by Jane Feather
“I’m just going to see if anything’s required in the Great Hall,” she said, sliding to the door, offering an almost guilty smile to the room at large. “Is there anything anyone needs here?”
“Yes, your company,” Simon observed, leaning back and regarding her quizzically. “You seem to be having trouble sitting still.”
“It’s the weather. It makes me itchy,” Ariel said as she departed, closing the door behind her.
Simon shook his head and returned his attention to the game.
Ariel sped down the spiral stairs to the floor beneath. She hurried along the corridor, took the side staircase, and approached the Great Hall from the kitchen. She stood in the shadow of the staircase watching the scene. If there was a sober member of the group, he or she was hiding it well. A few couples were engaged in a lewd dance on one of the tables, to the strains of a jig played by the musicians in the gallery. A hogshead of malmsey had been broached, the tap left on so that the wine flowed stickily across the floor.
Ranulf was sitting at the top table, his eyes unfocused, his mouth thinned. He didn’t seem to be enjoying himself, Ariel reflected. But then, he very rarely did. Even the heights of debauchery failed to please him, although he was always striving for some new sensation.
Roland was nibbling amiably at the ear of Lord Darsett’s mistress. The woman was giggling, even while her hand was lost in her protector’s crotch.
Ralph appeared to be asleep in a bowl of venison stew.
There was no sign of Oliver Becket.
Ariel moved away, back to the kitchen. It was as safe tonight as it ever would be. Ranulf did not suspect anything. And he wouldn’t be going down to the river on a night like this without a good reason.
“Doris?” She beckoned the girl, who was putting the finishing touches to a dish of roasted partridges for the green parlor’s dinner.
Doris, beaming, abandoned her task and hurried over, wiping her hands on her apron. “Yes, m’lady.”
“I need you to do something for me. At ten o’clock I need you to come to the green parlor and fetch me.”
“Fetch you fer what, m’lady?”
“Just say that I’m needed at a birthing in the village and Edgar’s waiting with the gig to take me.”
“Oh . . . but who’s ’avin’ the baby, m’lady?”
Ariel sighed. “You don’t have to worry about that. Just come upstairs at ten o’clock and give me the message. Can you do that?”
Doris looked mightily puzzled, but the instructions were simple enough, so she bobbed a curtsy and said she could. Ariel nodded and left the kitchen, returning again to the stables, where Edgar was alone, muffling the hooves of the horses in preparation for moving them out.
“I’ll start at this end,” Ariel said, gathering up sheets of sacking and entering the far stall.
“Don’t you think you’ll be missed up at the castle?” Edgar inquired phlegmatically. “You don’t want to draw attention to things, seems to me.”
Ariel paused in the act of lifting Serenissima’s hoof. Edgar was right. Still, she was afraid she would only draw more attention with her stupid blushes around Simon. “I’ll just do a couple,” she compromised. “Then I’ll go back for dinner.”
Somehow she would get through dinner.
She hurried upstairs and found Simon alone in the parlor. “Where is everyone? Timson is bringing dinner up in ten minutes.”
“They went to change.” Simon flexed his poulticed thigh. “Since I’m playing the invalid today, I’m excused such courtesies, but . . .?” He raised an eyebrow as he ran his eye over Ariel’s tousled clothing.
Ariel glanced down at her old riding habit and cursed her stupidity. “Forgive me. I . . . I was forgetting that we have guests,” she said somewhat lamely. “Everyone is so easy and informal, I . . . I just forgot.”
“I expect you’ve been too busy today to worry about such unimportant matters.” Simon watched the flush crimson her cheeks. “Come here, wife of mine.” He held out a hand.
Ariel crossed the room, trying to hide her reluctance. He took both her hands and held them firmly as she stood in front of him. His eyes were still quizzical.
“What’s going on, Ariel?”
“Nothing! I’ve just been very busy doing things . . . things that have to be done.” She tugged at her hands but his grip tightened.
“You wouldn’t be hiding something from me, would you?”
