Knight's Treasure

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The white linen cloth on the table draped to the floor, so the activity behind it remained out of view of the company in the lower hall. But Adela had no doubt the stranger had noticed Ardelve’s collapse. And if he had, others had, too.

Before turning back, she noted uneasily that the stranger was getting to his feet. She hoped he did not intend to approach the dais, but she dared not watch him, lest even such slight interest draw notice.

A gillie and one of Hugo’s henchmen knelt by Ardelve. The henchman’s lean, muscular form and dark, neatly trimmed beard looked vaguely familiar, but Adela paid him small heed. She kept her gaze fixed on the body of the man who had so briefly been her husband.

Lying at the center of barely controlled chaos, Ardelve looked only peaceful.

Gillies poured wine, served food, and made themselves useful. Taking their cue from their betters, they attended their duties as if nothing else were happening.

In the lower hall, jugglers juggled while acrobats did flips and cartwheels. People laughed and cheered them as the minstrels continued their merry tunes.

At Adela’s right, Isabella chatted with Prince Henry as if Ardelve had simply excused himself for a few minutes. But Ardelve still lay where he had fallen.

Hugo’s henchman glanced up at Adela just then, again stirring that tickle of familiarity. Then he touched Hugo’s arm and said something to him.

Looking over his shoulder, Hugo met her gaze briefly before turning to his wife. “Sorcha,” he said, his voice carrying easily despite the general din. “I think perhaps you and Adela—”

“Nay, Hugo,” Isabella interjected, turning from Prince Henry but looking as if she spoke to Adela rather than to Hugo. “They cannot both go. Nor Isobel. You should remove Ardelve to the solar for now in any event, since you three can easily do so without causing alarm.”

“But her ladyship should not stay here, madam,” Hugo said, his kinship and long-proven loyalty to the Sinclairs giving him license where others would dare take none. “To ask that she remain is unfair to her. Nor should you expect her to stay with … with him in the solar until we can arrange matters more suitably.”

“I agree,” Isabella said with a slight gesture to her right that brought Lady Clendenen at once to stand by her chair, smiling as if naught were amiss. Without a blink, she stepped carefully out of the way of Hugo and his helpers.

Standing beside the countess as she was, her ladyship was only a head and a few inches taller. She was, However, a good many inches wider than the willowy Isabella. Her expression, although remaining cheerful, revealed her concern.

“What can I do to help, madam?” she asked with a glance at Adela.

“Take Lady Ardelve up to her chamber, Ealga,” Isabella said. “If you take the northwest stair corridor yonder, anyone who notes your departure will assume the two of you mean to visit the garderobe tower. A casual departure will give those who may have noted Ardelve’s collapse to think only that he suffers from an excess of wine, especially when Hugo helps Einar and Ivor carry him into my solar.”

The name Einar was familiar, too, but Adela lost interest in Hugo’s henchman when Lady Clendenen said, “But, surely, when Adela fails to return …”

“By then, most will have forgotten the incident. Those who recall it will assume that the bride and groom simply arranged a ruse to let them slip away for the usual purpose. Few of our guests have been in the solar, after all. Even fewer will recall that it opens only onto this dais.”

“Why, that is true, for that chamber is a quite new addition, is it not?”

Adela heard their words but paid scant heed, feeling compelled to watch the men prepare to move Ardelve. Lady Clendenen’s touch on her shoulder a moment later startled her so she nearly leaped off her chair.

“Forgive my smiling after so tragic an event, Adela dear,” her ladyship said. “But we must try to look unconcerned unless we want everyone in the lower hall to know what is happening. If that happens, both the concerned and the curious will instantly surround us. But if we can manage to look as if naught is amiss, they will carry Ardelve out quietly, as if he were in his cups. Then, the feasting can continue.”

Adela nodded, grateful for the chance to get away. As she stood, Sorcha said quietly, “Do you want me to go with you?”

