"Say that again?" Lydia uttered softly.
"What?" Adrienne asked blankly. "Oh, headlines, papers, they're—" she started to explain, but Lydia cut her off.
"Home." Lydia's face lit with a beautiful smile. "You called this home."
Adrienne blinked. "I did?"
The two women looked at each other a long moment.
"Well, by the Sanhain, Lydia, give her the coffee, I'll say." Tavis's gruff voice came from the door. "Popping in and out like that, surely she's got a thirst on."
"Coffee?" Adrienne perked.
"Ah." Lydia smiled, pleased with herself and doubly delighted with her daughter-in-law who had called Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea home without even realizing it. She quickly filled a porcelain mug with the steaming brew and placed it proudly on the table in front of her.
Adrienne's nose twitched as her taste buds kicked up a sprightly jig and she reached greedily for the mug. She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and drank.
And choked.
Tavis pounded her on the back and looked accusingly at Lydia. "I told you!" he said.
When Adrienne could breathe again, she wiped the tears from her eyes and peered suspiciously in her cup. "Oh, Lydia! You don't leave the coffee grounds—no, not grounds quite… more like a paste, I think. What did you do? Mush the beans and mix them with water? Ugh!"
"Didn't I tell you to run it through a sieve?" Tavis reminded. "Would you want to drink it like that?"
"Well, with all the hubbub I forgot!" Lydia snatched the mug. "Since you're so certain you know how to do it, you do it!" She thrust the mug at Tavis, sloshing thick brown stuff on the floor.
"Fine. See if I don't, I'll say!" With a supercilious look he made off for the buttery.
Lydia sighed. "Adrienne, I know it hasn't been a very good morning so far. I so wanted to have coffee for you, but in lieu of coffee, how about a cup of tea and a chat?"
"Uh-oh," Adrienne said. "I know that look, Lydia. What's wrong? Besides my being tossed through time portals?"
"Tea?" Lydia evaded.
"Talk," Adrienne said warily.
How best to start this? Lydia was determined to hide nothing from her. Lies and half-truths had a nasty way of reproducing and breeding distrust. If Adrienne could see the Hawk clearly, the truth would hopefully not do damage; but lies, somewhere down the line, assuredly would. "Esmerelda is dead."
"I'm so sorry," Adrienne offered instantly. "But who's Esmerelda?"
"The Hawk's… er… well, ex-mistress probably explains it the best—
"You mean in addition to Olivia? And where was he keeping her, by the way? In the dungeon? The tower? The room next to mine?"
Lydia winced. "It's not like that, Adrienne. He'd ended it with her months before you came. She lived with the Rom who camp on our fields in the warm seasons. According to what her people told Tavis this morning, she's the one who had been trying to kill you. The good news is, you're safe now."
"Haven't I been saying it all along? I told you it was probably one of that man's ex-girlfriends, didn't I? Oh!" She leapt to her feet.
"Adrienne."
"What now?"
Oh, bother, Lydia brooded. Well buck up, she told herself, knowing from the look on Adrienne's face that she was just spoiling for a good fight with the Hawk, and that she would be mad as a spitting banshee when she realized she couldn't get one. "Hawk left for Uster at dawn."
"For how long?" Adrienne gritted.
"He didn't say. Adrienne! Wait! We need to sort out what brought you here!" But Adrienne was no longer listening.
Lydia sighed as Adrienne stormed from the kitchen mumbling nonstop under her breath, "Arrogant pigheaded pain-in-the-ass Neanderthal…"
* * *
CHAPTER 23
just what is your problem, adrienne de simone? She asked herself furiously.
She shrugged and sighed before forlornly advising a nearby rosebush, "I seem to have a bit of a thing for the man."
The rosebush nodded sagely in the soft summer breeze and Adrienne willingly poured the whole of it upon her rapt audience.
"I know he's been with a lot of women. But he's not like Eberhard. Of course, probably there's nobody like Eberhard except maybe a five-headed monster from the jaws of hell."
When the rosebush didn't accuse her of being melodramatic or waxing poetical, she summoned up a truly pitiful sigh and continued. "I can't understand a blasted thing about the man. First he wants me—I mean, come on, he burned my queen to keep me here, which didn't really work apparently, but the intention was there. He saves my life repeatedly even though it was kind of indirectly his fault it was in danger to begin with, and then he refuses to see me. And if that's not enough, he just up and leaves without so much as a fare-thee-well!"