The Silver Rose cb-2

by Jane Feather

  A dark shadow flitted across his mind as he struggled out of his clothes. Surely the lords of Ravenspeare weren't planning to do away with him? It was inconceivable. Humiliate him, certainly. Make him look a fool at his own bridal party, most surely. But murder? Would even they go that far with two hundred witnesses-and the queen looking on from afar? And if that was their plan, where did Ariel fit into it?

  He shrugged into a chamber robe, a grimace of distaste on his lips. He was damned if he was going to be defeated by this devil's brood.

  He took up his cane again and limped back to Ariel's chamber to await her return. The pain in his leg had settled into the steady throbbing ache that he knew would keep him wakeful throughout the night.

  "Lord Ravenspeare was 'ere agin, this evenin'," Edgar said, as he accompanied Ariel along the stalls. "Did he say anything?"

  "No, nuthin' much. Jest took a look." Edgar spat a

  chewed straw out of his mouth. "Spent a bit o' time lookin' at the colt, I noticed."

  "A particularly long time?" Ariel leaned against the half door to the colt's stall, resting her folded arms on the top. The colt, recognizing her voice, came forward with a low whinny.

  "Not so's you'd notice." Edgar held up the lantern so that she could see the animal clearly as she stroked his nose.

  "Umm. But Ranulf wouldn't let on if he had a particular interest," Ariel said slowly. "But could he have heard about the sale, Edgar?"

  Edgar shook his grizzled head. "Not unless that Mr. Carstairs 'as blabbed."

  "He promised to keep it quiet." Ariel turned away from the colt, her expression troubled. "Let's move the colt tomorrow, Edgar. Ship him downriver to Derek's farm. Just until the sale goes through."

  "Right y'are. I'll see to it at dawn."

  Ariel nodded, bade him good night, and left the stable. Derek Blake was a farmer whose twin sons she had pulled through the smallpox. He had negotiated the sale for her with John Carstairs and had offered to help her enterprise in any way he could. He was utterly trustworthy and would conceal the colt without asking questions. And if Ranulf did know something, he would surely react in some telltale fashion to the colt's disappearance.

  She whistled for the dogs, but there was no answering bark. She whistled again, shivering in the frost-tipped air. Presumably they were off about their own pursuits. They didn't go far from the stables as a general rule, and there was no harm leaving them loose overnight. They would raise the alarm if anyone tried to get too close to her horses.

  Before going inside again, she used the outhouse at the rear of the kitchen garden. It was cold and dark but she was damned if she was going to resort to the chamber pot upstairs with the earl of Hawkesmoor lying abed in the same room. Then she made her way back through the kitchens.

  Tonight the servants were still up and about, preparing for the following day's hunt picnic as well as tending to the continuing demands from the Great Hall, where the celebrations grew ever more out of hand. A whole month of this was going to run the household ragged, Ariel reflected acidly. They had no reason to thank their young mistress for her wedding.

  "Is all ready for the hunt breakfast tomorrow, Gertrude?" She paused beside the cook, who was rolling great sheets of pastry on a floured board.

  "Aye, m'lady. The men will 'ave the fires on the home field lit by dawn and the pigs a-roastin' by seven. They'll be ready for carvin' by noon."

  "And the drink?"

  "The kegs of ale, a butt of rhenish, and another of malmsey are loaded on the carts, m'lady. Ready to go. The breads are bakin' now, the pies are sittin' in the pantry."

  "You're a wonder, Gertrude." Ariel smiled and addressed a young girl plucking a duck into a cast-iron washtub. "Doris, would you bring goblets and the makings of a rum punch up to my chamber?" The girl tossed the half-plucked bird into the tub and went hastily to do her mistress's business. Ariel thanked the kitchen at large and wished them good night.

  "What's to be done 'ere when 'er ladyship goes, I dunno," a manservant muttered, blowing onto a silver salver and polishing it vigorously.

  "You'll not catch me stayin' on," a middle-aged woman agreed from behind a mound of potatoes she was peeling. "I wouldn't work fer that lot of devils fer a silver fortune."

  " 'Old yer tongue, Mim, an' you, Paul," Gertrude rebuked.

  "Well, ye'll not be stayin', will yer, Mistress Gertrude?"

