Rafe fidgeted impatiently by the fire in the sitting room that he and Mistress Ardith had occupied the day before. He had hoped to be away from this place quickly, but Mistress Ardith had refused first to wake Lady Adele at so early an hour, and secondly to send her on her way at the coldest part of the morning.
His patience, never very lasting, was wearing increasingly thin. As he moved from standing to sitting position for perhaps the hundredth time, it occurred to him that he wasn’t handling the situation very well.
Truth be told he was in the grip of such conflicting emotions he felt a little confused. First among these feelings was expectation; that finally he was to meet Adele. This sensation was closely followed by dread that she would be just as he imagined her to be, and last was a rather wild thought of escape.
It didn’t occur to him that he should feel impelled to present her with a favourable impression of himself, but he was conscious of a wish not to frighten her. So it happened that when Mistress Ardith finally deigned to bring Adele before him, he did not rise from his chair, thinking that his size might cause her some alarm.
She was small, thought not as small as Mistress Ardith, in fact compared to Mistress Ardith she was quite a head taller. She had her eyes meekly cast down displaying the longest, thickest lashes he had ever seen, but then he was not given to noticing such things normally. Her hands were loosely clasped in front of her, and she had a thick plait of mousy brown hair hanging over one shoulder that reached past her waist. She looked terribly young; her skin was white and smooth with delicately coloured cheeks, the curves of her face almost childlike in their roundness. Rafe decided in those first few moments that her hair was probably not the only mousy thing about her.
Adele rose from her curtsy and looked up, she had expected to find him standing before her but he had remained seated in the chair by the fire. For a few seconds she thought that everything about him was black; from the hair on his head and the dark eyes raking over her, to the black frown on his brow.
Rafe saw the flicker of surprise in her eyes and mistook it for fear. He had been making as if to rise, but at this sign of distress his movements slowed and he felt a surge of compassion drown out his impatience momentarily. The poor girl… this must be alarmingly new for her.
“Lady Adele, this is Finan of Gournay.”
Rafe’s eyes jerked sharply in Mistress Ardith’s direction, but he said nothing. She must think him someone he was not, it might as well be Finan as anyone. He bowed slightly but Adele neither replied nor moved. Her blue eyes, open rather wide, were fixed upon him in a blink-less stare. Rafe’s irritation flashed up again for she was just as he had expected her to be; a scared little milksop.
Adele had been thinking how very tall Finan of Gournay was when she saw the irritation and scorn enter his face. She wondered what she could possibly have done to incur such feelings in him, for surely she was nothing to him but a package to be delivered to his lord.
She turned a little hesitantly to Mistress Ardith.
“Sit down, my love,” reassured Mistress Ardith, gently directing her to the seat across from Rafe’s by the fire.
Adele did as she was told, the soft fabric of her dress making a whispering noise as she crossed the room and seated herself in the chair. When she looked up she surprised a look of disdain in Finan of Gournay’s face, and lowered her eyes quickly that he should not see the sharp stab of anger that welled in their depths.
Rafe watched her lower her head and a faint flush of colour stain her cheeks, his lips twitching into a mirthless smile. Her show of confusion irritated him.
“I see that you are correct, Mistress Ardith, for you did say that she had been delicately brought up, did you not?” asked Rafe.
Although there was nothing in the words themselves that conveyed his sarcastic displeasure, it was there somewhere in the timbre of his voice.
So that was it!
Finan of Gournay took her for a spineless fool and did not seem to be taking any pains to hide his disgust. For a second her hands clenched into fists where they lay in her lap, but then loosened off again as the flash of anger she had experienced ebbed. Who cared whether Finan of Gournay thought her a wilted flower? It mattered naught to her.
With this decided she began to inspect him surreptitiously from beneath her lashes, deriving an odd sort of amusement from the way the opinion he had of her had put him in a mood of the foulest sort.
He was a well looking man, Adele conceded, and in his favour he lacked the customary arrogant pride that came with such handsome looks. In truth he seemed unconscious of his good fortune. He had faint lines around his eyes, suggesting that in general he was good humoured. All in all his face was, she thought, very expressive. Its well constructed features constantly adjusted in response to the things occurring around him. About him there was an aura of impatient tension and, she decided, he was probably decisive.
He had been conversing with Mistress Ardith and she had not been following the thread of their discussion, but now his attention was again directed at her. She was so startled by his thorough, almost rude, inspection of her, that all she could do was stare up at him blankly.
“Had she better not change for the journey?”
His words, impersonal and cold as the frost, allayed any thought that his conduct toward her would soften as time went on.
“She is ready, sir!” replied Mistress Ardith tartly, thinking that it was not Finan of Gournay’s place to be thinking of Lady Adele’s attire.
