Page 34

Chapter

Twenty-Nine

Adara

“ Y ou must bow when you enter but divert your eyes only for a moment. He does not respect weakness. Though, if you hold his gaze, it will show insolence. Stand beside me but do not reach for my hand. He may address you, he may not. Do not interject when I speak, do not—”

“I know how to behave, Adara,” Grahame said. They rode together, albeit slowly, toward the house.

“Yes, of course you do,” she said, softening her tone.

Her breaths caught in her chest; she had to focus on forcing them in and out. He had simply nodded and trudged ahead when she announced her father’s presence in their house. Ready. Resigned.

“Had you reason to believe he would come?”

Adara was faintly aware of Hagan and Thor straining to hear her answer.

“I did not. I’ve avoided his summons yet advised I would travel to him as planned.

He likely wants to order my marriage to the new suitor.

At least our arrangement will provide a distraction.

Perhaps he will see that you are capable—though, I should have given you more access to the accounts.

He’ll think you more worthy if you have knowledge of the last round of tax.

I can show them to you tonight after we’ve greeted him. I thought we had more time…”

It was as if Adara’s jaw had unhinged and words spewed out. She couldn’t stop them.

“Good idea,” Grahame murmured. He steered his horse around a pile of shit, his mouth a line. Gone was her jovial husband, in his place was the stoic man she first met at her gate.

“I don’t know how long he intends to stay but I will be—”

“Adara,” Grahame said, halting his horse. He stared at her as she reined in Ulrich, turning in her seat. Ulrich twisted his neck to look at her, his ears flickering. She gave him a good scratch.

For a scant moment, the sun peeked from behind a cloud and backlit Grahame’s head and shoulders.

Her throat went as dry as tinder. She was about to put the man she’d dreamed of for years, the man she dared to have deeper affection for than she could ever name, directly in the path of a man that could so easily cut him down.

How could she have been so selfish? So enraged with losing her cousin and power-drunk after Elvin’s death?

She’d claimed the boy she had desired for years, yes, but Grahame had become so much more.

He listened to her, tried to learn her. Despite her attack on his people, he stood by her, and had given her a taste of how a man could treat a woman.

It felt as if someone was pressing a boot to her chest.

“’Dara?” Grahame asked, though his voice sounded muffled.

Her head began to feel like a cloud that might float away. She was about to sentence him to death. The fear in her chest wound tight. She tried to take a deep breath, only to find she couldn’t. Her vision greyed.

“Adara!” Grahame shouted as he moved, flinging his leg over his horse. Her hands tightened on the reins but she tipped to the side, her chest burning. Thor yelled something while she slid.

Her legs felt like jelly as she tipped to the left. The ground rushed at her before darkness stole her away.

Wakefulness came in pieces. She was astride a horse, both legs folded over one side, her rump in the center. Strong arms and the scent of sunshine and clover held her. The skin of Grahame’s throat cradled her face, and she breathed him in as if he were life.

“Welcome back,” he said, the deep sound reverberating into her bones.

Adara shivered. “Hello,” she barked out, her voice gritty. She opened her eyes to find them nearly through Clayton House’s front gate. She had not blacked out for long then, though not short enough that Grahame waited.

“Are you feeling better? We waited for you to wake but the men at the gate started toward us so I thought it best to meet them rather than catching us unhorsed,” Grahame said into her ear.

Adara licked parched lips and sat straighter, pushing away from Grahame as much as she could. His arms tightened around her middle.

“Relax,” he said into her hair. “Rest a little. We’ll tell them we’re newlyweds and did not want to ride apart.”

Adara tilted her head to look up at Grahame. His mint-colored eyes were lined with worry. Guilt gutted her.

“I should like to dismount as soon as we are past the gate,” she said, pasting on a brittle smile for the guards.

Two men, each on a dark horse, watched them approach. Both held spears and wore the red-stitched sigil of a badger over a grey doublet.

Grahame’s thumb scraped along her ribcage. Adara swallowed around the dryness in her throat.

“Good day, men,” Hagan shouted as he approached. “I have Lady Clayton, returning home. Stand aside.”

Adara straightened again, nodding with all the regality she possessed.

Without a word, the stoic men moved aside. Adara’s heart lurched as they passed through the gate. Her father’s men were everywhere. Some lay in the grass eating huge plates, some brushed and watered horses at the stable, others came and went from the house, the door hanging open like a lost tooth.

