Authors: Bertrice Small
The laird swatted at him, and his siblings burst into raucous laughter.
“You have the look of a man well satisfied,” Duncan continued. “Was she worth the silver penny you expended to get her out of Willie Douglas’s clutches?”
Conal Bruce grinned. “Aye. She’s probably worth half a groat at least,” he said.
“How many times?” Murdoc boldly asked.
“Four, and I was ready for her again but that when I awoke she had gone,” the laird said. “Have either of you seen Adair this morning?”
The two shook their heads.
“Agnes Carr would be jealous,” Duncan remarked. “I doubt you ever stuck her four times in a night. I don’t think I’ve ever done it that much myself,” he mused.
“You will when it’s the right woman,” the laird said, chuckling.
“Four times,” young Murdoc said enviously. “I didn’t
know a man could do it that much at one time.” Murdoc was sixteen.
His brothers laughed at his observance.
“You will one day, youngling,” the laird promised.
“Grizel, where is Adair?”
“In the kitchens, my lord,” Grizel said.
“Tell her I want to see her,” the laird replied.
Duncan and Murdoc eyed each other knowingly, and chortled.
“Yes, my lord.” Grizel curtsied, and disappeared from the hall. She returned some minutes later to say, “Mistress Adair begs you will excuse her for now, my lord.
She is cutting several new shirts for you, and does not wish to stop in the middle of the task, for it would be difficult to begin again.”
“You will return to Adair and say that when the laird calls her she is to come with all possible haste,” Conal Bruce told the serving woman.
Grizel curtsied again, and left the hall.
“The lass is sewing you new garments,” Duncan said.
“Can you not be a bit more reasonable, Conal? ’Tis a thoughtful act. She saw your need and sought to fulfill it.”
“Aye, Conal,” Murdoc agreed. “I wish she would sew some shirts for me.”
“She has to learn that I am her master,” the laird said stubbornly. “Remember I paid a silver penny for her.”
“I would say taking your mighty cock four times in a single night was more than repayment, Conal. She has worked hard to restore a sense of order to our home. It has not looked as good or been run as well since our mam died.”
“She is mine!” the laird replied.
“No one denies that,” Duncan answered. “But she’s a lady, Conal, for all her hard luck, not a common whore.”
“Nay, sir, I am no common whore. I am the Bruce’s whore,” Adair said as she joined them. She turned a fierce look on the laird. “What do you desire of me, my lord?”
“That when I call you, you come,” he said testily.
“I have other chores than to serve in your bed, my lord,” Adair answered sharply. “Your clothing, the garments of your brothers, all need refurbishing. And the cold larder is not yet full for the winter, which is nearer today than it was yesterday. Today I will sew for you, and you will hunt again for the keep’s sake. If it pleases you, of course, my lord.” She mocked him with a curtsy, her violet eyes flashing with defiance.
“Come sit in my lap,” the laird said.
Duncan and Murdoc looked at each other warily, but then to their surprise, and after only the briefest hesitation, Adair sat down in the laird’s lap.
“Good,” Conal Bruce purred. “You are becoming more obedient.”
Adair bit back a pithy reply. The sooner he believed himself in charge, the sooner she could get about her tasks for the day.
“Now you will kiss me,” the laird ordered her.
She gave him a quick peck on the lips.
“ ’Twas not well-done,” he told her. “Again, my honey love.”
The look she shot him would have destroyed another man, but then she kissed him hard on his mouth, lingering just long enough to elicit a whistle of approval from Duncan.
“ ’Tis better,” the laird allowed, “but not yet good enough. Again, Adair.”
Adair slipped her arms about his neck now, and pressed herself against him. Her lips met his in a slow, sweet kiss. “Ummmm,” she murmured against his mouth as she rubbed herself suggestively against him, and she kissed him again, her tongue pushing into his mouth to tease his. She sighed a deep sigh, and kissed him a third time in leisurely fashion. Finally drawing away from him, she asked softly, “Is that better, my lord?”
“Aye,” he drawled, nodding at her.
“Then,” Adair said, jumping from his lap, “I shall return to my sewing.” She curtsied. “Good hunting, my lord.” And, turning, she was quickly gone.
