Post of the Month

~ June 2005 ~

************************************************************************************

Adela/David ~ Written by Nikke.  Posted on the HoS Yahoo group January 2005.

Standing at the small unshuttered window of her bedchamber, Adela peered out across the summer courtyard below.

Huntingdon Castle was built of grey stone that had become weathered with the elements during the past hundred years. It faced the meadows and rolling hills of David's large estate to the front; at its back were the large expanse of woods; prime hunting ground. The castle looked imposing, but Adela knew it was friendly and full of life. The high curtain walls enclosed the large courtyard like protective arms.

That courtyard now was bathed in the sunshine of a late June afternoon. Sleepy, sluggish. Almost as though Huntingdon was waiting for the return of its master.

David had sent word that he was on his way. On the way back from London, from an audience with King John...

Adela shook her head to herself at thought of the way David had come home from nearly a year spent in Navarre - only to go almost straight to London to see the King....

Leaning further out of the small window, she craned her neck to get a better view of the courtyard. She could hear the horses restlessly tramping in the stables across the courtyard, and she sighed to herself again.

The day had been constricting. Two acquaintances of David's had arrived unexpectedly from Newark, and in David's absence, Adela had had to deal with them. See to it that they were welcome, organise them both a bed for the night, and food, as well as feel obliged to keep them polite company in the Great Hall whilst they ate - and drank. So she had sat solemn and dutiful in the Great Hall. And she had felt cramped and had wished in vain to be out in the sunshine.

The visitors had been unexpected intrusion. Otherwise she would have gone riding after the noon meal. It would have been an hour or so snatched alone in a pursuit she loved. Now she knew that she would not be going riding this day. The day was fading, and the bloom of beauty which still lingered about it showed her a faint echo of what she had missed.

She moved to the bowl and pitcher set on the clothes chest near the window and dashed water into her flushed face. The summer was proving to be hot, which, Adela knew, would only further breed all sorts of disease. Newark, David's friends had informed her, was rife with scarlet fever and other various pestilences. Adela had heard of cases of scarlet fever closer to Huntingdon, in addition.

She straightened up from the bowl, and was pressing a linen cloth to her face, when from outside the window she heard the sound of approaching horses. Adela paused, the cloth still pressed against the lower half of her face, and she listened. Two horses entering Huntingdon's courtyard.

She was back at the window in an instant, and she watched as below, David, Earl of Huntingdon and his manservant Hugh entered the courtyard on horseback. Gilbert, Huntingdon's steward, was already out in the courtyard, waiting for his master.

The men dismounted from their weary horses, and entered the castle, and Adela withdrew from the window.

Removing her headdress, she swiftly uncoiled and unbraided her hair and began to comb it through.

Wearily, David ascended the steps to Huntingdon. Gilbert beside him was talking of the recent manorial court held and the goings-on there, and informing him of the arrival of the two visitors, but David was scarce listening. The day was hot, he was thirsty, and his mind was a blur of all that had happened in London, and was still half-lodged there.

The last stretch of the ride from London had been dusty and Hugh was coughing; David found he was too. "We should have stopped at that wayside alehouse, Hugh, to lay the dust."

Hugh took himself off to the kitchens, presumably to do just that, and with Gilbert in tow, David headed to the Great Hall where Henry Brandon and Thomas Clay were waiting.

Huntingdon's Great Hall was quiet and sleepy in the afternoon heat. Servants moved sluggishly around, trimming the wicks in the great candle-wheels which had been lowered on their chains from the rafters. A young boy brought ale to the dais table, under which David's favourite wolfhound sprawled, gnawing on a bone. And at the table sat Brandon and Clay.

David felt a vague irritation at the sight of them. He would rather not have company to deal with this day.

He strode across the Great Hall to welcome the two men, but after a few minutes conversation he excused himself on the premise of changing clothes he had not changed for three days on the ride from London, and he left the Hall to ascend the staircase to the upper chambers.

In her chamber, Adela, standing at the window combing through her hair, turned to face the door as it opened and David entered.

His face was pensive. Adela looked into it and longed to voice one particular question, but she saw the weariness on David's face also, and she knew to refrain. He would speak of the matter when he was ready.

"I thought you would arrive this day, the roads being dry and fair," said Adela. She nodded at the settle, over which was draped a tunic and cambric shirt. "I found you fresh clothes."

