by Jane Feather
With an inarticulate grunt, he slouched out, on his way clouting a child who had had the temerity to stumble into his path. The toddler set up a shriek of indignation, and little Becky scooped him up and thrust a crust of bread in his mouth.
Ariel was used to such scenes. She took off her jacket, rolled up her sleeves, and bent over the writhing woman. Sarah and Jenny unpacked their medicines. As a pair, they moved seamlessly, Sarah as her daughter’s eyes, Jenny her mother’s tongue.
“It’s a breach,” Ariel said, sitting back on her heels, a worried frown creasing her brow. Alice Riordan screamed a high, unearthly shriek. Ariel wiped her brow, the flecks of foam from her lips.
“’Twas the same with ’er last two,” a voice muttered from a dark corner. An old crone whom they hadn’t noticed before pulled herself up from her rocker and tottered across to the fire. She stood looking down at the suffering woman with an expression both detached and compassionate. “Rub ’er belly with pig fat, that’s what I’d do.”
It was a common enough folk remedy but one that seemed singularly pointless to Ariel; however, sometimes it seemed to soothe the laboring woman. “If you think it’ll help, Granny, I should do it,” she said, helping Jenny lift the laboring woman so that Sarah could slip beneath her back the thick pad that would elevate her hips.
“You’d best be on your way, Ariel.” Jenny stripped the leaves from a bunch of herbs, tossing them into a pot of hot water. “Mother and I can manage.”
Ariel looked doubtful. “It might need the forceps.” She was much more sure-handed with the birthing instruments than the other two women.
Sarah, on her knees before the laboring woman, shook her head vigorously. Her hands were on the woman’s belly, shiny now with pig fat, her mouth pursed with concentration as she felt the contractions.
“Mother doesn’t think so,” Jenny declared. “We’ll manage, Ariel.”
Ariel still hesitated. She would much prefer to stay here in this fetid cottage, doing what she was good at, than return to the devious morass of murderous intrigue at Ravenspeare Castle. The situation here was straightforward. It would result in life or death, but the choices and their consequences were clear. In the world at Ravenspeare, there was no such clarity. But it had to be faced sometime. She couldn’t always avoid her own grim situation by plunging herself into the problems of others.
“I’ll send Sam back with the gig to take you home,” she said, picking up her coat from the floor. “He’ll bring calf’s-foot jelly and provisions for the family.”
“Aye, and if you’ve a lump of Old Man, it won’t come amiss.” Jenny stood up and accompanied her to the door, her voice now low. “She’ll need to sleep if she comes through this, and that husband of hers’ll be on top of her again before she’s healed.”
“I’ll send some with Sam. Make sure her husband doesn’t get hold of it.” The opiate locally known as Old Man was much prized among Fen folk suffering from the agues and fevers that the marsh seemed to breed, but Ariel had noticed that people became quickly accustomed to it, and the more they used it, the more they needed to take of it to dull their pain.
She took Jenny’s hand in farewell, then the other woman returned to the sickroom. One of Becky’s little brothers was holding the gray’s bridle, although the pony was securely tethered to a sapling. The boy looked expectantly at Ariel, stretching out a grimy claw.
“Enterprising little lad, aren’t you?” Ariel observed with a slight laugh. She handed him a penny and untethered the pony. The child grinned and ran off down the street, his bare feet flying over the ice-hard mud.
Ariel shook the reins and the pony broke into a trot. As if on signal, Romulus and Remus bounded out of a narrow lane between two cottages and took up their places on either side of the gig.
It was close to noon when the gig turned into the stable-yard of Ravenspeare Castle. Lord Roland was examining the fetlock of one of his hunters. As his sister jumped down from the gig, he came over to her, his expression hard.
“Where have you been, sister? It’s unseemly you should absent yourself from the celebrations that are in your honor.”
“I take little honor from celebrations like last evening’s,” Ariel said tartly. “They were more designed to do me insult than honor. Me and my bridegroom.” She raised an eyebrow at her brother. She feared Roland less than Ranulf. He was not so quick to raise his hand. Ralph she despised, but he was unpredictable when drunk and she was generally careful not to provoke him.
