Wild Roses (11 page)

Maire didn't know what to say, other than asking again
to be released, a growing group of servants now watching nervously near the
steps to the kitchen. Adele didn't answer, instead looking Maire up and down, a
winged brow arched as if she were noting for the first time the fine blue silk
of Maire's gown. Maire decided to attempt
another tact
.

"Please, I was looking for Flanna—"

"Flanna? Duncan's common little tart of a
mistress?"

Nodding hesitantly, Maire felt a chill as a strange
smile curved Adele's lips. "I've only to speak to her,
then
I should return to bed. Clement the friar has said I need rest—"

"Oh, yes, I'm sure you do after you've been so
sorely mistreated," came Adele's sarcastically hostile response, while
Rufus only snickered, hugging Maire's knees all the tighter. "Flanna is no
longer here. Duncan sent her away yesterday and I'm elated. Dreadful Irish
bitch. Off to wed one of his tenants, I imagine, though a far better use would
have been to give her to my men. FitzHugh, you would have enjoyed that,
wouldn't you?"

"Not as much as this one here would have pleased
me," said the stocky knight at Adele's side, fresh chills washing over
Maire as she recognized his gruff voice from the meadow. Wholly stunned to hear
that Flanna had left Longford Castle, she was gripped by growing despair as the
man raked her with leering eyes while Adele clucked her tongue.

"Oh, no, that wouldn't make my tenderhearted
brother happy at all, I fear. He wants to return her home as if it mattered
what happened to an Irish chit . . . though with this one, I'm growing more
convinced with each moment that it does. A pity I didn't let you have her in
the woods, Henry, then we could have left her there and none of this damnable
mess—"

"Lady Adele!"

Maire jumped, Clement's voice filling her with such
relief that she felt tears sting her eyes. At once the dwarf released her legs
as the friar, his expression grave, gave the tray he carried to a servant and
swiftly approached. But Adele clasped a hand upon her arm, her icy stare
forbidding Maire to move or even speak.

"Lady Adele, I must insist on escorting Rose back
to her room—"

"
Her
room, friar?" Adele's slim fingers tightened like talons around Maire's
arm. "My brother's apartment, surely, unless some new arrangement has been
agreed upon? Pray don't tell me he's considering her for his new
mistress—"

"Ah, no, my lady, you've misunderstood,"
Clement blurted out, only to be waved to sudden silence.

"No, you don't understand," Adele said
haughtily. "Rose will be supping with me this evening. It had been my
thought to send one of my maidservants to see after her welfare and ask her to
join us, and lo and behold! Here she was, looking none the worse for the
healing potion Duncan told me you gave her—just as I was on my way to the great
hall. Delightful! So come, Rose dear. I believe my, other knights have rudely
started without us."

Chapter 10

Adele's grip on her flesh was so tight that Maire bit
her bottom lip to keep from crying out. She wondered dazedly if Adele's retinue
might outnumber Duncan's, now that he was away with so many of his men, and
what that could mean if poor Clement resisted. Truly, she didn't want to see
the friar hurt, didn't want to see anyone hurt. Mayhap if she simply played
along . . .

"Rose, if you do not wish this . . ." Clement
started to say to her as she passed by with Adele, the woman still holding fast
to her arm, yet the stout friar fell silent when Maire summoned a shaky smile.

"Truly, I'm fine. It was the smell of food that
brought me downstairs—"

"There! You see, friar?" Adele exulted, no
matter that a frown came to Clement's brow. "She is much on the mend
already. Wonderful! Just what I had hoped."

Adele walked so fast into the massive hall that Maire
had to struggle to keep up, her awkward gait only exaggerated by such a pace.
She heard sniggering behind her, and glanced over her shoulder to see Rufus
cruelly mimicking her, one short leg dragging behind him as he rocked from side
to side with a broad grin on his face.

Maire doubted she had ever felt such humiliation. The
entire hall seemed to erupt into laughter from the knights seated on a dais and
the lesser soldiers dining at long trestle tables to the buxom maidservants
waiting upon them. Adele's entourage? Maire guessed as much at the many grim
expressions, too, on the faces of Duncan's knights who had remained behind as
well as men-at-arms and Irish servants, all no doubt having heard by now of the
calamity that had brought her to Longford Castle and clearly sharing Lord
FitzWilliam's sentiments, which heartened her.

