Adria didn’t take her eyes off of Gar. “Tell him to go away, Marcellus,” she said. “He is trying to hurt me. I want him banished from Carlisle, never to return.”
Marcellus’ gaze lingered on her for a moment. He’d never seen her in this state before. Adria de Geld had always been the kindest and most mannerly of women, so clearly, she felt threatened.
He turned to Gar.
“Please return to your chamber, my lord,” he said. “Let this situation calm.”
“She is my daughter,” Gar said, agitated. “You will not tell me how to deal with her.”
“I am telling you to return to your chamber. I will not tell you again.”
Gar was quickly becoming humiliated and that didn’t sit well with him. He took a couple of steps back, finally looking at Marcellus and smiling thinly.
“And you, my lord?” he said, almost gaily. “Are you married? I am seeking a husband for my daughter, but she does not seem to want to obey me in this matter. I have offered her to the two other knights here at Carlisle, but you look big and strapping. If you feel as if you can tame her, then she is yours. I will give her to you.”
Marcellus’ expression remained neutral at what could be considered an insult to his own daughter. “Go,” he said quietly. “If you need an armed escort, I will be happy to provide one.”
Gar sighed sharply, realizing the knight wasn’t on his side. No one was. With a lingering glare at Adria, he turned and headed out of the kitchen yard. When he was gone, Marcellus turned to Adria but noticed she was still holding the iron rod. Reaching out, he gently disarmed her and tossed the rod aside.
“Normally, I would not ask what that was about, but it was a fairly public battle,” he said. “It will get back to Will, I am sure. What should I tell him?”
Adria sighed heavily, running a trembling hand over her forehead to push away the stray tendrils. In truth, she was more shaken than she realized.
“Tell him that my father is a bastard,” she muttered, watching Marcellus’ eyebrows lift in surprise that she would use such a foul word. “I called him a bastard and I do not regret it. I am very sorry that he asked you about your marital status. He has debts to pay and wishes to marry me off to anyone who has the means to provide him with any money. He has already approached Hermes and Ronan and I fear that I must find them and apologize.”
He put out a hand to stop her before she could get away. “Not now,” he said. “They’re with some new recruits, so let them finish their task before you speak to them. In fact, you may want to regain your composure before you do.”
That was probably true. Adria put her hands to her cheeks, feeling that they were hot with shame and anger. But she was starting to calm down a little, thanks to Marcellus’ intervention, but that also made her take a second look at him. The last time she’d heard the man speak, he was in Lily’s chamber declaring his undying love for her.
A man she used to think was so terribly noble.
She didn’t think that about him now.
“I’m well enough,” she said stiffly, averting her gaze. “Thank you for your assistance, my lord. You do not have to worry over me any longer. I am quite well.”
“My lord?” he said, grinning. “Since when do you address me so formally?”
Since I heard you speaking to Lily, she thought. But she didn’t elaborate because this wasn’t the time or the place to do it. There was too much happening with her to try and cast stones at someone else, but that still didn’t mean she approved of what Marcellus and Lily had been doing. In fact, it just made her angry at Marcellus, a man who had never been anything but kind to her.
Shaking her head, she moved around him.
“I have duties to attend to,” she mumbled. “I must find Atticus.”
Marcellus frowned as she walked away from him. “Adria? What is the matter?”
She paused, but she didn’t look at him. There wasn’t any answer she could give him, at least not one that she was prepared to.
“Thank you again for your assistance,” she said. “Can you please make sure my father leaves? I want him gone today. I do not want to see him again.”
This time, Marcellus let her go. She was shaken up by the confrontation with her father, so he took that as the reason behind her manner towards him. Her father had embarrassed her by offering him her hand right in front of her, as if he were desperate to push her off onto someone else.
Perhaps that was why she couldn’t seem to look at him.
Turning to the small group that had gathered to watch the battle between father and daughter, he waved his hands and broke up the crowd, heading off to find Will and tell him what had happened.
He suspected that the man might want to know.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Atticus was swinging from a tree branch.
Seated on the grass on the banks of the River Eden, which carved a path on the north side of Carlisle Castle, Adria was sitting within full view of the castle. That was the rule when anyone went outside the castle walls – the guards had to be aware of where one was in case something unexpected happened.
Not that anything had happened in months, surprisingly. The Scots had been quiet for quite some time, but that didn’t mean security at Carlisle was relaxed. It was just the same as it always was, men just as vigilant as they always were. They weren’t prisoners in the castle, however, because every so often, Adria and Lily would stray to the river’s edge to let Atticus play with Bradford and some of the other pages.
There was a little spot, shrouded in trees, where the children liked to play by the riverside. They liked it so much that Will had two big stone benches built so the women had something to sit on. There was even a wooden chair and a bed made of rope that was strung between two trees. Atticus liked that bed the best because he could lay on it and swing himself to sleep beneath the green canopy. Whenever Will accompanied them to the river’s edge, he’d fall asleep in that swinging bed, too.
