by Jane Feather
He was talking of his sister as if she were some highly bred animal who, handled correctly, would accept a change of habitat without undue difficulty. Simon could think of no response, so he merely inclined his head and followed his hosts into the castle. From the little he'd seen of Lady Ariel, he hadn't formed the impression of a malleable personality.
"I daresay you'll wish to change your clothes." Ranulf snapped his fingers at a footman. "Show Lord Hawkesmoor and his party to their apartments." He glanced at his guest. "It wants but fifteen minutes to noon."
"Five minutes is all I'll need," Simon said with a pleasant smile, following the servant, leaving Ranulf looking astounded. He couldn't imagine how a man could ready himself with fresh linen, new garments, and formal wig, all in the space of five minutes.
The bells in the chapel began to ring as the clock struck noon. The two hundred wedding guests crossed the courtyard to the stone chapel. The strangeness of this wedding was lost on none of them. The groom had been true to his promise and in five minutes had returned to the Great Hall in a suit of dark cloth, unadorned except for the lace edging to his cravat. His appearance was in startling contrast to the lavish ceremonial finery of the Ravenspeare brothers and their guests, the men in their rich silks and velvets, the women like so many bright-plumaged exotic birds. His cropped head was almost shocking against the mass of luxuriant gray-powdered wigs as he took his place at the altar, his own friends, as soberly clad, standing in a semicircle to one side. Nothing could disguise the bearing of soldiers, and however hard they tried to keep their hands from their sword hilts, the tension of the effort was almost palpable in the dark stone chapel.
Ariel listened to the pealing bells as a flock of maids dressed her for her wedding. She had been dressing herself without assistance since she'd left the nursery, and this unusual attention added to her strange disembodied feeling. She felt empty… hollow. As if the well of emotion and feeling that normally centered her had dried up. She was going through the motions of this charade as if she were a marionette and her brothers were pulling the strings.
A Hawkesmoor had debauched her mother, caused her mother's death. Ariel had known this from early childhood, just as she had been fed the family hatred drip by drip until it ran in her veins. And in a matter of minutes she was to be wed to the son of the man who had caused her mother's death. The son of a dishonorable and dishonored family.
Wed but not wed. Wife but not wife. A woman was not a wife until she was bedded by her husband.
"Do sit still, m'lady. I can't do your hair if you wriggle so."
"I'm sorry, Mary." She sat still as the elderly woman fastened the pearl-studded velvet bands around her head. Her hair fell loose beneath them, teased into curls by hot irons in the hands of rosy-cheeked Doris, whose sucked-in lips and squinting eyes bespoke her concentration.
"The bells have stopped, m'lady."
Ariel stood up. She closed her eyes for a second, then opened them. She examined her reflection steadily in the glass and decided that she liked what she saw even if it was a total mockery.
"Come, m'lady." Mary hustled her to the door. "His lordship will be waiting for you in the hall."
Ariel grimaced. "You'd best keep the dogs in here, otherwise they'll follow me to the altar."
The hounds' indignant barking followed her down the stairs to where Ranulf stood, black browed and hard eyed, waiting for her.
"I don't know what you think you're playing at, sister. But if you think to sabotage me, then you'd better think again. You make one false step, and I swear you'll rue it to your dying day."
"I'm here, aren't I?" Ariel said. "Dressed for the sacrifice. Virginal, pure, sweetly innocent. Aren't I, Ranulf?"
"You are insolent!" he said furiously, taking her arm in an iron grip.
He marched with her across the court and into the chapel. His fingers bruised her arm, biting deep into the flesh. As the organ played and people gazed admiringly at the beautiful bride, his fingers bit deeper as if he were afraid she would suddenly pull herself free and run from him.
Simon Hawkesmoor watched the progress of his bride and her brother toward him. He noticed the position of Ranulf's hand on the girl's arm, read the strength of his grip in the almost vicious determination in his eyes. The girl herself was white faced, her lips taut. It was clear to Simon that she was not approaching the altar of her own free will. But then neither in essence was he, he reflected with a grim twist of his mouth, turning resolutely to face the altar. A greater good than personal preference was to be served by this union. The girl would come around eventually. She was young; it would be for him to use his greater maturity and experience to bring her to an acceptance of her new life.