David walked over to her, bent his head to kiss her cheek, and then went and sat on the settle near the fireless grate, taking off his spurs and casting them aside. "You've wine in here?"

She had, it was ready and waiting. She poured a goblet and took it over to him.

"My throat's as dry as a desert." David gratefully gulped down the liquid. "The roads were fair, aye - but dusty."

He set the goblet aside and sat back and heaved a sigh. "I swear, Adela, I'm weary. I'm fifty. Getting too old to go haring down to London and back."

"You need....some distraction." Adela sat on his knee and kissed him.

David patiently forbore the kiss. "I'm too tired for distraction. Tomorrow, perhaps."

"Tomorrow?" Adela echoed a little disappointedly.

David looked at her bemusedly. "Woman, what has got into you ever since I returned from Navarre? You want me to visit your bed almost every night."

Adela was mildly indignant. "Not EVERY night...."

"It's not normal," David said.

Adela drew back a little from him where she still sat perched on his knee and looked at him quizzically. "Oh, really? I thought it was one of the most normal things in the world."

"I mean it isn't normal for a WOMAN," David elaborated.

"To be so...." he struggled for description, "...so INSATIABLE."

"Oh, David!" Adela gave him a teasing light punch to the shoulder. "And it's normal for MEN, I suppose?!"

David merely looked at her.

"You've been away in Navarre almost a year....I've missed you," Adela said. "A year without her man is a very long time for a woman, believe me."

"And you didn't take yourself some fine young handsome lover to satisfy you whilst I was away?" David queried, managing to inject a note of teasing into his voice despite his weariness.

Adela laughed. "Well, I have no money or status to draw such fine young handsome men with, and that sort only go with a woman old enough to be their mother if she possesses those attributes! Or if she has an exceptionally pretty face they like to gaze upon."

She withdrew from his lap resignedly and moved away across the chamber back to the table where her comb lay, and flung a final comment on the subject over her shoulder at him. "And before you ask, no, I didn't find any old ugly lover to satisfy me whilst you were away, either...."

David merely gave a tired smile in response.

Adela looked across at the man who sat on the settle. They had fallen into affection after Robert's mother Eleanor had died giving birth to Robert. Their affection had lasted, He was her lord, her lover, and her friend. She knew of no other woman who could speak of their lover as also their friend. They worked together at running Huntingdon.

They had had no children to bring up. She had never become with child. It had simply never happened. It was a good thing, Adela considered; illegitimate children would have complicated matters at Huntingdon.

She had not longed for children of her own. There had always been Robert, who had been left motherless not an hour after his birth. She had been there as a substitute - not that she had ever presumed to take on the official role of his mother, but she had taken on the role of an aunt, perhaps, and as he had grown, also the role of a friend. In his infancy and childhood, she knew she had been the chief female presence in his life. And she had done her own small part in raising him, which had satisfied any motherly instincts she had had.

David had never wished to remarry, and Adela had never pressed him for marriage. His love for Robert's mother Eleanor had been deep - unusual for a marriage which had been arranged. He had had a heir who had survived the threat of infant mortality and who had grown into a healthy young adult, and David had been content.

Until Robert had left them, and gone into Sherwood, to become who the people in that area called Herne's Son, Adela thought now. He had taken over the role that other rebel - Loxley - had vacated after he had been killed by the Sheriff.

And now, Robert was like that peasant Loxley. Set against the Sheriff, living in Sherwood - "like some savage" had been David's words in the past. Adela had not seen Robert for three years, and could only imagine what his life was like in Sherwood as an outlaw. He was outlawed; David had lost his only legitimate son, Huntingdon had lost its heir, and Adela expected daily to hear news of Robert's capture or death at the hands of the Sheriff.

And if that wasn't enough for David to contend with, then there had been the recent matter of Gisbourne...

Adela thought she would never forget the day four brief weeks ago, when Sir Guy of Gisbourne had turned up unannounced at Huntingdon... Only just after David had returned from a year longs stay in Navarre. Almost as soon as he had arrived back in Huntingdon he had heard the news of Robert's blindness - and then Gisbourne had turned up to seek an audience with him.

Adela remembered receiving the knight in the Great Hall, because David had been elsewhere on the Huntingdon estate, and Gisbourne waiting, just standing there alone in the Great Hall, silent, waiting, awkward, remembering enough courtesy to remove his hat and hold it in his hands. She remembered he casting his cold eye over her as they had both waited for David to return, and now she knew what he had been thinking when he had looked at her.