Rafe looked over his betrothed’s apparel again, this time a little doubtfully. Her dress was the colour of primroses, soft and pretty, ridiculous in the depths of winter. He found himself rather liking the bright colour, and thinking that it would be nice to see her flitting like a sunbeam around the wintry Valrek.
Rafe was taken aback by the image, and felt very stupid for conceiving such a foolish notion. He shook his head, surprised at his own thoughts. As if Valrek was not made bright and gay enough by his mother and sisters.
“‘Tis sure to be mudded,” he warned at length.
“Mudded?” asked Mistress Ardith.
“Yes, the heat of horse flesh against her will keep her warm, but the journey will be long and muddy in places.” A sudden look of foreboding entered his eyes. “She can ride?”
“I dare say she could if she had the opportunity,” replied Mistress Ardith with dignity.
Rafe’s eyes narrowed in thought.
“Then she will have to be led.” He shrugged. “Either way she must be dressed appropriately.”
For a second Mistress Ardith was frigidly silent. It was only the thought that Adele might take ill if she were not well wrapped up, that caused her to send her charge to change. When Adele next entered the room her dress had been replaced with something much warmer and of a more sober dark blue. Rafe thought it was woollen but did not intend to get close enough to find out for sure. He also noticed that she brought with her another young lady.
She was very beautiful, as striking as Adele was subtle. Her hair long and curling, and was caught back from her face to hang down her back. Her red lips were full, and her eyes glittered with liveliness.
At first glance she totally eclipsed Adele with her brilliance. Yet after a second and third it was strange how he found his gaze drifting back to the calmness of Adele’s face, almost as though mesmerised.
“This is Eda of Mulland, Lady Adele’s companion.”
The young woman curtsied, and as she rose again Rafe noted she was taller than Adele.
Adele was watching him closely; she knew that Eda was beautiful, and was curious as to how he would react to such loveliness. He hardly seemed to notice, instead he turned a considering stare on her friend. Adele thought he might have used the same calculating inspection when weighing up the points of a horse. Some similar notion must have crossed Eda’s mind, because Adele could see indignation in her friend’s face.
“Very well, I shall take her too.”
r />
It was bad choice of words Rafe realised belatedly, as the women gathered turned to stare at him in varying amounts of surprise or offence. He had meant that she seemed fit enough to take the journey, but he could not deny that he had phrased it badly.
He ran a finger over the rough edge of his leather belt, feeling like some errant boy and wondering what it was about women that made him so ill at ease. He supposed it must be because one could never be blunt with them, as was evident by the situation in which he now found himself. The same words as he had said to the ladies, would have caused no such outrage if spoken to a man. A man, Rafe reflected, would not have searched his words for a reason to take offence as women seemed prone to.
The fingers of his left hand tugged at the leather tassels on his belt betraying his discomfort. The ladies were still looking at him as though expecting him to speak again.
Rafe clamped his mouth firmly closed. If he attempted to explain he would only succeed in making himself appear foolish. He knew only too well that in trying to make this better he would only succeed in making it much worse. Mistress Ardith seemed to realise that no apology would be forthcoming and glared at him ever harder. Rafe wasn’t moved; he turned a little, studiously avoiding her gaze.
“Come girls, ‘tis time to make your farewells.”
The sound of her herding Lady Adele and Lady Eda from the room was more welcome than the sound of an enemy’s retreat, and Rafe heaved a heartfelt sigh. Things, he felt, could only improve.
------
Lady Adele and Lady Eda wasted a great deal of time in saying goodbye. It was an experience that Rafe could only think of as trying, and he had to exercise huge self control as the ladies embraced and then embraced again. They had gathered in the small courtyard to say their farewells, and Rafe spent his time slowly turning the grass beneath his feet to mud. He watered the horses at a large granite trough and, as they drank, took note of a small orchard just visible between a gap in the buildings.
He had been surprised by the tears that Mistress Ardith shed. He had not expected anything else from Adele; she was probably crying as much out of fear as for the actual pain of parting. Yet Mistress Ardith’s show of emotion had astonished him, and he began to wonder if he were being too hard on Adele after all.
Several other ladies had surfaced to embrace Adele and Eda in turn, cautioning them that they should never sleep in damp sheets, always to brush their hair a hundred times, and to never eat cheese before sleeping, along with many other things in much the same style. Waiting had never been a strong suit of Rafe’s and he was relieved when finally they were ready to mount.
Adele stared at the large horse before her, her eyes running over its great muscular frame. How was she supposed to sit atop that?
Rafe watched the dubious expression cross her face and realised he would have to help her mount. He tied the rein around a stake and smoothed his hand over the velvet muzzle of the grey horse as he passed.
