Gently he blew across the dying coals. After a time they flared again. First he placed splinters, then larger pieces of kindling over the embers. Renewed heat flushed their silvery faces.
The thought of sending a similar flush through Ariane made Simon’s breath ache within his lungs.
“More,” Simon said.
The huskiness of his voice intrigued Ariane for a reason she could not fathom. Forgetting the dagger waiting in the bedside drapery, she sorted eagerly through the kindling basket, relieved to think about something besides nightmare and death. Soon she had several sizes of kindling ready for Simon.
“Perfect,” Simon said, leaning forward.
The rush of his breath across Ariane’s cheek was warm and pleasantly spiced with wine.
Simon saw the tiny flare of her nostrils as she breathed in his own breath. When she smiled slightly, as though savoring a small part of him, heat lanced through Simon. He wanted very much to grab Ariane, push her witchy violet skirts above her hips, and bury himself in her.
Much too soon, advised the cooler part of Simon’s brain. The game—if indeed it is a game she plays—has hardly begun.
With great precision, Simon placed gradually larger pieces of kindling on the coals, then larger still. All the while he blew carefully on the fragile fire.
Suddenly tongues of flame licked upward, consuming the kindling in a soft burst of golden heat.
One-handed, Simon laid the rest of the fire. Then he watched it in silence, stroking the steel-colored cat that hadn’t budged from its privileged nest.
As Ariane watched Simon’s palm smooth the length of the cat, she wondered what it would feel like to be touched with such care by a warrior’s hard hand.
“Pour the wine for us, nightingale.”
Ariane blinked as tension returned in a cold rush. She had been so intent upon watching Simon’s hand that she had forgotten the inevitable end of the night.
Unhappily she looked at the elegant silver designs on the wine jug and wondered what savage potion lay concealed within.
“I—I don’t want any,” Ariane said baldly.
Simon gave her a swift black glance. When he saw that calculation had returned to her eyes, he barely suppressed a curse.
A heartbeat ago she was watching my hand with longing. I am certain of it.
And now she looks at me as though she were a terrified Saracen maid and I a Christian warrior bent on rape.
She is like a wealthy sultan’s fountain, hot and cold by turns.
Is it truly fear that makes her draw back again? Or is it merely a game to tease me and addle my wits with lust?
“Bring me a goblet,” Simon said evenly. “It would be a pity to waste such fine wine.”
When Ariane realized that Simon meant to drink from the jug himself, she felt a rush of relief.
“If—if you are having some, I will be pleased to drink with you,” she said.
Her voice was so low that it took a moment for Simon to understand. When he did, he gave her a glance that was divided between irritation and amusement.
“Were you afraid of poison?” he asked sardonically.
Ariane flinched. She shook her head. At each movement of her head, the chains of tiny amethysts woven into her hair burned with violet fire, reflecting the renewed leap of flame.
Her hair is like a midnight studded with amethyst stars. God’s blood, she is beautiful beyond any man’s dreams.
Longing went through Simon so violently that he had to clench his jaw against it. Slowly he set His Laziness near the fire-warmed hearth and stood to face his wife.
“What, then?” Simon persisted. “Why were you afraid to drink the wine?”
“I…”
Ariane’s voice died. A glance at Simon’s face convinced her that he meant to have an answer. For a wild instant she considered telling him the truth. Then she remembered her father’s reaction and her jaws locked against words of any kind.
Whore. Daughter of a whore. Wanton spawn of Satan, you have ruined me. If I dared kill you, I would!
The truth had done Ariane no good with her father. Nor had the priest been any more sympathetic. He had accused her of lying in the sacred act of confession. Priest and father alike had believed Geoffrey.
There was little hope that the near-stranger who was her husband would believe her, when the men who had been closest to her had not.
Speaking the truth would be foolish. It would serve only to make it more difficult to catch Simon off guard.
“I’ve heard,” Ariane said in a thin voice, “that men can put something in wine that…”
Again, Ariane’s voice failed.
“That makes maidens into wantons?” Simon asked neutrally.
“Or makes them…helpless.”
“I’ve heard of such things too,” Simon said.
“Have you?” Ariane asked.
“Aye, but I’ve never had to resort to them to seduce a girl.”
The amusement buried just beneath the surface of Simon’s words made his dark eyes gleam like water touched by moonlight.
Ariane let out a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding.
“And I never will.”
Simon restrained his anger with difficulty. It was one thing for Ariane to play a sensual game. It was quite another to slander a man’s honor.
“A man who would do that to a maid is beneath a dog’s contempt,” Simon said in a clipped voice.
There was no amusement in Simon’s eyes now. He was icy, savage.
“Do you believe me?” he asked.
Hastily Ariane nodded again.
“Excellent,” Simon said softly.
The quality of his voice made her flinch.
“I suspect you dislike me,” Simon said.
“That’s not—”
“I suspect I repel you physically,” he said, talking over Ariane’s interruption.
“Nay, ’tis not you, ’tis—”
“But I have done nothing to earn your contempt,” Simon finished, his voice deadly cold.