_My father's mistress...._

She had sensed, as they had waited for David, that Gisbourne had brought news of his own; news that would alter and affect lives - and she had been right.

She remembered David entering the Great Hall and greeting Gisbourne, and Gisbourne's cold eye cast upon him in turn, and Gisbourne's almost sarcastic opening statement: "I believe you knew my mother, the Lady Margaret Gisbourne...."

She had seen both shock and realisation in David's eyes as he had looked at Gisbourne, though his face had betrayed little, and without another word he had taken Gisbourne into his private chamber, shut the door and there they had spoken in private.

Adela did not know what had been said between them, only that after some time, Gisbourne had left Huntingdon as impassively as he had come, and David had taken her aside and told her the truth.

Gisbourne was his bastard son. By the late Lady Margaret, whom he had taken as a lover before he had ever laid eyes on Robert's mother Eleanor...

Adela had questioned David; was he sure? And he had replied quietly, yes, he was sure - Gisbourne had supplied him with irrefutable facts and dates.

"Besides," David had said to her at the time, "look in his face - there's the real proof. He looks more like me in the face than Robert does...."

That was very true, Adela had thought. Robert resembled his mother, Eleanor, rather than David.

David had since publicly acknowledged Gisbourne, feeling it was the right thing to do. Adela did not know what Gisbourne thought of this public acknowledgement, and she did not really care. She had very briefly come into contact with Gisbourne a few times over the past years, and had never warmed to him. Knowing now the fact that he was Robert's half-brother did not stir any feelings of warmth in her, either.

She did not hate Gisbourne...but she did not cordially like him, either.... She believed strongly that knowing he was Robert's half-brother would not stay Gisbourne's hand from killing Robert if he got the chance - and she felt she knew Robert well enough to know he would feel the same way about Gisbourne.

And David was caught in the middle. Between his disinherited only legitimate son and his newly-discovered bastard son.

Adela felt David in some ways was still reeling from the shock of discovering Gisbourne was his son... She knew he had never cordially liked the man, the same as she. Gisbourne was too close-knit with Robert de Rainault, Sheriff of Nottingham, and de Rainault's older brother Hugo, Abbot at St Marys'. Both of whom David detested....

But Gisbourne was David's son, and that fact David had to accept. And he had accepted it and shown his acceptance by publicly acknowledging Gisbourne as a bastard of his body, albeit it with reluctance...

But Adela knew that this new knowledge of Gisbourne being his bastard son, as well as learning about Robert's blindness, had been what had driven David to ride to London to seek an audience with King John...

David unlaced the neck of his tunic to cast it off, and the sweat-soaked shirt beneath, to don the clean shirt cast over the back of the oak settle. "What are you doing up here when we have guests?" he asked.

"I was but making ready to rejoin our company in the Great Hall," Adela replied from where she seated herself on the stool once more by the small covered table. "I begged leave of Brandon and Clay. I'll ready myself and come down to table."

She combed her hair through one final time, and then gathering the thick dark swathe of hair up in her hands, began to deftly plait it. David watched the swift process, fascinated by the way her fingers weaved the long flow of hair into order.

"I left Brandon and Clay drinking in the Great Hall; they seemed to have taken root there," Adela observed over her shoulder to David as she saw to her hair.

"I greeted them in passing and told them I would be down shortly. Fie, for shame, Adela, leaving our guests," David chided mildly.

"What do they care for my company? I am but a mere woman." Adela darted him a meaningful glance over her shoulder and added: "And at best to them I am some sort of glorified good-wife of Huntingdon."

"You are mistress of Huntingdon, that is understood by all who come here," David said.

Adela raised an eyebrow. "Mistress of Huntingdon....aye. Of the man, not of the place."

"Of both; desist, woman," David said. "Mistress of both these past twenty years."

"Tell Henry Brandon and Thomas Clay that this eve when I sit at table with you, for I fear otherwise they will expect me to wait on you all like some serving wench." She winked at him, and despite his tiredness he gave her a wry smile.

David reached for the finer tunic which lay over the back of the settle beside him, and put it on. "Is it I getting older, Adela, or is it these old friends of mine who have changed?" he wanted to know. "When we were all young men, it was all so different."

"I haven't seen Thomas Clay for several years," Adela said. "Not since the one and only time you took me to London. He's changed."

