Not given to impulse, Perdita threw her arms around the other woman and hugged her tight.
‘None of us know what the future will bring. God grant he will keep you and your son safe and bring you some happiness in the future.’
Kate turned to face her, and for the first time in days a small smile lifted the girl’s wan features. ‘And you, Perdita. Treasure your time with your husband. Now go, David hates to be kept waiting.’
Chapter 14
York
17 July 1644
York had the look of a town that had endured a long siege. The walls and many of the buildings showed signs of damage by the great siege cannons Perdita passed on the way into the city, and the inhabitants, starved and wasted by disease, moved slowly through streets with boarded -up shops and homes.
Perdita accompanied Ashley to a building apparently designated for the care of the wounded. They had brought with them two wagonloads of men, mercifully the last of the wounded at Barton, and Perdita oversaw their disposition within the dark, fetid building, promising to return to see to them.
‘I’ve made enquiries. They tell me your husband is lodged at the White Hart.’ David Ashley’s shadow fell across her as she saw to the bandages of one of the men she had nursed over the past week.
She stood and straightened her skirts. ‘Thank you, Colonel.’
‘Perhaps it is I who should thank you. Your presence at Barton was God sent.’ He paused, his recent pain written raw in his eyes. ‘It’s Kate and young Tom I grieve for now. That I cannot be there to support them when they need me.’ He inclined his head. ‘Good day to you, mistress.’
Perdita gathered her small bundle of belongings and pushed her way through the crowded streets and the gathering dusk to the White Hart. The landlord indicated the room Major Coulter had appropriated, and gathering her skirts, Perdita climbed the stairs.
She knocked at the door, but as there was no reply she tried the latch and finding it unlocked, pushed open the door. Gauntlets, hat, boots, jacket, belt, breeches and shirt were strewn in a trail from the door to the bed, where Adam lay face down under the coverlet, his head buried in his arms. Perdita closed the door and tiptoed across to the bed. She laid a hand on his bare shoulder but he didn’t stir and she had no wish to wake him. From his unshaven chin, she guessed that he had probably had precious little sleep since the battle. A dirty, bloodstained bandage circled his left forearm but otherwise he looked to have come through the battle without major injury.
She let out a soft sigh of relief and bent and kissed his bare shoulder, his skin salty beneath her lips.
She left him to slumber and took a simple meal in the parlour. She had considered asking the landlord for a separate room but it became obvious that the inn was fully occupied and it would have been strange for a wife to not wish to be with her husband, so she returned to Adam’s chamber.
He had not moved.
She set the candle down on the table, picked up the battle stained clothing, folding them neatly on a chest. Looking around the room she saw nowhere else she could make up a bed, and having no desire to sleep on the floor, she bit her lip and considered the bed. It seemed perfectly adequate for two people to sleep in without unduly disturbing each other.
Stripping down to her chemise, she blew out the candle and slipped into bed beside him. She turned on her side and looked at his face on the bolster beside her, illuminated by the moonlight. She breathed in the mingled scents of sweat, horse and gunpowder and reaching out a tentative hand, she stroked the dark hair away from his forehead.
He moaned in his sleep and rolled over with his back to her. She longed to take him in her arms but with a deep shuddering breath, she turned over, curling herself up on the farthest side of the bed.
It was long past daylight before Adam awoke. He lay on his side with one arm flung across the hip of a young woman who slept with her back to him, curled into his embrace as if she belonged there. A cascade of dark-brown hair streamed across the bolster, tickling his nose.
He frowned and tentatively ran his hand the length of her slender body. He had a vague memory of stumbling back to his room, so bone weary he could scarcely put one foot in front of the other. Where had this nymph in his bed come from?
He propped himself up on one elbow and smiled as he pushed back a tendril of dark hair from her forehead and looked down into Perdita’s sleeping face.
A wave of relief washed over him. She was safe. There was a rightness to her being not only safe but in his bed. He bent and kissed her forehead.
He closed his eyes and breathed in the sweet scent of her. He could no longer go on pretending the attraction between them did not exist. He wanted her here, beside him. He wanted desperately to fall into her arms at the end of the day. He wanted to love — and be loved by this woman.
She stirred and opened her eyes, rolling on to her back to look up at him. She smiled sleepily and a part of his anatomy responded to that thought and he realised that beneath the bed covers he was naked. This was surely a situation that would not end well.
‘You’re a heavy sleeper,’ he said, drawing away from her.
Realisation flashed into her eyes and she scrambled upright, clutching the bedclothes to her. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…’ The colour rose to her cheeks. ‘I thought I would sleep on the far side of the bed and you wouldn’t even know I was there… I must have rolled.’
Adam smiled as the colour rose in her cheeks. ‘I must have been dead to the world. God knows, I’ve had precious little sleep in the last weeks.’
Even the twelve hours he had just enjoyed was a poor compensation for the days with no more than a couple of hours sleep snatched in the corners of fields, even on horseback.
He put a hand to her face, cupping her cheek, noting the dirt of the battlefield still grimed under his nails. She leaned into his hand, her gaze holding his.
‘Perdita,’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘We can’t go on like this. The pretence has to end.’
