by Speer, Flora
Catherine did not appear to be aware of Arden's subterfuge. She was amused by the game and by his tricks. She laughed aloud several times. Upon the second laugh, Margaret looked up from her sewing and caught Arden's eye. He nodded to her, looking pleased, and then returned his attention to the chessboard.
It was the sort of evening Margaret had never had an opportunity to enjoy before. She realized with a sense of discovery that this was what she had longed for all of her life – a quiet, family time, with people of good will, who cared enough about each other to lay aside their differences and their individual problems for the sake of others.
When she finally folded up her sewing and tucked it into a basket for storage until the next night, it also occurred to her that this was not the sort of relaxing, comfortable evening she would ever enjoy in a convent, where all activities were rigorously scheduled. The thought produced a frisson of unease. She did not have time to consider what her reaction meant, for Catherine was yawning and declaring her eyes were blurry from the effort to keep her gaze on the chessboard, lest Arden make a move she should have foreseen.
“Time enough tomorrow for you to think of ways to circumvent me,” Arden said, gathering up the carved pieces and putting them into their wooden box.
“Does that mean you will play with me again tomorrow?” Catherine asked him.
“If you like,” he responded in a careless way, having been warned by Margaret not to appear to be too enthusiastic. According to Margaret, once they had cajoled Catherine out of her sickbed and into a game with Arden, it was better to let her think she was taking the lead on the matter of future, similar evenings.
“Yes, please.” Rising from her chair and shrugging off the encumbrance of the shawl and quilt, Catherine put her arms around Arden's waist and hugged him tight. “I’m so glad you have come home to us at last,” she said. She did not seem to notice the firm way in which Arden quickly disentangled himself from her embrace.
After the game board was put away on a shelf and the solar was restored to its usual neat order, Catherine and Margaret headed for their own rooms. Bidding them good night, Arden turned toward the door to the lord's chamber. With his hand on the latch he looked over his shoulder, in the direction of the two women. At the same instant Margaret turned from seeing Catherine into her room. Their gazes connected and held.
Arden released the latch and moved back into the solar. Margaret took a few slow steps that brought her out of the corridor as surely as if she were being pulled forward by a powerful lodestone.
The candles had been extinguished and the fire banked for the night, though a faint, reddish glow still showed here and there among the smoldering logs. The glow provided enough light for Margaret to see Arden's clean-cut, freshly shaven features and to note that those same features had a softer appearance than usual, as if he was open to human contact at last.
They met in the middle of the solar. Without thinking, wanting only to express her gratitude for Catherine's sake, Margaret put up her hands. They came to rest on Arden's broad chest. He put his own hands on top of hers, holding them there.
“Thank you for being so kind to Catherine,” Margaret said softly.
“It was your idea.” Arden's voice was equally as soft. “How easily my sister is cheered.”
“She loves you and welcomes your kindness. You were marvelous with her, teasing and making her laugh, while at the same time keeping her thoughts occupied.”
“It is the nature of chess to occupy the player's thoughts completely,” Arden said.
“You must continue in this way,” Margaret told him. “Let Catherine know that you care about her.”
“So I shall. It's little enough to do.”
His eyes were on her mouth. Margaret's lips burned from the intensity of his gaze. She saw his lips part, felt the warmth of his breath on her cheek. She was certain he was going to kiss her. Worse, she who abhorred a man's touch wanted his lips on hers. The memory of his hands on her unclothed skin flashed into her mind. Heaven help her, she wanted that, too.
Suddenly, one of the last logs in the fireplace cracked and split apart, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney as the wood collapsed into smoking embers. Arden released Margaret's hands and stepped away from her.
“Sleep well, Lady Margaret,” he said.
“And you, my lord,” Margaret replied, though she feared she would have a difficult time finding slumber. She hurried away to her bedroom across the corridor from Catherine's room.
Arden returned to the lord's chamber, knowing full well he was going to spend another sleepless night with his face buried in sheets that bore the last, faint traces of Margaret's flowery perfume.
