“Ah, yes.” Deguerre shrugged. “Sir Geoffrey, I suppose. He was beloved by me and had free access to my records.”
“And seals?” Simon asked.
“And seals.”
“Now Geoffrey is dead and the dowry is lost,” Simon said.
“Have you asked my daughter about it?”
“Why would we? She was more shocked than any of us,” Dominic said. “If she knew where her dowry was, she would have told us instantly.”
Deguerre looked at Ariane. “Well, daughter? Why haven’t you found it for them?”
“I lost my gift the night Geoffrey raped me.”
“Rape. Is that what you told your husband?” Deguerre asked with a cruel smile.
“Aye,” Ariane said coolly. “’Tis what Lady Amber told him, too.”
Faint surprise showed on Deguerre’s features.
“So you truly have lost your gift,” Deguerre said thoughtfully. “The same thing happened to your mother when I had her on our wedding night. No witch wants to lose her powers, but a man knows just how to take them.”
“You are mistaken,” Meg said quietly.
Deguerre’s head spun as he turned to stare at the small woman who had been so motionless that her golden jesses were silent.
“I beg your pardon?” Deguerre said.
“Union with a man can enhance rather than destroy a woman’s power,” Meg said. “It depends on the union. And the man. Since I have been the wife of the Glendruid Wolf, my powers are keener than ever.”
“Fascinating.”
Deguerre frowned. Then he shrugged and went back to the subject that interested him most.
Weakness, not strength.
“It would appear that Geoffrey was an untrustworthy craven who destroyed rather than enhanced Ariane’s gift,” Deguerre said indifferently. “’Tis unfortunate that others must suffer for his acts, but that is the way of the world.”
Simon went very still. The baron was radiating a kind of vicious pleasure that said more clearly than words that he believed he had at last found the weakness he sought at Blackthorne.
“When I agreed to give my precious daughter in marriage to one of your knights,” Deguerre said to Dominic, “you promised that her husband would hold a keep in fief for you, a wealthy keep that suited Lady Ariane’s high station in Normandy.”
“Aye,” Dominic said grimly.
“Tell me, Lord Dominic, where is my daughter’s keep?”
“To the north.”
“Ah. Where to the north?”
“Carlysle.”
“Why is she not residing there as befits a lady with her own keep?”
“We are still recruiting knights for defense,” Simon said in a clipped voice.
“There are fortifications to complete, as well,” Dominic said.
“Expensive things, knights and fortifications.”
Deguerre looked around the room with cruel satisfaction.
“You shall be hard put to support two keeps,” the baron said, “no matter how bounteous Blackthorne’s harvest was this year.”
“I shall manage,” Dominic said tightly.
Deguerre’s smile was as cold as the night.
“And I shall stay hard by this keep,” the baron said, “until what was promised to my daughter is given to her.”
31
Long after Baron Deguerre had been settled in the lord’s solar with his knights, Ariane waited alone within her bedchamber, her head bowed over her lap harp. Silently she prayed that Simon would come to her.
That he would forgive her.
I should have known Simon was too proud a man to hear of his wife’s rape and not avenge it, no matter how carefully Meg and I planned to prevent just that.
I should have known!
But all I knew was my own need, my own pride, my own desire to be loved by Simon as I loved him.
Foolish.
Elegant fingers moved over the harp strings, calling forth a song that had no words, simply a cry as profound and compelling as Ariane’s love for a man who could not love her in return.
By the blood of all the saints, how could I have been so selfish as to risk Blackthorne Keep for my own foolish desire? Simon will love no woman, just as I trusted no man.
Until Simon. He healed me.
But I cannot heal him.
Called by Ariane’s fingers, rippling music haunted the room as surely as she was haunted by all that had been.
And all that would never be.
“Nightingale?”
Simon’s voice was so unexpected—and so intensely desired—that for a moment Ariane was afraid to lift her head for fear of discovering that she only dreamed.
“Simon?” she whispered.
Gentle fingers stroked her cheek.
“Aye,” Simon said huskily. “I expected to find you asleep.”
“You weren’t here.”
Desire and something else, a hunger less easily named, turned within Simon at Ariane’s words.
“Dominic needed me,” Simon said.
“I know. He will have much need of you in the future.”
Without looking up, Ariane set her harp aside.
“My father won’t stir until he sees me in a well-furnished keep,” she said tonelessly, “and Blackthorne impoverished. My reckless desire for the truth has destroyed your brother.”
She expected Simon to agree, and then to turn away from her as he had from Marie.
Instead, Simon stroked Ariane’s hair.
“We will find a way,” he said.
“We?”
“Duncan, Erik, Dominic and I. We will rotate knights among the keeps if we must.”
“Leaving all keeps weakened.”
Simon said nothing.
“My father can be frighteningly patient,” Ariane said, looking only at her clenched hands.
“Aye,” Simon said.
“He has enough wealth to stay here until he has what he came for—a foothold in England.”
Silence was Simon’s only answer.
“You cannot beat Charles the Shrewd at his own game,” Ariane said. “Unless the English king or Erik’s father will lend you money to set up Carlysle Keep, my father will bring down Blackthorne Keep, and your brother with it.”
