by Jane Feather
The men wouldn’t give her a second thought if they didn’t see her again this evening. Ranulf had had his fun for the time being, and they would settle into their usual companionable stupors after another bottle or two.
But there was no way Ariel could keep this disastrous turn of events to herself. She hastened back to the stable-yard, the dogs still trotting beside her. She hailed a groom crossing the yard. “Josh, saddle the roan. I’m going to visit Mistress Sarah and Miss Jenny.”
The man touched his forelock. “You need me to come wi’ you, m’lady?”
Ariel considered. In daylight she wouldn’t risk incurring Ranulf’s wrath by going out unaccompanied, but he’d not want her again tonight, and once the drink took hold it would be out of sight, out of mind. And the last thing she needed was a groom kicking his heels in Sarah and Jenny’s small cottage while she was spilling her news. And she could hardly expect him to sit outside for however long the visit lasted.
“No,” she said. “I’ll go alone.”
It was a relatively bright night; scudding clouds dimmed the moon now and again, but the stars shone clear over the North Sea across the flat fens to the east. Just before she reached the village that skirted the grounds of Ravenspeare Castle, she turned the roan down a marshy track that led to a narrow drainage cut taking surplus water from the Great Ouse back to the Wash and out to the North Sea.
Her destination, a small reed-thatched cottage, stood on a hillock above the dike. It was a lonely spot. But a lantern glowed in the window, and as Ariel dismounted and unlatched the garden gate, the cottage door opened.
“Is it you, Ariel?” Blind Jenny rarely failed to identify visitors before they announced themselves.
“Yes. I’m in need of cheer and advice,” Ariel responded. On reaching the woman, she kissed her cheek. “I’ll put Diana in the lean-to and then I’ll be in. Don’t stand out here in the cold.”
Jenny smiled, returned the kiss, and went back into the cottage’s one room. “Ariel’s here, Mother. Something’s worrying her.”
The woman bending over a cauldron on the range straightened. Her eyes were sharply assessing but her tongue had been locked for close on thirty years, so her thoughts remained unspoken. The door opened again and Ariel came in, the hounds still at her heels. They went immediately to a corner on the far side of the fireplace and lay down, resting their heads on their forepaws.
“Good evening, Sarah.” Ariel bent to kiss the woman’s faded cheek. One could see that Sarah had once been a very beautiful woman. Her features were regular, her face a perfect oval, her body tall and slender. But the eyes were haunted, the face deeply etched with the lines of endurance, the long hands chapped and rough, the once glossy black hair snow white, the supple slimness of youth reduced to gaunt thinness. But a gentleness radiated from her, and a certain strength belied by her air of frailty.
Sarah reached up and stroked Ariel’s cheek, then she gestured to the chair by the fire and returned to the cauldron.
“You’ll have supper with us, Ariel?” Jenny took three bowls from a shelf above the range.
“It smells like rabbit stew.” Ariel sniffed appreciatively.
“The rabbit was payment for one of Mother’s wart cures,” Jenny replied, cutting bread, the knife slicing as rapidly and neatly as if it were wielded by a sighted person. “Ginty Greene didn’t want to go to her bridal bed with warts all over her hands. Mother got rid of them for her.”
“Ah. Bridal . . .” Ariel stood up and then sat down again. Sarah lifted the cauldron of stew from the hook over the fire and carried it to the table. She cast a glance at the girl by the fire and began to ladle stew into the three bowls.
“Would you care for elder-flower wine, Ariel?” Jenny asked.
“Thank you.” Ariel came to the table and took her usual place between mother and daughter. She was aware of Sarah’s eyes on her. They spoke as eloquently as any tongue. “Ranulf has decided to marry me off,” she said bluntly, dipping her spoon into the fragrant contents of her bowl.
“Who to?” Jenny stared sightlessly across the table. Sarah paused, her own spoon in her hand.
“The earl of Hawkesmoor.”
Sarah’s hand shook and her spoon rattled against the edge of the wooden bowl, but the two younger women didn’t appear to notice. Jenny’s jaw had dropped and for a moment she was speechless.
