A Dangerous Love (39 page)

“I am told you are his mistress,” Prince James said, ignoring everyone else around him. His admiring glance was unmistakable as it swept over Adair.

“I am,” Adair said. She recognized his interest.

“I think I envy your bonnet laird that he has so beautiful a mistress,” the prince murmured low, and taking up her hand, he kissed it a lingering kiss.

“You flatter me, Your Highness,” Adair said, 
curtsying.

He bent and whispered in her ear, “I would do far more than flatter if you would permit it, madam.” He kissed the palm of her hand now.

“Again you flatter me,” Adair said, “but I know Your Highness will understand that I must refuse his kind and generous proposal, for I have a certain loyalty to the Bruce.”

“No loyalty to your prince?” James Stewart said low.

“I am English, Your Highness,” she told him with a mischievous smile.

The prince laughed. “You would still be as clever were you Scots, madam,” he said ruefully. “It is with regret that I must accept your decision.” He tipped her face up to his and kissed her softly on her lips. Then, turning to Lord Home, he asked, “When do the games begin?”

“I believe they are starting shortly,” Alexander Home replied. “Come along, Your Highness, and we will join them. I believe you wished to take part in the caber toss.”

Adair saw the look on Conal’s face, and she almost laughed, but instead she put a hand upon his arm and said low, “Control your temper, my lord. He will be king one day, and you do not wish to offend.”

“He had no right to kiss you,” the laird growled.

“It was but a kiss,” Adair murmured. “He wanted more, but I refused.”

Conal Bruce grew red in the face. “
More?
He dared?”

Adair laughed. “Why would you care, my lord? I am but your slave. Actually you would have gained great favor with him if you had offered me to him. Now let us find that hairbrush you promised me. Tonight I shall teach you how to brush my hair.”

He was close to exploding. Prince James wanted to futter Adair, and she was not in the least offended.

And why was she taunting him that she was his slave?

He had never treated her like one, and God only knew she had never behaved like one. “I will buy your brush,”

he said coolly, “and then I am going to take part in the caber toss.”

He was jealous, Adair realized. Now, why would he be jealous? He didn’t love her. Or did he? Was he in love with her but too proud to tell her? She almost giggled, but refrained from showing her amusement. Unless he admitted to his love for her she would leave him on the last day of September, for her term of servitude would then be up. The Stanton she had known and loved was gone, but the village was certainly still there. She would go home, and if Elsbeth would come with her, fine. If not she would go alone. She had traveled alone before.

The borders between England and Scotland were no worse than the highways between London and the north. Only the terrain was rougher.

They found the peddler selling brushes and combs.

Adair chose a simple brush of pear wood with boar’s bristles. The laird haggled with the man over the price, but one was finally reached that suited them both. Then together they walked to the nearby open field where various contests of a physical nature were taking place.

Archery butts had been set up in one area. There were footraces being run in another. Several very brawny men were casting great stones in slings across a field.

Finding the place where the caber toss was being held, 
the laird immediately pulled off his linen shirt, handing it to Adair. Then he stepped into the line of men waiting their turn.

Adair moved to the sidelines and was surprised to find the prince there. “I thought you were joining in the games,” she said to him.

“I have already had my turn,” he told her. “Did you come to watch me?”

Adair laughed. “Nay, I came to watch the Bruce.”

“I made him jealous, didn’t I?” James Stewart said, slipping an arm about Adair’s supple waist. “I saw it in his eyes.”

“And so you kissed me anyhow,” Adair replied, a small smile on her lips.

“How could I resist so beautiful a woman?” the prince asked her, pulling her close to him. His other hand slipped quickly into her blouse, and he fondled her breast.

“Stop this instant!” Adair said low.

“He can’t see us,” the prince replied, and fondled her other breast. “Jesu, madam, you have the sweetest tits.”

He stole another kiss from her.

Adair stamped upon James Stewart’s foot and

yanked his hand from her bodice. “Shame on you, laddie!” she scolded. “I know that Conal Bruce is of little importance, but one day you might need his goodwill.

