Trapped at the Altar

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Trapped at the Altar Page 29

by Jane Feather


  He would be no match for the man, Gabriel knew. He could handle a small sword with some competency, but he knew instinctively that he would be unable to put up an adequate defense against Sir Ivor Chalfont. He hadn’t been educated in the arts of the warrior. The pen is mightier than the sword, he told himself, watching Sir Ivor stride into the snow. But he couldn’t derive much comfort from the aphorism.

  He stepped out from the tree, looking towards the gap in the hedge that gave entrance to the park. Ariadne would appear as soon as she was certain her husband was safely away.

  She appeared in a few minutes, swathed in a hooded cloak. She stepped through the hedge and stood for a moment looking around somewhat uncertainly.

  “Ari . . . Ari, over here.”

  She turned at the urgent whisper. Gabriel had moved back off the path as soon as he’d seen her and now beckoned from the trees. She hurried over to him, her pulse racing, the blood thudding in her ears. Ivor was long gone. No one would recognize her even if they saw her, but there was hardly anyone around and no one on the path. Even so, she was afraid. So much was at stake.

  “Ari . . . Ari . . . how I’ve longed for you.” Gabriel caught her against him, pushing the hood from her face, bringing his mouth to hers.

  Ariadne felt suffocated for a moment. Memory washed over her, of all the kisses they had exchanged all those months ago in the innocence of that burgeoning summer love, but they hadn’t been like this. This kiss threatened to engulf her. It was dark and heavy and held no promise.

  She wrenched her head free of his hands and pushed him away, breathing fast. “Gabriel, no. You must stop it. We can’t do this.”

  He stared at her. “Can’t do this . . . can’t do what? I want to kiss you, Ari. I must kiss you. I have dreamt of this moment for so long. Is it the snow? Are you cold? Of course you are . . . where can we go to find shelter?” He looked wildly around as if shelter would miraculously materialize.

  Ari shook her head. “No, ’tis not that, Gabriel. I am not cold. Please, just listen to me. We cannot do this . . . it is over, my dear friend.” She placed a hand on his arm. “Please try to understand. I am married now. When you left and I married Ivor—”

  “You were forced into that marriage,” he interrupted, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Ari, we agreed you would escape from that bondage as soon as you were able. We will be together. I have a plan . . . I know it will work. We will go far from here, across the sea. I’m sure I will find some employment.”

  Ariadne stared at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. “What in heaven’s name are you talking about, Gabriel? Across the sea? Where? Why?”

  “France, Italy, there are so many places . . . and that way, we will be safe,” he said. “Your husband need never know where you are. We will start anew, set up as a married couple, and I will—”

  “Oh, what a dreamer you are, Gabriel.” She shook her head helplessly. “I know we had a fantasy that we would be together in the end, but things have changed. I cannot go with you. Gabriel, my dear friend, I do not wish to go with you. I love my husband.” She took a step back, out of his grasp, and her own hands fell uselessly to her sides as she saw the devastating effect of her words.

  “You don’t wish to go with me? You don’t love me anymore?” He looked blankly at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do.” She spoke firmly and clearly. “I love my husband. I feel deeply for you, Gabriel, and will always cherish the time we had, the love we shared, but we were children playing at love.”

  “No,” he said vehemently. “I was not playing at love, even if you were. I have thought of nothing else the whole time we have been apart. All these weeks of journeying, you have been in my thoughts as I tried and tried to think of how I would find you again.” He shook his head in bewilderment. “How could it not have been the same for you, Ari? How could you cast me aside so easily?”

  His words cut her to the quick. She stepped closer, grasping one of his hands between both of hers. “It is not like that, Gabriel,” she insisted. “I care for you, truly I do. I want only your happiness, but it cannot lie with me . . . not anymore.” She reached for his other hand. “Indeed, we were foolish ever to think that it could. We are such very different people. I am so sorry, my dear. I would not hurt you for the world.”

  He shook his hands free of her clasp and just stared at her, his eyes blank. “How could you be so faithless?” he said after a moment. “I kept faith with you all these months, while you . . .” He turned away from her, his shoulders hunched.

