Trapped at the Altar

by Jane Feather

  Rolf looked momentarily confused, but there was something about Ivor’s determination that penetrated his drunken haze. “Oh, if you must spoil sport, Ivor . . . I suppose you’re overeager to get to your bride yourself. Come on, men, there’s many a bottle left to broach before dawn.” He stumbled to the stairs, and the rest of the elders followed him, casting darkling looks of disappointment at the groom, who held his place at the top of the stairs until he heard the front door close.

  Ariadne stood in her chemise, looking at Ivor. “My thanks,” she said softly.

  He shook his head and said coolly, “It doesn’t suit my pride to see my bride exposed to prying eyes. I’ll leave you to the women.” He went back downstairs. Ordinarily, the men would be waiting for him, to undress him and deliver him naked to the bridal bed, but his outburst seemed to have put an end to that little ritual, too. For which he could only be thankful.

  He poured a goblet of brandy from the bottle he kept on the dresser and stood with his back to the range, waiting . . . waiting for the moment when he had to confront this travesty of a marriage head-on.

  He heard low voices and footsteps above his head as the women moved around the bedchamber and then feet on the stairs. Tilly, her cheeks a little flushed, stopped on the bottom step and announced with portentous gravity, “Lady Ariadne is abed, sir. If you would be pleased to come up.”

  “In a few minutes, Tilly. You and the women leave now. I have no further need of you this evening. You may come to attend Ar . . . my wife in the morning.”

  “Yes, sir.” Tilly managed an ungainly curtsy on the narrow stairs and turned to scamper back up to the bedchamber. In a moment, she and the other women came down together, all looking remarkably solemn.

  “You’re sure you won’t be needing me again tonight, sir?”

  “Quite certain, Tilly. And thank you for your efforts with the bedchamber. You had little enough time to work such a miracle.” He took a small leather pouch from the mantel and handed it to her. “With my thanks, all of you.”

  Tilly beamed, the contents of the pouch clinking as she weighed it in her palm. “Our thanks to you, sir.” She hustled her companions out of the cottage. As the door opened, the sounds of music and merriment drifted on the still night air. Presumably, the feasting would go on until dawn. Ivor shot the bolt across the door and dropped the heavy bar into place. He would have no further disturbance this night.

  He refilled his goblet and then filled a second one before carrying both up the stairs. The chamber was softly lit with the candles on the sill and another one beside the bed. Ari sat up against the crisply laundered pillows, her rich black hair fanned around her face, which was almost as white as the cambric of the pillow. She was naked beneath the sheet, a nightgown lying across the end of the bed.

  “You might find this welcome.” Ivor handed her the goblet.

  “My thanks.” She took a sip and was heartened by the welcome burn of the spirit. She couldn’t remember when she had last felt warm, but she knew the cold came from within her, a deep, icy block of it. She regarded Ivor over the goblet. “How could you agree to that . . . that travesty of a ceremony, Ivor?”

  “I have no say in the decisions your uncle makes,” he responded. “The marriage was to take place anyway. It seemed to me immaterial if it was this day rather than any other. It’s not as if a delay would have brought you to a willing agreement.” His eyes forced her to acknowledge the truth, and she turned her head away from the steady gaze.

  “No, it wouldn’t.” She sipped her brandy. “At least you saved me from the worst of the bedding, and for that I thank you, even if it was only to salvage your pride.”

  He gave a short laugh. “Oh, my dear Ari, that is unsalvageable, believe me.” He turned his back on the bed and went to the window, looking out into the still torch-bright night. The reflection of the flames flickered on the dark surface of the river. “How do you think it feels to be married to a woman who makes it clear she would rather be in her grave than in my bed?”

  “That’s not true,” she exclaimed. “Of course I would not. But I can’t make myself love you, Ivor, when I love someone else. How do you think I feel, forced into wedlock with a man I cannot love? Oh, I care for you, I like you, you’re my friend. But that is all, and now that I know what love between a man and a woman can be, I don’t know how to settle for less.” She plaited the edge of the sheet, the candle lighting emerald fires in the betrothal ring, which quite dwarfed in size and splendor the plain silver wedding band behind it.

