The small door in the massive gates opened and the face of an old woman peered out. She blinked up at him, with eyes milky with cataracts.
‘My name is—’
‘I ken who you are,’ the woman said. ‘I held you in my arms when you were a bairn. Adam Coulter they called you.’
The back of Adam’s neck prickled and Perdita’s hand on his arm tightened.
‘Who are you?’
‘Mab,’ the crone replied. ‘Ye’ll not remember me. You were nowt but a small bairn when he came for ye, but I’d know ye for Coulter, e’en without the lawyer sending word to expect ye. Yer mother is dead?’
Adam nodded.
‘Then ye best come in, my lord. For lord of these lands ye are now.’
Adam stepped through the gateway and paused for a moment to look up at the building that surrounded him. Up closer, the unmistakable air of neglect hung over the homestead, from the ivy-covered walls and crumbling stonework to the broken windows and sagging guttering.
‘When did Mistress Coulter die?’ He addressed Mab’s back.
She turned to look at him. ‘Ten year she’s bin in the grave now. Mistress Joan put in a caretaker but he died in the springtime and there’s bin no one to collect the rents or tend to the land since then.’ She stopped at a heavy oak door and turned to look at him. ‘Ye’re a soldier? I heard tell of wars being fought in the land again.’
Adam nodded.
Mab sighed heavily. ‘Well there’ll be no thought of you returning here for some wee while then?’
Adam hesitated and glanced at Perdita. Any thoughts he might have had of installing Perdita here were beginning to fade.
Mab waved at the door. ‘Well, come in, come in. The best I can offer ye is the kitchen. It’s warm and dry, not like the rest of the house.’
She ushered them into a flagged kitchen where a fire burned in the hearth, making the room almost unbearably hot. Here, in her domain, Mab turned to face them.
‘Who’s this?’ She jerked a clawed hand at Perdita.
‘My...’ Adam glanced at Perdita. He had been about to say ‘wife’ but that small detail still had to be dealt with. The paucity of good inns between here and York had kept them apart at night.
‘Betrothed,’ Perdita interposed.
Mab nodded as if she approved of what she saw. ‘How long are ye staying?’
‘Only a few days.’
Mab nodded. ‘I’ll send the boy to stable your horses and ye can take your time to look over the place, but ye’ll not like what ye see.’
Perdita took his hand. ‘You go,’ she said. ‘I’ll see what can be done for supper.’
He nodded, appreciative of her tact.
He wandered the dusty and deserted corridors trying to find some other memories, but he saw only the cobwebs and smelt the musty smell of a building too long shut up.
To his surprise, he found Mab in a large bedchamber, stoking a fitful fire into life.
She rose to her feet on his entrance, brushing dust from her skirts.
‘This ‘’ere was Mistress Coulter’s room. It’s the best I can offer ye. I’ve made up the bed and the lady I’ll put in the room across the corridor. ’Tis small but dry.’
‘Is there a priest in the village?’
Mab’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Aye, if ye’ve a mind to see him, I can send the boy for him.’
‘I presume I own his living?’
‘Ye do.’
Good, that meant there would be no argument about tedious formalities. They could be wed on the morrow.
Mab laid her hand on a dusty box that stood on the table. ‘I’ve not touched Lady Ann’s papers. The key’s in yonder pot.’ She indicated a clay pot of some antiquity that stood on the window ledge.
‘Tell me,’ Adam said. ‘What manner of woman was Lady Ann?’
Mab’s face softened. ‘Oh, she were a fine lady, sir. As good and gentle as any you’d want to meet. Broke her heart when Lord Marchant came to fetch you. She was never wed and had no bairn of her own to hold.’
A shiver ran down his spine and in that moment, Adam had the strange sensation of seeing a grey-haired woman standing beside the fireplace in this very room, her hand resting on a cane.
‘She had a twisted back,’ he said.
Mab nodded. ‘Ye remember? Aye, a hunchback she was. There were never any lads to court her, except for what they saw in her lands. She chose not to marry. I’ll leave you, sir, and send yer lady up to you.’
When Mab had gone, Adam opened the box. Within were deeds and various estate papers, and at the very bottom of the box he found a bundle of letters tied with string. His heart jumped as he recognised the writing as Joan’s.
He sat down beside the now -blazing fire and pulled his boots off. He propped his feet on a stool and undid the ribbon that bound the packet of letters. The last letter turned out to be the first and was written by his uncle, the man he had always known as his father.
