he thought he could get something useful from Adam. Now Adam has turned him down, I don’t expect any love to be lost between them in the months to come.’ She clapped her hands. ‘Now we really must get this banner finished in time for the muster.’
‘They’re definitely improving.’ Simon sounded more hopeful than realistic.
Adam crossed his arms and thought for a long moment before he replied. ‘There is some improvement,’ he conceded without much enthusiasm. ‘You there…’
He abandoned Simon and strode over to a young lad of about nineteen whose pike waved about in an uncontrolled fashion, causing his fellow pikemen to jump away from him as it threatened to skewer them.
‘Lad, you’ve a troop of enemy horse bearing down on you at the gallop, you have to stand firm. Wedge the end into the ground like so.’ Adam demonstrated, whacking the end of the pike into the ground so firmly that a shudder ran up the stave of the ancient weapon and it cracked and splintered in his hand. He swore volubly and dropped the broken weapon as the blood welled from a cut on his hand.
Simon ran over to him, blanching at the sight of welling blood. ‘You need to see Perdita,’ he said. ‘She’s very good with this sort of thing.’
Adam wrapped a none-too-clean cloth, proffered by the boy whose pike had splintered, around the gashed hand and stomped back to the house, a wave of depression washing over him. If Simon Clifford paled at the sight of blood, God help him in the heat of battle.
He found Perdita Gray standing in the doorway waiting for him.
‘I saw what happened,’ she said. ‘Come to my stillroom and I’ll dress it for you.’
The door to the stillroom stood open and he paused in the doorway as she gestured for him to enter, saying she would return shortly with water and cloths.
The little room had once, in times long past he su
pposed, probably served the household as a chapel. Still visible behind the shelves and the neatly packed jars and pots, faded, peeling murals of biblical scenes could still be discerned. Sunlight, breaking through the grey clouds, streamed brokenly through the mullioned glass of the high window and fell on the bench, illuminating briefly the figure of Lazarus rising from the dead on the wall above her.
‘Sit down and I will see to your hand.’
Adam started and turned to see Perdita in the doorway. He’d not heard her return.
He pulled a rueful face as he perched on one of the tall stools she used at her bench. ‘I swear those pikes must have last seen service in the days of King Richard.’
She set the pitcher and cloths down on the table and busied herself selecting a pot from the row on the shelf above the bench.
‘Quite likely.’ She found the pot she sought and turned to look at him. ‘Simon pulled them off the wall of the great hall. Now let’s see to that hand.’
In the few days he’d been at Preswood, he’d had little opportunity to speak with Perdita. In the company of her kin, she kept herself apart, a silent, watchful presence as Simon and Bess chattered. He caught Joan glancing at her every now and then and wondered what it was about Perdita Gray that prompted the frown that creased his aunt’s brow.
She pulled the matronly and unbecoming cap from her head and threw it on the bench in a crumpled heap as she unbuttoned her cuffs and rolled up her sleeves. She had tied her hair roughly back from her face in a loose knot and strands of nut-brown hair fell around her oval face.
Obediently he held out his hand, wincing at her gentle but sure touch. She glanced up anxiously and he smiled.
‘It’s fine,’ he said, earning a small, quick smile from this strangely silent woman.
Perdita cleaned the cut across his palm, extricating several splinters of wood. He looked down at the glossy brown head, bent over in concentration.
‘Ouch,’ he said as her probing touched a nerve.
She looked up and shook her head. She had a perfect oval face, high cheekbones and large brown eyes, but her eyes had a wariness to them. Perdita Gray did not trust people easily and he had yet to win that trust.
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