Chapter Twelve
Six months later
Did I hear that correctly?
“What do you mean, there is no more money?”
Maximilian was facing off against his wife in the solar of Alston’s great keep. He’d come looking for coin, and Emmeline told him that there wasn’t any more. Enraged, he looked at the woman as if she’d just committed some horrible crime, but Emmeline wasn’t backing down.
She stood her ground.
“Just what I told you,” she said steadily. “You have managed to spend all of the coin we had. I’m expecting payment for an ore shipment any day now, but I do not know when that is coming, so if you want money, you’ll have to ask your father for it or you’ll have to wait.”
Maximilian was furious. In the past six months, with drinking and whoring and eating like a king, he’d managed to put on a good deal of weight.
No tournament riding meant he wasn’t working off what he ate or drank.
Additionally, his right arm hadn’t healed correctly, and it was painful to hold the lance, or anything else, with that wrist, so he was facing the end of his tournament career and grossly unhappy for it.
He blamed Emmeline entirely.
Lady de Witt, he called her. He couldn’t even bring himself to call her Lady de Grey, not even when she discovered that the one time he’d bedded her in the storeroom of St. Andrews Cathedral had produced a pregnancy.
She was six months pregnant with his child, and more stubborn and argumentative, in Maximilian’s view, than she’d ever been.
He didn’t even believe that the child was his, because they’d only been together once, but she assured him that it was, as loath as she was to acknowledge that he was the father.
Their marriage over the past six months hadn’t just deteriorated.
It had descended into hell.
“What is the shouting about?”
Addax stood in the doorway. Because of her pregnancy, and Maximilian’s increasing alcohol consumption and hostility, he’d chosen not to leave when the summer transitioned into autumn.
Maximilian hated having him around these days because he always took Emmeline’s side. Everyone took Emmeline’s side.
Maximilian was so angry about it that he could spit.
“God,” he groaned when he saw Addax. “Not you. What do you want?”
Addax came into the chamber. “I could hear the shouting outside,” he said. “What is the argument about this time?”
Maximilian couldn’t even look at Emmeline. “She tells me there is no more money,” he said. “I know she is hiding it from me!”
“I am not hiding it from you,” Emmeline said, though it was a lie. She very much was. “You’ve spent it all on drink and women. Why don’t you go spend some of your own money? You’ve made enough on the tournament circuit. Go spend that for a change.”
Maximilian whirled on her, teeth bared. “You’ll not tell me what to do,” he growled. “I’ll break your bloody neck.”
Addax was there, pushing Maximilian away from Emmeline, who had picked up the fire poker. That had happened a few times, too, when Addax wasn’t around. Maximilian had moved in to hurt her, and she’d brained him with the poker. Once she very nearly put his eye out.
“Put the poker down, Emmy,” Addax said quietly, holding out a hand to her in a gesture to lower the rod. “Put it down, my lady. Thank you. Now, Max, you cannot attack your wife. We have talked about this. She carries your son. Would you truly injure your son?”
Maximilian was furious. He kicked a table over and tossed a chair into the wall. “This is my property,” he shouted. “The money is mine. Where is it?”
“You’ve spent it all,” Emmeline shouted in return. “You’ve spent almost one hundred pounds in six months. There is no more!”
Maximilian kicked another chair. Addax was about to bodily remove him from the solar when he heard the gate sentries take up the cry.
Someone was arriving. He dared to move out from between Emmeline and Maximilian to look out of the window, spying his brother as the man went to greet Claudius.
Addax hadn’t seen Claudius in about three months. Quickly, he turned back to Maximilian.
“Your father is here,” he said, putting his hands on the man and steering him toward the door. “Go and greet him.”
Maximilian quit the solar, grumbling all the way. Addax watched the man go to the keep entry, throw the door open, and stomp out to the bailey before turning to Emmeline.
“Are you well?” he asked softly. “He did not hurt you, did he?”
Emmeline shook her head. “Of course not,” she said. Then she smiled weakly. “How could he with my champion nearby?”
Addax put his finger to his lips in a silencing gesture. “What did I tell you about that?”
Eyes twinkling, Emmeline went over to him, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him on the cheek. “There,” she said. “You have my gratitude.”
