Page 66 of Feathers in the Wind
He turned away and limped down the row of men. Perdita watched as he moved from one man to another, talking to them and reassuring them as he had done after the battle of Edgehill. Perdita watched his soldiers’ faces and the eyes that followed his progress. For a foreigner from the south, it seemed to her that Adam Coulter had done much to win the respect of his men.
‘Well he seems in a might better humour this day.’ Mary joined Perdita and they stood together as Adam left the church. ‘There were some who felt my Obadiah should have been promoted but Coulter proved himself at Nantwich and he’s earned his office. His men are never short of rations or equipment like some we could name.’ She glanced at Perdita. ‘For all of that, we know him no better now than we did when he first came to us. We had no notion he’d a wife.’
‘I always said that what the major needed was someone to warm his bed at night.’
Perdita turned to see one of the women who had been tending the wounded, a young, pretty and extremely curvaceous girl. Her gown seemed a little small for her and flesh spilled from the top of her bodice in a decidedly unladylike and definitely ungodly fashion.
‘You be thankful. Ye’ve a good man in your husband, Peggy Brown,’ Mary scolded.
The girl pouted. ‘Who wants a good man? I think someone like the major would prove much better sport between the sheets than my Lemuel.’
‘Down on your knees and pray.’ Mary sounded genuinely shocked. ‘The major is a married man. This ’ere’s his wife.’
‘I thought that was what you said.’ The girl shot Perdita a glance, her lower lip pouting as she said with lowered eyes, ‘I apologise for speaking out of turn, Mistress Coulter.’ Her glance flashed back. ‘You must be an angel to hold him in such a thrall. There's few men can resist what I have to offer.’ With that the girl flounced off, her hips swaying as she walked.
‘Mistress Coulter, you pay no mind to Peg. For all her talk she has a good man in Lemuel and she knows it.’
Perdita smiled. ‘She would not be the first,’ she said, remembering the women from Warwick.
At the end of a long day Perdita and Mary returned to the inn. Desperate to wash and change her gown, at the door to Adam’s bedchamber Perdita hesitated. Did she knock or just walk in? What would a wife do?
She knocked and entered.
Adam had been asleep, still fully dressed, although his helmet, gauntlets and heavy breast and back plate lay stacked on the floor at the end of the bed. As the door clicked shut behind Perdita, he rolled over and sat up, shaking his head.
‘Perdita, what are you…?’ He paused. ‘Oh… I forgot you’re my wife and therefore entitled to be here.’
Perdita held out her stained skirts. ‘I need to change.’
Did she detect the ghost of a smile, twitching the corners of his mouth as he said, ‘That can wait a minute or two. We must talk before this matter gets any more out of hand.’
Perdita sat in a chair beside the table and waited while Adam rose from the bed and padded in his stockinged feet across to the window. He braced his arms against the casement and stood staring out into the bustling courtyard.
‘What am I to do with you?’ he said at last.
‘I know I have to go back to Warwickshire,’ she said. ‘I will leave in the morning.’
He turned to face her. ‘You’re barely out of your sick bed. Besides I can’t afford anyone to escort you.’
‘I can—’
‘No, you can’t!’ He ran a hand through his hair and paced the room. ‘God’s death, Simon Clifford must have been mad to let you even attempt this journey.’
‘Simon?’ She stared up at him.
Of course, he didn’t know? How could he know?’
‘Adam,’ she swallowed, ‘Simon is dead.’
He stared at her. ‘Dead?’
‘You know he was ill when you freed him from Warwick Castle. He’d contracted the spotted fever and died on the day we were to be wed.’
Adam stopped his pacing and stood in front of her, all anger and irritation gone from his face to be replaced with profound grief.
‘Simon is dead? Perdita. I’m sorry. He was a good man. I liked him.’ He paused. ‘I called him a friend and there are few in this world I can count in that number.’
Perdita bit her lip to stop the tears. ‘He was too good to me, and, yes, I miss him.’ She looked away, dashing at the tears that spilled too easily these days. ‘And then to lose Joan. Grief heaped on grief, Adam.’
