“I wish he would go away,” she said. “He is humiliating me just like he did before. All that man does is humiliate me.”
Maddoc looked at her. “How has he humiliated you?”
Adalind didn’t want to speak of it, just as she didn’t wish to speak of the series of events that eventually had her fleeing court for home. Those were painful memories she didn’t wish to discuss even though her mother and grandmother had already forced it out of her. But Maddoc had asked a reasonable question based on her statement so she did him the courtesy of answering. She sighed heavily.
“I first met Eynsford back in January when the king had a masque for the advent of the New Year,” she said quietly. “I was attending the Lady Margaret, Hubert de Burgh’s wife, and somehow Eynsford saw me. He was a guest of the Duke of Norfolk, evidently. He tried to catch my attention at first but I ignored him, which turned out to be my mistake. When the meal commenced, he came to my table and announced he was deeply in love with me and would proceed to woo me. It was simply awful.”
Maddoc crossed his big arms thoughtfully. “Have you spent all of this time running from him?” he asked. “Perhaps, it would be better if you simply told him you were not interested.”
She gave him a look of disgust. “I have told him,” she said. “I was polite at first but he would not listen. He kept following me, playing that… that stupid citole, singing stupid sonnets until I was nearly mad with it. Finally, I was quite nasty with him and told him I had absolutely no interest in him at all and I’d sooner wed a goat. It did not seem to matter to him. He continued to try.”
Maddoc returned his attention to the man on the ground. “How did he find you here? Did he know of your family?”
Adalind seemed to dim. “Someone must have told him, for I never did,” she said softly. “Those terrible women who… well, it does not matter. Someone must have told him.”
Maddoc was focused on her statement; those terrible women who…. it seemed to reinforce what David had told him about the women at court chasing her away. He could only imagine what those sly and worldly women were capable of and he began to feel strangely protective of Adalind, something beyond his normal sense of duty. The sensation was surprisingly strong and while it should have rattled him, unfamiliar as it was, he found it rather overwhelming. He wasn’t rattled at all. It seemed completely natural.
“So he did not listen to you when you told him you had no interest?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No,” she replied, her gaze on the red-silked figure. “He was much like the ap Athoe brothers; he did not listen to me at all. Maddoc, why on earth do men not listen to a woman when she has something to say?”
He looked at her. “Because they think they know a woman’s mind better than she does,” he said, his gaze lingering on her a moment. “Your grandfather told me to give him time to come to his senses before I take action. But if you wish for me to run him off now, I will do it.”
It was a chivalrous declaration. Adalind looked up at him, into those bright blue eyes that were so intense and beautiful, and her cheeks began to grow warm. She realized how close she was standing to him, up against his big and powerful body and feeling the heat radiate off the man.
When she had been a young girl, her emotions for him were untried and uncontrolled, silly thoughts from a silly girl. He could make her heart race and make her feel giggly, but there had never been any heat to it, not like now. Now, the warmth she felt from the man was nearly searing and she had to make a conscious effort to take a step away or she was fearful she would go up in flames. The sentiments she felt for him were no longer those of a foolish young girl. They were the emotions of a woman, with all the depth and heart those feelings entailed. It made her heart ache with longing simply to be near him.
“You had better not,” she said quietly, taking another step away and hoping he didn’t notice the dull flush in her cheeks. “If Papa told you to wait, then you had better do as he says. I do not want you to get in trouble on my behalf.”
Maddoc smiled faintly, something he rarely did. But something in that beautiful face made him feel like smiling. “It would be an honor,” he said. “May I?”
She looked doubtfully between Eynsford and Maddoc. “Well,” she said slowly, “if it does not involve beating him to a pulp or throwing him over the wall, I suppose you could try.”
His smile vanished, though there was humor to the gesture. “I do not beat anyone to a pulp. Well, not without good reason, anyway.”
Her eyes narrowed playfully. “I saw you,” she said. “You beat the ap Athoe brothers within an inch of their lives.”
“I had good reason.”
“Then you admit it.”
He shrugged. “If anyone comes calling for you, or any of the de Lohr women, they will have to answer to me first. What I did was purely in your interest. Those two fools were unworthy of you.”
She eyed him. “Who is worthy of me, Maddoc?”
He shook his head. “God has not yet created such a man, I think. You are not meant for mere mortals.”
She threw up her hands. “Sweet Lucifer!” she exclaimed. “Am I to become an old maid, then?”
His smile was back. “I have a feeling you will marry well and be very happy, my lady. I would stake my life on it.”
She tried not to smile in return, unable to help the comment that came from her lips. “The only man I have interest in has no interest in marrying me, so perhaps you were not far wrong the first time. Perhaps I will, indeed, be an old maid because if I cannot marry him, I do not want anyone.”
Maddoc was caught up in the gentle flirt. He was untried and unused to such games because he usually walked away when some young woman would make the attempt, but Adalind was very practiced. She batted her eyes and flashed the dimple in her right cheek appropriately, and he was swept away. For a man who kept himself very tightly locked away from any emotion, Adalind seemed to have the ability to turn the key and he wasn’t even aware of it.