Adela glanced at her. “The countess said—”

“If you want me, I’ll go, no matter what anyone says,” Sorcha said firmly.

“Nay,” Adela said. “She’s right. ’Twould create a stir, and I don’t want that.”

“Very well. Then I’ll come to you as soon as I can get away.”

“Smile at her, Adela,” Lady Clendenen said quietly.

With difficulty, Adela directed a wan smile at her sister, then turned to join her ladyship, noting with relief that Hugo and his man had lifted Ardelve out of her path and were taking him into the solar.

“Look at me, dearling, or at the floor in front of you,” Lady Clendenen advised as they passed the others.

“Thank you for your kindness, madam,” Adela murmured.

“Sakes, my dear, you need use no such formal tone with me. We’ll be close kin when I wed your father, so I already think of you as my daughter.”

“Thank you,” Adela said again, finding it hard to keep looking ahead or at the floor, because she had a most in-appropriate urge to see if the handsome stranger still watched her or if he had left the chamber.

Sharp movement from her companion as they neared the west end of the dais drew her to see Lady Clendenen signal repressively to someone. Following her gaze, Adela saw the tall, broad-shouldered figure in the forest-green velvet doublet and yellow hose turning away.

He glanced over his shoulder, then paused when he caught her eye.

“You need speak to no one,” Lady Clendenen said, putting a small but firm hand under Adela’s elbow as they stepped off the dais and urging her thus to walk more briskly toward the nearby archway.

“Do you know that man, madam?” Adela asked, believing her companion would need no further identification. “I own, I do not, although I saw him earlier in the chapel. I also saw him speaking briefly with Sir Hugo’s sister Kate.”

“Aye, sure,” Lady Clendenen said with her cheerful smile. “For is he not le chevalier Etienne de Gredin, one of my own kinsmen? Sithee, he is a distant cousin on my mother’s side and likewise kin to le Duc d’Anjou. He tends to be a trifle encroaching, but he is a most charming and amusing creature withal.”

“He is French then.”

Lady Clendenen shrugged. “Most of us have French blood in us, do we not? However, Etienne’s people came over with the Conqueror, as did the Sinclairs’ and my own. His father, before he died, was envoy to France, and I warrant Etienne has as many kinsmen in France as he does here. He travels there frequently. But then many young men of good birth who have access to boats do, do they not? He wants to meet you, which is doubtless why he had the impertinence to approach. But then, he does not know it was impertinence, because he does not yet know of Ardelve’s death. Nevertheless, I cannot allow him to annoy you at such a difficult time.”

“Thank you,” Adela said. “I do not want to talk to anyone.”

“I’ll present him another time,” Lady Clendenen said. Then, with a direct look, she said, “I hope you do not mean to mourn overlong, my dear. Ardelve would not want that, not for a lass of your youth and beauty.

“Indeed,” she went on before the astonished Adela could speak, “you must not shut yourself away or waste your attractions. A woman of your years requires a husband to be respectable. But I shall say no more about that now. I shall chatter away, to be sure, but you need heed none of it.”

It was as well that she added the last, because Adela could think of nothing to say. That her ladyship could even raise such a subject seemed outrageous, but Adela was sure that any reply she might make would only be more so.

“Such an odd way for Ardelve to go,” her ladyship went on as they entered the stair hall and approached the stairway in the thick walls forming its northwest corner. “Still, I doubt he would object much to it if one could seek his opinion.”

Motioning for Adela to precede her up the stairs, she added without pause, “It is certainly a better passing than my late husband’s. He was wounded in battle, poor man, and it took him months to die. To my mind, Ardelve’s was a gentler way. Not that you will thank me for saying that. Indeed, your mind must seem befogged now, but we will talk again when you can think clearly. In the mean-time, I’ll just keep talking to put off anyone else who might approach us.”

Adela let her prattle on, although they met no one other than a hastily curtsying maidservant before reaching the bedchamber that, until that morning, had been Adela’s alone since her arrival at Roslin.