Even now, Atticus and Bradford and two other pages, Rufus and Edward, were playing in the trees and howling like wild men. Will and Marcellus had made a rope swing for the children and they were spinning around in it, having a marvelous time. Adria had the nearly finished blue tunic for the Earl of Warenton in her hands, a project that had been put off due to Lily’s declining condition and Adria’s increasing duties. But at the moment, she was finishing with the embroidery around the neckline. It was coming along marvelously. Though it was well after the earl’s day of birth celebration, Lily still wanted him to have it.
Adria would make sure he did.
After her encounter with her father, and then Marcellus, she found that she was desperate to clear her mind. Just an hour or two of peace was all she wanted, but she’d located Atticus and he’d asked her if they could go to the river’s edge. The sergeant at the outer gatehouse had given his permission, so they had. It turned out to be the break she’d needed to sort out what was going on. Lily and Will’s issues were bleeding onto her, whether or not she wanted them to.
It wasn’t as if she didn’t have enough troubles of her own.
Adria hoped Marcellus had chased her father away, but she suspected he wouldn’t do anything without Will’s knowledge or blessing. Will, however, was not only occupied with Lily, but with his father and grandmother, who had arrived earlier in the day. Adria had seen them when they entered Carlisle. She’d met Scott de Wolfe several times and Lady Warenton, too, and she liked them both. They were nice people.
All the more reason to chase her embarrassing father away from Carlisle.
“I could hear the yelling all the way at the castle.”
Startled from her thoughts, Adria looked up from her embroidery to see Will coming through the trees. Atticus saw him, too, and the sight of his father seemed to do something to him – his whooping and hollering grew louder as he and his three cohorts acted like wild men. When Will realized it, he grinned and shook his head.
“I see what the problem is
now,” he said. “My son is acting like his cousin, Hermes.”
That brought a chuckle to Adria as she turned back to her careful embroidery. “Mayhap you should bring Hermes to the river’s edge and let him wear Atticus out,” she said. “I fear the lad has no limit to his spirit.”
Will was forced to agree. “Indeed,” he said, noting that the rope bed was unoccupied and making a break for it. “Do you mind if I utilize the rope bed in your presence?”
Adria grinned. “You needn’t ask my permission. You’ve done it before.”
“I know,” he said, reaching for the rope. “But Lily was always here and I’m never terribly mannerly in front of her. I do not want you to think me rude if I lay in your presence.”
“I do not think you rude. I think you weary.”
The smile faded from his face. “That is quite true,” he said. “Speaking of weary, I heard you had an eventful day in the kitchen yard.”
Adria’s warm expression left her as she carefully embroidered the golden leaves on the neckline. “Did Marcellus tell you that?”
“He did, but only what he witnessed,” he said. “When he told me, I went to your father to make sure he leaves Carlisle today, but he is pleading illness. He insists he cannot leave while he is feeling poorly.”
Adria rolled her eyes and stopped her needle. “He is not feeling poorly,” she said. “He is only saying that so you will not force him to leave. God, I wish the man would just go away and leave me alone. I wish he had never come here in the first place.”
“What did he do?”
She looked at him then. She hadn’t told him why her father had really come to Carlisle and she supposed she couldn’t avoid it now.
Perhaps he should know.
“Do you remember when we spoke of my father and how he wishes for me to marry well?” she asked, watching Will nod. “Then you will also remember that he wants me to marry well so that he can beg coin from my husband. Since I have refused to marry, he has gone to Hermes and Ronan and informed them of my availability as a bride. Evidently, he hopes they will agree and then he intends to create some horrible competition between them, the prize being my hand.”
Will appeared surprised. “He did this?”
“He did,” Adria said, fighting off the shame of the confession. “When he told me, I was outraged and told him to leave. He grabbed me by the arm to force me to go with him and I proceeded to fend him off with a fire poker. That is what Marcellus saw. And then he further shamed me by telling Marcellus he would give me to him. God… I just want the man gone.”
Will was still standing next to the rope bed, listening intently to a rather shocking tale. “Why did he want you to go with him?”
She glanced at him, quickly. “I have not told you all of it, so you may as well know,” she said. “Not to get too much into my family history, but since my father gambled away the family fortune, he had to find a way to regain it. He has only always viewed me as a tool in this quest, so he concocted a plan to have me foster at Kenilworth. That is where I met Lily.”
Will nodded, finally sinking back into the rope bed. “I know.”
“Kenilworth is the finest castle for fostering and training in all of England, but it is only for the finest houses,” she said. “My father knew this, so he borrowed money from a very questionable man named Silas de Brito, had fine clothing made for both of us, and then we attended a tournament where Lord and Lady Lancaster were the patrons. My father is very good with his flattery and he managed to present me to Lady Lancaster, who agreed to take me to Kenilworth. The object, of course, was for me to find a rich husband, which I did not.”
Will could see her from where he was laying. He folded an enormous arm behind his head. “So that is why he is here, demanding you marry well?”
Adria nodded. “Exactly,” she said. “The bargain he struck with de Brito was that my father pay the money back or give me over to de Brito as his bride. It is either a pound of gold or a pound of flesh, but either way, de Brito will gain his money. I gather that de Brito must be threatening him about it, so that has made my father desperate.”