“Quiet, Charger.”
The horse heard the command in his voice and was immediately obediently still.
All of this Adele watched uncertainly as he advanced on her, put his hands to her waist, and tossed her onto the quiet horse, throwing Eda up behind her. He did not linger at the task but was, at the next second, seated upon his own mount.
It was strange to feel the powerful beast so tame and gentle beneath her. It struck Adele that she should be anxious and frightened, but Eda was a comforting presence behind her. Gradually she relaxed as Rafe took the rein and led them through the fort’s gates and down the steep track that stretched down the hill. Adele and Eda continued to wave to the ladies of the fort until they were lost from sight.
It occurred to Adele that he was still angry, he had not addressed a word more than was absolutely necessary to them. She decided that she didn’t care, it was rather amusing to watch him labouring under such chagrin. Besides how could she be bad tempered when finally she was free of the solid and confining walls of the fort?
Not that she hadn’t been happy there for she had enjoyed love and protection all the time she had been sheltered within its walls. Yet she had always seen her time there as a kind of limbo; a prelude to her life, a life she was waiting to begin.
And now finally it had!
They passed through the village and picked their way through the patchwork of fields that surrounded it.
How many times had she viewed these fields from the fort?
She knew their every line and curve, but never walked through them, never felt the flax heads beneath her fingertips, or brushing against her dress. It was something she had often imagined; how would it feel to push her way through the tangled wildflowers? If she had concentrated hard enough, she had almost been able to imagine the sensation; the drag against her skirts, the fragrant embrace of earth, moss, and sunshine.
She smiled at her own whimsical thoughts: to be thinking of wildflowers when the earth was covered with a light frost and her breath was as little white clouds on the cold air. She turned a little to address some passing comment to Eda, and was just in time to see her friend wipe a surreptitious tear from her eye.
Adele looked away, feeling the sudden plummeting of her spirits. How could she have been thinking about walking through fields of flowers when she might have known Eda was unhappy? She thought of Randwulf, of Eda leaving him and everything she had ever known at the fort, to come as her companion to Valrek.
Had she even had much choice?
No, Adele didn’t think Eda could have had much of a choice about anything that had happened in her life from the moment her father, a widowed Creole, had left her as a child with the ladies at the fort.
Adele remembered clearly Eda’s arrival; the tearstained face and beautiful black hair that had curled over her shoulders in riotous disorder. Mistress Ardith had said that such an unruly tangle did not belong on a child’s head, but she had never cut its luxuriant length.
Adele berated herself silently. Last night she had lain in her bed and felt the unhappiness that leaving the fort would bring to her envelope her in a cold grip. She had felt the anguish of parting, the uncertainty of the future, and it had scared and upset her. How much more must Eda be feeling when she was leaving her heart behind?
It was too awful.
Adele looked at the man riding silently before her. He was easy in the saddle, moving effortlessly with the black horse. In fact, with a black cloak wrapped around him and covering part of his mount, they almost looked as though they were part of each other. As she watched, the horse whinnied and he leaned over to pat its neck.
“Steady you brute.” His voice was gentle, belying the harshness of the words.
For the first time Lady Adele felt slighted, that he should accord his horse more civility than her. For some seconds she was submerged beneath a wave of mutiny, but resurfaced with the thought that he had probably known his horse longer. This observation struck her as amusing, and she promptly forgot that she was not in the best of humours with him.
Of all this, of course, Lord Rafe was in ignorance. He had noticed neither the scenery or the changing moods of his companions, engrossed as he was in his own thoughts. Chief among these was the conviction that it was going to be a long journey home. At least the ladies seemed content to spend it in silence, and weren’t forever talking of things he neither knew, nor wished to know, anything about.
It might not be too bad after all. Valrek was only a matter of a few days away and then he could be rid of them. His mother would…
Great goodness, what was he thinking!
He was supposed to be using this time to get to know his future wife, not counting down the seconds to the time when he could pass her on to his mother.
Be rid of her indeed!
That was the one thing he would never be able to do, and if he didn’t want to make his position untenable he had better stop ignoring her.
“Are you comfortable?” Rafe reined in a little s
o that their horse came abreast of his.
Eda turned away abruptly, hiding her tears that what little dignity she had left to her might remain intact. Rafe was surprised by the rebuff and jerked his head around to Adele. Her blue eyes had dilated, and she nodded her head slowly in reply. Inwardly he cursed her insipidity but, bridling his impatience, he tried again.
“The first time you ride can leave you aching.”
Adele did not reply, but her dark blue eyes fixed upon him quizzically. He found himself strangely unsettled by their steady, wide eyed stare.