‘My dear cousin, it grieves me to be the bearer of sad tidings, but my beloved sister Joan is gravely ill and the doctors fear for her life. She cries piteously for her babe and I fear I have no choice but to fetch the child to Marchants. I have promised Joan that I will do this and more. I have given her my word on my honour that the child will be raised as a child of mine. My wife has protested most vigorously but I will prevail, for reasons best known to myself. Expect me within the month. Yr servant John M.’
Adam stared at the letter, wondering why he had never seen the affection Lord Marchant had held for his sister. It had been masked by the antipathy, Sofia, Lady Marchant, had displayed to the bastard child. Maybe, he considered, his uncle’s decision to bring Adam to Marchants had been the beginning of the long disintegration of the relationships in the Marchant family. He had always been the cuckoo in the nest. Now he understood why.
Adam turned to Joan’s letters and read an account of her slow recovery and her joy at being reunited with her child.
‘...although I cannot claim him as my own, to see him daily and to hold him as a proper aunt. You ask how my brother prevailed on Lady Marchant to accept his tale and it is sad to relate that I suspect it is because it is common talk at court that Lady Sophia has taken a young lover to her bed. To avoid her own scandal she is willing to tolerate her husband’s own infidelity, even though he is the most faithful of men.’
Each letter had been written on the same date; Adam’s birthday. Adam read the account of his life as he grew from skirts to a boy, schooled with his ‘brother’ Denzil, learning sword play and how to ride.
Robin’s birth had brought great joy to the household, and then, within a few years, Lady Marchant’s death, an event Adam remembered viewing with considerable relief. The letters ceased when Adam had gone to court, shortly before what would have been Ann Coulter’s death.
As he read each letter he consigned it to the flames, watching as the edges caught and the ink momentarily darkened before the paper turned black and dissolved into the red heart of the fire.
As he consigned the final letter to the flames, watching as the last tie with his mother smouldered, exploded into flame and vanished, the door opened and Perdita entered followed by Mab, carrying a large tray with a steaming bowl of rabbit stew, fresh bread and a bottle of wine. He indicated the smaller table beside the fireplace and Mab left them alone to their supper.
Perdita looked up at the wall around the fireplace. She pointed past the rows of grim-faced ancestors of the last century to a small head and shoulders study of a dark haired child.
‘Adam, have you seen that portrait?’
He rose to his feet and took it down from the wall. He recognised the style and the initials in the corner JM—Joan Marchant.
‘Joan’s work,’ he said.
‘You,’ Perdita said.
‘Me,’ he echoed and turned to face her.
‘Are you sorry you came?’ she asked.
‘No. I knew I never belonged at Marchants and now I understand why. Th
e fact remains I will always bear the stain of being bastard-born but there’s nothing I can do to change that and nothing here to give any indication as to who my father may have been.’
He looked around the room and hefted a heavy sigh. ‘As for my inheritance, it’s in worse repair then I thought. This is probably one of the few inhabitable rooms in the whole place.’
Perdita took a sip of her wine. ‘When the war is over, Adam, we will make this a home. A place where we can be happy. A place for’ she broke off and a shadow crossed her face. He wondered if she had been about to say ‘for children’.
He smiled. ‘Until then, we must seize our moments.’ He took her by the hands and pulled her to his feet, so she stood facing him. ‘Tomorrow, my dearest Perdita, we will find the priest and be wed, and for such time as we can we will pretend that the world beyond these walls does not exist. This moment is ours.’
She wound her arms around his neck, looking into his face, searching his eyes. He bent his head and their lips met, and he knew he could never let her go again. Like the feathers in the wind Perdita had talked about, they had caught each other and were now bound together. Whatever lay in their future, for now they were content.
THE END
Adam and Perdita’s story continues in
NOW MY SWORN FRIEND
(Feathers in the Wind Book 2)
Read on for an excerpt…
Acknowledgements
To the team who makes my books possible, Annie Seaton, Roby Aiken, Fiona Jayde and Merry Bond.
And, of course, my ever patient husband, DJB, who has to live with my imaginary friends.
About the author
Award winning Australian author, Alison Stuart, learned her passion for history from her father. She has been writing stories since her teenage years but it was not until 2007 that her first full length novel was published. A past president of the Romance Writers of Australia, Alison has now published seven full-length historical romances and a collection of her short stories. Many of her stories have been shortlisted for international awards and BY THE SWORD won the 2008 EPIC Award for Best Historical Romance.