  “Well, that brings us to an unpleasant but necessary discussion,” he said, turning back from the window. “I take it you are no longer a virgin.”

  The harshness of his voice, the flatly definitive statement, shocked Ari. Her eyes widened, and then anger came to her aid. She had not betrayed him or deceived him. He had no right to sound so accusatory, almost as if she disgusted him in some way. “True,” she responded. “I have never pretended otherwise.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe not. Nevertheless, it poses certain problems. When do you expect to bleed?”

  Ari stared at him. “What has that to do with anything? A week, maybe ten days hence . . . I don’t keep an exact record of these things.”

  “Well, you should,” he said bluntly. “Did your mother tell you nothing?”

  Comprehension dawned finally. “Of course she did,” she snapped. “But I fail to see what business it is of yours.”

  “Well, then, I suggest you think a little. We cannot consummate this marriage until after your next bleeding—”

  “What are you saying?” she interrupted.

  “I am saying that until I am certain you are not carrying another man’s child, I will not consummate this marriage.” He drained his goblet. “Do you understand, Ari?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said slowly. “I understand. But you should know that Gabriel did not . . . did not . . .” She stopped in frustration, wondering why she was so embarrassed to say the words. How could she be embarrassed any further in this dreadful farce? “You need not fear that,” she muttered lamely.

  “You mean he did not release his seed inside you,” Ivor said brutally. “Is that what you’re trying to say, Ari?”

  She nodded and said with difficulty, “He was very careful.”

  “Maybe so, but accidents happen anyway, and I’m taking no risks.” He went downstairs without another word, returning after a few minutes with the brandy bottle and a knife. He refilled both their glasses before saying, “Your uncles will wish to see proof of the consummation in the morning.”

  Ari looked at the knife. She needed no further explanation, merely asked quietly, “Where will it be best to cut me?”

  “Not you,” he said with a touch of impatience. “Me.” He dropped the knife on the bed beside her. “You will cut my inner arm, here, just inside the elbow. It will produce sufficient blood without having to cut too deeply, and the wound can be easily hidden.”

  Ari wished she were inhabiting an unpleasant dream, but hard-edged reality was a living force in the chamber. She reached beneath the pillow behind her and drew out her own intricately carved silver knife. “If I must do this, I will use my own knife.”

  “You carried your knife to your own wedding?” For once, Ariadne had surprised him. Ivor shook his head in amazement. “Where did you conceal it?”

  “A sheath in my petticoat. Tilly sews them into all my underclothes,” she informed him, running her finger along the blade. “We will need a scarf or a handkerchief to act as a tourniquet, in case I make a mistake and cut the vein too deeply.”

  “I trust you won’t do that,” he commented wryly, opening a drawer in the dresser and bringing out a thick red kerchief.

  Ariadne looked at him, looked at the red kerchief and the knife in her hand, and felt a sudden insane urge to laugh. Her lower lip quivered, and Ivor said sharply, “Something about this wretched business amuses you?”

  “It’s a farce, Ivor. One is supposed to laugh at
farces,” she responded. “Why should we take any aspect of this travesty seriously?”

  “Because in essence, our lives lie in the balance,” he responded, rolling up his ruffled sleeve. “Or yours does,” he added. “If I exposed you as a whore, dear girl, your uncles would kill you on the spot to avenge family honor, and then they would hunt down your Gabriel and send him to a lingering death. I doubt you want that.” He extended his arm. “Now, get on with it.”

  She bit her lip. “I didn’t mean to make light of what you’re doing for me, Ivor. But you must see a little of the absurdity.”

  “You’ll have to forgive my lack of humor, but at the moment, I don’t,” he responded curtly. “Right now, I am holding out my vein for you to cut so that we can produce a bloodstained sheet that will satisfy your uncles that family honor has been preserved. Now, will you please get on with it?”

  Ariadne nodded. He was right. There was no ghoulish humor to be milked from this situation. With a sinuous movement, she slid from the bed, wrapping her nakedness in the coverlet as she did so. She knotted the coverlet between her breasts and picked up the knife from the bed. “Tilly told me that one of the village women will never cut flesh without putting the knife through a candle flame.” She took the weapon to the candles on the sill and passed the blade through the flames several times. “It can do no harm, even if it does no good.”

