3. Roger is Explicit
Into the midst of the Michaelmas festivities at Halvergate that night, burst a mud-splattered fellow in search of Sir Hugh Vernon. Roger Darke brought him to the knight. The fellow then related that he came from Simeon de Beck, the master of Castle Rising, with tidings that a strange boat, French-rigged, was hovering about the north coast. Let Sir Hugh have a care of his prisoner.
Vernon swore roundly. "I must look into this," he said. "But what shall I do with Adelais?"
"Will you not trust her to me?" Roger asked. "If so, cousin, I will very gladly be her escort to Winstead. Let the girl dance her fill while she may, Hugh. She will have little heart for dancing after a month or so of Falmouth's company."
"That is true," Vernon assented; "but the match is a good one, and she is bent upon it."
So presently he rode with his men to the north coast. An hour later Roger
Darke and Adelais set out for Winstead, in spite of all Lady Brudenel's
protestations that Mistress Vernon had best lie with her that night at
Halvergate.
It was a clear night of restless winds, neither warm nor chill, but fine September weather. About them the air was heavy with the damp odors of decaying leaves, for the road they followed was shut in by the autumn woods, that now arched the way with sere foliage, rustling and whirring and thinly complaining overhead, and now left it open to broad splashes of moonlight, where fallen leaves scuttled about in the wind vortices. Adelais, elate with dancing, chattered of this and that as her gray mare ambled homeward, but Roger was moody.
Past Upton the road branched in three directions; here Master Darke caught the gray mare's bridle and turned both horses to the left.
"Why, of whatever are you thinking!" the girl derided him. "Roger, this is not the road to Winstead!"
He grinned evilly over his shoulder. "It is the road to Yaxham, Adelais, where my chaplain expects us."