When she opened the door, the crackling fire on the hooded hearth drew her attention at once. Since she assumed that a chambermaid or gillie had lighted the fire to warm the room, the sight of a man turning sharply from the bed made her gasp and clap a hand to her breast.

Making a swift, deep bow, he said, “I pray ye’ll for-give me, Lady Ardelve. I didna expect—”

“Mercy,” Lady Clendenen exclaimed, putting a hand to Adela’s shoulder and urging her into the room. “ ’Tis a wonder we did not startle one another witless, Angus. It quite slipped my mind that you’d likely be here, putting all in readiness for your master and his lady.”

“Aye, sure, Lady Clendenen. But, surely, the feasting ha’ only just—”

“Angus, a dreadful thing has happened,” her ladyship interjected. She explained hastily.

“The laird be dead?” The man frowned heavily. “But he had nowt amiss wi’ him earlier, nowt that I who ha’ served him these thirty years past could see.”

“Nevertheless,” Lady Clendenen said on note of warning, “Ardelve is dead, Angus, and we must look after her young ladyship now.”

“Aye, sure, me lady,” Angus said. “But me duties now lie wi’ me laird.”

“They do, and you may go to him at once. But no one in the lower hall must suspect the tragedy. I warrant most of them believe he just took too much drink.”

“Beg pardon, me lady, but the laird ha’ kinsmen here, ye ken. Some o’ them will take it gey amiss an ye dinna tell them at once.”

“Those who must be told will be told,” Lady Clendenen agreed. “But few if any members of his immediate family were able to come on such short notice.”

“Aye, ’twas done in a blink.” He frowned. “We’ll take him home, o’ course.”

“Arrange it as you will,” she said. “I know you’ll see it done as it should be.”

Adela shivered at the thought that everyone would expect her to escort her husband’s corpse on its long journey home to Loch Alsh. “How … how will we manage that?” she asked.

Angus was already out the door, but Lady Clendenen said briskly, “You, my dearling, will manage best by letting Angus look after Ardelve. I know I am not truly your mother, of course, but you would be wise to heed my advice.”

“I am grateful for it, madam. You must know far more about such situations than I.” Meeting Lady Clendenen’s astonished gaze, Adela grimaced. “I beg your pardon,” she said. “I should not—”

“Bless you,” her ladyship said with a chuckle. “You need not fret when you say just what you think to me. I am of that same ilk, myself.”

“But I should not—”

“No more apologies, for I mean to speak plainly myself,” Lady Clendenen said. “Your pallor alarms me, child. I know all about your dreadful abduction a few weeks ago. ’Tis because of it that I fear you might look on this tragic incident as an excuse to immure yourself in Ardelve’s castle. That will not do at all.”

“But duty requires that I accompany him home, madam, and see him buried.”

“I do not recommend it,” her ladyship said. “But may I suggest that you will feel better if you wash your face and hands? I am sure there is no hot water in here yet, but there must be cold water in that ewer on the washstand. Let me wet a cloth for you whilst you sit on that stool by the hearth. Despite the fire, it is chilly in here.”

Deciding that matters had been taken out of her hands if, indeed, she had ever held them, Adela obeyed, realizing only as the fire’s warmth began to penetrate that her hands and feet were icy cold.

Holding them out to the warmth, she said nothing until her ladyship returned to her with a damp cloth, and then only to express her thanks.

“Here is a towel, too,” Lady Clendenen said, laying a small one across Adela’s lap before moving to the window. “Sakes, what happened to our sunlight?” she demanded, sweeping the curtains aside, “I swear I saw no sign of this murk approaching when we crossed the court-yard earlier.”

Adela lowered the damp cloth to see curling wisps of mist outside the window. “How thick is it?”

“Thick enough that Isabella will find herself with more overnight company than she expected.”

“That won’t trouble her,” Adela said. “Hugo will be annoyed, because if it gets too thick, he’ll have to take the guards off the ramparts and send them and any number of others into the glen to keep watch over the approaches to the castle.”

