Page 117

Two days later

I t was his wedding feast.

At least, it was a meal and it was taking place after the marriage mass to Adelaide, but that was all Thomas could say for it. It wasn’t a happy event, by any means.

It was hell.

His parents hadn’t come. William was still recovering from his head injury and Jordan remained with him at Northwood Castle because he needed constant tending.

That was the excuse, anyway. Scott, Troy, and Patrick had come to Wark to observe the nuptials, but Blayth had returned to Castle Questing because William couldn’t travel and he wanted his second-in-command back at Questing.

No one was happy about this wedding except the bride, who had been released after five days in the vault by Thomas, who stiffly informed her that he’d brought Lady Teviot’s priest from Northwood Castle to perform the mass immediately.

The man was Scots and spoke in a heavy Scots accent, completely insulting Adelaide, who looked down upon those from north of the border.

She’d waited for this moment for so long, however, that she didn’t turn down the offer of Lady Teviot’s priest. She wanted to be married to the man who had locked her in the vault with her dead father and she wanted to be married to him now.

That was all she cared about.

With the help of Hilde, Adelaide bathed and dressed for the event, magnanimously telling Thomas that she forgave him for putting her in the vault.

But Thomas didn’t care; he also didn’t bathe or change.

He presented himself to Adelaide in the same clothing he had been wearing when he rescued Maitland, which was dirty and smelled awful.

Somehow, he just couldn’t take it off because she had touched it.

He wanted to keep it against his body. He didn’t even know what he was going to do when it came time to consummate the marriage.

Perhaps if he got drunk enough, he might be able to get through it.

So, he started drinking before the mass. He was significantly tipsy when the priest started the ceremony at the door to the great hall and then moved everyone inside to complete the service.

While Desmond remained outside on the walls, Scott, Troy, and Patrick went inside and stood with Thomas, passing him cups of wine, and the man literally drank his way through the entire service.

Adelaide noticed and she was greatly upset by it, but the more she frowned and shook her head at him, the more he drank.

At one point, Scott, Troy, and Patrick had their own cups.

So towards the end of the prayers, all four of them were drinking.

It was an unhappy moment of unity.

Thomas was more miserable than he’d ever been in his life.

He cursed himself for being stupid enough to agree to marry Adelaide, for being stupid enough to agree with his father.

But then in the same breath, he knew he was doing what needed to be done.

He longed for Maitland in the worst way, closing his eyes as the priest intoned prayers in Latin and imagining that it was Maitland standing beside him.

Then he’d open his eyes and see Adelaide.

And he felt like his world was crashing in.

Maitland was still at Northwood Castle with the children, so he knew they were all safe and warm and fed, and being spoiled by Jordan and even Caria, who had taken a liking to little Dyana.

In truth, they were quite inseparable. It had done Thomas’ heart good to see that, but the mere fact that he wasn’t with Maitland made him feel alone as he’d never felt in his life.

Mercifully, the mass concluded and the priest finished the ceremony by giving Thomas a “kiss of peace”, always bestowed upon the groom, and the groom was expected to pass the kiss on to his bride.

When Thomas looked at Adelaide, who was gazing at him quite expectantly, it took every ounce of effort he had to lean forward and kiss her on the cheek.

And with that, Thomas de Wolfe became the Earl of Northumbria.

He also became a man with no patience and no courtesy for his wife.

He turned to assume his place at the feasting table, leaving Adelaide simply standing there, but Scott and Troy shook their heads at him, forcing him to reconsider his rude behavior.

The situation was bad enough without him acting like a complete jackass.

Turning to Adelaide, who was already upset about the drinking and the lack of a kiss to her mouth, Thomas held out an elbow to her, which she snatched.

With her claws digging into him, Thomas led her over to the dais for the wedding feast.

Food and drink were immediately brought forth, and minstrels from Kyloe, who had come those months ago when Adelaide came to Wark because she liked music when she ate, began to play.

It was all rather warm and festive, and would have been quite pleasant had the groom actually been happy about the marriage.

He declined food but not the drink, and as the evening wore on, the drunker he became.

“Tommy,” Scott leaned in to his brother when he saw him empty a third pitcher of wine. “Passing out from too much drink will only delay the inevitable. Mayhap you should slow down and have something to eat.”