“Is that so?” he countered. “Who is this saint of all men, then? And who on earth would be foolish enough not to want you?”
She looked at him, giggling. “He is a very big fool,” she scolded lightly. “He is such a fool I cannot tell you how truly foolish he is. It defies explanation.”
“Do I know him?”
“Of course you do because the fool is you,” she said, then sighed dramatically. “Alas, I suppose you will always view me as that silly girl with the buck teeth, so I suppose I have no other choice than to accept another’s proposal. Perhaps you should go down to the bailey and see if Eynsford has not changed his mind about me. It might be my last chance at marriage. Perhaps I will have to listen to him wail like a tomcat for the rest of my life, but I suppose it is better than being alone or confined in a convent.”
By this time, Maddoc’s smile had faded. The impact of her words hit him and, although they had been said in a flirtatious and jesting manner, he realized for the first time in his life that he was actually touched by them. Adalind had made no secret about wanting to marry him when she had been young but now, as a grown woman, he no longer saw a joke in her words. He saw something that greatly intrigued him, and the mere thought that he might actually be interested scared him to death.
“Perhaps we should return inside,” he said, taking her elbow to direct her back into the keep because he didn’t know what else to do, startled by his alien thoughts. “I shall give du Lesseps until sundown to come to his senses and if he has not, I shall be forced to find his senses for him.”
Adalind wasn’t unaware of his swift change in demeanor. He suddenly seemed stiff and distant. Realizing that her reference to marriage must have turned him, inwardly, she was furious with herself for daring to bring up the subject. She knew the man didn’t want her. He had always made that very clear. All of the love and adoration she felt for him, the admiration and respect, would never come to fruition. Disappointment and sorrow consumed her.
Without another w
ord, she allowed the man to escort her back into the keep. Then she went up to her chamber and wept.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
CHAPTER THREE
“He has been singing like that for hours,” Christina de Aston, David’s eldest daughter and Adalind’s mother, was standing at the window of her daughters’ chamber, her attention drawn to the torch-lit bailey below. “One would have thought he would have grown weary of it.”
Adalind was lying on the bed with Willow. The room was warm, well furnished, with a giant feather and straw-stuffed mattress made of linen and heavy coverlets of fur. The heaviest top coverlet was canvas stuffed with dried straw that held in the heat, covered with a silk duvet. Nights were very cold and even though the small chamber had an enormous fireplace, Adalind was always cold and required a good deal of blankets for comfort. Tonight was no different as she lay swathed in a heavy brocade robe over her wool surcoat.
Willow was brushing the elder sister’s hair as all three women listened to the baying down below. It had been going on all day. Sunset was upon them and the night was growing cold and dark, and a fog was rolling in from the east. The torches upon the battlements were giving off a ghostly glow through the coming mist.
“Is Maddoc still down there?” Adalind asked.
Christina’s lips twitched with a smile as she strained to see down below. “He is nearly standing next to him,” she said. “I have no idea how Eynsford can concentrate with Maddoc standing over his shoulder. The man is positively terrifying.”
“I think Maddoc is trying to scare him to death.”
“It is not working. I must give the man credit for his bravery.”
Adalind lay there, listening to all manner of terrible and hoarse singing, before rising from the bed and going to the window where her mother was standing. Christina put her arm around her eldest fondly.
“Life is never dull with you around, Addie,” she teased softly. “When you were young, it was one crisis after the next – wayward animals, injured birds, scraped knees, and missing teeth. Now it would seem we are destined to revisit those lively years with more adult predicaments.”
Adalind smiled weakly at her mother, a woman she favored a great deal with her blond hair and green eyes. “I hope not,” she said quietly. “I have had quite enough excitement over the past few years. I simply wish to be left in peace.”
“I am not entirely sure that will be the case tonight. Do you realize that young man has been singing all day?”
Adalind did. As she listened to the howling, she began to grow more and more frustrated. She tried to forget about it, returning to Willow and braiding her sister’s hair, but the noise continued. It reminded her of moments in her life of great humiliation that she would rather forget about, memories of people laughing at her, whispering behind her back. Things she never wanted to remember, ever. It reminded her of the horrors that had driven her home and back into the safety of her family’s bosom. This was her place for safety and comfort, and he was destroying that illusion. Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer.
Gathering her skirts, she fled the chamber, ignoring the calls of her sister and mother. Descending the stairs far too quickly, she hit the entry with full fury and even ignored the calls from her grandfather who was seated in the warm and stuffy great hall off to her left. At the moment, she was singularly focused with ridding Canterbury of du Lesseps. She’d reached her limit. Every pain, every shame, that she had felt over the past five years was about to come out all over that pitiful fool with the citole. He was in for a thrashing.
The early evening was moist and cold as Adalind charged out of the keep and took the steps down to the bailey. All fit and fire, she charged up on Eynsford, who was now sitting up in the mud as he brayed forth his lament. When he saw Adalind approaching through the dark, his fat face lit up and his singing immediately stopped.