Her breast rose and fell as she expelled a heavy sigh. ‘The pretence we are married, or…’
He traced the line of her neck with his thumb, her skin soft against his calluses.
‘Or the pretence that we are indifferent to each other, because I can’t lie any more, not to myself and not to you,’ he said.
Perdita raised her hand, laying it over his, her throat working as she said, ‘Adam, is there hope for us?’
He frowned. ‘Hope?’
‘I sometimes think we are like feathers in the wind, tossed this way and that without any sense that we can control our destinies.’
‘Is that why you agreed to marry Simon?’
She looked away, her hand dropping from his. ‘He was something solid I could cling to, but his death has set me adrift again.’ Her lips parted as she looked up at him. ‘The wind blew me north to be with you. There must be a reason.’
He smiled. ‘Am I solid enough for you?’
She shook her head. ‘No. You are a soldier fighting a brutal war. I have seen too much death in the past days to have any hope of finding sanctuary in your arms, but,’ she paused, her chest rose but did not fall, as she breathed out the words, ‘but I am willing to take what shelter you can offer me. I… I love you, Adam Coulter.’
He closed his eyes. He had no words to answer her. Let his actions be his answer.
With both hands, he held her face, drawing her close until their noses brushed and he lowered his lips to hers. She answered his passion with a breathless intensity, their bodies melding as his hands slid down her neck, pushing the thin fabric of her chemise away from her shoulders. She breathed out, leaning in toward him, but as his fingers brushed the curve of her breasts, she pulled back, jerking his hands away.
‘No! I can’t.’ She looked away, her face concealed behind a curtain of hair.
Adam fought to control his own ragged breathing and turned her face back to look at him, appalled by the tears that brimmed from her eyes.
> ‘Perdita, I’m sorry.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s not you, Adam. God alone knows how I want nothing more than to be with you, but…’ she swallowed. ‘Samuel Gray.’ The tears overflowed, tracking unchecked down her cheek and he understood. The man who had been her husband and shown her no tenderness, only brutality, now rose like a shadow between them.
‘I am not Samuel Gray,’ he said enunciating each word with care.
She touched his cheek and smiled. ‘No, you’re not, but I need time. I need to learn how love should be.’
For a very long moment neither spoke nor moved. Adam sighed and took the hand that she had reached out to him, turning it over in his own and kissing the palm, the soft mound of her thumb, the inside of her wrist.
‘You are not a plaything that I will use and discard. When we make love, I will show you what it is to be with a man who loves you. I will make this right,’ he said.
She blinked, scattering tears like raindrops on her cheeks. ‘How?’
‘To this world, you are my wife in name, I would have you my wife by right. If you would have me?’ His hand closed over hers.
She dashed away the tears with her free hand. ‘You would wed me?’
‘I don’t want you for a mistress, Perdita.’ He could hear the impatience in his own voice. ‘But I have nothing to offer you. I could be dead tomorrow. I realise I am a poor offering. Will you take me?’
Her brown eyes brimmed again but this time, a smile curled the corners of her mouth. ‘Can we do it? Dare we? I don’t care about tomorrow, Adam.’
Adam considered for a long moment. More to the point, how were they to regularise the matter, without the entire army of the north knowing they had been pretending to be man and wife these last weeks.
His mind cast around the town of York. Surely there must be a priest somewhere in this town who could, with the right persuasion, utter the words without the formalities of banns.
He kissed her hand again and drew back. ‘Then it shall be. My first task for the day will be to find a priest. What did you do with my clothes?’
Perdita waved a hand in the direction of a chair. ‘Over there.’
‘Thank you,’ he grunted and slid from underneath the bedcoverings and padded naked across to the neatly folded pile of battle-soiled garments. When he glanced back, she was seemingly absorbed in a close scrutiny of the farthest corner of the room.
He smiled at her modesty. She must have seen him naked in those days after he had been wounded and the Lord alone knew how many naked men she had dealt with over the last few days.
‘You’re laughing at me,’ she said.
He shook his head as he pulled on his breeches. ‘No. I am not laughing at you. I am— ‘
A knock at the door caused them both to start.
‘What is it?’ Adam bellowed at the locked door.
‘Major Coulter?’ A hesitant voice came from the other side.
‘Yes.’
‘The general’s compliments but he requests you attend him.’
‘Now?’
‘Immediately.’
Adam blew out a breath. ‘Very well. I shall be there presently.’
They waited until the sound of the messenger’s boots had faded away before glancing at each other.
‘Do you have to go?’ she asked.
‘I do,’ he grumbled as he hunted through his chest for a clean shirt.
Perdita slid out of bed and crossed to Adam.
‘Let me dress that arm,’ she said.
He looked down at the soiled bandage. ‘Later. It doesn’t bother me.’ Or at least it hadn’t until she mentioned it.
‘How did you do it?’
‘This? A musket ball tore my sleeve. It’s only a graze.’ His mouth tightened. ‘I was one of the fortunate ones, Perdita. You should see the general. He has a slash down the left hand side of his face that will mark him for life.’
Perdita nodded. ‘I have some idea. I saw Richard Ashley and the others that came to Barton.’