“You are insolent, sister.” But Lord Roland didn’t sound as if he cared particularly. He took snuff, examining his sister with a curious intentness in his gray eyes. “I understand you passed the night with the Hawkesmoor.”
“I believe it’s customary on a bridal night for the bride and groom to share a bed, brother.” She handed the reins of the gig to Sam and stepped away from the gig. The wolfhounds were at her heels, watchful.
“You were to pass your wedding night with Oliver Becket.” Roland never measured his words with his sister. Unlike Ranulf, he had too much respect for her intelligence to beat about the bush.
Ariel smiled. “My husband had other ideas.” She turned toward the stables. “Ideas he proved perfectly capable of putting into practice.” She left Roland standing in the middle of the yard and went to give Sam instructions about going to Ramsey and what he was to take with him.
Lord Roland slapped the back of one gloved hand into the palm of the other. Partly in anger, partly in reluctant amusement. Ariel would lead a man a merry dance if she was so inclined. Ranulf was furious at the upset of his little plan. Oliver was livid, but Roland guessed that mortification fueled his rage. He had been bested by the Hawkesmoor and nothing could conceal that fact. There was no getting away from it—the man had proved himself more of a problem than had been anticipated.
And Ariel? What game was she playing?
Roland strode out of the stableyard, back to the castle. In the inner courtyard, gamekeepers and dogs milled on the grassy square, while the guests joining the wild-fowling party drank mulled wine against the cold and stamped their booted feet. Servants carried their fowling pieces and game bags.
The earl of Hawkesmoor stood to one side with his own friends. Roland made his way over to them. “I’m sure you’ll be glad to hear that your bride has seen fit to return, Hawkesmoor.”
“It hadn’t occurred to me that she might not,” Simon returned easily. “She doesn’t strike me as a creature of random impulse.”
“But as yet you know little of your bride.” Oliver spoke, sneering as he stepped up to them. “I assure you, Hawkesmoor, that those of us who know Ariel well, know all the little twists and turns and vagaries of the girl’s character.”
“Then I have that pleasure in store,” Simon replied. He smiled, but there was something in his eyes that made Oliver draw back his head as if from a rearing cobra.
“A shared pleasure lacks a certain something, I always find,” Oliver said. There was a rustle of indrawn breath from the circle of listeners. The earl of Hawkesmoor’s smile didn’t waver.
“Generosity is the gift of kings, Becket.” He turned his back slowly and deliberately and walked away.
Chapter Seven
RANULF STOOD AT the door to the Great Hall. He stared out over the thronged courtyard, and when he saw Ariel appear from the direction of the stables, he descended the steps and moved purposefully toward her. She was weaving her way through the crowd, the dogs at her heels, a preoccupied frown on her face.
“Just where the hell have you been?” Ranulf demanded in a low voice, grabbing her arm above the elbow. The dogs growled but for once he ignored them. “How dare you vanish without a word to anyone! Where have you been? Answer me!” He shook her arm. The dogs growled again, a deep-throated warning. Ranulf turned on them with a foul oath, but he released his hold.
“Why should it matter where I’ve been?” Ariel answered. “I’m back now.”
“Dressed like some homes
pun peasant’s wife,” her brother gritted through compressed lips. “Look at you. You had money to clothe yourself properly for your bridal celebrations, and you go around in an old riding habit that looks as if it’s been dragged through a haystack. And your boots are worn through.”
Ariel glanced down at her broadcloth skirts. Straw and mud clung to them, and her boots, while not exactly worn through, were certainly shabby and unpolished. She had been so uncomfortable dressing under the amused eye of her bridegroom that morning that she had grabbed what came to hand and given no thought to the occasion.
“I trust you have passed a pleasant morning, my wife.” Simon’s easy tones broke into Ranulf’s renewed diatribe. The earl of Hawkesmoor had approached through the crowd so quietly that neither Ranulf nor his sister had noticed him. Ariel looked up with a flashing smile that betrayed her relief at this interruption.