“No!” she exclaimed. “And you’re making me blush because you’re making me feel guilty, and I don’t have anything to feel guilty about. You know how I go red at the slightest thing.”
He laughed and released her hands. “Yes, I do. Very well, forgive me for being suspicious. If you say you’re not hiding anything, then of course I believe you.”
Ariel spun away from him as flames blazed in her cheeks. “I have to go and change.” She whisked from the parlor, leaving Simon staring reflectively into the fire. He was far from convinced she was telling him the truth.
Ariel, praying her clumsy blushes hadn’t put him on his guard, pulled a simple gown of gray wool out of the armoire. Its only ornament was a band of turquoise silk beneath the bosom, and matching bands on the sleeves. When she had first acquired it, she had considered it the height of elegance, but compared with her admittedly scanty trousseau wardrobe, it struck her as pathetically plain and unfashionable. However, silks and velvets were ill suited for the rough work she would have to do later. Dinner was an agony. She felt Simon’s eyes on her constantly and covered her confusion by seeing to her guests’ needs when the servants were gone as attentively as Timson himself. Not a glass was left empty, a plate unfilled.
Doris’s knock on the dot of ten o’clock was a blessed relief.
“M’lady’s wanted at a birthin’,” Doris announced with a curtsy. She was frowning as she struggled to be word perfect. “Edgar’s waitin’ wi’ the gig in the yard.” She curtsied again and said with a rush of inspiration, “If you could come quick, m’lady. The mother’s powerful bad.”
Ariel leaped to her feet. “Yes, of course. I’ll come directly.” She cast a distracted glance around the table. “Forgive me, Helene . . . gentlemen. I may be back late, so I’ll see you in the morning. Simon, don’t wait up for me.” She almost raced from the room, her heart jumping with relief.
“What was all that about?” Helene asked, puzzled.
“I wish I knew.” Simon leaned back in his chair, idly twisting the stem of his glass between his fingers.
“But . . .but a birthing?”
“Remember I wrote to you that Ariel is a midwife and a leechwoman,” he said, still somewhat absently. “She’s much in demand in the neighborhood as a healer.”
“Yes, I remember now.” Helene sipped her own wine. “I don’t think I took it seriously.”
Simon’s laugh was short. “Believe me, my dear, one must always take Ariel seriously whatever she does.” He rose from his chair and hobbled to the window, staring out into the blackness.
“It’s a raw night for errands of mercy,” Jack said.
“Mmm.” Simon returned to his chair. He stared down into his wineglass, then suddenly he exhaled and his chair scraped again on the floor. “Goddamn it! The little wretch has been lying to me all day!” He hauled himself upright, grabbing for his cane. “Where are my britches, damn it! I can’t go out in my drawers!”
“I’ll fetch them.” Jack leaped to his feet. “But what are you going to do?”
“Find out what’s going on,” Simon declared grimly.
“Let me go for you.”
“Just fetch my britches . . . oh, and my cloak. It’s cold as the grave outside.” He shrugged out of his chamber robe and sat down to unpeel the mallow poultice from his leg.
“Let me help.” Helene took the discarded poultice from him. “Is there anything I can do?”
“No . . . thank you,” he added belatedly. “I’ll attend to my devious young wife myself. Ah, Jack, give them here.” He al
most snatched his britches from Jack and thrust his feet into the legs. His booted heel caught on the material, and he hopped for a moment on his good leg, cursing under his breath, before Jack gave him a push back onto the chair and manipulated the britches over his boots.
“Thanks.” Simon stood up again. He fastened the hooks at his waist and clasped the silver buckle of his belt. He slung his cloak over his shoulders. “Forgive me for breaking up the party, but I have the unmistakable feeling that marital duty calls. In fact,” he added savagely, “I’ve been ignoring that damned clarion call for far too long.”
The door banged shut behind him, and his halting step, sounding remarkably fast, descended the stairs.
Chapter Twenty-One
SIMON MADE STRAIGHT for the kitchen. If Ariel had been summoned to assist a laboring woman, the servants would know about it. When Doris caught sight of him, she turned and fled toward the scullery. Simon’s lips thinned.