Duncan Armstrong and Murdoc Bruce had stared
openmouthed and not without some envy at Adair’s wicked performance. Their brother sat silent, his need bulging in his breeks for them to see. Briefly Conal Bruce was without words. It was Duncan who finally broke the strain of the situation.
“What a lass!” he said admiringly.
“Maggie doesn’t kiss me like that,” Murdoc
complained.
“No one that I know kisses like that,” Duncan responded.
“I will probably end up killing her,” Conal Bruce said, finding his voice once more. “We all know that women are good for cooking, cleaning, birthing bairns, and fucking, but little else. Adair has bewitched me. I can’t seem to get enough of her, and I am half-ashamed to admit it. No woman has ever affected me this way. And she takes as much pleasure in our coupling as I do. Yet each time I have her, I want more of her almost immediately. ’Tis madness, brothers. Right now I want to drag her from the kitchens and take her back to bed for the day. But I know she’s right. The damned cold larder needs to be completely filled before the winter comes.
When we were out yesterday I saw the bens to the north already white with new snow.” His member, which had ached painfully, did not ache as much now. He stood up, wincing just slightly. “Let’s go hunting, lads.” The laird of Cleit strode from his hall.
“Something is happening,” Duncan said. “Something I never thought to see.”
“What?” Murdoc wanted to know.
“Not yet, youngling,” his elder told him, putting an arm about his youngest brother as they walked from the hall in Conal’s wake. “And who is Maggie?”
Grizel slipped from the shadows where she had been
listening. She hurried down the stone stairs into the kitchens. “They’ve finally gone,” she announced.
Adair looked up relieved from the table, where she was cutting shirts from some fine linen she had found in the laird’s deceased mother’s chamber. “Good,” she said. “With luck I can have a new shirt for each of them when they return tonight.”
“I’ll help you sew when I’ve finished my chores,”
Flora volunteered.
When the hunters returned shortly after sunset that evening with two roe deer and a string of geese, they found three shirts carefully folded, with one set at each of their places at the high board. Surprised, they took the shirts, unfolding them and holding them out, and then against their own frames.
“There’s one for each of us!” Murdoc said excitedly.
“Let’s try them on!”
“Not yet,” they heard Adair’s voice say as she rose from a chair by the fire. “You have not yet had your baths, Master Murdoc and Master Duncan. You cannot wear clean shirts on a stinking body. The tub awaits you in the kitchens.”
The laird roared with his laughter at the looks on their faces.
“Oh, you as well, my lord,” Adair said sweetly, and his laughter died.
“I washed yesterday,” the laird protested. “You practically scrubbed the skin from me,” he complained.
“Do you wish to bed me again tonight, my lord?” Adair asked him. “I will not get into bed with a man reeking of his own sweat and that of his horse. And if you think to force me, be advised that after I finished these shirts I spent my time exploring your fine keep. There are half a dozen places I could hide, and you would not find me.”
“I never knew English ladies had such delicate sensi-bilities,” he grumbled.
“You’ll need the least washing,” she said dulcetly.
The three men followed her downstairs to the
kitchens, where the tub had been set up. The women servants stripped them of their garments, and each man washed himself under Adair’s direction. Since women’s duties included helping to bathe the men in the household, neither the laird, his brothers, nor the serving women were embarrassed by the nudity. The men joked, remembering how their mother would supervise their ablutions. When they were dry they were handed clean chemises and their new shirts, and given back their breeks, which young Jack had brushed and aired while they bathed.
“You’ll have to go barefoot,” Adair told them. “Jack will clean your boots for you tonight. Now, if you’ll go back upstairs to the hall we’ll be bringing your supper up shortly.” She shooed them from the kitchens.
“She’s getting above herself, and taking over my keep,” Conal Bruce said.
“Thank God she is,” Duncan said. “Since Mam died everything has gone from bad to worse. But Adair knows how to run a man’s household, and I’m glad for it. You should be too, Conal. You may want her on her back pleasuring you, but I’m happy to have a clean hall, decent clothing, and good meals. So you be content with the Adair you want, and I’ll be content with the one who does all the rest to keep this house a civilized one. I suspect Murdoc would agree with me, eh, youngling?”
