A Dangerous Love (24 page)

“Come,” Elsbeth said, standing and raising her mistress up. “I will put you to bed, and in the morning everything will look different.” She led Adair from the hall.

“Nothing will ever be the same again,” Adair said.

“
Nothing!
I will waken in the morning and Andrew will still be gone, and I will still have no child to mother for Stanton. I tell you I can bear no more!”

S
tanton was again without a master. None of those who had fought with Andrew at Market 
Bosworth returned home, and were assumed dead.

Adair was not the only one to mourn, but she could not give way to her despair publicly. If they were to survive the winter there were things that still needed tending.

The cattle were brought in from the high meadows by the cowherds and their dogs. Repairs were made to any buildings needing them. The grain had been harvested, threshed, and stored in Stanton’s stone granaries. Adair gave permission for the Stanton folk to glean what they could from the fields. Her small orchard had yielded a bumper crop of apples. On Martinmas she divided the fruits among her villagers, keeping a few for herself.

There would be no visitors at Stanton once the winter set in. No need for hospitality.

Before the bad weather set in Adair rode over to Hillview Court, for she knew that her brother-in-law and his grandfather would have probably not yet heard of the king’s demise, or Andrew’s. Entering the hall of the house, she was greeted by Robert Lynbridge. Old Lord Humphrey was nowhere to be seen.

Seeing her face, Rob came forward, asking, “What has happened?”

“Where is your grandsire?” Adair replied. “I can speak of this but once.”

“On his deathbed, I fear,” Robert said.

“ ’Tis better then. He need not know. King Richard has been slain, and Henry Tudor reigns over England, Rob. There was a battle at Market Bosworth. Andrew, Dark Walter, and thirty Stanton men are among the dead,” Adair told him.

“God’s blood!” Rob swore softly. “Aye, ’tis better the old man not know.” Then he put his arms about her.

“My God, Adair, you are alone again. What will you do?”

“What I have always done, Rob. Survive,” she answered him, drawing away from the comfort of his embrace. She would weep if she didn’t, and Adair knew that if she began to cry she would not stop for some time. “I have my Stanton folk to care for, and I will.”

“Dark Walter and thirty men gone? How will you protect yourselves if the Scots come calling? There have been rumors of several parties of raiders lately.”

“Stanton has a reputation of being strong, thanks to Dark Walter, God assoil his good soul,” Adair told her brother-in-law. “Hopefully they will leave us in peace, being unaware of our sudden vulnerability. By spring I can have enough men and boys trained to make up for those we lost. What else can I do, Rob? I will not leave my Stanton folk alone or unprotected. We have twenty good men for now.”

He nodded understanding, but still looked worried.

One large raiding party could wipe out her small defenses. Still, she was right: There was no other honorable choice open to Adair. Stanton was her birthright, and its people were her responsibility. “You’ll stay the night,”

he said. “Allis will want to see you.”

“Is the old curmudgeon really dying?” Adair asked him, accepting a goblet of wine from a hovering servant.

“Aye, he is,” Rob said.

“Then I think it is best I don’t see him. Let him go in
 
peace,” she said with a sigh. “He’ll know soon enough that my Andrew went before him.”

Robert Lynbridge nodded in agreement. “Aye,” he said tersely. “Aye.”

When Allis Lynbridge came into the hall and as they sat at the high board, Adair told them in detail what she had learned from young Anthony Tolliver. She did not, however, tell them what the young page had told her about the princes’ murders. This information was much too dangerous, for Adair did not know if the new king had ordered the deaths of Edward IV’s sons. She strongly doubted it, for his own mother was one of his strongest influences, and Lady Margaret Beaufort would have never condoned such behavior. She was not so sure about Jasper Tudor or Lord Stanley. Still, she would take no chances in the matter. She explained young Anthony’s arrival by saying he was her Uncle Dickon’s personal messenger to her, and had been for the past year. When word of the king’s death had come to Middleham he had ridden to tell her, and she had asked him to remain for his own safety, as he had no family.

She left Hillview just as the late-autumn sun came over the horizon, returning with her escort of two to Stanton. The weather grew colder, and several days later there was a light snow that just dusted the ground.