Ranulf didn't release his sister's arm until she was kneeling at the altar rail beside Lord Hawkesmoor, and he remained standing slightly to one side of her, instead of stepping back into the body of the church.
Ariel's hands were clasped on the rail, and she stared down at the serpent bracelet on her wrist, concentrating all her thoughts on its intricate pattern, on the delicate charms. The noon sun lit up the rose window above the altar, and when she twisted her wrist slightly, the ruby in the heart of the rose sprang into blood red flame. Fascinated, she moved her wrist so that the emerald swan was caught in the swimming colored rays. It was quite beautiful.
The glint of silver, the glow of emerald, caught Simon's eye as he stared steadfastly at the intoning priest. He turned his head to the flickering jeweled light on his bride's wrist, resting on the rail beside his own hands. There was something oddly familiar about the bracelet she wore. He frowned, trying to retrieve the memory, but it remained elusive, leaving him only with a vague sense of disquiet.
Ariel was unaware that she was holding herself rigidly away from the powerful frame beside her, aware of the priest's voice reciting the service only on some distant plane that seemed to have nothing to do with her.
Lord Hawkesmoor's firm voice broke into her trance, startling her. He was making his responses with a resonant conviction. Her mouth dried. The priest asked her if she took Lord Hawkesmoor to be her lawful wedded husband.
Ariel's eyes fixed on the earl's hands resting on the altar rail. They were huge, with bony knuckles, pared nails, callused fingers. She shuddered at the thought of those hands on her body, touching her in the ways of love. The priest spoke again, nervously repeating his question. There was a rustle and shifting in the body of the chapel behind her, but Ariel didn't hear it. She was thinking that if she married this man, she was signing his death warrant.
Ranulf moved forward. He put his hand on the back of her neck. It could have been interpreted as a gesture of reassurance, but Ariel felt the pressure, forcing her to lower her head in an assumption of acquiescence. There was nothing she could do. Not at this time. She was bait in the trap. And then it occurred to her that if she wished to, if she wished to save the Hawkesmoor from her brothers' vengeance, she could work to keep the trap from springing. But why would a Ravenspeare save a Hawkesmoor? And if she did so, she was condemning herself to a loathsome marriage. Her eyes fixed again on the bracelet. Ranulf's bribe for her cooperation. To keep her eyes averted, her mouth shut.
She murmured her responses and only when it was over did Ranulf remove his hand.
Simon helped her to her feet with a hand under her elbow. Her bare skin was cold as ice, and he felt her shudder at his touch. Dear God, what had he done? She loathed him, was repulsed by him. He could see it in her eyes as she glanced up at him before swiftly averting her gaze.
Ranulf had joined his brothers in the front pew. He was smiling as he watched his sister walk back down the aisle with her husband. He could manage Ariel's rebellions. She was no fool, she knew which side her bread was buttered.
Outside in the cold sunshine, Ariel moved her hand from the Hawkesmoor's arm.
"It's customary for a groom to kiss the bride," Simon said gently, taking her small hands in his own, turning her toward him. She didn't l
ook at him, but stood still, as if resigned to her fate, and he shrank from the image of his own self. He dropped her hands, said almost helplessly, "You have nothing to fear, Ariel."
At that, she looked up at him, her eyes as clear as a dawn sky, still filled with that piercing intensity. She said with pointed simplicity, "No. I have nothing to fear, my lord."
Chapter Four
The wedding feast in the Great Hall was an affair of unbridled merriment much in keeping with the medieval structure of the castle and the vaulted, cavernous hall where logs the size of tree trunks burned in the deep fireplaces at either end and myriad candles threw complex shadows up to the rafters.
Those guests the Ravenspeare brothers had bidden to celebrate their sister's nuptials were not known for their decorum. Both male and female, they were young and unrestrained for the most part, come to enjoy a month of feasting, sport, and revelry. Ranulf had deliberately decided to exclude from these celebrations any courtier or politically influential member of society. Deep in the Fenland wilderness, it was a private affair, one that would not be marked in the court's social calendar.
