Page 56 of Feathers in the Wind
Joan gestured to the portrait. ‘Do you ever think about Adam? Do you wonder where he is and why he has sent me no word?’
Perdita turned her gaze on the portrait. Joan had completed the figure of Simon, but her own likeness remained little more than a ghost beneath the weight of Simon’s painted hand. She remembered the likeness Adam had sketched of her and she swallowed back the tears.
Thoughts of Adam Coulter too often intruded on her waking and her dreams. Memories of the snatched moments of intimacy conflicted with guilt over Simon. If he had lived would she have ever learned to love him, the way she loved Adam Coulter or would Adam have always been there, those cold, grey eyes challenging her loyalty?
‘I have had other matters to concern me,’ she said.
Joan moved her gaze from the portrait to scan Perdita’s face.
‘Perdita, I have done Adam a great wrong and it is preying on my conscience. Do you have pen and ink? Please write for me.’
Perdita smoothed out a sheet of paper and dipped her pen in the ink.
Joan pulled herself up on the bolsters. ‘Before I begin, you must swear to me you will never repeat what you hear to anyone, not even Bess?’
Puzzled, Perdita agreed and Joan sank back and closed her eyes.
My dearest Adam,
This is the hardest letter I have ever written but I know I am dying and I cannot face the Lord in the knowledge that I carry a secret to my grave that is your right to share.
When I was a girl of sixteen I was sent to Court to the household of the Queen. There I was seduced by a man who flattered me with poems and professions of love, but when I found I was with child he abandoned me, leaving me to the approbation of my parents. I was sent north to a distant kinswoman to give birth to the child of my shame. The child was left with this woman to take her name and I was returned, heartbroken at having to abandon my baby, to Marchants. When I contracted the rheumatic fever that was to plague me all my life, penance for my sin perhaps, I begged my parents to bring my child to me and to my surprise they relented and my brother, one of the very best of men, went to fetch the child. The child’s father had been a boon companion of my brother and it was agreed between them that my brother would own the child as his. Thus you came to Marchants, Adam, as the bastard son of my brother to be brought up with your cousins as befitted you. How he prevailed upon his wife to accept the child, I still do not know, and she let her displeasure be known. All I, your mother, could do was watch over you through your childhood. Yours has not been an easy life and I was not always able to protect you from the wanton cruelties that a baseborn child must endure, but despite all you have suffered, you have grown into a man of whom I am proud.
I know the first question you would ask of me is to know the identity of your father and that I will not tell you. Nothing would be gained by that knowledge. He is long dead and those few who knew or suspected are also in heaven. My brother was as good a father to you as that man would ever have been and I will not take that from you. I have known great happiness with my beloved Geoffrey and that is my wish for you, to wed the one person you love. I will leave you well provided for. That distant kinswoman in the north country bequeathed me her entire estate at Strickland and it is yours. Her name was Ann Coulter, the name you bear. God watch over you as I will always do. Your ever-loving mother, Joan Clifford.
Joan lay back on the bolsters, her face grey with exhaustion. Perdita stared at the words on the page, trying to imagine what it meant to carry such a secret.
‘How?’ she began, ‘How could you bear it?’
‘I was there, Perdita. I saw my son grow into a man. That was all I asked. Do you think,’ she grasped at her breath, ‘do you think Adam will forgive me?’
Perdita looked at the dying woman, her mind turning over how she would react to such news. She would be angry, very angry, that this secret had been concealed from her.
‘He will want to know about his father,’ she said.
Joan turned her face away. ‘His father is dead, Perdita.’
‘Joan, this is a matter you should have rightly told him long before now,’ she said. ‘You had ample opportunity when he was here.’
‘I intended to, but,’ Joan swallowed, tears trailing from her eyes on to the embroidered covers. ‘I could never… bring myself to do so. I suppose I am a coward, Perdita and now it is too late. It must be this way. When you see him, tell him that I have always loved him.’
‘He knows that, Joan.’
‘But not why… he needs to know why. Promise… promise me you will see he gets this letter. You must give it into his hand yourself. You must explain what I cannot.’
Perdita took the dying woman’s hand in her own and made the promise.
Joan closed her eyes. Perdita sanded and sealed the letter and placed it safely in a secure place in her bedchamber. When she returned to Joan, she knew that this beloved woman would be dead by morning.
* * *
Joan’s letterlay in a locked box in Perdita’s bed chamber while Perdita pondered what to do about it. She had promised to deliver it into Adam’s hand, but her own coward’s soul quailed at the thought of seeing him, let alone being the bearer of such ill news. She hoped that he may come himself, riding past on some errand, but as the spring campaigning began their only regular visitor was Robin and he had no news of Adam. She still delayed, using the weather as an excuse and justifying her failure to ride to Warwick on the muddy roads and beating spring rain.
It was well into May with the breath of fine weather taking away her last excuse, before Perdita set out for Warwick, riding pillion behind the faithful Ludovic. The last time she had taken this road had been on a quest to liberate Simon, and now it seemed to Perdita that the road would forever be associated with trouble and sadness.
She left the horse with Ludovic and once more walked the cobbled streets up to the castle, every step heavy with grief and with fear of how Adam would take the news. She had not dared let herself think about Adam, as if to do so would be unfaithful to Simon’s memory. Simon, who had given her his heart, without condition, knowing she did not, could not, return that love.
At the end of the street, she stopped, looking up at the forbidding grey walls of the castle, formulating the words she would use to deliver the news of Joan’s death, handing him the letter. She would not stay to see his face, feel his wrath, sense his grief. It was enough she knew the contents of the letter. She would hand him the letter and leave.
