A Dangerous Love (8 page)

Jasper Tudor laughed, but it was a cold sound. Then he nodded. “I’ll pay for a new herd of cattle,” he said.

“Including a young bull,” the king bargained.

“My lord!” the Earl of Pembroke protested. “ ’Twill cost me dearly.”

“I’m giving you a king’s daughter for your bastard,”

Edward of York reminded the earl. “No matter how she was conceived she is my blood, and raised with my legitimate progeny as if she were a princess. What good is a herd of cows without a bull? And the herd must be at least one hundred beasts. Young. Heifers. And I will check.”

“Would you beggar me then, my liege?” Pembroke protested. “Fifty is the best I can do, for healthy heifers are difficult to come by in these times.”

“Seventy, or I shall seek elsewhere for a son-in-law,” 
the king responded implacably. “It’s a good match, Jasper, and you know it.” Edward of York held out his hand to the Earl of Pembroke.

Jasper Tudor did not hesitate. He thrust his own hand forward and shook the king’s. “Done!” he said with a small smile. “It is a good match. When shall we have the wedding, my liege?”

“As soon as can be arranged,” the king said, returning the smile.

A
dair ran through the castle seeking Elsbeth.

She found her by the fire in the children’s hall, Beiste at her feet. “We are leaving here as soon as possible,” she told her nursemaid. “And no one is to know.

Not even Uncle Dickon.”

“What has happened, my precious?” Elsbeth asked her young mistress. “Sit down with me, child. You are as white as a sheet.”

“They want me to marry,” Adair said. She remained standing.

“Of course you will marry one day,” Elsbeth replied mildly.

“Nay! They want me to marry now! To one of Jasper Tudor’s by-blows. The king has other plans for my half sisters. Bessie will be queen of France one day. They will give Cicely to Mags’s son, Henry Tudor, for Mary is not strong enough for marriage. And I am to be handed over to Jasper Tudor’s son. I won’t do it, Elsbeth! We are going home to Stanton. Uncle Dickon says the hall is livable. His people put on a new roof, and the villagers who escaped the Lancastrians have rebuilt the village. If I am gone then the king will have to make other plans for this Llywelyn FitzTudor. He won’t bother to send after me up into Northumbria. I am not that important.

Get up, Nursie! I would go now before they can stop me.” Adair tugged at Elsbeth’s arm. “Hurry!”

Elsbeth stood up. “If you would go then you will,” she said quietly. “But no one will expect such behavior from my lady Countess of Stanton. Remember, though, that the way is long, and you surely do not want to leave behind your possessions, my precious. I will need time to pack for us.”

“Nay. Leave everything. I do not want it!” Adair cried.

“We will need coin to ease our way,” Elsbeth advised.

“I have enough coin to get us north. The bulk of my small fortune is with the Jew in Goldsmith’s Lane. I can draw on it from anywhere,” Adair replied.

“Half the day is gone,” Elsbeth said. “Let us go on the morrow.”

“It is just past the noon hour,” Adair responded. “It is June. The day is long. I would go now, Nursie. Now!”

“Very well,” Elsbeth answered her. “Tell me what to do.”

“Go to the stables and have our horses saddled. I will go to my chamber and collect our cloaks and the coins from where I’ve hidden them,” Adair told the woman.

Then, turning, she hurried out of the hall.

Elsbeth sighed. This was, she decided, a very foolish move on Adair’s part. But she owed her loyalty to Stanton, and Adair was the Countess of Stanton. Then she thought to herself that they would be caught by the king’s men on the morrow for certain. “Come along, Beiste,”

she called to the dog by the fire. “We’re going home.”

In the small chamber that she shared with Elizabeth, Adair went to the hearth and, reaching into it, pulled a little block of stone out of the back of the cold fireplace, setting it on the floor. Reaching into the dark cavity she drew out a pouch of coins. Lifting her skirts she tied the pouch strings to the drawstring on her camise. Then, replacing the stone, she took their cloaks and ran from the room.

Elsbeth and Beiste were waiting with their horses in the stable yard. “Do we need a groom to go with us, my lady?” Elsbeth asked innocently.

“Nay, we are just riding down into the town,” Adair told the stableman as he boosted her into the saddle.

“There be a fair in Windsor today, my lady. Beware of the Gypsies,” the stableman advised.

“Oh, thank you, we will,” Adair responded.