Nor had any relatives been invited. The brothers had no truck with other members of the family. After Margaret Ravenspeare's violent and apparently mysterious death, her mother had offered to take the infant Ariel, but Lord Ravenspeare had brusquely declined, and when the same offer was made in the early days after Ravenspeare's own death, Ranulf had responded as curdy. As a result, Ariel had grown up free of all influence but that of her brothers.
Bearing laden salvers of meat, baskets of bread, and platters of oysters and smoked eels, servants dipped and dodged around the long rectangle formed by the tables lined with wedding guests. In the gallery, musicians, as well plied with wine as the guests below, played country tunes with uninhibited gusto, while the silver decanters of wine, the jugs of ale, the bottles of cognac circled as if bottomless.
At the top table, Ariel sat beside her husband, acknowledging the toasts, the increasingly ribald jests, the jocular good wishes of her brothers' friends with a smile that betrayed none of her true feelings. She had been exposed to this kind of company since earliest childhood. It had never occurred to her brothers to modify their behavior in her presence or to expect their friends to do so, and she no longer even heard the off-color remarks, the tasteless jokes. She was aware only of Oliver, sitting beside Ranulf, drinking deeply, his thin lips curved in his unsettling smile, the arch of his eyebrows exaggerated as his eyes became more unfocused. His eyes were unfocused but his gaze never wavered from the bride's face, and Ariel began to feel like an insect displayed in a case before the all-knowing scrutiny of a collector.
Beside her the earl of Hawkesmoor appeared to take the drunken revelry in his stride. He drank well himself, Ariel noticed, but without apparent ill effect. His cheeks weren't flushed, the scar on his face didn't become more livid, and his sea blue eyes were as clear as ever. He spoke to her occasionally in his melodious voice, mere pleasantries whose response required no effort on her part, but in general he confined his attention to his own friends, ranged around the top table.
The Hawkesmoor and his cadre, in their dark clothes, in their air of controlled containment, stood out among the increasingly disorderly throng. Faces grew flushed, collars were loosened, erect postures yielded to slovenly slouching over the board, but Simon and his ten companions only seemed to sit more erect, to become more noticeably sober with each refilled goblet.
"Damme, Hawkesmoor, but if you aren't as much of a sobersides as Cromwell himself!" Ralph leaned forward to poke Simon's sleeve with a greasy finger, his gray eyes slitted with drink and malice and stupidity. "The devil take the king-killing bastard and all his men." He laughed heartily, flinging himself back in his chair. "A toast! I propose a toast. Death to the Puritan. Hellfire to the regicide!" He raised his goblet, his hand shaking so violently that ruby drops spilled upon the white cloth.
A silence fell over those who could hear Ralph above the noise. All eyes rested on Simon Hawkesmoor and his friends. Oliver Becket drew his goblet closer to his mouth as if ready to drink the toast. His eyes met Ariel's with a mocking glitter.
Ranulf leaned over and punched his young brother on the shoulder. It was no light blow and Ralph swayed in his chair, spilling yet more wine. "Unmannerly churl," Ranulf snarled. "This is a wedding, we want no long-past politics here."
Ralph flushed darkly, half pushed back his chair, preparing to strike out at his brother, but Ranulf's eyes held his and finally with a mutter he subsided, reaching for the decanter to refill his goblet.
The conversation, such as it was, picked up again. Oliver smiled to himself, whispered something to Ranulf, and the two laughed heartily, and it was clear to Ariel that their laughter was directed at the Hawkesmoor, who it seemed hadn't moved a muscle throughout the incident.
"Aye, it's a wedding!" Roland declared. He was the most sober of the three brothers. "And time for the groom to take his bride on the floor."
A roar of approval went up at this and the strains of Sir Roger de Coverley came from the musician's gallery in invitation. Ariel looked expectantly at her bridegroom.
