The Running Vixen

Chapter 14

‘It isn’t far now.’ Heulwen laid her hand on Adam’s sleeve, her eyes anxious, for she could tell from the awkward way he sat in the saddle that his wounds were paining him.

‘I’m all right.’ He tossed her the semblance of a smile. ‘Sore and tired. Nothing that Thornford’s hospitality cannot cure.’

‘You should not have set out so soon,’ she remonstrated, not in the least reassured, for although his main injury was not mortal, it was too serious to be treated with the lack of respect he was affording it. The wind was bitter, stinging their faces, the sky the colour of a dusty mussel shell and full of fitful rain, and he had been forcing the pace. ‘It was Warrin who was given seven days to leave the country, not us.’

‘I have explained why it was necessary Heulwen, stop fussing.’ He pressed his knees to Vaillantif ’s sides. She bit her tongue and threw an exasperated glance at his back. In her ignored opinion they should still be in London, allowing time for his flesh to knit properly and his strength to return. But Adam, as stubborn as ever, and a querulous patient, declared that he was surfeited with the city and the whole damned circus of the court; that he had cauldrons simmering in the marches that he could not afford to let boil over — his Welsh hostage for one, his Welsh hostage’s brother for another, his new wife’s lands for a third — and nothing his new wife had been able to say or do had shifted his resolve.

They forded the river and clopped through the village, the dwellings huddled together beneath the lowering sky. An urchin with a sling at his waist lifted a stone and contemplated folly until noticed and clipped around the ear by his horrified father, whose back was bent under a load of kindling for their croft fire. They passed the carrier with his train of pack ponies making for Shrewsbury via a night’s lodging in Oswestry, and greeted the reeve astride his sturdy black cob descending from the keep. The news had gone ahead of them with their messenger, and they were congratulated upon their marriage.

Heulwen smiled and thanked the men whose eyes were frankly curious. Adam said nothing, but stiffly inclined his head. As they rode on up the low slope, her gaze remained anxious as she thought back to their wedding four days ago on the morning that they had departed Windsor. As in all her dealings thus far with Adam, convention had been thrown to the winds. They had made their vows at the convent of St Anne’s-in-the-Field, whose abbess was her father’s widowed half-sister Emma. The ceremony, performed by John, was witnessed by immediate family and thirty nuns. Following a hastily organised wedding feast, they had left their guests to finish the celebration, if such it could be called, and set out at Adam’s stubborn insistence on the road home.

It had taken them four nights, and their marriage had yet to be consummated. Adam was too sore and saddle-weary to take advantage of his altered state, and there had been no privacy on their nightly stops. They had bedded down among his men in the halls and guest houses where they had been given hospitality, rolled in their cloaks around the hearth for warmth.

Heulwen had begun to notice an air of constraint in him. He scarcely addressed a word to her, and only met her eyes for the most fleeting of wary glances. If she had not been so concerned for his physical well-being, so unsure of her ground, she would have rounded on him with the honed edge of her tongue. As it was, she kept that weapon in its sheath and tried her best to be meek, gentle, and attentive — the perfect wife.

Had Heulwen yielded to her first impulse and berated him, she would have been spared much anxiety. Adam, beset by the pain of his injuries and bodily weakness, was an easy prey to doubt. He reasoned to himself that Heulwen had been forced into this marriage by circumstance, and the anxious, fussy concern that was all she seemed capable of displaying towards him smacked of guilt and was more than he could bear.

He could feel her watching him now but knew that if he turned round, she would be gazing at the forelock between her mare’s ears and would not look up again until his eyes turned elsewhere. Giving vent to his frustration, he kicked Vaillantif with more force than was prudent as they reached the gatehouse and in consequence received a jolt of speed from the horse that whiplashed pain through his body and made him gasp.

The guards saluted him and a groom ran to catch the stallion’s bridle. Adam gripped the pommel so hard that the oak leaf design carved upon it was imprinted on his palm. Before anyone had time to help her from her own saddle, Heulwen was down from her horse and hastening to her husband.

‘I knew we should have rested up in Shrewsbury for another day,’ she said with self-recrimination. ‘Look, there’s blood on your tunic!’

‘Hush, Heulwen.’ He glanced around the busy ward. ‘Do you want my people to think I have brought a shrew to rule them?’

‘Adam, it’s no light matter!’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘You have been very fortunate. You could still take the wound fever or stiffening sickness, or perhaps just die because you have pushed yourself too far.’