She could see at their greater number that she had
misjudged her fear for Clement, but the decision was made and she doubted that
Adele would release her. Lifting her chin, she bore the escalating noise
bravely as Adele's knights roared with laughter and pointed, though Maire could
not help remembering another time when her face had burned as hot with
mortification. But then it had been the look of repulsion by only one man,
Colin
O'Nolan, that
had shattered her most precious
dream.

"What a somber lot, Duncan's men," Adele said
with clear disdain as they approached the steps to the dais. "Especially
that one there, Reginald Montfort."

She followed Adele's gaze to a strapping older knight
with graying hair and as grave an expression as any she'd seen. He was seated
at the opposite end of the high table. Maire winced when Adele's grip grew
tighter.

"Wretched fellow, testy as a bull. Duncan's left
him in charge while he's away—with strict orders that my retainers and I are
not to leave Longford Castle. Ridiculous!"

Maire didn't know what to make of such a revelation,
but Adele clearly didn't expect a comment as she finally released Maire and
climbed the five steps with elegant grace, indicating that Maire should follow.
She did, though walking up stairs had always been difficult for her, and once
more Rufus the Fool parroted her movements while fresh guffaws greeted his
antics.

He even went so far as to take a tumble to the floor
when Maire nearly lost her balance, her hand catching the edge of the table,
which was the only thing that saved her. Her face burning, her courage
faltering, she sank gratefully into an empty chair between Adele and Henry
FitzHugh, not seeing that Reginald Montfort had risen from his place.

"God's breath, Lady Adele, enough of this pathetic
folly! Call off your fool, or I'll see him from the hall myself!"

"Really, Sir Reginald, Rufus means no harm, his
only joy in life to amuse and entertain," Adele answered with a brittle
smile that only made Duncan's knight swear and retake his seat.

"You see?" she said in a low aside to Maire
as if Adele had made no note that the dwarf's mimicry had been done at Maire's
expense. "Damned wretched fellow. Nearly as foul-tempered as my
brother. All I had wanted was to follow Gerard de Barry to West Meath to join
the hunt for Irish rebels—what a delightful outing it could have been, too. But
Duncan wouldn't hear of it. Said I'd caused him enough trouble already, among
other things, roared at me, shouted, blustered, and was gone."

A vexed wave of Adele's white, bejeweled hand sent
servants rushing to wait upon the high table. Maire's plate was heaped with
food and her goblet filled with golden wine in only a few moments' time. Yet
her stomach flip-flopped at the glistening meat and varied side dishes; a
simple bowl of Clement's beef broth would have been far preferable in coaxing
her appetite.

It didn't help, either, that Adele again gripped her
arm cruelly after taking a long sip of wine, the stunning blonde's eyes grown
icy cold.

"I want you gone from here. Do you understand?
Gone!"

Maire was so startled she couldn't speak, although
Adele rushed on before she had a chance to while the noisy din of the hall rang
around them.

"You're the one who's causing the trouble here,
not me. Duncan's taken too much of an interest in you—he's wasting his time
over you! Riding back to that place where we came upon your wretched clansmen,
dragging poor FitzHugh and three other knights of mine with him. And for what?
I told him that the bodies would be gone. That I'd seen a man riding into the
trees just before my crossbowmen were close enough to . . ."

Adele didn't finish, but lifted her goblet once more to
drink while Maire could only stare, aghast.

Adele had seen Niall riding away? He had come that
close to falling victim, as had Fiach and the others?

"I even suggested that Duncan should take you back
to that meadow and leave you there with plenty of food and water," Adele
continued of a sudden, her tone growing more agitated though she kept her voice
low. "Surely your clansmen might return again if they came once before,
and they would find you and this whole mess would be settled! But my dear
brother wouldn't hear of it. Called me callous not to think of the wolves that
might find you first—so you see? Until you remember more than your Christian
name, it might be days, even weeks, and after what I heard Flanna screeching
about Duncan kissing you—"

"He . . . he kissed me?" Her fingers flying
to her lips, Maire stared incredulously at Adele, who appeared so galled that
two bright spots of color dotted her alabaster cheeks.

