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.
The small door in the massive gates opened and the face of an old woman peered out. She blinked up at him, with eyes milky with cataracts.
‘My name is—’
‘I ken who you are,’ the woman said. ‘I held you in my arms when you were a bairn. Adam Coulter they called you.’
The back of Adam’s neck prickled and Perdita’s hand on his arm tightened.
‘Who are you?’
‘Mab,’ the crone replied. ‘Ye’ll not remember me. You were nowt but a small bairn when he came for ye, but I’d know ye for Coulter, e’en without the lawyer sending word to expect ye. Yer mother is dead?’
Adam nodded.
‘Then ye best come in, my lord. For lord of these lands ye are now.’
Adam stepped through the gateway and paused for a moment to look up at the building that surrounded him. Up closer, the unmistakable air of neglect hung over the homestead, from the ivy-covered walls and crumbling stonework to the broken windows and sagging guttering.
‘When did Mistress Coulter die?’ He addressed Mab’s back.
She turned to look at him. ‘Ten year she’s bin in the grave now. Mistress Joan put in a caretaker but he died in the springtime and there’s bin no one to collect the rents or tend to the land since then.’ She stopped at a heavy oak door and turned to look at him. ‘Ye’re a soldier? I heard tell of wars being fought in the land again.’
Adam nodded.
Mab sighed heavily. ‘Well there’ll be no thought of you returning here for some wee while then?’
Adam hesitated and glanced at Perdita. Any thoughts he might have had of installing Perdita here were beginning to fade.
Mab waved at the door. ‘Well, come in, come in. The best I can offer ye is the kitchen. It’s warm and dry, not like the rest of the house.’
She ushered them into a flagged kitchen where a fire burned in the hearth, making the room almost unbearably hot. Here, in her domain, Mab turned to face them.
‘Who’s this?’ She jerked a clawed hand at Perdita.
‘My...’ Adam glanced at Perdita. He had been about to say ‘wife’ but that small detail still had to be dealt with. The paucity of good inns between here and York had kept them apart at night.
‘Betrothed,’ Perdita interposed.
Mab nodded as if she approved of what she saw. ‘How long are ye staying?’
‘Only a few days.’
Mab nodded. ‘I’ll send the boy to stable your horses and ye can take your time to look over the place, but ye’ll not like what ye see.’
Perdita took his hand. ‘You go,’ she said. ‘I’ll see what can be done for supper.’
He nodded, appreciative of her tact.
He wandered the dusty and deserted corridors trying to find some other memories, but he saw only the cobwebs and smelt the musty smell of a building too long shut up.
To his surprise, he found Mab in a large bedchamber, stoking a fitful fire into life.
She rose to her feet on his entrance, brushing dust from her skirts.
‘This ‘’ere was Mistress Coulter’s room. It’s the best I can offer ye. I’ve made up the bed and the lady I’ll put in the room across the corridor. ’Tis small but dry.’
‘Is there a priest in the village?’
Mab’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Aye, if ye’ve a mind to see him, I can send the boy for him.’
‘I presume I own his living?’
‘Ye do.’
Good, that meant there would be no argument about tedious formalities. They could be wed on the morrow.
Mab laid her hand on a dusty box that stood on the table. ‘I’ve not touched Lady Ann’s papers. The key’s in yonder pot.’ She indicated a clay pot of some antiquity that stood on the window ledge.
‘Tell me,’ Adam said. ‘What manner of woman was Lady Ann?’
Mab’s face softened. ‘Oh, she were a fine lady, sir. As good and gentle as any you’d want to meet. Broke her heart when Lord Marchant came to fetch you. She was never wed and had no bairn of her own to hold.’
A shiver ran down his spine and in that moment, Adam had the strange sensation of seeing a grey-haired woman standing beside the fireplace in this very room, her hand resting on a cane.
‘She had a twisted back,’ he said.
Mab nodded. ‘Ye remember? Aye, a hunchback she was. There were never any lads to court her, except for what they saw in her lands. She chose not to marry. I’ll leave you, sir, and send yer lady up to you.’