“‘Tis possible that I will ache later. For now I’m only pleased to share his warmth, and Eda has ridden before.”
It was, Rafe realised, the first time he had heard her speak. Her voice was quiet and a little husky, the sort of voice with which to whisper an endearment, it was somehow caressing. She seemed to hesitate.
“Why do you call him Charger?” she asked eventually, nodding to the horse.
“He’s a war horse,” answered Rafe, “one of several belonging to Lord Rafe. Charger is the calmest, placid for want of a better word. He would carry you through the heaviest of fighting at a charge, and he would not panic or flinch.”
“I see, and what is the name of your horse?”
Rafe smiled, leaning forward to pat the great muscled neck of the huge animal again.
“Valiant; he has more courage than sense.”
“Charger and Valiant, and what may I call you? Finan? ”
“If that is what you wish, my lady.”
Rafe’s hand tightened on his rein and Valiant jibbed. He had been quite comfortable talking with her, but her words called to mind his deception.
He hadn’t expected to feel bad about it, so... deceitful.
“Finan… Finan…” Adele tested the name, rolling it around her mouth with a frown of concentration. “Fin-an… Finn!” She turned to him, fixing him with her huge eyes. “Can I call you Finn? ‘Tis more friendly than Finan.”
“If you wish, my lady,” answered Rafe, his voice was stiff, and he moved restlessly on his mount.
Adele turned away seeming almost chastised by his unfriendliness.
Rafe could have cursed in his vexation. Finally she had seemed a little more lucid, even sensible, which had surprised him. With one slightly sharp reply he had put an end to her friendly manner and she had curled away within herself. Now she was studiously avoiding so much as glancing in his direction.
As for her companion, although she had refused to speak to him it seemed she had listened to the interchange between himself and her mistress. She regarded him with a baleful stare, as though cursing him for his rudeness. He felt suddenly horribly at fault, a need to explain himself. It hadn’t been that he was annoyed with her, in fact it was quite the reverse and he was angry with himself. She had called him Finan, Finn, bestowing upon him trust and a tentative friendship. Suddenly he had seen that his father was right: he could not win her trust only to destroy it with a petty deception.
How he had thought such a course as he had embarked upon a good idea he could not now recall. How had he not seen the pit falls? No, that wasn’t quite correct; he had seen the pit falls but had thought the means necessary to the end. Now the problem was how to tell her the truth. He had not told anyone that he was Finan of Gournay; Mistress Ardith had assumed that herself and Lady Adele had not asked for verification, but he still felt guilty.
He had to tell her who he was before it appeared that he had tried to hide it from her. Concealing the truth from Mistress Ardith, he was sure she would forgive. However, he doubted she would be as understanding if it transpired that he had deceived her. Still he hesitated. It was ridiculous, he had to tell her and now.
The trouble was in finding a way, the right words, perhaps…
“You know Lord Rafe well?”
Rafe bit back an impatient curse; did she have to ask that just then?
“But of course you do; Mistress Ardith said that you were one of his most trusted friends,” continued Adele. “Perhaps she was mistaken?”
Adele observed that he had declined to answer any of her questions. She was beginning to lose her temper; she didn’t know why he was being so unpleasant. Obviously he didn’t like her, and that was his right in the sanctity of his own mind, but surely it was not his place to make it so obvious? Adele began to hope that Mistress Ardith was wrong and that Finan of Gournay was not a friend of Lord Rafe.
Illumination broke like a sunrise in Adele’s mind. Of course he was not! It was merely that Finan of Gournay’s bluntness overrode Lord Rafe’s gentle nature. Well no matter what his thoughts on her where, she was determined not to be ignored.
“Finn?”
Rafe grappled mightily within himself. He could tell her, but what would her reaction be? His rather too fertile imagination supplied him with all manner of hideous images, all of which were variations on one theme; that she would cry.
If there was one thing Rafe could not stand it was a crying woman. They made him dreadfully uncomfortable purely because he hadn’t the slightest idea what to do with them, or how he was supposed to give them comfort. And if it was not his duty to give them comfort then their tears grated even heavier on his nerves.
“It could be said that I know him better than anyone,” replied Rafe giving in with a sigh.
‘But I never knew he was such a coward before!’ He added privately to himself.
He would tell her the moment they gained his border. That way, when she indulged in the inevitable bout of tears, his mother and sisters would be on hand and he could disappear; he’d gotten rather good at it.
Goodness only knew where this course would take him, but as he had already begun upon it and was now committed, there could be no turning back. He waited for Adele to ask yet another question that, though not lying, he would intentionally answer misleadingly. She said nothing, seeming somehow appeased now that she had managed to force an answer from him. Only he knew how damaging that answer could prove to be for them both.
Chapter Five