"After he carried you back to his rooms, so Flanna
claimed, and my brother didn't deny it. She had run down the stairs, then gone
back and saw him—God's blood, what does that matter? For a man saying he wants
you returned safely to your family to kiss you while you sleep? Stupid girl,
that tells me much if not you! I wish I'd never brought you here!"

Adele's voice having sunk to a hiss, Maire could barely
hear the woman's next words for how clamorous the hall had grown, many of the
knights seated on the dais clearly becoming drunk.

"Duncan is growing ever more consumed by your
plight, and I'll not have it! Until you're gone, I've no hope that he'll take
time to consider a bride, and he needs no mistress as fair as you, I see that
now. And with Flanna sent away, he'll have no vent for his lust—oh, yes, I see
that concerns you, good! Perhaps the thought of my brother giving you more than
a kiss might jar your memory, yes?"

Maire had paled, she knew it. Try as she might, she
could not forget the sensation of Duncan's hand cupping her breast, her flesh
tingling even now as Adele speculatively studied her face.

"An accursed virgin, too, I would swear it, which
is all the more reason to be rid of you. Impudent mistresses are one thing with
which to contend, and a ghost entirely another, but a chieftain's daughter
whose clan might not rest until she's made a baron's bride in retribution if
her chastity has been lost . . . ah, no."

Maire gasped as Adele dug her fingernails into her
wrist and drew closer, her blue eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Ah, no, Rose, I'll allow no Irish chit to become
my dear brother's bride. Never. It was bad enough that a common Scots bitch
falsely claimed herself a second wife to our father and bore a son he loved
above three others. Duncan FitzWilliam will have a Norman wife to thin his
tainted blood and give him heirs of which his family in England can be
proud."

"But I . . . I don't want to be Lord FitzWilliam's
wife," Maire began, only to be sharply cut off.

"As if he would have you, flawed as you are."
Adele's gaze fell to Maire's legs, her eyes grown as vexed as her expression as
she then lifted them to Maire's face and spoke almost to herself. "Yet
Duncan has always been one to let compassion sway him, not so wise a trait in a
man who lives by the sword. If he has kissed you, who can say how your crippled
state will further move him?"

Adele's clenched fist came down upon the table at the
same moment a half dozen jugglers and acrobats began to whoop and tumble at the
center of the hall, Maire not sure which had startled her more. Yet she was already
so alarmed by everything the woman had told her, her heart pounding, her lips
burning as if Duncan had only just kissed her . . . Jesu, Mary, and Joseph!

That her impossible imagining hadn't been a dream was
not half as disturbing as that she found herself wishing she'd been awake to
feel his mouth touch hers. Maire felt more anxious than ever before to leave
Longford Castle. But without Flanna, how . . . ?

Maire glanced at Adele to find the woman still glaring
at her, as if by sheer will she could make Maire disappear. Suddenly Maire
realized she sat beside the one person who would gladly aid her. Desperately
shoving away all thoughts of her slaughtered clansmen and the fact that she
couldn't possibly trust Adele or her men, Maire had no choice but to speak.

"Please, the meadow . . . the meadow where my
clansmen—" She faltered, grisly memories assailing her no matter her
resolve, but already Adele was leaning toward her, the woman's eyes narrowing.
Maire swallowed and rushed on. "If there was a way for you, your
men—someone to get me there. I could wait, like you said. I'm sure it would
only be a matter of time before my family—"

"FitzHugh!"

Adele had risen from her chair, her knight tossing back
the last of his wine and rising, too. As the two conferred in low voices, Maire
was grateful for the commotion in the hall as none seemed to pay much
attention. Even Reginald Montfort, who appeared well occupied by the comely
servingwoman refilling his goblet. The next thing she knew Adele had gripped
her shoulder and bent low to whisper in her ear.

"Look as if you're ill, damn you. It's the only
way."

Look as if she were ill? In truth, Maire felt nearly
sick from nervousness and she shoved away her plate, the smell of the various
foods nauseating her indeed. Adele looked pleased as Maire then
rose
shakily, the woman looping an arm around her waist as
if she were truly concerned while she raised her voice so at least those on the
dais would hear.