by Jane Feather
Ariel cupped her hands around the hot teacup, inhaling the steam. She propped her stockinged feet on the fender and offered her description of the night's events.
"It's only now that I realize how much I was hoping he would be different from other men," she said when the narrative was complete. "I know I'm different from other women, and sometimes he's said that he understands what's made me the way I am, but understanding isn't accepting, is it?" She looked up at Helene, sitting opposite.
Helene sipped her tea. "Simon is one of the most understanding and unusual men I've ever met," she said slowly. "And you, my dear, are extraordinarily lucky to have him for husband. He will give you all the kindness and consideration a wife could possibly expect. Surely you can give him that in return?"
Ariel set down her teacup. Her face was very white, her heavy eyes as clear as a rain-washed dawn sky. "Kindness and consideration aren't enough, Helene. They're lukewarm emotions, all very well in their place. But I want much more. I want the kind of understanding and acceptance that comes from love." Her voice didn't waver as she spoke the truth as she had only now understood it.
Helene reached over and took her hands again. "Don't wish for the moon, child. Believe me, companionship, friendship, kindness, loyalty, are as precious as anything. And Simon will give you all of those things."
"But not love?" Ariel's voice was still steady.
Helene squeezed her hands. "My dear, he's a Hawkesmoor. Your father killed his father. He can feel warmth, affection for you, but there can never be room in his heart for a Ravenspeare."
"He told you this?"
"In those very words," Helene said quietly.
"Thank you." Ariel gently pulled her hands free and stood up. "I knew it, of course. If you'll excuse me now, I have some household matters to attend to." She smiled distantly at Helene and went back to her own chamber.
When Simon returned fifteen minutes later, Ariel was sitting at the dresser, brushing her hair. Her plain gown of dark brown linen did nothing to alleviate her pallor. She didn't turn from the mirror, but her heavy-lidded eyes met his in the glass as he came up behind her.
"I've been talking with Edgar… making arrangements to remove the stud to Hawkesmoor," Simon stated. She looked so wretched he almost forgot his own hurt and disappointment. Almost put his arms around her, his fingertips itching to soothe her swollen eyelids.
But her face hardened, her mouth set in a firm line, and he pushed aside the impulse.
"I'm to have no say in their disposition, then?" she said in a flat angry voice.
Simon sighed. "Of course you are. Your decisions will be honored in my stables. But since you were so anxious about your brother, I thought it important to act quickly." He couldn't help adding with heavy sarcasm, "Forgive me if I made a decision that was not mine to make."
Ariel's fingers moved rapidly through her hair, plaiting the thick strands hanging over her shoulder. "Of course it was yours to make. Aren't all decisions concerning me yours to make, my lord?"
He refused to lose his temper again. "Probably," he said with deliberate affability. "But if I do you the courtesy of consulting you, then-"
"I should be grateful for the consideration," she interrupted swiftly. "Yes, I understand that. I learn my lessons well, sir."
Simon brought his steepled fingers up to his mouth as her angry eyes glared at him in the mirror.
"Ariel, we both know that this is not about your horses. If you wish to continue with your breeding program from Hawkesmoor Manor, then you may do so with my blessing. I have no objections to your pursuing a hobby. But we both know that that isn't what you want. Don't we?"
When she said nothing, he continued evenly, "You want financial independence in order to have a way out of this marriage. I understand that now. But it's not something I can allow. You may breed your horses. You may even sell them, although having a horse trader for wife sits uncomfortably with me. But if you make a profit, I would have to insist that it be put in trust for your children-our children. You would not have access to it yourself."
Ariel's face lost the last tinge of color. It was bone white, her eyes blue-shadowed gray hollows. But still she said nothing.
Simon ran his fingertips over his mouth. Her silence somehow was worse than anything. It was filled with accusation and a kind of resignation that was a skewer in his gut. He had come to admire that quality she had of something wild and untouched, but now she reminded him of a newly broken pony.
He put his hands on her shoulders and she shrank from him. His hands dropped to his sides again.