“The king has many demands on his resources,” Simon said. “In too much of England the harvest was poor.”
“What of Erik’s father?”
“Robert the Whisperer hates all Learned, even his own son.”
Ariane shook her head in silent despair.
“Then we are lost,” she said in a low voice.
The motion of Ariane’s head sent locks of her hair over Simon’s hand. Something that was almost pain pierced him at the cool, silken touch.
“Are you so angry with me that you can’t even bear to look at my face?” Simon asked softly.
Ariane’s head jerked upright. Simon was standing very close to her. His expression was grim. His clothing was half-undone, as though he were so weary he had begun pulling at laces while he climbed the stairs to his wife’s room.
“I? Angry with you?” Ariane asked, surprise clear both in her voice and her extraordinary amethyst eyes.
“Angry that I betrayed your truth by not defending it sooner,” Simon said bleakly. “Angry that the truth made no difference. Angry that I can’t…love.”
Ariane’s heart turned over at the pain in Simon’s eyes.
“Not even you,” he said roughly, “my valiant nightingale. You, who have suffered so much at the hands of men. You, who saved my life. You, who taught me to fly as the phoenix flies, death and rebirth in ecstasy. You deserve…more than I can give you.”
The pain in Simon’s voice made Ariane ache. Tears shimmered against her black eyelashes.
“You have never betrayed me. Never,” Ariane said. “You would have died to save my life when I was naught but a burden to you, a woman you married out of loyalty to your brother.”
“You were never a burd
en to me. I wanted you the first time I saw you. I have never hungered for a woman like that, a fire hotter than any awaiting me in hell.”
Ariane’s smile was as sad as the tears she wept for Simon, and as beautiful.
Wanting. Burning. Desire.
Not love.
“I know now how much you wanted me,” Ariane said, shivering with memories of Simon’s intense, unbounded sensuality.
Simon saw Ariane’s telltale response and felt his own blood ignite in answer, consuming the pain of a past that could not be changed, only accepted.
“You wanted me until you trembled with your wanting,” Ariane whispered, “yet you never forced me. You have been gentle where other men have been cruel, passionate where other men have been calculating, generous where other men have been selfish. Angry with you? Nay, Simon. I am blessed in you.”
“Ariane…”
Simon’s throat closed. He could not have known Ariane’s truth more clearly if he had lived inside her soul.
Slowly he lifted his hands and eased his fingers into the midnight beauty of Ariane’s hair. As he tilted her face up, his lips whispered over her eyelashes, stealing the silver tears she had wept for him.
“When I think what was done to you by that swine…” Simon said hoarsely.
As he spoke, Simon’s lips moved over Ariane’s forehead, her cheekbones, her nose, her cheeks, her eyelids, her lips, worshiping her with kisses as soft as firelight. She trembled at the light touches and wept at the bleakness she saw in her husband’s eyes.
“Don’t think of it,” Ariane said urgently. “I don’t. Not anymore. Not even in my dreams.”
“You were cruelly used, a betrayal so deep it all but killed your soul. Yet—”
“You healed me,” she interrupted.
“—you came to me on the battlements and taught me what true passion is.”
Ariane tried to speak, but the intensity in Simon’s expression stole her voice.
“I took you,” he said, “standing upright with my back to the freezing wind and your—”
A shudder of memory and desire and something more went through Simon, breaking his voice.
“—and your honeyed warmth sheathed me completely,” he said after a moment, his voice husky. “Yet you were all but a virgin when you came to me.”
“I loved sheathing you.”
The words were whispered against Simon’s lips, feather touches that matched the delicacy of his own kisses.
“I know how well you loved it,” he said huskily. “Your pleasure drenched me.”
Simon felt the flush that stole up Ariane’s body.
“I didn’t mean to,” Ariane said. “I couldn’t…stop.”
“I know,” Simon breathed, biting her lips with exquisite tenderness. “I didn’t want you to stop. I wanted to stand there forever with the icy storm around me and your sultry pleasure pulsing over me.”
Simon’s name became a whimper of pleasure as his tongue stole softly around the line of Ariane’s mouth.
“You trembled and cried out just like that,” Simon said, “and asked only that I thrust more deeply into you. Yet you were all but a virgin.”
“I wanted you until I was wild.”
“I wanted you the same way. And when it was done and neither of us could breathe for the ecstasy shaking us, you clung to me, holding me deeply inside you.”
“I loved being joined with you.”
“Yes,” Simon said. “Your body told me. It wept your passion and I wanted to drink the scented tears. Never has a woman given herself more generously to a man, yet you were all but a virgin.”
A shudder tore through Simon, making the line of his mouth even more harsh.
“Simon?” Ariane whispered, not understanding.
“I should have been gentle,” he said, his voice thick with regret. “I should have breathed kisses over your hair and your face and your hands.”
While Simon spoke, he matched his actions to his words, breathing kisses over Ariane’s hair and face and hands. She closed her eyes as desire stitched through her, making her tremble.
“I should have opened your clothing slowly,” Simon said in a low voice.