* * * * *
“I have not seen Arden all day.” Catherine pressed her forehead against the cold glass of the solar window. “Aldis says he has been with Sir Wace since early morning.”
“There’s much work to be done now the snow has stopped,” Margaret said, crossing the room to stand beside her friend. The two of them looked through the small, diamond-shaped panes of thick glass to the busy scene below. Stableboys, squires, and men-at-arms were shoveling paths from manor house to barracks, to stable, and to the other outbuildings. A watery sun shone through a break in the clouds and the spraying snow sparkled as it was tossed from the shovels to land in ever-growing mounds along the pathways.
“Once the courtyard is cleared the horses will need exercising after so long in their stalls,” Margaret added. “So will the men crave movement, I think.”
“But the roads will not be passable yet,” Catherine said, looking worried. “Surely, not yet.”
“If you go to the great hall for the midday meal, you will see Arden there,” Margaret said, hoping to divert Catherine from a serious subject that appeared to threaten her relatively cheerful mood.
Margaret was not certain whether Catherine's expression of concern was for her, lest Lord Phelan discover where she was hiding, or whether it indicated a fear that Tristan and his wife would suddenly appear. It was three days since Margaret and Arden had begun their joint effort to coax Catherine out of her depressed state. Each day she was proving a little more responsive to their suggestions. She was eating again, but only in the solar.
“I don’t want to go to the great hall,” Catherine said when Margaret suggested it. “Not yet. It's too soon. I still tire easily. I prefer to stay here, where it's warm and quiet. Aldis and I will eat together.”
“Then I will eat here, too,” Margaret said, adding, “I trust you understand, my dear, that sooner or later you will have to descend to the hall and even step outside the manor house door.”
“I know,” Catherine said, “but not just yet, please. Let me have another day or two of indulging myself, until I feel entirely recovered.”
That evening, when Arden and Catherine were putting away the chess set after their usual game, Margaret returned to the subject of Catherine venturing out of doors. She expected Arden to back her up and he did not disappoint her.
“When the men have finished shoveling the paths,” Margaret said, “Catherine and I would like to take a walk. We have been indoors for too many days.”
“I'm not sure about that,” Catherine began in a faltering voice.
“I am,” Arden's firm interruption cut across her objections. “Sir Wace is telling one and all that another heavy snowstorm is on the way and I have personally observed him limping. Therefore, my ladies, I suggest you take full advantage of this interval, for there can be no doubt we will all be snowed in again before long.”
“Thank you, Arden.” Looking greatly relieved at the prospect of more snow, Catherine rose on tiptoe to kiss her brother's cheek.
“Thank you for what?” he asked.
“I know what you’re doing, dear brother,” Catherine said, gazing into his wintery eyes. “You and Margaret, together. I am not a complete featherbrain, for all I've been acting like one in recent days.”
“We need not speak of thi
s,” Arden said. “I have no wish to make you unhappy all over again.” He tried to move away from her, but Catherine clutched more tightly at his shoulders.
“I must speak of it,” she said, “and have it out and done with. The news of Tristan's marriage signaled the end of all my most cherished hopes and dreams. But if you still love me, Arden, if we can still be close friends as we once were, then I ought not to mourn the necessity of waking from a dream. I will henceforth cease my lovelorn foolishness and, instead, I will rejoice at having my brother home again, safe and whole and well. I will also be grateful that, thanks to Margaret's care and Aldis' devoted attentions, I have almost recovered from an illness that was all too real and rather frightening to me. However, I do warn you, if you stop your attempts to teach me to play chess, I will immediately suffer a serious relapse.” Her last words were spoken with an enchanting smile and accompanied by another kiss to Arden's cheek.