"He's grown fat on his business. I shouldn't decry a man for working hard as Thomas Clay obviously has. It is the deterioration of his conversation and company that I decry."

Adela gave a little laugh. "Some men improve with age, my love. Others do not. But very few stay the same."

David studied his mistress of twenty years.

She was getting old, he thought, just the same as he. She was forty-two now, tall, slim, a lady who had maintained herself well over the years without any of the fussing over her appearance that most men's wives and mistresses seemed to do. Adela was ageing gracefully - outwardly, at least.

If only she wouldn't expect him to her bed almost every damn night recently... He hated to admit it to himself, but currently he was finding it hard to satisfy her need.

She had been his mistress ever since Robert had been a year old. There had been other women through the years and the occasional one nowadays - mistresses in Newark, in London and in Navarre - but no-one quite like Adela. She was mistress of Huntingdon in every sense save the fact of a betrothal ring lodged on her finger. Not that she had ever demanded marriage from him. One of the things David liked about Adela was that she did not whine or nag.

David watched her as she wrapped decorative ribbon around the end of her single thick plait, and moved it to lay it over her right shoulder. Adela was what the English called kindly "a handsome woman" rather than beautiful. She was not beautiful, but she was elegant in bearing, she dressed well but without many of the baubles and frills other women did. She was in nature composed and discreet. She had never caused him public embarrassment, never flouted the fact she had been his mistress for the past twenty years, never asked him for ridiculous fripperies as his other mistresses did, and for all that he was grateful.

Adela had come from a respectable but poor family in Lincolnshire. Her father had been steward upon the estate of Eleanor's father, and Adela, who had been the same age as Eleanor, had grown up with David's late wife. She therefore had come to Huntingdon with a twenty-year old Eleanor upon her marriage to David, in the role of companion to Eleanor, and chaperone, when needed.

Adela had been a dowdy little thing, back then, David remembered. He hadn't looked at her twice. His eyes had been full of Eleanor - Eleanor, Robert's mother, with a vast fall of fair hair to her waist, an enchanting laugh, and a delicate form guaranteed to please. David had thought himself fortunate indeed in this arranged match.

So they had been wedded, and Adela had always been in the background, capably attending to all her duties. She had taken her meals with David and Eleanor, been involved in all the activities of Huntingdon, had acted as chaperone to Eleanor mother when David had been away and male visitors had arrived, and she had looked to Eleanor when she had been pregnant with Robert. She had been at Robert's birth, one late September day two-and-twenty years ago....

David still tried to avoid thinking of that day, even now. He and Eleanor had not been wedded for very long, scarce upwards of a year, before Robert had arrived in the world. And Eleanor had died only minutes after bringing him into this world. Bled to death, a great rush of blood pouring from her body, they had said. David did not like to imagine it.

David had had no inclination to remarry, but as months had gone by, he had found he wanted a woman in his life and so...

Over the next few years, he and Adela had developed an "understanding". Marriage had never been on the cards, he had made that clear to her from the start, and she had accepted that from the start. She had had no wish to return to the estate of Eleanor's father; she had enjoyed far more freedom here at Huntingdon, and she had been determined to keep it. She enjoyed the security and privileges she had at Huntingdon, and she had always been happy to remain here, be David's mistress, see to the running of the household, and keep a discreet profile. David knew he had found a good trustworthy women in her, which was most likely why they had remained together for twenty years or so. They had grown to be companions in middle age, as well as being lovers.

"So how went your afternoon amongst our company," David wanted to know., breaking the silence of the chamber.

"I but sat and listened and spake when I was spoken to. It was interminably dull." Adela fastened her veil over her hair.

David sighed. Much as he loved Huntingdon, it seemed sometimes as though every acre of land weighed heavy upon his shoulders. Without an heir...

"Has all been well on the estate in my absence?" he asked, knowing that Adela kept her ear close to the ground and knew of all the various happenings.

"There's been reports of illness around this area whilst you've been away in London," Adela replied. "The hot weather brings forth the annual pestilences. And Herfast the cook is ill."

"Gilbert mentioned illness around the area. What of Herfast the cook?"

He's abed. Groans mightily and swears that he is a-dying," Adela replied.

"I've never known a man to be so much upon the point of death," David observed. "He's growing old and unsatisfactory."

"Brandon and Clay will have to be content with plain fare this evening." Adela straightened her veil.