  Ariadne stood uncertainly. She wanted to put her arms around him to comfort him, to kiss him at least in farewell, but she did not dare touch him again. She had said what had to be said. She could only keep faith with one man. She took a step towards his averted back, laid a hand tentatively on his shoulder, then let her hand drop. “Forgive me,” she murmured, and turned away, hurrying out of the park and back to the house.

  Gabriel stared down at the snow-covered ground. He didn’t know how long he stood motionless, but he started back to awareness when something hit his head. He looked up to where a squirrel sat chattering in agitation on the bare tree branch above him. A nutshell lay on the ground at Gabriel’s feet. Obviously, the creature had dropped it. Gabriel shook his head and stepped away from the tree.

  He would not give her up. He could not give her up. What else was there for him? He could not stay in London, hanging aimlessly around the court, hoping someone influential would notice him. He wasn’t made for that life. That was Ariadne’s new life, her new married life. And he could not endure seeing her with her husband. Smiling at him, bestowing upon another man the soft looks, the sensual touches, that belonged to him. It would be sheer torment to see her so happy, so at home where he himself was so ill at ease. And he could not go home with his tail between his legs, not when his father had spent the proceeds of an entire harvest on providing him with what he would need to find advancement at court.

  No, he would not accept her rejection. He would keep vigil on the house. She would have to come out again, and he would make her see then that she could not do this to him. She owed him her love. It was not something you could take away once bestowed.

  He would make her see how wrong she was to think she could abandon their love.

  TWENTY-NINE

  Ariadne stood for a long time in her bedchamber, her fingers unmoving on the clasp of her cloak, as snow dripped onto the floor from its folds. Why had she assumed that Gabriel would make it easy for her? She should not have assumed that he had gone on with his life the way she had gone on with hers. But what else could she have done? There were no convenient lies she could have told to soften the blow. The truth, brutal though it was, had to be told.

  He would go home now, back to his family in Somerset, and he would forget about Ariadne now that he knew there was no future in remembering her.

  But she still felt soiled in some way by that encounter. In fact, she was beginning to feel she could do nothing right anymore. She had run afoul of her husband, and she should have known better, and now she had caused a deadly hurt to a man who had been her lover and her friend. And the worst of it was that she could not think how to change either of those things.

  “Miss Ari, should I put out your gown for this afternoon’s audience at the palace?” Tilly came into the bedchamber. “Lord love us, miss, you’re dripping all over the floor. Standing ’ere like a statue. What’s the matter?” She pushed Ari’s hands away from the clasp and unfastened it herself, drawing the cloak away and bundling it up. “I’ll put this to dry in the kitchen. I didn’t know you were going out this morning.”

  “Oh, I just wanted to smell the snow, Tilly.” Ari pulled herself together. “I wanted to see if London snow was different from Somerset snow.”

  “ ’Tis a lot dirtier, that’s for sure.” Tilly grimaced at the black snow water puddling on the floor. “I’ll send Ethel up with a mop.”
She took the wet cloak away, and Ari sat by the fire, warming her damp feet on the fender. The clock struck a quarter to two. Ivor would be back for dinner in fifteen minutes, and she hadn’t dressed for the afternoon. But a lassitude filled her. Maybe she could escape the ritual, just this once. A headache, perhaps.

  No. She sat up abruptly. There’d been enough untruths. She would feign nothing ever again. She got up and went to the armoire to choose a suitable gown for the Queen’s audience.

  Ivor returned as she was brushing her hair. And this time, he came in smiling, bending to kiss his wife’s cheek as if nothing had ever happened to disturb the smooth equanimity of their marriage. “It’s almost stopped snowing.”

  Ari shot him a tentative look. Was it over? Was she forgiven? She felt relief seeping into her and for the first time understood how tense she had been all morning as her shoulders released the strain. “Then we can walk to the palace. I am in need of fresh air and a little exercise.” She smiled. “Tilly has prepared a mutton stew for lunch, humble fare but good for this weather. How was the King’s audience?”