Thomas looked at his brother, his head bobbing and weaving ever so slightly. “I rescued her only to leave her,” he muttered. “She is all I ever wanted, Scott. Only her.”

Scott was tipsy but he wasn’t drunk like his brother. He held up a hand so the man would lower his voice, as Adelaide was sitting on the other side of him.

“I know,” Scott said quietly. “I am deeply sorry for you, you know that. But you married Adelaide for a purpose. Keep to that purpose, Thomas.”

Thomas cocked a dark eyebrow. “Keep to that purpose,” he muttered. “I have kept to that purpose at the expense of my own happiness. Is Papa proud of me now? Are you proud of me now?”

“Aye,” Troy put in, speaking for all of them. “Of course we are proud of you. I told you– we always have been.”

Thomas looked at them, his three older brothers, men he loved deeply.

“I am now the Earl of Northumbria,” he said with a hint of irony in his tone.

“I could take my army and wipe out everything in Northumberland. I could march it into Scotland and take control of the borders, or I could march it down to York and claim all of York as mine. Did you know that?”

“I know that,” Troy replied softly.

Thomas threw up his hands. “I have so much power but I do not have the power to marry the woman I love,” he said. Then, he shook his head and turned for his half-empty cup. “You do not understand. None of you do. You all love your wives. You cannot know my misery.”

By now, Adelaide was listening carefully.

She was watching drunken Thomas lament his love life, becoming more enraged and jealous by the moment.

She knew he didn’t like her; she’d always known.

But now, his guard was down, smashed by too much drink, and she was coming to hear something she’d never heard before.

I do not have the power to marry the woman I love. She happened to catch Scott’s eye.

“Who is he speaking of?” she demanded. “Who is this woman he speaks of?”

Scott shook his head, hoping they didn’t have the start of an enormous problem on their hands as the bride came to discover her husband was in love with someone else. Adelaide was unpredictable enough without that added trouble.

“It is nothing, Lady de Wolfe,” he said calmly. “He has simply had…”

Thomas cut him off. “Don’t you dare call her Lady de Wolfe,” he snarled. “She is not worthy of the name and I’ll not hear it from your lips, do you hear?”

Adelaide shot to her feet, taking a swing at the back of Thomas’ head. “I am Lady de Wolfe,” she barked. “It is you who are not worthy of the Northumbria name. I do not know what I was thinking when I told my father to seek this betrothal!”

The slap to the head enraged Thomas. He bolted to his feet as well, standing a good foot taller than Adelaide as he gazed down at her, his nostrils flaring with rage. Suddenly, he didn’t look so very drunk.

“What were you thinking, Adelaide?” he asked her, his face looming very close to hers. “Why did you ask your father to seek mine and offer a betrothal? Weren’t you already betrothed at the time?”

Adelaide’s eyes widened and her features paled. She swayed back, away from him, and a flicker of horror crossed her features. Her jaw ticked as if she very much wanted to say something, but the urge passed. The urge to strike out at him left her. Instead, she took a step back.

“You are mad,” she said. “You do not know what you are speaking of.”

“I know more than you think I do.”

To Adelaide, that was a threat. Those knowing words filled her heart with rage and terror, with jealousy and disgust. Something in his eyes told her that he did, indeed, know more than she thought he did. Perhaps he even knew everything. Even if he did, that didn’t matter now.

They were married.

She backed away from him, moving around the chair she’d been sitting in.

“I am going to my chamber,” she said. “You will join me there shortly. Do you understand? And no more drink. I will not take a drunkard to my bed.”

She didn’t wait for him to answer. As Adelaide quit the hall, moving through the smoke and the celebrating mass of soldiers, Thomas and his brothers watched her go. Thomas could hear Scott grunting unhappily.

“Tommy, if that woman has killed the two men before you, you are tempting fate by provoking her like that,” he said. “Must Troy and Atty and I go with you to your marital bed and protect you from your murderess wife now that she thinks you know about her killing tendencies?”

Thomas looked at his brother. “The only thing I fear in my marital bed is coupling with a woman that I detest,” he said. “Other than that, there is nothing to fear.”

Scott sighed heavily. “You must be careful, Tommy, please. She could be up there right now poisoning your wine.”