“Aye, I do,” Murdoc Bruce replied. “Adair’s a good woman, Conal. You had best treat her well or you will face me.”
“Jesu!” the laird swore, disgusted. “What a pair of precious bairns you two are.”
Duncan laughed at the insult. “Do you want to go back to burned porridge and a flea-ridden hall? We’re living like fine lords now. And do you notice that the men are no longer fighting all the time? In a few weeks’
time Adair has brought order to Cleit that you couldn’t.
The women civilize us.”
“Until one of them gets a big belly,” Conal Bruce grumbled.
“The only one that is likely to happen to is Adair if you keep futtering her four times a night,” Duncan mocked. “No one is going to chase after Elsbeth or Grizel. And young Jack watches over his mother like a dog with a favorite ewe sheep.”
“I’ll admit ’tis better now with a small household of women,” the laird said. “I like my porridge with grated cinnamon, and a warm wench in my bed.”
“Then go gently with Adair, little brother,” Duncan Armstrong said.
“You had best tell her to go gently with me,” Conal Bruce replied. “She is not easy. And she has a temper on her. I own her. I paid good coin for her. She is my slave, yet she behaves as if this were her home, and not mine.
I never knew a more disobedient creature than Adair Radcliffe. I’m amazed Willie Douglas was able to catch her at all.”
His two brothers laughed at this.
The serving women began bringing in the evening meal, and the three men went to the high board, while below them the keep’s men at arms sat at their trestles, eager for their supper. Meals were now a good time at Cleit. Even the dogs in the hall were being fed better.
One young wolfhound had, Conal Bruce noted, attached itself to Adair. At first she had not paid any mind to the animal, but he had persisted, and she had given in. Her face when she talked with the animal was entirely different from the face she usually wore. It was softer and sweeter.
One day the laird took Elsbeth aside. “Your mistress has made friends with one of the dogs in the hall,” he said casually.
“The wolfhound,” Elsbeth said. “I know. She had one at Stanton. He was very old and frail. His name was
Beiste, and he had been with her since she was a child.
That blackhearted Douglas killed the poor animal when it attempted to protect Adair. Severed its noble head before her eyes. She wept for days after. Beiste was really all she had left.”
“Thank you,” Conal Bruce said.
The winter had slipped in suddenly a bit early. Adair had been taken as much by surprise as the others, and swore angrily to herself now that her opportunity to escape Cleit was gone for the interim. Oddly, she was finding herself happy, although she would never admit it.
And she was coming to like Cleit. She was also not ready yet to admit that Elsbeth was right. Stanton was gone. Her life as the Countess of Stanton was gone. But if it really was gone, what was to become of her? Elsbeth had said, and Grizel and Flora agreed, that she had to get the laird to wed her. All well and good for them to say, Adair thought. Conal Bruce was a rough man with no real respect for women at all. How could she overcome that? All he thought about was gratifying his lusts. He made her think of her father, whose appetites were never quite satisfied. But of course, he was not Edward IV, with his charm and his way with all people no matter their station. Conal Bruce was a rough-hewn Scots borderer, and she doubted she could ever raise him up from his primitive behavior.
She was noble-born. A king’s daughter, albeit from the wrong side of the blanket. Still, it did not lessen her blood or breeding. It had allowed her to inherit a title in her own right, for all the good that did her now. Henry of Lancaster had stripped her of her title. Had scorned her mother while carefully avoiding the subject of her father, which would, of course, have given insult to his wife, who was sired by the same man. And now, despite everything she had been through, she was brought low.
A slave, bought and paid for by a crude border lord who thought her only value lay between her legs.
Briefly she felt despair, but then she decided that
while her half sister, if put into this situation, would probably have died of shame within a week, she was not Bess. She was Adair Radcliffe, and she was stronger.
Life had given her oatcakes when she wanted sweet cake. Well, she would eat her oatcakes, grow stronger, and find a way to get her sweet cake again. Conal Bruce was having his needs well cared for right now, thanks to Elsbeth, Flora, Grizel, and herself. But because Grizel had very sharp ears, Adair had learned that Conal Bruce would have to free her and Elsbeth in a year and a day’s time, for that was the law of the Michaelmas fair.