“I went for a drive in the gig. Forgive me for staying out overlong, but I drove farther than I’d thought to without noticing the time.”
“Aye, it’s a fine way to do honor to your husband,” Ranulf snapped. “To appear clad like a serving wench who’s been rolling in the hay. I’ll not have it said that the earl of Ravenspeare’s sister goes about like a tavern doxy—”
“Oh, come now, Ravenspeare!” Simon again interrupted Ranulf’s rising tirade. “You do even less honor to your name by reviling your sister so publicly.” Ariel flushed to the roots of her hair, more embarrassed by her husband’s defense than by her brother’s castigation.
“Your wife’s appearance does not reflect upon the Hawkesmoor name, then?” Ranulf’s tone was full of sardonic mockery. “But perhaps Hawkesmoors are less nice in their standards.”
“From what I’ve seen of your hospitality so far, Ravenspeare, I take leave to doubt that,” Simon responded smoothly, not a flicker of emotion in his eyes. He turned to Ariel, who was still standing beside him, wrestling with anger and chagrin. “However, I take your point, Ravenspeare. It is for a husband to correct his wife, not her brother.
“You are perhaps a little untidy, my dear. Maybe you should settle this matter by changing into a habit that will reflect well upon both our houses. I am certain the shooting party can wait a few minutes.”
Ariel turned and left without a word. She kept her head lowered, her hood drawn up to hide her scarlet cheeks. It was one of her most tormenting weaknesses. Her skin was so fair and all her life she had blushed at the slightest provocation, sometimes even without good reason. She was always embarrassed at her obvious embarrassment, and the situation would be impossibly magnified.
Why had Simon interfered? Ranulf’s insulting rebukes ran off her like water on oiled leather. By seeming to take her part, the Hawkesmoor had made a mountain out of a molehill. But then, he hadn’t really taken her part. He had sent her away to change as if she were a grubby child appearing unwashed at the dinner table.
However, when she took a look at herself in the glass in her chamber, she was forced to admit that both men had had a point. Her hair was a wind-whipped tangle, her face was smudged with dust from her drive through the Fen blow, and her old broadcloth riding habit was thick with dust, the skirts caked with mud. But she’d had more important matters to attend to than her appearance, she muttered crossly, tugging at buttons and hooks.
Clad in just her shift, she washed her face and sponged her arms and neck, before letting down her hair. Throwing it forward over her face, she bent her head low and began to brush out the tangles. She was still muttering to herself behind the honeyed curtain when her husband spoke from the door.
“Your brothers’ guests grow restless. I don’t have much skill as a ladies’ maid but perhaps I can help you.”
Ariel raised her head abruptly, tossing back the glowing mane of hair. Her cheeks were pink from her efforts with the hairbrush and a renewed surge of annoyance.
The hounds greeted the new arrival with thumping tails. Their mistress, however, regarded the earl with a fulminating glare. “I have no need of assistance, my lord. And it’s very discourteous to barge into my chamber without so much as a knock.”
“Forgive me, but the door was ajar.” His tone carelessly dismissed her objection. He closed the door on his words and surveyed her with his crooked little smile. “Besides, a wife’s bedchamber is usually not barred to her husband.”
“So you’ve already made clear, my lord,” Ariel said tightly. “And I suppose it follows that a wife has no rights to privacy.”
“Not necessarily.” He limped forward and took the brush from her hand. “Sit.” A hand on her shoulder pushed her down to the dresser stool. He began to draw the brush through the thick springy locks with strong, rhythmic strokes. “I’ve longed to do this since I saw you yesterday, waiting for me in the courtyard, with your hat under your arm. The sun was catching these light gold streaks in your hair. They’re quite delightful.” He lifted a strand that stood out much paler against the rich dark honey.