Knowing that she had hurt Simon caused surprising pain to Ariane, further tightening her already overstrung nerves. She hadn’t meant to demean him. Of all the men she had ever known, it was Simon to whom she was most drawn.
It frightened her even as it lured her.
“Simon,” she whispered.
He waited.
“I never meant to insult you,” Ariane managed.
Raised blond eyebrows silently contradicted her statement.
“Truly,” she said.
Simon held out his hand.
She flinched.
“You insult me every time you draw back from me,” Simon said flatly.
Desperately Ariane tried to convince her husband that her reticence had nothing to do with him.
“I cannot help it,” she said in a rush.
“No doubt. Tell me, wife. What do you find so disgusting about me?”
Ariane’s fragile hold on her self-control snapped.
“It’s not you!” she raged. “You are clean of limb and sweet of breath and quick and strong and honorable and so comely it’s a wonder the fairies haven’t slain you out of pure jealousy!”
Simon’s eyes widened.
“You are also thickheaded beyond belief!” Ariane finished in a rising voice.
There was an instant of silence in which neither could say who was more surprised by Ariane’s words. Then Simon threw back his head and laughed.
“The last, at least, is true,” Simon said.
“What?” asked Ariane warily.
“The part about my thick head.”
With a sound of exasperation, Ariane turned her back on her maddening husband.
“You will believe the worst I say, but not the best,” she muttered.
Simon’s only answer was the sound of wine being poured into silver goblets. When the goblets were full, he set them near the hearth to take off their chill. He would like to have warmed himself by the
fire as well, but there was no chair big enough to take his weight.
He looked around quickly. The bed was close enough to the fire to bask in warmth from the flames, but not close enough to put the draperies in danger of burning. The bed was also where Simon had every intention of spending the night.
But not alone.
“Come, my nervous nightingale. Sit with me by the fire.”
The gentle rasp of Simon’s voice was like a cat’s tongue. Intrigued despite her anger, Ariane risked a quick look over her shoulder.
Simon was smiling and holding out his hand to her. This time she sensed she must not refuse him, or he would simply stalk from the room, leaving her to face her fate the next night, or the night after.
Ice condensed in Ariane’s stomach at the thought. She doubted if she could string herself up to this pitch again. It must end here, now.
Tonight.
Be quick, Simon. Be strong.
End my nightmare.
8
Simon watched while his wary bride approached him. The hand she gave to him was trembling and cold. Her eyes were dark and almost wild.
Laughter, curiosity, flirtation, fear. She changes direction as quickly as a falcon on a storm wind.
I wonder if Dominic had this much difficulty with his bride.
God’s teeth. None of the other women I’ve bedded has given me a tenth so much trouble.
Belatedly, Simon remembered that the other women hadn’t been nervous, virginal, highborn girls. They had been widows, concubines of fallen sultans, or infertile harem girls.
Once, and only once, his lover had been married.
“Such a cold hand,” Simon said.
Ariane was in too much of a turmoil to answer. Simon’s hand was so warm she thought it might burn her.
“Is your other hand as cold?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Simon said judiciously. “Show me.”
The hand he held out to her was large, elegant despite that, and scarred with the inevitable marks of battle.
“Ariane.”
She jumped.
“If I were going to throw you on the floor and ravish you like a slave girl, I would have done so many times over by now.”
Ariane turned even more pale. Geoffrey had done his worst, but it had taken him the better part of a night, for he was much gone on drink.
When Simon realized she had taken him seriously, he didn’t know whether to swear or laugh.
“Nightingale,” he said, sighing, “do you have any idea what passes between a man and a woman on their wedding night?”
“Yes.”
The intense stillness of Ariane’s body told Simon that someone had explained full well to her what was expected of a wife in the marriage bed.
And she loathed the thought of it.
“’Tis natural that it seem strange to you,” he said. “It seems strange to a man the first time or two.”
“It does?”
“Of course. ’Tis difficult to know where to put one’s hands and arms and, er, other parts.”
Before Ariane could respond to that surprising bit of information—or to the pronounced red on Simon’s cheekbones—he took her other hand and tugged her gently down onto the bed.
“You were right,” he said. “This hand is as cold as the other.”
Simon blew gently across Ariane’s right hand. The contrast between the chill of her flesh and the heat of Simon’s breath was so great that Ariane shivered.
“Try the wine,” Simon suggested.
Ariane bent and dipped her fingertip in one of the goblets. Delicately she licked up a drop of wine.
“Nay,” she said. “Your hands are warmer than the wine.”
Simon had meant that Ariane try to warm herself by drinking the wine, but the sight of her pink tongue licking up wine sent everything resembling thought from his head.
“Are you certain?” he asked.
The rasp was back in Simon’s deep voice. The sound of it pleased Ariane. Smiling, she bent and dipped her finger in the wine once more.
Breath held, Simon watched as she circled her wine-wet fingertip with the very tip of her tongue.
“’Tis quite certain,” Ariane said. “Your hand is far warmer than the wine.”
