Page 32 of Feathers in the Wind
Robin looked up. ‘Now there’s a challenge.’
‘Speaking of the delightful company of women, do I gather it is in your interest to prolong my convalescence?’ Adam asked without meeting his brother’s eyes.
‘What do you mean?’
Adam looked up and caught the flush rising in Robin’s face. ‘A certain Elizabeth Clifford?’
Robin straightened his shoulders as if to deny the charge and then relaxed with a crooked smile. ‘Aye, there’s no doubt I fancy myself in love with the girl.’
They played in silence for a couple of minutes before Robin asked. ‘Have you ever been in love?’
Adam paused, apparently considering his hand. ‘I imagined myself in love once, but it was lust not love.’
‘Louise?’ Robin suggested.
‘Yes, Louise,’ Adam said with a heavy sigh. ‘Since then there have been women but no time for love.’
‘What really happened that night?’
Robin’s casual tone could not hide the curiosity that had probably plagued him all these years. He deserved the truth.
Adam closed his eyes. ‘I was your age, Rob and, gull that I was, fell for Louise the day that she and Denzil were betrothed. I worshipped her and she gave me every encouragement. When she summoned me to her bedchamber I went like an eager puppy, and there she was waiting for me, dressed only in a nightshift looking like a goddess.’
Robin snorted with bitter laughter. ‘I can imagine.’
‘Well you can also imagine what my thoughts were. My seduction had begun. She offered me wine and blandishments. I had stripped down to my breeches and was lying beside her on the bed when her brother burst in with sword drawn.’ Adam took a breath. ‘I had no alternative but to defend myself and I was ever the better swordsman than Philip. He ran on my sword. Louise started screaming rape and murder. She ripped her shift and scratched her own face. The rest you know.’
Robin sighed. ‘Father was summoned to deal with the mess?’
Adam closed his eyes. ‘He wouldn’t even hear my side of the story. All he saw was a beautiful woman claiming I had raped her, her brother dying in her arms. He told me I was to leave the country that night if a scandal was to be avoided and I did. I left, and by leaving confirmed my guilt.’
‘You were not the first, nor shall you be the last. Poor Denzil paid a heavy penance by marrying Louise,’ Robin observed.
Adam’s mouth twitched. ‘He went willingly, Robin.’
‘He did,’ Robin conceded. ‘And I think he still imagines he’s in love with her.’
‘They’ve no children?’
Robin shrugged. ‘No child of the marriage, but I know Denzil has at least one by-blow, so the fault must rest with Louise.’
Adam flinched. ‘Does he acknowledge the child?’
Robin looked up from his cards. ‘I’m sorry, Adam, I forgot.’
Adam shrugged. ‘It’s no matter, Robin.’
‘The child and the mother are well provided for, I believe.’
‘My one regret,’ Adam said, ‘is that I never had a chance to make my peace with our father before he died.’
Robin appeared to be considering his cards. ‘I think,’ he said slowly, ‘that once Louise’s nature became better known, father may have been more inclined to forgive you, but then we got the news that you were dead.’
The breath stopped in Adam’s throat. ‘He thought I was dead?’
‘Aye, we had word that you had fallen at,’ Robin frowned, ‘was it Vlotho?’
‘I was wounded and taken prisoner but I had no means to send word that I was alive. If you can call it that, but my captors told me they had sent word of my capture and were demanding a ransom so father must have known I still lived.’
