Chapter Eight #4
Livia glared at him. “I would have news of an impending child before you leave London, Matthew. I am an old woman and haven’t time for your foolish delays. You have made me wait quite long enough for this marriage.”
Matthew clapped his hand to his forehead in a gesture of disbelief before removing his wife from his aunt’s overbearing embrace. “Good God, Auntie, to the Devil with propriety and subtlety, is it? You are going to terrify her.”
Livia was reluctant to let Alixandrea go but had no choice as Matthew pulled her free. She was preparing a sharp retort when Mark came through the entryway with Caroline on his arm. Then, her attention was focused on another hapless couple.
“And you!” she screeched at Mark. “You have been married to your lovely girl for two years. Where are the children, Mark? I vow that if you do not produce a child within the next year, I shall leave you out of my will completely. Do you hear me?”
Mark had less humor about his aunt’s gripes that Matthew did. Caroline flushed furiously as Livia gregariously embraced her. Alixandrea leaned in to Matthew.
“She is going to crush Caroline,” she whispered urgently. “Save her!”
Matthew leaned down. “I am afraid that no one can save her now. We shall just have to hope for the best.”
Alixandrea wiggled her eyebrows, struggling not to laugh.
Livia, as well meaning as she might have been, was both appalling and hilarious.
Mark did not fight to take Caroline back as Matthew had, so Livia kept her arms around Caroline as she led her into the lavish hall where all manner of food await.
The furniture in the room was the finest that money could buy; the seats of the sumptuous chairs were stuffed with feathers and the tables were costly and matching.
As soon as Alixandrea entered the hall, she came to a sharp halt.
“What is wrong?” Matthew asked her.
She had a queer expression on her face. Her hands splayed as if feeling for something in the air. “No dogs,” she hissed. “There are no dogs pawing at me. What shall I do?”
Matthew grinned broadly. “Disoriented?”
“Horribly.”
He was enjoying a laugh with his wife, removing her cloak and laying it upon the nearest chair. Their revelry was interrupted, however, when he heard his brother’s voice beside him.
“Matt,” Mark said quietly. “Look at father.”
Matthew’s gaze moved to the massive carved buffet sideboard that lined the south side of the hall.
Adam, so quiet for the past two days, stood with a wine bottle in one hand and a goblet in the other.
While they watched, he poured and drank the entire contents, twice.
Mark looked at Matthew, who looked disgusted and resigned.
He took a step in his father’s direction, but Alixandrea stopped him.
“No,” she said quietly. “Allow me.”
Matthew shook his head. “Nay, love. I shall deal with him.”
She put her hand on his arm. “Please do not take offense to what I am about to say, but you have dealt with this for many years with little result. Perhaps you can let me try. Perhaps a woman will have a better touch with his grief.”
Her words were reasonable, softly spoken. Matthew glanced at Mark, who simply shrugged his shoulders. Matthew did not think it was such a good idea, either. However, against his better judgment, he agreed.
“Very well,” he said quietly. “Try if you must.”
She gave him a brief smile and was gone, moving across the fine carpets and wood flooring with grace and elegance.
Matthew watched her cross the room, simply because she was so entrancing.
She moved like an angel in her blue surcoat and luscious bronze hair.
Every minute of every day that passed and he came to know her better, the more captivated he was by her.
While he and Mark watched, Alixandrea approached Adam and said a few words to him. Adam seemed to look at her with a blank expression, but she said a few more words, smiled, and gently pried the bottle out of his hand. Then she took the cup, setting both down on the table.
A few more words were exchanged between the two, though the brothers could not hear what was being said.
Finally, Alixandrea put her hand in the crook of Adam’s elbow and, with a large smile, led him away from the table.
The last Matthew and Mark saw of Adam, he was actually smiling as he allowed Alixandrea to lead him into the next room.
They were talking; or, at least, Alixandrea was talking and Adam spoke up now and again. And then they were gone.
“Where are they going?” Mark asked.
Matthew shrugged; frankly, he was still surprised that his father gave up the alcohol without a fight. “I do not know.”
“Should we follow?”
“Nay.” Matthew shook his head, but from expression it was apparent that he was unconvinced. “They will not go far.”
Unconvinced, Mark nonetheless lost himself in the food that Livia had presented.