He is a stubborn man, and a proud one. Do not shame him in this fashion. And do not shame me. I will shortly be his wife.”

The young prince looked appropriately contrite. “I will apologize, madam, but you must share the blame for my bad behavior. You are really quite delicious, and a most tempting confection to resist.”

“I can see you have been very spoiled, Your Highness,” Adair teased him.

Then, turning away from the prince, she looked to see Conal Bruce taking his turn at the caber toss. His back glistened with sweat. His muscles bulged with the effort
 
he was expending lifting the great log. He ran forward a few paces, and then heaved the wood across the field.

There was a long moment of silence, and then a great cheer arose from the assembled spectators.

“There’s none who can beat that toss,” a man standing nearby said.

Adair turned to Prince James. “Would you like to try, Your Highness?” she taunted him wickedly, her violet eyes dancing.

The prince laughed. “Nay, madam, I must give way to the better man in this case,” he said. And then he gave her a wink before turning to Lord Home.

Adair walked over to where the laird stood breathing hard. She slipped his shirt over his head. “You will catch a chill if you are not careful,” she told him, standing before him and half lacing the shirt up. “I do not expect you are an easy patient. You won, you know. They say it was a most grand toss.”

“I did it for you,” he told her.

“Why?” she asked.

“To prove to you that I am the man for you, my honey love,” he replied.

“I know that, Conal, but until you love me there shall be nothing more between us than there is now. Perhaps that is enough for you, but it is not for me.”

“You belong to me!” he said fiercely, looking down into her face.

“Only until the end of September,” Adair reminded him.

“Nay! You will be mine forever!” he said.

“Not unless you love me,” she replied as stubbornly.

“You are an impossible woman,” he raged at her.

“And you a most difficult man,” she countered. “Why can you not love me? Or why can you not say you love me if you do?”

“You are going to wed me, Adair. I will not permit another man to treat you as the prince did. Had he been another I would have slain him where he stood.”

“Then you love me,” Adair said quietly.

“I don’t know,” he told her. “What the hell is love anyway?”

“When you find the answer to that, my lord, then I will consider marrying you,” Adair told him. “I’m going back to the keep now.”

“Not without me,” he said.

“I am capable of walking back myself,” she insisted.

“There are clansmen from all over the border here today,” he replied. “You could be accosted by some stranger.”

“Then I will warn them to keep their distance, for I am the laird of Cleit’s mistress, and he is a very jealous man,” Adair snapped back at him.

His hand grasped her wrist hard. “You will walk by my side, Adair,” he snarled.

“Yes, my lord. I will walk by your side, but as your slave should I not be several steps behind you?” she cooed at him.

“Shut your mouth, woman,” he roared.

“Yes, my lord,” Adair said in dulcet tones, and when he glared angrily at her she smiled sweetly at him in return.

A
fter midsummer the weather was dank and rainy. The cattle and the sheep grew fat in the borderland meadows. Sometimes Adair would stand on the heights of the keep, looking toward England. She wondered who had survived last year’s raid on Stanton, and if the king had given her lands to a new lord. And what of Robert Lynbridge and his family? When had they learned of her disappearance?

He had not yet told her that he loved her, and the summer was fast coming to an end. September loomed, and at the end of that month both she and Elsbeth were free to either stay or go. She could not, would not wed him if he did not love her. And she could not remain as his mistress. Adair began to debate with herself about her situation. The truth of the matter was that she was just as stubborn as he was in this matter of love.

Yet she had said she would go, and she would. If she did not follow through on her word he would think her weak. He would make her his victim, and she had never been anyone’s victim. When Henry Tudor had thrown her out of Windsor she had gritted her teeth and managed to make her way back to Northumbria. When she had found her home destroyed she had managed again to survive, and keep her Stanton folk safe. Well, if she 
had to walk all the way back to Stanton she would. And she would make her home wherever she could. Surely there was a cottage left. And if she was alone, then she would be alone. She was Adair Radcliffe, the lady of Stanton, and she needed no one’s help. She spoke to Elsbeth about her plans.

“You’ll go alone, my chick,” her old Nursie told her.

