Unending Love (5 page)

Maddoc crossed his big arms thoughtfully. “Have
you spent all of this time running from him?” he asked. “Perhaps it would be
better if you simply told him you were not interested.”

She gave him a look of disgust. “I
have
told
him,” she said. “I was polite at first but he would not listen. He kept
following me, playing that… that stupid citole, singing stupid sonnets until I
was nearly mad with it. Finally, I was quite nasty with him and told him I had
absolutely no interest in him at all and I’d sooner wed a goat. It did not seem
to matter to him. He continued to try.”

Maddoc returned is attention to the man on the
ground. “How did he find you here? Did he know of your family?”

Adalind seemed to dim. “Someone must have told
him, for I never did,” she said softly. “Those terrible women who… well, it
does not matter. Someone must have told him.”

Maddoc was focused on her statement;
those
terrible women who….
It seemed to reinforce what David had told him about
the women at Court chasing her away.  He could only imagine what those sly and
worldly women were capable of and he began to feel strangely protective of
Adalind, something beyond his normal sense of duty.  The sensation was
surprisingly strong and while it should have rattled him, unfamiliar as it was,
he found it rather overwhelming.  He wasn’t rattled at all.  It seemed
completely natural.

“So he did not listen to you when you told him
you had no interest?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No,” she replied, her gaze
on the red-silked figure. “He was much like the ap Athoe brothers; he did not
listen to me at all. Maddoc, why on earth do men not listen to a woman when she
has something to say?”

He looked at her. “Because they think they know
a woman’s mind better than she does,” he said, his gaze lingering on her a
moment. “Your grandfather told me to give him time to come to his senses before
I take action, but if you wish for me to run him off now, I will do it.”

It was a chivalrous declaration. Adalind looked
up at him, into those bright blue eyes that were so intense and beautiful, and
her cheeks began to grow warm. She realized how close she was standing to him,
up against his big and powerful body and feeling the heat radiate off the man. 

When she had been a young girl, her emotions for
him were untried and uncontrolled, silly thoughts from a silly girl.  He could
make her heart race and make her feel giggly, but there had never been any heat
to it, not like now.  Now, the warmth she felt from the man was nearly searing
and she had to make a conscious effort to take a step away or she was fearful
she would go up in flame. The sentiment she felt for him were no longer those
of a foolish young girl. They were the emotions of a woman, with all the depth
and heart those feelings entailed. It made her heart ache with longing simply
to be near him.

“You had better not,” she said quietly, taking
another step away and hoping he didn’t notice the dull flush in her cheeks. “If
Papa told you to wait, then you had better do as he says. I do not want you to
get in trouble on my behalf.”

Maddoc smiled faintly, something he rarely did.
But something in that beautiful face made him feel like smiling. “It would be
an honor,” he said. “May I?”

She looked doubtfully between Eynsford and
Maddoc. “Well,” she said slowly, “if it does not involve beating him to a pulp
or throwing him over the wall, I suppose you could try.”

His smile vanished, though there was humor to
the gesture. “I do not beat anyone to a pulp. Well, not without good reason,
anyway.”

Her eyes narrowed playfully. “I
saw
you,”
she said. “You beat the ap Athoe brothers within an inch of their lives.”

“I had good reason.”

“Then you admit it.”

He shrugged. “If anyone comes calling for you,
or any of the de Lohr women, they will have to answer to me first.  What I did
was purely in your interest.  Those two fools were unworthy of you.”

She eyed him. “Who
is
worthy of me,
Maddoc?”

He shook his head. “God has not yet created such
a man, I think. You are not meant for mere mortals.”

She threw up her hands. “Sweet Lucifer!” she
exclaimed softly. “Am I to become an old maid, then?”

His smile was back. “I have a feeling you will
marry well and be very happy, my lady. I would stake my life on it.”

She tried not to smile in return, unable to help
the comment that came from her lips. “The only man I have interest in has no
interest in marrying me, so perhaps you were not far wrong the first time.
Perhaps I will indeed be an old maid because if I cannot marry him, I do not
want anyone.”

Maddoc was caught up in the gentle flirt.  He
was untried and unused to such games because he usually walked away when some
young woman would make the attempt, but Adalind was very practiced.  She batted
her eyes and flashed the dimple in her right cheek appropriately, and he was
swept away.  For a man who kept himself very tightly locked away from any emotion,
Adalind seemed to have the ability to turn the key and he wasn’t even aware of
it.

“Is that so?” he countered. “Who is this saint
of all men, then? And who on earth would be foolish enough not to want you?”

She looked at him, giggling. “He is a
very
big fool,” she scolded lightly. “He is such a fool I cannot tell you how truly
foolish he is. It defies explanation.”

“Do I know him?”

“Of course you do because the fool is
you
,”
she said, then sighed dramatically. “Alas, I suppose you will always view me as
that silly girl with the bucked teeth, so I suppose I have no other choice than
to accept another’s proposal. Perhaps you should go down to the bailey and see
if Eynsford has not changed his mind about me. It might be my last chance at
marriage. Perhaps I will have to listen to him wail like a tomcat for the rest
of my life, but I suppose it is better than being alone or confined in a
convent.”

By this time, Maddoc’s smile had faded.  The
impact of her words hit him and although they had been said in
a
[J7]
 
flirtatious and jesting manner, he realized for
the first time in his life that he was actually touched by them. Adalind had
made no secret about wanting to marry him when she had been young but now, as a
grown woman, he no longer saw a joke in her words.  He saw something that
greatly intrigued him, and the mere thought that he might actually be
interested scared him to death. 