Ariel glanced at his face in the mirror. He was smiling to himself, his eyes filled with a sensual pleasure, his face, riven by the jagged scar, somehow softened as if this hair brushing were the act of a lover. She noticed how his hands, large and callused though they were, had an elegance, almost a delicacy to them. She had the urge to reach for those hands, to lay her cheek against them. A shiver ran through her.
“You’re cold,” he said immediately, laying down the brush. “The fire is dying.” He turned to the hearth and with deft efficiency poked it back to blazing life, throwing on fresh logs. “Come now, you must make haste with your dressing before you catch cold.” He limped to the armoire. “Will you wear the habit you wore yesterday? The crimson velvet suited you well.” He drew out the garment as he spoke, and looked over at the sparse contents of the armoire. “You appear to have a very limited wardrobe, Ariel.”
“I have little need of finery in the Fens,” she stated, almost snatching the habit from him. “The life I lead doesn’t lend itself to silks and velvets.”
“The life you’ve led until now,” he corrected thoughtfully, leaning against the bedpost, arms folded, as he watched her dress. “As the countess of Hawkesmoor, you will take your place at court, and in county society, I trust. The Hawkesmoors have always been active in our community of the Fens.”
Unlike the lords of Ravenspeare. The local community was more inclined to hide from them than seek their aid. But neither of them spoke this shared thought.
Ariel fumbled with the tiny pearl buttons of her shirt. Her fingers were suddenly all thumbs. He sounded so assured, but she knew that she would never take her place at court or anywhere else as the wife of this man, whatever happened.
“Your hands must be freezing.” He moved her fumbling fingers aside and began to slip the tiny buttons into the braided loops that fastened them. His hands brushed her breasts and her breath caught. His fingers stopped their work and she felt her nipples harden against the fine linen of her shift as goose bumps lifted on her skin. Then abruptly his hands dropped from her and he stepped back, his face suddenly closed.
She turned aside to pick up her skirt, stepping into it, fastening the hooks at her waist, trying to hide the trembling of her fingers, keeping her head lowered and averted until the hot flush died down on her creamy cheeks.
If only he would go away now. But he remained leaning against the bedpost.
She felt his eyes on her, following her every move, and that lingering sensuality in his gaze made her blood race. Even the simple act of pulling on her boots was invested with a curious voluptuousness under the intentness of his sea blue eyes. The man was ugly as sin, and yet she had never felt more powerfully attracted to anyone. Not even Oliver, whose physical beauty was unmarred. Oliver, who, until last night, in her secret heart she had believed she loved.
She plaited her hair into a thick rope and crammed on her tricorn hat edged with silver lace. She picked up her gloves and whip and stalked to the door. “I’m sure we’ve been away long enough for y
ou to have proved your point to the wedding guests, my lord.”
“What point is that?” He raised an eyebrow as he moved to follow her.
“Why, your virility, of course, sir. Why else would you have accompanied me to my chamber so publicly? I’m sure our wedding guests are convinced you took the opportunity to bed your wife.” She looked over her shoulder at him. “That is what you would have them believe, is it not, my lord?” Her voice was taunting, masking her own tumultuous emotions. “I’m sure you’ll take a man’s satisfaction from the coarse jests that will greet our return.”
“I doubt you’ll be put to shame by them, my dear,” he returned with an ironic smile. “You went to the altar no shy virgin, and I’m sure your trysts with your erstwhile lover were no state-kept secret.”
Ariel bit her Up. She’d invited the riposte but it still stung. She walked fast down the corridor toward the stairs, leaving her husband far behind, determined to join the shooting party on her own as if she’d seen neither hide nor hair of the bridegroom in the last half hour.
Simon limped after her, leaning heavily on his cane. She had shuddered at his touch. It wasn’t surprising that such youthful beauty should find age and ugliness repulsive, and there was no way he could compete with the arrow-straight, unblemished physique of Oliver Becket. But for a moment in the charged intimacy of Ariel’s chamber, he had forgotten all but his own awareness of her appeal. That strange contrast between her apparent detachment and the living warmth of her hair and skin, the glow of her eyes, the delightful flush on her cheeks that made her seem so innocent, almost childlike.