The two women rode out from Windsor Castle, the great wolfhound loping along by their side. Out of sight of the guards they turned onto the road north, and put their horses into a canter. Adair never looked back, and for the first time in ten years she realized that she was truly happy. Happy and free of the king’s house. Free of the barely concealed scorn of certain courtiers. It wasn’t that anyone had been unkind to her. They hadn’t. She rarely saw the king. The queen was happy to bear children for the king, but hardly interested in them afterward.

Adair’s world had consisted of Lady Margaret Beaufort, Elsbeth, and her half siblings. They had lived an orderly and quiet life. The boys were prepared to rule, and the girls were prepared to marry. But it had come too soon to suit Adair. Why should she be married before Elizabeth, who was six months her senior? And to someone she didn’t even know, had never heard about until today? No! She would not marry Llywelyn FitzTudor. And when they discovered she was gone that would be an end to it.

But Lady Margaret Beaufort had been laid low with a wretched summer flu. And the Princesses Elizabeth, Mary, and Cicely were off visiting their paternal grandmother, Cicely Neville, who was known as Proud Cis.

And because Elsbeth took care of Adair, there was no one to take note of the fact that the Countess of Stanton was among the missing. It was several days before anyone realized it and brought it to Lady Margaret’s attention.

Lady Margaret arose from her sickbed and sought out the queen. “Your Highness, Adair Radcliffe has gone missing,” she said.

Elizabeth Woodville looked annoyed at this news.

“Missing?” she said. “What do you mean by missing?”

“She has not been seen for several days; nor has her servant, Elsbeth. They are nowhere to be found in the castle, Your Highness,” Lady Margaret answered.

The queen looked even more annoyed. It had been a lovely summer so far. Her three oldest daughters had gone to their grandmother’s, thus saving her the usual burden of entertaining the king’s mother, who made no secret of her dislike for Elizabeth Woodville. She didn’t want to be bothered by this problem, and it was certain to be a large problem if Adair Radcliffe had run off with some squire, which was undoubtedly the case. “I will call for the king,” the queen announced. “He must be made aware of this dilemma, and it is he who must decide what is to be done.” She signaled to her personal page.

“Go and fetch your master, my lad. Tell him it is urgent.”

The page ran off, and the two women sat waiting in silence. It was close to an hour before the king arrived in the company of his brother, Richard. The queen glowered. She did not like Richard of Gloucester, nor he her.

“What is so urgent that you take me from my council, madam?” Edward demanded of his wife. “I ended a meeting that needed to be continued.”

“Adair Radcliffe has gone missing. Her servant also,”

the queen said. “Mags can tell you more, for I know nothing of it.” Her blue eyes already indicated her boredom.

The king looked to Lady Margaret Beaufort.

“Madam?” he said questioningly.

“I have been ill, my liege, and was not made aware until today that both Adair and her servant, Elsbeth, are nowhere to be found,” Lady Margaret said. “Her usual companions are off with your mother, and only this
 
morning did a little maid note that her bed hadn’t been slept in for several nights. We have scoured the castle, but she is nowhere to be found, yet all her belongings are in her chamber.”

“What about that great dog of hers?” the duke wanted to know.

Lady Margaret thought a long moment, and then said excitedly, “You are right, my lord! The dog is gone too.”

“Adair has run away,” Richard of Gloucester 
pronounced.

“What the hell do you mean, she has run away?” the king demanded.

“Did you tell her that she was to wed Jasper Tudor’s bastard, Edward?” the duke asked his elder brother.

“Aye, I did,” the king said. “And the sooner the better.”

“And what was her reaction to such news?” the duke pressed his sibling.

“She said she didn’t want to marry yet. That she wanted to go home to Stanton Hall and reacquaint herself with her lands and her people,” the king said.

“A reasonable request,” the duke murmured, “but knowing you, Edward, you persisted in impressing your will upon Adair. Unfortunately, Adair is much like you in temperament.” He chuckled. “You would have your way, but so would she.”

“Adair is my brat, and should be grateful that we took her in when her family was slaughtered,” the king snapped. “She is almost sixteen, and ripe for bedding. It is time she was married, Richard. And it is time she begin repaying her debt to me by taking a husband of my choosing, helping me to unite once and for all York and Lancaster.”