"Just as well we aren't entertaining Royalty this eve," David remarked wryly.

Adela saw a way into asking the question she had been wanting to. She glanced over her shoulder at David as she continued fastening her veil over her hair. "And how was our most gracious liege John when you had your audience with him in London?"

"How ever is our lord King," David said wryly. "Capricious, petulant, unbalanced - and very very avaricious. But he is our noble liege and there is an end to it."

"So he was happy with what you offered him?"

"Oh, he was delighted." David laced up the neck of his fresh tunic. "Pardons of legitimate only sons do not come cheap, and he knew how much he could wring from me for it."

Adela felt hope rise in her, and she twisted round on the stool to look eagerly across at David. "So you have it then, the pardon? In writing? He has actually pardoned Robert?"

"Aye, pardoned in full; signed and sealed."

"Have you the pardon? I'd like to read it."

David removed the roll of parchment from inside his cast off tunic and coming over to where Adela sat, he handed it to her. She unrolled the parchment and cast her eyes over the Latin, savouring the words which pardoned David's only legitimate son, re-instating him as true and rightful heir of Huntingdon and all David owned in terms of lands and monies, both in England and Navarre.

"So it's true," Adela breathed, staring at the King's wobbly but unmistakable signature and plethora of wax seals hanging by their ribbons from the bottom of the parchment. "King John has given Robert a full pardon...."

"Cost me a lot of money," said David, standing by her and looking on as she studied the parchment. "And lands."

Adela glanced up at him from re-reading the pardon. "Which lands?"

"My prime border lands adjoining Scotland. John's wanted his greedy hands on those for a long time..."

"Oh David..." Adela knew how important those lands had been.

David shrugged, pulled up a stool to sit beside her as she continued to survey the unrolled parchment. "My brother will have to look to his borders, and I doubt he will forgive me easily for giving up some prime lands - but I have only one legitimate son. So what matters it if I am poorer as a result. One legitimate son to inherit from me and give me grandsons to continue my line here at Huntingdon I consider worth a great deal more than land, no matter how prime."

We're not poor," Adela said stoutly.

"No, we are not, thank the Lord; the land here at Huntingdon works well for us, and we have good people on this estate to work that land. My father left this estate solvent all those years ago. I would like to leave this estate solvent for Robert."

David sat there and considered the recent past. "I need Robert, Adela. I need grandsons through him."

Such store he had set by his only legitimate son, only to see it all tumble, David thought to himself and shook his head to himself.

Robert had always been stubborn; wilful. Hard to live with at times, David thought. A great breakdown in their already unstable relationship had come when Robert had turned his back on Huntingdon and his inheritance and become the leader of those near savages existing in Sherwood.

David had tried to accept Robert's decision to take this strange path in life, for, when all was said and done, he loved the son that was so like Eleanor - but ultimately, David had found over the past year and a half, he had failed. He could neither accept nor respect Robert's decision...

Returning home from Navarre four bare weeks ago, after a year long absence from England hearing the news about Robert - that he had gone blind, but was still living in Sherwood and still continuing the rebel ways he had adopted had been one of the final straws for David.

The other final straw had been the discovery of Gisbourne being his bastard son.....

Gisbourne...

David hardly knew the man. They were like strangers. His relationship with the knight was already awkward and strained. He had reluctantly acknowledged Gisbourne, because his sense of duty had told him to, because he had known that Gisbourne's claim to being his son had been the truth; there was no denying it. But if David searched his heart, he saw within it the truth that he did not like Gisbourne. Possibly because he could see vague echoes of himself in Gisbourne; all his worst traits, which he had worked hard over the years to either control or keep hidden....

Two sons. One illegitimate and a stranger to him - the other legitimate but disinherited, outlawed....and just as much a stranger to him in many ways....

Something needed to be done about the latter son. David was determined upon it.

"The cost of lands and monies will be worth it to have Robert back, Adela," said David at last. "Pardoned - my heir once more. Able to give me grandsons."

Adela laid the parchment down on the small covered table. "They're saying in Nottinghamshire that Robert now has a wife - and a daughter. Born this spring past...."

"They're also saying that Tuck married him to this woman, the mother of his child." David shrugged. "Tuck's been outlawed, been excommunicated by the Church: this "marriage" therefore isn't binding. It can all be dealt with."

He looked around him at the chamber. "He should be brought back, Adela. Back here. Needs to be looked after, now he's blind."

