Henry snorted down his nose. ‘He has a tender heart and a mule’s brain,’ he remarked of his eldest son, but his eyes softened with a rare, genuine affection before his gaze impaled Adam again. ‘I ought to refuse. You are putting me in a most difficult position.’ He drummed his fingers on the arms of his chair.
For what seemed a millennium, Adam waited, unspeaking. It would be no use to remind Henry of the many debts and obligations that went unpaid on his part. To the King, a loyal man was a workhorse, and any toil performed merely his due.
‘You want her,’ Henry said incisively. ‘Whim or conviction?’
Adam opened his mouth.
‘No.’ Henry gave a brusque wave of his hand. ‘I can see it in your face. You’re beyond redemption. What does the woman say?’
‘She will refuse me at first, but she is open to persuasion, ’ Adam said, hoping it was true.
Henry looked at his nails and considered. ‘Give me the silver in le Chevalier’s strongbox, and you can have her,’ he said. ‘De Mortimer can be compensated by one of the other women I was going to offer you, if of course he doesn’t lose his life and his lands for treason once the matter has been investigated further.’
Dismissed, Adam breathed out a hard sigh that was not so much relief as the releasing of tension now that the first and simplest of his tasks was completed. All he had left to do now was convince Heulwen and her family to see matters his way, which was definitely more daunting than facing a king who had the power of life and death at his fingertips.
Heulwen sat up in bed and, folding her arms around her raised knees, contemplated the hanging on the wall opposite without really seeing the hunting scene it so vibrantly portrayed. It had been stitched by the same group of women who had worked on Bishop Odo’s tapestry and was worth a small fortune, or so Warrin said with his habit of setting a price on everything.
The shutters were closed against the bitter wind but she could hear it howling angrily against the cracks and hurling needles of sleet upon the shingles. Below in the main room, only the servants were present. Her father had business elsewhere, her stepmother had gone to visit the Countess of Gloucester, with whom she had a friendship of several years’ standing, and Renard and Henry were off at the horse fair.
At last she put aside the covers and sat on the edge of her bed. A stoked brazier threw out heat. Judith said that a chill was best sweated out, but only Heulwen knew she was not suffering from a chill unless it be of the soul. Tonight she was to be presented at court and tomorrow morning Warrin would formally ask Henry for his approval of their marriage — strange how a haven could become a trap in so short a space of time. Her thoughts were as stifling as the pressure of Warrin’s mouth on hers and the feel of his heavy hands on her body. The change was not in him, but in her, and was a gradual feeling, brought to its crisis by Lord Robert’s news today.
Swallowing the knot of self-pity in her throat, she picked up her undergown and tunic from the end of the bed. Behind her the door opened and then gently closed. The latch rattled home. She tucked a loose swathe of hair behind her ear and turned, thinking to find her maid. ‘Elswith, I want you to bring me — Holy Mother, what are you doing here!’ She dropped the garments. ‘Where’s Elswith?’
‘Below stairs. ’ Adam’s voice emerged as a croak, for the short chemise she was wearing left little to the imagination, and those the most tantalising parts. ‘I told her I needed a very important private word — I didn’t realise that — Elswith said you were resting, I didn’t think that. ’ He shut his mouth.
‘You never do!’ She snatched up her cloak and wrapped it around herself. ‘What kind of manners do you have that you could not wait below?’
‘It is not a matter of manners, Heulwen,’ he said wearily.
‘Then what is it?’
‘A matter of murder — Ralf ’s.’ He put down a leather money pouch on the coffer near the bed. ‘Payment for your bay stallion.’
‘What did you say?’ She stared at him, her eyes widening with shock.
‘Heulwen, sit down.’ He gestured to the bed, and removing his cloak, draped it across the coffer.
She remained standing. ‘The Welsh killed Ralf,’ she whispered. ‘Do you tell me otherwise?’