  She came back to the bed where Ivor stood. “Perhaps you should hold your arm over the sheet so that the blood falls where it should.” She gestured to a spot on the immaculate sheet. She was totally in possession of herself, even though she felt as if she were moving through a dream world. This had to be done, and she would do it competently.

  Ivor held his arm over the sheet and Ariadne perched on the edge of the bed, taking a firm grip of his forearm with one hand. The red kerchief lay on the bed beside them. She lifted her knife, put her free hand against the blue vein in Ivor’s arm, and, without a tremor, placed the tip of her knife against it and cut. Just once, just below the surface, but the blood bubbled up, dark red.

  Ivor turned his arm instantly, and blood dripped onto the white sheet. They both watched it for a moment, transfixed, and then Ariadne moved swiftly, bending his elbow, pushing his forearm up, his hand onto his shoulder. “Hold still.” She got off the bed and fetched the brandy bottle.

  “Another one of Tilly’s words of wisdom.” She took his hand and opened his arm. The blood welled from the cut. “Forgive me. This will hurt, but I believe it will do no other harm and maybe some good.” She poured brandy over the wound, and Ivor gave a gasp at the sharp sting. Ari closed his arm again, pressing his hand into his shoulder. “A minute or two, and then I will bind it.”

  “Tilly has something of the physician about her, clearly,” Ivor observed, flexing his hand against his shoulder.

  “There are women in the valley, the midwives and others, who have such knowledge.” Ari twisted the kerchief into a band. She took his hand and opened his arm. The blood still welled but more sluggishly. She bound the red band around it, tying it tightly. “I believe that will do.”

  Ivor nodded and stood up. He regarded the bloodstained sheet. “Tilly will vouch for your purity in the morning.”

  Ari tried to ignore the sardonic edge to his voice. She felt an overwhelming need to sleep and suddenly sat on the edge of the bed, her legs seeming unwilling to hold her another minute. The coverlet was still wrapped around her, but with a twist and a turn, she could be in bed, the cover over her and her head on the pillow. She felt herself sway.

  “You can’t keep your head off the pillow, and I have no intention of sleeping on the floor. Neither will I sleep downstairs,” Ivor declared briskly. He leaned over the bed and jerked the heavy bolster from behind the pillows. “Unwind yourself and lie down. The bloody spot is yours, if you remember.” He thrust the bolster down the middle of the feather mattress and turned away to take off his clothes.

  It was a small enough price to pay, Ari thought. This entire pantomime had been for her benefit. She untwisted herself from the coverlet and lifted it in a shake that dropped it securely over the entire mattress. Gingerly, she maneuvered herself a space around the small bloodstain on her side of the bolster and lay down, her head sinking into the pillow. Her eyes, however, would not close.

  Ivor was kicking off his shoes, throwing off his clothes, unrolling his stockings. If he was aware that she was watching him, he gave no indication. He snuffed the candles on the sill between finger and thumb and then walked around the bed to the other side of the bolster. Ari watched him through half-closed eyes in the light of the single bedside candle. He was the first fully naked man she had ever seen. There had been no opportunity in her lovemaking with Gabriel for either of them to undress properly. She had no idea how Gabriel would look naked. But Ivor was a revelation.

  There seemed so much of him. So much length and rippling muscle, so much ease of movement, such smoothness, and such a luxuriant trail of chestnut hair down his belly, forming a thick forest at the apex of his thighs. She caught a glimpse of his penis as he lifted a knee onto the bed before inserting himself beneath the coverlet. She had glimpsed Gabriel’s penis just once, after they had made love, a small, flaccid piece of flesh curled damply into his pubic hair. Ivor’s penis was by no means erect, but it seemed, to her drowsily sensual examination, to be a full and powerful organ merely at rest against his thigh. And then he tucked himself into his side of the bolster, blew out the night candle, and the chamber was lit only by the dying flicker of torchlight through the window.

