Elizabeth Chadwick - The Running Vixen

‘Adam no!’ She dragged her sleeve across her mouth. ‘Dear God, no!’

‘Heulwen. ’ He took a step towards her, hand outstretched in entreaty. ‘It’s not. ’

Quivering, she backed away, grabbing her cloak off the stool where she had flung it. ‘I’m not some wide-legged slut to be tumbled at your whim. If you want that sort of pleasure, you know where the guardroom is!’

Adam’s eyes darkened. Torn between fury that she should bring it down to this base level, and shame at his own loss of control, he could only stare at her, bereft of words. Heulwen stared back. The air between them trembled. Then she turned from him and fled.

‘Oh blood of Christ!’ he snarled and plunged after her, but in the darkness he stumbled over someone’s pallet and came down hard among the rushes, the disturbed sleeper cursing him in English. Adam snapped a scalding reply in gutter French, and struggled up again. In the dim light from the banked fire he could see the snoring servants and men-at-arms, the polished brown highlights of the lord’s oak chair set on the dais, a dreaming dog twitching its paws, but no Heulwen.

Adam swore again, this time at his own stupidity, and dug his fingers through his hair. He had meant only to comfort, had not realised until he held her how precarious was the line between the need to comfort and the need itself, and his lack of judgement had just cost him dearly. The memory of her frightened anger filled him with chagrin. What if she loathed him now?

He returned to the solar, found the garnet-eyed flagon and his cup, and set about seeking oblivion in lieu of the sleep that he knew would not come.

Miles, lord of Ashdyke, watched his youngest grandson leap and turn and, with his wooden sword, cut beneath the defences of an imaginary foe. The old man sighed deeply and propped his aching legs on the footstool that Heulwen attentively fetched for him.

‘It’s a long time since I was even half so agile,’ he told her wistfully. ‘He’s faster than a flea.’ In his eyes there was pride, for he recognised much of himself in the slight, elfin boy, or as he remembered himself in the unfettered days of a long-distant childhood.

Heulwen watched her half-brother too, wincing as he clipped the laver and almost sent it crashing over. ‘I suppose you let him wear you out, Grandpa,’ she scolded gently, bringing him a cup of wine.

‘Not in the least.’ Miles grinned. ‘It has been a pleasure to have him with me. He’s deadly with a slingshot. Brought down two big pigeons that had been damaging the seedlings in the garth — and very tasty they were too.’

Heulwen smiled dutifully, the expression not quite reaching her eyes which were full of care. Miles sought her fingers and squeezed them. She looked down at his hand. It was brown and mottled with a twisting blue rootwork of veins, but it was hard and steady and it was her own young unblemished one that trembled. She cast him an anxious look, which he returned with the serenity of long years. ‘We had a visitor while you were away with William.’

Miles slowly nodded and smiled. ‘I know. Young de Lacey. Eadric told me when I arrived. I dare say when I’ve rested these old bones enough to want to sit a saddle again, I’ll ride over to Thornford and welcome him home.’ His gaze was shrewd. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?’

Heulwen looked down. ‘I’ve quarrelled with Adam,’ she said in a small voice and swallowed, thinking of the incident of two nights since. She had asked him to the solar, forced her dilemma on him, and then, when his sympathy had turned into something far more dangerous, she had reacted like a wild animal striving to break free of a trap. Even worse, she had accused him as though it had all been his fault, when she knew to her shame that it was not. Her own body had quickened readily to desire, and when she had run from him, she had been running from herself. The following day she had pleaded a megrim as an excuse not to come down to the hall, and Adam, without personal invitation, could not go above. He had asked to speak to her and she had sent her maid Elswith to tell him she was unwell. He had taken the hint, gathered his men and ridden out, and the silence left behind weighed heavily on her conscience.

‘There’s nothing new in that, as I recall from your childhood,’ Miles said wryly.

William danced up to them. Heulwen opened her mouth, but said nothing. Panting, the child paused to regain his breath, and bestowed upon her a dazzling, impish smile. The youngest of her father’s sons, he had a profusion of bouncy black curls, green-blue eyes like her own and their grandfather’s and a way with him that could charm the birds from the trees.

‘Heulwen, can I go and see Gwen’s pups? Papa’s gone into the town to talk to the merchants and Mama’s busy in the dairy. Eadric said I had to ask you.’ He put on his pleading face, managing to look almost as soulful as Gwen herself, so that Heulwen was forced to laugh.

She tousled his hair. ‘Go on then but be careful, and don’t get too close. She’s still very protective.’

‘I won’t, I promise. Mama says I can have one for my very own when they’re old enough to leave Gwen. I’ve seen the one I want — the black dog with the white paws. I’m going to call him Brith.’

Heulwen felt a pang for childhood’s earnest enthusiasms, the passionate joy in small things, the blissful ignorance of wider concerns, and the tragedies forgotten in the time as it took to wipe away the tears. William gave her a brief, tight hug and, sword still in hand, ran off down the hall.

‘And Judith worries about Renard and women!’ Miles chuckled. ‘William is going to outstrip him a hundredfold when the time comes. I can only be glad that I won’t be here to wince as the sparks fly!’

‘Don’t say that!’ Her tone was sharp.

‘It’s the truth, girl, and we both know it. I’m borrowing time hand over fist these days, and when I do go, I dare say I’ll be glad.’ He leaned back against the carved oak chair and steepled his fingers against his lips. His eyes were still keen, his voice steady without the quaver that so often affected the elderly, and his face betrayed to Heulwen none of the fatigue that was inwardly sapping him. He could not however sustain bursts of energy for long periods these days, and had to husband his strength like a housewife coddling a contrary tallow flame. He was more than four score, an age seldom attained and, slowly but inexorably, his body was failing his will.

‘Now then,’ he said comfortably, ‘what about this quarrel of yours. Can it not be mended?’

Hesitantly at first, but gaining impetus, Heulwen told him the tale, omitting the details about the suspect silver in Ralf ’s strongbox. ‘I know I should have been more tactful, Grandpa, but I was frightened. One moment he was comforting my grief, the next he was kissing me. ’

Miles closed his eyes and conjured up the image of Adam de Lacey. A quiet young man of serious countenance and direct gaze. A superlative horseman, good with a sword, even better with a lance, and not given to the kinds of folly just described to him. He looked thoughtfully at his granddaughter, well aware that she had not told him the whole tale, and she knew he knew, because she had lowered her eyes and her cheeks had turned pink.

‘Foolish,’ he snorted, ‘but not to be wondered at. In part you brought it on yourself. You do not need a gazing glass to know you are attractive to men. Their eyes have always told you.’

‘I didn’t bring that on myself!’ she objected.

‘You interrupted me,’ Miles said with a shake of his head. ‘I was going to say that any young man who found himself alone with you, at your invitation, in the darkest hours of the night might well be pushed over a brink he didn’t even know was there. His first intention probably was to offer comfort. As far as I know, Adam de Lacey is no womaniser. Your father never had trouble with him the way he did with young Miles and his lechery.’