Ariel, through her own shock, well understood the stunned effect of her news. She carried her spoon to her mouth and chewed reflectively on a succulent piece of meat while she waited for the implications to sink in for her audience. Then she said, “It’s all to do with dowry and land and the queen.”
She explained as much as she herself knew in the attentive silence. Sarah was now eating with a steady hand, sipping her wine periodically, but her eyes rarely left Ariel’s face. Jenny punctuated Ariel’s narrative with rapid-fire questions on both her own and her mother’s behalf.
“When is it to be?”
“I don’t know, but it can’t happen before Christmas—not with two hundred guests to prepare for.” Ariel put down her spoon and leaned forward on her stool, her elbows resting on the table. She didn’t think she could tell these women—her closest friends—what Ranulf was plotting for the Hawkesmoor. She couldn’t even make sense of it herself.
Sarah listened to Ariel. Her face was expressionless and the violent tremors were contained inside her now. They were in her belly, in her heart, in her head. Her hands were perfectly steady, her movements controlled. But the questions screamed in her head, fought to find utterance, and died on her locked tongue. They were not questions Jenny could divine with her customary insight, because they related to matters of which Jenny was in total ignorance . . . and must remain so.
This earl of Hawkesmoor was Geoffrey’s heir. Was he Geoffrey’s son? Had Clara finally conceived? Would Geoffrey’s son know anything of that other child?
She had never expected to learn anything of the child. She had given him up to a man who would care for him, would guarantee his future. A man who would ensure that he was never touched by the horror that had befallen his mother. And until this moment, when the name of Hawkesmoor was spoken under her roof, Sarah had buried all thought and all speculation so deep in her soul it had seemed impossible it would ever see the light of day.
And now a Hawkesmoor was coming here. Now, once again, there would be Hawkesmoors and Ravenspeares together a stone’s throw from her door. Her hands trembled again and she clasped them both in her lap.
“What about your horses?” Jenny hung the kettle over the fire and pulled down a sheaf of dried chamomile. She didn’t know much of the science of Ariel’s breeding program, but she did know her friend’s goal.
Ariel’s lips set in a determined line. “Nothing’s going to stop me, Jenny. If I can’t set up my stud here, then I’ll take it away. As soon as I can make a few sales and make enough money to set myself up, then I’ll go somewhere, as far away as possible, from Ravenspeares and Hawkesmoors. And I’ll be myself. Responsible to and for myself. They won’t stop me.”
Jenny was silent. Sarah looked at Ariel with her white set face and her fierce charcoal eyes, and pity washed over her. How could the poor child even begin to know what she was taking on? Hawkesmoors and Ravenspeares never let anything stand in their way.
Ariel’s eyes met Sarah’s steady gaze. She seemed to read the woman’s mind. “Don’t forget that I also am a Ravenspeare,” she said softly.
Chapter Three
“I SHALL MISS having you to myself, Simon.” Helene moved lazily, stretching her naked body along the length of her lover’s. The soles of her feet arched as she dug her toes into his calves, and her hands palmed his, pulling them above his head. She smiled down into his languid countenance. “You spend months at war, then you come back only to get married.” She pouted in mock complaint, then nuzzled his cheek. “Why must you get married?”
He ran his hands down her back. It had been many months since he’d m
ade love with Helene, but his fingers always held the memory of her body, so that even after prolonged absence it was as if it had been no more than a night. “A man of four and thirty, my love, has need of a wife.” He spoke lightly. “And since the love of my life refuses to marry me, then I must look elsewhere.”
Helene drew her tongue along the sharp lines of his cheekbones. “You know I cannot remarry, Simon. I would lose the children. Harold’s will is as tightly sealed as his coffin. Not even for you will I give up my children.” He said nothing, but his hands continued their reflective caresses.
“Once you could have married me, Simon. Ten years ago you could have married me,” Helene continued.
“Soldiers make poor husbands,” he responded, stroking over her buttocks. “John Marlborough loves his wife, but he leaves poor Sarah to pine for months, even years, at a time. I would not condemn a wife of my heart to months of lonely frustration.”