Looking out from her bedchamber window Adair saw the moon was almost full, and reflecting itself against the snowlit night landscape brightly. She sighed. It was so beautiful, but it would have been more beautiful if Andrew had been by her side sharing it. How odd. She loved him more now that he was dead than she had when he had been living.

December came and went. There was little celebration at Stanton. Their mourning was deep, and lasted the winter long. She had not heard from her half sister in many months. Not since before the battle that had brought down Richard of Gloucester, and put Henry of 
Lancaster and Elizabeth of York upon England’s throne.

But one bright early spring day a party of horsemen arrived at Stanton Hall.

“I have a message for your mistress from my lady Queen Elizabeth,” the captain said to Albert, who greeted him.

“My mistress is out in the near meadows counting the calves,” Albert said. “I will send for her immediately.”

And he dispatched a servant to find Adair.

When she came into the hall, the captain jumped from the chair by the fire, where he had been seated enjoying a cup of ale. He bowed to her.

“I am the Countess of Stanton,” she told the captain.

“You have a message for me from my lady the queen?”

She held out her hand.

“The message I bear is a verbal one, madam. I have been ordered to escort you with all due haste to the queen at Windsor,” the captain said.

“It will take my servant several days to pack,” Adair replied.

“Nay, madam.” The captain looked uncomfortable.

“We must leave on the morrow, and you can bring no one with you. A woman from the queen’s household has traveled with us to serve you.”

“Is the queen all right?” Adair asked anxiously.

“Aye, madam, her health is excellent. The queen is with child, or so the rumor goes,” the captain said.

“Praise God and his sweet Mother for that blessing!”

Adair said. “Albert will see to your men, Captain. I will be ready to depart at sunrise. Will you send the serving woman who traveled with you to me?”

Elsbeth was most put out that she was not able to travel with her mistress. “As much as I dislike those long days on the road, I do not like leaving you alone with strangers,” she grumbled. “Why, I should like to know, must you travel without me?”

“I think that the queen wishes to see her ladyship as soon as possible,” the serving woman who had been
 
sent to escort Adair said. Her name was Clara, and she was a bit dour. “Her Highness did not share her reasons with me.”

“Well, you had best take good care of my mistress,”

Elsbeth said. “I have had her in my charge since she was born.”

Clara was fed and given a bed space for the night.

“I don’t like her,” Elsbeth grumbled. “I don’t understand why Lady Elizabeth didn’t want you to travel with your own servant. She knows me.”

“Perhaps she remembers how much you disliked 
traveling when we moved from palace to castle and back again,” Adair suggested. “Elizabeth has an eye for detail, and has ever been thoughtful of others.”

“Humph,” Elsbeth said. “I’ve packed a trunk for you.”

Adair shook her head. “We have to travel quickly, the captain said. I’ll be riding, and there will be no place for a trunk. We can pack two saddlebags with what I will need. I’ll ride astride, and wear breeches. Give me two clean chemises, and two simple gowns, my ribbon crispine with the ruby red jewel, the black pair of sollerets. I’ll wear a warm cape over my breeches, shirt, and jerkin, and my boots.”

“It’s hardly what my lady the Countess of Stanton should be seen in at Windsor,” Elsbeth muttered. “What can you be thinking of, my lady?”

“If Bess wishes to see me now then I shall go with all possible haste,” Adair answered her serving woman. “If this were to be a social visit the queen would have sent me a missive and given me time to prepare. This is something else, though I have no idea what it is she wants of me. Still she is queen now, and she is my blood.

I will go with all possible haste, Elsbeth. I doubt I am being invited for a long visit. But if I am mistaken then Bess will see me decently clothed.”

“I should be with you,” Elsbeth muttered.

*
*
*

The trip south was quick. The queen’s captain was delighted that Adair could ride astride, for it allowed them to cover more miles each day. The serving woman, Clara, hiked her skirts up and rode astride as well.

When they finally reached Windsor she brought Adair to the servants’ dormitory, where Adair did not recall ever having been. Asked, Clara provided Adair with a basin of warm water and a rag. Adair took the worst of the dirt from her face, neck, and hands. She longed for a bath.

