Lady of the English - By Elizabeth Chadwick Page 0,139

it. “Madam, the earl is here,” he announced, and had barely finished speaking when Will pushed past him into the room. Adeliza gasped because he was dripping wet, his clothes hanging on him like sodden sacks.

“Dear God, why did you not send word?” Replacing Adelis in her cradle, she turned to her women. “Towels and dry warm clothes for my lord immediately.” She went to him but stood a few paces off because he really was soaked to the skin.

“Because I…” He made a pleading gesture. “Because I was unsure of my welcome and because it was safer not to broadcast my movements. We have been travelling by back roads at night and picking a careful route. I…” He palmed his face. “I was not sure until I rode through the gates that I was coming here, and even now I do not know if I should stay.” Adeliza’s gaze widened. “What do you mean, you do not know if you should stay? Where else would you go? Come, get out of those wet clothes before you take a chill.” She unfastened his cloak and handed it to a maid. His tunic and shirt were damp too, and his boots, light fawn when dry, were the colour of ancient oak and slick with water.

“My presence here might endanger you.” He pressed the napkin to his wet face and she wondered for an appalled moment if he was crying.

“Come,” she said again briskly, “let me have your boots, and get you into some warm shoes.” She knelt to remove his footwear, tugging at the sodden lacings.

Adelis wailed in her cradle. Will lowered the napkin and 345

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looked round like a deer hearing a hunting horn. Then he went to the crib and gazed down at his daughter, unborn when he had ridden out to Lincoln. Water dripped from the tips of his hair on to her swaddling. He leaned over and touched her cheek with his forefinger and she rooted towards it hungrily and gave a fretful cry. Beyond the crib, a nurse held the hand of his son who was out of smocks now and wearing a miniature version of an adult tunic. He was staring at Will with big eyes, and sucking his lower lip uncertainly.

Abruptly Will turned and strode from the room, his shoelaces trailing dangerously. Adeliza stared after him with concern and astonishment. Then she rallied. Telling her women to continue with the preparations for Will’s comfort, she grabbed her cloak off the wall peg and ran after him.

ttt

Will knelt in Arundel’s chapel, shivering so hard that his stomach ached. He felt wretched; he knew he should not have come here. He had taken refuge at Buckenham after the battle while he awaited developments. News had been scanty, but what had arrived was demoralising and suggested that the empress was consolidating her grip. He had desperately needed to see Adeliza, but knew that, with her sympathies towards the empress, she was in a better position at Arundel to negotiate without him. The ground had fallen from under his feet and he felt powerless, and that made him a lesser man in his own eyes.

“I am facing my own nothing,” he said to the painted wooden image of the Virgin and Child standing on a marble plinth to one side of the altar. “I know you can take away just as you bestow. I want to do what is right, but how can I when I do not know what is right any more?”

“Husband?”

He turned at the sound of Adeliza’s voice. “Leave me alone,” he said. “Do I interrupt you when you are at your devotions?” 346

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She came and knelt beside him and clasped her hands.

“Whatever has happened and whatever is to come, no burden is so terrible that God will not listen.”

“Was I so wrong?” he asked after a moment, his head still bowed. “I followed my honour and did my best, and now I am lost, because my best was not good enough. I feel as if I am falling down a long, dark tunnel with only more darkness at the end of it.”

“Never that.” She was shaken to see him so defeated and low when she was accustomed to his bluff optimism “Never think that!” She set her arms around him protectively, uncaring now of his wet garments. “You are a fine man, a good man.” He clung to her, his body shaken by tremors, and