Margaret, who was standing behind Catherine, was well placed to note Arden's startled expression at his sister's words, and to see the bewilderment in his eyes. While Catherine was recovering nicely, Arden was anything but whole and well. Margaret was painfully aware of the barren chill that pervaded his being, which Catherine, in her feverish illness, had overlooked. When Catherine was fully cured of her lovesickness over Tristan, when she was restored to her usual spirits and good health, would she then regard her brother with eyes that saw what Margaret saw?
“Good night,” Catherine said, patting Arden's cheek. Looking at Margaret she asked, “Are you ready for bed?”
“In a little while,” Margaret said. “I want to speak to the cook before I retire.”
“What a good friend you’ve been to me,” Catherine said, hugging her. “Beginning tomorrow I shall remove some of the burden you have been carrying from your shoulders. It's not right for a guest to work so hard.” With a wave of her hand, Catherine took herself off to bed.
“It would appear that your remedy has been successful,” Arden said to Margaret when they were alone in the solar.
“A little too successful,” Margaret responded. As she spoke, she went to the nearest of the four long windows and began to close the shutters for the night. “Catherine's recovery has been too sudden for my liking. She is clever enough to detect what we are about, as you have just heard. I do not think we should end our efforts in her behalf.”
“Perhaps you are right.” Arden knew he was agreeing much too readily, yet he could not help himself. “I do confess, I have found the last few evenings remarkably pleasant. My little sister has grown up into an interesting young woman.” He did not add that he also found Margaret interesting. And enticing. And mysterious, for all her apparent openness.
“Tell me, Lady Margaret, what do you think of while Catherine and I play chess and you sit so quietly plying your needle?”
“Why, I think of the sewing, my lord. Nothing more.” She closed and latched a pair of shutters and moved on to the next window. How could she tell Arden about the wayward imaginings that made a family grouping out of the three of them? How tell him that she was learning to delight in the sound of his voice when he spoke to her or to his sister, or that she was storing up memories of those evenings, to treasure them later, when she had nothing but a bare, conventual cell and a life that was once again ordered for her in every detail by others? How could she explain to a man accustomed to making his own decisions that the time she was spending confined at Bowen Manor by snow was, in fact, the greatest freedom she had ever known?
“What?” Arden said, coming close to where she stood by a window. “Do you think only of stitches and thread? I find it difficult to believe of a woman as clever as you, Lady Margaret.”
“I do not lie, my lord.” She halted in the act of closing another pair of shutters for the night, to look over her shoulder at him.
“Let me help you,” he said, stretching out his hand to catch one of the shutter panels.
Margaret was caught between Arden's heat and the chill of the window glass. A shiver shook her from head to foot, and it was not only from the draft. She slammed the shutter closed. Arden closed the other half and put up his free hand to latch the two wooden panels, just as Margaret turned around. The action trapped her, facing him, between his arms.
“You are cold.” Arden's hands were on her shoulders, drawing her away from the window and toward him. With his eyes locked on hers, his hands slid down her arms, until his fingers entwined with her fingers. He pulled her hands out and around his waist and held them at his back.
Margaret knew she ought to protest, but she could not speak a word. Slowly Arden lowered his head and Margaret, entranced, caught in the spell of his tightly reined-in masculine power, lifted her face for his kiss.
His lips barely brushed across hers. Margaret closed her eyes, savoring the gentle touch while knowing she should not.
“Ah,” he said softly, his mouth still against hers, “sweet as summer's honey. Bowen honey, tasting of apple blossoms and, once tasted, desired forever after.”
He unwound his fingers from hers and enfolded her in his arms. With her hands free at his back she could have pushed him away. Instead, she clasped him more tightly to her.
Arden's mouth was hard on hers, yet warm and inviting at the same time, demanding yet encouraging. Lost in the glory of his kiss, Margaret forgot that she did not want any man to touch her. Somehow, for a reason beyond her comprehension at the moment, Arden was different from all other men. When his tongue teased at the corner of her mouth she unthinkingly opened her lips, not knowing what to expect, for no one had ever put a tongue to her mouth before. Arden's tongue surged into her in a shocking imitation of another kind of entry, and for the first time in her life Margaret tasted the desire of an eager young man.