  "None of your business," the cook snapped, slapping the rolling pin onto the pastry dough with a more than usually heavy hand. "Now, get up them stairs with the punch, Doris."

  "Per'aps 'er ladyship'll take us with 'er when she goes to 'Awkesmoor," Mim said hopefully.

  "They've enough people of their own," stated Gertrude. "Now git on wi' yer work, woman, or we'll none of us see our beds tonight."

  On her way upstairs, Ariel stopped at the stillroom and took several pots and leather pouches from one of the shelves. She reached her bedchamber just behind Doris with a laden tray.

  Simon was seated in his chamber robe before the fire, his foot resting on an embroidered footstool. He looked in surprise at the young maid curtsying before him. "Oh, what have we here?"

  "The makings for a rum punch," Ariel replied, unclasping her cloak. "Just put it before the fire, Doris."

  The girl did so, bobbed another curtsy, and disappeared. Simon rose stiffly from the chair, crossed the room, and turned the key in the lock, dropping it into the pocket of his robe.

  "You really don't trust me an inch, do you?"

  "Oh, it's not you I'm worried about," he returned. "It's unwelcome visitors. I have a feeling that in this household anything could happen." He regarded Ariel through narrowed eyes and thought he detected a slight shifting of her gaze before she knelt before the tray and began to mix rum and hot water in a punch bowl.

  "If you won't let me put a healing salve on your leg, then you must at least allow me to prepare a soothing draught for you. I doubt you'll sleep properly eke."

  "Oh-ho! So, you're about to drug me into a stupor, are you?" He sat down again, gingerly lifting his foot back to the stool.

  "It will make you drowsy." Ariel squeezed lemons into the bowl. "Surely you'd like to sleep?" She pushed the curtain of loosened hair from her face and glared at him. "If I intended to render you a helpless victim, I'd hardly tell you what I was doing."

  "True enough." He linked his fingers behind his head and watched her hands as they squeezed, grated, mixed, and stirred. "What's that you're putting in now?"

  "Nutmeg and belladonna."

  "Deadly nightshade! Dear God, girl!"

  "In the right proportions it induces a healthful sleep," she stated a mite crossly. "I told you that I have some skill in these matters." She dipped the ladle into the bowl, filled a goblet, and carried it over to him.

  "I own my nights are rarely restful," he said with a doubtful little smile, taking the goblet. "But I think you must drink with me, my wife."

  "I sleep well enough without assistance."

  "Maybe so. But you understand my concerns." His smile broadened, but Ariel knew that he meant what he said. He would drink of her medicine only if she joined him.

  She filled a goblet for herself, then faced him with a mocking smile in her gray eyes. "To your health, husband." She raised the goblet and drank.

  "Your health, my dear." He drank to the bottom of the goblet. "You make a fine rum punch. I could taste no additives in there."

  "The sleeping herbs I use are tasteless." She took the goblet from him. "If you wish, I'll make another without the sleeping draught."

  He shook his head. "No, I've need of a clear head in this place. Let's to bed." He rose and limped to the fourposter, bending stiffly to pull out the truckle bed. "When I've warmed my feet, you may have the hot brick."

  "Small compensation for being driven from my own bed," Ariel said grumpily.

  "Oh, but I'm not driving you from your own bed. I thought I made it clear that you were most welcome to share it"

  "Only i
f you put a drawn sword between us," she stated.

  "Have it your own way." He snuffed out the candle beside the bed, then, with his back to her, threw off the chamber robe and climbed up into the bed.

  Ariel looked quickly away but not before she'd taken in the lines of his back view. His back was long and smooth, his buttocks taut, his thighs hard. As before, she caught herself thinking that one would never guess from looking at her husband's lean, strong soldier's body that he was so sorely lamed.

  He settled against the pillows with a sigh, before linking his hands behind his head and regarding her shape in the dimness.

  "Take the coverlet if you wish."

  "My thanks," Ariel muttered with heavy irony, dragging the thick quilt from his bed, tossing it over the narrow cot. "Must you stare at me so?"

  "I may not bed my wife, but I see no reason why I shouldn't look upon her… And in truth, Ariel, you are most beautiful to look upon."

  Ariel blushed. "I am not used to thinking so."