“I will not disagree with you, Edward, but a touch more diplomacy would have served you better here than your iron determination to be obeyed. You know little about Adair other than that you fathered her on Jane Radcliffe in a bout of lust. The girl is intelligent, 
and she is devoted to the house of York. The only thing she knows about the house of Lancaster is that some of its adherents murdered her mother and foster father.

That she was driven from her home at a tender age. Yet you chose for her husband the bastard of one of the most important men of Lancaster. While I understand your reasoning, Adair did not.

“You did nothing, Edward, to prepare her for this event. To explain to her the small part she would play in helping to unite the two warring houses. She is very fond of Lady Margaret. Admires her. If you had spoken with Mags and told her of your plan, she could have aided you in readying Adair for this marriage. You did not treat your daughter with the respect that she is due, and now she has run away. The fact that she took none of her possessions but for the dog who was hers to begin with tells me she has washed her hands of you, would not be beholden to you again in any manner,”

the duke concluded. “Would you like me to go after her for you?”

“Nay!” the king snapped. His younger brother’s words had stung him deeply. Adair had no right to attempt to dictate to her king what she would or she would not do. “She will marry the FitzTudor lad, and I do not need her presence to manage that union,” the king said. “I am Adair’s legal guardian. I have agreed to the match, and the marriage will be celebrated by proxy.

One of my daughters can stand in for the bride.”

Richard of Gloucester shook his head. “Edward, do not do this,” he advised his older brother. “You can accomplish what you want if you will just wait a short while and let me speak with Adair. Why must you rush this union?”

“Because I would have Jasper Tudor satisfied that Lancaster and York can live peaceably, Richard,” the king said. “A union with our houses will accomplish that. I have made my decision!” Then he turned and stormed from the queen’s privy chamber.

“Am I wrong?” the Duke of Gloucester addressed Lady Margaret Beaufort.

“Nay, you are not. But neither is the king,” she answered him. “My brother-in-law is an impatient man, my lord. He wants a wedding, and he wants it now. He will not be pleased to learn it is to be a proxy wedding.

I will tell him that her ladyship the Countess of Stanton has gone north to prepare her long-deserted hall properly for the arrival of her bridegroom,” Lady Margaret said, her dark blue eyes twinkling.

The Duke of Gloucester laughed in spite of himself.

“Now, you, madam, show great promise as a diplomat,”

he told her. “As for me, I had best ride north myself so that my niece is made aware of her fate before it arrives on her doorstep. How old is the bridegroom?”

“Fourteen,” Lady Margaret said softly.

“Christ’s bones,” the duke swore softly. “She will eat him alive, Mags. No lad, even Jasper Tudor’s son, will be able to control Adair. She needs a man grown.” He sighed. “I think I shall not tell her that he is a mere stripling. Let her discover it herself.”

“I would agree with your decision, my lord,” Lady Margaret Beaufort said.

“Could you not convince your brother-in-law to wait for this union?” the duke wondered.

“He is every bit as stubborn as the king,” she replied.

“He wants what he wants.”

“You are both giving me a headache,” the queen announced. “My lord husband has made his decision. You will both help him to see it is carried out.” She waved them impatiently from her privy chamber.

Together the Duke of Gloucester and his female companion walked from the queen’s apartment and into one of the castle’s small gardens, speaking together in low and confidential tones.

“I shall do what I can to delay my brother-in-law,” 
Lady Margaret said. “There should be a negotiation of Adair’s dower portion to be agreed upon. And, of 
course, her possessions must be taken north to Stanton, and she should have a small trousseau.”

“And while the marriage may take place sooner than later,” the duke noted sagely, “the winter could come before young FitzTudor can go north. He might not be able to reach Stanton until the spring, when the snows have gone.”

“A distinct possibility,” Lady Margaret agreed with a brief smile.

“We are in accord then, madam? We will both do what we can to ease my lady the Countess of Stanton into this marriage that her sire wishes of her,” the duke said.

“Indeed, my lord, we are in agreement,” Lady Margaret replied.

And in the weeks that followed, despite the king’s desire for a swift marriage, summer fled into autumn. Finally the marriage contract was drawn up. The king would give his natural daughter Adair Radcliffe in marriage to Llywelyn FitzTudor, son of Jasper Tudor. FitzTudor would have to assume the surname of Radcliffe, as the king had long ago promised John Radcliffe. It was a sticking point that delayed the union, with both Jasper Tudor and his son arguing against it, but in the end they agreed.