Silver laces whispered free and amethyst cloth slid aside as his fingers moved over Ariane’s dress. The cool air of the room only heightened the vivid heat of Simon’s mouth as he bent down to Ariane.
“I should have praised your breasts,” Simon said huskily against her neck. “They are perfectly made, silky, warm, and they beg so sweetly for my mouth.”
Gently he kissed the crown of each breast. The nipples drew taut and flushed, their pink a shade as deep as that of her mouth.
“Simon,” Ariane began.
Then she fell silent as a slow, delicious shudder took her voice. Simon’s tongue was caressing her lightly, drawing her nipples even tighter.
His hands traveled the length of the amethyst dress, undoing all the laces. He smiled to feel the cloth caressing him with tiny movements, heightening the sensitivity of his skin.
“I should have smoothed your dress from your body,” he said. “I should have lingered over every newly revealed bit of flesh until you sighed and shivered and gave me what no man had ever asked for, only taken from you.”
Closing his eyes, Simon very lightly drew his fingers down Ariane’s legs. They parted for him with a rustle and sigh of fabric sliding away.
“Are you giving yourself to me?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Always.”
Only then did Simon’s eyes open.
“I saw you like this the first night,” he said huskily. “And instead of telling you how beautiful you are, instead of gently coaxing passion from you, I spread you wide and drove into you as though we had been lovers for as long as we had drawn breath.”
Ariane tried to speak, but Simon was bending down to her, caressing her with his hands, his words, his mouth. A low sound came from her throat as the tip of his tongue traced all the layers of her softness.
“They have an exotic fruit in the Holy Land,” he said against her, caressing her. “’Tis called pomegranate and its hidden flesh is more deeply pink than a ruby.”
Pleasure radiated through Ariane, taking her breath even as it melted her body. Simon made a low sound and stole the sultry drops of her passion.
“You are like that pomegranate…tart even as you are sweet, flushed with color, meant to be slowly savored with teeth and tongue.”
A luxuriant heat rippled through Ariane, arching her body in sensuous reflex. Simon had seen her move like that before, slowly, elegantly, held in the thrall of a healing dream whose reality still baffled him.
“I feel…” Ariane’s voice unraveled as she looked into Simon’s dark eyes. “I feel…I have dreamed this…before. Exactly this. Yet you have never kissed me thus.”
“But I have kissed you thus,” he countered softly.
Simon touched Ariane with the tip of his tongue, circling the satin knot of her desire. She sighed and languidly arched again, moving as slowly as a dream.
“And you have answered thus,” Simon said, “lifting to me, allowing me…everything.”
“When?” she whispered, knowing it was true yet not understanding, echoes of a transcendent dream.
Heal me.
“In a dream,” Ariane said. “You healed me.”
“It was a Learned dream,” Simon said, “infused with roses and midnight, moonlight and a wild promise of storm.”
His teeth closed with exquisite delicacy. A slow, deep heat stole through Ariane, a burning that was all the more complete for its languid ease.
“I am on fire,” she whispered.
“I can feel it, softer than my dreams. I didn’t mean to take you that night, even in this way. But I mean to take you now, in every way.”
A low sound was dragged from Ariane as her whole body succumbed to the seething, wondrous thrall of Simon loving her. He held her with hands both gentle and powerful. Whispered words prais
ed her and lingering kisses savored her, heightening her fire until she burned silently, wildly, unable even to cry out.
Then Ariane looked at Simon and understood what it was to dream within a dream.
“I am yours,” she said. “I gave myself to you before I even knew it. Now, knowing it, I give myself to you again.”
Simon kissed Ariane slowly, completely, and tasted the certainty of her ecstasy.
“You are mine,” Simon said. “And you taste of fire.”
“Burn with me,” she whispered. “I have been alone within this fire too long.”
A shudder moved visibly through Simon. As he pushed away his clothes, he saw Ariane smile at the heavy arousal that stood revealed before her.
“Just seeing you turns my flesh to honey,” she said, touching him. “Man of silk and steel. And pleasure. Dear God, the pleasure…”
Another wave of desire swept through Simon, shaking him.
“You make me as strong as a god,” Simon said huskily.
Slowly he lowered himself, savoring her welcome as she made room for him between her legs, drawing them up around him, giving herself to him without reservation. Softly she parted for him, taking him even as she gave herself to him. He pressed deep into her, then more deeply still until finally they were complete within one another.
The taut, sultry perfection of the joining nearly undid Simon.
“I am burning,” he said, anguish and pleasure both.
It was the same for Ariane, an anguished pleasure consuming her like fire.
“We are…”
Burning.
And then neither one could breathe for the violent, silken ecstasy pulsing between them.
When it was finally spent, when there were no more ways to give and to take and to share, Simon gathered Ariane along his body and held her as though he expected her to be torn from his arms.
“There will be a way to defeat Deguerre,” Simon said fiercely. “There must be. A lost dowry is not worth so many lives.”
Ariane’s arms tightened around Simon, holding him. Silently, passionately, she wished that her gift were intact.
If only the dowry could be found.
A vision burst over Ariane, holding her completely in thrall for a time that had no measure. She lay without moving, seeing only Stone Ring Keep’s circle of stones standing tall and hard against the winter sky.
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