“I love you best of any in this world, but I cannot stop you from your own foolishness. We have a home here, and the laird loves you. He would wed you if only you would say yes.”

“He does not love me or he would say it,” Adair replied. “How can I stay, Elsbeth? How can I wed a man who has so little care or respect for me?”

Outside of the kitchens the rain poured down, but the hot fire in the hearth took the damp and the chill from the room. They had somewhere along the way acquired a large, fat orange cat who had become Elsbeth’s especial pet. The cat, a rather excellent hunter, kept the kitchen, the larder, and the pantry free of rats and mice.

Elsbeth spoiled him outrageously, and he now snored in her lap.

“Conal Bruce is not John Radcliffe or your uncle Dickon, my child,” Elsbeth said. “He is not a civilized English gentleman like Andrew Lynbridge or his brother, Robert. He is a rough-hewn Scots borderer, but his heart is good. He cares for you. I see it in his eyes when he looks at you. But like many men he has not the talent for speaking what is in his heart. You must accept that, Adair.

“Why would you go back to Stanton? There is nothing there for you. You love Conal Bruce, though you will not tell him. You have a chance at happiness, my child. Do not walk away from it. Not now. Not when you are carrying his child,” Elsbeth concluded. “The bairn deserves to know his father, and you deserve a good husband.”

Adair’s mouth fell open. “What do you mean, now that I am carrying his child?”

“You have had no bloody flux since early summer, my child. Were you not concerned by its absence? Flora and Grizel do the laundry, and they only recently mentioned the lack of bloody rags,” Elsbeth remarked.

“Oh, Jesu, I am a fool!” Adair cried. “I have been so busy helping Conal to earn a bit of coin for his cattle without his realizing I was helping him that I did not notice. Well, perhaps I did notice recently, but I put it from my mind.”

“The bairn will probably come in the very early spring,” Elsbeth said. “You must tell the laird, Adair.”

“If I tell him he will force me into marriage,” Adair said low.

“If you do not tell him within the next few days then I must,” Elsbeth answered. “This child will not be bastard-born when his father wants him, and he will.”

But Adair was afraid to tell Conal of the coming child, even as he struggled with telling her that he loved her.

September was half over now, and the hunting for the cold larder had begun again. The weather, so rainy the summer through, had turned clear and sunny. The laird and his men were out every day, even on the one day it had rained. It was a hard storm, and Conal Bruce returned home feeling ill. By morning he was burning up with fever. He struggled to get from his bed.

“We have to hunt. The grouse are scarce this season, and I haven’t seen a single deer in days,” he told her.

“You can’t go. You’re sick,” Adair said.

“But we need the game for winter,” he protested.

Then he fell back on his pillows. He was pale, and his forehead was dotted with beads of sweat.

“Your brothers can go,” Adair told him. “You are staying in bed, my lord.”

“Ah, you lustful wench, you just wish to have your way with me,” he teased her weakly, attempting to leer, but then he began to cough.

Adair smiled at him. “I am going to prepare one of my evil potions to give you,” she said. “You are to remain where you are. I won’t be long.” Adair turned and left the bedchamber. Down in the hall she found Duncan Armstrong and young Murdoc. “Your brother is sick. It was being out in that storm yesterday. Have none of you any sense that you did not return home when it began to rain?” she demanded of them. “Eat your food, and then you must take the men hunting again. Conal tells me the game has been scarce.”

“He’s not well enough to hunt?” Duncan asked.

“He’s burning with fever,” Adair said. “He must remain in bed, and I must dose him to rid him of the evil humors that plague him.”

“If he has agreed to remain abed then he must really be ill,” Duncan noted. “Tell him not to worry. Murdoc and I will take the men and do the hunting.”

“I will need your help,” Adair told the brothers quietly. “This is not a simple thing, and Conal must remain in bed for several days. He will be more at ease if he knows you have been successful. The cold larder is empty, but it is just September. There is time yet to fill it, but if you should find a deer today I know Conal would rest easier for it. Now I must go to my apothecary and brew a potion for him to ease his cough and his fever.”