His tension eased a little and a hint of natural colour returned to warm his face. ‘I admit to folly, but there is no need to publish it abroad.’ He touched her cheek and saw her own colour come up. Her eyes were luminous and he could have drowned in them. Abruptly he said, ‘Your grandfather is waiting,’ and removed his hand to command Austin to help him down.

She saw that his face had closed again, every plane taut and resisting, and with a feeling of helplessness she turned from him, lifted her skirts and cloak free of the bailey floor and almost ran to the old man who stood expectantly at the foot of the forebuilding steps. With a cry of relief, she cast herself into the haven of his embrace, and hugged him tightly.

‘How now, child,’ he said softly. ‘It is a smile that I thought to see on your face, not these floods of tears!’ And then with a lightness that covered serious concern, ‘Do not tell me, you and Adam have quarrelled again?’

‘Worse than that, Grandpa,’ she gulped. ‘I’ve married him on the heel of disgrace, and it’s been a terrible mistake. I know it has!’

‘Wandering in the wood again looking for the trees,’ he answered comfortably, patting her shoulder, and looked over the top of her head towards Adam who was advancing on them slowly and stiffly, his face wearing the guarded, defensive look that Miles knew of old. ‘What’s wrong with him?’

Heulwen dragged the trailing end of her sleeve across her eyes and turned in his arms to study her husband. To her own eyes Adam was moving a little more easily now, only his tight jaw muscles betraying his pain. ‘He took on Warrin in a trial by combat,’ she said and felt her grandfather’s hand grip her in surprise.

‘Warrin’s dead then?’

‘No, but severely wounded and accounted the loser and banished from Henry’s domains. It’s been horrible, Grandpa. I don’t want to talk about it, not now. Can we go inside?’

He looked at her bruised face, seeing more than just the fading marks. Hugging her against him, he turned to the forebuilding.

Adam eased himself carefully into the high-backed chair, closed his eyes while he mastered the pain, then opened them again upon Miles and the cup of usquebaugh-spiked wine he was holding out. He managed to give the old man the semblance of a smile. ‘It’s not as bad as it looks. I’m just stiff from the saddle, that’s all.’

‘How serious are your wounds?’

Adam drank and felt the usquebaugh hit his stomach like a swallowed hot coal. ‘Not mortal, but sore. I’ll wear a lifelong scar from hip-bone to lower ribs. I made a mess of things in Windsor, not just my body.’

‘A trial by combat was always a possibility,’ Miles said.

‘Well, yes, but you do not know the half of it.’ Adam glanced at Heulwen. Her back was turned and she was talking in a low murmur to Elswith her maid as they unpacked the travelling chests.

Miles looked too. ‘Like that, is it?’ he asked, remembering Heulwen’s distress in the bailey.

‘Worse.’ Briefly, Adam gave him the flesh-pared bones of the tale.

Miles pursed his lips. ‘No wonder you headed with such haste for the marches rather than make a prolonged feast for those vultures at court.’

‘I was an idiot. If I had not raced head-first into the thing I would not have come such a cropper, would I?’

‘Probably not,’ Miles admitted, ‘but at least Ralf ’s murder is avenged and you have your heart’s desire.’

‘Yes.’

Adam’s tone of voice caused Miles to raise his eyebrows and then, after a moment’s hesitation, reach inside his tunic. ‘I warned Heulwen against walking in the forest looking for trees, and if you are doing the same thing at the opposite end of the same forest, how are you ever going to meet?’ he demanded gruffly, and held out on his shiny, age-creased palm a piece of cunningly worked gold.

‘What’s this?’ Adam reached out, winced, and completed the movement to discover a circular cloak brooch of intricate English craftsmanship — a wolf curved round, chasing its own tail, its eyes set with red garnets.

‘It belonged to Heulwen’s grandmother, my first wife Christen. She was English, and it had been in her family time without memory. She treasured it the most of all her jewels, not for its beauty, but because it represented a new beginning. I was going to give it to Heulwen as a wedding gift, but perhaps it might be more appropriate coming from you when the time is right.’

Adam raised his head to meet Miles’s shrewd, patient gaze. ‘Is there anything you don’t see?’ he asked ruefully.

‘Put it down to my ancient years,’ Miles said with a like smile in reply. ‘That and knowing you are both more stubborn than mules, and I do not have much time.’

Behind them the noise of two stalwart servants tipping buckets of hot water into a bathtub filled the small silence of words unspoken, and when all was quiet again, Miles changed the subject.

‘It has been as peaceful here as a nest when the swallows have flown — neither sight nor sound of Davydd ap Tewdr in search of his fledgeling.’

‘Does he know we have the boy? Are you sure the news has reached him?’

