“I will not drink any wine.”

“Then she could be hiding a dagger under the pillow.”

“I do not intend to take the woman on her back. I’ll bend her over the bed and take her from behind, like a dog. That way, I will not have to look at her face.”

He was confident, as he usually was. Scott and Troy and Patrick exchanged glances, for certainly, nothing would convince Thomas to be cautious about his wedding night.

The drink may have loosened him enough to perform his husbandly duties, but it also took away his sense of self-protection.

Thomas had spent the past six months with Adelaide, insulting the woman, hating her, and detesting the coming marriage.

Now that he’d finally married her, to Thomas, the marriage bed was simply a necessary evil and he had absolutely no fear of it.

The older brothers hoped that wouldn’t be his undoing.

“Very well, Tommy,” Scott said. “Let us drink to your wedding night and pray you live through it.”

Thomas lifted a cup to that. Even as he drained it and spoke of returning to Northwood Castle as soon as he could, Scott and Troy and Patrick were making plans of their own.

Perhaps they wouldn’t invade Thomas’ marital chamber simply to ensure that his new wife wouldn’t slit his throat, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t follow him up there and linger in the corridor outside.

Something told them not to stray far from Thomas this night.

*

Adelaide was already in a state when she reached her chamber and threw open the door.

Hilde was in the room, having stoked the fire and prepared the marital bed with freshly washed linens.

She’d sprinkled lavender buds between the linens and was in the process of lighting several banks of fat, yellow tapers when Adelaide burst in.

The woman was dressed in a beautiful pale green silk that she’d had specially made for the wedding.

Green symbolized love and Adelaide had hoped the color would somehow inspire Thomas, but he didn’t seem to notice and if he did, he didn’t say anything.

Frustrated, she moved straight to the bed and began ripping the adornment out of her hair.

“Damn him,” she said angrily. “All of this– everything I did– went unnoticed and unappreciated and now I know why!”

She was raging, a very bad sign as far as Hilde was concerned. She was over by the bedside, lighting the last bank of candles to give the room a soft, warm glow.

“What has happened, Lady de Wolfe?” she asked timidly.

Adelaide froze when she heard the woman address her by her new title. She stared at Hilde a moment before breaking into a humorless smile.

“Lady de Wolfe,” she muttered. “It sounds horrid. I should make him take the de Vauden name. That is the name of the earldom, after all. Or mayhap I shall not let him have the earldom, after all.”

A hint of warning went off in Hilde’s head because she knew what had become of the two men who had preceded Sir Thomas.

Those deaths had been preceded by a mood much like the one Adelaide was displaying now.

The first betrothed had been a fine young man from the Horncliffe family.

He had been kind to Adelaide but she’d quickly grown bored of him.

He wasn’t handsome enough or powerful enough.

Rather than buy her way out of the contract, she simply decided to get rid of him.

He’d met his end by being pushed down a flight of stairs, buried in the storage vault of Kyloe.

The second young man, blond and dashing Cabot de Berck, would have made a good earl but he’d suffered a bout with poison when Adelaide had returned from the trip where she’d first lain eyes on Thomas de Wolfe.

It had taken poor Cabot two days to succumb to the poison Adelaide had used, and his body had been buried next to young Horncliffe.

And now, Thomas was displeasing Adelaide as well.

Another body in the vault.

“He is your husband, my lady.” The old nurse tried to gently force the woman to see reason. “You have married him and he is the earl. This is what you wanted, was it not?”

Adelaide eyed the woman before resuming pulling the adornment from her hair, more slowly now.

“I did,” she said. “He is handsome and powerful. I deserve a handsome and powerful husband. But he has been mean and cruel and inattentive, and now I know why. He is in love with another woman!”

Hilde finished lighting the last candle and move around the end of the bed. “How can you know that, my lady?”

Adelaide looked at her and the old woman recognized that look of utter fury.

“Because he said so!” she snapped. “He just said so at our wedding feast! Can you imagine? The groom at his own wedding feast speaks of his love for another woman! It was bad enough that he locked me in the vault while he was away. He tossed me away like an animal. Well, I will not stand for it any longer. He has humiliated me for the last time.”

Hilde knew what that meant. Fine, strong Thomas de Wolfe was not long for this world.

She hustled over to her charge and began helping her remove the adornment from her hair, combs and pins that had been shoved into an elaborate style.

But Adelaide was upset, and agitated, and when Hilde pulled on a comb too hard, Adelaide swung around and hit her, hard, on the side of the head.

She hit her twice more until the woman fell down, hands over her head to prevent Adelaide from doing any real damage.

“You useless old fool,” Adelaide hissed. “You are worthless to me, do you hear? One of these days it is going to be your own fault when I kill you. You are going to do something to displease me and it will be your fault!”

Hilde’s hands came away from her head but there was blood on her left hand where she’d touched her ear. Adelaide’s violent beating had made her bleed and as she looked at the blood on her hand, she realized there was something symbolic there.

Blood on her hands.

Aye, she knew about the two young men and she hadn’t done anything about it.

She had been terrified to. Now, Thomas de Wolfe’s life was on the line, as well as her own.

Adelaide as much as said so. She’d been afraid of Adelaide for so long that the paralyzing fear had crippled her into inaction but, at this moment, she realized that if she didn’t act, Thomas would meet his death and so would she.

She couldn’t let that happen.

It was finally time to take a stand.