Addax lost his humor and very nearly his self-control.
She’d done that before—kissed his cheek in gratitude—and nothing on earth had ever inflamed him more.
Not in a rage-inducing sense, but in the sense that he was completely, and utterly, in love with Emmeline, and he wanted nothing more than to tell her.
To touch her. The past six months at Alston had been some of the most wonderful of his life, but also the most distressing.
He’d hinted to her about his feelings, once, but only once.
There had never been another instance. Moreover, his behavior had always been polite.
Polite bordering on perhaps a little too friendly.
He’d been a paradox and had struggled not to be.
In turn, Emmeline had behaved in much the same fashion.
They laughed together, had conversations that lasted hours, and there was a particular board game that they would play and play again.
When Addax didn’t win, he would lie down on the floor, facedown, and refuse to move until she agreed to play him again so that he might triumph.
It was a little routine they had, something hilarious and sweet and warm. He lived for those moments.
He lived for her.
But he couldn’t tell her that.
Unfortunately, his relationship with Maximilian had also deteriorated.
The loss of complete use of his right arm had reduced Maximilian to a sullen, bitter, unhappy man.
Addax didn’t want to behave in any way toward Emmeline that would draw Maximilian’s ire to her even more, because the last thing he wanted was for Maximilian to suspect that anything was happening between him and Emmeline.
God only knew what would happen if that occurred.
So Addax played it safe. Or, at least, he tried to, but when Emmeline kissed him on the cheek to show her thanks, all of that careful composure threatened to shatter.
And he couldn’t let it.
“What have I told you about doing that?” he said, jaw twitching. Then he jabbed a finger at her. “You will not do that again.”
Emmeline didn’t take him as seriously as he did. “It is the most genuine display I can give you,” she said. “It is only a kiss, Addax. Parents kiss children. Children kiss mothers. Friends kiss friends. There is nothing wrong with it.”
“You do not see me kissing Max, do you?” he pointed out. “Next time, simply shake my hand. That is enough.”
She waved him off, irritably, and he quit the solar, following Maximilian’s tracks outside and trying to steady his breathing.
She always made his breathing come hard when she kissed him.
The vixen!
Claudius was dismounting his horse just as Addax headed toward the gatehouse.
He could see Maximilian up ahead, talking to his father before the man was even off his horse, and he knew what it was about.
He was complaining about Emmeline again.
But Claudius did what Claudius always did, and that was wave his son off.
He didn’t have time for his nonsense.
“If the money is gone, whose fault is that?” Claudius said as Addax walked up to him. “I’ve told you to curb your spending, but you have ignored me. I have also told you that if you lose all of your money, I will not lift a finger to help you. Greetings, Addax.”
Addax dipped his head respectfully to the Earl of Bretherdale as Maximilian stood there with steam coming out of his ears.
But Addax couldn’t help but notice that the earl had arrived with three men Addax didn’t recognize.
One was well dressed, while the other two weren’t particularly tidy.
Claudius saw that Addax was observing his traveling companions, so he waved his hand at the men in a silent gesture to dismount their horses.
“I’ve brought customers,” he said simply. “May we go into the solar and discuss the purchase of ore?”
He was looking at Maximilian, who suddenly wasn’t entirely upset at the mention of money coming in. Customers, his father had said.
He was all smiles.
“Of course,” he said, moving swiftly to the man in the finery. “Let us go into the solar and discuss. I am Maximilian de Grey. Claudius is my father.”
He was already moving the man toward the keep, and Claudius had to intercept him. “This is Lord Gavinton,” he said. “He’s an important advisor to King Alexander, and we must show him all due respect.”
Lord Gavinton.
Addas realized that the very Scots that Cole had been concerned with had finally arrived.
Truth be told, Addax had nearly forgotten about them over the months he’d been at Alston, because his focus had been on Emmeline and Maximilian.
Claudius had visited Alston two or three times since their initial arrival, but there had never been any mention of buyers or customers or even Scots.
In fact, Claudius had shown little to no interest in the mine operations other than the money that they produced, much like his son.
But that all may have been a ruse.
The Scots in front of Addax were a testament to that.