The Wellesbourne brothers could eat more than the population of a small village, and Mark had been known to put away ghastly amounts.
Only Matthew wasn’t eating at the moment, standing by with his ale in his hand, his gaze lingering on the door that his father and wife had just left through.
But that only lasted a few minutes before his curiosity got the better of him and he was compelled to follow.
The room they had disappeared into was another receiving room, as lavishly furnished as the one he had just left.
There was a door off to his right, half-open, and he assumed it was the path to follow.
Matthew found himself wandering the halls of Rosehill until he came across a door leading to the gardens outside.
He almost walked past it until he heard voices coming from the other side.
Opening the door, he walked straight into Alixandrea and Adam, seated on a wide covered porch, watching the heavy rain fall.
Alixandrea smiled up at him. “Greetings, husband,” she said. “Come and join us.”
Matthew’s gaze moved between his wife and his father. Adam looked amazingly composed while Alixandrea just looked cold. Their breath hung heavy in the air as the inclement weather drizzled around them.
“What are you two doing out here?” he asked. “Father, ’tis cold out here for her. She needs her cloak.”
“Then go and get it,” Adam told him. “Be a good husband as I entertain your wife.”
It sounded suspiciously like a command. Matthew lifted a disapproving eyebrow but said nothing. He went back to retrieve Alixandrea’s cloak and when he returned, it was to the sounds of her sweet voice filling the misting air. When Matthew heard the song, he froze.
I dreamt that you loved me still
And loved me forever and a day.
From beyond the mellow sea
I felt your spirit calling to me
And I dreamt that you loved me still.
It was a beautiful song, made more beautiful by her sweet, lilting voice.
Matthew looked to his father for his reaction, noting that he seemed rather distant.
He had frankly expected an explosion given the fact that the song Alixandrea had just sung contained yet more personal memories.
A glance at his wife showed her with a smile on her face, looking straight at Adam.
She reached out and put her hand on the old man’s arm.
“Is that how she sang it?” she asked. “’Tis such a lovely song. Did she sing it often?”
Adam nodded. “I could hear her singing it about the keep. She used to sing it to the boys when they were babies.”
“Ah,” she said knowingly. “A perfect song for babies, as it is soft and soothing. But it is a beautiful song for lovers. The words have such meaning.”
Adam seemed to have difficulty knowing what to feel, or how to react. He started to get up. “I would like something to drink,” he muttered.
But Alixandrea kept her hand on him, keeping him in his chair.
“You do not need drink, my lord,” she said gently but firmly.
“Stay with me. We shall remember your wife fondly so that whenever you think of her, you will do it with joy. She was a joy, my lord, as I said earlier. She was not something to be associated with endless pain.”
Adam looked at her, unsure how to respond. It had become such a habit for him to correlate his wife with agony that he could hardly remember any other way. Alixandrea’s concept of remembering the joy and not the pain was almost incomprehensible. It almost made him angry.
“When she was alive, she was my joy,” he said. “But her death did not bring me joy. You may not deny me my grief. ’Tis my right.”
Matthew listened carefully to the exchange. He had indulged in the very same discussion, too many times to count. His answer was to become angry and try to verbally beat some sense into his father. But that had never worked. Perhaps he was too frustrated to be effective any more.
But Alixandrea was new to all of this; she was of a new mind, new blood, something that Adam might respond to. Matthew had told her that he thought she was of good character. The next few moments might determine just how good of character she was.
Alixandrea could see Matthew from the corner of her eye, suspecting that she knew his thoughts. It wasn’t that she wanted to prove anything to him, for she did not; but she did want to help Adam. He seemed very much in need of it.
“May I ask you a question, my lord?” she asked.
Adam nodded, half-heartedly, apparently not too interested in any question she might have. But she delved on. “What was your wife like?”
“Can you not see that it pains me to speak of her?”
“Please. Tell me.”
Adam scratched at the sides of his chair; not having a cup in his hand gave him nothing to do, nothing to hold on to. “She was full of all of the goodness in Heaven,” he said, bordering on agitation. “She was sweet and kind.”
“Did she have spirit?”
“Of course.”
“Did she give you her opinion or tell you when you were wrong?”
“That she did.”
“Then she was a woman who knew her mind.”
“Aye, very much.”