“Get up,” Adelaide snapped. “Get off the floor and help me dress. Bring me the blue shift, the one I had made for this night.”

Hilde stood up on unsteady feet and shuffled over to the wardrobe.

Opening the elaborately carved panels, she could see a variety of possessions at the bottom of it; satchels, mirrors, and a small assortment of beautiful daggers that Edmund had purchased for his daughter.

She always traveled with them and that was what she used to cut her arms when the mood struck her.

As Hilde looked at them, an idea occurred to her, a thought of self-preservation that was born of fear. She grabbed the blue sleeping shift, the one that was sheer and delicate, and also one of the larger daggers.

Quickly, she returned to Adelaide.

“You have worked hard to marry Sir Thomas,” she said, her voice trembling with fear and age, but she said it so forcefully that the trembling could have been construed as excitement.

“He is finally your husband now and instead of punishing him for loving another, you must make him love you. You must make him appreciate you, my lady.”

Adelaide was dubious. “How am I to do that if he loves another woman?” she asked. “I think I know who it is. Do remember the nun who visited Wark not long ago? The one who was going to Edenside? He showed her great attention. I would be willing to wager it is her!”

Hilde shook her head. She placed the blue shift upon the bed and held up the dagger to Adelaide.

“Do what you do best,” she said encouragingly.

“Bring your blood forth and tell Sir Thomas that you wish to die. He always comes when you do this, does he not? It has always brought him to you in the past. What better to spur a husband’s regret and desire on his wedding night but the sight of his wife bathed in blood?

He shall be sorry he was ever so cruel to you. ”

Adelaide eyed the dagger, her anger at Thomas diverted by Hilde’s suggestion. Her mind was easily swayed, especially when it came to the dramatics she was so capable of.

“Do you think so?” she asked. “You do not think I should be a tempestarii again?”

The old woman shook her head. “Nay, my lady,” she said.

“No more tempestarii , no more fertility amulet. Be defenseless and near death. Lay down upon the bed and cut your arms, and I will summon Sir Thomas to come to you to save you. He must love a wife who would love him so much that she would die for that love.”

It was a thin premise, but Hilde knew her charge well.

She knew that Adelaide was always willing to cut her arms or pretend to be deathly ill if it would gain her what she wanted.

In this case, it was Thomas’ attention. The old woman was successfully diverting Adelaide’s anger away from death and revenge and towards the very thing she took pleasure in– putting on an act for others.

She had done it for her father her entire life, and for others to bend them to her will.

This was nothing new. It was what she lived for.

Only this time, Hilde was going to help.

“Go, now,” the old woman said. “Lay upon the bed. Shall I help you cut your arms? I shall find the best place.”

Adelaide was swept up in the suggestion, agreeing to it because it was something she did so regularly. “Do not cut over a scar,” she said. “It will hurt too much. Find clean flesh.”

“I will, my lady.”

“And you will run and tell him that I am dying?”

“Of course I will. Right away.”

Adelaide lay down upon the lavender-sprinkled bed in a pose that looked very tragic but very innocent.

When she was comfortable, Hilde had her hold out both hands close together with her palms up, making the tender undersides of both arms exposed.

With the very sharp, and somewhat large dagger in-hand, Hilde lifted the blade.

“Are you ready, my lady?”

Adelaide nodded. “Be quick. And not too deep.”

Hilde didn’t reply. Instead, she swung into action.

Taking the dagger, she sliced the blade across both of Adelaide’s tender wrists, so deep that it was like she was carving into a side of beef.

Adelaide screamed as Hilde cut so deeply that she nearly cut off Adelaide’s right hand.

Blood spurted, gushing all over Adelaide’s green silk dress, all over her neck, and down her arms.

There was blood everywhere.

Adelaide lowered her damaged arms as Hilde moved away from the bed, rushing over to the door, still holding on to that bloodied dagger.

Adelaide’s extreme blood loss was so much, so quickly, that by the time Adelaide put her feet on the floor in an attempt to rise from the bed, she immediately fell to the floor, bleeding all over the stone.

Her pale face turned to her old nurse, her eyes wide with accusation.

“What did you do?” she cried. “What did you do to me?”

Hilde was surprisingly unemotional. For a woman who had lived in fear her entire life, the sight of her charge bleeding to death didn’t upset her in the least. In fact, there was something quite cathartic about it but she maintained a grip on the dagger in case Adelaide suddenly stood up and charged her.

She would defend herself.

“I did what needed to be done, my lady,” she said in her heavy Germanic accent.

Then, she shook her head in a gesture of sorrow and disgust. “You were going to kill Sir Thomas just as you killed those other young men. Fine young men that you threw away like rubbish. And me… you see me as rubbish, too. I will not let you throw me away, not when I have spent a lifetime being abused by you. What I did needed to be done.”

Adelaide collapsed onto the floor as the puddle underneath her widened. It was clear that she wasn’t long for this world.

“You… old bitch,” she hissed. “What have you… done?”

With that, she made an odd noise that sounded like choking, but there was no more breath going into her lungs. She twitched a couple of times, her body going through death throes, before finally falling still with her sightless eyes wide open.

Hilde stood there a moment, holding that razor-sharp dagger, until she was sure Adelaide would rise no more. Then, she calmly walked over to her and put the dagger in her hand, making it look as if Adelaide had cut herself again, only this time, she had succeeded in cutting too deeply.

And that was how Thomas found her.

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