“Can I ’elp you, m’lord? Is there something you need abovestairs?” Timson asked anxiously.
“Only my wife. Do you happen to know where I might find her?”
Timson stroked his chin. “Can’t say as I do, m’lord.”
“She’s not been summoned to the village, then?”
For a moment Timson looked puzzled, then speculation and calculation flashed across his eyes and Simon guessed the man was trying to decide how Lady Ariel would want him to respond to a situation he knew nothing about.
“I ’aven’t been in the kitchen much this evenin’, m’lord,” Timson said slowly. “But I could ask around.”
“Don’t bother. I’m sure I’ll get the same answer from everyone.” Simon limped to the kitchen door. It seemed the household automatically closed ranks around their lady whether or not they knew what was going on.
He felt his way down the kitchen path, using his stick as if he were a blind man. The fog was all but impenetrable and the silence in the still air was eerie, as if all living things had been choked by the wet, frigid, suffocating blanket. The stableyard was deserted, not even the faintest glimmer of a lantern showing through the gray-whiteness.
Simon leaned on his cane in the middle of the yard and listened intently. Then he heard something. A faint bark, instantly silenced. It was hard in the disorienting fog to get a sense of the direction. He waited, immobile, concentrating all his faculties as he had so often done in the past when patrolling a picket line, listening for the faint crack of a twig, rustle of a leaf, that would indicate the approach of a stranger.
Then it seemed that he could hear voices, faint whispering tendrils coming to him through the fog. He raised his head and sniffed like an animal scenting the wind. It was all too easy for the overstretched mind to play tricks in these conditions. All too easy to fabricate the sound one wanted to hear. But they were there. Those disembodied voices. And they were coming from the direction of the river.
He waited until he had oriented himself, then set off, his cane tapping the cobbles ahead of him as he felt his way toward the path that led from the stableyard down to the river. On the path his boots crunched on ice, went through to the iron-hard mud beneath. The ice was already broken up, shards of it cracking beneath his heels. Something resembling a troop of cavalry had trampled down this path very recently.
He increased his speed, knowing it was risky when he was blind as well as lame on the uneven and treacherous track, but the voices were sounding more solid now, although he couldn’t make them out. Then something barreled out of the darkness and flung itself at him.
He swore as his foot slipped. He flung out his hands and found a tree trunk right beside him. He clung to it, recovering his balance, as one of the wolfhounds slobbered ecstatically on his chest. The second materialized, a paler gray streak against the thick gray darkness.
“Down!” he commanded in a harsh whisper that brought them instantly to heel. Their eyes glowing yellow, they sat grinning up at him, clearly delighted to welcome him to whatever game was in progress.
Where the hounds were, there he would find Ariel.
In confirmation, Ariel’s voice, muffled in fog, drifted from the river, “Romulus . . . Remus . . . where the devil are you?”
“Come, Mama’s calling,” Simon murmured, pushing himself away from the tree. “Let’s go and surprise her, shall we?”
The fog seemed, if possible, even thicker by the river, but his eyes were now accustomed and he could make out shapes as he emerged from the path onto the riverbank, the dogs bounding ahead of him, unhindered by the stygian gloom.
Simon stared in astonishment. Several torches now offered a diffused light, their flames a snakelike flicker tonguing the fog. Ariel’s entire Arabian stud was gathered on the banks of the river where three flat barges were moored. As he watched, the men who were moving among the animals began to lead them onto the barges.
Ariel’s fluid shape seemed to be everywhere, adjusting halters, calming, stroking. There was no sound, no jingling of harness, no clatter of hoof, as the haltered animals were led on board. They must have muffled the hooves with sacking, Simon thought incredulously.
How could Ariel have had this monumental transport in her head and never given him so much as an inkling? All day she’d been making these preparations, and not once had he guessed. But how could he guess, when he hadn’t the faintest idea why she would be doing this? The stables at Hawkesmoor would be ready for her stud in a matter of weeks. So where the hell was she taking them? And why?