He left the chamber, closing the door carefully behind him, the gentle click giving no indication of his frustration.
Ariel stared at her image in the mirror until the lines of the reflection began to waver and she had the strange sensation that she was entering her own eyes, moving behind them to the world inside herself.
Companionship, friendship, loyalty. Necessary but not sufficient, she thought with cold clarity. She could not give herself in love to a man who could never love her. She could not settle for such lukewarm comfort, whatever Helene might say. And she could not stay here, continuing with the farcical celebrations of a sham marriage, behaving as if nothing had happened.
She had to go away and think what to do. Away from the distractions of Simon's presence, from his eyes, his countenance, his wonderful hands. She had to go somewhere where she could think clearly.
She rose from the dresser, pulled a battered satchel from the armoire, and threw a few things into it. Then she tossed her cloak over her shoulders and went to the door. She stopped with her hand on the latch, remembering Simon's taunts about running away without a word of explanation.
It would be cowardly and childish to leave without a word. She returned to the escritoire and scrawled a few words on a piece of paper. I have to think what to do. I'm not running away. No frills, but it was succinct. She folded the sheet, wrote Simon's name on it, and propped it on the mantel. Her eye fell on the little bone horse she had placed beside the candlestick where she could see it from the bed. She dropped it into her pocket.
Helene's door opened as Ariel left her chamber. She looked askance at the satchel. "Are you going somewhere, my dear?"
Ariel shook her head. She'd had enough of Simon's ex-mistress and her so-called desire to help. "I'm taking some things to a friend," she said shortly and hurried away.
Ariel walked the three miles to Sarah and Jenny's cottage.
It didn't occur to her to seek shelter anywhere but with her friends. The dogs bounded ahead of her as she walked briskly along the lane, her mind now a blank, as she gave herself up to the gusting winter air slicing into her lungs, soothing her burning eyes, relieving the nagging ache behind her temples.
Jenny threw open the door at her knock, exclaiming in surprise, "Ariel, you walked here!"
"I needed the exercise." Ariel entered the small room, placing her satchel on the floor by the door. She glanced outside to where the dogs were merrily playing leapfrog in the small garden and whistled them in. "May I stay here for a few days?"
Jenny glanced toward her mother, who rose from the spinning wheel and came over to Ariel. Sarah placed her hands on Ariel's face. She touched her eyelids, her mouth, as if smoothing away the lines of pain she saw there. Then she drew her to the settle by the fire.
"What's happened, Ariel?" Jenny sat beside her, chafing her hands.
Ariel told them as succinctly as she could. When she'd finished, Jenny said nothing but looked at her mother. Sarah looked grave and Ariel felt a little shiver of dismay. The older woman didn't approve of her being here.
"I shouldn't have come, Sarah?"
"Of course you should have," Jenny exclaimed. "Shouldn't she, Mother? We're your friends, where else would you go?"
Ariel continued to look uncertainly at Sarah, who, after a minute, smiled at her, reached out again, and touched her cheek.
"The earl had no right to take over your horses lik
e that," Jenny stated, fiercely partisan.
"He's my husband. Husbands have those kinds of rights," Ariel responded, still looking at Sarah, who at this shook her head slightly but still smiled, as if at some absurdity. She raised her eyebrows in a skeptical question mark, and Ariel bit her hp, saying miserably, "No, that's not the real problem, Sarah."
The dogs' heads were resting on her knees, and she stroked them absently, drawing some comfort from their inarticulate support. "Helene, his friend-well, actually she is, was, his mistress-said he couldn't love me. She said he'd told her that himself."
Romulus raised his head and licked her face with a great slobbering swipe of his tongue. Ariel didn't seem to notice. Sarah's eyes were fixed attentively upon her, but that secret smile still seemed to lurk in their clear blue depths.
"I need him to love me," Ariel said in barely a whisper. "What am I to do if he can't?" Jenny didn't know what to answer and she looked to her mother, who raised a hand in a gentle gesture commanding silence.