“May I have some?”
She held out the cup.
“Nay, wife. From your fingers.”
“Do you mean…?” asked Ariane.
She looked at him uncertainly.
“I don’t bite,” Simon assured her, smiling.
“Said the wolf to the lambkin,” Ariane muttered.
Simon laughed, delighted by his bride’s change from fear to amusement.
Ariane bent over and dipped her finger into the wine again. As she lifted her hand toward Simon, wine ran down her fingernail, beaded into a brilliant garnet drop, and threatened to fall to the pale white lace of the bed cover. He ducked his head and caught Ariane’s fingertip between his lips.
The heat of Simon’s mouth made the fire seem cold. Ariane made a low sound as he gently released her finger.
“Is something wrong?” Simon asked.
“You are so very warm. It surprised me.”
“You felt no displeasure?”
She shook her head.
“What of pleasure?” Simon asked.
“Now I know why the keep’s cats stalk you. The warmth of your body draws them.”
Amusement gleamed in Simon’s dark eyes.
“Then you liked my heat,” he murmured, smiling.
Ariane wanted to scream with sudden frustration at the trap life had built around her. In her eyes, Simon was as handsome as a god. Firelight burned in the gold of his hair and gleamed within the midnight depths of his eyes.
When he smiled, it was like watching the sun rise over a bank of clouds, touching everything with warmth. Yet Ariane had to sit close to Simon while thinking coldly about the dagger that was now within her reach.
If he smiled again, she didn’t know what she would do.
How can a man who is so fair to look at be such a beast when taken by lust?
There was no answer to Ariane’s silent, desperate question. There never had been an answer. Geoffrey the Fair was considered the most comely knight in the Norman lands, and he had raped her without apology.
Maybe Simon would be different. More kind.
The thought was as beguiling to Ariane as Simon’s smile. But on the heels of that thought came the bitterness of past experience to warn her.
A man’s smile is like a rainbow. If I foolishly chase it, I will be drawn from my true path. Then I will relive my nightmare again and again and again.
But I will be awake this time. Every time.
Ariane shuddered with fear and revulsion. Only the thought of the dagger, bright and clean and hard, made it possible for her to keep her self-control as nightmare threatened to overwhelm her.
“Bring me some more wine, nightingale.”
Without a word Ariane pick up a wine goblet and held it out to Simon. He didn’t take it.
“I find that wine tastes better when sipped from your fingertip,” he said.
Ariane looked at Simon intently. His eyes were like his mind, clear and unclouded by drink.
Yet he must be weakened by wine if her plan had any chance of succeeding.
“It will take until dawn to drink a goblet from my hand,” Ariane protested.
“A night well spent.”
Ariane dipped her fingers in wine and held them out to Simon. This time the warmth of his mouth didn’t startle her. The pleasure, however, remained.
It pleased him, as well. He purred.
The feline sound coming from a fierce warrior made Ariane smile.
“Do I amuse you, nightingale?” Simon asked.
“’Tis odd to hear a warrior purr,” she admitted.
Before Simon could answer, Ariane put two fingers into the wine goblet. In her haste to get more
wine into him, she dipped up too much. Wine ran down her fingers to her palm, and from there to her wrist.
So did Simon’s tongue.
If he had been holding her, Ariane would have fought. But Simon hadn’t moved and it had been she who had offered her wine-wet fingers.
“Such an odd sound,” Simon said.
“What?”
His tongue swept out and the hardened tip traced the fragile blue veins of her wrist where life beat frantically just beneath creamy skin.
“Oh!” Ariane said.
“Aye. That sound,” Simon said. “Unease and surprise and pleasure combined.”
“You are so unexpected,” Ariane said.
The frustration in her tone nearly made Simon smile. He felt the same way about her.
“I?” Simon asked. “I am but a simple warrior who—”
Ariane made a sound of exasperated disagreement.
Simon never paused.
“—finds himself wed to an extraordinary beauty who quails at the thought of a kiss, much less the proper joining of man and wife.”
“I’m not.”
“Quailing at the thought of our union?” he asked smoothly.
“I’m not beautiful. Both Meg and Amber shine more brightly than I.”
Simon laughed outright. “Ariane, your beauty beggars my ability to describe it.”
“And your silver tongue beggars my ability to believe your words,” she retorted.
“Then you like my tongue.”
“More wine?” she asked, looking away from Simon’s gleaming eyes. “But not from my fingertips. It will take too long that way.”
“What will?”
Killing the bride.
For a terrible instant Ariane thought she had spoken aloud. When Simon only continued to look at her attentively, she realized she hadn’t put her frantic thought into words. With a ragged sigh, she gathered the shreds of her self-control.
“Reaching the bottom of the goblet,” she said quickly. “It will take too long drop by drop.”
“Does something await us at the bottom of the goblet?”
“Whatever we wish.”
Simon blinked. “Really.”
“Aye,” Ariane said, improvising swiftly. “’Tis an old belief in Norman lands that a wish made on a nuptial cup is granted, but the cup must be quickly drunk.”
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