“Perhaps we should return inside,” he said,
taking her elbow to direct her back into the keep because he didn’t know what
else to do, startled by his alien thoughts. “I shall give du Lesseps until
sundown to come to his senses and if he has not, I shall be forced to find his
senses for him.”

Adalind wasn’t unaware of his swift change in
demeanor. He suddenly seemed stiff and distant. Realizing that her reference to
marriage must have turned him, inwardly, she was furious with herself for
daring to bring up the subject.  She knew the man didn’t want her. He had
always made that very clear. All of the love and adoration she felt for him,
the admiration and respect, would never come to fruition.  Disappointment and
sorrow consumed her.

Without another word she allowed the man to
escort her back into the keep. Then she went up to her chamber and wept.

My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

CHAPTER
THREE

“He has been singing like that for hours,”
Christina de Aston, David’s eldest daughter and Adalind’s mother, was standing
at the window of her daughters’ chamber, her attention drawn to the torch-lit
bailey below. “One would have thought he would have grown weary of it.”

Adalind was lying on the bed with Willow. The
room was warm, well furnished, with a giant feather and straw-stuffed mattress
made of linen and heavy coverlets of fur.  The heaviest top coverlet was canvas
stuffed with dried straw that held in the heat, covered with a silk duvet. Nights
were very cold and even though the small chamber had an enormous fireplace,
Adalind was always cold and required a good deal of blankets for comfort. Tonight
was no different as she lay swathed in a heavy brocade robe over her wool
surcoat.  

 Willow was brushing the elder sister’s hair as
all three women listened to the baying down below. It had been going on all
day. Sunset was upon them and the night was growing cold and dark, and a fog
was rolling in from the east.  The torches upon the battlements were giving off
a ghostly glow through the coming mist.

“Is Maddoc still down there?” Adalind asked.

Christina’s lips twitched with a smile as she
strained to see down below. “He is nearly standing next to him,” she said. “I
have no idea how Eynsford can concentrate with Maddoc standing over his
shoulder. The man is positively terrifying.”

“I think he is trying to scare him to death.”

“It is not working. I must give the man credit
for his bravery.”

Adalind lay there, listening to all manner of
terrible and hoarse singing, before rising from the bed and going to the window
where her mother was standing.  Christina put her arm around her eldest fondly.

“Life is never dull with you around, Addie,” she
teased softly. “When you were young, it was one crisis after the next – wayward
animals, injured birds, scraped knees, and missing teeth. Now it would seem we
are destined to revisit those lively years with more adult predicaments.”

Adalind smiled weakly at her mother, a woman she
favored a great deal with her blond hair and green eyes. “I hope not,” she said
quietly. “I have had quite enough excitement over the past few years. I simply
wish to be left in peace.”

“I am not entirely sure that will be the case
tonight. Do you realize that young man has been singing all day?”

Adalind did. As she listened to the howling, she
began to grow more and more frustrated. She tried to forget about it, returning
to Willow and braiding her sister’s hair, but the noise continued.  It reminded
her of moments in her life of great humiliation that she would rather forget
about, memories of people laughing at her, whispering behind her back. Things
she never wanted to remember, ever.  It reminded her of the horrors that had
driven her home and back into the safety of her family’s bosom.  This was
her
place for safety and comfort, and he was destroying that illusion.  Finally,
she couldn’t stand it any longer.

Gathering her skirts, she fled the chamber,
ignoring the calls of her sister and mother.  Descending the stairs far too
quickly, she hit the entry with full fury and even ignored the calls from her
grandfather who was seated in the warm and stuffy great hall off to her left. 
At the moment, she was singularly focused with ridding Canterbury of du
Lesseps.  She’d reached her limit. Every pain, every shame, that she had felt
over the past five years was about to come out all over that pitiful fool with
the citole.  He was in for a thrashing.

The early evening was moist and cold as Adalind
charged out of the keep and took the steps down to the bailey.  All fit and
fire, she charged up on Eynsford, who was now sitting up in the mud as he
brayed forth his lament. When he saw Adalind approaching through the dark, his
fat face lit up and his singing immediately stopped.

“My lady!” he exclaimed gratefully. “I have…!”

Adalind interrupted him with an angry snap.
“Enough!” she roared. “Eynsford du Lesseps, I have listened to you screech and
howl all day and I am sick to death of it, do you hear? I have told you
repeatedly, since the day we met, that I am not interested in marrying you, and
no amount of horrible singing or nauseating poetry is going to force me to
change my mind. Do you understand me? You are the stupidest, foulest, and most
disgusting man I have ever met and I want absolutely nothing to do with you. I
want you to get out of Canterbury and never come back. Is this in any way
unclear?”

She was sincerely raging.  By the time she was
finished, Eynsford was looking at her with a great deal of shock and
amazement.  The smile was gone from his face.

“But…,” he was genuinely puzzled, “my lady, I am
desperate for want of you. Do you not understand that my feelings are…?”

She cut him off again. “Go away,” she nearly
shouted. “I have tried to be patient and I have tried to be kind, but you are
so foolish that you cannot understand what I am telling you.  Pleasantries have
evidently masked the meaning of my words, so I am no longer pleasant. I don’t
like you. I don’t want you. I will not marry you. I want you to go away and
never come back.”

Eynsford rose to his knees, stiffly struggling
to his feet. “But if you will only give me a chance, I am sure….”

“No!” she roared. “No chances. No nothing. Stop
humiliating me with your idiotic singing and go
away
!”