When Mab had gone, Adam opened the box. Within were deeds and various estate papers, and at the very bottom of the box he found a bundle of letters tied with string. His heart jumped as he recognised the writing as Joan’s.
He sat down beside the now -blazing fire and pulled his boots off. He propped his feet on a stool and undid the ribbon that bound the packet of letters. The last letter turned out to be the first and was written by his uncle, the man he had always known as his father.
‘My dear cousin, it grieves me to be the bearer of sad tidings, but my beloved sister Joan is gravely ill and the doctors fear for her life. She cries piteously for her babe and I fear I have no choice but to fetch the child to Marchants. I have promised Joan that I will do this and more. I have given her my word on my honour that the child will be raised as a child of mine. My wife has protested most vigorously but I will prevail, for reasons best known to myself. Expect me within the month. Yr servant John M.’
Adam stared at the letter, wondering why he had never seen the affection Lord Marchant had held for his sister. It had been masked by the antipathy, Sofia, Lady Marchant, had displayed to the bastard child. Maybe, he considered, his uncle’s decision to bring Adam to Marchants had been the beginning of the long disintegration of the relationships in the Marchant family. He had always been the cuckoo in the nest. Now he understood why.
Adam turned to Joan’s letters and read an account of her slow recovery and her joy at being reunited with her child.
‘...although I cannot claim him as my own, to see him daily and to hold him as a proper aunt. You ask how my brother prevailed on Lady Marchant to accept his tale and it is sad to relate that I suspect it is because it is common talk at court that Lady Sophia has taken a young lover to her bed. To avoid her own scandal she is willing to tolerate her husband’s own infidelity, even though he is the most faithful of men.’
Each letter had been written on the same date; Adam’s birthday. Adam read the account of his life as he grew from skirts to a boy, schooled with his ‘brother’ Denzil, learning sword play and how to ride.
Robin’s birth had brought great joy to the household, and then, within a few years, Lady Marchant’s death, an event Adam remembered viewing with considerable relief. The letters ceased when Adam had gone to court, shortly before what would have been Ann Coulter’s death.
As he read each letter he consigned it to the flames, watching as the edges caught and the ink momentarily darkened before the paper turned black and dissolved into the red heart of the fire.
As he consigned the final letter to the flames, watching as the last tie with his mother smouldered, exploded into flame and vanished, the door opened and Perdita entered followed by Mab, carrying a large tray with a steaming bowl of rabbit stew, fresh bread and a bottle of wine. He indicated the smaller table beside the fireplace and Mab left them alone to their supper.
Perdita looked up at the wall around the fireplace. She pointed past the rows of grim-faced ancestors of the last century to a small head and shoulders study of a dark haired child.
‘Adam, have you seen that portrait?’
He rose to his feet and took it down from the wall. He recognised the style and the initials in the corner JM—Joan Marchant.
‘Joan’s work,’ he said.
‘You,’ Perdita said.
‘Me,’ he echoed and turned to face her.
‘Are you sorry you came?’ she asked.
‘No. I knew I never belonged at Marchants and now I understand why. The fact remains I will always bear the stain of being bastard-born but there’s nothing I can do to change that and nothing here to give any indication as to who my father may have been.’
He looked around the room and hefted a heavy sigh. ‘As for my inheritance, it’s in worse repair then I thought. This is probably one of the few inhabitable rooms in the whole place.’
Perdita took a sip of her wine. ‘When the war is over, Adam, we will make this a home. A place where we can be happy. A place for’ she broke off and a shadow crossed her face. He wondered if she had been about to say ‘for children’.
He smiled. ‘Until then, we must seize our moments.’ He took her by the hands and pulled her to his feet, so she stood facing him. ‘Tomorrow, my dearest Perdita, we will find the priest and be wed, and for such time as we can we will pretend that the world beyond these walls does not exist. This moment is ours.’
She wound her arms around his neck, looking into his face, searching his eyes. He bent his head and their lips met, and he knew he could never let her go again. Like the feathers in the wind Perdita had talked about, they had caught each other and were now bound together. Whatever lay in their future, for now they were content.
THE END
Adam and Perdita’s story continues in
NOW MY SWORN FRIEND
(Feathers in the Wind Book 2)
Read on for an excerpt…