Lady Clendenen shrugged. “I’ve seen fog in these parts so dense that one could scarcely see one’s hand before one’s face even in daylight. ’Tis bad near any river, and especially so here with the Esk flowing right round three quarters of Roslin’s promontory. The lads will not find it so murky in the woods.”

Adela pressed the damp cloth against her forehead. Despite the chill, it felt good against her face. And with the cloth over her eyes, she felt a sense of badly needed solitude, if only while her companion remained silent, gazing out at the fog.

Hearing movement of her ladyship’s return to the fire, she lowered the cloth.

“Do you feel as if you could talk a bit now?” Lady Clendenen said as she returned the towel to the wash-stand. “I do not think we should put it off. Sithee, my dear, ’tis your future at stake. I’d not have you make a muddle of it.”

The last thing Adela wanted was to have to listen to more advice. But neither did she want her ladyship to prod her more about her feelings when the plain truth was that she still felt nothing. That she had been shocked at Ardelve’s death was certainly true, but the sensation had passed with surprising speed.

That was not a fact she wanted to admit to his cousin, regardless of how kindly the woman felt toward her. She was distressed at the lack herself and could only imagine what Lady Clendenen would think of such an unfeeling bride. So, with nothing else to say, she kept silent.

Drawing up a second stool, her ladyship settled her-self on its cushioned seat and stared into the flames before she said, “I know things are happening quickly. You’ve scarcely had a moment to think, but people are going to want to know what you mean to do, my dear, so you would be wise to have a plan. Did Ardelve explain the settlements he made or suggest what he might expect you to do in such a case? Not that he expected any such thing to happen today,” she added with a grimace. “But he was a sensible man. I know he left you enough to insure your comfort.”

“I paid no heed to the settlements,” Adela confessed. “He arranged them with my father. ’Tis the usual way, I’m sure.”

“Well, they did discuss some of them with me,” her ladyship said. “For example, with regard to an allowance—”

A double rap on the door barely gave them warning before it opened and Lady Sidony Macleod erupted into the room, her pink skirts still rustling as she said impulsively, “I just heard, Adela, and they said you had come—”

Stopping short in visible dismay, she bobbed a curtsy to Lady Clendenen, adding, “I beg your pardon, my lady! I ought not to interrupt, but I just learned what happened and feared Adela would be all alone. I should have known someone would be with you, dearest,” she added, moving to hug Adela. “How can I help?”

“Sit with us, of course,” Adela said, knowing Sidony would be hurt if she sent her away. “How did you hear?”

“I was looking after Isobel’s baby, but his nurse returned and said I ought to go down,” Sidony said, pulling another stool up beside Adela’s. “So I did, but when I heard what had happened, I came right here to you. Isobel said she and Sorcha will come as soon as they can. Others have begun to ask questions, she said. I do not know how anyone thought they could conceal Ardelve’s death for long.”

Adela suppressed a sigh. Much as she loved her sisters and respected Lady Clendenen, she longed for solitude.

Sidony looked guiltily at Lady Clendenen. “I interrupted your conversation, madam, but I hope you do not want me to go away.”

“No, indeed, my dear,” Lady Clendenen assured her. “Mayhap you can help me persuade Adela that she need not return at once to the Highlands.”

“But why should she?”

Adela said, “I must accompany Ardelve, of course. He will be buried at home, and his home is mine too now, after all.”

“Is it?” Sidony frowned. “Must you go soon?”

“Of course, I must. He is—was—my husband.”

“As to that,” Lady Clendenen said, “I wonder if that need be so. Forgive my plain speaking again, Adela, but I did see you and Ardelve step into the solar before you joined the rest of us at table. You were alone there, were you not?”

“Quite alone, madam. Why?”

“Did he…that is, did the two of you…? Oh, mercy, I’ll just say it. Is it possible that the two of you consummated your marriage then?”