‘Yes, the Welsh killed him, so much is true, but Warrin de Mortimer paid them to do it.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said flatly.
‘I did not think that you would.’
‘Adam, if this is a ruse to blacken Warrin’s name to me it won’t — Oh!’ She cried out as he strode round the edge of the bed, grabbed her arm, and pushed her down.
‘Sit there!’ he snarled, his breath ragged and hard. ‘Stop running away and listen for once!’
She gasped at the force he had used, as if a tame dog had suddenly turned vicious, and gazed up at him, shocked by his harsh expression. With neither softening nor compassion, he told her everything his Welsh hostage had revealed, finishing bitterly, ‘Your grandfather was there, ask him if my word is not good enough.’
‘I — no Adam, you must both be mistaken. ’ Her eyes were desolate, like a woman he had once seen when her house had burned down and she had lost everything. ‘Why would Warrin do such a thing? Is he involved in this betrayal too? I do not believe it!’
‘Then you are deluding yourself.’
‘You’ve always been quick to see wrong in Warrin!’ she lashed out, clutching at straws. ‘Perhaps he had discovered that Ralf was betraying the King’s trust. That would as easily explain things as your version.’
‘Warrin would not give a bucket of horse shit for the direction of Ralf ’s allegiance, not unless it jeopardised his own standing!’
‘Don’t shout at me,’ she said miserably, and wiped the back of her hand across her face, smearing tear streaks.
Guilt flooded through Adam at the sight of her vulnerability, and he sat down beside her on the coverlet. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said in a more controlled voice. ‘It’s just that I seem to be butting my head against a stone wall, and it’s only natural to howl at the pain.’
Heulwen surveyed the ruins of her world: Warrin was Ralf ’s murderer by proxy, and the reasons for his courtship were thus cast in a sinister light. Ralf himself was dead, and not in clean battle, but brought down in a murk of lies and intrigue. There would be no betrothal, no marriage, nothing; the trap was sprung and she was free, but at what cost? She wiped her eyes again and looked at Adam through her wet lashes. He was gazing down at his hands, his mouth set in a bleak line. Impulsively she leaned over and kissed his cheek. ‘No, Adam, the apology should be mine.’
Adam groaned and turned his head. Their lips met, and he lifted his hands to pull her against him. He knew he ought to tell her the rest of the tale, what he had requested of Henry and what Henry had demanded of him in return, but he was afraid of breaking this moment and being brusquely rebuffed. The kiss momentarily broke as they surfaced for air. Gasping, Heulwen stared at him, but if her breathing was swift, it owed less to panic than it did to desire. She had been fighting the attraction ever since his return in the early autumn, but there was no longer any need to continue the battle. Adam was to take a rich wife of Henry’s choosing, and honour no longer bound her body to Warrin — least of all to Warrin. She joined her mouth to his again, leaning into his taut, quivering body, pushing him, so that they fell backwards together across the bed.
It was wild and desperate, frantic on both sides, so hot that it immolated all reason, leaving only the touch of skin on skin and the exquisite sensations of desire aroused to an unbearable level and then released, flinging them both into oblivion.
Adam slowly revived to the sound of his own breathing. He tasted the salt of perspiration and felt beneath his lips the thundering pulse in Heulwen’s throat. Her ribcage rose and fell rapidly against his own. He lifted himself a little to look tentatively into her face. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted. She licked them as if still seeking the taste of him in a gesture so sensual that, although he had peaked, he pushed forward again into her body. She gave a small moan of pleasure and rubbed a bent thigh along his hip-bone. He touched a coil of her hair, felt it slide like silk between his fingers, and was filled with an overwhelming mixture of tenderness and guilt. ‘Heulwen,’ he murmured tentatively. ‘Heulwen, look at me.’
Her eyes opened. They were misty, still glazed with satisfaction.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to go this far. ’
She covered his lips with the palm of her hand. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she whispered. ‘It was bound to happen,