Simon smiled at her, but it was a small, self-deprecating smile that took her aback. This new husband of hers, for all his ugliness, was an overwhelmingly powerful presence. Such a look of uncertainty sat uneasily on the brow of a man who seemed utterly in control of himself and his surroundings. He spoke softly.
"Forgive me, Ariel, but I make a poor dancer these days. You'll not want to hobble around the floor keeping time with a cripple."
Ariel felt the color rushing into her face. She heard the sniggers around the table, the rustle of whispers as folk asked what had been said, felt rather than heard the titters of false sympathy as they were told.
"I am not overly fond of dancing myself, sir," she said, glaring around the table. "I am as like to tread upon your toes as you are upon mine."
"That may be so," Simon responded, his smile now warm. Her swift championship surprised him. "Nevertheless, one of us must dance at our wedding. I dare swear Lord Chauncey will stand up in my stead." Laughing, he indicated one of his companions. "Jack is as nimble footed as any maid could desire, my dear, and I can safely promise there will be no missteps."
"If Lady Hawkesmoor would do me the honor." Lord Chauncey rose, bowing, extending his hand. "I shall be delighted to take the groom's place on the floor."
"And in his bed, too, I'll be bound," guffawed a young man, spraying the table with crumbs from the venison pasty in his mouth.
Oliver Becket gave a sharp crack of laughter. "Such unseemly talk, Hollingsworth! A man may be a cripple on two legs, but it doesn't have to follow that he's as doltish when horizontal."
Loud laughter bounced off the rafters. Simon smiled faintly but made no comment. Hot words bubbled to Ariel's lips, but before she could speak, Jack Chauncey had taken her hand and whisked her away from the table to the cleared area of the hall.
Other couples stepped up to join them in the line of dance. Ariel glanced at her partner as they moved up the aisle made by the couples. His face was set in grim lines.
"I would guess that you find it hard to hold your tongue when men make mock of your friend's lameness," she said quietly, turning beneath his arm as they reached the head of the line. He made no response until they were reunited again at the far end of the dance.
"Only fools make mock of Simon Hawkesmoor," he then said. "You will discover, ma'am, that your husband takes no notice of fools. Their opinions mean as little to him as a gnat bite."
"He doesn't respond to provocation, then?'' She performed the steps of the country dance automatically, her eyes resting intently on her partner's face.
Jack Chauncey laughed and the bitter anger vanished from his expression. "It depends upon the provocation, ma'am. Your husband is slow to anger, but no man who knows him well would willingly arouse that anger."
Ariel tucked this away for future reflection. She had
first laid eyes upon her husband a mere half day earlier and so far was finding it hard to come to any conclusions about him, beyond his obvious physical characteristics.
How would he react when told that he was not to bed his wife on his wedding night? Would he accede without a murmur? He would be within his rights to insist. Within his rights, but it would be the act of a brute and a boor, and from the little she'd seen of the man, neither description fit him.
But how was she to know? The man was a Hawkesmoor. That simple fact told its own tale. She could no more contemplate sharing a bed with a Hawkesmoor than she would entertain sharing a sty with the pigs. And Ranulf had sworn to ensure that she didn't have to.
At the top table, Simon watched his wife dancing with his friend. His expression was placid, his eyes mild, and not even Ranulf could guess at the smoldering anger beneath the serene surface. This coarse, inebriated, unseemly festivity was an insult to both bride and groom. And Simon knew it had been so intended. And yet the bride, in her gown of cream silk and vanilla lace, seemed to float above the vulgarity, as if it didn't touch her in any way. His eyes fixed upon the swirling liquid honey of her hair, falling down her back from the pearl-encrusted bands around her forehead. It struck him as like a cloak, a maiden's cloak that somehow covered and protected her from the crude ribaldry surrounding her.
Ariel-a sprite, a spirit of the air. There was something unearthly about her. But maybe it was just the contrast between her delicacy of frame and face and the heavy, earth-bound grossness of her brothers and their friends.
"Brother-in-law?"
Simon, his reverie interrupted, turned sharply toward Ranulf. Ranulf was regarding him smilingly from over his goblet, but it was an unpleasant, knowing smile.