  SIX

  The liveried manservant moved efficiently around the antechamber to the King’s privy chambers at the Palace of Whitehall. He adjusted cushions and straightened the rug before the fireplace in which, despite the warmth of the September morning, a massive log blazed. The Duchess of Portsmouth was always complaining of the cold, and when she was in residence with the King, every fireplace in the royal residence was kept alight.

  The man paused to mop his brow before sticking the poker into the fire to adjust the log. The mullioned casements were open onto the river, and the sounds of river traffic drifted from below, the shouts of oarsmen in their skiffs touting for customers to row across the mighty Thames, which was thronged with the barges of the rich and noble dwarfing the bobbing watercraft of humble tradesfolk and the even humbler river rats who plied their trade in the flotsam they hauled up from the riverbed and scavenged from its slimy banks at low tide. The strains of music rose above the cacophony as an elegant barge sailed past, the musicians in the bow playing for their noble employer sprawled at his ease in the richly upholstered cabin.

  The footman went to the window to take a deep, cooling breath of fresh air, except that it wasn’t fresh. The air was putrid with the river stench. The carcass of a cow bobbed gently downstream as the tide took it towards Greenwich, a rat scurried through the thick mud at the river’s edge, and the royal barge, pennants flying, rode high on the water at the Whitehall Palace landing, having just disembarked its royal passenger and his friends after a morning’s hunt in the park at Hampton Court.

  Voices, booted feet, the bark of a dog, a woman’s laugh came from the corridor outside, and the footman jumped back into the antechamber, casting one last glance around before diving for a small door behind an ornate screen in the far corner. Only the loftiest of servants were permitted in his majesty’s presence, and he didn’t qualify. The door took him down long, narrow stone corridors winding through the vast backstage of the massive palace, the biggest in Europe, it was said. These were the corridors inhabited by the faceless multitude who kept the palace working, its royal inhabitants warm, fed, secure, and in total ignorance of the mechanics that ensured their comfort and safety.

  The double doors that opened into the antechamber from the richly decorated corridor beyond were flung wide by two flunkies, and the King, booted and spurred and in great good humor, swept into the chamber. A plump lady in riding dress clung to his arm
, a pack of deer hounds surged around the couple, and in their wake came a chattering pack of courtiers, all booted and spurred.

  “By God, that was a goodly chase,” his majesty declared, flinging his plumed hat onto a low chair, following it with his whip and heavy gauntlets. His wig fell in luxuriant dark curls to his silk-clad shoulders. He bent to kiss the plump lady’s cheek as she smiled up at him. “You rode like an angel, my little Fubbs.” He seized her around her waist, lifting her for another kiss. “Ah, isn’t she magnificent, gentlemen?”

  A chorus of agreement met this statement, and the lady, Louise de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth, acknowledged it with a light laugh. “Gentlemen, gentlemen, you flatter me. And you know what they say about flatterers?” Her eyebrows rose as she graced the company with an arch smile. “Just because his majesty is pleased to compliment me is no reason for the rest of you to fawn.”

  “Louise, Louise, so harsh, my darling. Of course they find you perfection. And you must not blame them for finding perfection where their king finds it.” Charles laughed and drew her to the fire. “We must have wine . . . and I dare swear, my love, that you are frozen to the bone. Sunderland, dear fellow, ring for wine.” He gestured with a beringed hand to one of the courtiers. “And a bumper or two of sack . . . indeed, I’ve a mind for a bumper or two of sack.”

  He deposited himself in a gilt armchair and drew his mistress onto his knee. “And what of you, Fubbs, what will tempt you?”

  “Just these, sire.” Louise pressed her full red lips against his. “That is all I desire.” She stroked his cheek with a fingertip, nothing in the adoring sensuality of her expression revealing how she hated the nickname. It was an ugly sound, for all that it celebrated her plump and luscious figure, and not even the knowledge that the King had named one of his yachts HMS Fubbs in her honor could resign her to it. Irrationally, she always felt as if he were poking fun. But she leaned against him, moved her hips in an infinitesimal and invisible rhythm, and felt him grow hard beneath her.