“Because she would seek solace elsewhere?”
There was a short silence and she felt the sudden tension in his body. “Let us say that I would not put temptation in her way. No wife of mine will be unfaithful.”
There was a chill to the flat statement with which Helene was familiar. She knew the dark side of Simon Hawkesmoor as she knew his laughter and his loving. From childhood, they had shared dreams. As eager, reckless youngsters, they had initiated each other into the mysteries of lovemaking. And then Simon had gone to be a soldier on the battlefields of Europe and Helene had married the elderly Viscount Kelburn. He had left her a widow with three children, and a will that stated all control of her children would pass into the hands of her husband’s brother if she remarried.
“You would visit the sins of your own father onto some innocent woman,” she said.
Gently he put her from him and sat up. His face was dark, his eyes now cool and distant. “No, that is not what I would do, Helene. I simply will not tolerate unfaithfulness in my marriage.”
Helene drew the sheet over her. She stared up at the canopy overhead. “You will apply that to your own conduct?” “Aye,” he said quietly.
“And when do you marry?” Her voice was flat.
“I go to my bride’s house on the morrow.” He swung his legs over the side of the bed. A raw, red scar twisted up his leg from ankle to groin, like a thin snake of fire.
“So soon!” She turned her head on the pillow, and her eyes were filled with anger. “We make love for the first time in a year, and now you’re going!” She closed her eyes tightly, saying almost to herself, “So this is farewell . . . forever.”
“Aye,” he said as quietly as before. “To our loving, but I hope not to our friendship.”
“Damn you, Simon Hawkesmoor.” She opened her eyes and he saw the glitter of tears before she dashed them aside with the back of her hand. “Damn you! Why didn’t you say so before?”
“I thought you understood.” He grabbed the bedpost and hauled himself to his feet. “I thought you would know how it must be, Helene.”
“You’re no Puritan, Simon. You never have been for all your sober suits and your family’s allegiances,” she declared, sniffing angrily.
“But you know the history of my family. You know I would not repeat it.” He looked down at her with a mixture of regret and irritation. “Why else do you think I have arranged this marriage?”
Helene sat up, holding the sheet to her breast, an arrested expression in her eyes. “Whom do you marry, Simon?”
“You don’t know?” He stared, incredulous.
“How could I know? I spend no time at court. I have no visitors but you,” she exclaimed. “You said only that you were marrying. Nothing about how it would mean the end of us. Nothing about when or who.”
He sighed. “I am marrying the Lady Ariel Ravenspeare, Helene.”
“A Ravenspeare!” she breathed. “Dear God in heaven. They killed your father.”
“I’ve seen enough blood spilled in the last years, Helene. I am awearied of blood and anger and war. My family has been locked in enmity with the Ravenspeares for so long, and each generation deepens the wound, whether with an illicit passion or an act of violence.” He leaned over her, his eyes intense, his voice low. “A marriage made in good faith can only heal.”
“But they killed your father.”
“And I will meet them now in peace.”
Helene turned from him. She knew that look, the sudden clenching of his jaw, the hardness of purpose in his eyes, the power of will behind the quiet words. When Simon Hawkesmoor was in this mood, he was unmovable. He was a man of such paradoxes. A man of war who loathed conflict in his private life. A man of massive strength whose loving touch was so tender and gentle it would not crush the petals of a rose. But above all, he was a man of powerful convictions and principles. He stood way above the petty disputes, the spite, the opportunistic betrayals of the political court. No party claimed his allegiance, and he lived in no one’s pocket. For this he was both respected and feared. A man who could not be bought.
She lay silent, listening to him as he moved awkwardly around the chamber, dressing himself. She heard the clunk of his belt buckle as he put on his swordbelt, and knew that he was ready to leave her.
“What if the Ravenspeares will not meet you in peace?” She rolled onto her side so that she could see him. Her eyes were dark against the white pillow.
“Ranulf has agreed to the marriage . . . admittedly with a degree of persuasion from the queen,” he added. “Judging from the number of invitations that have gone out, he is preparing to marry off his sister in a lavish style.”