‘The last two market days have been bustling with Welsh faces. He knows, all right.’

Adam’s brows twitched together. ‘Then what is he waiting for? Why hasn’t he come?’

Miles spread his hands. ‘Perhaps Rhodri’s expendable. Perhaps he wants to put the fear of God into the boy by making him sweat awhile. You could always arrange to hang him in public on market day and find out.’

Adam flashed him a look. ‘You are jesting of course!’

‘Bluffing,’ Miles said with a gentle smile. ‘It is one way of testing brotherly affection.’

Adam snorted. ‘And if my bluff is called? What should I do? Let him swing? Or prove my word is so much chaff and keep him neck-whole?’

‘At least you would know whether to change the direction of your attack. If Rhodri ap Tewdr is no good as bait, he may yet make an excellent pawn.’

Adam narrowed his eyes. Their captive’s attitude to his older brother had been ambivalent when he had spoken from his sick-bed, and if Davydd ap Tewdr chose not to negotiate for Rhodri’s life, it was hardly going to increase the love side of the balance. ‘You mean replace Davydd ap Tewdr with someone a little more receptive to Norman ideas?’ he murmured. ‘Someone who has reason to be grateful he was picked out of the road and restored to health rather than being left to die of cold among the corpses of his own folly?’

‘Something like that. The lad’s got a practical head on his shoulders, and while he might dislike us, he’s not yet progressed into hard-bitten hatred. I estimate him redeemable.’

‘So all I have to do is remove Davydd ap Tewdr and unleash Rhodri to replace him.’ Adam drained his cup and sighed heavily. A dull ache pulsed behind his lids. ‘I don’t feel much like confrontation just now. I could sleep for a year.’

‘At least a couple of days,’ Miles amended cheerfully. ‘Which is more than most newly married men ever get, you must admit.’

Adam looked down at the glittering brooch in the hand not holding the empty cup. ‘Yes,’ he said more wearily than ever. ‘But then most men don’t have to fight their way to the altar and take for their bride a woman who would rather run in the opposite direction.’

Through half-closed lids, wound newly dressed, Adam lay on the bed and watched Heulwen pick up his abandoned garments, consigning some to be taken by the maids for laundering and others to be folded away in his clothing chest. His limbs were lethargic, but his mind was as restless as a confined animal. He was home, should have felt at ease and relieved, but perversely he was tense and on edge.

Heulwen set about removing her travel-stained garments and pinned up her braids, then waited beside the tub, shivering a little, while a maid heaved a fresh bucketful of hot water into it.

Adam perused the generous contours of her body. He knew now how it felt, pressed against his in the act of love, knew it within as well as without. Taking her to bed was no longer a darkness of the imagination, but a reality barbed with doubt. Even now there was no satisfaction.

Heulwen dismissed the maid and stepped into the tub, which was constructed from a large barrel with a bench lodged across its width. She seated herself upon it and pensively contemplated the bed and its silent occupant. ‘Adam, are you asleep?’

‘No.’

‘Do you want me to mix you something to ease the pain?’

‘No, it’s not necessary.’

She gnawed her lower lip, wondering how to cut through this frosty reserve of his when all her compliance and concern were rejected as though she had offered him an insult. She tried again. ‘Adam, is there something wrong?’

‘No.’

She heaved a sigh. ‘It’s impossible to talk to you when you keep pushing me away like this.’

Suddenly he was no longer recumbent, but struggling to sit up, eyes wide and amber bright with indignation. ‘Is it any wonder? I haven’t needed a nursemaid since I was a brat of six. I’ve been coddled and swaddled and scolded like some puling infant, and every time that I’ve baulked, you’ve either wrung your hands or sulked!’

The bath water swished as Heulwen grabbed the sides of the tub. ‘I am not the one who has been sulking!’ she flashed in return. ‘How dare you accuse me! If you are going to behave like a brat of six, then expect to be treated like one! You should be grateful for my care, not hurl it back in my face as though I had cursed you!’

‘Grateful!’ he choked. ‘Grateful, when it makes me feel like a leper receiving charity from the hands of a guilty patroness!’ Tears of frustration and rage glimmered in his eyes.

Heulwen clenched her fingers on the side of the tub, throttling the wood in lieu of the man on the bed. ‘Should I then ignore your wounds?’ she spat at him. ‘Abet your stupidity by pretending they do not exist? Adam, you have been worrying me sick the way you drive yourself!’

Abruptly, the anger drained out of him. He slumped back against the pillows, pain etching two deep lines between his brows. ‘Perhaps I do it because I dare not stop,’ he said wearily.