Grumb had been left in charge, but where was he? It was a testament to what her father really thought of her. Someone to be trodden upon. Fear slammed into her. If she was worthy of such indignity, Grahame would be thought of as even less.

“Grahame,” she hissed, “we must appear as if we dislike one another’s company. Act toward me as you did at the beginning of all this.”

“Like I hate you? No,” was his gruff reply.

He guided them to the stables, the men moving out of the way as he reined in Ulrich. Panic sluiced along her bones.

“Act as if you benefit from the marriage. You wanted land, title, all of that. You had your eye set high and settled for me as a wife in the process. Please . My father will respect that more than if you show affection to me or I to you. He will understand striving. He does not understand hearts and wishes. If this is to work, you must appear pleased with the status of the marriage but not me.”

Grahame pulled away to properly look at her, a refusal written in his features. However, something in her pleading, or perhaps it was the desperation in her eyes, made him pause. His lips became a line as he nodded. Adara loosed a breath of relief.

They dismounted without further exchange.

Adara marched across the threshold of her home, spine straight, hands clammy.

A couple of men crowded the entrance of the great room with mugs in hand.

The fire crackled and the scent of wet grass, mud, and ale wafted.

Worry for her stores and the demand on Cook fought for dominance over her worry for Muretta.

A voice like a frozen hand grasping her throat said, “Hello, Daughter.”

She could not halt the cringe that hunched her shoulders, nor the spiral of fear that wound along her spine.

In her childhood, she could never escape that quiet, purposeful voice.

Even wrapped in years of marriage and miles away, her father’s tone came back to her in every letter, every bit of information passed down to her by Elvin.

Behind her, Thor grumbled about the earl’s men being layabouts. Hagan’s grunt was accompanied by a scuffle as if he pushed someone away. Directly behind her, Grahame hovered, his chest at her back.

Adara swallowed past the sensation of sand in her throat and pushed through men at the great room’s mouth. They looked her up and down with half-lidded, greedy stares but let her pass.

“Father,” Adara said, ignoring the use of his title.

Earl Eadric of Bernira sat in a chair at the table’s head.

Grey eyes the color of her own pinned her to the spot while a permanent scowl marred his thin mouth.

Sallow skin accompanied stringy, chin length hair.

There was a stoop to his shoulders as he sat with his arms draped over the chair’s wooden armrests, hands dangling, open.

Adara was not deceived by it. His posture in no way indicated poor health.

Rather, it served as a representation of his spirit; downtrodden, bruised, yet vicious like a cornered animal.

“My daughter,” he said, bestowing the same courtesy on her. “I trust you had a prosperous trip. It must have been pressing if you did not find the time to write to me regarding your marriage prospects.”

He took a sip from his mug, the ale glistening on his lips as he brought the mug down. Adara strode forward, halting a few generous steps away. Muretta and Bhlaine were nowhere she could see. Hope that they were holed up in their rooms, unharmed, was a desperate shadow in her mind.

The men at the table shifted, one of them standing as Grahame followed. Eadric did not even look his way, his eyes boring into her. Adara steeled her spine. She could not falter.

“We did. Thank you for the concern, Father. Of course, I am delighted to see that you’ve made the journey in spite of my lack of word.”

Eadric’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

“I am. There is no need for my daughter to be without a husband. Especially since you were unable to bear a child with the previous one. You are old enough that a child may be hard to come by, but there is still a chance. A marriage in which a suitable heir is created is your birthright. You’ve let this earldom down by not producing such. ”

Grahame’s grunt from behind was like the burying of a knife in a back. As if he had to will himself not to retort. Eadric’s gaze flashed to him, a shrewd question crossing his face, before continuing.

“It is the tenderness I carry for you that has moved me to configure a match. He is here. Galan, prince of the Britons.”

Eadric gestured, palm-up, to the table. On the left, in Grahame’s usual spot, rose a burly man with an unkind face.

His hair was wild, the colors of the forest floor in autumn, his thick tunic the dull grey of dead fish scales.

His nose had been broken and healed, leaving it thick and bumpy in the center of his scruffy face.

Hands fisted at his sides as he came to his full height, about Adara’s own, as if he’d like nothing other than to crush her within his thick fingers.

His voice was high and smooth, completely at odds with his savage frame.

“Greetings, Bride.”