He sat down on the bed beside her, taking her hand. “Helene, if anyone can understand what I’m doing, it must be you.”
“For a man of war, you have a strange fondness for peace,” she said, curling her fingers in his large palm. “But the Ravenspeares are known for their treachery. What makes you think you can trust them?”
“There can be no treachery if Ranulf wishes to keep his place at court. I told you, love, that the queen herself wants this marriage.”
“Maybe so.” Helene hitched herself onto one elbow. Her anger and bitterness were gone. They would do no good and she was too wise a woman to bid farewell to her friend and lover in resentment. “But Ranulf Ravenspeare would betray his dearest friend if it suited his purpose. And he’s not known to be a forgiving man. It’s said he’ll carry a grudge to his grave . . . or to the grave of his enemy.”
Simon smiled. “For one who never goes to court, you’re remarkably informed of gossip, my love.”
“Deny it.”
He shook his head. “I cannot. But it’s not as if we plan to embrace each other as beloved family. After the wedding, after this month of celebration, I will take Lady Ariel to Hawkesmoor, and Ranulf and his brothers will never have to lay eyes upon me again. But the marriage will have put an end to the old enmity, once and for all.”
“You are an extraordinary man, Simon Hawkesmoor.” Helene touched his cheek with her free hand, tracing the path of the livid cicatrix.
He put up his hand to clasp her wrist. There was a look of uncertainty in his eye, a strange and unusual diffidence about him. “Do you think a young girl will find me repulsive, Helene?”
“How could you think such a thing?” she gasped, sitting up, clasping his face between both hands.
“I have a body and a countenance covered in scars,” he said with a hesitant little laugh. “I must walk with a stick. I have thirty-four years to her twenty.”
“You are beautiful,” she said.
“And beauty, as we know, is in the eye of the beholder.” He laughed again, taking her hands, turning them palm up and kissing each one. “But I am grateful for your confidence, my dear.”
“If the Lady Ariel Ravenspeare cannot see you as you really are, then I’ll open her eyes for her,” Helene stated.
“Such a champion!” He took her face and kissed her mouth hard. “We must say farewell, my love. But you will always be m
y dearest friend.”
She slid off the bed, accompanying him to the door. “Have a care, Simon. Do not trust too easily.”
He laughed, and this time his laugh was harsh, an abrupt change from the diffidence and tender humor of a minute earlier. “I do not go alone under Ranulf Ravenspeare’s roof, Helene. I shall be well attended, and well on my guard.”
“Ah.” She gave a little sigh of relief. “For a moment I was afraid you were so intent on your mission that you had lost caution.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “You will visit me in friendship, even after your marriage?”
“Of course,” he replied simply. “You will always have a place in my heart, Helene.”
“And it’s not as if you’re marrying for love,” she murmured, standing back as he opened the door.
He turned to look over his shoulder at her, and his eyes darkened. “There can never be a place in my heart for a Ravenspeare, Helene. But I will do my duty by the girl, and if she does her duty by me, she will receive all the kindness and consideration of which I’m capable.”
The door closed behind him. Helene went to the window, to watch him emerge into the street below, expecting him to turn and look up at the window as he always did. But this time he didn’t. He left the inn that had always been their rendezvous, and walked down the lane, leaning more heavily than usual on his stick, his cloak billowing around him in the brisk winter wind that whistled around the street corner.
Helene turned back to the room, filled with a strange apprehension. She told herself it was not apprehension for Simon but anticipation of the loneliness that lay ahead for her. She was still in her prime, too young to be condemned to a life of chastity . . . to exchange the turbulence of love and passion for the blandness of friendship.
“No,” Ariel stated. “I will not dress up in a wedding gown when the groom is nowhere in sight.”
Ranulf’s face darkened. “You will do as you’re bid, sister. Your wedding is set for noon and you will be ready for it.” He gestured to the bed where lay a froth of pale lace. “You will dress and show yourself belowstairs. It will not be said that the Ravenspeares reneged on their contract.”