“In Countess Isabella’s solar?” The words came out in a near shriek.

Lady Clendenen’s lips twitched. “I suppose not.”

Sidony looked from one to the other. “No one would dare do such a thing in the countess’s solar with half the world outside the door, madam.”

“I had to ask the question,” Lady Clendenen said. “Sithee, we were talking earlier of the settlements, Adela, and that subject may be troubling you. I can assure you, the important ones would not be affected by an annulment now.”

“Annulment?” Adela stared at her. “I couldn’t. What would people say?”

“Nothing when they learn that I support the idea,” Lady Clendenen said. “Especially when they understand that Ardelve arranged for such a possibility from the start. His death before the two of you had children was always a risk. None of us gets to choose his own time, Adela, and he wanted to be sure you were secure. Do you know his son, Fergus?”

“I met him once,” Adela said. “He is just a year or so older than I am.”

“Yes, and he will marry this year himself,” Lady Clen-denen said. “You would be most uncomfortable living with him and his bride. Fergus would attempt to be civil, as I know you would, but you would still be a stranger in their midst.”

“I could always move back to Chalamine,” Adela said.

“Do you want to go from being a bride back to being your father’s daughter in your father’s house?”

Sidony said quietly, “Would that not be somewhat the same thing, Adela? Forgive me, Lady Clendenen, but Sorcha did say you were reluctant to marry our father if you had to share the management of his household with his daughters.”

“This has naught to do with me,” Lady Clendenen said, clearly taking no offense at Sidony’s words. “You are five-and-twenty, Adela, a woman grown. You have had the barest taste of marriage—only an hour of it! You need not seek annulment if the thought troubles you, but if you do not use the money he left you to secure your proper place amongst Scottish nobility, I’ll tell you what will happen. Do you want to dwindle into an unhappy dependent of your father or your stepson?”

“Madam, even if I could do as you suggest, you cannot mean for me to shrug Ardelve off as if he’d meant nothing to me. I won’t do that.”

“Aye, ’twould be most unseemly. But to wallow in your widowhood with no more to your relationship than an hour-long, arranged marriage would be more so.”

Adela gasped. But before she could find words to express her outrage, the door opened again and Sorcha entered with Isobel. Finding cushions for themselves, they sat on the floor, big with news from the great hall, where word of Ardelve’s death, once known, had spread quickly.

Sorcha said indignantly, “One horrid man actually said that Adela must be suffering from some dreadful curse.”

“Insolence!” Sidony exclaimed. “Who dared say such a thing?”

“Some arrogant courtier,” Isobel said. “He said it is plain from her abduction, and now this tragedy, that God never intends Adela to marry.”

They shared more anecdotes from the feast hall before Sorcha said, “You’ve barely spoken, Adela. Ardelve’s death was a dreadful shock, but surely it is not only grief that has silenced you. What’s troubling you so?”

Adela shook her head, but Lady Clendenen said, “I fear I took the opportunity before the rest of you arrived for some plain speaking.”

When the others exchanged bewildered looks, she added with a smile. “I said nothing dreadful, I promise. I merely pointed out to Adela that she has choices to make and suggested she consider carefully what she means to do next.”

Her ladyship explained, and the conversation took its course once again without assistance from Adela. Her sisters were happy to discuss what she should do, although all three seemed to agree that her future looked bleak.

“But if she truly has money of her own now …” Sorcha began thoughtfully.

“Aye, sure, that will make things easier,” Isobel said. “And you can always stay here at Roslin with Michael and me, Adela.”

“I’m sure you could stay with Sorcha and Hugo at Hawthornden, too, if you’d rather,” Sidony said.

“As to that,” Sorcha said, biting her lip, “I do not know that we will be at Hawthornden much longer. Sir Edward has said Hugo should go with Donald of the Isles when Donald leaves court to return home, and I mean to go with him. I have things to collect from Chalamine, and Sir Edward suggested that we might spend some time at Dunclathy on our way back, to see that all is in order there. We plan to be away most of the spring and summer.”