"Do you think the stories we've heard of his blindness are true?" Adela queried.

"They seem fairly certain." David sat there in pensive thought, recalling all he had been told, wondering what was rumour, what was gossip and what was truth.

Adela looked at him. "What caused his blindness, do you think?"

David shrugged again. "Nobody seems sure. None of the people I've talked to, anyway, since returning to England. And the people whom I HAVE talked to so far have not seen him for themselves - they have only talked to people who have talked to people who have actually SEEN him. But they say his pupils have turned solid white and he sees nothing - not even a candle-flame brought close to his face or the sunshine shining directly into his eyes." David fell to silent thought once more.

"Poor boy." Adela rolled up the parchment once more, and sat there in pensive thought also.

Her relationship with Robert had always been good, David recollected, studying his mistress of twenty years. Adela had never been exactly motherly, but she had formed a close bond with the infant Robert, and as Robert had grown out of infancy to boyhood, Adela had had him with her more. She had used to take him for walks, or rides, had overseen his education in its early stages.

She had always been in Robert's world at Huntingdon, not as a mother-figure but as something of an aunt figure, and he had never had any problem with her being his fathers mistress.

She had always been very fond of Robert, David knew, and suspected that Adela in some ways almost looked upon him as the child she never had.

Watching Adela, David felt a twinge of pity at her words. Yes, poor boy, he thought, thinking of the last time he had seen Robert. Outlawed, maybe, living like a savage in the forest, maybe - but at least with no impairment.

Consistent with the emotion of pity evoked with the thought of his son now blind, David felt a certain amount of awkwardness and shame also. No father liked to have an impaired son. And there could be no doubt that Robert's being blind now made him incapable of looking after himself.

"He needs to be back with his own, now," David said to Adela. "Needs to be looked to."

"The Lord alone knows how he is managing to survive in the forest if the stories of his blindness be true," mused Adela.

David nodded. "They're saying he's still with the outlaws and determined upon his rebel ways. I've heard several stories where he with his men have recently waylaid travellers through Sherwood and relieved them of their monies. One account says he even held up a merchants wagon with his men and trained his bow on the merchant, stone-blind though he was. Another account - from one of Gisbourne's soldiers - says that Robert in a recent confrontation with several soldiers in Sherwood pulled a knife on one of the men who came at him, and fought ably in close combat without sight, swiftly slitting his unfortunate victim's throat."

"Surely all that is not possible? Adela said. "I mean, if he's blind..."

David shook his head in thought. "I don't know. If it IS all true... Well, I need to go and find out what the truth is for myself."

"Into Sherwood?" Adela asked, perplexed.

"Aye, into Sherwood." David reached out and took up the precious roll of parchment from the table. "I need to find Robert....see him for myself and learn the truth. Show him the pardon.....and bring him home."

"WITH his wife and child?" Adela questioned.

"Of course not," David replied irritably. "I hear she's a commoner and scarred across one side of her face - and it be as ugly and as twisted as a gargoyle's on that side, they say."

"But the child....she's your granddaughter..." Adela thought wistfully of having a child at Huntingdon once more.

Davids' reply was blunt. "She may be my granddaughter, but she is a bastard of my son's body. Tuck "married" Robert to this woman - Tuck is outlawed. The Church will not uphold this marriage as legal. Matters there can be easily resolved....."

He suddenly felt mortality stab at him very keenly, as it had done ever since he lost Robert to Sherwood.

"I have no grandson to carry on my line," David said finally. "It is Robert's duty to give me one. This-" He lifted the roll of parchment in his hand, "-is the first step towards achieving all I desire. It is Robert's pardon. His liberation."

Adela looked up at him as he rose from his seat. "When will you leave for Nottingham?"

David's answer was decisive. "Tomorrow, early."

Adela fell silent, her hands in her lap, as she considered all that could come of Robert's return to Huntingdon.

David smiled at her, touched her cheek, seeing her expression. "Don't look so pensive. Come, down to the Great Hall with you and help me entertain my tiresome guests!"

He left, and Adela sat there and pressed her cold hands to her hot cheeks. Reaching for her looking-glass, she saw how flushed she was. This accursed June heat.

I'm getting old, she thought, without any real regret, studying the fine lines etched around her eyes. But then she had never been a beauty.

She rose, smoothed down the front of her gown, and followed David from the chamber.