  “Tedious as ever.” Ivor tossed his damp cloak over the arm of a settle. “Everyone was rather bleary-eyed, and his majesty seemed somewhat irritable. His color was very high, choleric almost.” He poured himself a goblet of wine from the bottle on the sideboard. “Wine?”

  Ari shook her head. “No, thank you. I need to keep my wits about me in the Queen’s audience chamber. Her ladies have sharp tongues.”

  “No one has enough to do, that’s the trouble,” Ivor observed. “By the way, the King said he expects a report on the puppy when he visits her majesty later this afternoon.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I can give him a glowing one, although I shan’t tell him how nasty you are to her.”

  “I am not in the least nasty to her,” he protested. “I just don’t believe in dogs in the bed or on the dinner table.”

  “Dinner is served, Miss Ari,” Tilly announced from the door. She frowned. “Why didn’t you send for me to help you dress?”

  “Because, Tilly dear, I can manage myself,” she said, smiling. “I’ve been dressing myself since I was three years old.”

  “Not in those clothes,” Tilly retorted. She bustled over and began to adjust the set of the neckline on Ari’s gown of bronze damask. Ari submitted patiently until the maid pronounced herself satisifed.

  Ivor gestured that Ari should go ahead of him to the dining salon, saying, “Oh, by the way, Tilly, there’s no need for you to accompany Lady Ari this afternoon.” He filled a bowl with the richly fragrant stew in the deep tureen in front of him. “I will be there myself.”

  “You’re invited to the Queen’s audience?” Ariadne was relieved at the thought of Ivor’s presence at her side.

  “At the King’s bidding,” he responded, passing her the bowl. “The formalities are always less rigidly observed once one is accepted into the royal entourage.” A slightly sardonic note was in his voice. He had no more time than his wife for the ceremonial observances, pointless as they were. But they had to be honored when necessary.

  It had stopped snowing when they set out for the palace. As they entered the park, passing the place where Ari had met Gabriel just a few hours earlier, she couldn’t help a covert sideways glance, dreading that he would still be there, waiting to confront her again. But she could see only the bare shapes of tree trunks in the gray light.

  She heaved a sigh of relief as they entered the outer palace courtyard. Tedious though the afternoon promised to be, at least she didn’t have to hide anything, except, perhaps, her boredom, from anyone.

  The Queen greeted her graciously enough, and his majesty entered a few minutes later, accompanied by his brother, the Duke of York, and a group of lesser gentlemen, including Ivor, who kept slightly to one side of the group, his blue gaze alert as it rested on Ariadne.

  The King addressed Ari as soon as he’d greeted the Queen. “So, my Lady Chalfont, how is my little bitch doing? Does she please you?”

  “Oh, more than I can say, sire.” Ari rose from her deep curtsy at his majesty’s signal.

  “Is she behaving herself?”

  “Beautifully, sire.” Ari tried to think of some sparkling piece of witty repartee, but her brain seemed mired in sludge. It had been such a long and stressful day, all she wanted to do was crawl into bed and forget it altogether.

  “Glad to hear it,” he said, sounding bored. He turned his attention to his wife, and his air was far from benign. “What of you, madam wife? How is it with you?”

  “Well enough, sir,” Catherine replied, looking at her husband with a slight frown. “You seem overly flushed, your majesty. I trust you are not feverish.”

  “Pah! I’m as fit as a flea. Ask the leech.” The King dismissed his wife’s concern with a flourish. “You, Buckingham, bring me wine. I’ve a camel’s thirst on me.” He turned back to Ariadne. “So, madam, I understand you prefer to worship with my brother York than attend our Christmas services in the Chapel Royal.”

  Ariadne couldn’t tell if there was an accusation in the statement. His majesty was looking at her with a rather predatory air, which put her on her guard. She curtsied. “I was brought up to worship in the Catholic fashion, sire. I trust I did not offend your majesty.”

