A Dangerous Love (2 page)

Thrones mean little to simple folk. But I will defend my home until my last breath, and your mother has elected to remain by my side, though I would wish it otherwise,”

the earl told Adair.

“Mama?” the girl looked at her mother. “Would you leave me?”

“Nay, Adair, not willingly. But I will not leave your father to face the futile wrath of the Lancastrians alone. We will defend Stanton together. Know this, my daughter: I did not love your father when we were first wed. But that is not unusual for people like us. Those of our station do not marry for love. I brought your father land and coin. However, I came to love him, and because I cannot imagine life without him, I will die by his side as I have lived by it. And because you are strong you will survive, and you will remember that I love you,” Jane Radcliffe told her only child quietly.

Adair began to weep. “I am only a little girl,” she said piteously. “I need you!”

“Cease that caterwauling immediately!” Jane Radcliffe commanded her daughter sternly. “You do not have the luxury of sorrow now, Adair. Not if you expect to survive past this day. I did not bear you to see you needlessly slaughtered by a pack of rabid partisan fools!

You must seize the future, my daughter, and live to rebuild Stanton one day. The king, your sire, will see you have a husband, and by agreement with your father that husband will take our name. The Radcliffes will eventually return to Stanton. The Lancastrians can slay us, but if you live, we defeat them for good and all.”

Adair swallowed back her sobs. She stood tall and straightened her little shoulders. “I hate the Lancastrians,” she said in a grim voice.

“Hate,” the Earl of Stanton said, “is a wasted emotion, my child. Do not waste your passions on hate, Adair. Escape Stanton, and live for our family. Come, now, and give me a kiss, my child.” John Radcliffe held out his arms to her, and Adair flew into them, struggling to hold back her anguish. He stroked her sable hair gently, and then, after kissing her on both cheeks, he turned Adair to her mother.

Jane Radcliffe struggled with her own grief, but she would not give in to it. Enfolding her only child in her arms, she held her close for a long moment. Then she, too, kissed Adair on both of her cheeks. “Be brave, my child,” she said quietly. “John Radcliffe willingly gave you his name, and you are his daughter, though another sired you on me. Always remember that, and bring no shame on the Radcliffes.”

Adair stepped back and looked at both her parents.

She was only six years old, but suddenly she felt so much older. “I will remember everything,” she said, “but especially I will remember that I am a Radcliffe.”

“We can ask no more of you than that,” the Earl of Stanton told her.

Nursie came back into the hall carrying a small bundle. “We are ready,” she said.

“Did my serving woman give you the money pouch, and have you put it on?” Jane Radcliffe wanted to know. “There are two gold coins and a goodly number of silver coins inside it, Elsbeth. And did she give you Adair’s garnet velvet skirt? There are five gold coins sewn in the hem of it.”

“I have them both, my lady,” Nursie replied.

“Go south,” the earl said. “Where the sun rises is east.

Where it sets is west. North is over the border into Scotland. South is away from it. Do not travel the roads.

Keep to the fields, and be very cautious. Trust no one, Elsbeth. Adair must reach her sire safely. It is her only chance of survival. And yours.”

“My lord!” The bailiff ran into the hall. “The Lancastrian rabble are approaching the hall. We’ve barred the doors and shuttered the windows, but there is little else we can do. They will break in soon enough.”

“Rally those you can,” the earl said quietly, and the bailiff ran out with a nod.

Nursie picked a torch from the wall holder.

“Come,” John Radcliffe said. He led his wife, daughter, and Nursie from the hall, stopping to take a small lantern and several candles from a small cabinet as he went down into the cellar of the building. A large wolfhound arose from before the fire where he had been sleeping, and ambled after them, walking by Adair’s side.

“Beiste wants to come with me,” the little girl said, putting her hand on the animal’s head as they hurried along.

“ ’Tis not a bad idea,” the earl noted. “He’s intelligent and obedient, and will defend his mistress. Yes, Beiste will go with you, my child.”

Down into the deepest part of the hall they went, and down a narrow, dark corridor. When they reached the end of the passage the earl reached out, feeling about, 
and then suddenly a small, low door sprang open with a noisy creak. “Here is the mouth of the tunnel,” he said.