  "I doubt your family would notice," Simon said with a dour smile. "I daresay it's not the Ravenspeares' way to see beauty. As a clan, they seem to fix upon ugliness."

  Her eyes suddenly seemed to reflect the sparking fire behind her. "If, as you believe, my mother loved your father, then presumably she saw beauty." Her voice was taut with anger.

  "Your mother was not by blood and birth a Ravenspeare." "But I am. So you would say that I too cannot see beauty?"

  His face was dark against the fine white pillows. "I would like to believe you're the exception that proves the rule, Ariel."

  She swung away from him and extinguished the lamp so that the room was lit only by the fire. She stepped into a dark corner out of sight of the bed and undressed rapidly before diving under the covers on the truckle bed. "It's so cold in here!" The wailing protest broke from her without volition as her warm skin hit the icy sheet. "It feels damp!"

  "Well, get in here. I'll put the bolster down the middle of the bed," Simon offered sleepily, relishing his own warmth and the creeping relaxation as the pain in his leg, for the first time since he had received the wound, began to fade. "I can assure you that you've nothing to fear from me. After that sleeping draught, I could no more exercise my marital rights than I could vault a haystack." A deep yawn punctuated his assurance.

  Ariel shivered. The sheet did feel damp, although she knew it couldn't be. It was just that it was even colder tonight than the previous night. "Let me have the hot brick," she mumbled, drawing her knees up against her chest. There was no reply from the other bed. She listened. A soft rumbling snore came from above.

  "Simon?"

  Another snore.

  With a muttered curse, she half sat up, pulling the quilt up to her chin, and reached up her hand to thrust it under the covers of his bed, guessing where his feet would be as she felt blindly for the brick. It was wonderfully toasty in the big bed, and when her fingers brushed his leg, his skin was enviably warm.

  "You're letting the cold air in, girl!" The sound of his voice, not in the least sleepy, shocked her, and she withdrew her hand with a little gasp. "Come in here and stop being silly." There was a mountainous heave of the covers on the poster bed, and the next minute, Ariel felt hands gripping her strongly beneath the arms. She was hauled bodily out and upward, her naked shivering frame enveloped in thick, warm quilts, her toes curling around the hot brick almost before she was aware of it.

  She remembered noticing how much strength he had in his upper body when she'd seen his exposed torso that morning. She lay too startled to speak. He wasn't touching her but she was overpoweringly aware of his body a mere few inches from hers.

  "I don't have a drawn sword handy, so the bolster must suffice. Here…" He heaved at the thick sausage behind his head, pulling it loose, and stuffed it down beside him. "God's grace, girl, you're as prim and prissy as a convent-bred virgin. People have been bundling together without lascivious purpose for centuries."

  "Only when there aren't enough beds to go around." Ariel found her voice at last. "There's no such shortage here."

  "There's a shortage of warm beds, it seems to me. Now go to sleep. I can barely keep my eyes open." He rolled onto his side with another mountainous heave of the covers. Ariel grabbed onto her side to keep them over her. She lay rigid for a few minutes and then, as a wave of sleepiness swept over her, turned onto her side with the bolster at her back and fell into the deep black pool of oblivion.

  When she awoke it was broad daylight. And something warm and heavy was resting on the curve of her hip. She lay still, disoriented, then slowly realized that it was the Hawkesmoor's hand under the covers. It wasn't doing anything, just sitting there, but it seemed as if it belonged there… as if it had been there for a very long time.

  Her nipples hardened as a little shiver rippled over her skin, tightened her scalp. She wanted to move but couldn't. Then the hand moved across her turned hip. She held her breath, pretending to be asleep, waiting despite her brain's screaming protests to see what would happen next. The hand curled, slipped down over her bottom…

  The silent vociferous protests were finally translated into action. "You promised!" she cried, pushing his hand away. "You promised!"

  "Promised what?" The earl rolled onto his side. Resting on a propped elbow, he blinked drowsily at her from across the bolster. "I promised I wouldn't take advantage of you. I can't help it if my hand slipped a little in my sleep."

  "You weren't asleep!" she declared furiously, flinging aside the covers before remembering that she was naked. She pulled them back again with an oath. "You are a dishonorable Hawkesmoor!"