  He gave another dismissive gesture. “Hardly. My own brother goes his own way in such matters. I don’t know why the country takes it all to heart so. There’s that wretched bastard of mine trying to drum up support . . .” He shook his head with exasperation. “I wish I knew what to do with him.”

  “Perhaps an accident could befall him, sir.” The Duke of York wafted a perfumed handkerchief beneath his nose as he spoke. “Simpler all around, if he were out of the way.”

  Charles looked at his brother. “It would certainly be a weight off your mind, sir,” he declared with more than a touch of malice. “You won’t want to fight Monmouth for your throne, I’m sure.”

  His majesty looked around the circle. “You’re all dull as ditch water this afternoon. I don’t know why I waste my time in your company. Nell . . . Nelly, my sweet . . . you shall entertain me.” He beckoned to his mistress, who was standing beside the Queen’s chair.

  She came forward instantly, dropping a curtsy. “Your majesty, I am at your service as always.”

  He laughed and drew her to her feet, kissing her hand. “My dearest Nelly, my life would be insupportable without you. Come, we shall play some backgammon. I have in mind some amusing forfeits.” He tucked the lady’s hand into his elbow and sailed from the Queen’s presence without a glance at his wife.

  Catherine appeared unperturbed. She took a sip of her tea and set down the cup. “Shall we have some music? Marianne, my dear, will you play for us?”

  The lady rose with a curtsy and took her place at the harp.

  “Sweet heaven, I thought we would never get out of there.” Ariadne walked swiftly through the antechamber as the guards closed the doors to the audience chamber behind them. “I thought the woman would play forever.”

  Ivor grimaced. “I’ve heard better harpists in my time, too. But we’re clear now. And we won’t have to return until the New Year festivities.”

  “Five whole days.” Ari gave a little skip of pleasure. “Perhaps we can go to the theatre again. Or maybe go for a ride if the ground is not frozen. I haven’t been on Sphinx for an eternity.”

  “The horses are eating their heads off in the stables,” Ivor commented. “Maybe tomorrow we’ll take them out.” They emerged into the bitter cold of the early winter evening. The snow had stopped, but the ground was freezing, the snow cover glittering under a crystal-clear star-filled sky. “We must hurry. It’s not safe in the park after dark.” He set off rapidly, clasping Ari’s elbow firmly. “I should have told Jeb to meet us here.”

  “But ’tis still early,” Ari protested.

  “It’s dark nevertheless.” He directed them out of the palace into the courtyard. There were a few people around, and the
space was lit by flickering torches.

  “Chalfont, a word with you.”

  Ivor turned at the voice. A stocky man, resplendent in gold and turquoise silk, a luxuriant peruke curling on his shoulders, was waving imperatively at him. Ivor frowned, recognizing the Lord Chancellor, Lord Jeffries. Not a man to be ignored if one wanted recognition in this court of favorites. He said quietly to Ariadne, “Stay in the light while I talk to the Lord Chancellor. His favor is well worth courting.”

  “Why won’t he come to you?” she asked with a touch of indignation.

  “Because he doesn’t need to,” Ivor said succinctly. “I won’t be a moment.” He walked across the courtyard to where the imperious Lord Chancellor stood waiting.

  Ari grimaced. It was hard to accept the supplicant position when one was accustomed to being the commander. She found it hard, and she could understand that Ivor probably found it even harder to swallow his pride. But she had little doubt that he would soon enough make his mark, and people, even as lofty as the Lord Chancellor, would come to him. He radiated a natural authority.

  She was cold standing still and began to walk around, staying as instructed under the safety of the torch lights, her feet crunching on the crisp snow as she stamped them to keep her toes from freezing in her thin sandals.

  A slender figure emerged suddenly from the shadow of an arch. “Ariadne.”

  She stopped, her heart thumping against her breastbone. “Gabriel?”

  “Aye, ’tis me. Did you think I would take my congé so easily, Ari?” He came up to her, his face white and tense. He had been waiting for this opportunity to catch her alone since he’d shadowed her and her husband across the park into the palace earlier that afternoon. The long hours of waiting in hiding had taken their toll, and he was filled with a reckless determination.

 

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