Then he gave Nursie the candles he carried, and lit the lantern from her torch. “The other end of the tunnel is well hidden,” he told the older woman. “It opens out a goodly mile from the hall in the wood by Stanton Water.

Do not come out until you are certain the Lancastrians have been long gone. Turn to the right when you exit the tunnel, and you will be headed south. Godspeed, Elsbeth, my kin.”

Nursie took up the earl’s hand and kissed it. “God bless you, my lord,” she said. “I will keep the bairn safe.

My life on it!”

The earl picked Adair up and kissed her on the lips.

“Be brave, daughter, and remember you are a Radcliffe.”

“I promise, Da,” she answered him as he set her back down again.

“And remember how much your mother loved you, my darling daughter,” Jane Radcliffe said softly. There were tears in her violet eyes, but she would not shed them. “And be certain you tell your sire that the Radcliffes stood strong for him.” Then she hugged Adair before pushing her into the narrow little tunnel.

“Farewell, Adair. God bless and keep you,” she called as her husband closed the hidden door and pulled a de-crepit cabinet in front of it to conceal it even further.

“Mama?” Adair’s voice trembled at the sudden 
separation and the darkness around her. She jumped, frightened, as a hand touched her sleeve.

“ ’Tis me, my precious,” Nursie’s comforting voice said. “Come along now. We must reach the tunnel’s end as soon as we can.” Elsbeth—or Nursie, as Adair called her—knew that the sounds of the battle in the house above them would not be entirely drowned out by the depth in which they now stood. She did not want the little girl’s last memory of her parents and Stanton Hall to be that of screams and dying. So she hurried the child 
along the underground passage lit only by the scant light from the flickering lamp. The air was fetid, but chill. As they went she noted that the corridor they traveled, while dug from the dirt, was buttressed with stone along the walls and wooden beams above them. She had lived in this place her entire life and never known of this tunnel’s existence.

The wolfhound went before them, sniffing, alert.

When they reached the end of the passage it opened into a small cave with a narrow opening to the outside.

There were, to Nursie’s relief, three stalls in which the two animals the earl had promised them were now saddled and tethered, placidly munching upon the hay and grain in their feed boxes. Beiste immediately went to each horse and sniffed and nuzzled it. The horses replied in kind.

“Now listen to me, Adair,” Nursie said quietly. “You must be very, very quiet. We do not want those wicked Lancastrians to find us here. They would kill us. Do you understand me?” Her mild gray eyes looked into the child’s violet ones.

Adair nodded. Her ears seemed to pick up just the faintest sounds of shouting, and she was almost certain that she smelled smoke, but she said nothing.

Nursie went to the horses and took the two blankets from the rear of their saddles. Entering the empty stall, she spread the blankets out. “Come, child. You must sleep now,” she told her.

“Will you sleep too?” Adair asked her.

“Not yet, my precious, but later,” Nursie promised as Adair lay down. She spread her wool cloak over the little girl. “What fun to sleep in a lovely bed of sweet-smelling hay,” she told the child.

“Will the Lancastrians kill my parents?” Adair wanted to know.

“Yes,” Nursie answered her.

“Why?” Adair’s eyelids were growing heavier, but she needed an answer to her question.

“Because they are loyal to good King Edward, and the Lancastrians are loyal to the mad old king, Henry of Lancaster,” Nursie explained as best she might. “Now that King Edward has returned to England he has been welcomed by the commoners, and the mad king sent packing. The Lancastrians are angry. They strike out at Yorkists whenever and wherever they can, my precious.

But they will not get you! I have given my word to your father and your mother, my little lady. Nursie will keep you safe. Now you must go to sleep, for we have several hard weeks of traveling ahead of us.”

Adair yawned. “Good night, Nursie,” she murmured, and was fast asleep, the wolfhound stretched out by her side, his great head next to hers.

Elsbeth sat in the hay, her back to the wood of the stall, listening. A great troupe of horsemen thundered by just a short distance upstream of the cave. The smell of smoke became stronger. Then there was the sound of thunder, and the rain began to pour down outside the cave, but inside they were dry. The horses stirred restlessly once or twice, and finally, convinced they would be safe for the night, Elsbeth allowed herself the luxury of sleep, curling up on the other side of the child.