“But Adela could stay at Hawthornden even without you, could she not?” Sidony persisted.

“If she wants to, I suppose she can. I’ll ask Hugo.”

“She has other options,” Lady Clendenen said. “Besides a generous financial settlement, Ardelve left her a house in Stirling, to use for her lifetime. Or, if she likes, she can stay with me in Edinburgh. I’d enjoy her company.”

“Thank you, my lady,” Adela said. “However …”

“Pray, don’t say that you will not,” Isobel cut in swiftly, and soon the others were discussing her among themselves again as if she were not there.

Adela shut her ears to it all, staring into the flickering firelight, until Sidony said abruptly, “What do you want, Adela?”

For perhaps the first time in her life, Adela did not hesitate to say exactly what she was thinking: “I want you all to go away and leave me alone.”

Sidony’s eyes widened. “But—”

“I don’t want to live in Edinburgh or Stirling, or in any town. Nor do I want to impose myself on you or Sorcha, Isobel. I’ll do my duty to Ardelve, and then I will go home. But all I want now is peace, so go away, all of you, and let me be!”

A moment later, the door clicked shut behind them and she had her wish.

At first, she was grateful, but it was not long before her thoughts and emotions began to plague her. What had happened too many times before was happening again. Unfair though she knew it to be, she was angry with Ardelve for dying, just as she had been angry when her mother had died, and her sister Mariota.

A voice in her head suggested that she should depend on nothing and no one. People could not control the Fates. Certainly, she could not. The voice in her mind seemed so loud that she began to wonder if she were going mad.

Why had she told them so rudely to leave? What would they think of her?

The iron control she had developed had slipped away without warning, and the result was as she had so often feared. She had to regain her composure and keep it, because what might happen if she lost it altogether did not bear thinking about.

Deciding she might relax if she lay down on the bed, she did so without even taking off her dress. No sooner did she shut her eyes than she fell asleep.

A nightmare wakened her. She did not recall details, only that she had been frightened witless as usual and felt as if she were choking. She had suffered from bad dreams since her abduction, but this time her necklace had tightened round her throat as she slept. So, at least, she told herself as she straightened it, the choking sensation was understandable.

The room was dark, the embers on the hearth barely aglow. She had no idea how long she had slept. But if her sisters had left her alone for hours, the chance that they would do so much longer was small. On the thought, she got up, relieved herself in the chamber pot, found the hooded lavender velvet cloak that Isobel had given her, and flung it on as she hurried to the door.

Opening it cautiously, she peeked out, found the landing reassuringly empty, and fled up the winding stairs to the narrow door onto the ramparts. Praying the fog had not dispersed and that Hugo had removed all the men to guard approaches from the glen, she quietly opened the door and stepped onto the wall walk.

Shutting the door behind her with no more sound than a metallic click as the latch fell into place, she felt as if she had shut out the world. The eerie black silence of the fog-shrouded ramparts engulfed her, banishing the discomfiting sense she had had since Ardelve’s death of being swallowed up by well-wishers, critics, and fools.

The result of this peace, to her surprise, was a wave of gusty sobs that wracked her until she pressed hard against the stone wall, seeking comfort from its solidity in the black mist. No one would seek her here, she assured her-self as she wiped tears with her sleeve and began to relax again. She should savor the quiet.

The air felt damp and chilly on her cheeks, but she did not care. The velvet cloak was warm, and its sable-trimmed hood protected her hair from the mist. The chilly, damp air was refreshing, but thoughts of what lay ahead still plagued her.

Although she had declared that she would do her duty, she did not want to accompany a corpse all the way to the Highlands. Such a journey could take a fortnight, and although days were still cool, no corpse could remain fresh for long.

A scraping sound, as of a boot on the wall walk, startled her.

“Who’s there?”

A male voice, deep and unfamiliar, said, “Do not be frightened, my lady. There is naught in this darkness to harm you.”