Heulwen finished washing then left the tub and dried herself on the linen towels that the maid had left to hand. She donned a loose gown and said in a voice as weary as his own, ‘You should have taken one of those other girls that Henry was going to offer you. I will only make you unhappy.’

He conceded her words with a lift and drop of his brows. ‘It’s a risk I’ll have to live with. Are you done? Don’t stand there shivering; come to bed.’ He shifted, making room for her.

She hesitated, unable to fathom his mood.

‘Please.’ He raised his lids.

‘Oh, Adam!’ What she saw there brought her to the bed before she was aware of having moved. There was a lump in her throat. She leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. It was meant to be a conciliatory gesture, contrition for hot words scattered abroad, but Adam’s arm banded hard around her waist, pulling her down and the kiss deepened possessively before he broke it to investigate her throat, pulling down the fabric of her gown, parting the deep opening to seek the swell of her breasts.

Heulwen gasped, for this was not what she had bargained for in his tired, weakened state. His weight came clumsily down on top of her and her gasp became an exclamation as he entered her, because she was not ready and he was eager. She closed her eyes and made herself go as limp as a piece of tide-rolled flotsam. Instinct moistened her body and the discomfort diminished. Deliberately she arched and subsided to his rhythm, fanning her hands down over his narrow flanks. He was breathing in harsh, agonised gasps. Without fuss she increased her pace, urging him on, was touched by the edge of the maelstrom herself and felt pleasure burn within her, but before it could intensify or culminate Adam cried out and gripped her to him, his body shuddering with the violent ripples of climax.

She listened to his breath whistling past her ear, felt the sharpness of stubble scraping her throat and the rapid rise and fall of his ribcage inhibiting her own attempts to breathe. ‘Adam, you’re squashing me,’ she told him in a calm, practical voice, and when he did not move, pushed at his broad shoulders, trying to lever herself out from beneath him.

Through the numbness of aftermath and the zigzagging renewal of pain, Adam became aware of Heulwen’s struggles, and gathering himself withdrew from her. He rolled over on his back and with a groan bent one elbow across his eyes so that he would not have to look at her, for he was ashamed.

‘You’re bleeding again and no wonder!’ she reprimanded him. ‘Adam, you need not have been in such haste. If you bolted your food in the same way you’d have terrible indigestion, and serve you right!’

Cautiously he took his arm away from his eyes, drawn to look at her but terrified of what he might see in her face. Her expression was cross; no, exasperated, and the look she returned him was speculative, assessing, as if an item taken for granted had suddenly sprung a hidden compartment. Nowhere did he read anger or revulsion. She adjusted her gown, left the bed to fetch bandages, then returned to him, shaking her head. ‘If only you’d taken the time to ask, I’d have shown you a way that would not have put pressure on that cut.’

Shocked surprise replaced the bleakness in his eyes as he stared at her. For a woman to admit to such superior knowledge of the bedroom arts was beyond his experience, and probably that of most men. Whores, or at least the high-paid ones he had occasionally bought, were usually all soft, urgent compliance, begging and breathless in praise of his skill — and totally dishonest, he thought wryly. He had never owned a more permanent mistress to make him aware of anything different…until now.

Heulwen lifted her shoulders in a gesture that strove for nonchalance but didn’t succeed. ‘I was married to Ralf for ten years. He was the kind of man who grew bored without novelty. Once the freshness of my virginity had paled, he amused himself by teaching me all the other devious little paths to the centre of the maze, and when I was accomplished the boredom set in. I was his mare and I was saddle-broken. He moved on in search of a new mount. In the end, the times he came back to me I could not bear it, knowing that I was just a “good ride” among countless others.’ Efficiently she rebound his wound with a roll of fresh bandage. Her hands were steady. It was her chin that wobbled.

‘Your father was right,’ Adam said gently after a moment. ‘You do know how to choose your husbands. We’ve all been bastards.’ He touched a tendril of hair that had uncoiled from her pinned-up braids. ‘If I behaved badly just now, forgive me. It was because I was afraid and overwrought. Starving men and feasts do not go very well together.’

She blinked hard and turned away to remove her gown, surreptitiously wiping her face on it as she did so. She had cut through the protection of his indifference and seen what was layered beneath, but in doing so had revealed more of her own self than she wished to see. She felt soul-naked, vulnerable and frightened. Adam was watching her — she could feel his eyes boring into her spine. Quickly she pinched out the night candle so that abruptly there was darkness, but when he drew her against him, she went unresisting into his arms and rested her head upon his breast.

He felt her cheek cool and damp and, stroking her hair, wondered if he was in heaven or hell.