She awoke as the faint light of the new day shone beyond the thick brambles hiding the entrance to the cave.

Again she heard the sound of horses, but this time they stopped briefly at Stanton Water. Beiste raised his shaggy head up, listening. She tensed nervously. Then she realized the men outside her hidey-hole were only watering their animals and relieving themselves. They were shortly on their way again. The dog laid his head back down. But she waited until the sound of the troupe had faded into silence again. Then Elsbeth leaned over and gently shook Adair.

“I must leave the cave for a short while, my precious,”

she said. “You will remain until I return. Beiste will stay with you and keep you safe.”

“Do not be long,” Adair said sleepily, lowering her 
head back down again. Her eyes closed, and the dog pressed closer to her.

Elsbeth stood up, brushing the hay from her skirts.

Then, going to the entrance of the cave, she listened hard before drawing the greenery aside and sidling out. The day was gray. The rain was still falling, but now it was a fine mist. All around her it was silent.

There was not a note of birdsong, or animals lowing.

Carefully Elsbeth slipped through the woods and quickly crossed the open meadow before Stanton Hall.

What had been a gracious home was now a smoking ruin. The air was heavy with the smell of wet, burned wood, for the rains had tempered some of the destruction. Bodies were everywhere, and Elsbeth recognized many of them.

She found the Earl of Stanton where he had died fighting before his home, his sword still in his hand.

Lady Jane, his wife, was in another area. She had been stripped naked and obviously violated before her throat had been cut. Her delicate limbs were all skewed crookedly, her fair skin bruised and beaten. Elsbeth could not help but weep at the sight of her gracious mistress so abused. She had to bury them. She could not leave them here for the birds and beasts to ravage. She looked about for something with which she might dig a grave. Finding nothing, she wept harder. What was she to do? And then she knew, although the realization pained her deeply. Turning, she left the scene of destruction and returned across the meadow into the woodland and to the cave where Lady Adair Radcliffe, the Countess of Stanton, was waiting for her Nursie. Adair was her first priority. The dead were dead. Their pain and tra-vails were over now. Adair had to be saved. She had to be taken to the man who sired her so she might grow up and return to Stanton one day with a fine husband who would rebuild it all.

“I was becoming frightened,” Adair said as Nursie reentered the cave. “Where were you? You were gon
e 
so long.” She had awakened and was walking nervously about the little cave.

“I went to the hall,” Elsbeth said candidly. “They are all dead, my lady. Now we must leave here. The countryside is like a tomb. Not a creature is stirring.”

“I have shaken the blankets and rolled them up,”

Adair told Nursie. “But I am too little to replace them on the horses.”

“I will do that,” Elsbeth replied. “Are you hungry?”

“Yes,” Adair answered her. “I should like some oat porridge and ham.”

“I can give you bread, a sliver of cheese, and an apple,” Elsbeth said quietly.

Adair pressed her lips together with disapproval.

“We have no fire, no kettle, no oats, or a larder,” Elsbeth continued, “and many like us have not what we have, my lady.”

Adair sighed deeply. “Give me what you can then, Nursie,” she said.

Elsbeth portioned out the food carefully. Who knew how long it would be before they would run out of the supplies the earl had had packed for them? Or where they would be able to purchase more? If they were fortunate they might come upon a monastery or convent, and beg a night’s shelter and a meal or two. But she suspected their travel would be rough for most of the way south to London. There might be inns here and there, but such places were to be avoided. They were peopled by thieves and dishonest folk who would consider her and the child she shepherded vulnerable to their chi-canery. No, the weeks ahead of them would not be easy.

She quickly fed the child.

Then she led a horse from its stall, tightened its cinch, replaced the blanket behind its saddle, and looked to Adair. “Have you relieved yourself, child?” she asked.

Adair nodded solemnly.

Elsbeth picked her up and set her astride the animal.

Then she tightened the cinch on the horse she would 
ride, put the second blanket behind the saddle, and tied on the small bundle she had packed the previous day.

Then she clambered up onto the horse, and with the wolfhound by their side they exited the cave. The woman turned her mount to the right as they came forth, remembering the earl’s instructions. For several hours they followed Stanton Water, which flowed in a fairly straight line through the trees into the fields.