Ariel continued in the same low voice, "It's all very well for Simon to say I have to trust him, but he has to trust me too. But he can't love me, so I suppose he can't see that I might love him. And if I love him, then of course I wouldn't use my own financial resources to run away from him. I wouldn't need to. So there's no reason why I shouldn't have them." She looked helplessly at her friends. "I'm not making much sense, am I?"
Jenny looked doubtful, but Sarah merely stood up, briskly fetching the kettle and setting it over the fire. Ariel felt a prickle of resentment at Sarah's apparent lack of sympathy for her miserable situation.
"I won't stay if you think I shouldn't," she said.
Sarah shook her head in brisk negative and hugged her. She gestured to the narrow ladder at the rear of the cottage that led up to the apple loft, and Jenny said instantly as if her mother had spoken, "You can sleep in the loft, Ariel. There's a pallet up there. Come and see." She went swiftly to the ladder, and Ariel, having picked up her satchel, followed her.
Ariel knew that the two women shared a bed downstairs that would certainly not accommodate three, and had been prepared to curl up on the hard wooden settle, so the small, sweet-smelling loft with its round window and straw-filled pallet felt almost luxurious. "This is perfect, Jenny." She set her bag down and went to the window. "I don't think Sarah approves of my being here, though."
"Of course she does," Jenny said stoutly. "Anyway, you haven't run away from your husband properly. You just need some time to think."
"Yes," Ariel agreed, gazing out at the circle of overcast sky. "I just need some time to think." But where her thoughts would take her, she had no idea.
"Where's Ariel this morning?" Jack Chauncey inquired jovially as he joined Simon on one of the long benches at the breakfast table in the Great Hall.
Simon sliced ham off the bone, laying the slivers on his platter. "Out and about, I expect."
"So, what was the mystery last night?" Peter Lancet inquired, taking a deep draught of his ale.
Simon spread mustard on his ham. "No mystery. It was just something to do with Ariel's horses."
His friends exchanged glances, then began to talk animatedly of other things.
"Is Lady Kelburn going to join the day's festivities?" Lord Stanton asked.
"I doubt it. She intended to pay only a very short bridal visit to my wife. In fact, if you'll excuse me, I should go and see how she is this morning." Simon stood up, reaching for his cane. He nodded to his companions and left the hall.
"Trouble?" Stanton asked the company in general.
"Feels like it," Jack returned. "Disharmony in the marital nest, I'd guess."
Simon was well aware of his friends' curiosity, but he wasn't about to satisfy it. He raised a hand to knock at Helene's door, then paused. If Ariel was around, she should discuss with her guest Helene's plans for departure. He went into Ariel's bedchamber but was not surprised to find it empty. His eye fed on the white paper on the mantel.
With a sense of foreboding, he took it down and unfolded it. His shout of rage reached Helene in the room opposite. She threw open her door and ran to him. "What is it, Simon?"
He scrunched the paper into a ball and hurled it into the fire. "I'll give her time to think!" he declared savagely. "I have tried to keep my patience, but so help me, Helene, she would try the patience of Job."
"Ariel?"
"Yes, of course Ariel," he snapped. "There's no one else in the world likely to plague me to death." Then he shook his head impatiently. "I beg your pardon, Helene. I had no right to shout at you."
"That's all right," she said. "What's happened now? I… I couldn't help but overhear some of what was said between you last night…"
"You heard?" He looked incredulous.
She blushed. "I listened."
He pushed a hand through his hair.
"I was concerned for you."
"Yes, I'm sure you were." He sat down heavily. "So you know all about it. What you don't know is that my reluctant bride has turned fugitive." He looked at her sharply. "Or did you know that?"
Helene shook her head. "No, she didn't say anything to me about-"
"Oh, so you've discussed this with her already?"
"I talked to her this morning, after you left." Helene sat on the bed, regarding him anxiously. "I suppose I've been interfering, but I thought maybe I could help. I couldn't understand how she could fail to see what was under her nose. She's so young, so naive. I felt I had to point it out to her."
And what exactly, my dear friend, did you point out to her?"