Opening one of her saddlebags, she drew out a gown of orange-red velvet, and carefully unfolded it. It showed scarcely a wrinkle, for Elsbeth had a special way of packing garments. Carefully Adair shook the velvet out, donned a clean chemise, and slipped the gown over her head. It had long, tight sleeves and a small, square neckline. Its hemline was neatly bound. Elsbeth had thought to pack a small cloth of gold girdle that was embroidered with pearls and clear sparkling stones. Adair affixed the girdle about her hips.

Her hair was dusty, but vigorous brushing brought its shine back. Seeking the ribbon crispine with its centered ruby stone, she drew it over her head and down over her forehead. She wished she had a glass in which to observe her preparations. Pulling out her sollerets, she slipped her feet into them. It was already the noon hour, and Adair hadn’t eaten since a breakfast of porridge and stale bread early this morning at the convent in which they had overnighted. She was hungry, but Clara was insistent that they go to the antechamber outside of the royal receiving rooms.

“Are you not to take me to my lady the queen?”

Adair asked the woman.

“I was told to bring you where I’m bringing you,”

Clara said.

And when they had arrived Clara departed, leaving Adair amid a crowd of strangers. Amid the crowd of petitioners Adair knew she would be received when she
 
was wanted, but still she went to the majordomo keeping the door and said to him, “I am the Countess of Stanton. The queen sent for me.”

The majordomo nodded an acknowledgment, and 
Adair stepped away. She found a discreet corner with a bench, and sat down to wait. Around her the crowd waited and gossiped. She didn’t recognize anyone from her time at court.

“Well,” she heard a nearby voice say, “I have it on the most reliable source that he murdered them himself.”

“No! Who told you that?” a second voice asked.

“I cannot say, for I should betray a confidence, my lord, if I did,” the first voice replied. “He strangled those two poor innocent little princes with his own hands.”

“The monster! Where was it done?”

“In the Tower even before he set the crown upon his own head,” voice one said.

“But I had heard he had moved them to Middleham,” 
voice two remarked.

“Did you?” Voice one was doubting. “Not according to my sources, sir.”

“Did you hear he attempted to bed his own niece, now our queen, in an effort to save his throne? And I have heard he practiced some rather lustful perversions with his own son, and that is why the child died,” voice two remarked.

“Well, we are well rid of Richard the usurper. He was obviously a most evil man, and is surely already roasting in hellfire for his wickedness,” the first voice said.

“Have you heard the rumor that the young queen is with child?”

Adair sat, shocked by the conversation she had just heard. She had wanted to leap up and deny the filth the two men were spewing forth about Richard of Gloucester to those gathered about them and listening avidly.

But instead she bit her tongue and remained silent.

She had lived at court long enough to know when to fight a battle and when not to. It didn’t matter what 
these nobodies thought. Adair Radcliffe knew the kind of man her Uncle Dickon had been. He had been honorable, decent, and kind. He was a man of great faith, and while she didn’t really know who had sent their minions to Middleham to murder her half brothers, she knew it wasn’t Richard of Gloucester, for he was already dead when the princes had been killed.

The day waned, and finally the majordomo an
nounced, “Their majesties will receive no one else today. Come back tomorrow.”

The chamber began to empty, but Adair remained where she was. Surely Bess would send someone for her soon. The lights in the antechamber were dimmed, and the majordomo came to say that she could not remain.

Adair got up and slowly walked from the room. She had no idea of where she should go. On the occasions she had stayed at Windsor as a part of the royal nursery they had been confined to their own apartments and a small garden unless they were invited to ride. Adair had no idea where she was.

She was tired and she was hungry and she was confused. Why had Bess sent for her only to ignore her?

“My lady?”

She turned to see a serving girl. “Yes?” she replied.

“Are you the Countess of Stanton?” the girl asked. “I thought I remembered you.”

“I am she,” Adair answered. “Can you help me? I have no idea of where I am, or what arrangements have been made for me for the night. The queen sent to Stanton for me to come.”