“And he is offering you to any bachelor who can pay him.”
Adria lowered her head, sadly. “He is,” she said. “One of these days, he will offer me to someone who will accept him and demand to marry me, but I have already thought of that. I told him that I would commit myself to the cloister at Carlisle Cathedral immediately. That will end any chance he has of marrying me off for money.”
“Haven’t you forgotten something?”
She looked at him curiously. “What?”
“Lily’s wish.”
She eyed him reluctantly. “Nay, I haven’t forgotten,” she said. “But surely now that you know everything, you cannot agree to it.”
“Why not?”
“I told you why – because my father just wants money from you. That is all he’ll ever want from you.”
“And I told you that I can handle your father.”
Adria sat there, looking at him with those big, pale eyes. Will stared back and the more he stared at her, the lovelier she became. He couldn’t imagine her slipping through his fingers to someone else, someone who might not treat her well or, worse, abuse her. If her father was looking for a husband with anyone he could find, then her prospects were not vetted.
It could be anyone.
He didn’t want to see that happen.
“We have discussed this,” Adria said, breaking him from his train of thought. “You are the heir to the de Wolfe empire. I am no one important.”
He cocked a dark eyebrow. “And I told you that it did not matter to me,” he said. “I’d much rather have someone like you than a politically ambitious woman who only cares for the status of her family. You do not care about that, do you?”
“Nay, but…”
He cut her off. “Then you are perfect,” he said. “Lily was right to select you. More than you know.”
“Why would you say that?”
His eyes began to take on a distant twinkle. “Because I do,” he said as an idea came to mind. “Let us start at the beginning, Lady Adria. Are you willing?”
“The beginning of what?”
“Just… humor me. Let us start at the beginning of everything, as if you and I have only just met.”
Adria wasn’t sure why, but she was willing to play along. “Very well,” she said. “What do you want me to say?”
He was thoughtful a moment, made difficult because Atticus and his hoodlums were running after each other, right under the rope bed. When they ran back towards the river’s edge, he continued.
“I want you to pretend you’ve never seen me before,” he said. “Pretend that you are at a feast at Kenilworth. You know the ones – those big, lavish affairs with piles of food everywhere. Remember those?”
The same twinkle came to Adria’s eyes at the memory. “Of course I do,” she said. “I loved those so.”
He watched her features soften at the memory. “Pretend I walk into the hall,” he said. “Look at me. Do you think I am handsome?”
Adria looked at him in surprise, her cheeks flushing, which told him what he wanted to know before she even said it. “I do,” she said, catching on to what she thought he was driving at. “And you would see me for the first time, too, dressed in a gown of pale blue with ribbons in my hair. What do you think of me?”
“You are the most gorgeous creature I’ve ever seen.”
That caused her cheeks to grow even redder. “I am honored, my lord.”
He fought off a grin at her enchanting reaction, a thrill he’d not felt in many years. He’d given up looking at women when he married Lily, so for him, this was something of an awakening. Feelings he thought were long dead in him were evidently only dormant.
Adria was stirring them.
He rather liked that.
“Now,” he said. “It is crowded and smoky. Too many people pushing around, laughing and drinking, so I ask yo
u to accompany me outside, to the gardens near the hall. It is quite proper, as there are people all over the grounds, and I am perfectly behaved. Will you come with me?”
Adria smiled shyly. “Must I?”
He laughed. “Aye, you must.”
“Then I shall.”
“Good,” he said, his gaze lingering on her. “Now, we’re outside sitting in the garden under a full moon. The smell of roses fills the air and, somewhere, a nightbird sings. I would like to know about the lovely Adria de Geld. What will you tell me?”
Adria shrugged, turning back to her sewing because she needed something to do other than look at Will and blush.
“I would tell you that I come from a minor noble family,” she said. “I had a good childhood for the most part, though my mother died when I was young. Still, I was fed and tended to by an old servant, and when I turned eight years of age, my father bought me a white pony that promptly threw me.”
Will smiled. “Ponies have a tendency to do that,” he said. “What else?”
Adria shrugged. “I was taught to read and write by the local priest, who taught the children of the village every Wednesday and every Friday,” she said. “I enjoyed it. My father commissioned a prayer book for me. I still have it.”
“A pony and a prayer book,” Will said softly. “It sounds as if your father wasn’t always demanding and cruel.”
Adria shook her head. “Not when I was younger,” she said. “But as he grew older – as I grew older – he changed. He ceased to see a daughter and started to see a commodity.”
The conversation threatened to take a downturn, but Will wouldn’t let it. “You had a pony,” he said, steering the subject back to her childhood. “Does that mean you like to ride for pleasure? I do not think I’ve ever seen you do that.”
Adria cocked her head thoughtfully. “The white pony and I jumped many things,” she said. “Rock walls, downed trees, anything we could find. It was enjoyable when I was younger, but as I got older, my tastes changed. Lady Lancaster thought all of her ladies should be quite accomplished, so we were taught poetry and painting, sewing and dancing and drawing. The ponies faded away, but I was not troubled because I love to draw.”
WolfeLord: de Wolfe Pack Generations Page 19