Her inclination for writing about soldier heroes may come from her varied career as a lawyer in the military and fire services. These days when she is not writing she is travelling and routinely drags her long- suffering husband around battlefields and castles.
Readers can connect with Alison at her website, Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.
Other Titles by Alison Stuart
Historical Romance
Her Rebel Heart
Lord Somerton’s Heir
The Guardians of the Crown Series
By The Sword (Book 1)
The King’s Man (Book 2)
Exiles’ Return (Book 3)
Paranormal Historical Romance
Gather The Bones
Secrets In Time
NOW MY SWORN FRIEND
Feathers in the Wind Book 2
CHAPTER ONE
Strickland Castle
11 August 1644
From somewhere beyond the window the sweet chirruping song of a thrush lifted into the clear blue sky. Adam lay with one hand behind his head and the other around the sleeping woman who lay curled up against him, her head in his shoulder. Dust motes danced in the shafts of sunlight that pierced the old mullion windows and in that moment, he thought it could not be possible to be so completely content.
The song of the thrush died away as did his idyll. It could never be anything more than just a dream, a moment of peace in a world wracked by war. In their weeks of snatched happiness, the too short days and nights, they had roamed the estate, talking with the tenants, exploring the hidden corners. Discovering the beauty of this wild northern land, so foreign to both. Learning about each other…
He propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at his wife. Perdita's lips were carved in a gentle smile and her eyelashes fluttered on her cheek.
His wife, his wife... he played with the words, turning them over in his mind. His wife, his soul mate. Nothing in his life had prepared him for the heart aching happiness of binding oneself to another.
"Is whispering nothing? Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses? Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career of laughter with a sigh? ...My is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings, if this be nothing."
He murmured the well-remembered words from Shakespeare as he caressed the soft flesh of her shoulder with his thumb. She twitched but did not wake. Lying back down, he drew her in closer to him and closed his eyes, breathing in the sweet smell of the woman in his arms.
As if conjuring up the demons of the outside world, the thud of a horse ridden hard approached down the lane, followed by a heavy fist pounding on the outside door, startled him into full wakefulness.
The noise woke Perdita who sat up, her eyes widening.
'What...?'
'It seems we have a visitor,' Adam replied. 'I fear the time has come for us to return to the world.' He dropped a kiss on the upturned end of her nose and with a heavy sigh, slipped out from the under the bedclothes.
Downstairs in the kitchen, a heavily armed trooper sat at the table partaking of bread and cheese. Seeing Adam, he struggled to his feet and saluted smartly. A grin broke out over the friendly, familiar face of Corporal Jeremiah Webster.
‘Sir!’
Adam waved him back down again. 'Finish breaking your fast, Webster and tell me what brings you here.'
Webster's face sobered.
'Black Tom took a musket ball in the shoulder. It's shattered his arm. It's afeared he won't live.'
Adam sank on to a chair. 'Bad news indeed,' he said. 'Where is he?'
'They've taken him to his home in York and sent for Lady Anne but she's in London and not like to arrive for some time.'
'Who's in command?'
'Colonel Lambert. He sent this note for 'ee.'
Adam broke the seal and scanned the brief comments.
Fairfax is badly wounded and the time could not be worse. Helmsley will fall within the week. They've no more supplies and our intelligence tells us that conditions inside are dire. I need you back in Yorkshire ready to take your men and march on Scarborough Castle. Time is wasting, Coulter, make haste. Lambert
Perdita, her hair unbound, leaned on his shoulder, reading the note. 'How bad is the General?'
Webster's mouth tightened. 'Bad, mistress.' The man cleared his throat. 'Surgeon says he'd rather have Mistress Coulter's hands than anyone else so if ye've a mind to come south again, your help is needed.'
Perdita glanced at Adam. They had discussed her staying on here at Strickland but sheer amount of work required to make the place habitable for winter required men and money. They had neither. In that moment he knew the decision had been made for them. He pushed himself away from the table and held out his hand to Perdita.
‘We will be ready to ride with you within the hour, Corporal,' he said.
Adam and Perdita’s story continues in
NOW MY SWORN FRIEND
(Feathers in the Wind Book 2)
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And Then Mine Enemy Page 20