"That she was lucky to have such a husband," Helene said, the simplicity of her words merely accentuating the fervor of her conviction. "I told her she should be grateful for your kindness, your consideration."
Simon closed his eyes briefly, imagining how Ariel would react to such a homily.
"I've made things worse, haven't I?" Helene twisted her hands in her lap. She couldn't remember seeing Simon look so bleak.
"Probably. But with the best of intentions." Absently he pressed the heel of a hand into his aching thigh. A distracted frown drew his thick eyebrows together. "Did she say anything else?"
"Only that she had wanted you to accept her as she is."
"Give me strength!" Simon muttered. "She is the most impossible girl."
Helene stared at him, her hands suddenly still in her lap. "Do you accept her as she is, Simon?"
He gave a short laugh. "Yes, of course I do. I told you I wouldn't change anything about her. But that doesn't stop me wanting to wring her obstinate little neck."
"I think my work here is done," Helene said wryly. "I'll tell my maid to pack up my things, if you would send order to the stables for my carriage."
She stood up and Simon rose with her. He took her in his arms and hugged her. "I feel such a fool," she said, on a tiny sob that was buried in his shoulder. "Such a meddling fool. I did want to help."
"I know. We'll look back and laugh about it one of these days." His voice was lightly rueful, but his eyes were far from certain.
"What are you going to do?"
"Do? Fetch her back and teach her a few long-overdue lessons about acceptance," he declared savagely.
After he'd seen a subdued and chastened Helene into her carriage, Simon stood in the stableyard, slapping his gloves into the palm of one hand, wondering how to explain to his brothers-in-law that the bride had disappeared from the festivities. He would bring her back smartly enough, but first he had to find her. If she wasn't with Sarah and Jenny, then it might take him a day or two to lay hands on her. He needed to produce an excuse for Ariel's absence that would also make it reasonable for him and his friends to remain at Ravenspeare. "Tricky" was hardly the word for such an absurd situation.
"Hawkesmoor, I trust you'll be joining the party again today." The earl of Ravenspeare's voice broke opportunely into his sardonic musing. Ranulf s gray eyes regarded him with famfiiar malevolence. "You look a trifle befuddled, brothe
r-in-law."
"I find myself at something of a loss," Simon agreed mildly. "Your sister, Ravenspeare, has absented herself from the celebrations."
Ranulf's expression sharpened. "What d'you mean?" He glanced involuntarily toward the stables where the Arabians were housed.
"They're still here, Ravenspeare," Simon said with a cool smile. "But I'm having them transported to Hawkesmoor within the week."
"Those horses belong to Ravenspeare," Ranulf declared, almost spitting in his vehemence. "My sister bought them with money from the estate, and they do not belong to her." He spun on his heel and stalked off.
"That's not true, m'lord." Edgar seemed to have materialized out of nowhere. He chewed meditatively on his straw. "Lady Ariel sold jewelry that her mother had left her to buy the stallion and the first mare. There was enough left to maintain the stables for a couple of years, and now they pay for themselves."
"Does Lord Ravenspeare know this?"
Edgar shrugged. "Must do. If 'e's so sure they're 'is legally, why'd 'e try to steal 'em?"
"Point taken." Simon nodded and set off back to the castle. The three brothers came to meet him as he crossed the grassy square in the inner courtyard.
"I wasn't paying attention, Hawkesmoor. What did you say about my sister?" Ranulf demanded, standing flanked by his brothers, hands resting on his hips. "What have you done with her?"
"I?" Simon raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "Nothing at all. But she's decided to retreat from all the excitement. She was finding it a bit tiring."
The three brothers stared at him incredulously. "Where is she?" Roland asked, a spark of interest enlivening his usually flat gray eyes.
Simon shrugged, struck with inspiration. Helene had caused enough trouble, now she could be useful. "She went to stay with a friend of mine for a few days."
"What friend?"
"Lady Kelburn. She paid Ariel a bride visit yesterday and they left this morning."
" 'S'true there was some woman visiting last night," Ralph said, trying very hard not to slur his words. "Timson told me."