Feeling as if the sweet, fiery honey he had spoken of was coursing through her veins, she almost fainted from a rush of emotion she did not understand. Arden probed every recess of her mouth, his tongue tangling with hers as Margaret responded with untutored eagerness.
His hands were on her hips, pulling her against him until she became aware of a hardness she did understand. At that point she would have separated herself from him, were it not for the unexpected aching sensation between her thighs that urged her to press closer, that made her resent the barriers of her heavy clothing, and his. Margaret was close to complete surrender.
Then Arden removed himself from the overheated proximity of body to body, though his hands upon her upper arms steadied her until she could regain her bearings and find her senses again.
When she finally opened her eyes, Arden was looking above her head, staring out the remaining unshuttered window at the starry night sky, and his face was hard and motionless as carved stone.
Margaret was surprised to discover herself feeling no shame at all for what she had allowed him to do. It had been so right and so wonderful that she could not think there was any sin in it. With her departure from Sutton, she had renounced both her betrothal to Lord Adhemar and her father's guardianship of her person, so she was free to kiss a man if she wished. What angered her was her sense of being suddenly abandoned, when she wanted to be held in Arden's arms and kissed again.
“Was that your expression of thanks for my help to your sister?” she asked him in a husky voice not at all like her own. Arden did not answer her for so long that she began to think he intended to ignore her continued presence in the solar.
“It was an act of madness,” he said at last. “I beg your pardon, Lady Margaret. It will not happen again.”
Margaret could not leave it at that, not after his soul-stirring kiss. She had never guessed it was possible for a man's kiss to evoke so many conflicting emotions at one and the same time. Since she was still trembling with the aftereffects of his embrace, she did not believe his appearance of complete self-control. However well he hid it, Arden, too, must be experiencing a similar emotional upheaval.
“Arden.” She touched his face. She heard him cat
ch his breath, but he did not move or look at her. He kept his gaze on the sky beyond the window. “Arden, what happened to you while you were away? What's wrong?”
“You don't want to know,” he said, his voice just above a whisper.
“If I didn't want to know, why would I ask?” she said, and waited, her hand still against his cheek.
“Leave me, Margaret.” It was an order. Arden moved just a little and her hand fell away from his face. “Pretend that what just happened between us, never happened, and I will do the same. Concern yourself with Catherine, not with me. Insofar as I am able I will help you to keep her in good spirits. Do not ask more of me.”
Never had Margaret seen any man who was so alone, or so despondent. Her heart ached for his loneliness and for the loss of joy and hope from his life. With a sigh she acknowledged that, until she knew the cause of Arden's sorrow, she could not help him as she wanted to do. She could, however, offer her friendship.
“Goodnight, Arden.” She kissed him before she left the solar. It was a light, quick kiss at the corner of his mouth, the kiss of a close companion and friend.
Arden did not acknowledge the gesture, nor did he move when Margaret headed for her own room. She paused outside her door and stood in the dark corridor to look back at him. He remained motionless, staring at the cold winter sky for a long, long time before he latched the last set of shutters and snuffed the remaining candles.
Chapter 12
“I fear that for once, Sir Wace is mistaken,” Margaret remarked, observing the bright and cloudless sky through the windows of the solar.
“He insists his big toe is aching badly,” Aldis said. “I heard him tell Michael so, and everyone at Bowen knows what that means. Another snowstorm will follow within two days.”
Margaret tried to repress her humorous reaction to the news and found she could not. She was growing fond of the seneschal, whose practical mind was similar to hers, at least as far as running the manor was concerned. If Sir Wace said more snow was on the way, he was almost certainly right. Since the manor was self-sufficient and well prepared for winter weather, Margaret could only think another storm would be a good thing, for it would keep all of them isolated at Bowen for a while longer, safe from either Phelan's search for her, or the arrival of Tristan and his wife.