But he wasn’t going to find any answers standing on the sidelines. He moved forward away from the trees and onto the flat bank.
The dogs raced forward, barking excitedly, and Ariel hissed at them. “Quiet!”
“Should ’ave left ’em in the tack room.” It was Edgar’s voice and it was Edgar who saw Simon first “M’lord?” His tone was expressionless but it brought Ariel swinging around on her heel.
“Simon!”
“The very same,” he agreed, stepping toward her. “And would you mind telling me just what in the name of grace is going on here?”
Ariel dropped the halter she was holding. She walked slowly over to him. What could she say? How could she possibly explain what he was seeing?
Her eyes in the greenish yellow light were glittering with dismay. “You aren’t supposed to be here.” The stupid words spoke themselves even as she tried desperately to think of a satisfactory explanation.
“I rather got that impression myself,” he observed with an amiability that didn’t deceive her. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t have time to explain here. Please go back to the castle.” She tried to keep her tone moderate, but he heard her desperate urgency.
“That’s not good enough. I want to know now” His voice was clipped.
Ariel in her mind’s eye saw Ranulf plunging through the trees to discover the scene at the river while she bandied words with her husband.
She grabbed his sleeve, trying to drag him around to the trees again. “For God’s sake, Simon. Go back. Can’t you see that this has nothing to do with you? Can’t you see you’re in the way? I have to go back and help before—”
He moved a hand to her wrist, his fingers closing over the fragile bones as she tugged to free herself. “You are going nowhere. Now, tell me what you’re doing here.”
Ariel cast an almost wild look over her shoulder. The loading seemed to have stopped and everyone was looking at the two locked shadows. She began to speak with rapid desperation. “I have to move the horses out before Ranulf steals any more of them. Can’t you understand?”
Simon shook his head. “Not yet. Why would Ranulf steal them?”
“Because they’re worth money, you dolt!” She clapped her hand to her mouth as his eyes blazed. She stepped back involuntarily under a thrill of fear, but her wrist remained fast. “Please, I’m sorry.” Wretchedly she apologized. “But this isn’t the time to explain anything, Simon.”
“Nevertheless, you will continue.” The edge
to his voice would have cut steel. “And I suggest that you choose your words from now on with the greatest care. If you wanted to move the stud away from Ravenspeare, then why aren’t they going to Hawkesmoor?”
Ariel drew a deep breath. “It’s not as simple as that. I . . . I . . . oh, I can’t explain.”
“Can’t you?” His voice was now so cold and flat, she shriveled beneath it like a new growth under the onslaught of a spring frost. All the power of her purpose seemed to leak away. “Can’t you, Ariel?”
He moved his free hand to her chin, catching it between finger and thumb, forcing her to look up and meet a pitiless gaze. The silver knob of the cane he continued to hold was cold against her jaw. Each word was now an icy caress. “But never mind, because I begin to understand. Oh, yes, I am afraid that I finally begin to understand.”
He kept hold of her wrist, holding her alongside him as he limped to where Edgar was still standing stolidly with the horses.
“Return the horses to their stables and—”
“No!” Ariel cried. “No, you can’t do that.”
“Oh yes I can. Or have you forgotten the nature of the marriage contract, madam wife?” The words punched at her. “But then, I doubt you read the fine print, since it was a contract you never intended to honor.” He turned back to Edgar. “Return them immediately. Put a double guard on them overnight, and keep the dogs roaming free.”
Edgar didn’t move. Only his eyes flickered from the earl’s set face to Ariel’s white countenance. Men and horses stood quiet in the wreathing fog, the tension apparent even to those who couldn’t hear what was being said. One of the hounds gave vent to a questioning bark that was more of a tentative yap.
“Do not oblige me to repeat myself, man.” Simon’s voice was that same icy caress, and it sent shivers up Ariel’s spine.
“Do as his lordship says, Edgar,” she said, defeated. Edgar must not suffer for his loyalty to her.