Adam straightened at the name. ‘Richard? I heard he had been wounded.’
‘He’s dead. A horrible lingering death, Adam.’
Adam flinched, he knew only too well the terrible ways a man could die. ‘What a waste,’ he muttered.
Impulsively he folded her in his arms. She felt so right. He buried his face in her hair, drinking in the scent of her. Reluctantly he pulled away, searching for his jacket, the torn, stained sleeve marking the passage of the pistol ball.
Perdita’s fingers played with the ragged edges of the tear, stiff with blood. ‘That needs cleaning.’
Adam looked down at her. ‘Now you are starting to sound like a wife.’
She took the gorget from his hand and buckled it around his neck.
‘Is this what a good officer’s wife does?’ she asked.
He straightened his crumpled collar over the piece of metal and kissed her upturned face, trying unsuccessfully not to run an approving eye over the womanly shape revealed beneath the chemise she wore.
‘Good, godly, officer’s wives don’t keep their husbands away from their commanding officer.’
He retrieved his baldrick and sword which hung on the back of the chair and turned to Perdita. Stooping, he kissed her gently. ‘I will return as soon as I can and we will make our plans.’
She slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him again.
‘I will order supper for us. Don’t be long.’
‘Coulter! You took your time.’ Sir Thomas Fairfax looked up from his paperwork.
Breathless, Adam swept off his hat and came to attention. ‘My apologies, sir. I was catching up with some sleep.’
Fairfax tightened his lips to stop a smile. He winced and put his hand to his face. The surgeon had stitched the hideous slash well but it would leave an ugly, disfiguring scar.
‘Don’t make me smile, Coulter. It hurts. You were enjoying a reunion with your wife, I believe.’
‘Sir.’ Adam felt the heat rising to his cheeks, partly at the lie and partly at the truth.
‘Well, your reunion will be short lived. We’re marching out on the morrow.’
Adam looked surprised. ‘But, sir, we’ve only just taken York.’
‘All the more reason to move on and clean off the other areas of opposition, Scarborough and Pontefract to begin with. I will need your men ready to march by sunrise tomorrow.’
Adam studied his commander’s ruined face. ‘Sir, my men are exhausted. Surely another day’ He refrained from making the observation that, in his opinion, cavalry were not best employed in siege work and that the next few weeks could mean little useful work for his men.
Fairfax shook his head. ‘Tomorrow, Coulter. We need to move fast.’
Adam took a breath. ‘The reason my wife came north was to tell me that my mother has died, I would beg your indulgence for a few days leave to go and see to matters on my estates.’
Fairfax picked up his pen and tapped it on the table.
‘How long do you want?’
Adam swallowed. He hadn’t thought this through, it had only come to him as he knocked on the door.
‘The estate is to the north, near Newcastle. Three weeks?’
‘Very well. Hewitson is capable enough to manage in your absence, but I want you to report back to me by the second week in August, is that clear?’
‘Sir, thank you.’
Adam turned to go but Fairfax’s voice stopped him. ‘Coulter, I’m sorry about your mother.’
Adam turned back to face him. ‘So am I, sir.’
Chapter 15
Strickland, Northumberland
July 1644
Adam leaned forward on the pommel of his saddle and looked down at the solid, grey walls of his inheritance.
He had no specific memory of this place, but the smell of the heather and the feel of the gentle summer breeze that lifted his collar drew out something lost deep within him. He wondered if he had been happy here or had he
been truly abandoned, unloved and alone? What manner of woman had Ann Coulter been to take the responsibility of the child born of her cousin’s shame? How different would his life have been if Lord Marchant had not ridden up this same road, all those long summer days ago?
Beside him Perdita’s pony jerked its head up with a snort of impatience.
‘This is Strickland Castle? I think the title ‘castle’ is a bit of a misnomer,’ Perdita said.
Adam had to agree. Heavily fortified farm house seemed closer to the mark. It had probably been built back in the days when the border lands were wild, lawless places. Time had softened the grey stone and some newer additions provided some modicum of comfort that had not been intended in the original design. Not unlike Preswood, the buildings stood around three sides of an open courtyard. However, the signs of neglect were obvious in the sunken roof of one of the wings, boarded up windows and a now -dry moat, overgrown with holly and long grass.
It didn’t matter, it was now his piece of earth.
After the initial shock of Joan’s revelation, he had come to an acceptance of his new place in the world. Joan had been right when she had said her brother was as good a father as any. For all his black and white view of the world, his uncle had been a fair man and he had borne his sister’s shame as his own.
As to the identity of his father, he doubted the answers lay here at Strickland, but his own natural curiosity would have liked to have known the answer to that question. Now there was no one living who could tell him.
‘Someone is at home,’ Perdita remarked, indicating the thin line of smoke curling from a single chimney toward the rear of the building.
No one came out to meet him so he dismounted and tethered his horse to a hawthorn bush. He crossed to the old gates that barred entrance to the courtyard and lifted the heavy knocker. When no one answered, he knocked again and eventually a door beyond the gate creaked open and the sound of wooden soles clacking on cobbles grew closer to the gate.
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