  Infuriatingly, Simon merely laughed and lay down again on his back. "A wandering hand in such circumstances is hardly dishonorable, my dear."

  "You promised you wouldn't touch me. You said you could no more exercise your marital rights than-"

  "Oh, I know what I said," he interrupted, still laughing. "But that was last night, when it was perfectly true. But that draught of yours has put new life in me. Wonderful stuff it was. I had a rare good night, and how wonderful to wake up with such silken curves a mere bolster away."

  "Oh, you're detestable!" Ariel sat up, glaring down at him, but she felt strangely uncertain. Her own body was too alive and didn't seem to be responding in accordance with her brain's commands.

  Lazily he lifted a hand and stroked down her bare back as she sat beside him, the covers held tight to her chin. She jumped at his touch. "Don't!"

  "How can I resist?" he murmured, flattening his palm over the base of her spine, his fingertips edging dangerously beneath her. "I'm only flesh and blood, wife of mine."

  Ariel promptly flung herself onto her back, shoving his hand out from under her? hugging the cover to her chin. "I can't believe you'd break your promise, when you had the gall to say you didn't trust my word because I'm a Ravenspeare!"

  Simon merely chuckled again. "Circumstances change. And if you want to avoid further intimacies, I suggest you get up and call for my breakfast and shaving water."

  Ariel inched to the edge of the bed and gingerly slid out, pulling the top quilt with her. Safely wrapped once more, she stood up. "Don't you ever dare to question my honor again, Hawkesmoor. Where's the door key?"

  Simon, clearly unrepentant, merely grinned. "In the pocket of my robe, I expect."

  Ariel felt for it in the robe lying over the end of the bed. She drew it out and frowned, glancing to the window where a pale sun cast chilly rays. She forgot the irritating if tantalizing exchange under a new thought. "I wonder where the dogs are? It's not like them to stay out after daybreak."

  "Maybe they found a bitch in heat and are sleeping off the night's excesses," Simon suggested.

  It was always possible. Ariel gathered up her riding habit and undergarments and went to the door. "I'll dress in your chamber, since you're occupying mine."

  As soon as she'd left, Simon got up and stretched, noting how much easier his leg moved this morning. Most days it
was as stiff as dried leather and every stretch was agony until the blood flowed again. He pulled on his chamber robe and went to the window, flinging it wide, inhaling the crisp air, enjoying the heaviness in his loins, the swift blood of arousal. She was a most winsome creature, his young bride. And indignation certainly became her. He chuckled to himself.

  But then his smile faded. He might desire her, but could she ever desire him? Helene had laughed at him when he'd expressed these reservations. She'd told him he was beautiful, despite his scarred countenance and lame leg. But Helene saw him through eyes of love and friendship.

  The turret room looked out beyond the moat wall to the flat countryside with its intricate pattern of intersecting rivers and canals. Windmills studded the landscape, their sails turning lazily in the light breeze. Way off toward the port of King's Lyn were his own estates. Hawkesmoor Manor was a pleasant timbered house with green lawns stretching to the river and windows that looked out over the Wash. It was a warm family house, as different from this chilly, inhospitable castle as two abodes could be.

  How would Ariel find it?

  He pulled the window shut again. The cold air had chilled the room, and he bent to make up the fire. This month of so-called celebration was the very devil.

  As long as he was stuck here, perhaps it was time to pursue the elusive woman named Esther.

  "The dogs are nowhere to be seen." Ariel spoke worriedly as she hurried into the room. "I've called and called, and whistled for them. Edgar said he hasn't seen them since I left the stable last night."

  "They're lying up somewhere," Simon said, nodding his thanks to the servants who had accompanied Ariel with hot water and a breakfast tray. "When I'm dressed, I'll come down with you to the stables." He began to sharpen his razor, drawing the blade along the strop.

  Ariel took a slice of ham from the tray, placed it on a chunk of wheaten bread, and chewed slowly. She filled the ale cup and drank before refilling it for Simon. "What shall I do if they don't come back before the hunt?"

  Simon wiped the lather from his face before answering. She was sounding very forlorn in her uncertainty, not at all like the Ariel he was accustomed to. "My dear girl, they're a pair of great wolfhounds. What could possibly have happened to them? There's nothing to worry about. Dogs are dogs and they do annoyingly doggish things."