“My lady!” he exclaimed gratefully. “I have…”
Adalind interrupted him with an angry snap. “Enough!” she roared. “Eynsford du Lesseps, I have listened to you screech and howl all day and I am sick to death of it, do you hear? I have told you repeatedly, since the day we met, that I am not interested in marrying you. No amount of horrible singing or nauseating poetry is going to force me to change my mind. Do you understand me? You are the stupidest, foulest, and most disgusting man I have ever met and I want absolutely nothing to do with you. I want you to get out of Canterbury and never come back. Is this in any way unclear?”
She was sincerely raging. By the time she was finished, Eynsford was looking at her with a great deal of shock and amazement. The smile was gone from his face.
“But…” he was genuinely puzzled, “my lady, I am desperate for want of you. Do you not understand that my feelings are…”
She cut him off again. “Go away,” she nearly shouted. “I have tried to be patient and I have tried to be kind, but you are so foolish that you cannot understand what I am telling you. Pleasantries have evidently masked the meaning of my words, so I am no longer pleasant. I don’t like you. I don’t want you. I will not marry you. I want you to go away and never come back.”
Eynsford rose to his knees, stiffly struggling to his feet. “But if you will only give me a chance, I am sure…”
“No!” she roared. “No chances. No nothing. Stop humiliating me with your idiotic singing and go away!”
Eynsford was on his feet now, looking genuinely hurt. It was clear that the concept of rejection was foreign to him. A wealthy lord’s spoiled son, he had always gotten what he wanted. Always. He began to look around the bailey.
“Your grandfather,” he said. “I will speak with him. He will understand my proposal and consent.”
With a shriek, Adalind flew at him, pounding him on his silk-covered chest before slapping him, hard, across the face. She was so livid that she had lost her self-control. There happened to be a rather large stick on the ground, debris from the storm they’d suffered two days before, and she picked it up and swung it at him, catching him on the hip.
“Go!” she bellowed, smacking him with the stick again. “Go away and never come back. I do not want to see you ever again, do you hear me? Stop ignoring what I am saying. You will not speak with my grandfather. You will get out!”
She punctuated the last two words by smacking him again with the stick. Eynsford flinched from the blows, startled by the loud cracking sound more than he was actually hurt. The stick’s noise echoed against the battlement walls. Adalind’s fury was working the desired effect; he was backing away and heading towards the gatehouse.
“My lady, please,” he began to plead, trying to dodge her flying stick. “You do not understand. I mean only the best and…”
She screamed with frustration as she swung the stick, catching him on the shoulder. “Go!” she yelled. “I hate you, I hate you! You have made my life miserable and horrid, and I hate you!”
She was chasing him now, violently swinging the stick as he finally ran for his life. Maddoc, who had stood by silently and observant during the exchange, broke from his stance and went after her before she could beat the man to death. Coming up behind her as she swung, he grabbed her around the torso with one big hand and grasped the wrist holding the stick with the other.
“Enough, Addie,” he murmured, his lips by her ear. “I will handle it from here.”
Adalind’s response was to burst into gut-busting sobs. Concerned, Maddoc wasn’t sure what to do at that moment, so he did what his instincts dictated – he hugged her tightly, briefly, and gently let her go, pulling the stick out of her hand as he went. By this time, Eynsford had already collected his horse, which had never been formally stabled but merely tied up, and was making a break for the gatehouse. Maddoc really didn’t have to do anything more than simply make sure the man left and the portc
ullis closed behind him. After that, his attention returned to Adalind.
Her mother and sister had come down from the keep and had tried to comfort her as she stood sobbing in the middle of the bailey, but she wanted no part of it. She ran away from them. As they watched her go, indecisive as to whether or not to follow her, Maddoc silently indicated he would follow her to make sure she came to no harm. Willow wasn’t so sure but Christina agreed, thinking that perhaps Adalind would find more comfort in the attention of the man she had always been in love with rather than her mother and sister. Something was coming to a head in her quiet and sad daughter, something that, perhaps, family couldn’t help her with. Maybe Maddoc could.
It was just a hunch she had.
*
Maddoc found Adalind in the stables. It hadn’t been difficult; he had simply followed the sounds of her weeping. It was dark in the stables with occasional sounds of a snorting horse or the meow of a cat. The animals shifted listlessly when they sensed humans. Patiently, he made his way back into the depths of the structure to find Adalind sitting in a storage area where they kept piles of dried grass. The smell of wood and hay was heavy in the air.
She was sitting against the wall, her back turned to him, weeping softly. Maddoc watched her for a moment, finding himself thinking on that skinny little girl who used to drive him daft. He’d run from her, hid from her, when he’d never run or hid from anything in his life. It had been rather embarrassing behavior from the serious young knight. But somehow, she would always find him. She had popped up more than once when he had been using the privy, something that had infuriated him at the time but now brought a smile to his lips. Adalind was, if nothing else, fearless and persistent. But he didn’t see those qualities in her now and that concerned him.
“My lady,” he said softly. “It is cold out here. Would you permit me to escort you inside?”
Her back was still to him. She wiped at her face, sniffling. “No,” she said after a moment. “I do not want to go inside now. I simply wish to be left alone. If I go inside, my sister and mother will hound me mercilessly. They mean well, but I do not want their company right now.”
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